Talk about the weather - nightbloomingcereus - Good Omens (2024)

Chapter 1: make it rain

Chapter Text

It was a nice day. All the days had been nice.

It had been an eternity since it had last rained.

(Actually, it was more like two weeks, but, to Crowley, it felt like an eternity.)

The weather had been sunny and warm, with the perfect cooling breeze and a white fluffy cloud or two floating in endless blue skies, for days and days on end.

Crowley hated it. He was losing followers. He couldn’t do his job. He was bored. So transcendentally bored, in fact, that he’d resorted to watching the local news on channel six. At the moment, the fussy, buttoned-up weather presenter, the handsome blond one that looked like an angel in a bow tie (not that Crowley was looking or anything), was predicting yet more days of pleasant, idyllic weather.

This was England, for Someone's sake. Two weeks without rain was practically unheard of.

"Sign of the bloody Apocalypse, 's what it is," muttered Crowley irritably.

There was a tiny chance of a brief, isolated shower sometime that afternoon, if you were, as the weatherman put it with a gentle chuckle, "unlucky enough to be at the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time".

Crowley snorted. If only he would be so lucky.

The weatherman, whom the caption at the bottom of the screen helpfully identified as A. Z. Fell, meteorologist, suggested that the upcoming weekend would be a perfect time to go on a picnic. In his precise, news-presenter's voice, it sounded like a pair of rhyming words. Pick nick. Crowley mouthed the words to himself with a sneer, and entertained a brief fantasy of marching right over to the TV station office, finding this A. Z. Fell, grabbing him by his perfectly pressed lapels, and giving him a piece of his mind. He'd show him a damn pick nick, mess him up a bit, and demand to know why the bloody weather wasn't behaving.

(Never mind that he had no idea at all where the station even was, or how to mess anyone up. He could mess up the man's hair. Aggressively. Those fluffy blond curls looked like they would be really, really satisfying to tangle his fingers into; maybe he'd even tug a little, for good measure. That would show him.)

Now Fell was gesturing at a large map projected onto the screen behind him, pointing out the temperature in various locales. It was going to be uniformly balmy across the board. Crowley groaned in dismay and stopped focusing on the depressing map. He looked at A. Z. Fell instead. He was easy on the eyes, of course – good looks were practically a prerequisite if one was going to be a television presenter – in a sweet, buttoned-up, unthreatening kind of way. His hands were shapely and perfectly manicured, which was probably also a job requirement for someone who spent so much of their time pointing at things on maps.

Beaming at the camera, Fell cheerfully wished all his viewers a tip-top day before signing off. It was clear that he meant it too. Crowley couldn’t stand it. He was very much not having a tip-top day, thank you very much. He jabbed angrily at the remote to switch off the telly, and flopped face-down onto his bed with half a mind to just sleep for a hundred years or however long it took before something interesting finally happened weather-wise.

He couldn't even nap, as it turned out. The late morning sun coming through the windows was too bloody bright and seemed to be angled directly at his head, because of f*cking course it was. It felt like it was searing a hole through his closed eyelids and into his brain. The pillow he'd shoved desperately over his face was completely useless. After thirty minutes of flailing and fuming, he finally gave up and got up.

He tried to find things to keep himself busy. He rearranged his entire vinyl collection for the fourth time that week (there really was no ideal way to organize both classical music and classic rock with a single unified system, and it drove him batty). He impulse ordered several sleep masks and considered purchasing hotel-grade blackout curtains, but decided against them as it felt too much like admitting defeat. They would clash terribly with the minimalist aesthetic of his flat anyway. He briefly considered praying to someone for rain, but decided that even on the unlikely chance that some higher power existed and was open to suggestions, he probably ranked low enough in their estimation that they'd be more likely to send another week of sun just to spite him.

He checked the (depressingly few) new comments on his latest video, which had been uploaded a fortnight ago during the Golden Age, when there were still storms and everything and everyone in the world wasn't conspiring to irritate him. It had been long enough that all his reliable commenters had come and gone, and the only ones who were left were the busybodies and the trolls. Ordinarily, he would have simply deleted their comments and moved on, but he was bored and crabby enough at the moment to put up some snarky responses.

R. P. Tyler: Young man, you are a disgrace to the field of meteorology.

A J Crowley: Thank Someone I’m not a bloody meteorologist then. I'm insulted that you'd call me one. I would never. (Not so young either, but thanks for the compliment!)

(Crowley was not a meteorologist, it was true, although he'd acquired a good deal of practical knowledge over the years. Still, even if he'd had the fancy degree and the professional memberships, he was fairly certain he'd still be a disgrace in the eyes of the R. P. Tylers of the world. He wasn't one for tartan bow ties and pointing at things on maps, for one thing.)

Anonymous12345: Driving that gorgeous classic car into storm conditions is a crime. How dare you.

A J Crowley: I treat her better than you probably treat your children, so kindly f*ck off.

(It was true. He did right by the Bentley, and in turn she'd never let him down.)

Major Milkbottle: How many nipples have ye got, laddie?

(This last comment Crowley deleted with extreme prejudice, and then blocked the user for good measure. There were some people you simply couldn't give any sort of platform to. He was almost certain that this Major Milkbottle person was merely the last in a long line of sock puppet accounts all run by one very determined, very single-minded troll.)

Hastur and Ligur had a new video up, which seemed to consist mostly of the pair lurking in what appeared to be a graveyard and bragging about their past exploits. Weather-wise, there was absolutely nothing interesting going on aside from a few pathetic wisps of fog. In the description box, they'd written that, on account of this current spate of pleasant weather, they were considering giving up storm chasing in favor of ghost hunting; it was not clear to Crowley whether this was supposed to be a joke or not. He watched the first couple of minutes, then shut his laptop with a grimace; the video was so dark he had to strain his eyes to see anything, the camera-work was somewhat nauseating (or maybe that was just Hastur's face), and there was what sounded like a very loud frog in the background that made it difficult to hear what they were saying. The things some people would publish for the sake of views. Crowley might be going through a dry spell, but at least he still had his self-respect.

He yelled at his plants, who were traitors, the lot of them, turning their faces greedily toward the sun. He actually had to water the ones on the balcony, which he did, but only after giving them a piece of his mind about how they were ungrateful wretches who did not appreciate a good hydrating rain when they had it. He snapped a photo of the balcony plants in the sun, looking green and happy and smug, and posted it on Instagram with a crying emoji and the caption, “Week Two of this bullsh*t weather. Send help and thunder.” Someone responded nearly immediately with a cheeky string of sun emojis.

Around one, he decided he was going stir-crazy and needed to get out of his flat. On the way out the door, he grabbed a small bag from the freezer and a pair of his signature sunglasses from the table by the door. His favorite park was only a few blocks away; he figured he could go harass the ducks for a while. Given the weather, they'd probably be out in force.

Walking toward the park, he had to admit that it was a nice day to be outdoors. He had nothing against the sun, or so-called "good" weather, really, as long as it wasn't all the bloody time. At the moment, it was exactly as the weatherman on TV had predicted, a balmy 23ºC with a moderate westerly breeze and a scattering of fluffy, picture-perfect cumulus clouds. There was one smallish one on the horizon that looked a little darker and lower, like it might be heavy enough to hold a bit of moisture. Crowley did not allow himself to get excited over it. It was one cloud, small and far away, in a great big blue sky, and the wind was not currently blowing in an optimistic direction.

His favorite bench, the one with a direct line of sight to the ducks' favorite place to congregate, was occupied. The interloper, whose beige-clad back was to him, was sitting with such alarmingly good posture that he looked extremely tall against the back of the park bench. He had a head of short curls so fluffy and pale they looked like they might float up at any second to join the puffy, white-sheep clouds currently cavorting in the sky.

As Crowley sauntered around the bench, he saw that the man had a waxed-paper wrapper in his lap, which had lately held a sandwich of some sort judging by the crusts and crumbs left behind. The man dabbed at his mouth daintily with a paper serviette, then idly reached down with his free hand and flung a small bit of the leftover bread into the water, where a flurry of greedy ducks immediately descended upon it, quacking loudly.

“That’s bad for ‘em, y’know,” drawled Crowley.

“I beg your pardon?” His voice was unbelievably posh and uppity. Crowley felt an immense jolt of satisfaction in anticipation of bringing its owner down a peg with his superior knowledge of duck nutrition.

“Bread. It’s bad for ducks. It's like junk food for 'em. Doesn't provide the proper nutrition. Fouls up the pond something awful too.”

“Oh. Oh dear. I didn't know. That’s terrible. I do hope I haven’t caused too much damage.” His mouth had turned down into a pouty frown, and he glanced down mournfully at the remaining crumbs before wadding the wrapper up into a ball.

It made Crowley felt just a wee bit remorseful.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, long as you don't make a habit of it. You don't look like you could do a wrong thing if you tried, anyhow."

The man stood up and took a few steps to deposit his rubbish in the bin. Then, instead of continuing to walk away, he came back to stand beside Crowley.

Crowley extracted a frozen pea from the baggie he'd brought from his freezer, took careful aim, and let it fly. It hit exactly on target, dead center on the fluffy rear end of the biggest duck, a bossy white drake. (He always aimed for their bottoms, not their heads. He wasn’t an asshole, and it was funnier anyhow.) The duck fluffed up its feathers in outrage and spun around, but not before a small, feisty mallard had made off with the prize.

“Here,” he said, offering the peas to his companion, “Frozen peas. These are good for 'em. I always keep a bag in the freezer even though I'm not much for eating them myself. Plus they're dead useful if you happen to get beaned in the forehead by a hailstone or something.”

“Oh, thank you. And thank you for the information about ducks and bread. I didn’t know, truly. I do try my hardest to be conscientious of the environment,” said the man, accepting a handful of peas and tossing them into the water. He offered Crowley his hand. It was a little cold and damp from the peas, but his handshake was pleasantly firm and his skin very soft. “I’m Aziraphale, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Crowley. What brings you out here? I come here all the time, but I’ve not seen you around before.”

“Oh, I’m just on my midday break. There's a new sandwich shop just around the corner that I've been wanting to try for a while. It's a bit of a long walk from my office, but since it's such a nice day and I'm not on again until three, I thought I’d go on a little adventure."

Nobody in their right mind would refer to trying a new lunch option as an adventure, at least not without a hefty dose of irony. Nobody. It was terrible, and Crowley should probably hate himself for finding it as charming as he did.

"An adventure, eh? Hope it was a good one."

"Oh, it was." Aziraphale gave him a sidelong glance. "It exceeded all my expectations, in fact.”

"Sandwich that good, then?"

"Oh, it was scrumptious. And this park is absolutely lovely."

“More lovely during a storm,” muttered Crowley, some of his earlier frustration returning. He flung a handful of frozen peas into the pond with more force than necessary, and watched them strike the surface like tiny hailstones. “What’s with all the sunny weather lately anyway? It's driving me up the wall.”

Aziraphale looked bemused. “You might be the only person in the whole country to think that.”

“Just, this weather, all this blasted niceness, it’s so boring, innit? Half of what makes good weather good is that you can't take it for granted. 'Sides, I can’t do my job.”

“What sort of job do you have that it can't be done in pleasant weather? Mine’s been rather easier than normal lately, in fact. I can’t say I mind. I haven't gotten a single rude note demanding that I do something about the weather in days.”

In answer, Crowley extracted his business card from his wallet and handed it over. In bold white lettering over a dramatic background of a stormy night sky streaked with lightning, it read:

A J Crowley, storm chaser

www.youtube.com/thunderboltandlightning

Aziraphale glanced at the card, blinked, then looked again, harder. A little furrow developed between his eyebrows.

“A storm chaser? Really? Is this some kind of joke? Oh, that's very funny, Eric. Ha ha. You can come out now, you've had your laugh."

“Hey! What’s so funny about what I do? And who the f*ck is Eric?”

"Eric is my Assistant Meteorologist and a great practical joker. The person who put you up to this stunt, most likely."

"What the hell are you talking about? Nobody put me up to anything!"

"So this… isn't a joke? You really are a storm chaser? Oh, good Lord."

"Wait. Hold up. Did you say meteorologist?"

"Yes?"

Crowley squinted at Aziraphale over the top of his sunglasses. Recognition was beginning to dawn.

“Oh, f*ck. f*ck. You’re him. The—the TV weatherman."

"I prefer meteorologist, if you don't mind." It was clear from Aziraphale's long-suffering tone that this was not the first time that he'd had to make that distinction.

"Fine. Meteorologist. But unless you can make it rain, I still think you're just a fancy weatherman."

"My dear boy, I'm merely a meteorologist, not a miracle worker. I study the weather, I don’t control it."

"Can't believe I didn't recognize you. I should've known the second I saw the tartan bow tie. How many people go around in a tartan bow tie? Although in my defense I thought it was just a costume for the cameras. I didn’t realize you actually go around in real life wearing that thing.”

“It’s stylish,” said Aziraphale with a haughty sniff. In person, his voice was, if possible, even posher than it was on screen, every syllable sharp and enunciated, every vowel clipped and crisp, but it was undoubtedly the same voice.

It wasn’t stylish. It really, really wasn’t. And he was so smug about it too, with his button nose up in the air and his perfect posture and his primly pursed lips and those perfect white-gold curls and that goddamn tartan bow tie. He was unreal. Crowley suddenly felt the urge to mess up that hair, yank on the end of that bow tie, slam him up against the nearest wall (or tree, given their location), and crush his lips against that perfect pink pout.

He'd had a similar impulse earlier today, he realized with an odd sense of déjà vu, when he'd been watching Aziraphale on TV, back before he'd met the man himself. The kissing bit, though, that was new. Where the f*ck had that come from?

Aziraphale cleared his throat. Crowley realized he’d been staring at Aziraphale’s mouth, and not saying anything, for probably far too long.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He racked his brain for something to say that was not I want to snog you senseless even though we just met and you're wearing tartan. Before he could come up with anything, he felt something cool and wet splash against the back of his neck. He looked up in shock, just as a fat raindrop hit his forehead and another splattered onto his sunglasses.

Beside him, Aziraphale was calmly removing a folding umbrella from his satchel. He extended it politely over both of their heads. It was tartan and matched his bow tie.

Of course it was f*cking tartan.

While they'd been talking and feeding the ducks, the wind had changed, and that one promise-laden dark cloud on the horizon had been blown toward them; it was currently hanging low, directly overhead. It had grown in size somewhat, but was still small enough not to cover the entire sky; there was still some blue over the far side of the pond, and even a few rays of sun peeking out from around the silvered edges. All in all, he judged that the imminent downpour would be brief, but intense.

Somehow Crowley had been so distracted by Aziraphale that he hadn't even noticed the wind or the clouds or the darkening sky. The weather was prone to change on a dime here, of course – it was part of what made his job so exciting – but usually he was more observant. Some storm chaser he was turning out to be.

The ducks, who had been rather more observant, had all fled in advance of the storm and were now huddled beneath the shelter of the footbridge as fat drops of rain splattered across the surface of the pond.

Within a minute all hell had broken loose. Huge, splattery drops of rain drummed against the top of Aziraphale’s umbrella and slid off the edges like water off— something, Crowley couldn't quite remember what at the moment. The ground turned muddy and dark nearly instantaneously, and small puddles were already beginning to form in the depressions. The wind kicked up, blowing the driving rain sideways and turning the previously placid surface of the pond into a roiling, tumultuous mess. The ducks quacked indignantly and retreated further underneath the bridge.

It was perfect.

A thrilling, ebullient joy surged up in Crowley's chest. He ducked out from beneath Aziraphale's umbrella and took several large steps toward the pond to stand on the shore, feeling light and buoyant. Behind him, he could hear Aziraphale calling his name over the sound of the rain.

"Crowley! What are you doing? You'll get soaked!"

"I know! I'm counting on it!" he shouted back, spinning around with his arms held wide, joy rushing through him like a flood. He grinned at Aziraphale.

The rain soaked through his clothing in seconds, plastering it to his skin. It was cold and wet and wonderful. The wet jeans would be less wonderful later, he knew, but for now he let himself enjoy the moment. His drought was over. It was finally f*cking over. He removed his sunglasses, closed his eyes, and tipped his head back to let the rain sluice over his face and neck.

He opened his eyes. Aziraphale was staring right at him, eyes wide and mouth open in shock.

“Oh good lord. You really are a stormchaser, aren’t you?”

“Yep.” Still grinning, Crowley fished his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t have his good cameras on him, of course, but he could still record a few minutes of video on his phone for Instagram. “And unless you want to guest star in my next video, I suggest you get out of the way.”

Aziraphale, looking abjectly horrified at the idea of being in one of Crowley's videos, scampered backward to stand beneath a tree, his tartan umbrella held close over his head like a shield. Crowley wondered if he was about to leave, if he was going to retreat to someplace warm and dry and boring.

(Crowley hadn't been serious about the guest star threat, of course. Hell would freeze over before anything so beige and so tartan as that umbrella ever appeared in one of his videos. He had an image to uphold.)

He donned his sunglasses again, which were rain-spattered and admittedly difficult to see through, but again, there was the all-important image to uphold. He reached back to pull the bun out of his hair and run a hand through it for the perfect rain-drenched tousle.

Then he turned on the camera and screamed, "IT'S FINALLY f*ckING RAINING! CAN I HEAR A WAHOO?!?"

He followed this up with his own wahoo, because who else was going to give him one, Aziraphale? (He would without a doubt get a whole host of them in the comments when he posted the video later, but this seemed like a situation that demanded a wahoo right now.)

He talked for a bit about the storm and the past couple of weeks, thanked his viewers for sticking with him, and then panned the camera across his surroundings for a couple of slow, sweeping shots of the lake, the clouds, the rain-tossed treetops, and the sky, with the dark cloud and that shocking strip of bright blue at the horizon. He zoomed in a bit to get a shot of the ducks (the little bastards were always good for a few extra likes); the turbulence in the water was intense enough that even under the bridge, they were getting a pretty thorough splashing. Just then, he remembered that it was ducks that water slid off of. Ducks! He couldn't help but tell the camera about it; he was probably rambling, but it was fine. He could always edit it down later if need be.

It truly was a freak storm, a few minutes of furious rain that turned into a gorgeous sunshower, the trailing edge of the dark cloud backlit with gleaming sunlight, before it was all over. Just as the last drops of rain fell, Crowley turned the camera back on himself and managed to pull off one final, perfect shot: he tossed his head so that his wet hair spun out around him, shedding droplets that sparkled like diamonds in the newly-reemerged sun. It was a shot worthy of a shampoo commercial, if he said so himself.

And then, right before he signed off, he looked over, directly at Aziraphale, tipped down one corner of his sunglasses to reveal half an eye, and winked.

Because Aziraphale had stayed. Instead of finding someplace dry to shelter, he'd apparently opted to brave the storm, holding his tartan umbrella staunchly upright with an impressive, casual strength despite the gusting winds that were hell-bent on turning it inside out. There were a few splatters of rain darkening the hems of his beige trousers, but otherwise he looked just as put together as he did on television, not a hair out of place. His eyes had been glued to Crowley the whole time.

Crowley hadn't been doing it for Aziraphale, of course. All the flash and drama, the wet shirt and the hair tossing, all of it, was for his viewers. That was the whole point of the exercise. He was just doing his job. Still, he felt like he'd just won something, getting Aziraphale to stay.

It was the same sort of elated, triumphant feeling, come to think of it, as when the one percent chance of showers on an otherwise sunny day actually materialized. It felt like pulling one over on the universe.

Still feeling the high from the storm, Crowley sauntered over to stand in front of Aziraphale.

"What was that you were saying earlier about not being a miracle worker again?"

"Well, my models did show a very small chance of an isolated shower or two this afternoon," said Aziraphale, a little smugly. "But that's just science and bit of serendipity. The weather is, of course, often ineffable, but there's nothing at all miraculous about it."

"Whatever you say, angel."

Aziraphale blushed and quickly looked down. He busied himself with pulling out a pocket watch from his waistcoat – a real, honest-to-god pocket watch, with a chain and all, the kind that he probably had to wind every morning to keep going – and checking the time.

"Oh goodness, I really must be going. I hadn't realized it was so late. The 3 o'clock news programme starts in half an hour, and Gabriel and Michael do get so tetchy when we're not all in the studio at the top of the hour, even though the weather's not on till twenty past."

Crowley tipped an imaginary hat at Aziraphale, and said, cool as anything, "Ciao. Thanks again for the miracle."

The corner of Aziraphale's mouth quirked up. He took a step forward and put a hand on Crowley's arm.

"It was lovely to meet you, Crowley. You know, there are another half dozen sandwiches at that shop around the corner that I still haven't tried. I rather think I'll be back, say, next Tuesday around this same time. I'm off the air starting at noon and don't have any other commitments until three. But I don't know that I can be trusted not to feed my bread crusts to the ducks. They're very persuasive."

The electric feeling zinging through Crowley's chest was just the residual thrill from the storm. The little shiver down his spine was just because he was soaked to the skin.

"It's true, someone's gotta look out for the ducks," he said. "Can't trust those little bastards to do the right thing."

"I really do have to go," said Aziraphale, sounding regretful. "You probably should too. Best get out of those wet clothes. It wouldn't do at all for you to catch a cold and not be able to protect the ducks next week."

"Yeah. Duck Protection Society, that's me."

Crowley went home, where he peeled his wet clothing off his body, and absolutely did not imagine that someone else's soft, manicured, pretty hands were doing it. He hopped in the shower, and absolutely did not picture someone else joining him there. It was the best wank he'd had in a very long time, and he absolutely did not think about the reason why.

Then, even though it was the middle of the afternoon, he wrapped himself in his fluffy bathrobe and sat down just in time to catch the weather report on the three o'clock news.

⛈⚡️⛈⚡️⛈

It was simple professional curiosity, Aziraphale told himself later that evening. At home in his flat, he couldn’t help but pull out the business card Crowley had given him. In addition to his Youtube channel, it had links to Crowley's blog, Twitter, and Instagram, the last of which had been updated a couple of hours ago with the video from the park that afternoon.

Aziraphale found himself watching the video on repeat over and over again. Crowley was ridiculous, with his wahoos and his wet shirt and his excessive dramatics and his weird rambling aside about ducks, but also ridiculously compelling. There was a moment right at the end when the camera had been angled in such a way that it had caught the rakish tilt of the sunglasses and the quirk in Crowley's eyebrow and mouth when he'd winked, but not his eyes themselves. Those had been, apparently, for Aziraphale's eyes only.

Crowley, soaked all the way down to the tips of his hair, had been so happy when it had started raining. He'd all but skipped out to the shore of the pond, and the joy rolling off him in waves had been tangible and infectious. It had made Aziraphale want to do something reckless and uncharacteristic, to abandon his umbrella and run out into Crowley's orbit, to feel the rain pelting his face and soaking him through and through.

He hadn't, of course – there was a list a mile long of the practical reasons why it was a terrible idea, starting with the fit everyone at the station would have had if he'd shown up to present the weather looking like a drowned rat, and ending with his own dignity – but the desire to do so had been strong enough that he was still thinking about it hours later.

The memory of Crowley’s voice calling him “angel” wouldn’t get out of his head, wouldn’t stop sticking to his skin the way Crowley’s unreasonably fitted t-shirt had clung to his chest in the rain. Good lord, he thought to himself, that is a truly atrocious metaphor. The groan he heard in his head was very distinctly Crowley’s, despite the fact that they'd spent all of half an hour together.

Aziraphale typically wasn’t one to be swayed by a pretty face. Working day in and day out with Gabriel Herald, co-anchor of his news programme and a reliable regular on numerous Britain's Most Beautiful People lists, had effectively made him immune years ago. (Although, even before Aziraphale had become unfortunately acquainted with his personality, Gabriel's textbook-handsome face and perfectly sculpted body had never once made him feel like he'd been struck by lightning, never once made him feel electric and wild and alive, never once made him want to do reckless and ridiculous things.)

A pretty face and a wit as sharp as his own, on the other hand? All bets were off.

It was really too bad that Crowley was also insufferable - a storm chaser of all ridiculous and inadvisable things - and seemed utterly determined to get under Aziraphale’s skin. He was the type of person who wore sunglasses in the rain, for heaven's sake.

It was a stretch, but one could consider storm chasing somewhat adjacent to meteorology, which would make them professional colleagues of some sort. But really, it was more than likely that they had absolutely nothing in common. What would they even talk about, the weather?

Even still, he found himself wondering whether it would rain again next week.

Chapter 2: on the predictability of the weather

Chapter Text

It was not in fact raining when Aziraphale stepped out for lunch the following Tuesday. The weather had, however, reverted to its normal, mercurial ways, and there had been a rather intense thunderstorm the previous Friday. This meant that a new video had dropped on Crowley's channel over the weekend, which in turn meant that Aziraphale had gotten to see, if only through a screen, Crowley swanning about against a backdrop of rumbling thunderheads and flashing lightning wearing what appeared to be a completely weather-inappropriate black silk shirt and skintight black jeans, both of which had become plastered to his skin in a matter of seconds by the driving rain. The shirt had gone rather transparent, and, if the comments were anything to go by, Aziraphale was not the only one who'd noticed, nor the only one who'd watched the video more than once.

Aziraphale had not, of course, left a comment of his own.

Now, he headed for the park where they'd met, half-convinced that Crowley would not be there at all. Even still, in a fit of optimism, he found himself purchasing two sandwiches instead of one from the shop next to the park.

He told himself that even if Crowley had forgotten their meeting, or, worse, remembered and subsequently decided that Aziraphale was not worth his time, it was a beautiful day and there were far worse things to have than an extra sandwich. The only ones to suffer would be the ducks, who would be bereft of any frozen veg to snack upon.

But in the end all his worries were for naught, and the ducks were going to get their (healthy) treat too, because when he turned the corner, there, on the bench beside the water that he'd already started ridiculously thinking of as theirs, was Crowley, one arm draped lazily across the back and long legs stretched out in front of him, scrolling through his phone one-handed.

Crowley hadn't noticed his arrival yet, so Aziraphale took the opportunity to observe him. Crowley was not sitting on the bench so much as slouching. It was a miracle, really, that he hadn't slid right off the seat and onto the ground; it was probably only thanks to the friction between denim and wood that he was managing to stay even the smallest bit upright. If he had been wearing something more slippery, say a pair of smooth, supple leather trousers, the situation might have been far more precarious. (Crowley possessed at least one pair of leather trousers, which had made an appearance in several of his videos over the past year. Aziraphale had spent an entirely reasonable amount of time perusing said videos trying to ascertain how on earth Crowley managed to wiggle himself into – and out of – said trousers, as they looked practically painted on. It was only natural to be fascinated by such a compelling mystery.)

Crowley looked up and over at him then, the motion emphasizing the long, pale length of his neck and the sharp angles of his collarbones inside the open collar of his shirt. He waggled the fingers of one hand in a lazy greeting; the nails were still varnished black, just as they'd been in his video.

"Oh, angel! There you are."

"Hello, Crowley. I hope you haven't been waiting long."

"Nah. Just got here."

"How have you been?"

"Terrific. Thrilled to see that no interloping weathermen had claimed this bench this time around. And I can't complain about that storm on Friday. Got some incredible footage."

"It really was something, wasn't it?"

(The storm really had been something. The winds had been strong and unpredictable, constantly switching directions, which meant that the forecast had also kept changing. It had kept Aziraphale on his toes the entire day, as he'd continually had to verify that the storm's predicted trajectory hadn't shifted yet again between one live update and the next. By the time the storm had finally blown out to sea in the late afternoon, he'd probably re-run his forecasting models a dozen times.

He'd also found himself continually refreshing Crowley's Twitter and Instagram feeds whenever he'd had a moment to himself that day. He'd done this a good deal more than a dozen times, if he was being honest. Crowley had also, it seemed, had a long and taxing day, having had to scramble more than once to keep up with the storm's ever-changing trajectory. This was, thought Aziraphale with a not inconsiderable amount of smugness, most likely because he'd been relying on the less detailed and less frequently updated publicly available models rather than Aziraphale's far more sophisticated ones.

But Crowley had, in the end, managed to steer his Bentley right into the heart of the storm through a combination of, as he put it, "skill and instinct and really f*cking brilliant driving." Which was, Aziraphale had to grudgingly admit after rolling his eyes at Crowley's bluster, somewhat impressive given that he had been working with subpar data.)

"Are you hungry?" Aziraphale asked now.

"I could eat, yeah."

"I simply could not decide between the prosciutto and mozzarella or the brie and pears just now, so I, er, may have bought both."

"I agree, it's the only sensible thing to do. How else are we to know which is superior? We'll just have to have a taste-off then, won't we?"

Crowley grinned up at him, and the last of Aziraphale's lingering apprehensions melted away.

"Budge over then, dear, so we have room to spread this out and do a proper comparison."

Crowley complied, gathering his sprawled limbs to himself and shifting into a marginally more upright position, and soon enough they were seated companionably, one at either end of the wooden bench, with the two sandwiches spread out on their waxed paper wrappers between them. In the end, they decided that the brie and pears had just edged out its competition, although it had been a very tight race and both had been extremely delicious. Apparently Aziraphale had moaned in delight, just a little bit, when the first bite of perfectly ripe pear and creamy, just-funky-enough cheese had hit his tongue; he did not recall doing so, but Crowley swore up and down that he had. And that, Crowley declared confidently, was the deciding factor.

And it was only fair, they decided, that in future weeks they try all the other sandwiches on offer too in order to determine which one was the very best. One had to be thorough, after all, when reviewing sandwich shoppes. And the rankings would only be fair if they were delivered in the same setting, with the same co-reviewer. Any restaurant reviewer worth their salt would tell you that.

Never mind that neither of them was a restaurant reviewer.

The ducks were ravenous as always, and if they were disappointed to be deprived of bread scraps, it did not show in a lack of enthusiasm for the peas that Crowley had brought with him once again.

The week after that, Crowley showed up with a pink bakery box in addition to the frozen peas. He said, in an offhanded way, that he'd happened to pass by a bakery on his way to the park, and the canelés, fresh out of the oven, had simply looked and smelled too tempting to pass up. (It was surely nothing more than a lucky coincidence that Aziraphale had waxed poetic the previous week about the food in Paris, in particular the crepes and the canelés.) The little fluted cakes were still the tiniest bit warm, and this time Aziraphale was perfectly aware of (and perfectly unable to prevent) the moan he let out when he bit into the first one, with its consummate combination of burnt sugar exterior and tender, almost creamy interior. When he opened his eyes, still blissfully savoring the tail end of that first bite, it was to make momentary and unexpected eye contact with Crowley, who was gazing back at him with his mouth slightly open and his bare eyes wide and rapt.

And then in a split second that look was gone, replaced by the now familiar curve of Crowley's smile, a wickedly arched eyebrow, and a hastily donned pair of sunglasses.

"Enjoyed that, did you? You look like you just had a religious experience. Or maybe a blasphemous one."

"Oh, it was sublime," responded Aziraphale. He should probably, he thought, be embarrassed about his enthusiasm, but he wasn't. "You absolutely must try one, my dear. I'd wager you'd have a religious experience too."

"Oh, trust me, angel, I already have."

When he got back to the station that afternoon, Aziraphale looked up the bakery – he hadn't been exaggerating when he'd called the canelé sublime, and he thought he might like to go back for more sometime – and it turned out to be nowhere near the park at all.

Eventually and inevitably, because this was England after all, it rained on a Tuesday, several weeks after their first meeting. It wasn’t the sort of rain anyone would write home about (or make a YouTube video about, for that matter), just your everyday, bog-standard British drizzle. No thunder, no lightning, no unexpectedly thrilling cloudbursts. It had warranted only a cursory mention on Aziraphale’s morning report, but was nevertheless enough to render park benches and sandwiches unpleasantly soggy. Even Crowley would, he thought, be hard pressed to find a way to create some drama out of all this drippy, dreary grey.

It matched Aziraphale's mood. His morning had been particularly trying – whether it was the dismal weather or something else, everyone at the station seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Gabriel had been even more casually demeaning than usual and Michael, the other anchor, more haughtily dismissive. A camera operator had walked off the job in tears after an altercation with Leon Sandalphon, the sports presenter and Aziraphale's least favorite co-worker. There'd been technical difficulties galore. All in all, the morning broadcasts had seemed to drag on forever.

Ordinarily, the prospect of his upcoming rendezvous in the park with Crowley would have cheered him up, but today the weather seemed determined to thwart him. The forecast provided no hope – he cycled through half a dozen different models, every one of which predicted with nearly complete confidence that the rainfall would continue without pause through the afternoon and well into the evening.

But the thing about the weather, some tiny, optimistic part of his brain insisted, was that one could never be one hundred percent sure. There was always an element of ineffability, as he'd said to Crowley the day they'd met. So Aziraphale headed out to the park anyway, armed with his trench coat and trusty tartan umbrella, immediately after the broadcast ended at noon. It was not a bad idea to put some space between himself and all the aggravations at the station in any case, and some fresh air, damp though it was, would surely do him good. The drizzle, to no one's surprise including his own, had not let up, and had instead intensified to a monotonously steady rainfall. Still, he soldiered on, and when he turned the corner by the park, there was Crowley, umbrella-less as always but mostly dry for a change, waiting underneath the awning of the sandwich shop. The bright red of his hair and the deep green of the awning stood out bright and real against the misty, washed-out grey of their surroundings.

"Hey, Aziraphale. sh*t weather we're having, eh?"

"Yes, it is a bit damp," agreed Aziraphale noncommittally.

"I, uh, thought we could eat in for a change? Ducks’ll just have to fend for themselves for once."

In response, Aziraphale pulled the door open, gestured for Crowley to go first, and that was that.

They sat side by side on tall stools at the long wooden counter that ran along the front window of the shop and watched the rain falling steadily outside. There was no one else in the shop aside from the woman behind the counter, who did not bother them, and one or two customers who took their sandwiches to go. It felt hushed and comfortable and cozy, with the smell of fresh-baked bread, the muted drum and drip of raindrops, and the occasional low, wet Doppler hum of a car passing by in the street outside. The trees in the park across the way looked indistinct and grey-green and further away than they really were in the mist.

It was funny how all it took was a few creature comforts to turn what had been a bleak, grey, miserable day into something entirely and unexpectedly different. A warm atmosphere. Delicious food. Good company.

The rest of the world seemed very far away, enough so that Aziraphale found himself telling Crowley about his terrible morning, and from there about how difficult working with his colleagues at the station could be. Even after ten years, he often felt alienated and belittled by Gabriel, who was constantly making demeaning comments disguised as jovial remarks about his appearance and personality, and Michael, who favored subtly-veiled jabs about Aziraphale's overall competency. Sandalphon was simply a bully and all-around unpleasant person, although he tended to save the worst of his abuse for the hapless technicians and assistants. The producer, Angela Uriel, seemed to turn a blind eye to all of this, always deferring to Gabriel and Michael's wishes.

Aziraphale knew that he was good at what he did. His forecasts were generally more accurate than those of the competition, and, despite his colleagues' insinuations, he did well in front of a camera. His ratings were better than those of everyone else on the show, including Gabriel and Michael, and viewers liked him. Viewers tuned in specifically for him.

The ratings didn't lie, and Gabriel and the others knew it. That meant they wouldn't sack him anytime soon, but that didn't mean that they'd ever treated him like an equal. Gabriel and Michael had their inner circle, and Aziraphale, despite his good ratings and audience popularity, would never be a part of it. He didn't want to be a part of it, not in the least, but the exclusion still stung, still made him feel alone and inferior at times.

"And it's not even like I could leave, because where would I even go? I do love my actual job, although I could do without many of the people, but there's only a handful of national news networks with full-time broadcast meteorologists, and people tend to stay in those positions for decades until they retire, if they even ever retire."

Crowley, as it turned out, was a good listener, staying quiet but attentive throughout Aziraphale's rant. He did not offer cloying sympathy or misplaced advice, only an emphatic declaration that "they sound like wankers, the lot of 'em."

The genuine and furious intensity with which Crowley said those words made something in Aziraphale sit up and take notice. It was, he realized, exactly what he needed to hear.

Then Crowley, in turn, shared some of his own travails: how lonely being an independent storm chaser could be; how he spent too many long hours all alone in his car and even more hours hunched in front of the computer doing video editing or social media; how he had to do everything, from self-promotion to camerawork to staying abreast of the latest forecasts, on his own; how he could go for days without speaking to another living soul in real life if he didn't make a concerted effort to do so.

They had both, it seemed, left their customary barbs and bickering at home that day, and when they parted to go their separate ways outside the shop, Aziraphale very nearly said thank you. For what, he wasn't even really sure. For listening, he supposed. For the unexpected sincerity. For sharing something personal in return. For banishing his bleak mood.

For being a friend.

But he did not say it, instead busying himself with turning his collar up and deploying his umbrella as a shield against the rain, because he and Crowley weren't like that. They didn't thank each other; they simply said goodbye every Tuesday at half past two and went their separate ways, back to their real lives, back to the day-to-day grind of the news station and the Internet respectively. They weren't friends, not really. He didn’t even have Crowley's phone number.

They certainly weren't anything more than friends.

Still, these weekly lunches were an undeniable respite for Aziraphale. He suspected that Crowley felt the same, although they'd never discussed it.

He liked that their meetings in the park seemed to exist in their own little bubble. He liked that he could, on occasion, complain to Crowley about whatever gripes, small or large, he had with his job or his life, and that Crowley, whose orbit did not intersect with that of any of the other people he knew, would be an impartial and sympathetic ear. He liked that it felt private, a little bit of a secret.

After several weeks, they'd tried every sandwich on the menu, but Crowley did not say anything when Aziraphale showed up with the Brie and Pears for a second time. Instead he proffered the now-familiar pink bakery box, which proved to contain several beautiful mille-feuilles, each one with a different and equally tempting filling, and said that they hadn't gotten through even half of the bakery's offerings yet.

Aziraphale looked forward to Tuesday afternoons all week. Who wouldn't, really? Those French pastries were gorgeous to look at, and absolutely scrumptious to taste, and he couldn't get enough of them.

But Tuesday afternoons were just like the delectable desserts. A once-a-week treat, a temptation that he shouldn't indulge in too often lest he grow greedy.

Despite not having Crowley's phone number, Aziraphale knew that there were any number of other ways they could contact each other - he had Crowley's email and various social media handles, which were on the business card he'd been given that first afternoon, and his own email was publicly available on the station's website. Yet they'd never once corresponded. Their acquaintance didn't go beyond the park and occasionally the establishments in its immediate vicinity. It was neat and compartmentalized, and it didn't spill into any other parts of Aziraphale's life. Unlike the weather, it did not deviate from a regular and predictable pattern.

For a few weeks, at least.

⛈⚡️⛈⚡️⛈

It was probably inevitable, given that they were both more or less in the business of filming dramatic weather events (although Aziraphale was doing so to inform, and Crowley to entertain, or so Aziraphale told himself anyway), that they'd find themselves in the same general vicinity, some place that was not the park, some day that was not Tuesday, sooner rather than later.

For the most part, it was Eric's job, as the station's assistant meteorologist, to do the live, on-location weather reports. Aziraphale did not envy him this task, as it generally involved donning a lurid yellow rain slicker or other equally unflattering foul-weather gear and going out on purpose to get drenched to the bone, all while frantically shouting to be heard over the noise of rain or wind or hail or whatever force of nature Mother Nature saw fit to throw at you. (There were some people, most notably Crowley, who seemed to enjoy such things, and who looked unfairly good – no ghastly bright rain slickers or clunky rubber boots in sight – while doing so, but Aziraphale was not one of them. He liked storms, with their thunder and lightning and dramatics, but preferred to appreciate them while staying warm and dry indoors, preferably with a nice cup of cocoa and a good book in hand.)

As much as he appreciated that his relatively senior position meant that he could delegate the more unpleasant of the live shoots to his juniors, Aziraphale had nevertheless gotten into the habit of filming one or two on-location spots a week, with a couple of hours delay and in less miserably wet or windy weather conditions. They were a welcome respite from the day-to-day grind and uncomfortable atmosphere of the station, allowed him to visit some interesting places, and were an excuse to research and share interesting meteorological or historical tidbits with his viewers. These short segments were also surprisingly popular with said viewers, so Gabriel and Michael had given him their conditional blessing to continue producing them, so long as he did it during his off-camera hours. And only so long as the ratings remained good, of course. This blessing did not, however, extend to allowing Aziraphale to take one of the station's actual trained camera operators along with him, so he had to make do with his personal assistant, Newton Pulsifer.

On this particular day, a Friday, Aziraphale and Newt had driven to the crest of a low hill located in some parkland near the eastern city limits. To the north, dark clouds were massing, harbingers of a storm that he predicted would reach the city in a couple of hours, and a stiff breeze had kicked up. It hadn't started raining yet, and probably would not until they were safely back at the station, a timeline that Aziraphale was well satisfied with.

It was an ideal location with excellent visuals showcasing three types of clouds in the sky at once. A gradient had formed from east to west across the horizon, the white of the tall, stacked, cottony cumulus towers shifting gradually into the dark grey of the heavier, lower cumulonimbus clouds that promised thunder and lightning and downpours. There were even a few stray, floaty cirrus clouds high overhead that hadn't yet been subsumed into the approaching storm front. Even Crowley, with all his dramatic camera tricks, would have been hard pressed to find such a perfect backdrop.

Aziraphale had planned a brief spiel, interspersing some informative discussion about the different types of clouds with the actual storm forecast. The whole thing should have only taken a few minutes to film, except for the unfortunate fact that video equipment had an inexplicable propensity to malfunction around Newton Pulsifer.

"Oh, bugger," groaned Newt, shaking the camera with frustration. "It won't even turn on. Sorry, Aziraphale. Hopefully it's just the power or something. Hang on, I've got a spare battery pack back in the van. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

Aziraphale sighed, and resigned himself to waiting for an unspecified amount of time. In his experience, the camera would start working again when it was good and ready, and no amount of fresh batteries or button-smashing or, for that matter, blood, sweat, and tears would speed up the process.

He gazed pensively at the sky while he waited for Newt to return. The roiling sky had only grown more dramatic in the interim. It would make the perfect opening shot for one of Crowley's videos. Aziraphale could see it so clearly in his head. The Bentley, all sleek black paint job and shiny, polished chrome beneath the iron-grey sky, rolling smoothly to a stop, the door opening, Crowley stepping out like some sort of Hollywood starlet, all long, long legs that went on for miles, his wind-tousled hair a bright, stunning statement against the monochrome background.

Something rumbled off to his right, a little too soft and smooth to be thunder. It was accompanied by the crunch of tires on gravel and followed by a click and a soft thud.

"Angel! Fancy running into you here!"

Aziraphale startled and looked earthward, away from the sky. The scene that met his eyes was so close to his idle daydream that, for a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. He felt a twinge of disappointment that he'd missed the bit where Crowley had emerged from the car. But this was almost as good: Crowley, wearing a sharp-shouldered blazer and some sort of odd, narrow silver scarf, leaning insouciantly against the drivers-side door of the Bentley with his hip co*cked and arms crossed, grinning at him and looking for all the world like the cat that got the cream.

Those legs, clad in deliciously snug black denim, really did go on for miles, and the way Crowley was leaning on the car… okay, it was an undeniable fact that he looked like he was approximately one strong gust of wind away from falling over, but it was also undeniable that the man had impressively flexible hips. Aziraphale bit his lip. The last thing he needed was to be thinking about Crowley's hips right now. He had work to do.

It was strange – and a little thrilling – to see Crowley in unfamiliar surroundings, somewhere that was not their little park, with no sandwiches or frozen peas in sight.

"Crowley. Wh—what are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you, I'd wager." He gestured at the clouds massing to the north. "Nice view."

"I am doing my job. I have no earthly idea what you might be doing. I can only surmise you're out for a leisurely mid-afternoon drive, having nothing more important to do."

"Aziraphale! How dare you insinuate such a thing! I am not a leisurely driver. I'll have you know that I once drove through an ice storm when literally every other car on the road was spinning out—"

Aziraphale cut him off. "Well, I must be getting on with my work. It was nice of you to stop and say hello. Do enjoy your drive, dear. There's a storm coming; you'll want to be careful of that."

"Oh, you bastard," sputtered Crowley.

Aziraphale couldn't help the triumphant smile that crept across his face.

Someone behind him cleared their throat, loudly. Aziraphale jumped, breaking the eye contact between himself and Crowley, and spun around. Newt stood there, a half-confused, half-apologetic look on his face.

"Oh! Uh, Crowley, this is Newt. Newt is my assistant, and on occasion my driver and cameraman as well. He does a bit of everything, really – I'd forget my own head if it weren't for him. Newt, this is Crowley. He does not have a real job other than making a nuisance of himself, it seems."

"Rude, angel."

"Oh, all right. Crowley is an … entertainer. He has a YouTube channel."

He said Youtube in the poshest, snootiest voice he could muster, deliberately pinching his lips around the u's to emphasize them. Crowley rolled his eyes. Aziraphale smiled beatifically.

Newt's second eyebrow rose to join his first, which had shot up when Crowley had called Aziraphale angel, but he, bless him, simply extended a hand to shake and said, "Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise. And what your boss is refusing to say is that I'm – quelle horreur – a storm chaser."

"Oh, I know," said Newt. "Ana – my girlfriend – she's a huge fan of your videos. She's going to be so jealous that I met you."

Aziraphale could do nothing but gape at Newt, having been rendered momentarily speechless by this new revelation.

"I'm sorry," he finally managed to sputter, "but did you just say that Anathema is a fan of Crowley?"

"Yeah," said Newt, shrugging like it was no big deal. "I think she's seen every single one of his videos. I've watched a few with her. They're a lot of fun."

"Does—does her grandmother know about this?"

"I don't know, it's never come up, but honestly it wouldn't surprise me if she was the one who got Ana into them in the first place. His videos are totally Agnes' style."

"Oi, angel, why's it so hard to believe that people might actually like me?!"

"You don't understand! Her grandmother is—" began Aziraphale indignantly, then thought better of it. "You know what, never mind."

Truthfully, he understood the fascination all too well; he'd made his way through Crowley's entire back catalog in the week between their first and second meetings, and he'd rewatched most of the videos several more times since. And it did make a certain rueful amount of sense that Agnes Nutter – still one of the most highly regarded meteorologists in the country, even after the scandal of massive proportions that had driven her off the air a few years earlier – would be a fan of Crowley's. She'd always had a dramatic streak a mile wide, after all. Back when she'd still been on television, there'd been nobody who read the weather quite like Agnes Nutter.

Crowley shrugged, then turned to Newt. "Want an autograph for your girlfriend?"

"Sure, if you wouldn't mind. She'd love that."

This plan was immediately thwarted when it became apparent that neither Crowley nor Newt had a pen or paper on their persons.

Aziraphale, of course, had both. And because it was Newt who'd asked, and not Crowley, he handed them over without so much as a sarcastic quip.

"There. I hope she likes it," said Crowley, tearing out the page and presenting it to Newt. Then, instead of immediately returning the pen and notebook to Aziraphale, he bent his head again and scrawled something on the next page. "One for you too, angel. As a thank you for lending me your pen."

Aziraphale snorted when he saw what Crowley had written above his scrawled signature. To Aziraphale. Angel. My worthiest adversary and #1 fan.

He looked up; Crowley was smirking at him, his mouth somehow both sharp and soft.

"Yeah, I know, I know, you've never even watched a single one of my videos. I still stand by what I wrote there though."

He was wrong about Aziraphale not watching his videos, and right about him being Crowley's biggest fan. Not that Aziraphale would ever admit to either of those things.

"Newt," he said brusquely, before he could do something stupid and fond like brush his thumb across the dimple in Crowley's cheek, "Have you fixed that camera yet? We really do need to get some footage for the 3 pm broadcast."

"Sorry, Aziraphale. It looks like it's well and truly busted this time. I tried changing both the battery and the memory card, and neither helped. I think I'm gonna have to go back to the station to swap the whole thing out."

It was a good half hour's drive either way. Aziraphale sighed. Most of the time, they managed to get at least some usable footage before the electronics decided to call it quits for the day, although second takes were far too much to ask for. Today, though, they had absolutely nothing.

"Oh, drat. I have to be back on air in an hour. We're not going to have time. I suppose we'll just have to try to film something closer to the station, or skip the segment entirely today. Gabriel and Michael aren't going to be happy."

Even if they hadn't been short on time, the nearly perfect combination of clouds in the sky would almost certainly be gone by the time they returned with a working camera. That was the thing with the weather – usually you got one chance, and one chance only, to get everything right.

Newt made one last desperate attempt to revive the catatonic video camera, jabbing several buttons in rapid succession and issuing a heartfelt plea for it to please wake up, with no success. Although Aziraphale was not looking forward to being the target of Gabriel and Michael's displeasure, he knew that he could suffer through it without lasting consequences. Newt, on the other hand, was looking more and more panicky by the minute; for many reasons, his job was far less secure, and Aziraphale had had to fight even to be allowed to hire him as a personal assistant in the first place.

"I can film you."

Both Aziraphale and Newt looked over at Crowley in surprise.

"What?"

"I said, I can film you. I've got all my recording equipment in the car. I was thinking about setting up here to get some footage anyway. It's why I came up here after all. Running into you was just an unexpected bonus."

Relief – both for his own sake and for Newt's – made Aziraphale rather more effusive than usual.

"Oh, my dear, would you? That would be splendid."

"Yeah, of course. Just lemme go get my stuff."

Crowley set up his equipment in only a couple of minutes with practiced efficiency, but then spent several more minutes directing Aziraphale to "stand over here, angel … no, a little to your left… now turn your head just slightly that way … wait, maybe go a little further to your left … yeah, right there. There. That's perfect. You look like you've got a halo, the way the sun is glowing from beneath that cloud right over your head."

He pursed his lips and kissed his fingers in a chef's kiss gesture once all this rigmarole was complete. What a ridiculous man, thought Aziraphale. He remained unconvinced that all this posing and positioning was really necessary, but he'd gone along with it because Crowley was, after all, doing both him and Newt an enormous favor.

Still, Aziraphale had his limits, one of which was reached when Crowley suggested that perhaps he let his bow tie hang undone around his collar.

"Absolutely not! Good lord, whatever will people think? My audience has come to expect a certain amount of sartorial polish from me, you know."

"Trust me, Aziraphale, it'll be dead sexy."

"As if I would take style advice from someone wearing that—that whatever it is you're sporting around your neck!"

Crowley twirled the end of his metallic scarf-tie-necklace-abomination around one finger. "This is what modern style looks like, angel. Not bow ties and tartan."

"The classics never go out of style. Besides, my tie won't rust in the rain."

"I'll have you know, this is stainless steel. One hundred percent rust-proof."

"One hundred percent ridiculous."

"One hundred percent stylish, you mean. I bet it would look good on you, y'know."

"I have standards, Crowley. And I shall not be wearing that thing, and I shan't be undoing my bow tie either."

"Fine. You win. Bow tie stays done up all prim and proper," said Crowley, raising his hands in surrender, then mumbled, almost under his breath, "but it really would be dead sexy."

It did not escape Aziraphale's notice that Crowley's fingers had twitched when he'd said that. He had a brief fantasy of those fingers reaching forward to tug on the ends of his bow tie, their tips brushing up against the skin of his neck as Crowley worked the knot free. He felt his face flush, but thankfully Crowley appeared to be busy adjusting something on his camera and did not seem to have noticed.

"Okay, it's all set. Whenever you're ready."

They filmed the whole spot in a single take, and then Aziraphale joined Crowley behind the tripod to watch the playback. There was one point halfway through when Aziraphale had let a silence drag on a little too long, having been distracted by the way Crowley had contorted himself beneath the camera in order to angle it sharply upward toward the cloud-filled sky, but that could easily be edited out. Other than that, the take seemed nearly perfect.

"Wow," drawled Crowley, "That's some really terrific camera work there, if I do say so myself."

"And a very humble cameraman, I see. But it helps when you have good on-camera talent to work with. I have spent the better part of ten years in front of the camera, after all."

"Well, the camera likes you, that's for certain."

The video was flashier and more dynamic than Aziraphale was used to, with more dramatic angles and close zooms and sweeping pans, but it was good. Really good. Maybe it was Crowley's camerawork, maybe it was his own stage presence, or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, it worked.

Crowley popped the memory card out of the camera and handed it to him. After briefly considering passing it over to Newt, Aziraphale slipped it into his own pocket instead.

"You can return that next Tuesday. Don't worry, I've got plenty of spares."

"Thank you, Crowley."

"Don't thank me. Was nothing, really," mumbled Crowley, sounding almost abashed. He was not looking at Aziraphale, being preoccupied with fishing around, with some difficulty, in his pockets for his car keys.

"Still, I really do appreciate your helping me – us – out of a tight spot."

Crowley had somehow managed to locate the keys (from where, Aziraphale could not have said – an alternate dimension was perhaps a more reasonable option than the frankly miniscule pockets on those jeans), twirling them around one finger with a flourish. He collected his camera and tripod and strode off, all swing and swagger again, toward the Bentley. With one hand on the door, he turned and called out, "Ciao, angel. See ya on Tuesday."

And with that, Crowley got into the Bentley, executed a tight, well-controlled turn, and sped off in a southerly direction. He was going well over the speed limit, aiming directly for the spot where the gathered thunderheads were darkest and most menacing.

Aziraphale, with Newt in tow, went in the opposite direction, away from Crowley and the storm, driving at a reasonable and sedate twenty-five miles per hour.

Chapter 3: rare and remarkable atmospheric phenomena

Chapter Text

It was important, in Crowley's line of work, to keep tabs on the competition in order to stay at the top of one's game. As the British storm chasing community was quite small, this was not a difficult task, although it did unfortunately involve seeing far too much of Hastur's and Ligur's ugly mugs. (The American storm chasers, with their pickups and prairies, to say nothing of the f*cking tornadoes, were a different species altogether, and Crowley felt no need to compare himself to them.)

It was, therefore, only good business sense, when one happened to come across a new adversary, to know what they were up to, on the internet and elsewhere. The fact that Aziraphale was infinite orders of magnitude nicer to look at than the likes of Hastur and Ligur meant that Crowley was enjoying this part of his job for possibly the first time ever. (The rational part of his brain that insisted on pointing out that a television weather presenter was even less of a direct competitor than the tornado-happy Americans could just shut the f*ck up.)

There were a number of clips of Aziraphale's broadcasts online, a few uploaded by the official Channel Six news account but the vast majority by fans, of which there were many, judging by the hit counts and comments. Aziraphale was undeniably popular, and apparently not just among old grannies who had no idea they could check the weather on the internet whenever they damn well pleased.

Which was to say, what with all the video he'd watched, as well as their weekly lunches, Crowley had become quite familiar with Aziraphale's body language, both onscreen and in person, over the past few weeks.

For instance, he knew that when Aziraphale was nervous, he fidgeted. He wrung his hands and fluttered his fingers nervously; he fiddled with pens or his pocket watch or whatever else was readily available. Currently, seated opposite Crowley on their bench, he was twisting the heavy gold signet ring on his pinky around and around and crinkling his sandwich wrapper in his palm. He’d reached up to adjust his bow tie a half dozen times.

And perhaps most damning of all, whatever was bothering him was enough to distract him from his normally vocal and enthusiastic appreciation of his food.

What Aziraphale needed right now, Crowley thought, was for someone to lay their own hands on top of his, someone to run a thumb, warm and soothing, down the little divot between his first and second knuckles and press down gently with their palms to quiet the fluttering nerves.

Crowley bit down on his lip, hard, and picked up the discarded heel of his sandwich. He had no intention of eating it - he was full, and eating mayonnaise-sodden bread crusts was for chumps anyway - but it was something to do with his own hands. Something that didn't involve crossing some kind of line.

Still, Crowley's curiosity burned. He'd just about resolved to at least ask what was the matter, when Aziraphale blurted out, "I have a proposal for you."

"You wot?"

Crowley’s mouth hung open. His hands flailed wildly of their own accord, causing the remainder of the sandwich clutched in the right one to fly directly into the lake. The ducks descended en masse like the scrabbling, greedy, lawless beasts that they were, having been deprived for weeks now of junk food in the form of delicious bread delivered by charming meteorologists who didn't yet know any better. Their frenzied squawking and squabbling was nearly - but not quite - loud enough to drown out the clamor in Crowley's head that had begun when Aziraphale had said the word proposal.

"I have a proposal!" said Aziraphale, shouting to be heard over the sound of quacking. His face had gone red.

Crowley was thankful for the ruckus the ducks were making, because it gave him time to collect himself. Enough to shut his gaping mouth and respond with a bit of his natural sarcasm anyway, even if he was still internally freaking out.

"Isn’t that going a bit fast, angel? At least buy me dinner first."

"Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Crowley," said Aziraphale, his voice a little snappish and nervy. "You know what I mean. A business proposal. An Arrangement, if you will."

"Oh."

It was ridiculous, of course, for Crowley to have immediately jumped to conclusions. They hardly even knew each other, after all. They didn't even have each others' phone numbers.

And Aziraphale's love for tartan was truly unfortunate.

The possibility of turning Aziraphale down, had it really been that sort of proposal, hadn't crossed his mind at all during that brief, heart-stopping moment of confusion, but surely that had just been a function of the general chaos and fluster, and nothing deeper.

Still, Crowley had been paying rather a lot of attention to Aziraphale's body language and the inflections of his speech for some weeks now. And right now, Aziraphale's tone was somehow managing to convey that, whatever it was he was proposing, it was a capital-A Arrangement. He wouldn't, Crowley thought, be nearly so nervous about suggesting a regular run-of-the-mill business partnership between casual acquaintances.

"You can say no. I shan't be offended."

"Let's hear this proposal of yours first, angel."

"Well, you remember that little spot you were so kind as to help me film last Friday? Everybody loved it. People were calling in to the station, apparently, to say how much they enjoyed it. And I'm told the clip has become quite popular on the Internet."

Crowley knew this last bit to be true. He followed @ChannelSixWeather, as well as #AZFell, #FellWeather, #TheBowtieForecast, and other related tags, because it was part of his job to keep tabs on what weather Twitter was saying and for no other reason whatsoever. Aziraphale's clip had been trending all weekend. You couldn't help but watch something a dozen times when it kept showing up on your dash over and over again. It was no hardship, though; Aziraphale was in his element and the camera loved him. Crowley was particularly proud of the bit where he'd zoomed in on Aziraphale's face and hands, with the liminal pre-storm sunlight giving the whole shot an ethereal air.

"Congrats, angel."

"But that's not all. Everybody's talking about the cinematography. It's apparently fresh and exciting and dynamic. And that was all your doing. Newt is a good assistant, but he's no wizard with the camera even when it's functional, I'm afraid."

"Course it's good. Any Youtuber worth their salt'll tell you, ya gotta have flair, otherwise nobody'll watch you when they've got a million other choices. Rule number one in the Anthony J. Crowley guide to success: do it with style."

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but continued, "The thing is… they want more like it. They being management, although, just between you and I, I think management mostly just does what Gabriel tells them to. So, I was thinking—that is, I was wondering—if, err, if perhaps you wouldn't be amenable to a mutually beneficial arrangement of sorts?"

"So you want me to film you, is that it? And what do I get in return?"

"Correct me if I’m wrong, but your job involves a good deal of standing about in damp places waiting, as it were, for lightning to strike."

"You could put it like that, yeah."

"Well, I, my dear, often know when and where the lightning will strike."

"I don't do so badly on my own."

"But I'm assuming you don't have access to the more sophisticated modeling software or forecasting algorithms that I use. So this is my proposal. You help me film some of my on-location spots, and in return I shall provide you with proprietary predictions and forecast models."

"So let me get this straight. You're saying you'd be willing to tip me off ahead of the general public, and ahead of Hastur and Ligur and all that lot, when something big is about go down."

"Yes, exactly. I suspect that our interests overlap here anyway, so it would only be reasonable to combine forces. Where I'd be filming is where you'd wish you were filming, if only you'd had the prior knowledge. The knowledge that I possess and you do not."

"But you need my style and flair."

"Only when it comes to your skills with the video camera. I shan't be swapping my waistcoats and bow ties for those ridiculous, impractical get-ups of yours, so don't you be getting any ideas now."

"Bet it would up your ratings even further."

"I refuse to prance about in leather trousers making a fool of myself. Not for all the ratings in the world."

"I'll get you in leather trousers one of these days. Or at least some trousers from this century. Just you wait."

"You're welcome to try, dear."

Crowley’s head was spinning. He had to look away from Aziraphale, so that he wouldn't be caught staring at his arse and imagining it snugly clad in leather. (Black leather was a classic for a reason, of course, but a buttery-soft, warm fawn or chestnut would be… well, that was a thought to revisit later, when he was alone in his flat.) He gazed out across the pond instead. The ducks had entirely obliterated his accidentally flung sandwich by now, but were still loitering hopefully near the shore. Two of the boldest had leapt up onto the bank while they'd been talking, and were now approaching him and Aziraphale.

"Scram," he said, waving his hand. "You lot won’t be getting any more bread from us today."

"Quite right. A treat once in a while is just lovely, but it won’t do to overindulge."

"Yeah. Might explode otherwise."

"So what do you think about my proposal? In essence, we each lend a hand when needed, and I think it will be mutually beneficial for the both of us."

"I'm in. You've got yourself a deal."

"Really?" Aziraphale sounded surprised, like he'd thought Crowley would say no.

"Of course. Like you said, we both benefit. There's no down side. Would be stupid of me, really, not to take advantage of the opportunity to get a leg up on the competition."

"Yes, rather."

"Shake on it?"

Aziraphale’s hand was warm and large, and his grip firm and strong. They shook on it, holding the contact for a good long while, since it was not every day that one made an Arrangement of this sort. Then they exchanged email addresses and phone numbers; as Aziraphale pointed out, the weather was liable to change on a dime, and it would only be practical for them to have a way to contact each other at a moment's notice.

"Oh, would you look at the time! I really must be getting a wiggle on."

For the second time that day, Crowley's mouth fell open. Before he could recover, Aziraphale had gone, leaving Crowley to mumble "wiggle on" incredulously, with nobody but the ducks as witness.

⛈⚡️⛈⚡️⛈

The thing about the village of Tadfield in Oxfordshire was that the weather there was almost always what most people would consider perfect for the time of year. Balmy summers, crisp autumns, glittering winters, gentle springs. None of that dismal, grey, seasonless gloom and drizzle that was so pervasive in the rest of the region. Sure, there was precipitation, but most of it seemed to happen quietly, in the middle of the night; you went to bed and woke up to the gleam of sunlight on freshly fallen snow or birdsong on a fresh, dewy spring morning. It even looked like something out of a pastoral fantasy: quaint stone cottages and grassy meadows bordered by a babbling brook and a wood full of ancient oaks and yews that had probably been there for a thousand years. And over it all, a sky so blue it looked fake, dotted with fluffy cumulus clouds that looked like fat, contented sheep or the back of a certain maddening Chief Meteorologist’s head.

All in all, the prevailing weather in Tadfield wasn’t exactly conducive to storm chasing.

Except when it was. Because the thing was, on the rare occasions that it really, truly stormed in Tadfield, it was more often than not a sight to behold. The likelihood of seeing something rare and remarkable, as atmospheric phenomena went, was rather higher than normal. Thunderclaps that boomed and rumbled so loudly you felt the reverberations all the way down to your toes, forked lightning close enough that you could smell the charge in the air, hailstones the size of apples, that sort of thing. It had even supposedly rained fish there once, although Crowley hadn't seen it for himself.

Tadfield's storms tended to be short and fierce and very hard to predict, developing rapidly from tiny, insignificant storm cells that showed as mere blips on the radar until they were nearly upon you. Every storm chaser in the south of England dreamed of catching one.

Late one evening, a few years ago, Crowley had been driving idly about when he'd spotted a furiously roiling mass of thunderheads coalescing on the horizon. He’d literally chased that storm through the countryside right up until it had broken spectacularly just before midnight, right over Tadfield. The resulting cloudburst would have been a dramatic enough experience on its own, but Crowley had had the luck of the devil that night. (Fittingly, it had been Halloween, and properly spooky, with the wind rustling eerily through the wood and some animal – someone's dog, probably, but it might very well have been a wolf – howling distantly in the background.)

It had turned out to be the one and only time in his life he’d ever seen ball lightning, and he’d managed to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to catch the whole thing on camera. The night had been dark, with heavy cloud cover obscuring the moon and only a handful of lights still burning in the sleeping village. Crowley had been standing at the edge of a field beside the Bentley, slowly panning his lens across the sky. The more commonplace, forked sort of lightning which he'd been in the midst of filming was plentiful and impressive in its own right, but the eerie, bluish-white orb was in another class altogether. It had seemed to materialize out of nowhere, hovering in place for several seconds at eye level at the far end of the meadow, against the dark backdrop of the woods. Crowley had nearly dropped the camera in shock before his instincts had kicked in and he'd zoomed in to catch the glowing sphere as it shivered and spun and sparked. It had then drifted parallel to the ground for several seconds before bursting with a loud pop and a flash of blinding light, leaving behind a distinct smell of ozone and a prickling, tangible electricity in the air, the kind that made the hairs stand up all over your body.

Crowley had seen a lot of strange weather events and a good deal more lightning than most people, and even he'd found the ball lightning awe-inspiring and a bit humbling. As he'd narrated to his camera at the time, if he'd been the superstitious sort, he'd have been tempted to think it was a visitation by an angel or a harbinger of the Apocalypse. Be not afraid or be very, very afraid. Take your pick.

That video had, unsurprisingly, gone viral. It had made him a recognizable name – well, among weather afficionados anyway – and more than doubled his follower count. For the first time since he'd started this whole storm chasing thing, he'd felt like he'd finally made it. It was still the video with the single highest number of views on his channel, and every so often it went viral all over again, usually accompanied by spirited debates about whether or not he'd faked it. For all that he knew the footage to be one hundred percent genuine and would defend it (and his own trustworthiness) with everything he had, Crowley couldn't really blame the naysayers for thinking he'd made it all up – prior to seeing it with his own eyes, he hadn't really believed that ball lightning was real either.

The thing about Tadfield was that you had to be lucky. Very, very lucky. Lightning didn't strike twice, as they said, and ball lightning, according to the skeptics, didn't even strike once. Crowley had never managed to catch another storm, or another unexpected windfall, like that since.

Aziraphale, predictably, insisted it was all science. Tadfield, as he'd told Crowley during one of their conversations in the park, had an optimal microclimate because it was located right where two different major air currents met. (The specific term he'd used had been "kissed," accompanied by a little fluttery brush of the fingertips of one hand against those of the other. Very scientific, that.) Most of the time this meant pleasant weather, blue skies, and gentle breezes, but occasionally two incompatible air masses would collide, resulting in those infamous, dramatic storms. The storm fronts were, as Aziraphale had poetically put it, "the inevitable consequence of two independent systems doing a complicated dance around and with each other, something clashing and harmonious all at once."

Crowley, rationally, knew most of this already. What he didn’t know was how to build and analyze the forecasting models that could predict these storms and others like them hours or even days in advance. In contrast, Aziraphale was, as he'd informed Crowley with not a small amount of pride, quite good at predicting Tadfield’s mercurial weather. Only Agnes Nutter had been better, back in her day. But even Aziraphale had to admit, at the end of a rambling, animated spiel about barometric pressure and convective currents and waterspouts (the last in reference to the rain of fish), that there was "a larger-than-normal element of serendipity" about Tadfield, about its flash storms that seemed to coalesce out of nowhere and blow away just as fast.

For one thing, there was the Christmas snow. For all that you had to be lucky to catch a storm any other day in Tadfield, you were practically guaranteed to find one if you went there the night before Christmas. Something like forty-five out of the last fifty of the Christmases in Tadfield had been white. People liked to call it a "Christmas miracle". It wasn't, of course, but even the most cutting-edge meteorological science couldn't adequately explain the phenomenon. (The same, incidentally, was true of ball lightning.)

Whatever the cause, the snowstorm would inevitably dump a thick, fluffy layer of snow, enough for snowmen and snowball fights and whatever other sort of storybook White Christmas nonsense you could think of. Crowley had been excited about this when he’d first been starting out, and there was no denying he'd gotten some great footage there in past years. These days, however, now that he was more experienced and perhaps also more jaded, he preferred to avoid the circus. It seemed like everyone in a two-hundred-mile radius descended upon the place every year, from the professional storm chasers like himself to the opportunistic Instagrammers who just wanted to take selfies of themselves making snow angels for likes. You couldn't film anywhere on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day in Tadfield without some clown getting in the way and messing up your perfect shot.

And it wasn't just storm chasers and wannabe influencers. He'd found a clip online of Aziraphale reporting on location a couple of years ago from Tadfield. It had been Christmas morning, because Aziraphale was not the sort to go out in the wee hours of the night to get cold and wet and miserable in a blizzard at any time, much less Christmas Eve. The snow, which had fallen steadily overnight, had stopped at sunrise, leaving the landscape painted a gleaming, picture-perfect white beneath a clear, brilliant blue sky. Scattered snowflakes blew loose from the branches and glittered and winked in the sunlight. Some children had been having a snowball fight in the background, and someone had handed Aziraphale a snowball, which he’d effortlessly thrown in a glorious overhand arc off into the distant, snow-capped pines. In his camel coat and festive red tartan scarf, with his pink cheeks and beaming smile and pale hair practically glowing in the winter sun, he looked like he belonged in an old fashioned postcard of an idyllic Christmas morning scene.

Ordinarily Crowley was rather cynical about this sort of trite, generic holiday sentiment, but Aziraphale was positively radiating warmth and sincerity and genuine happiness. It made Crowley wish he'd been there. It made him want to find out just exactly how strong Aziraphale was underneath all those layers of cashmere and tartan, that he could throw a snowball like that. It made him want to do something silly and lighthearted and mischievous like sneak up behind Aziraphale and drop a handful of snow down the back of his neck, just to make him shriek. It made him want to offer to help warm Aziraphale up again afterwards. All in good fun, of course.

In any case, it wasn't Christmas or even Halloween right now. It was just a random Thursday sometime in October, and Crowley was on his way to Tadfield because Aziraphale had emailed him the evening before to invoke their Arrangement.

The gist of his message was that a brief thunderstorm of surprising severity was projected to hit Tadfield the following afternoon. The email had come with an attachment, a detailed map of central Oxfordshire marked up with the storm's prospective path across the area. It was superficially similar to the maps that Aziraphale showed on television, only less made-for-TV slick and far more scientific, far more real. It hadn't been dumbed down for the public. Crowley had felt a certain secret twinge of pride, looking at the map with all of its fine notation and vectors and measurements, that Aziraphale had chosen to share it with him.

…As per our Arrangement, in return for my sharing this information with you, I would very much appreciate if you were to assist me with filming a short piece for a special report to air next week on thunderstorms. Tit for tat, as they say. Tadfield tomorrow seems like the perfect opportunity to capture some footage. I've run half a dozen models and I'm as certain of the storm as I could be – it is Tadfield, after all, and Tadfield likes to keep us all on our toes, as I'm sure you're aware.

Do you know the meadow on the northern edge of town, near the entrance to Hogback Wood? It's famous for remarkable lightning strikes, I'm told. I'll be there at half three. I do hope you'll be able to join me.

Crowley knew exactly the place he was talking about. It had been where he'd seen the ball lightning. His one in a million stroke of luck. In fact, his video was a large part of the reason for that particular meadow's reputation, at least on the Internet. Even Aziraphale, who claimed not to pay attention to social media, had to know that, didn't he?

Crowley arrived in Tadfield nearly twenty minutes early, an occurrence that he attributed entirely to the Bentley's optimal performance and not at all to how much he was looking forward to getting to film Aziraphale again. Still, it would not do to show up unfashionably early, so he took his time driving at a leisurely pace around the perimeter of town, filming some establishing shots of the storm clouds rolling in over the ridiculously picturesque village and surrounding landscape. It felt strange to be ahead of the storm for once instead of speeding wildly after it, thanks to Aziraphale's inside information.

When he rolled up to the meadow at precisely half three, Aziraphale was already waiting. He was standing alone, hands clasped before him and back straight, looking contemplatively at the woods and the steel-grey clouds blowing in over them. He looked up at the sound of the car door slamming, and his face broke into a broad, pleased smile.

"Crowley! There you are!"

Crowley ignored the little swoopy feeling in his stomach and whatever his own face was doing at the moment, and sauntered over. There was nobody else in sight.

"Hiya, angel. Have you been waiting long?"

"No, only a few minutes."

"Did you drive here? I don’t see a car."

"No. I haven't got a vehicle of my own, and I didn’t want to take one of the news vans and have to bother with returning it to the station later tonight. Newt was kind enough to give me a lift. His girlfriend lives just down the road, so he was planning on coming this way today anyway. I think he was pleased when I told him I wouldn't need him to operate the camera this afternoon."

"I'm sure the camera is pleased too. It gets to live another day. So Newt's girlfriend lives here in Tadfield then?"

"Yes. Anathema. She's a lovely young lady. Rather terrifyingly intelligent – she got her first PhD in her early twenties, and is working on her second, I believe."

"She's a fan of mine. Of course she's intelligent."

"Well, even the smartest among us have our blind spots," remarked Aziraphale drily. "But, in all seriousness, it's no surprise she's a veritable genius, given who her grandmother is. Oh! That reminds me, I meant to mention last time – I'd appreciate if you could keep the fact that Newt is seeing Anathema between the two of us. It's not a secret, exactly, but it would be, shall we say, a wee bit of a scandal if some of the people back at the station knew about them."

"Yeah, of course. Not like I talk to anyone at your station anyway. And from what you've said about them, I'd prefer to keep it that way. But just out of curiosity, can I ask why it would be a scandal? I can’t believe Newt would ever be involved in anything dodgy. He seems properly wholesome, that one. Probably eats all his veg and calls his mum every day."

"He lives with his mum actually."

"See? My point exactly."

"Anyway, you're not wrong. It’s not so much Newt and Anathema themselves, as their families. But that's a bit of an involved story. I'll tell you all about it later if you like. If I get into it right now, we'll miss the main event, and that would be quite the shame after we've come all the way out here." Aziraphale gestured toward the looming layers of cloud above them, which had indeed reached critical mass while they'd been talking.

"Yeah, ok. Lemme just set up my equipment," said Crowley. His mind shifted immediately into filming mode, and he scanned their surroundings for inspiration while setting up his camera and tripod. "I think you should stand over there, with the forest behind you to the left. That way, we'll get the river on the other side, and see how the clouds look like they're just rolling along the surface of the water there? That'll look terrific on camera, with the reflection and all. And the light's absolutely perfect."

"All right," said Aziraphale, sounding bemused and indulgent.

"I'm guessing you'd rather film your bit now, before it really starts coming down, yeah?"

"That would be correct. I'll leave all the yelling over the wind and getting drenched to you, if it's all the same. I prefer not to be soggy on camera. Or afterwards, for that matter."

"Works out perfectly then."

They got down to business. Just as it had been the week before, working with Aziraphale felt easy and comfortable. This had been a shock to Crowley the first time around, and he still found it somewhat astonishing now. He'd always done his own thing; if asked, he would have said without hesitation that he didn't work well with others. The thought of making his videos with a partner, like Hastur and Ligur, had never appealed to him before. But this was undeniably fun, filming someone else for a change and getting to watch him through the lens in real time. Bouncing ideas off each other and bickering good-naturedly between takes. Maybe he was less of a lone wolf than he'd thought. Or maybe it was just Aziraphale.

It didn't hurt either that Aziraphale was utterly charming in front of the camera, talking animatedly about the science behind thunderstorms and flashing that brilliant smile of his. His genuine passion for the subject translated exceedingly well to film, as did his natural charm. What was more, the wind had picked up during filming, lifting the ends of Aziraphale's tartan scarf and giving his hair an attractive, tousled look. It looked like it would be very nice to run one's fingers through.

"That'll do nicely, I think," declared Aziraphale after they'd reviewed the last take. "Although I do wish my hair hadn't gotten quite so windblown in these later takes."

"Trust me, it looks good," insisted Crowley. "Really good. Makes you want to touch it."

sh*t, he hadn't meant to say that last bit out loud.

"I—I suppose I'll just call Newt now, and get out of your hair. I'm sure you have some filming of your own to do."

Aziraphale's cheeks had gone pink. It was an unfairly good look with the fluffy hair.

"Oh, let Newt have some more time with his lady friend, angel. Tell you what. If you hang around while I do my thing, we can go get a pint afterwards, or even an early dinner. I passed a nice-looking pub down in the village square earlier. Unless you've gotta get back to work or something?"

"No, I took the rest of the day off. And that does sound tempting. I've been craving a nice fish and chips."

"And you did say you'd tell me about the thing with Newt and Anathema's families."

"You're right, I did."

"I'm simply dying of curiosity. And thirst. So, pub afterwards then? I'll get the first round."

"All right," said Aziraphale, stepping back and unfurling his large tartan umbrella just as the rain began coming down in earnest.

It took Crowley less time than he'd expected to record his own video. This was partly because of the storm, which was just as wild and quick-moving as Tadfield's reputation and Aziraphale's models had predicted it would be, partly because he was impatient to get to the pub, and partly because he had an audience. It was just as exhilarating now as it had been the day they'd met to have someone to perform for. The footage, from the quick once-over he'd given it, looked incredible – sharp and dramatic and dynamic.

"Alright, angel, all done. Just lemme drop my stuff in the Bentley, and then pub-ward we shall go."

Crowley deposited his camera equipment in the backseat of the Bentley, and then bent to rummage beneath the seat for a towel and a dry shirt. He was drenched from head to toe. You had to be willing to suffer a little discomfort for the sake of a good shot sometimes. And a wet shirt always, always, made for a good shot.

"I learned early on to always keep a spare shirt in the car," he said to Aziraphale as he toweled off his hair. "Comes in handy surprisingly often."

Aziraphale, who of course had stayed smug and dry beneath his tartan umbrella the entire time, rolled his eyes. He did not, however, look away.

The direct, expectant expression in his eyes was practically a challenge, if you asked Crowley. So what else was he to do but arch his back and shimmy his shoulders and make a bit of a show out of pulling that wet henley off over his head?

There truly was nothing else like having a live audience. He could get used to this. He really could.

Still, one could only spend so long preening in the backseat of one's Bentley without a shirt on. It was cold, for one thing. He really did want to go get that drink with Aziraphale, for another, and a local village pub was not exactly the sort of place one could just saunter into shirtless like it was the most normal thing in the world. (Truthfully, Crowley did not generally go to places where one could do that, but he did not advertise that fact.) And so, after treating himself to a very satisfying long stretch and taking a minute to sweep his damp hair up out of his face and into a half-bun, he slipped on the dry shirt, sighing at the pleasant warmth of the fabric on his chilled skin, and caught Aziraphale's eye.

"There. Much better. Nothing to be done about the wet trousers though, I'm afraid. Pub?"

Aziraphale insisted that Crowley join him underneath the umbrella lest he ruin yet another shirt on the brief walk over. Crowley acquiesced, although not without a bit of grumbling that he'd rather look like a drowned rat than be caught dead in such close proximity to tartan. Still, it was only a five-minute walk he had to endure beneath the tartan, and they had to keep close together to both stay dry, and he could smell Aziraphale's cologne. And when they reached the door of the pub, he found himself regretting that the walk had not been longer.

A few minutes later, they were happily ensconced in a corner booth with two pints of the house brown. Crowley raised his glass and offered a toast.

"Here's to the Arrangement. Worked out well, if you ask me."

"I'll drink to that," replied Aziraphale, clinking his glass against Crowley's. "And to Tadfield."

"To Tadfield! And to storms," said Crowley, taking a sip. He felt warm and giddy with good fortune. "We should name this storm. Y'know, like your lot do with the big, important ones."

"Well, it's traditional to start with the letter A, and go alphabetically."

"Hurricane Aziraphale. I like it."

"I will not let you name this thing after me," protested Aziraphale, turning his mouth down into an unfairly adorable pout. "And we don't get hurricanes in the UK, anyway. Try again."

(Crowley knew perfectly well that there were no hurricanes in their part of the world. Even still, the way that Aziraphale had blown into his life resembled nothing so much as a hurricane.)

"Fine. How 'bout Adam?"

"The first man. Very appropriate. Well, cheers to Storm Adam! You know, now that we've named it, I feel strangely protective of it."

"Ha. We can be its … godfathers, or something."

"Godfathers! I'll be damned. Well, then, I hope we have many more thunderous godchildren in our future. Did you know, we only go to W when naming storms? There's no Q, U, X, Y, or Z for some reason. Although in most years, of course, we don't get all the way through."

"I hope we get all the way to W. I've always wanted to name a storm Warlock."

"That's twenty more storms, not counting this one. It's unlikely, but possible."

Twenty more chances to invoke the Arrangement. Twenty more chances to do this again.

"I'm feeling lucky, angel," said Crowley, grinning and draining his glass. And he really was. "Another? And that fish and chips you were craving, yeah?"

"Oh, yes, please, if you wouldn't mind."

Over their fish and chips, Aziraphale told Crowley about the skeleton in Newt's closet.

"I'm sure you remember the Agnes Nutter scandal a few years ago, yes?"

"Yeah, who doesn't? It was all Weather Twitter could talk about for ages. It was a witch hunt. Al Pulsifer was a piece of sh*t, and he got exactly what he deserved in the end, if you ask me."

"I agree. It was shameful really. I don't know how anyone, much less the majority of the leadership at Channel 10, believed Pulsifer's accusations for as long as they did. They didn't even make any logical sense! How on Earth does one fake the weather report? Particularly when it's more accurate than everyone else's! And yes, Agnes was eccentric and unconventional, and had a tendency to be overly dramatic in her delivery, but anyone with half a brain could see that her science was impeccable. I have nothing but respect for her. She was simply the best meteorologist in the country. Still is."

"Just pure jealousy on his part, I should think. Everyone knew she was the best thing about that news programme, and Pulsifer was a terrible anchor."

"It was a smear campaign, pure and simple. You're right when you called it a witch hunt."

"Didn't Pulsifer also tweet something really unhinged about Satanic influences?"

"Yes. He changed his story halfway through, and started spouting nonsense about how she was a witch, and that was why she was so good at predicting the weather. I think that was when people finally began to realize that he might not be trustworthy, and the tide of public opinion finally started turning in Agnes' favor. Something that was far too long in coming, if you ask me."

"Well, you know how people can be. Mob mentality and all."

"I wanted to say something when it first happened, you know. I wrote a strongly worded letter in Agnes' defense, and I wanted to read it on air, but Gabriel and Michael said absolutely not, and the producers backed them up. And I was too afraid, what with everything going on, to insist. I regret that a bit, now," admitted Aziraphale, looking down at the table.

"You had your reasons, angel," said Crowley softly. "Nobody would blame you. Besides, everyone knows the truth now. Even if it took them far too long to come to their senses."

"Yes, once people really started looking into Pulsifer's accusations, it became very obvious that not a single one had any merits. The station, of course, fired him and tried to apologize to Agnes, but she was having none of it. She quit on live television, if you remember. It was quite the spectacle. Walked right out in the middle of the primetime news broadcast, and filed a defamation suit against Pulsifer and the station the very next day. Which she won handily, of course, especially when those other former colleagues of Pulsifer's came forward with their own stories."

"Good for her," said Crowley admiringly. "What's she up to these days?"

"Enjoying retirement out in the country. She's fabulously wealthy, from what I gather – she got a rather significant sum from the lawsuit, and apparently is quite the dab hand at investments. She still attends the annual Meteorology Society conference and keeps up with the latest science. The name Pulsifer, on the other hand, is practically a dirty word in the industry these days."

"Yeah, well, it should be. Can't say I have any sympathy."

"But there's the rub, because Newt's full name is Newton Pulsifer."

"Well, sh*t."

"Quite. Al Pulsifer is Newt's uncle. And while, yes, I agree with you that Al got his just desserts in the end, there was some collateral damage. Specifically in the form of consequences for those unlucky enough to be related to him."

"Oof. Poor kid."

"Newt had the most dreadful timing too, through no fault of his own. He'd just graduated uni when this whole kerfuffle with Agnes and his uncle happened, and you can just imagine how much success he had trying to find an assistant television meteorologist position then."

"He's lucky he found you. It was good of you to take a chance on him."

"I'm a good judge of character. Besides, one only has to meet Newt to know he's nothing like his uncle. You said so yourself earlier, there's no one less likely to do something scandalous."

"Still a big risk to take on. Not sure I would've done it."

"I think you would have. You're a good person, Crowley."

"Am not. And if you think so, then you're not as great a judge of character as you think."

"We shall just have to agree to disagree on that point. But back to the subject at hand. I'd just placed an advertisem*nt for a personal assistant, and I think by that time Newt was getting desperate. Even still, it took some doing to convince station management to allow me to hire him, and it was only with the stipulation that his name never appear in the broadcast credits.

Honestly, being my assistant is a waste of Newt's talents. He does a good job of it, mind you, well aside from the bit where he keeps breaking the camera, but he really should be an assistant meteorologist at the station, same as Eric. Eric is doing the work of three people right now, which isn't fair to him either. And Newt has all the right credentials, he did maths in uni and then an MSc in meteorology afterwards. He helps me with research and running the models and the like, and he's good at it, but it's all behind the scenes.

I've asked management a few times since to consider giving him a promotion, but they always refuse. They say they couldn't possibly take a chance on a Pulsifer. Which, in a way, I suppose I can understand. The Nutter lawsuit essentially destroyed Channel 10 News after all. But Newt can't help who he's related to. He hasn't even spoken to Al for years. Neither Newt nor his parents were on good terms with Al even before the scandal, but they cut off all contact afterwards."

"That's really f*cking unfair. Poor kid never had a chance, did he?"

"Agreed. And additionally, as you may have already figured out, Anathema's grandmother is none other than the great Agnes Nutter, meteorologist. So you can see why Newt might not want that fact known around the station."

"Couldn't that actually help him though? If people knew Agnes was all right with him?"

"Perhaps it would. But it would also invite more gossip. You know how people can be. Accusations of fraternizing with the enemy, and the like. And Newt is a rather private sort. He'd be absolutely mortified, if not for his own sake, then for that of Anathema and Agnes. It's a bit ironic, really. Knowing Agnes, and Anathema for that matter, it wouldn't bother either of them in the least. Agnes would probably relish the opportunity to put her enemies in their places once again, truth be told. But they both love Newt enough not to put him through that."

"He's fortunate to have them. Still, he's got some rotten luck."

"He does. And short of switching careers altogether, poor Newt doesn't really have very many options. I think he enjoys the research and other things, but I know what he really wants to do is the on-camera bit, the live, on-location reporting, and there's no way management will ever allow that to happen."

"Y'know, he does have other options. Look at me. Not beholden to any management, me. And I get to be in front of the camera whenever I damn well feel like it."

Aziraphale laughed. "Crowley, the only person less likely than Newt to decamp for the wilds of YouTube is me. Can you imagine? We wouldn't have the faintest idea where to even start."

"Yeah, maybe. Was just a thought," said Crowley noncommittally. "So, tell me about that new Shakespeare production you went to see last weekend."

"The Tempest. I think you'd have liked it. And not just because it's named after a storm, since I just know you're about to make that joke."

"I was not," retorted Crowley, even though he had absolutely been just about to make that joke.

Aziraphale simply smirked at him for a moment, before diving enthusiastically into his opinions on the play. One conversational topic led to another, and by the time Crowley thought to look at his phone, he was shocked to find that more than two hours had passed, a fact that he reluctantly conveyed to Aziraphale.

"I suppose I should let you be getting on with your evening then, dear," said Aziraphale. "Although, you've been drinking. Are you quite sure you're sober enough to drive?"

For all Crowley's reputation as a reckless thrill-seeker, he had an ironclad rule to never drive drunk or otherwise impaired. That was far stupider than driving into the heart of a blizzard or thunderstorm, as far as he was concerned. (Besides, he'd never disrespect the Bentley that way.) Therefore, he'd only had two pints, and then switched to water. That had probably been an hour ago, at least. He knew Aziraphale had taken note of this, as he'd also switched to water at the same time, although it was unclear to Crowley whether he'd done so merely out of social consideration or a desire to remain sober himself. The point being, neither of them was anywhere remotely close to drunk, and they both knew it.

"Might not be a bad idea to walk it off a bit first, just to be on the safe side," he said.

"Care for some company? I find I could use some air, myself."

"Sure, yeah."

And so they found themselves strolling idly through the lanes of Tadfield down to the riverbank. The sun had already been low in the sky when they'd wrapped up filming earlier, and it had set while they'd been inside the pub. The last vestiges of the storm had also blown away sometime during that interval, leaving behind a clear, cold night sky full of stars. Crowley paused and looked upward, orienting himself; you could see so many more stars out here than back in the city, but they still formed the same familiar constellations. A moment later he felt Aziraphale come up beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed.

"Do you know the constellations?"

"Most of 'em, yeah."

"It's all a great mystery to me, I have to admit. I can never find anything. It's all so terribly large."

"It's not so complicated if you know where to start."

"Well, go on then. Show me."

"OK, so there's the Big Dipper, right? You probably recognize that one. If you follow the handle that way, it points to Polaris, the North Star. And that really bright one there near the horizon, that's Sirius."

"The Dog Star. The Ancient Greeks believed it was to blame for the oppressive heat of summer. And sudden thunderstorms as well, appropriately enough."

"A good omen, then."

"I rather think they thought it was the opposite, but yes," said Aziraphale, chuckling.

By the time their meandering path brought them back to where he'd parked the Bentley, Sirius was noticeably higher in the sky and it had gotten significantly chillier out, enough so that Crowley could barely feel his fingertips. This was the point where, if he was making a video, he should slide smoothly into the drivers' seat of the Bentley and make a suitably suave and memorable exit. He could envision how it was supposed to go: the purr of the engine fading into the quiet nighttime sounds of the countryside, the headlights vanishing in the distance, the scene fading to black.

Instead, he blew on his fingers to warm them and kept talking to Aziraphale, reluctant to end the night.

"Well," said Aziraphale eventually, "I'll just call Newt then and let him know I’m ready to go."

Sometimes, thought Crowley, when you were feeling lucky, you just had to go for it. It was like the ball lightning – the right place, the right time.

"Aww, c'mon angel, don’t bother poor Newt. Let him enjoy the rest of his night. I can drive you back."

"You're right. Nobody deserves a break more than Newt. If you're quite sure it won't be any trouble?"

"Nah. 'S all good."

"Then I shall take you up on that very generous offer. Thank you very much, my dear."

"Don’t thank me. Have to go back that way myself anyway, don't I?"

Looking at Aziraphale, ensconced in the passenger seat of his Bentley, Crowley was struck by how at home he looked there, in his old-fashioned clothing in Crowley's old-fashioned car.

Not old-fashioned. Classic. f*ck. He really had been hanging around Aziraphale too much lately. Next thing you knew, he'd be wearing tartan and the end times would be upon them.

"Do you really drive into storms in this car?"

"Of course. She’s never failed me, not once," said Crowley, patting the dashboard affectionately. "We treat each other right."

"It doesn't seem like the most efficient choice for a storm chasing vehicle, if you don't mind my saying so. Wouldn't you get better performance from a more modern car?"

"That's funny, coming from you, Mister bow tie and pocket watch," snorted Crowley.

"They don't make timepieces like they used to!"

"Well, they don't make cars like they used to either. She runs like a dream. I've made some after-market modifications, of course. Custom tyres that are better on slick roads, seatbelts, updated exhaust system to reduce emissions, that sort of thing. But nothing too disrespectful. Y’know how other storm chasers have all that equipment - satellite dishes, more antennae than a mutant fly, the works - all over the outside of their cars? It'd be a crime to do that to the Bentley."

"How do you keep up with weather radio then?"

"Replaced the radio with my own custom build that can pick up the right frequencies. It’s all self-contained. Doesn't ruin the aesthetic of the car with all that sh*t on the outside, and works amazingly well. Only quirk is that the tuning tends to wobble a bit, so it'll sometimes randomly switch to that one station that plays Queen songs 24-7."

"It could be worse. It could’ve been that station Gabriel likes that seems to play the Sound of Music all the time. He's particularly fond of blasting it in his dressing room first thing in the morning," said Aziraphale, shuddering slightly. "Oh, but do let's not ruin a perfectly lovely evening by talking about Gabriel. I'm quite impressed by your Bentley, dear. And by your ingenuity."

Aziraphale was rather less impressed, if his alarmed intake of breath and white-knuckled grasp on the grab handle were any indication, by Crowley’s driving. Even still, when they arrived at his place a little less than an hour later, he did not seem to be in a hurry to get out. Instead, he turned in his seat to regard Crowley.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I think that was a very successful inaugural outing for our little Arrangement. It exceeded all my expectations."

"Yeah. I can't wait to see what storms your models dredge up next time."

Crowley cut the engine. Aziraphale's gaze skittered away, to the window and the dark bulk of his building beyond, and then drifted back to Crowley's face. He lifted one hand; it hovered in the air between them, uncertainly. He opened his mouth, then closed it again before any words came out.

For a moment they looked at each other in silence. But then Aziraphale turned away, his hand landing on the door handle where it had probably been headed all along, and said, in a voice so soft it was nearly a whisper, "Good night, Crowley. I'll see you soon."

⛈⚡️⛈⚡️⛈

The thing about being a storm chaser was that you had to be lucky.

All the forecast models and meteorological science and reckless driving in the world could only get you so far. You still had to be in exactly the right place at the right time to capture that one moment when lightning struck, that moment that made your heart beat faster and exhilaration thrill in your veins. You still had to hope and pray that the footage you were recording was usable, because the weather didn't pause and reset for you to get a second take. You still had to have the rare and remarkable, one in a million, perfect storm kind of luck.

Everybody had their little rituals and silly superstitions in this line of work. You had your lucky storm chasing sunglasses, or you kissed your fingertips and pressed them to the hood ornament on your car, or you did a ridiculous-looking dance around the lamp post in front of your building whenever you headed out to film. You made sure to twirl around it clockwise, because that was the way storms spun in the Northern Hemisphere. And maybe none of it did a damned thing, but there was always the off chance that it did.

Crowley was beginning to think that his lucky charm might be Aziraphale.

In any case, he must be doing something right lately, because he'd never felt luckier in all his life. The Arrangement might be the best thing to happen to him since he'd caught the ball lightning, entirely by luck, in Tadfield years ago.

(Purely from a professional standpoint, of course. Of course.)

Chapter 4: Jurassic Park and chill

Chapter Text

"You sure you don't want me to film you now? We've got time."

"The segment I've got planned for next week has nothing to do with storms, or rain. There are other sorts of weather, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You told me. Clouds. The silly, fluffy, boring sort."

"You're entitled to your opinion."

"I still don't know why you're insisting on filming your bloody clouds at seven in the morning on a Saturday when we could be sleeping in like normal people. The things I do for you, angel."

"Well, I don't see why you always insist on waiting until the last possible minute to leave when I've told you exactly when and where the storm is going to be hours in advance. And yet, here we are."

And yet here they were. Here being a wide-open expanse of grass on the outskirts of the city that in drier weather served as some sort of sports field. Today, it had provided sweeping vistas and clear, unimpeded shots of the storm that had struck mere minutes after they'd arrived. Aziraphale and Crowley were currently seated on a bench at the perimeter, the former having first fastidiously wiped the rain from his end with a handkerchief, the latter simply plopping his already rain-soaked arse right down onto the wet wood. Crowley was attempting to review the footage he'd just shot, although Aziraphale seemed hell-bent on distracting him.

"I'm a storm chaser, Aziraphale. Not a storm sit-and-wait-for-it-er. Half the fun's in the chase. The anticipation. The will-he-or-won't-he be too late of it all."

That being said, Crowley did appreciate that he was almost never actually too late these days. He liked that he could plan a route ahead of time, to avoid traffic. People did not tune in to his channel to watch the Bentley crawl down the M25 at three bloody miles an hour. He also appreciated being able to mark out potential filming locations along the way, so that he could avoid having to figure out a way after the fact to make dull, unphotogenic settings look compelling. He'd once been caught flat-footed by a particularly speedy storm in the middle of a suburban housing development. Figuring out how to make things look dramatic against a backdrop of rows and rows of soul-suckingly identical beige houses had required some creative (Aziraphale would no doubt have said reckless) driving and a heavy reliance on jump cuts in the finished product. The editing process for that video had taken forever, and it had not been at all fun.

Sure, Crowley still cut it close (too close if you asked Aziraphale) these days, but he was much more well-prepared and less anxious about the whole thing than he used to be, and there was significantly less work on the back end to turn the raw footage into something that people would want to watch. And that was all due to the Arrangement, and Aziraphale's admittedly excellent inside information, not that he was about to give Aziraphale the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Really, my dear. You were doing 90 down Oxford Street! Someone could have been killed!"

"But nobody was, were they? And no one said you had to come along for the ride anyway."

"I had a craving for hot cocoa," said Aziraphale matter-of-factly. "And the café we passed on the way here has the best, but I rarely have cause to come in this direction. It seemed only efficient."

"Wait, I thought you liked the one from the French place near—"

Aziraphale took a sip of the beverage in question, flicked the tip of his tongue out to lick a stray droplet from his upper lip, and gave Crowley a pointed look.

"Um, right. Best cocoa in town. Yup. Definitely. Nothing better."

"Indeed."

"But might I also point out that if someone hadn't insisted on stopping for cocoa along the way, we wouldn't have had to drive quite so fast to get here in time. So there." Crowley waggled his hand triumphantly in the air in Aziraphale's direction, and pronounced sagely, "The weather waits for no thirsty angels."

"Thirsty angels plan ahead for the weather," retorted Aziraphale. "Unlike some impulsive fiends of their acquaintance."

"Nobody's tuning in to watch me plan ahead. There's no drama in that."

"Oh, that reminds me. Speaking of drama, we had a bit of a to-do at the station this morning. There's an older gentleman who's taken to loitering on the sidewalk in front of the building in the mornings. I don't like to be uncharitable, but unhinged really is the most apt word to describe him. He's always shouting about one thing or another, and only about twenty-five percent of it, on a good day, makes any sense whatsoever. He seems to be trying to get people to join some sort of organization. An army, I think, although I'm not entirely sure it actually exists outside of his head."

"Sounds like a real winner."

"Apparently he accosted poor Newt this morning. Gave him a pin, a great big pointy hat-pin sort of thing, and told him to stick me with it. Can you even imagine?"

"What the hell did he think was going to happen?"

"From what Newt could gather, this fellow thinks I'm some sort of witch, although what sticking me with a pin has to do with it I've no idea."

"What, that old Pulsifer bullsh*t again? You're a witch because you predict the weather? I can't believe anyone in this day and age would buy into that."

"Evidently someone does. And what's more, as if telling Newt to stab me wasn't enough, he told him to find out how many nipples I had! Thank goodness security stepped in not long after and escorted him off the premises. Apparently several other people in the building had already complained that he demanded to know how many nipples they had too. Of all the—"

"Wait wait wait," broke in Crowley, "Did you say nipples?"

"Yes! Can you imagine anything more inappropriate? The man is a public nuisance, I tell you."

"Oh my god. Oh my f*cking god. I can't believe this," said Crowley, throwing his head back and bursting into uproarious laughter.

Aziraphale looked perplexed. "What? It's not that funny, Crowley."

Crowley snorted, and struggled to speak through the overwhelming hilarity. "You don't understand, angel. It really, really is that f*cking funny. Here, look at this."

He pulled up the comments section from his latest video on his phone and showed it to Aziraphale. The most recent was from someone calling themselves Lieutenant Tin. It was a rambling, incoherent screed, several paragraphs long, in which the words witchcraft and nipples both featured prominently.

"I'm pretty sure your public nuisance is my biggest, most longstanding troll. I refuse to believe that there's more than one of him out there anyway. He comments on every single one of my videos, and every single one is about nipples."

"Good lord," said Aziraphale, handing the phone back to Crowley.

"This has been going on for months. I keep blocking and reporting him, and he keeps making new accounts. At this point I think he's running out of household objects to name them after. I hope for your sake he loses interest in you more quickly."

"Well, you have to admire his persistence, I suppose."

"For the record, I've got two."

"What?"

"Nipples. Two nipples. Not a single one more or less. Just in case you were wondering. You can check if you don't believe me."

"I'm quite sure that won't be necessary," Aziraphale said, shooting a pointed glance at Crowley's chest.

Crowley's was wearing a deep maroon silk shirt that shouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did with his red hair. It was one of his favorites (and the only one that wasn't black); judging by the comments, it was also a favorite among his viewers. Today, he'd gone the extra mile and left not only his typical first and second buttons undone, but a somewhat daring third as well. And as silk was wont to do, it had the tendency to become slightly sheer and rather clingy when it got rained upon. At the moment the shape of Crowley's (two, thank you very much) nipples, which had pebbled up from the contact of the chilly, wet fabric against his chest, were very clearly discernible through it.

"Hey, it's gotten cold, OK?"

It had gotten cold, and looked like it might even start raining again. Even though the brunt of the storm had passed, the wind had kicked up again with a vengeance in the past few minutes. He might as well have been wearing nothing, for all the good the thin, wet silk did him against its chilly bite. The sun, which had come out briefly, was quickly being obscured by dark clouds once more. A few fat droplets splattered against Crowley's sunglasses; he took them off in irritation, shook off the rain, and hooked them into the vee of his shirt.

There was a familiar click and whoosh as a large tartan umbrella unfolded over the far end of the bench. The smug half-smile on Aziraphale's face beneath it was equally familiar.

"Do you take that thing everywhere? 'S like your own personal security blanket."

"You're welcome to share, if you like. There's plenty of room."

"Eh, I'll survive. It's just a bit of rain, I've been caught out in worse."

"Oh, I wasn't worried about you. But it can't be good for your camera. Might I remind you that you did promise to film me on Saturday morning? Which I imagine would be rather difficult without a functional camera. I might as well just bring Newt in that case. He doesn't talk back."

"What's poor Newt done to deserve giving up his Saturday morning to hang out with you?" asked Crowley, sticking his tongue out at Aziraphale. "Fine. I just have to do one thing first."

He handed Aziraphale the video camera for safekeeping, then stood up, reaching for the sunglasses hooked into the dip of his shirt. The weight of them had pulled the neckline down even lower than before, revealing a flash of auburn chest hair, and it gave him an idea. A slightly ridiculous idea, admittedly, but an extremely tempting one. He bit his lip, considering, and snuck a glance at Aziraphale, who was definitely looking at his chest now in a way that seemed simultaneously judgmental and eager.

What the hell, thought Crowley. Why not?

Before he could second-guess himself, he quickly undid the remaining buttons on his shirt. What had been an arguably coy wedge of bare chest now became a long stripe of pale, rain-splattered skin dusted with red hair and framed on either side by the open plackets. He considered untucking the shirt altogether, letting it be caught by the wind, then decided against it. The deep red silk billowing around his bare torso would make for a dramatic shot, but it was, perhaps, a bit much.

A drop of rain landed in the divot between his collarbones and trickled down the newly exposed expanse of his chest. It was cold and ticklish and not particularly pleasant, but Crowley didn't wipe it away, because he could see how Aziraphale's eyes were following as it slowly made its way toward his navel. Instead, he nonchalantly slipped on his sunglasses, rolled his shoulders, and extracted his phone from his back pocket.

"Crowley, what on earth are you doing?"

"Just getting a quick shot for Instagram. It'll only take a minute."

He took several selfies in quick succession, then looked them over with a critical eye. They were too obviously selfies, he decided: the angle wasn't quite right, and there wasn't enough distance between himself and the camera. Any one of them would undoubtedly get plenty of likes on Instagram, but Crowley was a perfectionist. He was sure he could do better. All he needed was a photographer who wasn't himself, and, would you look at that, there was a likely candidate right there in front of him, ready if not entirely willing.

He held the phone out to Aziraphale.

"Do me a favor, angel, and take a couple shots for me? And then I promise I'll get under that umbrella of yours."

Aziraphale sighed, took the phone, and pointed it in Crowley's direction. "Fine. Say cheese."

"No."

"Do you want me to take a photo or not?"

"f*ck you," said Crowley. He struck a pose and said, archly, "cheddar." He heard Aziraphale snort, followed by the click of the phone's camera. "Gruyere." Click. "Brie." Click. "Stilton. Blech. Not a blue cheese fan, me." A giggle and another click. "That one that sounds like some middle-aged accountant. Wensley-something. The one with fruity bits in."

"Wensleydale," said Aziraphale, unable to contain his laughter any longer. "With cranberries." His mirth was infectious, and Crowley couldn't help but join in.

Aziraphale snapped several more photos, then lifted his other hand, the one holding the umbrella, and rested it against the back of the bench in clear invitation. "There, I think that should do. Now get over here before you get any wetter and colder, you ridiculous man. Or before you drive me straight into the loving embrace of the nearest cheese shop."

"Fine," said Crowley, ducking underneath the umbrella and sitting down next to Aziraphale. "I'm not getting rained on any more. Happy?"

"There now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

The umbrella was monstrously large, well able to comfortably fit two adults beneath its canopy without either of them having to make the choice between getting up close and personal with the other or letting one half of their body become soaked. They were, however, speaking quietly, in low tones that were difficult to hear over the sound of the rain and wind unless they leaned in close, inclining their heads toward one another. Never mind that they both knew exactly how to pitch their voices to make themselves heard in all sorts of cacophonous weather conditions; it wasn't like either of them was on camera right now.

The sleeve on the arm holding the umbrella aloft brushed against Crowley's back. He shifted his weight, extended a leg, and tentatively leaned back, just a little. He was just trying to get comfortable, should anyone ask what he was doing.

Seeking warmth fell under getting comfortable, after all. Wet silk was not particularly good at keeping one warm. Nor was having one's shirt unbuttoned down to one's waist, if one wanted to get technical about it.

The barely-there brush of fabric against his back became warmer and more substantial. Crowley tensed for a moment, but when Aziraphale did not say anything or shy away, leaned back further and more deliberately, slouching down a little for good measure. Aziraphale's forearm was solidly pressed against his shoulder blade now, and his body heat was palpable through their clothing, counteracting the chill of the damp silk and the bite of the wind.

Now that he seemed to have stopped shivering, Crowley flicked through the photos Aziraphale had taken. There were over a dozen of them, some full body shots and some zoomed in, the latter rather nicely highlighting the way the open placket of the shirt framed Crowley's bare, rain-splashed chest and abdomen. In the last few, he had his head thrown back in a full-throated laugh. He was surprised how much he liked those. Usually he opted for a mischievous smirk or a mysterious smolder when taking these sorts of selfies, but perhaps he needed to reconsider for next time.

Or perhaps he just needed to convince Aziraphale to take them for him again. Aziraphale, who apparently had a hidden talent for thirst trap photography.

"These are great, angel. You've got a knack for it."

"Beginner's luck, perhaps."

"Thanks, anyway. I owe you. Or, hey, lemme know if you ever want me to return the favor."

"Return the favor?"

"Sure. You loosen that bow tie, maybe pop open a couple of buttons on your shirt, I take a couple photos for you, post 'em online, Weather Twitter loses its sh*t. It'll double your popularity overnight."

Aziraphale with his throat and collarbones showing would be a one-hit knockout. Of that Crowley was absolutely certain, even though he, regrettably, had no first-hand knowledge.

"Oh good lord, no. Absolutely not," said Aziraphale in a scandalized voice.

"Well, consider it a standing offer, if you ever change your mind."

"I shan't, but thank you anyway."

Well, it had been worth a try. It had always been a long shot.

"Guess I should pick one of these to post. Which one do you like?"

"I don't know. They all look fine to me. But I'm certain that I'm not at all your target audience."

"C'mon, you've got to have a favorite. You took them, after all."

"I'm sure I don't have an opinion."

"You expect me to believe that you, Aziraphale Fell, don't have an opinion about something? Riiiiight. Try again."

"Oh, fine. If it'll get you to drop it, I like that one."

"There now, that wasn't so hard, was it?" sniped Crowley, in nearly perfect mimicry of Aziraphale's earlier tone.

"Touché."

The photo Aziraphale had chosen was a shot of Crowley's head and torso, ending just below the belt. He'd caught Crowley in the moment right before he'd started laughing in earnest, his head thrown back so that his neck was stretched out long and taut, tendons and muscles and Adam's apple all on glorious display.

And that was just before you got down below the collarbones.

In the photograph, the edges of Crowley's shirt were just barely covering his nipples, but there was no mistaking the shape of them, small and round and pert, beneath the clinging silk. He had the cold to thank for that. Mostly.

It was significantly warmer now, underneath the umbrella with Aziraphale radiating body heat beside him. Not that Crowley's nipples seemed to have gotten the memo just yet.

"Maybe I should tag Lieutenant Pisspot, or whatever he's calling himself these days. Look! Nipples! Count 'em, two!"

"Don't encourage him."

"You're probably right. He'll just claim I've got one on my bum or something. Which I don't, by the way."

"I wasn't going to ask."

"You were wondering though. Hey, have you got an Instagram so I can credit you for the photo?"

"That won't be necessary."

"You sure?"

"Quite."

"Your loss," said Crowley. He shrugged, the motion pushing his shoulder more firmly against Aziraphale's forearm. "You know, I was thinking about putting together a calendar. One photo a month, you know, that sort of thing. This one's definitely a contender. And, of course, there's gotta be a couple of me with the Bentley. Is it even a calendar if it doesn't have a picture of a hot car?"

"Good lord, where would one even put such a thing?"

"Your office. Kitchen. By the front door. Wherever you usually hang a calendar."

"I should think that's more the sort of thing one keeps in one's bedside drawer. Hypothetically, of course."

"Hey, as long as people buy it, I don't care where they want to keep it."

"Well, you know your audience better than I. And as I shan't be buying one, my opinion really shouldn't matter."

"Well, you're in luck, angel, cause you wouldn't have to buy it. You'd get a copy gratis, since you're the photographer and all."

"Oh, you really shouldn't have. Your generosity knows no bounds."

Crowley posted his photo to Instagram, then immediately slipped the phone into his pocket, ignoring the comment notifications that were already beginning to come in. He removed his sunglasses, tipped his head back to stare at the tartan pattern over their heads, and took a deep breath. The smell of Aziraphale's cologne mixed with the petrichor scent of earth waking to rain. Surely it was the latter which was making his storm-loving heart beat a little faster. Surely it was the weather that was causing shivers to run down his spine.

"Ugh. Rude of the rain to start up again after I was done."

"Some of us, my dear, know when it's going to rain. Imagine that."

"I knew! Why else would I have come all the way out here?"

(Crowley had known, but only because Aziraphale had told him earlier. And he could have more easily filmed somewhere closer to home, but then the route wouldn't have taken them conveniently and temptingly close to any little cafes with hot cocoa to die for.

Aziraphale did not, however, need to know either of these things.)

"I highly doubt that. If you'd known it was going to rain, you'd have worn something more appropriate for the weather, for one thing."

"I beg to differ. This outfit is perfectly appropriate."

"Just because people repeatedly go wild for it in the comments of your videos does not make it appropriate. Or tasteful."

"So you do watch my videos!" exclaimed Crowley gleefully. "I knew it!"

Aziraphale made a sputtery noise that sounded indignant, but was not a denial.

"You doooooooooo!"

"Fine. Fine," said Aziraphale. "I may have watched one or two, all right? I merely thought I should know what you—what my adversary was doing. Which is apparently wearing that entirely inappropriate shirt on six separate occasions—"

"Six, hmm? That's an extremely specific number, angel, given that you claim to have only watched one or two of my videos."

"—without even the decency of a proper undershirt!"

"Eh, underwear is overrated," said Crowley, winking.

He had the immense satisfaction of watching Aziraphale blush, if for only a second.

"Be that as it may, there is no situation where lounging about in a rainstorm with that shirt unbuttoned all the way down to your navel could possibly be considered appropriate."

"Hey, if it was good enough for Jeff Goldblum, it's good enough for me."

"I’m afraid I don’t know who that is."

Crowley made his own series of indignant noises, then managed to sputter, "You— you don’t know who Jeff Goldblum is? C'mon, you must have seen Jurassic Park before."

"Oh, is that the one with the dinosaurs? I’ve heard of it."

"You've heard of it? Oh no. No no no. That’s it. You’re coming over — tonight, are you free tonight? — and we’re going to watch Jurassic Park. Jeff Goldblum's abs are one of the wonders of the modern world."

"I do hope they’re more impressive than yours, dear."

"Hey!"

"But, as it turns out, I am free tonight. Tell me you'll have cheese, and you've got yourself a deal."

"For you, angel? I'll have all the cheese."

"Make sure you get the one with the fruity bits. I'll be there at eight. I'll bring the wine."

⛈⚡️⛈⚡️⛈

When his doorbell rang at exactly eight o'clock, Crowley had been pacing around his flat for the last fifteen minutes, pausing occasionally to rearrange the cheeses on their platter or snarl at one or another of his houseplants. He was dressed in his best approximation of Ian Malcolm's outfit from Jurassic Park. It hadn't been difficult – he owned a dozen pairs of black jeans, and half again as many black shirts – but it had taken a possibly unreasonable amount of time for him to choose the perfect combination. In the end, he'd opted for a pair of very slim waxed black denims and a silk shirt with, for the time being, the top three buttons undone. Aside from the color, the shirt was the twin of the one he'd been wearing earlier, because why mess with a good thing? He'd even briefly entertained the notion of running it under the sink tap before putting it on, but decided that he didn't actually fancy spending all evening in a wet shirt. (It was all fine and well when filming out and about, and when trying to get Aziraphale all worked up, but it seemed a step too far to sit around being damp and clammy in one's own home.)

Beneath the jeans, Crowley was wearing exactly nothing. This wasn't the norm for him – most of his trousers were tight enough that zipping them up over unprotected bits was a slightly nerve-wracking experience, for one thing – but it was a necessity tonight. Aziraphale undoubtedly remembered the quip Crowley had made earlier about underwear being overrated, and, on the off chance the topic came up again, Crowley would never hear the end of it if it turned out he didn't practice what he preached.

Crowley painstakingly counted fifteen seconds in his head, then flung the door open and leaned on one side of the doorframe, casual as anything.

"Hey, angel. C'mon in."

"Thank you, dear. Should I take off my shoes?"

"Only if you like. You don't have to. Floors are heated, if that makes any difference."

"Oh, that sounds just luxurious. I don't mind if I do, then."

Something fluttered in Crowley's stomach when he looked at the shiny, cognac-colored brogues set neatly beside his own black snakeskin boots on the mat by the door. He was suddenly very glad he'd opted for stocking feet himself. (The boots would have looked slicker, it was true, but possibly also too much for a casual movie night with a friend. Or an acquaintance, or a colleague, or whatever they were.)

Aziraphale's socks were tartan, and matched his bow tie. Crowley very nearly asked him whether they matched every day, then thought better of it. He really didn't want to know.

(OK, he did want to know, but there were some things you had to find out for yourself.)

"How was the rest of your afternoon?" asked Aziraphale, handing Crowley a bottle of wine and following him into the flat.

"Fine. Ran a few errands, did a little editing on the stuff I shot earlier. You know, the usual."

(Well, he'd tried to do some editing, but there'd been too much energy, or adrenaline, or something, buzzing through his veins for him to sit still in front of the computer. In the end, he'd given up after half an hour, and then promptly spent an hour fussing over his outfit and hair. It was a perfectly reasonable compromise. He could always do the editing tomorrow.)

"Oh!" exclaimed Aziraphale suddenly. Crowley turned to see him inspecting the collection of orchids and philodendrons beside the window. "Are these all yours? I knew you kept houseplants, but I had no idea you had so many. And how lush and green and beautiful they all are!"

"Ugh, stop complimenting them, angel. They'll get swelled heads, and from there it's just a slippery slope all the way to leaf spot city."

"Oh, but they're just lovely, Crowley," said Aziraphale, running a finger slowly along the vein of a large, velvety philodendron leaf. "I can't help myself. You must take such good care of them. I'm very impressed."

"They won't stay lovely long, if you keep treating 'em like that," grumbled Crowley.

He wasn't jealous. He wasn't. What a ridiculous thought that would be. To be jealous of a plant because Aziraphale called it lovely and was stroking it with that unconscious little half-smile on his face.

Aziraphale had moved on to admiring one of Crowley's prized black orchids, thumbing gently at the petals before leaning in so close that his whole face was practically smushed up against it. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and said, "Ooh, that's exquisite."

His breath ruffled the petals. Crowley wondered how it would feel against, say, his ear or the back of his neck. Whether it would be warm. Whether it would tickle, just a little. Whether Aziraphale would call him exquisite.

The bloody flower, which was privy to all this knowledge already, was practically radiating smugness. He glared at it and thought very hard about the garbage disposal.

It was an empty threat though, and the damn thing probably knew that. Black orchids were divas, through and through, insisting on just the right amount of sunlight and water and prone to dropping all their buds in a fit of pique if everything wasn't precisely to their liking. Getting this one to bloom had taken months of painstaking care, and he was proud of the achievement.

And for Aziraphale to call it exquisite was, he had to admit, rather nice, even if he was a little jealous of the attention.

No. Crowley refused to be jealous of a stupid flower. And neither was he going to get all weird and navel-gazey about Aziraphale praising the plants that he took such pride in.

"Angel," he said quickly, before Aziraphale could start caressing any more flowers, "Why don't you go sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm going to go grab a couple of wineglasses. Cheese is already on the table. Didn't know what kind you liked best, so I got a selection."

Crowley had, arguably, gone a bit overboard at the cheese shop that afternoon. His dilemma, such as it was, was that Aziraphale was fond of so many different cheeses. He'd ended up with half a dozen different varieties, all of which he recalled Aziraphale waxing poetic about at one time or another, plus the Wensleydale with cranberries, of course.

From the kitchen, Crowley heard Aziraphale make a sound of surprised pleasure as he sank into the couch, which, like many of the furnishings in Crowley's flat, looked harsh and angular but was actually incredibly comfortable. A second, even more delighted ooh followed shortly thereafter, as Aziraphale caught sight of the burgeoning cheese board on the coffee table.

Although Aziraphale invariably sat tall and straight-backed, there were nevertheless subtle ways in which one could tell he was relaxed, if one knew how to look. Crowley was familiar with all of them. A looseness about his shoulders, a miniscule wiggle of his hips when he sat down or reached for something, a softness to the line of his neck and jaw. All of these tells were in evidence when Crowley emerged from the kitchen, corkscrew and wine glasses in hand, to find Aziraphale happily settled in on the right side of the couch. Crowley sat down beside him, slouching down into the cushions in his customary manner, close enough that the outer edges of their shoulders were just touching. It was how they always sat in the daytime, on park benches and at sandwich shop counters and under umbrellas in the rain. It was no different now, after hours, on Crowley's sofa in Crowley's flat.

He opened the wine and poured. Aziraphale leaned in to help himself to cheese and crackers.

"Oh, you've got all my favorites here! How did you know?"

"Just lucky, I guess."

"Well, it all looks absolutely scrummy. Thank you."

Crowley was struck all at once by the overwhelming desire to kiss Aziraphale. This impulse was not new by any means, but it existed for the most part quietly in the back of Crowley's mind, like the knowledge that a storm was on the horizon. You could see clouds massing and the sky darkening, but it was still, somehow, always a surprise when the first drop of rain hit you in the face. It was always a revelation no matter how many times it had happened before.

He succeeded in curbing the impulse, just barely, by focusing very hard on the fact that the mouth he wanted to kiss so badly was the very same one that had just said, without any trace of irony at all, that something was scrummy.

"Right," he said, handing a glass to Aziraphale, being careful that their hands did not touch. "Here you go. And let's get this show on the road."

"Cheers."

They clinked glasses. Crowley hurriedly took a gulp of wine, set his glass down, and watched as Aziraphale sipped his more slowly, savoring it. Aziraphale then turned his attention back to the cheese. He seemed entirely preoccupied with trying to decide which of the options to taste next.

Perfect. Crowley leapt into action. Or slouched, more like. He leaned back against the armrest, throwing one arm across the back of the couch and simultaneously kicking a foot up onto the shelf beneath the coffee table. With his other hand, he quickly undid the remaining buttons of his shirt. (The slippery silk helped quite a bit. Even so, it had taken him more trial runs than he cared to admit to work out the logistics: not only how to finesse the buttons, but where to put his arm and how far back to lean so that the shirt would fall open just so.)

"Hand me the remote, will you, angel?"

"Of course—Oh! That's a rather good imitation of the esteemed Mr. Goldblum, I must say. Although, unless I'm misremembering, he was no longer wearing his belt as a belt by that time, having had to repurpose it as a tourniquet earlier."

"I knew it! You have seen Jurassic Park!"

"Of course I have. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know."

"No, of course not. You dress like you were born a century ago, after all."

"Tartan is stylish!"

"In no universe ever is that true. Look, take Jeff here, right? You think he’d ever be caught dead in a tartan bow tie? With matching socks no less?"

"There’s a difference between sexy and stylish, dear."

"Oh, so you think he’s sexy, do you?"

"I have eyes, Crowley."

"Well, let's see you use them then. How do I compare?"

"You’re no Jeff, but you’ll do, I suppose," said Aziraphale tartly, leaning forward and pressing the flat of his hand against the exposed wedge of Crowley's chest. He held it right there over Crowley's suddenly swooping heart for several seconds, then dragged it slowly downward, his splayed fingertips finding a pebbled nipple, the dip of a navel, the sparse trail of hair beneath.

Crowley had never been struck by lightning, though he'd come close once or twice, but he imagined it must be something like this. Every nerve ending suddenly coming alight, radiating outward from the initial point of contact in the center of his chest, and a white-hot, euphoric static flooding his brain.

(f*ck, that was a terrible metaphor, as cliché as they came, and he couldn't even bring himself to be mad about it.)

There was a sharp and witty response on the tip of Crowley's tongue. There was. It wasn't like he'd been rendered speechless or anything by the unexpected, hot press of Aziraphale's palm and the feathery touch of his fingertips. It wasn't like every barely-there flick of Aziraphale's thumb across his suddenly hypersensitive nipple had his breath catching in his throat in a way that was entirely inconducive to any form of coherent expression. And the fact that his trousers were feeling very, very tight all of a sudden had nothing at all to do with anything except possibly his decision to forego underwear earlier. Friction, was all it was.

His mouth was open, even. Any minute now, he was going to say something clever and incisive about… veloci- velocipedes. Velocities. Dinosaurs. The smart, bitey ones.

It wasn't his fault that Aziraphale decided to forestall any clever retorts by leaning in and pressing their mouths together.

No, Aziraphale really wasn't playing fair at all. He tasted like wine and his left hand was cupping Crowley's cheek and his right hand was still inside Crowley's shirt. His mouth was hot and wet and perfectly designed to turn Crowley into an inarticulate, horny mess. Words were not an adequate response anyway. There was really only one thing Crowley could do, only one thing he wanted to do. He pressed his cheek into the cup of Aziraphale's palm and returned the kiss, swiping his tongue across the swell of Aziraphale's bottom lip and the curved, soft bow of the upper.

Crowley had imagined (oh, he’d imagined all right) that Aziraphale would kiss like he spoke, all posh and precise, all delicate nips and teasing little flicks of the tongue. But he’d been wrong - Aziraphale kissed like a summer thunderstorm, all passion and fury and sudden, drenching intensity, like he wanted to suck Crowley up into the heart of him and devour him. And just when Crowley thought he'd be consumed utterly by it, the storm abated, easing into gentle touches and the curve of a smile against his cheek like the sun peeking through silver-lined clouds, just for him.

Crowley's hand found its way into Aziraphale's hair, and from there down to his neck. There was a tiny, delicious sliver of bare skin at the nape before he found himself abruptly thwarted by the starched, unyielding collar of Aziraphale's shirt. Aziraphale's hand, in contrast, was roaming all over Crowley's torso, the open silk shirt providing no resistance at all. The disparity in the amount of skin each had to work with was enormous, and enormously unfair. Crowley resolved to do something about it as soon as possible.

But then, just as Crowley had finished undoing the buttons of Aziraphale's waistcoat and was reaching for his bow tie, Aziraphale suddenly pulled away, his hand and mouth both, and sat back against the sofa, putting six inches of unwelcome space between them.

"Crowley," he said, breathlessly. "Do you recall the terms of our Arrangement?"

"Yeah. Course I do. Mutually beneficial. You help me, I help you. No loose obligations."

"I believe the specific words were lend a hand when needed. We shook on it, I believe."

"What's your point, angel?" asked Crowley, confused and slightly frustrated. "We were … kind of in the middle of something, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I'm trying to ask you, you impatient creature, whether you'd be amenable to lending a mutual hand right now."

"Aziraphale, is this really the time—"

"If I'm not mistaken, you seem like you could use one," interrupted Aziraphale, his gaze drifting downward toward Crowley's lap and the very obvious bulge there before flicking back up to his face.

He was looking at Crowley like he wanted to devour him. Like he was better than the best hot cocoa in town and the most exquisite black orchid and seven different kinds of cheese all at once.

"Oh. Oh. f*ck, angel. Yes. Yes. Could definitely use a hand."

"You do have a perfectly good one of your own, you know. Two even."

"They'll be full. Busy helping you out."

To make his point, Crowley grabbed the end of Aziraphale's bow tie and yanked. It came open and slithered out of his collar in a single, fluid, and extremely satisfying motion. He flung it away and leaned in to kiss Aziraphale again.

"Oh, good. I didn't want to presume," said Aziraphale against his mouth, his fingers already reaching for Crowley's belt.

A couple of minutes later, Aziraphale sucked in his breath sharply when he yanked down Crowley's zipper and realized he wasn't wearing anything underneath his jeans. The little oh that followed was a sound that could only have come from Aziraphale, conveying equal parts scandal and delight.

"Ha! Told you underwear was overrated," mumbled Crowley. It came out garbled because Aziraphale's tongue was in his mouth.

"Mmm, what was that, dear?"

Crowley broke the kiss, with some reluctance, and opened his mouth to gloat. And all that came out was a ragged moan, because Aziraphale, the bastard, chose that exact moment to curl his fingers around Crowley's blatantly unclothed erection and squeeze.

Aziraphale, damn him, was wearing underwear. Specifically, a pair of tartan boxer shorts. They matched the bow tie and the socks, the former of which, incidentally, was not the same as the one he'd been wearing earlier in the day. Which meant that he had deliberately chosen to wear the matching ensemble tonight, probably for the express purpose of getting a rise out of Crowley.

Well. Something had gotten Crowley to rise to the occasion, all right. But it was most assuredly not the tartan underwear, which was utterly ridiculous. Crowley was definitely not utterly, ridiculously charmed by it all, and he was also definitely not imagining Aziraphale wearing nothing except the bow tie, socks, and boxer shorts.

Crowley refused to take the bait, however, so he didn't say anything and focused instead on finding his way inside. Although boxer shorts were about as easy access as it got, it turned out they were damnably tricksy when worn by an angel hell-bent on distracting you by kissing a wet, shivery trail down your neck while twisting his hand just so down below.

Crowley got there in the end, though, and the payoff was worth all the trouble and then some. The whole thing was a little sloppy, and a little messy, and it was over quickly enough that Crowley thought he probably should be embarrassed at how little finesse, how little control, he'd had. It hadn't even occurred to him to tell Aziraphale to slow down, or to slow down himself.

On the other hand, they both knew full well that when it came to forces of nature, there was no controlling them. There was no telling a thunderstorm to stop or slow down, and if you deliberately put yourself in the path of one you had to be willing – no, you had to want – to get drenched.

And besides, it had been good – so incredibly f*cking good – and Aziraphale had finished less than a minute after he had, so Crowley couldn’t really find it in himself to be too embarrassed about it all.

Afterwards, Crowley staggered over to the bookcase to retrieve a box of tissues, and they each cleaned themselves up and tucked themselves back into their trousers (and, in Aziraphale's case, underpants) without looking at one another. Crowley felt inexplicably awkward, and very aware of the careful space they'd put between themselves. Which was odd because a few minutes ago they’d had their hands and mouths all over each other.

Which was odd because it had always been easy between them, from the moment they'd met. He wondered if they’d just made a terrible mistake. If everything was going to change now.

“Err, we could keep going if you like,” he mumbled, staring down at his own lap.

“Crowley, I— I’m not twenty anymore. I want to - good god I want to, don’t get me wrong - but—“

“The film! I meant the film, angel.”

“Oh! Right. The film. Of course. Silly me.” Aziraphale laughed shakily, and they both looked toward the television screen, which was dark and blank. When Aziraphale spoke again, his voice was steadier. "The film which you invited me here to watch and then never turned on. One might think, for all your big talk, that you were afraid of being measured up against the unparalleled magnificence that is Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park."

"Psssh, that's just Hollywood pulling one over on you."

"If you say so, dear."

"Hey, I know a thing or two about fancy cameras and lighting and all that, don't I? Look, let's watch this thing and I'll prove it to you. We can do a side-by-side comparison when we get to that scene."

"I really shouldn't. It's getting late, and I do have to work tomorrow."

"Oh. Yeah. 'Course. Right. Work."

Crowley wasn't disappointed. He wasn't, dammit.

Aziraphale still hadn't made eye contact. He ran a hand through his hair in a mostly futile endeavor to make it look like they hadn't just been furiously making out and getting each other off on the couch, and then stood up, attempting to smooth the rumpled fronts of his trousers down with his palms. He retrieved his waistcoat from the floor and put it on, carefully doing up all the buttons. His bow tie was harder to find, as it had somehow ended up flung over a lampshade all the way over by the far end of the sofa. He reached up and looped the strip of tartan silk underneath his collar, hesitated for a moment, and then dropped his hands, leaving the two ends dangling loosely down his chest.

Crowley couldn't help but stare a little, awkwardness be damned. Because he'd been right. Aziraphale with his bow tie undone and collar open really was a vision. And Aziraphale with his bow tie undone and his hair mussed and his cheeks post-coitally pink was head and shoulders above and beyond any vision Crowley's imagination had managed to conjure.

They'd been in such a hurry, though, that Crowley hadn't managed to get past the first couple of buttons on Aziraphale's shirt, to say nothing of the very proper undershirt beneath it, and that was a damn shame. He wondered, with a twinge, whether he'd ever get the chance again.

"Well," said Aziraphale, looking at the floor and shuffling his feet awkwardly. "Crowley, I— that is— err, I probably ought to be on my way then."

"Aziraphale?"

"Yes?"

"Just so you know, I didn't intend for tonight to be a—a— you know," said Crowley, gesturing helplessly with his hands.

"A booty call?" The slangy term sounded absurd in Aziraphale's plummy tones.

The truth of the matter was, Crowley didn't know what he'd intended tonight to be, but it felt important that Aziraphale know he hadn't invited him over just for sex.

"Yeah. That. It wasn't why—"

"I know," said Aziraphale softly. "Neither did I."

"So we're good?"

"Of course we are." Aziraphale smiled and looked up, finally making eye contact. "And Crowley?"

"Yeah?"

"Just for the record, I don't regret it. Not one bit. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and, if I may be so bold, I think you did too. And— and I wouldn't complain were something similar to happen again."

Crowley smiled back, and told himself that the fluttery feeling in his chest was nothing more than simple relief that Aziraphale wasn't angry with him, that whatever had just happened wasn't the result of some massive misunderstanding.

He could do this. They could do this. Whatever this was.

It was just, as Aziraphale had said earlier, lending a hand. Two consenting bodies and friction and the heaps and heaps of physical desire that had been there since day one. It was no different from their typical bickering and bantering, really, just with the addition of more skin and kissing.

It was a way – a really enjoyable way – to relieve some tension. Everyone needed that once in a while. It didn’t have to become a whole big thing. Nothing had to change.

Well, nothing except that they could touch each other more. A lot more, potentially. Crowley's mind was already starting to spin with the possibilities.

For one thing, he hadn't missed the smug, triumphant smile that had appeared on Aziraphale's face earlier, right as he'd succeeded in making Crowley come first. That look had lasted only seconds, superseded by a stunningly attractive expression of wide-eyed ecstasy as he followed Crowley over the edge. Even still, Aziraphale's victory could not be allowed to stand. They would have to have a rematch as soon as possible. Perhaps he could convince Aziraphale to leave off the underwear next time as well; it would be only fair to even the odds, after all.

They could have another movie night, maybe, and see about that rematch at the same time. Should he bring it up now? Issue an invitation and a challenge? No, it seemed too soon. He'd wait until they met up on Saturday for their prearranged filming session, and ask Aziraphale then whether he wanted to get together sometime in the coming week. That felt like a reasonable interval for casual acquaintances to wait before once again offering to lend a hand. Not too soon as to seem desperate, but not too long as to actually become desperate for another taste of whatever this was.

"I'm going to hold you to that side-by-side comparison you promised," said Aziraphale suddenly, the cadence of his words fast and jumpy. "Anthony J. Crowley versus Jeffrey – uh, whatever his middle initial is - Goldblum."

"Bring it on, angel. I'm not afraid."

"Does Friday work for you?"

"As in two days from now Friday?"

"Exactly, as in—oh! You don't think that's too soon, do you? I just thought— or, oh, do you already have plans for Friday evening?"

"Yes! Wait, I meant no. Gah. Yes, Friday works. No plans for Friday, nope, not a single one. And it's not too soon. Not too soon at all."

"You could come to my place. It seems only fair, as you've been so gracious as to host me tonight."

"Spirit of the Arrangement. Tit for tat. I host you, you host me. I get your drift."

"Precisely. And Friday's not a work night, just so you know."

"And yet you'll still be up at the crack of dawn Saturday morning to film your damn clouds. Which means so will I. Don't suppose I could convince you to make it eight instead of seven?"

"The clouds are at their best in the early morning light. As I'm sure you know, being so knowledgeable about lighting and all."

"I am not at my best in the early morning. Especially on a Saturday."

"You know, you wouldn't have to get up quite so early if you were at my place already."

"I guess even ten minutes— wait. Hold up a second. Angel. Angel. Are you— are you inviting me to stay the night?"

"I'm merely suggesting a practical compromise. It would be far more efficient."

"Well, I can't argue with efficiency. All about efficiency, me."

"That you are. You might bring the rest of that cheese on Friday too. It would be a shame to let it go to waste," said Aziraphale lightly, gathering up his coat. He bent and kissed Crowley swiftly on the cheek, a chaste, feather-light thing. "Oh, don't bother getting up. I'll see myself out. I suspect your legs might still be a bit wobbly."

Chapter 5: prevailing winds

Chapter Text

"Holy f*ck," said Crowley, staring upward with his mouth open. "You put your bed directly under that? And you call me dramatic?"

"It came with the place. It would have been a shame not to use it to best effect. Speaking of which, it’s best if you're lying on your back right in the middle of the bed."

"Yeah?”

"Go ahead. Give it a try."

"If you insist."

Without further preamble, Crowley flopped onto the king-sized bed in the most dramatic manner possible, limbs and hair bouncing and flailing every which way. Somehow he ended up in the correct orientation, on his back in the very center of the bed. From that angle, Aziraphale knew, the oculus would be centered directly overhead, its ornate brass spines splayed out like the points on a compass rose. It would be particularly stunning right now, with the moon, which had risen not long ago, peeking through the southwest quadrant.

"Wow. You weren't kidding. That's a terrific view."

"Mmm-hmm," said Aziraphale absently. "I couldn't agree more, my dear."

He was quite enjoying his own, equally terrific view, which consisted of a sprawl of skinny, black-clad limbs arrayed at impossible angles atop his own pale tartan bedding. There was a small, purplish bruise on Crowley's collarbone, peeking out from the (unbuttoned, as always) neckline of his shirt. Aziraphale couldn't help the smile that spread over his face, as he recalled the circ*mstances under which he’d left that mark there only two days earlier.

"Gosh, I bet it's really something during a storm.”

"Well, perhaps if you're lucky you might find out firsthand one of these days."

"Could just stay here until another storm rolls around," Crowley said, stretching luxuriously.

"It could be days or even weeks, you know. You'd get terribly bored."

"I'm sure I could find things to occupy myself with. And if all else fails, I could always nap. Real good at napping, me."

"And where, pray tell, am I supposed to sleep then?"

Crowley shrugged and then shifted slightly to one side. As he was still lying flat on his back, this motion took the form of an odd, full-body sort of undulation that somehow looked simultaneously gawky and graceful. It put Aziraphale in mind of nothing so much as a video he’d seen recently of a snake wriggling on satin sheets and managing to go exactly nowhere.

"There's plenty of room. Get over here."

"Oh, how magnanimous of you," said Aziraphale sarcastically, as he lay down, "to offer me a place in my own bed."

“’S a good bed. Five stars. Ten out of ten. Excellent view. Great company.”

“The view really is breathtaking, isn’t it? Sometimes it makes me feel like someone greater is watching over us."

Crowley, somewhat to his surprise, did not have a retort, either witty or blasphemous, to this. Instead, he made a humming noise that sounded suspiciously like agreement, and rolled onto his side, his hand settling easily and warmly on Aziraphale’s belly.

“Even your sheets are tartan. I can’t believe it. No, wait, scratch that. I absolutely can.”

“Do you like them?”

“What do you think, angel? Gonna have tartan nightmares tonight.”

Aziraphale gave Crowley a closed-mouth smirk in lieu of answering. He owned several sets of bedding, and only one of them was tartan. However, since he had been changing the sheets that morning anyway – it had seemed the polite thing to do, not that he was presuming that inviting Crowley to spend the night at his place meant that Crowley would necessarily want to spend the night in his bed – he had not been able to resist putting on the tartan set. It was low-hanging fruit, of course, but he simply could not pass up the opportunity to get a rise out of Crowley. And the face Crowley was making now, a clearly exaggerated scrunched-up grimace of sorts that extended practically all the way to his ears, told him both that the low-hanging fruit was absolutely, sinfully delicious and that his optimism regarding the bed had not been at all misplaced.

“Your highly, highly, questionable taste in linens aside, this place really is incredible.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m never going to be over the fact that you put your bed right under that thing, by the way,” said Crowley, lazily lifting his arm to point upward.

“You have an honest-to-god throne in your flat. I don’t think you’re one to talk.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have an entire great big bloody spiral staircase right smack in the center of my house.”

“That was already here when I moved in! And how else, pray tell, am I supposed to access the upper floor?”

“How’d you even find a place like this?”

“I didn’t, really. I inherited it a few years ago, from a great-uncle whom I hardly knew. I thought at first I’d sell it, to be honest. It’s rather too much space for one person. But then I walked in the door, and… well, you know how sometimes you just have a gut feeling that something is utterly and inexplicably right?"

"Yeah."

"It was like that. This place immediately felt so much like home, somehow, even though everything was covered in dust and decades out of date. I knew right then and there that I was going to live here.”

“I could see that. I can’t imagine a house that’s more perfectly you.”

“Do you know the downstairs part used to be a bookshop, way back in the early 1900’s?”

“You would live in a bloody bookshop.”

“By the time I inherited it, of course, it hadn’t been a working shop for decades, and had all been converted to living quarters. The sitting room downstairs that you walked through when you came in, with the built-in bookshelves and the big display windows on either side of the front door - that’s what used to be the bookshop proper. There are some other smaller rooms down there as well. It was dusty but in decent shape, and I didn’t have to do too much work to make it livable. Just a lot of cleaning and some small repairs, mostly, although I should probably modernize the kitchen at some point. I’m not much of a cook though, so it doesn’t really bother me as is. Oh, goodness, listen to me rambling on. I hope I’m not boring you.”

“Not at all. It’s fascinating. Bit surprised you didn’t give me the full tour immediately though.”

Now that Crowley had mentioned it, Aziraphale was a little surprised himself. Instead, without even thinking about it, he’d led Crowley straight upstairs. Straight to his bedroom.

“I promise I will later, if you’d like, but I wanted you to see the pièce de résistance first,” he improvised, gesturing at the skylight above them. “I do hope you’re suitably impressed.”

“Very.”

“Speaking of which, the oculus was all boarded up when I moved in, and a few of the panes were cracked. To be quite honest, the whole upstairs was a disaster. I don’t think anyone had been up here for decades. I’ve been trying to fix things up ever since. It’s been slow going, especially since I’ve been trying to maintain the historical integrity of the building as much as I can. Do you know how hard it is to find someone who can repair a Victorian-era oculus?”

“Historical integrity, eh? That why you’ve got that beast of a phonograph downstairs instead of something more modern? Suddenly the bow tie and pocket watch make so much more sense.”

“Says the man who drives a positively ancient car.”

“Hey! She’s a classic!”

“As is my phonograph! And I’ll have you know, you don’t get that kind of sound quality with a modern turntable,” Aziraphale said, injecting as much uppity scorn into his voice as he could muster.

Crowley gave him a look. It was equal parts befuddlement and outrage, an asymmetrical marvel of upturned lip and skeptically tilted eyebrow contrasted by the incongruously soft, bemused expression in his eyes.

Through sheer force of will, Aziraphale held his indignant facade for several seconds longer, before he cracked and began to laugh helplessly.

Crowley, realizing he’d been had, started laughing too.

“It’s an antique, it came with the place, and, while it does work, it sounds positively dreadful,” admitted Aziraphale. “But you have to admit it makes an excellent conversation piece.”

“All right, all right, fine. It does look very cool with the great big horn and all.”

“You’re welcome to try it out sometime if you like. I noticed when I was at your place that you have quite an extensive collection of vinyl. Why don’t you bring a couple over next time? Some of that bebop you like so much, perhaps. Maybe that album you were talking about the other day. The Velvet Tube, wasn’t it?”

Crowley sputtered incoherently, and threw a pillow at him.

Before Aziraphale, who’d been momentarily incapacitated by a fit of giggles, could retaliate, he found himself half pinned underneath Crowley’s weight, being kissed deeply and thoroughly. Evidently Crowley had decided that the only way to prevent any further musical heresy was to keep Aziraphale’s mouth wholly occupied with other pursuits.

“Angel. Angel. Please tell me you know that the Velvet Underground isn’t really bebop.”

“Of course I know that. But who’s to say that the Velvet Tube isn’t?”

Crowley groaned. “That’s a bloody awful pun. The f*cking worst. I can’t believe I’m about to snog the mouth that just said that. Should make you wash your mouth out with—oh, stop laughing, you bastard.”

But snog he did, and well and thoroughly. And one thing led to another, and before long they had mutually decided that Jurassic Park would, once again, keep until another night. Besides, they had plans to film at sunrise, which meant that the responsible thing to do would be to go to bed early.

Going to bed early did not necessarily mean going to sleep early, of course.

When they did eventually go to sleep, it was with a contented, heavy-limbed exhaustion. Aziraphale, who was a bit of an insomniac most of the time, regarded his six hours of mostly unbroken slumber as something of a miracle. Their pre-sleep activities probably had something to do with it, as did the post-coital flood of serotonin. Even still, he’d never slept this well with someone else in his bed, especially not for the first time. Sure, he’d woken up a couple of times with a pointy elbow in his side or long red curls tickling the side of his neck, but he’d fallen back asleep with no trouble at all, which was practically unheard of.

When Aziraphale woke to the sound of his alarm an hour before dawn and switched on the bedside lamp, the true magnitude of the miracle became clear. Crowley, evidently, was a blanket thief. Somehow, during the night, he’d managed to not only appropriate the entire king-sized duvet for himself, but to wind it securely around himself in a twisty, tangled, inextricable mess. And Aziraphale had, astonishingly, slept right through all of it.

I could get used to this, he thought suddenly, gazing fondly (and just a little lustfully, he was only human after all) at the pale flashes of bare stomach and back and thigh visible through the gaps in the tartan.

Well. It was a good thing their Arrangement showed no signs of slowing down then.

But speaking of the Arrangement, they needed to be out the door in thirty minutes if they were going to catch the sunrise, and somebody was still snoring blissfully away in his deviously stolen nest of blankets.

He reached over and shook one bony shoulder, gently at first, and then with more force when Crowley showed no sign of waking. When Crowley finally responded, it was only to roll over and bury his face in the pillow with a noise that sounded half like an outraged snake and half like it might be Aziraphale’s name, minus all the vowels. A flung-out arm made contact with Aziraphale’s bare thigh, and attempted clumsily to drag him down amongst the pillows and blankets.

The temptation to comply was strong, but Aziraphale refused to give in.

“No,” he said. “You won’t tempt me back into bed so easily.”

“You owe me a Bloody Mary,” Crowley mumbled. “Or three.”

“That can be arranged, I’m sure. We can go have brunch after we’re done filming.”

“Breakfast. Can’t call it brunch ‘fore ten. ‘S illegal. Like getting up this early.”

“Breakfast then. Now get up, you fiend. You’ve thirty minutes to make yourself presentable.”

It was more like twenty minutes by the time Crowley managed to drag himself upright, yet by some miracle they managed to make it out the door with enough time to spare to stop for coffee. This was in large part due to the fact that Crowley apparently woke up looking like he'd been out chasing storms all night, rumpled and windblown and altogether delectable. Aziraphale was a little bit jealous, as his own bedhead made him look like a sheep that was several months overdue for a shearing, and he’d spent a good portion of those same thirty minutes fussing with his curls in the mirror. He was also more than a little bit proud, as at least some of that rumpling – and the blowing, for that matter – had been his doing.

They reached their destination, a lookout point just outside of the city limits with a high, unimpeded eastern view, several minutes before sunrise. The clouds were even better than Aziraphale had anticipated, a lofty, drifting blanket of cirrocumulus serendipitously arranged in long, rippling rows. A rare, textbook mackerel sky, already glazed pink and gold in anticipation of the imminent appearance of the sun.

Crowley’s first order of business, apparently, was to take a series of selfies with the rapidly brightening sky in the background, a very capable testament to the unfairly photogenic quality of the aforementioned bedhead. Aziraphale’s phone pinged in his pocket a minute later with the Instagram notification, but he did not have the time to sneak a peek, as Crowley had already moved on and was impatiently gesturing for him to stand with his back to the sunrise so that he could take a series of test shots.

This wasn’t Crowley’s sort of weather at all – too nice by half, not a single dark cloud in sight – and yet he seemed to be in the sort of exuberant mood that he normally reserved for especially thrilling storms or the occasional bout of particularly heated bickering. Even all his complaining about the ungodliness of the early hour seemed to be mostly for show.

Crowley, Aziraphale thought, was enjoying himself.

As was Aziraphale, very, very much indeed. He found he didn’t want it to come to an end.

Perhaps it didn’t have to, just yet.

“You know,” he said to Crowley once the cameras had been switched off, “cirrocumulus clouds like these tend to be a good indicator that it’s going to rain in the not-too-distant future. It’s why there are so many sayings about mackerel skies. I’d have to check the most recent forecast to be sure, but I’d guess a fairly decent storm is, oh, about six to eight hours away.”

“Sounds like just enough time for brunch and a nice long nap. Or maybe you could finally give me that tour of your place.”

“Oh, yes, I did promise you I would, didn’t I? And speaking of promises, I do believe I also owe you a Bloody Mary or three, although I’m not sure you were actually awake enough to remember. I know just the place, my dear.”

⛈⚡️⛈⚡️⛈

It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth attempt that they finally made it to the end of Jurassic Park. By this time Friday nights had become firmly established as a weekly ritual, like Tuesday lunches in the park and hastily planned filming sessions whenever the weather saw fit to cooperate. (There were also unscheduled, if not entirely unpremeditated, meetings in the course of their workaday lives. Just because Aziraphale had tipped Crowley off about the location of a storm, as per the Arrangement, didn’t mean that he couldn’t also be doing his job in the same general vicinity. One had to go where the weather was, after all.)

Thankfully, there had not been a repeat of the two-week-long dry spell that had been plaguing Crowley (and only Crowley) the day they’d met. But even if there had been, Aziraphale was rather more of an equal opportunist than his counterpart when it came to the weather. He had as many things to say about sunny days as he did about rainy ones, and every one of those things was better said with Crowley behind the camera.

On Friday nights, they alternated between Crowley’s plant-filled flat and Aziraphale’s bookshop-turned-house. Quid pro quo, just as the Arrangement dictated. The general blueprint of these evenings included dinner, a movie (or at least part of one), perhaps a nightcap if the mood struck, and some mutually beneficial, stress-relieving activities in the bedroom that inevitably ended with the pair of them falling asleep together afterwards, sticky and sated. There was no reason for anyone to rush home afterwards – it was more civilized to take one’s time, and left the option open for additional rounds of mutual benefits later in the evening or the following morning.

This meant that Saturday mornings also became a thing. There were lazy ones when Crowley succeeded in tempting Aziraphale to stay in bed until ten, and early ones when they drove out to film the clouds or the sunrise or some spectacular daybreak storm. And there were more breakfasts or brunches or whatever you wanted to call them afterwards, and more sunrise selfies posted to Instagram, some with Crowley’s glorious bedhead and some with his hair more carefully styled with the products that soon took up residence in Aziraphale’s bathroom beside his own creams and pomades.

Despite all his grumbling about getting up before dawn, it was Crowley as often as not who initiated these early morning outings. There was just something extraordinary, after all, about feeling like you were the only two people awake in the world, watching lightning split open the sky to herald the sun’s imminent arrival.

And if sometimes Saturday morning became Saturday night became the whole weekend, the Arrangement had been designed from the beginning to be flexible. As long as one had enough clean linens, it wasn’t a hardship at all. The only thing Aziraphale had to give up, really, was the ridiculous pretense that he owned nothing but tartan sheets, but that particular wile had already served its purpose and more. And while Crowley’s triumphant exclamation that “I knew it! I knew it couldn’t be all tartan all the way down!” was undeniably smug, it was a small price to pay for having the man himself sprawled out naked on top of those same sheets.

One Friday, Crowley showed up with the Velvet Underground’s eponymous album on vinyl tucked underneath his arm. It became clear the minute he began playing it on Aziraphale’s antique phonograph that he’d swapped the record inside for a compilation of bebop classics. The joke was on him, however, because he was forced to admit, after Aziraphale insisted that they listen to it all the way through since Crowley had gone to all the trouble of bringing it over, that it was “a bop”.

“I think you mean it’s bebop, dear.”

(All puns aside, it was quite infectiously jaunty, especially when they played it again the following week on Crowley’s far more modern and better-tuned turntable. And the Velvet Underground album, the real one this time, wasn’t half bad either.)

The Arrangement, they both agreed, was going swimmingly. It was remarkable how easily, how effortlessly they’d both fallen into it. It felt like the natural order of things, both unexpected and inevitable, like how storms could appear out of nowhere but would then almost always find themselves following the same trajectories, caught up and joyously tumbled about by the prevailing winds.

⛈⚡️⛈⚡️⛈

With the exception of Newt, Crowley had not yet met any of Aziraphale’s coworkers, and Aziraphale was in no hurry to speed up the process. He’d offered a vague explanation in the beginning that a friend was helping him out with filming, and nobody at work had questioned him or even asked about it since.

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed to be seen with Crowley, but more that he did not have the faintest idea how to explain their association. In any case, he was a private person and did not think his colleagues needed to know more than was absolutely necessary about his personal life, especially the parts of it, like the Arrangement, that were nearly impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t privy to the intimate details. Even Newt, who knew about the existence of the Arrangement, if not the extent or the form of it, seemed somewhat perplexed by the whole situation.

Still, most of the people Aziraphale worked with would probably just have offered up a polite “nice to meet you” and moved on, perhaps after attempting some innocuous if awkward small talk. (If he had a penny for every time someone had said “some weather we’re having, eh?” to him and then immediately gone red and sputtery, he’d have enough for a tea at the very least.) If it had been Eric, on whose phone screen Aziraphale had once caught a glimpse of a very familiar vintage Bentley and its very familiar red-headed driver, the meeting might have been mildly embarrassing (for Aziraphale, and probably gloat-worthy for Crowley), but still ultimately harmless.

But as luck would have it, the first time they encountered one of his colleagues who was not Newt, it was not Eric, nor was it any of the awkward small-talkers. No, of course it had to be Uriel, who was one of the handful of people, primarily members of Gabriel and Michael’s inner circle, with whom he’d never gotten along. Uriel and he, in particular, had a strained relationship that had only gotten worse after he’d refused to back down on the Newt issue.

That day, he and Crowley were at the coffee shop down the street from the station, a ubiquitous chain outpost that he preferred not to frequent if possible. But he needed to be on air in twenty minutes, and they’d just been caught up in a squall that had taken a sudden and unexpected turn for the cold and blustery. This had resulted in some spectacular footage for both their respective shows, but they’d both ended up chilled to the bone in the process. Unlike Aziraphale, who had at least stayed mostly dry, Crowley had, naturally, gotten himself well and drenched. Aziraphale had insisted that Crowley take his scarf; it was testament to just how cold Crowley was that he’d barely complained about wearing something so woolen and so tartan out in public.

Aziraphale himself didn’t relish the thought of having to deliver a live forecast with chattering teeth and frozen fingertips. So, the boring chain coffeehouse it was, because it was close enough to the station that he wouldn’t be late and had perfectly serviceable, if uninspired, hot tea. It wasn’t until they’d been standing in the queue for a couple of minutes that he looked up and, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, recognized the back of the customer currently at the till. There was just enough time for him to think about grabbing Crowley and fleeing, chattering teeth be damned, but it was already too late. Uriel had finished her transaction and was turning away from the counter, and they were squarely in her line of vision.

Her eyes registered a cold, disinterested recognition as they passed over Aziraphale, and then widened as she took in the sight of Crowley beside him. Crowley, who was standing close enough that it was clear they were not strangers. Crowley, who was wearing flashy dark sunglasses indoors and skintight jeans and a still-damp t-shirt clinging provocatively to his pectorals. Crowley, who had an incongruous tartan scarf wrapped around his neck that happened to perfectly match the bow tie around Aziraphale’s own neck.

“Aziraphale. I’m surprised to see you here. I would have thought you would be in your office preparing for your broadcast by now.”

“Hello, Uriel.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

“Oh. Yes. Right. Of course. This is Crowley. My—err, I mean, a—” he stuttered, words having deserted him. What in the world was Crowley, in relation to himself? An acquaintance? A professional adversary? A friend with benefits?

“His colleague,” broke in Crowley, offering Uriel a hand to shake. “Anthony J. Crowley. Terrific to meet you.”

“Right. A professional colleague. In— in weather. Just so,” said Aziraphale gratefully. “Crowley, this is Angela Uriel, our executive producer over at the station.”

“Oh, another weatherman,” said Uriel, frowning. “I don’t recognize you. What station are you with?”

“None of ‘em. I’m independent. I’m not much for, err, organized weather, I guess you could say. I find it much more rewarding to do my own thing.”

“Oh, how … interesting,” said Uriel, her icy tone indicating that she found it anything but. “I can’t imagine many opportunities come your way.”

“I do all right for myself.”

Uriel, no longer interested now that Crowley had revealed he did not work for a competing station, turned to Aziraphale.

“Aziraphale. Have you read the email I sent you earlier this week?”

“The one proposing that I ‘update my wardrobe to be more in keeping with that of the other on-air talent?’ That was Gabriel’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“It was. But with my full support,” she said, pursing her lips and giving him a once-over.

“I’ll take it under advisem*nt.”

“See that you do.”

Aziraphale forced himself to meet her eye, and not to fiddle with his cuffs or buttons or pocket watch. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Crowley biting his lip. None of them said a thing, and the moment stretched on, interminable and awkward.

Someone cleared their throat, breaking the silent tension.

“Excuse me. Are you ready to order?”

They’d reached the front of the queue. The barista, blessed soul that they were, was looking at them expectantly, hands poised over a tower of paper cups.

“Oh! Yes, yes, of course,” said Aziraphale gratefully. “What varieties of tea have you got? Most sorry, Uriel, but I mustn’t hold up the line whilst we chat. I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, I understand,” said Uriel. “I’ll just leave the pair of you to your fraternizing then. Aziraphale, see you on set in a few. Don’t be late. And you might want to fix your hair before you go on air. You look positively disheveled.”

Even once she’d gone, the awkward, uncomfortable atmosphere persisted, as did the sense of an unwelcome outside influence in a closed system. Aziraphale fiddled with the buttons of his waistcoat, where the nap had already grown thin, and tried valiantly to resist running his fingers through his apparently disheveled hair. Crowley, beside him, shuffled from one foot to another and jabbed his thumbs a little too aggressively at the screen of his phone. They did not speak to one another. The wait for their drinks seemed to take forever.

It was only after they were finally standing outside the café, hot beverages in hand, that Aziraphale said, “I think, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not go to this particular cafe again. I find I don’t care for it at all.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, relief obvious in his voice. “Way too many people, for one thing.”

“And the atmosphere leaves a great deal to be desired.”

“Absolutely terrible," agreed Crowley emphatically, then added, more quietly, "You're not going to listen to her, are you?"

"What?"

"About dressing more like the other presenters on your news programme.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose in distaste, and Aziraphale laughed. And just like that, the strange, awkward tension between them burned away like fog on a sunlit morning.

"Of course not. And Uriel can’t do anything about it. Well, she can complain all she wants, but my ratings are excellent, and she knows just as well as I that my appearance, old-fashioned though it may be, has something to do with it. And if my style only appeals to the old ladies among our viewership, I'm perfectly all right with that. The over-50s are a key part of the TV news demographic anyway."

Crowley nodded sagely. "Force to be reckoned with. You think they'd organize a campaign? Flood of strongly-worded letters begging the station to Save the Bow Tie? Hell, I wouldn’t put it past them to mount an offensive on social media too. They might still watch broadcast news, but, trust me, a lot more of your little old ladies are on YouTube than you might think. Twitter too. I know better than to underestimate them."

“I wouldn’t have expected you to be so thoroughly on my side. Aren’t you always trying to get me to update my look?”

“That’s different, and you know it. And while I still maintain you’d be a knockout in a pair of leather trousers— hell, for that matter, I bet the old ladies would love if you went on air one of these days in that tight white T-shirt you were wearing around the house last Sunday—"

“That was an undershirt. For wearing underneath proper shirts. It’s right there in the name.”

“Says you. ‘S a sexy shirt, is what I say.”

“Crowley. It is not.”

“I was there. I saw it.”

“Yes, and nobody else is going to see it. Did you have a point?”

“Right. Sorry. Got carried away. Anyway, my point is f*ck ‘em, angel. You look great. So much better than that git Gabriel with his boring suits and plastic hair.”

“He has his loyal fans too.”

Crowley made a face that left no doubt as to his opinion of the taste of Gabriel’s admirers, and then said, in a more subdued tone, “And, anyway, all this – the pocket watch and the bow tie and tartan and everything – it— it suits you, y’know?”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, his face warm. “Well, thank you, my dear.”

“Don’t thank me. ’S the truth.”

“Well, I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.” He smiled, and gestured at the tartan scarf still wound around Crowley’s throat. “And, if I may be so bold, it suits you too.”

Crowley curled his lip at this, but the crest of his cheekbones had gone pink. He picked up one dangling end of the scarf and made to unwind it from around his neck. Aziraphale shook his head to forestall him.

“Keep it. I’ve a spare in my office. I don’t trust you not to go running right back out into another downpour the minute I turn my back. Speaking of which, I really do need to be going. I don’t think I should antagonize Uriel any further by being tardy as well as hopelessly unfashionable.”

“Probably a good idea, yeah,” said Crowley. “Oh, and angel? Don’t listen to her. Listen to me. Your hair looks f*cking incredible right now. Don’t you dare do a thing to it.”

With those parting words running through his head, Aziraphale strode into the studio that afternoon without having done a single thing to fix his hair. And if the number of appreciative comments the station’s various social media outlets received about his windblown curls were any indication, Uriel had been very wrong and Crowley very, very right.

Chapter 6: I hear there’s this great big river in Egypt…

Chapter Text

Rain drummed on the oculus overhead, its steady patter drowned out at random intervals by the thrum and crack of thunder. The sky beyond the glass was pitch black and impenetrable, until it wasn’t. Until lightning flared sudden and day-bright to reveal the tumbled, turbulent masses of storm clouds, their underbellies a bruised blue-violet edged with liquid silver. For one split second, not even long enough for the reverberations of the accompanying thunder to cease, there was a stunning, brilliant clarity to it all – the clouds and the lightning and even the trajectory of the storm – before it all went dark and fathomless again.

Another flash of lightning, this one carving a dazzling, jagged path directly across the southwest quadrant of the oculus. A third. A fourth. Each one both expected and unexpected, a little thrill in its own right. That was how lightning always was, no matter how many times you’d seen it before. It always made you sit up and take notice, always made your breath catch in your throat, your heart leap in your chest.

Crowley didn’t think it would ever get old.

He tapped the screen of his phone to stop recording and, without looking away from the light show still going on overhead, tossed it onto the bed beside him. He was already composing the caption in his head:

Sometimes you just have to lie back and let the storm come to you

“You sure it’s ok for me to post this? It’s your oculus and your home, I absolutely get it if you don’t want me to put it up on the Internet for a bunch of strangers to gawk at.”

“Oh, it’s fine. Nobody will recognize it anyhow.”

“Really? That thing’s pretty damn memorable. I don’t think I could forget it if I tried.”

“That may be so, but someone would’ve had to have seen it first. And you’re the only person who’s been up here other than myself. Well, and the gentleman who restored the oculus, I suppose, but I honestly don’t believe he even owns a computer.”

“You’re telling me you’ve had no one else in your bedroom, ever? That can’t be true.”

“I didn't say that. I’ve had no one in this particular bedroom, but it’s only been my bedroom for a little less than two years. It was quite the lengthy affair getting the oculus repaired, and before that, when it was still all boarded up, it was far too dark and gloomy up here to be livable. I was using the room downstairs, the one that’s now my study, as my bedroom during that time.”

“Soooo,” drawled Crowley, keeping his eyes fixed on the oculus and ignoring the sudden, unexpected surge of possessiveness and triumph welling up in his chest, “you’re saying that I’m the only one who’s ever, ever, been f*cked under that thing.”

“Well, I’ve no idea what the previous owners of this place got up to.”

“Fine. I’m the only one you’ve ever f*cked under that thing.”

“In that case, yes. Yes, I suppose you are.”

“Ha! Everyone else is missing out then.”

“I’m sure they’re not.”

“Pffft,” said Crowley, flinging his arm upward in a gesture that was definitely not a fist pump but merely a convenient way to indicate the oculus overhead, “The other day, I saw stars.”

“Oh, stop, you flatterer.”

“Hey, it’s the truth. Have you ever known me to lie?”

“Well, no, but you are prone to hyperbole, my dear.”

“Not about this, angel. I swear. Cross my heart.”

“Anyhow, to get back to your question. Yes, I’ve been single for longer than I’ve had a working oculus. I did go on a few dates with someone last spring, but I ended things before I ever got to the point of inviting him over here.”

“Not an oculus-worthy bloke then, I take it?”

“He was perfectly nice, but, just between you and me, I found him intolerably dull. He was another meteorologist, actually. We met at a conference. You would’ve thought we’d have had more in common.”

“Ugh, say no more. He sounds like a dreadful bore. Definitely not oculus-worthy.”

“I tend to go rather slowly when it comes to these sorts of things. Unlike you, I’d imagine.”

“You’d be surprised, angel,” mumbled Crowley. “Been a couple of years for me too.”

“In any case, that was the last person I went out with. Nothing to write home about, I’m afraid. Oh, goodness. I just realized that was almost ten months ago, and I’ve hardly thought about him, or about dating at all really, since. How time flies.”

“You don’t miss it? Having a partner in general, I mean. Not Mr. dull-as-a-nice-day meteorologist.”

“Well, I had been missing the physical aspect of it a bit, I suppose. But our little Arrangement has taken care of that particular problem quite handily, if I do say so myself,” said Aziraphale, with a sidelong glance at Crowley. “But, other than that, no. I haven’t missed the rest of it. Truthfully, I haven’t even thought about it for ages.”

“Me neither.”

“To be quite honest, I find dating more trouble than it’s worth most of the time. Especially at the beginning. It’s always so awkward. Trying to get to know each other, to figure out if you’re even compatible. To work out how to make your life fit around a whole other person and their entirely disparate life. It’s all so much effort, you know?”

“Yeah. I’ve been there. And all that’s supposing you even manage to meet anyone who’s interested. Or interesting. Frankly, I’m shocked that anyone manages to find anyone they can even stand.”

“I can’t imagine you of all people would have much trouble. You’re so—so, well, you.”

What on earth is that supposed to mean, angel? Crowley didn’t voice that thought, saying instead, “Hey, I don’t meet many new people in my line of work. Storm chasing isn’t exactly known for being a social occupation, y’know.”

“I’m sure plenty of the people who leave comments on your YouTube channel would be over the moon if you asked them out.”

“That’s just thirst, angel. ‘S not real.”

“If you say so.”

“And the idea of going out with a fan feels, I dunno, weird.”

“Ah, you’re probably right. That would be strange, wouldn’t it?”

“The online dating thing’s never done it for me anyway.”

Aziraphale did not ask what did do it for him, which was just as well, because, truthfully, Crowley wasn’t sure he knew the answer.

Instead, after several seconds of silence, Aziraphale said brightly, “But let’s not talk any more about ancient history, shall we? I think it’s too cloudy for stars, unfortunately, but I’m quite certain we’ll see more lightning tonight.”

It was an easy out, and Crowley took it. It wasn’t hard, what with the distraction Aziraphale – and his plush lips and exposed forearms and, after a bit of disrobing, his glorious backside – was presenting along with it.

This wasn’t really the sort of thing one talked about with one’s casual friend with benefits, after all.

There was another squall that passed overhead, later that evening. This one was, if anything, even more dramatic than the one he’d filmed earlier: the thunderclaps more resounding, the lightning more spectacular, the downpour more torrential. If past experience was anything to go by, Crowley would not have been able to get outdoors fast enough, stopping only briefly to grab a camera or his phone and throw on some trousers. A shirt and shoes would be mere afterthoughts, forgotten more often than not. He would go and stand in the middle of the deserted street or up on the roof of his building, tip his lens and his face up toward the roiling midnight sky, and let the rain pelt his bare skin and the wind whip his hair into his face until he felt like he was consumed by the storm. It was a feeling like none other, like he was a tiny but integral part of something enormous and fierce and hungry, and it made him want to scream with the sheer feral pleasure of it. And when it was over, he would be left rain-soaked and breathless and exhilarated, his pulse pounding in his ears like thunder, his nerves crackling like lightning.

But tonight, the thought of going out (and, Someone forbid, the attendant donning of trousers) was the furthest thing from his mind. Instead, he wrapped his arms tight around Aziraphale’s back, and his legs around Aziraphale’s waist, and let the storm rage on outside without him. Instead, he filled all his senses with Aziraphale, with the sight and taste and smell and sound and, above all, the feel of him. Instead, he let Aziraphale make him scream, let Aziraphale consume him and fill him and take him apart right down to his very core, while the rain drummed, faster and faster and faster, on the oculus overhead. And when it was over, he was left sweat-soaked and breathless and exhilarated, his pulse pounding in his ears like thunder, his nerves crackling like lightning.

There were stars, and lightning aplenty, and the storm really could not compare.

The morning after was a Tuesday, because at some point their weekend assignations had become any-day-of-the-week, multiple-times-a-week assignations. Crowley, whose work schedule, such as it was, was defined by the whims of Mother Nature and the arguably even more arbitrary and incomprehensible rules of social media engagement algorithms, was perfectly fine with this. Was more than fine, even. He could Tweet and respond to comments just as easily from Aziraphale’s bed as from his own, and if he needed to spend a few hours editing video with his headphones on, Aziraphale always seemed content to sit and read or catch up on his own work, sharing space in a quiet, companiable, undemanding manner.

Somewhat more surprisingly, Aziraphale, who did have a more standard weekday work schedule, did not seem to have a problem with their weeknight sleepovers either. In fact, he claimed that he was in fact getting more sleep on average nowadays, as the insomnia he’d been plagued by for years seemed somehow to have abated, a veritable miracle that he attributed to their regular and rather vigorous bedroom activities.

The down side of all this, however, was that Aziraphale had to be at work by seven a.m. sharp. Which meant that Crowley also had to be awake, and, on the nights he slept at Aziraphale’s place at least, out and about at the arse-crack of dawn. (If they were at Crowley’s place, he could simply wave a sleepy goodbye from the comfort of bed before rolling over and going back to sleep once Aziraphale had left for the station. In truth, he didn’t even really need to be awake at all on those mornings, except for the fact that Aziraphale had taken to kissing him goodbye before heading out.)

If he was being honest, Crowley didn’t actually mind the early hour, despite his protests, so long as it wasn’t every morning. He felt remarkably well-rested; Aziraphale was probably on to something with regard to the quality of post-org*smic sleep. This neighborhood of historic homes and quirky shops and interesting eateries, which tended to be bustling with locals and tourists for most of the day, was at the moment serenely quiet and beautiful. Once Aziraphale had vanished around the corner in the opposite direction, there wasn’t another human in sight. The sun was just rising, turning the eastern sky orange and gold, and the remnants of last night’s rain on the pavement glittered in the light of it. Crowley stopped and took several selfies, because what else was one supposed to do when one found oneself walking home alone at six-thirty in the bloody morning in a picture-perfect setting? And he looked good, if he said so himself, with the sunrise in the background turning the red of his hair to flame.

He posted the best of the bunch to Instagram, and then, before he could second guess himself, texted it to Aziraphale as well.

It wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary. He’d caught Aziraphale surreptitiously checking Instagram twice while they’d been together: once under the dinner table at a sushi restaurant and once low at his side when he thought Crowley was distracted by an approaching cumulonimbus formation. The timing was too suspicious to be coincidence – both had been moments after Crowley himself had posted something. So, yes, Crowley knew Aziraphale would see his selfie on Instagram soon enough, if he hadn’t done so already. What was more, Crowley was pretty sure Aziraphale knew that he knew. Regardless, he still felt, for whatever reason, compelled to maintain the pretense. And so did Aziraphale, if his bemused and ostensibly befuddled comments about Crowley’s social media activities were any indication.

The response came less than a minute later, by text (Aziraphale would never deign to reply on Instagram, of course), just as Crowley reached the end of the street.

What a glorious sunrise. Absolutely stunning.

It had been ten months since they’d met, and six since they’d begun sleeping together. Sometimes Crowley wondered if they needed to talk about it. If, perhaps, they needed to renegotiate the terms of their Arrangement, or nix it altogether in favor of—well, something. Something less unconventional, perhaps. But the Arrangement as it stood was working beautifully, and they were both consenting adults who were perfectly aware of what they were getting themselves into. Aziraphale, furthermore, was not the sort to keep his opinions to himself. If he wanted something more, surely he’d have said so by now.

Besides, Aziraphale was right. Relationships were a lot of work, and, in Crowley’s experience, felt more often than not like desperately trying to cram together two mismatched puzzle pieces to make some semblance of a whole.

This thing, this Arrangement he had with Aziraphale, this was different. Easy. Fun. Effortless almost from the very beginning. Neither of them had had to upend their lives for the other. It just worked. And the sex was mind-blowingly good, easily the best he’d ever had.

No, Crowley had absolutely nothing to complain about. They had a good thing – maybe even a great thing – going, and why mess with a good thing?

Chapter 7: ...and, oh boy, it sure does flood a lot

Chapter Text

As soon as Aziraphale stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the station at noon, he inhaled deeply and rolled his shoulders, letting the tension drop out of them. The air had that peculiar, unsettled quality that meant a storm was imminent, and there was a southerly breeze, strong enough to banish any unpleasant mugginess, with the further promise (or threat, depending on whom you asked) of gusts and gales behind it. He imagined it blowing away the last of the minor aggravations he’d had to contend with at work that morning and felt immediately lighter, although some of that was undoubtedly also due to the prospect of a pleasant afternoon ahead. He had the rest of the day off, and had plans to accompany Crowley for a spot of filming in a coastal town an hour’s drive to the south.

The Bentley wasn’t at the curb yet – Crowley had texted that he’d run into a bit of traffic on the way over and might be a few minutes late. Well, no matter. They’d still make it down to the coast with plenty of time to spare, he was done with work for the week, and he had a book to pass the time. He had barely read one page, however, when an unwelcome hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

“Aziraphale! There you are! Just the man we were hoping to see!” boomed a voice, loud and American-accented and familiar to everyone who watched the Channel Six morning news programme.

“Gabriel. And Sandalphon,” he acknowledged, forcing himself to smile pleasantly at his two least favorite coworkers even as his good mood instantaneously evaporated. “Can this wait? I’m off work for the rest of the day, and I’ve got plans. I really don’t have time for chitchat.”

“Oh, we’re on our way out as well. We’re headed for the gym. You should come with. It would do you good to lose that gut. It’s really not very television-worthy, is it now?”

Beside Gabriel, Sandalphon shifted his heavy gym bag from one hand to the other. He sneered, his gold-capped incisor catching an errant ray of sunlight, and Aziraphale bit back the petty impulse to retort that tacky gold teeth weren’t particularly television-worthy either.

Gabriel’s callous disregard, his dismissive arrogance, his schoolyard bullying dressed up as jocularity, were old hat to Aziraphale by now, after years of working with the man. The comment still stung, though, in the moment. He couldn’t help but glance down self-consciously at his stomach, and had to forcibly suppress the urge to suck it in.

Like water, he told himself silently, off a duck’s back. The phrase, as always, made him think of Crowley and the day they’d met; he’d adopted it as a mantra of sorts in the last few months, finding it oddly effective when dealing with all sorts of petty aggravations.

Steadier now, he said, “No, Gabriel, I don’t think I shall be joining you actually. As I’ve just told you, I already have plans for the rest of the afternoon.”

Gabriel shrugged. “Your loss, buddy. But do yourself a favor and hit the gym soon, Aziraphale. Maybe cut down on the carbs too. You really can’t afford to let yourself go in this business.”

He clapped Aziraphale heartily on the shoulder again. Aziraphale, not quick enough to stop the instinctive reaction this time, flinched.

Just then, a horn honked, loud and close, the precise tone of it blessedly familiar. Aziraphale swiveled around, unceremoniously dislodging Gabriel’s hand, and looked up to the welcome sight of a black vintage Bentley idling across the street, her driver leaning over to unlock the passenger side door.

“Oh, would you look at that? There’s my ride now. I mustn’t keep him waiting. It would be rude. Good day, gentlemen. I shall see you both in the studio on Monday.”

He strode across the street without waiting for an acknowledgement or a goodbye, and flung open the car door, taking care to keep his shoulders squared and his footsteps steady. The minute the door slammed shut behind him, however, he slumped down wearily into the seat, sighing and closing his eyes.

“Everything all right, angel?” asked Crowley, arching an eyebrow and shifting the car into drive.

“It will be. I just— Sorry. I just need a moment.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Just Gabriel being his usual self.”

“So, an arse.”

“Quite.”

“What did he say this time?”

“Oh, it’s nothing he hasn’t said before. Just told me I needed to lose the gut. For the umpteenth time.”

“He said what? Listen to me, angel, there is nothing, absolutely f*cking nothing, wrong with your body! And how dare Gabriel bloody Herald imply otherwise!”

“Crowley, it’s fine. Really. It’s just Gabriel being Gabriel, and I’ve absolutely no desire to look like him anyhow.”

“No, it’s not fine! Who the f*ck does he think he is saying things like that to you? It’s none of his goddamn business!”

“No, it’s not, but honestly, Crowley, I don’t put any stock in what he says and neither should you. He’s been like this for as long as I’ve known him. I’m used to it by now. Now, can we please just drop it, and not let Gabriel ruin our afternoon—Crowley? Why have we stopped?”

Crowley, who had indeed stopped the car several doors down from where they’d started, was squinting intently at something in the rear-view mirror. Then he said abruptly, “Ah, f*ckit. Hold that thought, angel. And, uh, maybe you might want to actually hold on to something too.”

Aziraphale had just enough time to grab the handle above the door before Crowley was reversing at speed and then spinning the steering wheel around with a sharp, full-body wrench, all outflung elbows and swiveling shoulders and straining neck. The Bentley obliged, executing a tight one-eighty-degree turn directly in front of Gabriel and Sandalphon, who were still standing on the sidewalk. The tires skidded across the asphalt, emitting a loud, cacophonous screech. Aziraphale felt the motion, the sharp, unexpected swerve and jolt of it, in the pit of his stomach, but instead of terror it filled him with a swooping, joyful exhilaration even as he hung on for dear life.

Gabriel and Sandalphon both startled visibly, leaping back in alarm. Sandalphon dropped his gym bag. Gabriel managed to keep a hold of his, but the momentum set it swinging backward, perfectly placed to catch an unsuspecting Sandalphon square in the gut. Disappointingly, Sandalphon kept his footing – they both did – but only just, staggering back a couple of steps from the impact.

For good measure, Crowley stomped hard on the accelerator and, with a great roar of the Bentley’s engine, they zoomed off down the street, leaving Gabriel and Sandalphon choking on exhaust fumes in their wake.

As they slowed again, Crowley languidly held up one hand in the rearview, middle finger raised in triumph. There was an immense smile on his face, devilish and full of joy.

Aziraphale should probably, he thought, be admonishing Crowley for his recklessness, but instead he felt giggly and light, the adrenaline leftover from Crowley’s stunt still fizzy in his veins.

Crowley himself was practically vibrating with glee.

“Gosh, angel. That was fun. Didja see the look on their faces? f*ckin’ priceless. And the short, bald one – Sandal phony, was it? – the way his mouth fell open and his head bounced up when ol’ Gabe clocked him with his bag! Just like one of those bobblehead thingamajigs. Boing boing boinggggg.”

This last statement was accompanied by Crowley tapping his finger against the steering wheel, a little harder and more emphatically with each successive boing.

“That reminds me, the station had bobblehead dolls made of Gabriel and Michael a couple of years ago, as a promotional sort of thing. They looked utterly absurd. The rest of us weren’t important enough to rate them, I guess. Shame, really, because you’re right. They missed a golden opportunity to make a Sandalphon one.”

“He’s got the perfect big round bobbly head for it. But I think I’d be too tempted to rip it off.”

Aziraphale couldn’t hold it together any longer. He burst into helpless laughter, and was joined almost instantaneously by Crowley.

“I do wonder,” he mused in between fits of giggles, “what on earth Gabriel had in that bag of his that was so heavy it nearly knocked Sandalphon over.”

“His ego, probably. Or his sense of superiority. Though I bet it’s a little smaller now.”

“One can only hope. Although one cannot reduce a thing that is infinitely large. It’s mathematically impossible.”

“Mathematically impossible my arse. I’ve half a mind to go back there,” said Crowley, grinning, “And tell them about how you held me up against the wall last night while we were—“

“Crowley!”

“What? I’m just saying, you’re more fit than him – in every sense of the word, mind you – and I’ve got the receipts to prove it.”

“You're absolutely incorrigible, you know that?”

“Yeah, and you like it.”

Aziraphale did like it. He liked Crowley’s ridiculous stunt and all the accompanying posturing, liked that Crowley always seemed to know exactly how best to make him laugh even when he was in the most dismal of moods. And, perhaps most of all, he liked that Crowley had seen fit to defend him, however unorthodox his methods.

“Not that this is to be taken in any way, shape, or form as approval of your methods or your driving, but I can’t think of anyone who deserved that more than those two. So thank you for that, I suppose.”

“Anytime, angel. I mean it. I’m always up for making good ol’ Gabe and Sandy sh*t their pants.”

“I sincerely hope it won’t come down to that, although I appreciate the offer of support, of course. But do let’s stop wasting any more breath on them now.”

“Alright. No more talk of those two wankers. Promise.”

“Let’s be off then. We’ve a storm to catch.”

Crowley was true to his word, and there was no further mention of Gabriel or Sandalphon that afternoon. There were plenty of more interesting things to talk about, after all, the first of which presented himself before they’d even gone two blocks.

“Oh look, angel, it’s Nipple Troll!”

Aziraphale groaned. The gentleman in question was standing on the street corner ceaselessly haranguing any and all pedestrians unfortunate enough to venture within earshot. His unhinged ranting was loud enough to be heard clearly even from inside the Bentley. From what Aziraphale could gather, today’s tirade seemed to be primarily about how witches were responsible for the rising price of condensed milk at the corner store.

“His name’s Shadwell, by the way. Security’s put up signs with his name and picture on them in the lobby. He’s no longer allowed within one hundred meters of the building after that day when he accosted Newt and the others. Apparently we can’t stop him from making a nuisance of himself elsewhere though.”

“He’s back in my comments too. His new username is Lance Corporal Thundergun - RIP Major Milkbottle.”

“That’s a mouthful. What on earth is a thundergun? Is that supposed to be some sort of weather reference?”

“I really, really don’t want to know. Anyway, he left me an absolute banger of a comment ‘bout how all my naked dancing in the rain was the devil’s work and an abomination et cetera et cetera. Apparently I’m blighting all his crops now. Me! Blighting crops!”

“With your oodles of nipples, I assume.”

“You would know. I don’t dance naked for anyone else these days. How’re your crops, angel?”

“I daresay they’ve never been better.”

“Ha! Take that, Major Milkbottle-Thundergun-Shadwell-whatever your name is!”

“Although, to be fair, I’ve yet to see you dancing naked in the rain.”

“Well, remind me next time it rains then.”

“I shall. You’ve blocked him again, I assume.”

“Nah,” said Crowley, and there was that smile again. The cheeky, wicked one, the one that he’d worn while frightening Gabriel and Sandalphon not five minutes ago. The one that meant he was about to say or do something outrageous that all the rules of propriety dictated Aziraphale ought to object to. The one that made him simultaneously want to roll his eyes and kiss Crowley right smack in the middle of that mischievous, smirking mouth. “Did one better. I set Tracy on him.”

“Your Youtube psychic-slash-sex-toy-reviewer friend Tracy?”

“Yeah. Force to be reckoned with, she is.”

“I must admit I’m rather skeptical. Of the psychic bit, I mean. I’ve absolutely no qualms about the rest of it, mind you.”

(Aziraphale had, in fact, watched a handful of her Madame Tracy draws aside the veil videos as well as all of the Thursdays with Tracy, by appointment only ones. The former, in his opinion, were rather overly theatrical, bordering on cheesy, but the latter were refreshingly honest, highly entertaining, and very informative. He’d also recognized more than a couple of the models in Crowley’s bedside drawer in her reviews; for that alone, he thought, he ought to write Tracy a heartfelt letter of thanks.)

“Honestly I think she’s a bit of one too. Skeptic, I mean. But she’s a damn good entertainer.”

“That she is. She seems like a lovely person too. Certainly not deserving of Mister Shadwell’s, ahh, attentions.”

“Oh, trust me, she’s loving it. Tore him a new one in my comment section, and now she’s somehow managed to get him to start watching and commenting on her channel. Apparently she’s Jezebel now. The Hoor, H-O-O-R, spelled just like that mind you, of Babylon. She’s been having a ball. Told me just the other day she’s been thinking about squeezing into her old leather pinny and channeling the spirit of dear deceased Major Milkbottle for her next video just to see how he’ll react.”

“She ought to ask Milkbottle’s opinion on nipple clamps. A set of three, of course.”

“Oh f*ck, angel, that’s bloody brilliant. You’re f*cking brilliant. Forget Tracy, I’m sending all my trolls to you from now on.”

“Please don’t.”

“No, but seriously, remind me later to tell Tracy about your amazing idea.”

“Does she know about me then?”

“Sort of. She knows I’ve got my—my f*ck buddy that I see regularly. I hope you don’t mind. She won’t tell anyone.”

Aziraphale considered this for a moment. Crowley said those words – my f*ck buddy – so easily, so matter-of-factly. Like he didn’t even have to think twice about it. Like it was no different than how one might say my mate from uni or my supposedly-psychic-sex-toy-reviewer friend.

It wasn’t, Aziraphale decided, a bad thing to have a name for it. To have it all out in the open like that, to know where they stood with relation to one another.

“I don’t mind. Although I think I prefer friend with benefits myself. f*ck buddy is rather crass, don’t you think?”

“Hey, her words, not mine. I’ve only ever used your name when I’m talking to her. She figured out the f*ck— the benefits bit on her own. Claims she’s known for months. Apparently my aura’s changed or some such. All big and floofy and pink now, whatever the hell that means.”

“I thought she wasn’t really psychic.”

“She’s not. But when it comes to sex? Yeah, I one hundred percent believe Tracy can tell when someone’s getting some on the regular.”

“Well, floofy pink auras aside, she’s not wrong about that.”

They arrived at their destination, a little seaside hamlet all the way down on the south coast, in under an hour, thanks in no small part to Crowley's driving. The town itself, primarily a summer holiday destination, was mostly shuttered for the winter, and the year-round residents who remained had sensibly kept to their homes in anticipation of the coming storm. As a result, he and Crowley encountered no one in the small car park where they left the Bentley nor on the beach below, which was accessed by clambering down a scrubby slope. Every one of Aziraphale’s models had predicted that this was where the storm would make landfall. Serendipitously, this particular beach also provided a nearly perfect vantage point to watch said storm roll in; from where they stood, they had a clear line of sight all the way up the coast, where the shore narrowed abruptly and then vanished beneath a line of high, rocky cliffs, and all the way out over the water to where the heaviest of the storm clouds loomed, stacked atop the horizon.

Already a brisk, restless breeze was blowing in from over the sea, and the waves were all crested with foamy white caps. More than half the sky was twilight-dark, blanketed in clouds weighty with rain, although a small, rapidly shrinking sliver of clear blue could still be seen to the north. The tide was near to high, each wave rising a little taller, a little wilder, than the last before dashing itself against the foot of the cliffs. The only living beings in sight other than themselves were a few raucous seagulls shrieking and wheeling and diving joyously into the tumbling waves. Some of the wind gusts were forceful enough to send them tumbling temporarily off course, but the creatures were fearless and undaunted, swooping back around in mere seconds in order to catch the updrafts and use them to soar instead of fall.

It would be some time yet before the leading edge of the storm reached shore, which gave Crowley ample opportunity to play with shots and angles and panoramas, and gave Aziraphale ample opportunity to observe him. In a series of smooth, well-practiced motions, Crowley set up his tripod in the sand – this would not be practical later once the storm truly set in, but for now it held admirably despite the rising winds – and then sauntered out in front of it. He toed the tideline, so close to the tumbling surf that Aziraphale feared for his snakeskin shoes – rainwater was one thing, but saltwater was a different beast altogether – and preened for the camera. With his hair whipping loose about his face in the stiff sea breeze and his arms spread wide like he was about to take flight over the roiling ocean, he looked like something fey and wild and joyful, come straight out of the heart of the storm, and Aziraphale could not look away.

It took a certain, rare breed of crazy person to come out here deliberately in late winter, out of season, directly in the path of an incoming storm. A year ago, before he’d begun keeping regular company with a storm chaser, Aziraphale would have said he was most definitely not one of them. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

He’d done things like this, of course, in his younger days, but not by choice; when one was just starting out as an assistant TV meteorologist, one had to put in one’s time, broadcasting on location when the occasion or one’s superiors demanded. He hadn’t hated it back then – it was, if nothing else, always undeniably satisfying to see the tangible proof that his forecast had been accurate – but he’d always wished to be elsewhere: somewhere warm and dry and cosy, with a cup of Russian Caravan tea or a glass of peaty scotch in one hand and a favorite book in the other. Someplace where he wouldn’t get wet, or be forced to shout over the clamor of the wind and rain and waves.

But now, here he was, of his own volition, on this deserted beach in February, and it was a near certainty that he’d be soaked to the bone very soon. And still there wasn’t a single other place he’d rather be than right here, watching Crowley play chicken with the tide and waiting for the storm to make landfall.

Any revelations about his personal priorities aside, however, it was rather more nippy out than was ideal. The temperature was noticeably lower than it had been back in the city, due in part to the coastal locale and in part to the imminent storm. A nice, hot cup of cocoa or tea would have gone a long way toward mitigating the chill, but there was none to be had – one of the pitfalls of visiting a tiny coastal town in February was that the majority of the shops were closed for the season, including the singular café. The wind had intensified too, to the point where Crowley had been forced to pack up his tripod lest it tip over in a sudden gust. At the moment, it seemed singularly determined to unwrap Aziraphale’s scarf from around his neck, no matter how snugly he tucked it in, so as to bite gleefully at the exposed skin.

He shivered. A moment later, he felt the press of a warm body against his back and the embrace of a pair of leather-clad arms around his chest.

"Cold, angel?"

"Mm-hmm."

The arms tightened around him, and a sharp chin settled in the crook of his neck, right where his scarf had once again come unwound.

Crowley's breath was hot on his neck, the strands of red hair falling over Aziraphale's shoulder damp and curling with sea spray. Aziraphale leaned back, just a little, shutting his eyes and breathing in the smell of leather and salt and the fresh apple scent of Crowley’s shampoo. This was when, he thought, one or the other of them should say something biting and sharp, should hide their fondness beneath mockery and sarcasm.

It was Crowley who eventually spoke first, but what came out of his mouth was neither mocking nor sarcastic, but instead simply inexplicable.

"Warlock.”

"What?"

"This storm. Remember back when we went to Tadfield that first time? I said I’d always wanted to name a storm Warlock. And this is number twenty-three. The letter W."

"Really? It’s only twenty-two by my count."

"Ha! I bet you’re forgetting to count that one from a couple of weeks ago. You remember. When we were at my place, after we watched that awful film with the werewolves and the sparkly vampires — damn, what was it called?"

"New Moon. Objectively terrible but somehow strangely enjoyable."

"That’s the one. I liked that Aro fellow. He seems like he’d be fun."

"You would."

"Anyway, the storm from later that night."

“I hardly think that one counts, Crowley.”

“Why not? Big enough to deserve a name, innit?”

“Yes, but neither of us filmed anything. You didn’t take so much as a single photograph. We didn’t even go outside.”

(They’d only just gotten into bed when it had begun to rain and had even still been (mostly) clothed, but the call of electric touches and hot, wet mouths had won out over that of distant lightning and cold rain. It hadn’t even been a contest. And afterwards (because a storm impressive enough for a name could without a doubt keep going for far, far longer than even the most determined of horny meteorologists and storm chasers), the blissful, post-org*smic exhaustion had set in, languid and lazy and sweet as honey. By the time either of them thought to so much as look out the window, it was the following morning and the storm had passed them by in its entirety, leaving behind only scattered puddles glittering in the sunlight on the pavement below.)

“It absolutely counts. We were together and it was big enough for a name, so it counts.”

“If those are your only criteria, then I suppose it does. It was a memorable evening, I’ll give you that,” conceded Aziraphale. “Goodness. Twenty-three storms together. Who would’ve thought?”

“Twenty-three and counting, you mean.”

Aziraphale looked out across the ocean, where storm number twenty-three was gathering. There was something magical about the way the sky and the sea fit against one another ahead of a storm, their boundaries seamless and mutable. The clouds, weighed down with rain, and the waves, swelling high in the wind, seemed to be of a piece, both cast in shades of grey, both huge and hungry, both reaching for the other.

It all made one feel small, insignificant. And that wasn't at all a bad thing.

Particularly if one had someone to share it with. Someone who understood that feeling of being awestruck by the incredible things the Earth was capable of.

Twenty-three storms and counting, indeed. And wasn’t that something.

“Damn,” said Crowley. “Really wish I didn’t have to be back in the city for that meeting at six. We’re going to miss an incredible sunset.”

“We’ll do it next time. Perhaps we could make an evening of it, find a nice little B&B and stay over for the night.”

“There’s an idea. Could come back out here to the beach for a spot of stargazing too, if we’re lucky and the clouds clear out in time. We might even be able to see the Milky Way if there’s no moon.”

“Anthony J. Crowley! Did I just hear you express a wish for clear skies? Oh lord, I never thought I’d see the day.”

“Don’t get too excited, angel. Only if there’s a storm first. Big one. Clouds for days. Gotta make it worth our while.”

“Oh, of course,” laughed Aziraphale. “I’ll just kindly inform Mother Nature that she’s free to be as wild as she wishes, so long as she packs it all up by midnight. Oh, and by the way, if she would be so kind as to wait until the next new moon, that’d be just cracking, ta.”

“Sounds reasonable to me. I mean, I wouldn’t be saying no. Not if it was you asking, angel.”

“I’ll let you know what she says,” said Aziraphale sarcastically, although he already knew that he’d be poring over his models every day for the foreseeable future for any sign of that rare confluence. If it took another twenty-three storms before it happened, so be it.

“Oh, by the way. Speaking of that meeting of mine tonight, I have this feeling it’s gonna run over, and it’s with a potential sponsor, so I really can’t cut out early. Anyway, um, just wanted to let you know I might be a bit late for our movie night tonight.”

“It’s all right. We can always reschedule for later, or for another night altogether.”

“Ngk-- no! Nonono, ’s not what I meant at all,” protested Crowley, sounding flustered. He took a step back, his arms dropping away from around Aziraphale in the process. Aziraphale, immediately missing the warmth, turned to regard his companion curiously.

“I really don’t mind rescheduling, Crowley. Your meeting is more important.”

“I don’t want to reschedule. I just—just wanted to ask you if you wouldn’t mind picking up our takeaway, is all,” mumbled Crowley. He seemed uncharacteristically nervous, with his shoulders hunched slightly and his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Of course I don’t mind.”

"Get whatever you want. You know what I like. And—here,” said Crowley, pulling something out of his left trouser pocket, “That’s the key to my flat. You can just let yourself in whenever you arrive. That way you won’t have to wait in the hallway with all the food in case I’m late."

"Oh. Are—are you certain? We could always meet at my place instead if it’s easier."

"And watch a film on that geriatric shoebox you call a television? I’ve got more self-respect than that, angel. Course I’m certain."

"All right, if you're sure. I'll just leave the key on your kitchen counter after I get in then."

"Eh, y’might as well just keep it. Got loads of spares anyway."

The key in Aziraphale’s palm was still warm from having been in Crowley’s pocket, and suddenly Aziraphale felt rather flustered himself, nearly dropping it twice in the process of adding it to his own keyring.

Coincidentally, he’d had a spare copy of his own key made up several weeks ago. As he’d passed by a locksmith’s shop one afternoon, it had suddenly seemed imperative that he ought to have a spare key to give to a friend or neighbor, just in case he locked himself out one day. (He’d temporarily forgotten, it seemed, that he already had a spare, safely stowed away in his desk drawer at work, a short fifteen minute walk away.)

There was, of course, really only one person he’d ever pictured himself giving it to. It was a purely practical consideration – Crowley was the person he saw most frequently outside of work, and lived nearby enough that it wouldn’t be a hardship to go and fetch the key from him if necessary. Even still, Aziraphale hadn’t quite yet managed, in the subsequent weeks, to broach the subject with Crowley. He didn’t, after all, wish to introduce a sense of obligation, or to somehow overstep the boundaries of their Arrangement.

Now, he stared at that key, hanging right beside the one that Crowley had given him moments ago. The existence of the latter meant that the circ*mstances had fundamentally changed. It was no longer a question of what was or was not expected of friends with benefits. No, now it would simply be rude not to reciprocate.

And, after all, what was the Arrangement about if not reciprocation?

“I—err, would you like a key to mine as well? In the interest of fairness, of course. And for the sake of convenience.”

“You don’t have to feel like you have to just because I gave you mine.”

“Please. I insist. I wouldn’t want you to have to wait outside for me in case I’m ever late. You might get caught up in a rainstorm, and then I’d feel awfully responsible.”

“I’d probably get all wet. Never seem to have a brolly handy, me.”

“There you go. That’s settled then. Oh, would you look at that. I just happen to have a spare on my keyring here. Here you go. Do feel free to use that whenever you like.”

“Thanks, angel,” said Crowley, turning the key over and over in his hand. After a few seconds, he pocketed it, then tipped his head back to look at the sky. It had grown significantly darker, and the heaviest and most ominous portion of the cloud cover now loomed almost directly overhead.

The atmosphere felt charged and unsettled and full of promise.

“Oh, sh*t. Looks like all hell’s about to break loose. I gotta start filming. Stay dry, angel. Bentley’s unlocked if it gets too bonkers out here.”

The storm was bonkers, with wind and rain and surf all surpassing every single one of Aziraphale’s models, every single one of his expectations. He half expected to see a sea monster, something enormous and terrifying and tentacled, rising from the depths, and a thunderbolt-wielding god descending from the clouds to challenge it.

All the seagulls had long since vanished, having sensibly headed for cover once the winds grew blustery and sustained enough to blow even the largest and most stubborn of them consistently off-course. Aziraphale, perhaps less sensibly, stayed where he was, valiantly struggling to keep his trusty tartan umbrella from turning inside-out, and not once did the thought of availing himself of the Bentley’s shelter cross his mind. Instead, he stood his ground, letting the storm break against him, and watched Crowley in his element.

It was far too windy and turbulent for the tripod now, so Crowley shot exclusively with his handheld camera, alternating between short, close shots of his windblown, rain-pelted face and extended sequences of the sky and the sea and the tempest wreaking havoc upon them both. More than once he was forced to leap back abruptly, all of his limbs aflail and the camera right along with them, when a larger-than-expected wave barreled ashore. Knowing Crowley, at least a couple of those moments, when everything went spinning and chaotic and out-of-focus, would make it into the final video. They'd make his viewers feel like they were right there with him, caught up in the mayhem and exhilaration of the storm.

Aziraphale found himself entirely riveted by Crowley’s performance, even more so than usual. For all that he couldn’t even hear what Crowley was saying over the cacophony of the rain and surf, he couldn’t help but be drawn in by the immediacy, the urgency, of his every move, his every gesture. Aziraphale couldn’t tear his eyes away. It felt like the entire world consisted of nothing but the sea and the storm and Crowley.

Snapping his umbrella shut, Azirahpale let it fall to his side. Within seconds, he was drenched. He let the rain go sluicing down his face and neck and the wind run riot through his hair. Just then, Crowley turned in his direction, catching his eye and grinning. His face was alight with pure, undistilled happiness, and Aziraphale found himself suddenly caught unawares. He hadn’t expected that smile, hadn’t been prepared for how it would make his heart, already beating double-time in his chest with the adrenaline from the storm, swoop and soar like a seagull caught up in a sudden, fierce updraft.

In the past few months, Aziraphale had wondered every once in a while – and more often of late – whether he and Crowley ought to talk about the Arrangement. Whether Crowley meant anything more than flirtation or jest when he said things like “I only dance naked in the rain for you,” and whether it went beyond mere friendship that Crowley always took his side whenever his colleagues were cruel or dismissive. And just now, whether it was significant that Crowley had given him the key to his flat.

The thing was, though, that Crowley had never overtly said anything to indicate that he wanted anything more. And Crowley wasn’t like Aziraphale. Crowley was self-assured and headstrong and impulsive. He wasn’t afraid to take chances on new things. If Crowley had wanted something beyond what they currently had, surely he would have said something by now.

It was probably all in Aziraphale’s head anyway. There had always been a teasing, flirtatious undertone to their banter, right from the day they’d met, and there was no reason to suspect it meant anything deeper now. The exchange of keys was a simple reciprocal exchange for entirely practical reasons. And Crowley would most likely defend any one of his friends against the likes of Gabriel and Sandalphon simply because he was, despite his constant protests to the contrary, a nice person and a good friend.

And Crowley was a good friend. The best one Aziraphale had ever had, even. Being in his company felt as easy as breathing. They never ran out of things to talk about, and could just as easily inhabit a comfortable silence together. Crowley could always, even in the direst of circ*mstances, make Aziraphale laugh.

And he was also, hands down, the best sexual partner Aziraphale had ever had. None of his previous partners even came close. He honestly hadn’t known how good it could be, not until Crowley.

And maybe, just maybe, the two things were related. Maybe the reason why sex with Crowley was so good was because they were just friends. Because there were no obligations and no expectations.

If someone had asked Aziraphale ten months and twenty-three storms ago, he would have said that just as he wasn’t the sort of person who voluntarily went to stand on deserted beaches during thunderstorms, he also wasn’t the sort of person to voluntarily enter into a friends with benefits arrangement. He still wasn’t quite sure, if he was being honest, exactly how the transition from friends to friends with benefits had happened, except that it had been an easy and natural progression, like everything else in their friendship, and that he was glad of it every day.

Perhaps, after years and years of trying to figure things out vis a vis relationships, he’d finally cracked the code. Maybe the trick was, after all, to just keep things casual. Friends with benefits, the Arrangement, f*ck buddies - whatever you wanted to call it, it was working.

There was no need to muddy the waters. They had a good thing going, just the way it was, and why mess with a good thing?

Chapter 8: atmospheric instability

Chapter Text

It was bad enough that Crowley had been awoken by the unholy clash and clang of Aziraphale’s vintage alarm clock at half five on a Sunday morning. It was worse still to be standing here in the doorway thirty minutes later, bleary-eyed and shivering in the pre-dawn chill, waving goodbye to Aziraphale. The floorboards were icy beneath Crowley’s bare feet – it hadn’t even crossed his still sleep-addled mind to put on slippers before stumbling down the spiral staircase. No two ways about it: being out of bed at this hour was downright barbaric. Even Aziraphale, who was far more of a morning person, had conceded this fact just a minute ago, as he hefted his luggage and opened the front door to where the cab was already waiting at the curb in the fog and gloom. But, he’d added philosophically, the five-thirty train to Edinburgh, where the annual meeting of the Royal Society of Meteorology was being held starting this evening, waited for no man, and so needs must.

It was long past moonrise, and not yet sunrise; the only sources of illumination were the lamp over the front door and the headlights of the idling cab. Aziraphale lingered on the step, fiddling with the strap of his satchel. The small smile he gave Crowley looked oddly wistful beneath the yellow porchlight.

“Well, goodbye then, I suppose.”

“Bye, angel,” said Crowley, lifting his hand in a lazy half-wave, and stepped forward to kiss him goodbye.

He hadn’t meant to do it. This wasn’t the sort of thing they did, he and Aziraphale, for all that they had kissed thousands of times before. But there was nobody watching except the bored cabbie who almost certainly didn’t give a damn. But it was dark and foggy and way too f*cking early in the morning for rational thought or impulse control. But he wasn’t going to see Aziraphale again until Friday.

He could be forgiven, if it came to that.

Aziraphale’s mouth briefly rounded into an oh of surprise before softening against his, and his hand touched Crowley’s cheek, fleetingly, right before they broke apart.

“Take care of yourself, my dear,” whispered Aziraphale. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

And then he was gone.

Once the lights of the cab had vanished around the corner, Crowley trudged back upstairs to fling himself face-first back into bed, intending to sleep for another three or four hours. Ordinarily, he was a champion sleeper, but today he found himself unable to get comfortable, tossing and turning and making a tangled mess of the tartan bedsheets. Eventually he gave it up as a bad deal, and grudgingly got up again for good when the sky began to lighten in the oculus overhead.

He didn’t linger, because it felt strange being in Aziraphale’s home without Aziraphale. This made no sense, because it wasn’t like Crowley hadn’t spent plenty of time here before on his own – hours upon hours, even – while Aziraphale was at the station or otherwise occupied. He had a key to come and go as he pleased, and it was a nice change of pace to come here to work when he got tired of the plain, cold walls of his own flat. Not to mention, there was something incomparably perfect about winter afternoon naps in Aziraphale’s sunny upstairs bedroom.

But somehow this morning was different. Perhaps it was just that it was too quiet at this still-too-early, uncivilized hour. Or perhaps it was because it was Sunday. Sunday mornings were for lying in and being lazy, for slow kisses and lazy handjobs and dozing contentedly for an hour or two before spending another drinking tea while trying to decide where to go for brunch. And even on those occasions when Aziraphale or the weather prevailed on Crowley to leave the house at six in the morning for some sunrise something or other, there were still brunch and a nap and maybe even that handjob to look forward to afterwards.

Surely that was all this antsy, unsettled feeling was. A too-early morning and a disruption to his normal routine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

Thankfully, there was a storm brewing to the south, and there was nothing like some good, wild weather to snap Crowley out of a funk. He spent a couple of hours back at his own flat working out a plan of attack, and then it was time to get in the Bentley and go. It was a fast-moving, mercurial storm, the sort that demanded all his attention for fast, fancy driving, precision camera work, and split-second decisions.

One of the things Crowley loved most about storm chasing was how nothing ever happened quite the same way twice. It was spontaneous even when it was routine, thrilling even when it was familiar. Improvisation and instinct were just as important as planning and forethought. You never knew what you’d end up with until you were right there in the middle of it, right there in the moment. Which made it the perfect distraction, and the perfect way to stop dwelling on how out-of-sorts he’d felt earlier in the day.

Crowley returned to his flat in the late afternoon, thoroughly drenched and still vibrating with residual adrenaline. The first thing he did, even before going to shower and change, was to download a photograph from his good camera and send it to Aziraphale. It wasn’t a selfie for once, but a wide shot taken with a tripod and timer post-storm, featuring himself leaning against the Bentley as a single, serendipitous ray of sunlight broke through from the cloud cover overhead.

An hour later, Aziraphale sent several snapshots taken from what looked to be a balcony or rooftop, showing storm clouds darkening the sky and casting shadows over the rolling hills below.

There were several other people visible in some of Aziraphale’s photos. Other meteorologists, Crowley assumed, also attending the conference. Most of them seemed to be unaware that they were being photographed, but one man, dressed in a tweed jacket and horn-rimmed glasses, stood out. He was holding a glass of wine up in a toasting gesture and smiling at the camera, or perhaps at the man behind it, and was handsome in a rumpled, floppy-haired, distinctly academic sort of way. Crowley hated him on sight.

And, just like that, the unsettled, twitchy feeling from earlier in the day returned in force, squirming unpleasantly in the pit of Crowley’s stomach.

Briefly, he considered asking whether this Simon was the meteorologist that Aziraphale had mentioned once, the bore he’d met at a conference and gone on a few dates with a year ago. He certainly looked the part, what with his tweed and his glasses and his stupid floppy hair.

But no. That was ridiculous. Aziraphale had just said they hadn’t seen each other for ages, and surely ages was longer than a year and change.

And it was none of Crowley’s business anyhow.

A few minutes later, his phone chimed again. This time Aziraphale had sent a video. He was still standing on the balcony, although the tweedy git was gone now, along with all the other bystanders, and it looked as though the storm had just broken. Rain was coming down in great, noisy torrents, the sky had gone several shades darker, and the branches of the trees in the distance were thrashing about in the wind. The video was a little shaky, and the resolution of the camera on Aziraphale’s somewhat outdated phone left something to be desired, but, otherwise, it looked like something Crowley might have filmed himself.

The thing was, Crowley could have been there. Aziraphale hadn't invited him, not exactly, but he had mentioned offhand several times that anyone with an interest in the weather could attend the conference, provided they paid the membership dues and registration fees.

The money wouldn't have been a hardship, and, in any case, Crowley would have easily made it back and more with a single video featuring the dramatic Scottish landscape. Still, the lure of windblown highland moor selfies notwithstanding, Crowley had declined at the time, retorting that “you couldn't pay me enough to sit in a room with a hundred of your lot. Rather eat my sunglasses, I would." He was, however, regretting the choice now (and wondering what sunglasses tasted like, anyway). Unlike all of those worthless meteorologists scrambling for shelter at the first hint of rain, Crowley would have stayed right out there with Aziraphale when the storm broke.

And it should have been him standing on that balcony smiling at Aziraphale earlier.

Next year. There was always next year.

Another picture came in, this one a somewhat inexpertly-taken selfie. Aziraphale’s face, tilted at an awkward angle, loomed large and off-center, and he’d made the elementary mistake of holding the phone too high, so that his arm and shoulder took up far too much space in the shot. The tartan from his umbrella obscured any actual remaining visual of the storm in the background, and there was a blurry patch in one corner where it looked like some raindrops had splattered onto the lens.

Even given the shortcomings of his selfie technique and the less-than-optimal angle, however, Aziraphale had spent far too many years in front of a camera on a near-daily basis not to instinctively know how to be photogenic. His hair was windblown from the storm, damp and curling at the ends, his eyes were practically twinkling, and there was a wry little half-smile on his face. Not his broad, open television smile, but something a little more intimate, a little more mysterious, a little more mischievous.

Crowley found the whole thing unreasonably attractive, tartan and bad angle and all.

The last time Crowley had felt like this, restless and unmoored and antsy as f*ck, had been three days shy of one year ago. The day he’d decided to burn off some of his nervous energy by going to the park to feed the ducks. The day when, by sheer happenstance, he’d met a fussy, particular, sharp-tongued meteorologist who’d somehow become his friend.

There was always next year, he told himself again, and tried not to think about the odds that, twelve months from now, they’d still be in a position where Aziraphale would want him to be there.

Crowley slept badly that night, and once again found himself awake at a too-early hour the following morning, still feeling strangely unsettled and out-of-sorts. There was no shortage of work to be done – he had hours of footage from yesterday to review and edit and compile – but he couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of it. Instead, his thoughts kept drifting to Aziraphale, who was hundreds of miles away and probably off having a grand time gallivanting across the moors or swimming in a loch or something. It wasn’t a bad mental image, at least not until he considered that Aziraphale was probably doing all this in the company of Simon or someone like him.

(This whole mental exercise was ridiculous, really, because chances were ten to one that Aziraphale was currently sitting in some nondescript, windowless conference hall listening to some dull academic drone on and on about the latest developments in weather modeling software.)

At exactly twenty past eight, midway through a vivid fantasy of Simon getting devoured, slowly and messily, by the Loch Ness Monster, Crowley found himself, by reflex, switching on the television. In the past year, he’d committed to memory exactly when the weather came on during each news hour; he’d even made a game out of trying to get the timing perfect, so as to minimize the amount of time anyone’s face but Aziraphale’s was onscreen. He was spot on the money today – the screen blinked on just as the cameras cut from the anchors to the weather splash screen – but his triumph was short-lived, replaced almost immediately by a sharp and jarring disappointment. Because it was, of course, not Aziraphale at all who appeared to read the weather today but Eric.

Not that Crowley had any problems with Eric, who seemed like one of the very few decent people involved with Channel Six News, but he wasn’t Aziraphale. Crowley swore and flung the remote across the room, then regretted it immediately when he had to spend several minutes trying to figure out where on earth it had gone, during which time the weather ended and Gabriel Herald once again took center stage. Crowley barely – just barely – kept himself from flinging the newly-unearthed remote at Gabriel’s unbearably smug face. Instead, he smashed the off button several times with extreme prejudice and stalked off to go take his frustrations out on the monstera, one leaf of which was looking inexcusably yellow around the edges.

The morning continued in that vein. Crowley remained irritable and distracted and unable to concentrate on his work. The anxious, fidgety feeing from before seemed to have settled in for the long run, all tight and wound-up in his limbs and joints and the pit of his stomach. It was similar to the feeling he got right before a storm was about to hit, the coupling of internal anticipation with a sudden external drop in atmospheric pressure. But there was no storm on the horizon to turn the tension into adrenaline, and he had no clue what the root cause was or how to fix it.

It was a relief when noon rolled around and he went to go meet Tracy at the pub for their standing biweekly lunch date. She was a much better conversationalist – and a much better listener, for that matter – than his plants, and agreed, although not without a cryptic comment about his aura going green, that Simon, with his tweed jacket and khaki trousers, was nowhere near as stylish as Crowley. And despite his lackluster mood, Crowley found himself howling with laughter as Tracy caught him up on the latest exploits of the Nipple Troll, who seemed to have taken it upon himself to mount a one-man campaign to get her to do a comprehensive review of condensed milk brands on Thursday Afternoons with Tracy.

“… and I said I could not in good conscience ever, ever condone the use of condensed milk as lube, and would you believe I’ve not heard a single peep outta him since?”

Lunches with Tracy were always a good time, and this one proved to be no exception. It wasn’t enough to completely banish Crowley’s weird, uneasy mood, but he was nevertheless grateful for the temporary distraction.

And soon Crowley would have another diversion with which to occupy himself. In the course of their conversation, he’d found himself agreeing to help Tracy out with some anonymous reviews for Thursday Afternoons, and she’d promised to have a package sent over in a couple of days. And maybe that was all he needed – a good wank, with the aid of some intriguing new toys – to get him out of this funk. It was possible – highly likely, in fact – that he was just horny in Aziraphale’s absence. Who could blame him, really, if he’d gotten used to having incredible sex on a regular basis, and was now finding it difficult to suddenly have to do without? And while it was true that Aziraphale had only been gone for a day and change, it was also true that Crowley was looking at another four days without him.

Four more days. It felt like it was going to be an eternity.

“No. No, Aziraphale, I am not f*cking alright,” said Crowley aloud.

Nobody answered, of course, because the houseplants were insolent little sh*ts who never listened to him anyway, and Aziraphale was hundreds of miles away, probably off having a grand time eating souffles with Simon and his f*cking tweed jacket and his bloody refined palate.

A sudden headache began to throb, insistent and excruciating, behind Crowley’s eyes. He wanted to get spectacularly drunk. He wanted to bang his head against the wall. Most of all he wanted to call Aziraphale. He did none of those things. The first two would only serve to make his headache worse, and he tended to get moody and maudlin when drinking alone (it was different when he was drunk with Aziraphale, but he wasn’t and that was the whole problem, wasn’t it?), which would only serve to make everything worse. As for calling Aziraphale, if Crowley had to listen to him say one single bloody thing more about Simon he’d probably have an aneurysm. And Aziraphale didn’t have time to talk anyway. He didn’t have time for Crowley.

Instead, Crowley groaned and rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. Blindly, he pushed his phone away with one hand so that he wouldn’t be tempted to keep checking it for messages from Aziraphale, and flailed around with the other until he managed to hit the light switch.

Sleep. Sleep would fix things.

Well, it would fix the headache anyway.

Assuming he could sleep and didn’t just spend the entire night tossing and turning while his head pounded and his thoughts raced.

Crowley must have fallen asleep eventually, because the next thing he knew it was morning – early, from the quality of the light – and something was chiming and buzzing near his head. After fumbling around a bit, he managed to identify the source as his phone, which he found shoved beneath the unoccupied pillow on the other side of the bed, the one that he couldn’t help thinking of as Aziraphale’s.

Crowley switched over to his inbox, and, sure enough, Aziraphale had sent him a dynamic map, meticulously compiled from a half dozen forecast models and annotated with times, probabilities, and various other details. The level of detail was astounding. He’d even pinpointed the specific storm cells that he thought were likely to produce the most dramatic, if short-lived, downpours. Crowley would have to pore over the map in more detail on a larger screen later in the morning, but at first glance it looked as though he’d be able to catch two or three of them in sequence if he played his cards right and planned his approach with care.

Crowley sat back against the pillows, his head reeling.

If Aziraphale hadn’t done this for Eric, if he hadn’t done it for work… then the only option left was that he’d done it for Crowley. Putting maps like these together was, as Crowley knew from past observation, not a trivial business. It probably took the better part of an hour to run the models, compile the data, and annotate the maps, which meant Aziraphale had most likely gotten up at five, after getting to bed late and before a full day of conference business, to do this for Crowley, and Crowley alone.

It was exactly one year to the day since they’d met, by happenstance, beside the duck pond at the park. He wondered if Aziraphale knew. If he remembered. If it meant anything to him.

Aziraphale’s forecast was spot on, and, as a result, Crowley managed to catch all three of the storm cells he set his sights on that afternoon and evening. He returned home after nightfall with several hours’ worth of footage that needed to be edited down to a finished length of an hour or so. This was in addition to all the film from Sunday’s storm, which he still hadn’t yet managed to deal with. But once again, when he sat down at his computer, he found himself unable to focus or sit still. It was one thing to be out in the Bentley hot on the tail of the storm, rain pounding on the windshield and the pavement flying by beneath the wheels, and another thing entirely to be sat here in his too-quiet flat, trying and failing to concentrate on the admittedly-fiddly tasks of cutting and splicing and organizing.

It was the same uneasy restlessness that had been plaguing him all week, and it was really getting tiresome.

Crowley sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that night, and spun around in his desk chair. A plain brown cardboard box sitting on a side table caught his eye. It had arrived while he’d been out, and contained the sex toys Tracy wanted him to review. Other than a cursory glance inside when he’d brought it in, he hadn’t yet gotten a chance to really look through the contents.

Now there was a thought. Perhaps it was time to take a break, take care of some other business, and possibly channel some of this weird tension into a more productive and pleasurable outlet.

He’d go grab the box in a minute, he decided, and take it to the bedroom, and see how things went from there.

Just as soon as he messaged Aziraphale.

It absolutely wasn’t the mental image of Aziraphale in his tartan pyjamas that had Crowley’s co*ck suddenly straining against the zip of his jeans. It wasn’t.

Anyway, that particular physical reaction was probably just more evidence in support of Crowley’s earlier hypothesis that what he really needed right now was a good, hard org*sm.

While he waited for Aziraphale to ring back, Crowley figured he might as well get comfortable too. His jeans really were feeling more and more cramped by the minute.

Ordinarily, he favored black silk pyjamas when he wore any sleepwear at all, but today he found himself instinctively reaching for something entirely different. Namely, one of the pairs of pyjama bottoms Aziraphale had left at his flat. They were not tartan – Crowley did have some dignity left, after all – but instead a pale blue pinstriped cotton so fine it felt like silk. The matching top (because Aziraphale would probably eat Crowley's sunglasses before purchasing pyjamas that were not part of a matched set) he left where it was, in the dresser drawer that was for all intents and purposes Aziraphale’s.

Crowley inspected his reflection in the mirror and decided that it wasn’t a half-bad look, really. Being sized for Aziraphale’s significantly more ample posterior, the trousers hung low and loose over the jut of Crowley’s hipbones, and were sexy in a morning-after sort of way, particularly in combination with a bare top half. After a moment’s deliberation, he pulled the tie out of his hair and tousled the waves with his fingers. There. Perfect.

He took a mirror selfie and texted it to Aziraphale, then flopped down onto the bed just as the phone rang.

“Hi, angel.”

“Are those my pyjama bottoms you’re wearing?”

“Maybe? Grabbed the first ones I saw.”

“They suit you.”

“Eh, I dunno about that. Loads comfier than denim though, I’ll give you that.”

“I’ve no doubt of that.”

“I assume you’ve done the same? With the pyjamas, I mean.”

“Yes. I’ve got myself all tartan-ed up, you might say.”

Aziraphale sounded a little out of breath. Crowley supposed that made sense – he had extensive firsthand experience with the Herculean effort it took to get Aziraphale out of all those layers of clothing, after all. (Some days it was a delicious slow-burning tease for both of them, and others it was a frantic race all the way from bow tie to underpants, but it was always, always worth it.)

“Good thing you’re all the way up there in Scotland. Save my poor eyes from all that tartan. f*ck. Wait. I just realized it‘s tartan land up there, innit? Tartan everything. Please tell me you’re not coming home with more tartan.”

“I hadn’t considered it, to be honest, but now I think I’m going to bring back a whole case full of it,” said Aziraphale, his voice round with amusem*nt. Crowley would bet money that he was smirking, and probably a half second away from bursting into laughter. “Just for you, my dear. Since you asked so nicely.”

“Oh, dear god, no. Please. No.”

And there it was – the dam had broken and Aziraphale was laughing freely now, and f*ck had Crowley missed hearing that laugh this week.

“Crowley, it’s— it’s so nice to hear your voice. I’ve missed it. Your voice, that is.”

“Mmm. Only my voice, eh?”

“Well, I suppose it is rather dull here without my own personal demon on my shoulder at all times. No one to tempt me to naughty deeds.”

“Oh, angel, I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.”

“I thought you were allergic to nice.”

“I’ll make an exception, just this once. Only for you. Oh, and speaking of naughty,” drawled Crowley, leaning back against the pillows and trailing the fingers of one hand down his bare chest and stomach, “I think you might be very interested in what was in the box Tracy sent over this afternoon.”

“See, there you go again. Tempter. How on earth could I possibly resist? Do tell.”

And damn, if it didn’t feel so easy, so right, talking to Aziraphale.

The funny thing was, as things turned out, Tracy’s box ended up remaining untouched. Crowley had had every intention of exploring the wonders that surely lay within, but then it turned out he’d left it all the way back in the study, and it seemed far too much effort to get out of bed to retrieve it. Shortly thereafter, he forgot about it entirely when Aziraphale’s plummy voice began to go low and rough at the edges. And in the end, all it took for Crowley was a few strokes of his own hand and Aziraphale’s voice moaning his name on the other end of the line.

It turned out that Aziraphale’s skills as a television presenter translated exceedingly well to phone sex.

After doing a quick and somewhat perfunctory job of cleaning himself up with the tissues on the nightstand, Crowley lay back, spent and quiet, and listened as Aziraphale’s breathing slowly made its way back to normal. He could imagine the sight Aziraphale would make right now: the high color in his cheeks, the sheen of sweat along his hairline, the pale chest hair curling in the vee at the top of his pyjama shirt. How his breath would tickle the back of Crowley’s ear, how his lips would be cool against the flushed skin of Crowley’s neck, how the flesh of his waist and hip would dimple beneath Crowley’s fingertips.

“Crowley? Do you know what day it is today?”

Aziraphale’s voice was a gentle murmur, its crisp edges softened and drawn out by drowsiness and contentment. Crowley could listen to it all night; he could fall asleep to it, like the soothing roll and plash of ocean waves; he could find it like a beacon, like a storm, in his dreams.

He was halfway there already, only barely aware of the words that were coming out of his mouth.

“Mmm-hmm, ‘s been one whole year. Happy anniversary, angel.”

He thought he heard Aziraphale say his name, very softly and very fondly, on the other end of the line. It was the last thing he remembered before sleep overtook him, and the first thing he recalled when he awoke, feeling refreshed for the first time all week, eight hours later.

Crowley hadn’t been conscious for more than five minutes that morning before Aziraphale sent him a picture of a croissant, followed a couple of minutes later by a picture of himself having just taken a bite of said croissant. The rapturous expression on his face was positively lewd, nearly as much so as the barely-visible tip of a pink tongue darting out to lick a stray flake of pastry off a plump bottom lip.

When Tracy told you to do something, you obeyed. So Crowley tried his damnedest to work it out on his own.

Fine. He had been jealous of Simon, enough so that he’d basically shut down and spent an entire night sulking when Aziraphale had gone out for dinner with him. He’d been, he supposed, upset that Aziraphale was going out with Simon on what he’d assumed to be a date that might subsequently lead to other activities – other activities that Crowley was frustratingly not engaging in, what with Aziraphale being hundreds of miles away and all. But that had turned out to be a complete misreading of the situation on Crowley’s part, and the phone call with Aziraphale last night had taken care of the whole sexual frustration thing, at least for the time being. So why the f*ck couldn't he stop dwelling on it?

Crowley was still mulling this over several hours later, when he went over to Aziraphale’s place to water his plants. Aziraphale owned exactly two houseplants, a snake plant and an orchid, both of which had been gifts from Crowley, both of which would have been perfectly fine going without water for the six days he was away in Scotland. But he had been insistent that Crowley stop by on Thursday, because the plants were always watered on Thursday. It would not do at all, he’d said with a little pout, to put it off even one day till he returned on Friday.

Personally, Crowley was of the opinion that having a strict schedule for watering only led to the plants getting too complacent, and then it was a slippery slope all the way to down to brown spot city. It was better to switch things up a bit from week to week, to assess when to water based on the dryness of the soil and the appearance of the leaves and thus keep the little f*ckers on their toes. But Crowley, unable to resist the pout, had promised Aziraphale he would come on Thursday, so here he was, climbing the spiral staircase up to the second floor, plant mister at the ready.

Both plants had been propagated from cuttings taken from older plants in Crowley’s own collection, and had received numerous warnings throughout their lives to grow better lest they find themselves on a one-way trip back to Crowley’s flat and down his garbage disposal (or close enough anyway, on the windowsill above the sink). The snake plant appeared to have taken this injunction to heart, but the orchid was looking a little droopy and lackluster, so Crowley thought it best to deliver a reminder in the form of an impromptu lecture about not disappointing Aziraphale or else.

Because Aziraphale deserved the best, and the thought of disappointing him was unbearable. He deserved to be treated like the angel he was by everyone around him, by his terrible, unworthy coworkers; by lazy, good-for-nothing tropical plants; by storm chasers who were lucky enough to have somehow found themselves caught up in his orbit.

Once the plants had been tended and reprimanded to Crowley’s satisfaction, there was nothing more to do at Aziraphale’s place. No reason for him to stay. And yet he found himself lingering, watching the way the light slanted low through the side windows and caught twinkling and golden on the occasional dust mote floating lazily mid-air. The natural lighting was incredible up here on the second floor, what with the lofty oculus and the windows ringing the exterior walls. Perhaps he ought to bring a few more plants over next time – possibly the big fiddle-leaf fig, or that hibiscus that never seemed to want to flower in his own flat. The lemon tree too, maybe. And the big front windows downstairs – the ones that had once been the bookshop’s display windows – would be perfect for the epiphyllums and philodendrons.

There was an abandoned mug on top of a bookshelf – this one looked like it had once held cocoa, as far as Crowley could tell from the rather grim-looking sludge remaining at the bottom. Aziraphale was forever making cups of cocoa or tea and then forgetting about them, half-drunk, when he got sucked into a particularly interesting book or got distracted by Crowley. It was only Crowley’s frequent presence here that kept them from regularly languishing on bookshelves and windowsills for days at a time. This one had to have been there since the weekend; it was probably in imminent danger of playing host to a new lifeform. Figuring he had best wash it with all due haste, Crowley picked the mug up and headed for the stairs.

And still he found himself dragging his feet, loath to leave and return to his own flat. It had only been four days and change since he’d been here last, but he had the sudden, odd sense that he had returned after a long, long time away. It felt like relief. It felt like being able to breathe again.

It felt like being home.

Crowley liked it here, liked that it was quiet and peaceful and full of things that reminded him of Aziraphale. Acres and acres of books, the goddamn tartan pillows, the meticulously restored oculus, all the fussy little cufflinks and collar stays and watch chains in the antique silver dish on top of the dresser, even the abandoned mugs that Aziraphale left in his wake like flotsam after a storm. Crowley liked that there was evidence of himself all over the place too – an extra pair of sunglasses perched on the left-side nightstand, his silver necktie draped over the back of a chair, the plants on the windowsill, the bits of black and red peeking out from amongst the sea of beige and pale blue in the wardrobe.

It all filled him with a ridiculous fondness, and the sudden, fierce longing for it to be his.

He liked it here.

No, he loved it here.

No, that wasn’t quite right either. The fondness, the longing, the love – all of that wasn’t really about the place at all, as wonderful as it was. If he woke up tomorrow and found that he suddenly, miraculously, lived here now, it wouldn’t mean a damn thing unless Aziraphale lived here too. Unless Aziraphale had invited him to stay.

Unless Aziraphale wanted Crowley the way Crowley wanted him.

What he could see of the sky through the oculus was blue and cloudless, and yet Crowley suddenly felt like he’d been struck by lightning. White-hot realization arced through him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, electric and exquisite, and there was not a single part of him that did not come alight with it.

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake,” he said out loud. “I’m in love with him, aren’t I?”

There was nobody there to hear except the snake plant and the orchid, both of which exuded an air of smug and unbearable superiority.

“f*ck off. I know I’m a great big bloody numpty, you don’t have to rub it in.”

He flipped them the bird, the plant mister sloshing in his hand, and then took himself downstairs to wash out Aziraphale’s mug and text someone who would be more sympathetic, even if she too would surely take the piss out of him just a little bit.

It was all fine and well for Tracy to talk about simple being best, but Crowley couldn’t help but want to make it special, to treat Aziraphale to something in keeping with the enormity of his feelings. The problem was that he also didn’t want to have to wait; he was full to the brim of love, bubbling over with it, and he didn’t think he could keep it contained even had he wanted to. What this meant was that he had a little over twenty-four hours to pull off whatever grand romantic gesture he came up with.

Aziraphale would have just returned from a week away, and he almost certainly wouldn’t want to sleep anywhere but his own bed on his first night back. (Crowley didn’t blame him one bit; he too didn’t want to sleep anywhere but in Aziraphale’s bed that night. And, if he had his way, every night thereafter.) So something like whisking Aziraphale off to Paris for a romantic weekend of crepes and gardens and museums was right out, as was stargazing and a B&B out in the countryside. No, it had to be something closer to home.

As it turned out, it was the Bentley and her wonky radio that provided the inspiration. No sooner had Crowley turned the key in the ignition than Freddie Mercury’s voice blared out from the speakers:

Dining at the Ritz, we’ll meet at nine exactly…

Now there was an idea.

Crowley sang along with Freddie, loud and off-key and joyous, all the way home.

A dozen red roses was as classic and as cliché as it got, and, as a matter of principle, Crowley did not do classic or cliché. But there was no mistaking what they meant. There was no way Aziraphale wouldn’t know what they signified.

To hell with it, Crowley decided, before telling the florist that he wanted the twelve biggest, reddest roses they had in the shop. And as long as he was going to be a cliché, he figured he might as well stop by the chocolatier’s around the corner and pick up a box of Aziraphale’s favorite champagne truffles. You didn’t take the love of your life to the Ritz to tell them you were in love with them every day. His principles could go f*ck themselves, thank you very much.

Briefly, he considered texting Aziraphale to tell him that there was a dress code for dinner tonight, then decided it was unnecessary and not worth spoiling the surprise for. Tartan notwithstanding, Aziraphale’s everyday attire was always Ritz-appropriate anyway. Even when Aziraphale was only going to Crowley’s place for a night in, where there was a better than even chance he’d be down to his shirtsleeves (or less) within an hour, he always showed up in a bow tie. He was probably constitutionally incapable of leaving the house without it.

In Aziraphale’s own words, he had standards.

Crowley could hear his voice perfectly in his head, a little snippy, a little haughty, and every bit his angel. He found himself suddenly overcome with a wave of fondness. That fondness had been there for months. How had he ever found it inexplicable, ever mistaken it for anything but what it was? Love.

(It was, however, still inexplicable that he, Anthony J. Crowley, had fallen for a prim, tartan-loving meteorologist, and fallen hard. But fall he had, and the truth was there, obvious, in every atom of Crowley’s being. He couldn’t deny it any longer.)

After a short trip back to his flat to drop off the flowers and chocolates, Crowley had just enough time for one last errand. Aziraphale, despite being a self-professed “great fan” of trains and a nearly fanatical devotee of rail travel, was far less enamored of the train station and its surroundings. In particular, he complained every time he went on a trip that there wasn’t anywhere within reasonable distance to get a decent cup of tea or cocoa, and thus always had to grudgingly content himself with the ubiquitous, subpar offerings at the chain cafes inside the station.

And so Crowley made sure to swing by Café Victoire first. It wasn’t exactly on the way from his flat to the train station, but they made Aziraphale’s favorite cup of hot chocolate in the city. (Which was not, as he’d told Crowley many a time, to be confused with hot cocoa, a different beast altogether.)

The hot chocolate meant that Crowley had to time things carefully, lest it become lukewarm chocolate (which, Aziraphale’s voice pointed out in his head, was still good, but no longer superlative). This was probably just as well, because Crowley would almost certainly have been half an hour early otherwise, and maintaining his cool, insouciant slouch against the Bentley for that long would have been nearly impossible. As it was, even in the five minutes since he’d miraculously found a parking spot directly across from the station entrance, the anticipation had ramped up to nearly unbearable levels and he was finding it immensely difficult to keep from fidgeting and pacing.

Aziraphale’s train was on time, thank Someone, so Crowley only had another few minutes to wait. And even though he’d been staring intently at the station entrance, desperate for a glimpse of pale hair and tartan amidst the tide of weary travelers, the sight of Aziraphale still took him by surprise, like the first raindrop hitting his face after a long drought.

(It had been six days. Not even a week. But, around here, six days was a long time to go without rain.)

Aziraphale hadn’t yet seen Crowley waiting for him across the street, preoccupied as he was with trying to maneuver his suitcase around the bottleneck of his fellow travelers at the station exit. He looked tired, his shoulders a little slumped, his hair and clothing more rumpled than usual.

Crowley thought he was beautiful.

And then Aziraphale was free of the press of the crowd and out on the open area in front of the station. And there he was, looking up and catching Crowley’s eye at last, the little frown replaced by a blooming, brilliant smile.

Crowley’s casual slouch was long gone. Somehow, he had crossed the street between them without realizing. He took a step forward, and another. Aziraphale, dragging his tartan suitcase behind him, did the same.

There was a meter between them, then half a meter, then a miniscule six inches.

They stopped, both of them at the same time, just shy of touching.

Crowley wanted to kiss Aziraphale right then and there. Wanted to hear that little sucked-in breath that Aziraphale always took when their lips met, like it was a tiny revelation each time, even as he was fervently kissing Crowley back. Wanted to reach out and pull Aziraphale into his arms and fill his senses with the taste and smell and feel of him and never let go.

He yearned for it, the way parched earth yearned for rain after a dry spell. But that wasn’t the sort of thing he and Aziraphale did. Not in public. Not where they were only supposed to be friends.

Not before they talked about it. Tonight. They’d talk tonight. At the Ritz, where Crowley would pull out all the stops and romance Aziraphale the way he’d always deserved, right from the moment they’d met, if only Crowley hadn’t been so stunningly blind.

For now, he had to content himself with offering Aziraphale the cup of chocolate clutched in his hand, with the gentle brush of Aziraphale’s fingers against his own over the paper cup.

“Thought you could use this after the train. Tell you what, I’ll trade you for your bag. I’ll put it in the Bentley for now and drop it off when I come by tonight. Save you from having to lug it to the office and whatnot.”

“You’re too good to me, dear,” said Aziraphale, handing over his suitcase. With both hands free now, he popped the lid off the paper cup. Little curls of steam rose from the surface. “Is this from Café Victoire?”

“Yeah, I was passing by anyway and I remembered that you always get so grumpy ‘bout how there’s nothing decent to drink near the train station. Besides, you only tell me every time we go that it’s your favorite.”

“Oh, you really shouldn’t have,” protested Aziraphale, even as he brought the cup up to his face, shut his eyes, and inhaled deeply. “This smells divine. Goodness. Thank you, darl— thank you, Crowley.”

It was practically criminal, thought Crowley, how sensual Aziraphale somehow managed to make the mundane act of sniffing something.

With his eyes still closed, Aziraphale took a sip. It lifted Crowley’s heart to see the crease between his eyes soften for a moment beneath all the pleasures of that first sip: the mouthwatering aroma of chocolate, the rich bittersweet of it on his tongue, the warmth against his palm and in his belly. And perhaps even, Crowley dared hope, affection for the person who’d brought it to him.

A tiny, breathy moan of delight escaped from Aziraphale’s mouth.

Now that was definitely criminal. And to compound the audacity of the crime, there was a little glossy droplet of chocolate on Aziraphale’s lower lip. It took every ounce of Crowley’s self-control not to lean in and lick it off. Tonight, he told himself. Tonight.

Crowley couldn’t stop looking. At Aziraphale’s face, that he hadn’t seen in the flesh for six days. At the enraptured expression on it. At Aziraphale’s mouth. At that goddamn drop of chocolate on his lip.

Even Aziraphale could not keep savoring that first sip forever. Any second now, he was going to open his eyes and catch Crowley staring like the blushing, lovesick fool that he was, would see the feelings that Crowley was sure were written all over his face right now, as obviously as the clouds gathering to the northwest spelled rain. If all went according to plan, Aziraphale would find out soon enough – only a few hours from now, in fact – but Crowley didn’t want the truth to come out like this. He wanted the moment, when it came, to be special.

Hastily, he turned away, busying himself with taking Aziraphale’s suitcase back across the street to the Bentley. As he hefted it into the boot, he tried his best to compose himself and patch together whatever remaining semblance of a cool, detached persona he could muster.

“Oh, thank you,” said Aziraphale, who’d come up behind him. “Are you sure it won’t be any bother for you to take that?”

“Course not. I’m coming by yours anyway to take you to dinner later, aren’t I?”

“Yes. Did you choose a restaurant then?”

“Yep.”

“And?”

“Not gonna tell you. ‘S a surprise.”

“Oh! How intriguing.”

“You’ll like it. Promise.”

“I’m sure I will. You’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to it. I think it’ll be just what I need after, well, a frankly very long and tiresome day.”

“Speaking of, want me to take you to work now?”

“Not just yet, if you don’t mind. I’ve still got forty-five minutes before I have to be there, and I’ll be damned if I give them one single extra minute of my time today. What would you say to taking a quick turn around the park across the street first? Just for twenty minutes or so. I could use some fresh air, and it would be nice to stretch my legs after being cooped up all morning.”

“Sure. Whatever you like.”

“I do hope I’m not keeping you from other plans.”

“Nah, was just gonna drive around and try to find something interesting to film, but it doesn’t look like this storm’s doing much of anything yet anyway.”

“It’s been a hard one to get a handle on,” said Aziraphale wearily. “Honestly, I wish it would just make up its mind.”

At present, it was drizzling, a misty, noncommittal sprinkle that could still just as easily burn off into sunshine as turn into something more significant.

“You okay staying outside in this? We can go back inside the station if you like.”

“I don’t mind. It’s refreshing, honestly. The train was overheated. But perhaps we could go to the bandstand over there before it gets heavier? I’d rather not show up for my broadcast all damp.”

“Sounds good to me. Bandstand it is.”

Once under the shelter of the bandstand’s open roof, Crowley leaned against the railing and looked out at the muted, hazy blur of pale greens and greys that the landscape had become in the mist. Aziraphale stood beside him, close enough to touch. They’d been in this position so many times before – side by side, watching ducks or clouds or nothing at all – and it felt both familiar and new, now that Crowley had finally opened his eyes to the truth of his feelings. Aziraphale had almost called him darling just a few minutes ago. That had to mean something, didn't it? A sense of calm fell over him, despite his underlying anxiety about how the evening, and his confession, would go.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, seemed agitated, constantly fidgeting and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. When Crowley glanced over, he caught Aziraphale worrying at his lower lip with his teeth.

“Everything alright, angel? You seem, I dunno, distracted.”

“I’m sorry. I suppose I am distracted, now that you mention it. I’ve got a lot on my mind. A dilemma, as it were.”

“I’m always happy to listen if you want to talk about it.”

Aziraphale exhaled. “Actually, that would be nice, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Course. I’m all ears. Like a duck or summat.”

“Well, remember how I told you Agnes Nutter wanted to ask me something? It turned out to be a job offer, if you can believe that. I’m going to turn it down, of course, but I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell her that without making it seem like I don’t appreciate the offer. I don’t want to burn any bridges after all.”

“Wait wait wait,” said Crowley. “Hold up a minute, angel. A job offer? What kind of job?”

“Oh, well, she’s apparently started a digital media company. Nice and Accurate Productions, I believe it’s called, with a focus on weather-related media. And she asked me to do a show for it. A weekly YouTube thing along the lines of the special segments I’ve been doing for Channel Six, only greatly expanded. I’d get to choose the topics. And there would be a live forecast component as well, although I wouldn’t be responsible for those on a daily basis.”

“Gosh, that sounds amazing. You could do so much with that format. Really explore some topics in depth. You could even—"

“I’m not going to take it. I just told you that.”

“Why wouldn’t you? It sounds pretty damn perfect.”

“It would be utterly ridiculous for me to even consider, Crowley.”

“I don’t get it, angel. What’s so ridiculous about it? Wait, is it Newt? Look, I feel for him just as much as you do, but you can’t give up an amazing opportunity like this just because you feel sorry for him.”

“It’s not Newt. She’s offered to bring him on as well, to do the lion’s share of the daily live weather reports in order to give me more flexibility.”

“Then what the hell is the problem?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? I’d have to give up my current position with Channel Six News.”

“Aziraphale, you hate that job.”

“I don’t hate it. I love the actual work. I just don’t love the people. And all that’s irrelevant anyway. I’d be giving up a sure thing to strike out on my own. And for what? A lark? A passing flight of fancy? Something that’s as likely to fail spectacularly as it is to succeed? There’s no guarantee that anyone would even watch me if I struck out on my own.”

“People will watch. Look, you know I keep tabs on weather Twitter, right? And I’m telling you, people love you. You, angel. Not channel Six News. Not Michael Celeste. Definitely not Gabriel f*cking Herald. You. Aziraphale Fell.”

“Just because they like me now on television doesn’t mean they’ll like me on YouTube. Aren’t you always telling me it’s a whole different world? There’s no safety net, Crowley. No one to catch me if I fall.”

“Look, angel, it's not like you'll really be all on your own. You'll have Newt, and presumably you’ll have Agnes. And—um—”

Crowley swallowed. Saying the words on the tip of his tongue would absolutely be overstepping the bounds of their Arrangement; they were too earnest, too revealing. He’d promised himself he was going to do this thing with Aziraphale – the love confession and the romancing and everything – right, and that meant a dozen red roses, champagne and seven courses at the Ritz, and the whole night to spend in each others’ company afterward. Not a cup of takeaway chocolate in the middle of a random park in the scant half hour before they both had to run off to do their respective jobs.

But Aziraphale was standing here, wringing his hands and doubting himself, and it was making Crowley's heart ache.

Aziraphale needed him.

Maybe there was no better time, after all.

"You'll have me. You'll always have me. I’ll always catch you if you fall.”

“Crowley—”

“Listen, I’ve been doing this YouTube thing on my own for years. I know the ropes. All the tricks, too. I'll help you, I promise. Anything you need, anything at all. You know I will. I’ll film all the spots you need, I’ll promote you to my fanbase—"

“Crowley, I can’t. It would be entirely reckless and ill-advised of me.”

“We can do guest spots on each others’ shows.” He was practically pleading now, spinning around to face Aziraphale with his arms held out in front of him and his heart laid bare. “It’ll be incredible, angel. I know it will. Everyone’ll love it."

Aziraphale winced, and pressed his fingers to his temples.

“Crowley! Stop. Listen to yourself! Guest spots on each other’s shows? What would your fanbase want with someone like me? I’m not like you, Crowley. You are a storm chaser. I am a meteorologist. You are reckless and impulsive, and I am neither. I value consistency and security. We have absolutely nothing at all in common with one another!”

Crowley gaped at Aziraphale.

The wind had stopped, and so had the misty drizzle. In their absence, everything was eerily still and silent. The atmospheric pressure was dropping precipitously. Crowley’s ears popped suddenly and painfully, a thunderclap that no one else could hear. He couldn’t ignore it.

He couldn’t ignore any of it, no matter how much he wished he could.

Any second now, it was going to start to storm in earnest. The weather had made up its mind; they’d passed the point of no return.

“Is that what you really think? That I'm, what? Fickle? Inconsistent? I can’t f*cking believe this, Aziraphale. How long have we known each other?”

“A year and two days.”

“Exactly! A whole bloody year, and you still don’t f*cking get it, do you? What exactly do you think I’m going to do? Abandon you the minute things get tough? Run off after the next big thing? I’d go through Hell and back for you, Aziraphale, don’t you know that by now?”

"Crowley, that’s not—no, of course I don’t think that! I—I just think our priorities are different, is all.”

Thunder rumbled, low and insistent, in the distance. The storm was fickle, changeable, this one even more so than most, but right now it seemed a far surer bet than getting Aziraphale to see reason. Than the possibility that Aziraphale might love him back.

He could beg and plead and chase after Aziraphale forever, through Hell and Heaven and every place in between, and it wouldn’t matter, not if Aziraphale didn’t want it. Not if he wasn’t willing to give them a chance.

“Crowley. Please. Be reasonable.”

Suddenly Crowley couldn’t take it any longer. His head felt like it was full of thunderheads, dark, whirling columns of frustration, anger, and despair that had the power to decimate entire landscapes. There would be nothing but desolation left in their wake. He flung his head back and stared up at the dreary, colorless sky. He couldn’t breathe; it felt like all the air in the world was gone, sucked up by the imminent storm. His head was spinning and his heart was bleeding and he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think to do anything but cling desperately to the anger because the only other alternative was to cry.

“You know what, Aziraphale? I can’t. I can’t do this anymore. I'm f*cking done."

Crowley turned away. On the horizon ahead of him, dark clouds had gathered in great, turbulent masses. He went toward them, nearly running, because there was nowhere else to go, no safe harbor in the storm, no happy ending.

“Crowley! Wait! Come back! Crowley! Where are you going?”

Aziraphale’s voice, calling out behind him, was anguished, cracking, fraying at the edges, each plea more desperate than the last. Crowley’s broken, bleeding heart turned the words into something shrill and demanding, salt rubbed into an open wound.

"Off to go do something reckless and ill-advised, what else.”

Crowley let the storm be cruel for him, let it take his bitter, parroted words and throw them back in Aziraphale’s face. He did not, would not, allow himself to turn back and look at that face himself; he couldn’t bear to know what kind of expression it bore.

“Crowley, please—”

"And I won't even think about you while I'm out there having the time of my life!"

This last declaration was a blatant lie, of course. Crowley couldn’t imagine a time in the future when he wouldn’t be thinking of Aziraphale, when the hurt would have dulled enough to fade into the background. But rage and frustration still seethed hot inside him, and it was all that was keeping him from turning around and running back to throw himself at Aziraphale's feet, to beg him to see reason, to beg him to love him.

Chapter 9: severe weather warning

Chapter Text

Someone was texting Aziraphale. Not, from the sound of it, just one or two random messages but a whole slew of them, one after another after another without respite. The loud, incessant chiming was relentless enough to eventually penetrate through the dull, foggy feeling inside Aziraphale’s head.

There was only one person who texted him so often, so persistently, so intentionally.

Was Crowley texting him to apologize? To explain? To say he was coming back? Or to keep telling Aziraphale just exactly how much he didn’t need him?

Even that last option would be preferable to this suffocating silence, to being frozen out and left behind.

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket, nearly dropping it in the process, with a hand that was cold and stiff from clutching the metal railing of the bandstand for God only knew how long. The facial recognition wasn’t working – how unlike himself he must look right now, how awful, how distraught - and it took him three tries to enter his passcode correctly with trembling fingers.

In addition to the string of messages that had just come in, there were a number of earlier ones, as well as several missed calls.

Not a single one of them, he saw with an acute twinge of disappointment, was from Crowley.

Instead, everything, with the exception of a pair of calls which had come from the reception desk at the station, was from Newt. The first few messages had been sent more than fifteen minutes ago, although he had no recollection of hearing his phone ping at the time. He had no idea even whether that would have been before or after Crowley’s abrupt, angry departure. How long afterward, he wondered vaguely now, had he stood there at the bandstand railing in a daze, refusing to think or feel or comprehend? How long had he spent staring out at the empty park, blind to everything but a slash of scarlet and black that had never materialized out of the colorless, featureless fog?

One quick glance up at the sky was all Aziraphale needed to know that Newt wasn’t exaggerating about the severity of the storm. Towering stacks of cumulonimbus clouds, heavy with rain and roiling with electricity, were massed densely all along the northwestern horizon. Their vast anvil-heads stretched overhead for miles, casting steel-grey shadows over everything below. Wind shivered violently in the treetops and tore the newly-sprouted spring leaves from their branches.

The amount of damage a storm like this could cause was potentially unlimited. Power outages, flooding, property damage, blocked roadways, landslides, tragic deaths even – the list went on and on, and while the likelihood that all of those disasters would happen this afternoon was slim, it wasn’t impossible. There was no such thing as a sure thing.

Crowley would have gone directly into the worst of it, of course.

Storms were Crowley’s safe place, his refuge. Not, as Aziraphale had so foolishly dared to hope after their phone call two nights ago, with him.

No. He shouldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t. That way lay madness, and delusion.

And it wasn’t as though Crowley was thinking about Aziraphale. He’d said so himself, right before he’d stormed off without so much as a backward glance: I won't even think about you while I'm out there having the time of my life!

Rain was striking Aziraphale’s face in sharp-angled spatters, borne by fretful, unpredictable gusts of wind. It had apparently been coming down without his notice for some time now, if the dampness of his clothing and hair was any indication. The droplets slid down his cheeks like a cold simulacrum of tears; strangely, he felt too broken and too numb for the real thing.

He was certain he looked pathetic, wet and bedraggled and unwanted, as different as different could be from the dazzling, vibrant beauty that was Crowley in the midst of a storm.

No. Best not to think about that either. Best not to picture red hair and long, whirling limbs and swaying hips. Best not to remember the taste of stormwater in the hollow of that throat or the heat underlying that rain-wet skin or how it felt to be caught up in those arms and kissed with all that infectious, vital joy.

Best not to wonder if the realization he’d come to this past week in Scotland had been anything more than wishful thinking.

He’d missed Crowley the entire time he’d been in Edinburgh, almost right from the moment the cab had pulled away from the curb. Missed him more than he missed his home and his comfortable, familiar routines. More than he’d thought it possible to miss someone. Absolutely and unequivocally more than a person ought to miss their friend-with-benefits or professional colleague or whatever it was that he and Crowley had never said out loud they were.

He'd thought, from the undertones of their conversations this past week, that Crowley might feel the same, that there was some deeper current of yearning and emotion beneath all the lighthearted flirtation and dirty talk. He’d thought he could read between Crowley’s lines.

He’d almost admitted as much earlier, when Crowley had surprised him with his favorite hot chocolate. Crowley had tried to play the gesture off as nothing special, but Aziraphale was no fool; Café Victoire was nowhere near the train station, which meant that Crowley had deliberately gone out of his way to bring Aziraphale his favorite. Their hands had touched briefly when Crowley had handed over the drink, and it had felt almost like a wordless declaration, or a confession perhaps, on Crowley’s part. The drink was pleasantly, perfectly warm, and a matching warmth had bubbled up immediately and unexpectedly from Aziraphale’s core, the sudden flowering of that small, secret bud of hope and want that he’d been nurturing all week.

The impulse to give voice to that feeling, to tell Crowley right then and there exactly how he felt and what he wanted, had been enormously difficult to resist. It had only been the thought that this was neither the time nor the place for that sort of thing that had given him pause. Crowley deserved a lengthy and thorough and hands-on demonstration of exactly how much he’d been missed, and that wasn’t the sort of thing one could provide in twenty minutes, give or take, in the middle of a very public place.

He didn’t think he’d be able to stop at words and possibly a kiss, which was all that time and propriety would allow, once the floodgates had been opened. Didn’t think he could resist the temptation to drag Crowley off to the nearest available hotel room and have his way with him, plans and responsibilities and obligations and anything at all that wasn’t Crowley be damned.

He’d convinced himself, not without some difficulty, to be patient instead. He would wait until after dinner, when they would have the whole evening before them. And the whole weekend too, for that matter. Hours and hours of uninterrupted time, just the two of them. The plan had been to invite Crowley back to his place in order to… renegotiate their Arrangement in light of recent developments, as it were. (The bubbly, giddy thing in his chest had insisted on calling it something else entirely at the time, but the dull, aching thing it had since become could not bear to admit that now, even to himself. Especially to himself.)

It was a good thing he’d held himself back, he thought bitterly now, because he’d apparently been wrong, so starkly and terribly wrong, about whether he and Crowley were on the same page. What he’d wishfully interpreted as yearning on Crowley’s part had apparently only been simmering frustration. There was no deeper meaning behind Crowley’s messages, behind the hot chocolate or the dinner invitation or the flirty texts or any of it at all.

He still wasn’t quite sure how everything had gone pear-shaped so quickly, how the mood between them had gone in a span of mere minutes from the tenderness of hot chocolate to a veritable maelstrom of hurt and upset, spinning inevitably, inexorably, out of control. He’d told Crowley about Agnes’ job offer without a second thought, figuring that Crowley would be sympathetic and supportive, the way he always had been in the past whenever Aziraphale complained about work-related woes. He hadn’t expected Crowley to throw it back in his face.

He hadn’t expected Crowley to turn his back and leave, just like that.

He’d been blindsided, to put it mildly. But oh, how foolish he’d been, how deluded, to think that Crowley would want to stay. To imagine that he was anything more than a temporary diversion, a way for Crowley to pass the time until something better came along. To think that he—that they—

There was no point, Aziraphale told himself again, sternly this time, in dwelling on it right now.

Besides, he was probably overreacting. Catastrophizing with no just cause. This falling-out – no, this smallest of misunderstandings – between the two of them would blow over. All storms did, eventually. He’d go to work and do his job and go home, and then at a quarter to nine, Crowley would arrive on his doorstep to take him to dinner, all his anger spent in the storm. Everything would be right as rain again.

Surely that was all this was. A silly little misunderstanding. Surely Crowley would realize that soon enough. Surely they could just go back to the status quo.

He almost believed it.

Right. He had a job to do. A forecast to deliver with all due haste. People – Newt, the viewers at home, even Uriel – were relying on him. Heaving a sigh, he turned his back on the bandstand and began to trudge back toward the street. Despite the increasing fury of the rain, it did not occur to him until he had nearly reached the gate that he had an umbrella in his satchel and should use it, at which point it was a lost cause anyway.

He was, he realized, still clutching the half-empty paper cup of hot chocolate. Without bothering to check whether it had gone cold, he dropped it with a thud in the bin next to the gate and walked out to the street to hail a cab.

Crowley’s Bentley was no longer parked at the curb outside. He hadn’t really expected it to be, but the incontrovertible fact of its absence stung nevertheless.

Thankfully, the proximity of the train station meant that cabs were plentiful in the area, so he did not have long to wait at the Bentley-less curb. Soon enough, he was on his way to the station, leaving the park behind.

Work beckoned. Work was reliable. Work was predictable.

After texting Newt, Aziraphale silenced his phone immediately, then thought better of it, sshut the bloody thing off altogether, and shoved it into the deepest recesses of his satchel. The prospect of having a conversation with anyone, even someone as kind and well-meaning as Newt, was too daunting to contemplate at the moment. Besides, the temptation to constantly check if Crowley had texted him or, worse, to send Crowley a message of his own, was becoming harder and harder to resist.

Instead, he stared out the window at streetscapes made gloomily, greyly anonymous by the rain and willed himself to think of nothing but the weather. Familiar meteorological facts. Statistics. Lists. Inconsequential trivia. Things he knew by heart.

Record highs and lows.

Average rainfall for every month of the year.

All of the classifications and sub-classifications of clouds in order of altitude from highest to lowest.

Each of this year’s storm names, in alphabetical order. A for Adam, B for… No, scratch that. Adam hadn’t been the official name at all, and the storm season started in early autumn, not late spring. The Adam thing had been a private joke between Crowley and—

No, the whole point of this exercise was not to think about that. Focus, Aziraphale. The official, impersonal list of storm names, put out by the Met Office.

The letter A actually stood for Antoni.

On second thought, this wasn’t working at all. Aziraphale groaned, put his head in his hands, and tried unsuccessfully for the remainder of the trip to think of nothing at all.

The ride felt interminable. Traffic was terrible on account of the rain, and the trip to the station, which should normally have been less than ten minutes, took nearly twenty. It was going to be a tight squeeze to make it in time for his regular segment at twenty past. Uriel’s special weather report at the top of the hour was a patent impossibility by now, of course, unless he could miraculously rewind time.

Ordinarily, he would have grown exponentially more agitated with every minute he was late. (Ordinarily, Crowley would have somehow managed to find a way to get him there on time in the Bentley, even if the trip itself would have been somewhat terrifying.) Today, though, his tardiness was the last thing on his mind.

Newt, on the other hand, had enough anxiety about the delay for the both of them. He was pacing back and forth in the front lobby, looking about one second away from exploding into a supernova of nerves and static electricity, when Aziraphale finally made it to the station.

“Aziraphale! Oh my god, where have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind!”

“I’m sorry. I can explain—”

“Explain later! Sorry, don’t mean to rush you, but you’ve got no time. You need to go straight up to the studio. There's no time to waste. You’re on in five but you’ve got three minutes until the ad break, and that’ll be your last chance to sneak in on time.”

Aziraphale put up no resistance as Newt seized his arm and propelled him through the lobby in the direction of the lifts.

“I really am sorry to have worried you, dear boy. I was—um, that is to say, I— I think I may have made a terrible mistake, actually.”

“Well, things’ll only get worse if you don’t get up there in time for your segment. Uriel’s furious, no surprise there, and Gabriel and Michael aren’t very happy with you either, to put it mildly.”

The lift dinged, and the doors slid open.

“Go! Hurry!” urged Newt again, pushing Aziraphale toward the open doors. He took a step to follow, then stopped abruptly. “On second thought, I’ll take the next one. Or the stairs actually. Don’t wanna risk it stopping on me again like it did last week. Not with you inside.”

“Yes, fine.”

Newt stared at him oddly, the anxious furrow between his eyes having been joined by a half-expectant, half-quizzical lift of the eyebrows. It took Aziraphale a long moment before he remembered that he was supposed to push the button for the fourth floor in order to make the lift go.

“Good luck up there. And, oh, Aziraphale? I really am glad you’re alright. I was worried about you.”

“I don’t think I am alright, really,” replied Aziraphale. But the doors had already shut and the lift was already moving upward and he was talking to himself, after all.

It helped to focus on the task at hand, to watch the floors tick by – two, three, four – as he ascended, to be cognizant of keeping his footsteps quiet as he walked down the long hall to the recording studio, to run through the familiar routine of delivering his forecast in his head while waiting for the timer over the door to count down to zero.

As long as he didn’t let his mind wander, he could get through this.

The light above the door flashed from red to green, indicating the ad break had begun and it was safe to enter. With any luck, he’d be able to sneak in unnoticed while everyone was rushing to ready things for the next segment.

But, of course, he was not so fortunate. Not today. The moment he entered the studio, Uriel’s voice, cold and flat with disapproval and simmering fury, assailed his ears.

“Aziraphale. Finally. You are late. This is completely unacceptable. We had to scrap the special weather report at the top of the hour because you didn’t see fit to be here in time to do your damn job.”

“Apologies. Unavoidable delay, I’m afraid.” He couldn’t really muster up the energy or the motivation to put on a convincing act, but perhaps Uriel would mistake the despondent tone and miserable expression for contrition. “Don’t worry, it shan’t happen again.”

“It had better not. And I want to see you in my office the minute this broadcast is over.”

An assistant came rushing up to him with a microphone pack. It was the new girl – it took him a minute to remember that her name was Muriel, even though, unlike the other presenters, he made it a point to learn and remember all the assistants’ names. She’d started only a week ago, and still had the wide-eyed, slightly dazed demeanor of someone who hadn’t quite gotten used to the constant, baseline chaos of the studio yet. Throw in the additional commotion caused by the combination of the storm, his own tardiness, and heightened tempers all around, and it was no surprise that she was currently looking rather jumpy and overwhelmed.

“Oh no, Dr. Fell, your shirt’s all wet!”

Muriel meant no harm, her blurted exclamation conveying nothing worse than perhaps a slight lack of discretion, but the same could not be said for Uriel, who was close enough to overhear. One glimpse of her stormy expression was enough to send Muriel scuttling away like a frightened rabbit. Aziraphale, for his part, simply gazed at Uriel impassively, figuring it was easier to let her say her piece and have done with it.

In any case, it wouldn’t be the worst thing by a long shot that he’d heard today.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Aziraphale. First you’re twenty minutes late, and then you have the nerve to show up unprepared for the camera?”

“I was caught unawares by the rain. It could happen to anyone—”

Uriel waved a hand dismissively in his direction. “If you’d been on time like you were supposed to be, makeup could have taken care of it. As it is, there’s nothing to be done for it now. You’ll just have to go on as you are. But just as a reminder, you are one of the public faces of Channel Six News and are expected to adhere to certain standards. In the future, please do try to be on time and do your best to attend to your personal appearance beforehand.”

“Out running down innocent bystanders with that friend of yours again, I assume,” commented Gabriel snidely from behind the anchor desk. “You know, Aziraphale, I really don’t want to pry into your private life, but when it begins to impinge on your professionalism, you might want to give some serious consideration to whom you’re fraternizing with—”

Thankfully, the chime warning that the ad break was due to end in thirty seconds went off just then, cutting Gabriel off mid-sentence before his words really had time to sink in and draw blood. The chief camera operator called loudly for them to take their places. Aziraphale did not stay to watch the contemptuous sneer on Gabriel’s face morph back into his blandly handsome, TV-anchor smile, nor did he give in to the urge to knock it off that smug face altogether. Instead, he turned his back and walked stiffly over to his own station on the other side of the studio.

Newt, bless him, had taken the initiative to re-run the models with the newest data, and the printouts, with all the most important bits highlighted, were laid out and ready to go on the desk in front of him. All Aziraphale had to do when the cameras turned on was to read the information aloud, which he did in a dull monotone, forgoing the commentary and interesting factoids that he typically liked to include. It wasn’t his best performance, but it was adequate, and adequate was really all he could manage right now. It was a relief when he was able to hand the reins over to Eric for the live, on-location component of the segment.

"… as you can see, this storm has the potential to do a good deal of damage. To reiterate, the authorities are encouraging everyone to remain indoors if at all possible and to make sure that your devices and torches are charged up in case the power should go out. And if you must venture outdoors, remember to exercise caution and use common sense. Stay safe. And now, we go to Assistant Meteorologist Eric Legion, who's on site over in Tadfield, where the worst of the storm appears to be concentrated.”

The cameras pointed at Aziraphale clicked off, and the operator flashed him a thumbs-up. He exhaled and let his shoulders slump as the digital weather map was replaced by the live feed from the weather van. It was focused on Eric, who was standing on Tadfield Green, the trees of Hogback Wood barely discernible behind him through gusty, driving sheets of rain. The very fact that Eric, whose outlandish, gravity-defying hairstyles had their own large and very dedicated fanbase, had the oversized hood of his yellow slicker up was testament to the exceptional ferocity of the storm.

"Hi, Aziraphale!" cried Eric. It was clear that he was yelling as loudly as he could, but even so, he was barely audible over the combined cacophony of drumming rain and shrieking wind and the occasional rumble of thunder. "As you can see, things are really wild out here right now! Would you believe this rain is bucketing down at a rate of nearly three centimeters an hour?! Add in some seventy mile-per-hour wind gusts – speak of the devil, there’s one of them now, nearly blew me over! – and you’ve got a recipe for some wild, wild weather! And last but certainly not least, we’re seeing some short but very intense pockets of hail popping up all over this region. We just missed one of them a few minutes ago right where we’re standing, in fact. Look at this! It’s not that rare for us get hail at this time of year, but you almost never see it this big."

Eric knelt down to scoop something up from the ground. The camera followed, panning down to show lonely blades of grass peeking defiantly through a veritable carpet of hailstones of varying sizes before zooming in close on the enormous specimen in Eric’s left hand.

"Biggest hailstone I've ever seen! I’d say it’s the size of an avocado! And no, I don’t mean just the pit. I mean the whole bloody fruit! That’s one big avocado, my friends! Hail this size can reach a terminal velocity of nearly a hundred miles an hour. Yes, you heard that right, one hundred miles an hour! By way of comparison, that’s faster than you’ll probably ever go on the M25 in your entire life.

“And some of you might be asking right now: isn’t that dangerous? The answer is yes! Yes, it most definitely is dangerous, as one unfortunate soul has already discovered firsthand today. Emergency responders are reporting that a man was struck unconscious by a hailstone just like this one about ten minutes ago near the old Tadfield airbase, right when the hail would’ve been at its worst. They say he seems to have stopped and gotten out of his vehicle for some reason, possibly to take photos or video – bad idea, by the way, my friends, please don’t try it at home – and took one of these big hundred-mile-per-hour hailstones right to the forehead. Knocked him out in one, from what I understand. Awful luck, that.

“He did have a stroke of better luck just a few minutes later though, if you can call it that. It seems a passing motorist happened to notice his car by the side of the road – some kind of fancy classic car, a Bentley or Rolls or some such, and real noticeable, from what I gather – and stopped for a closer look, whereby she discovered the unconscious man and dialed 999. Paramedics are on the scene, but we’ve no further news on the victim’s condition as of yet.

“That’s all for now. Reporting live from Tadfield in Oxfordshire, I’m Eric Legion reminding you to stay safe and indoors. And if you must go out on the road, do try to remain inside your vehicles if at all possible. Back to you in the studio, Aziraphale!"

Back in the studio, Aziraphale had barely registered Eric’s hand-off. Instead, he stood frozen in shock, staring at the screen with his mouth fallen open and something that felt like a leaden ball of horror and regret steadily expanding in his stomach.

"Crowley," he said. "Oh, f*ck."

Chapter 10: caution to the wind

Chapter Text

Aziraphale, his mind and heart both still miles away along some desolate, storm-battered road, only belatedly became aware that the studio around him seemed to have silently devolved into chaos.

For all that there were a million things that could go wrong, daily news broadcasts at Channel Six generally ran like a well-oiled machine. Each and every person knew what to do, where to stand, and what to say in order to keep everything running smoothly when the cameras were rolling. Now, however, the whole enterprise looked like it was one stiff breeze (or one massive hailstone) away from falling entirely apart. There were protocols in place for how to handle any number of mishaps and eventualities, but not, evidently, Chief Meteorologist says a rude word.

Without exception, everybody in the studio, from the camera operators and assistants all the way to Gabriel and Michael over at the anchor desk, had stopped what they were doing and were instead staring at Aziraphale with a range of shocked or appalled expressions on their faces. The camera operator looked terrified, one hand hovering with indecision over the power switch on his still-running rig. Newt, across the room, was mouthing Aziraphale’s name and making exaggerated gestures to try to get his attention, all while pointing frantically at the large, flashing “on air” placards on the walls. And through the soundproof glass that separated the studio from the production booth, Aziraphale could see Uriel, hands flailing wildly and mouth forming what appeared to be a few choice expletives of her own, while the hapless technician trapped inside with her desperately fumbled at controls and dials.

Aziraphale watched this strange, mute pantomime with a sense of detachment, as though he wasn’t right there at the center of it all. As though he hadn’t been the one who’d inadvertently thrown a massive spanner into the works.

It was almost farcical, given that the whole thing was playing out in complete silence under bright studio lights.

Because they were still live on air.

The feed had switched back to the studio – back to Aziraphale – just in time to catch his final words, in all their unbleeped, expletive glory.

He was on camera. His mike was on. He'd just said f*ck on national television, in the middle of the afternoon.

And he didn’t care one single bit.

Not about that, anyhow.

And as for whether the broadcast had caught the moment right before the swear, when he’d blurted out Crowley’s name as twin tidal waves of realization and horror crashed over him? He had no idea.

In contrast to the silence in the studio, voices screamed in his head. Eric, reporting the terrible news – struck unconscious… took one of these big hundred-mile-per-hour hailstones right to the forehead… no further news on the victim’s condition – and then, louder, more insistent, Crowley himself, his voice dagger-sharp and laced with some vicious, bitter emotion – off to go do something reckless and ill-advised, what else? – as Aziraphale had last heard him, throwing his own cruel, unwittingly prophetic words back in his face.

Aziraphale blinked once.

Twice.

Inhaled.

Exhaled.

None of it helped. The tension in the air, if anything, only grew thicker. The same soundless, chaotic tableau still swam surreally in front of his eyes. The voices shouting in his head still clamored for attention.

And Crowley was still out there, somewhere, hurt and alone.

“Right,” he said faintly, more to himself than to the camera, “I’m sure— I’m sure everything will be just tickety-boo.”

It was entirely unconvincing. Words deserted him. He stared dumbly at the blinking red eye of the camera and tried, unsuccessfully, to remember what else one was supposed to say at the end of a weather segment.

He was saved by the technician in the production booth, who had managed, despite the prodigious challenge of being trapped in a tiny room with a livid Uriel, to hastily queue up an unscheduled ad break. The camera lights went off and the countdown for the break – four minutes, twice as long as usual – replaced the flashing on air signs on the placards.

The camera operator let out an audible exhale and reached up to wipe the sweat from his face.

And then it was a like a vacuum popping – all the frantic chaos finally given voice, all the pent-up tension erupting into noise. A door slammed loudly to his right, and several people started talking all at once. Uriel, storming out of the production booth with an irate scowl on her face, stridently demanded he issue an apology on air immediately after the break. Gabriel turned to Michael and said, in a performative whisper that projected clearly all the way across the studio, that he wished Aziraphale would shut his stupid mouth and die already. Michael, with a sour grimace twisting her normally perfectly-composed face, responded by lamenting the size of the fine the station would surely be forced to pay, to say nothing of the damage control the more respectable members of the anchor team would have to perform. Sandalphon demanded bullishly to the room at large that they fire Aziraphale immediately for being so crass as to swear on live television, never mind that Sandalphon himself had more than once been fined in the past for saying far more objectionable things on air. Finally, there was Newt, rushing over to his side and nearly taking out a camera rig in the process, the only one who bothered to ask whether Aziraphale was all right.

Aziraphale, for his part, paid no heed to any of it. Amidst all the noise and commotion, something shifted and fell into place, a sort of steely calm forged from the blind panic of a few seconds ago. Like a cloud-muffled night illuminated bright as day by a sudden, brilliant bolt of lightning, everything came clear all at once. His priorities, his intentions, his heart. All the things that had been there all along, only he couldn’t see them.

He knew what he had to do. There was only one thing he could do. He stood up and walked purposefully toward the exit, pulling the mike off his collar and tossing it aside as he went.

Gabriel, with Michael and Uriel right behind, caught up to him just as he reached the door.

"Hey! Aziraphale! Where do you think you're going? We’re not done here! You need to give an update on this hailstorm business after the break. And we really need to talk about that stunt you just pulled. What in heaven’s name were you thinking? Profanity? Really? We're going to get fined big-time for that!"

"So sorry, Gabriel. I’m afraid I really can't talk right now. I need to go.”

"Don’t be ridiculous,” said Michael. “Gabriel’s right. You can't just up and leave in the middle of a broadcast. Get back to your station at once!”

“You don’t understand. It’s an emergency. My— my— Crowley. He’s in trouble. I have to go to him.”

“Who’s that?” demanded Uriel, the most furious of the three. “Your boyfriend in the dark glasses? If you think you can just waltz out of here in the middle of a broadcast, especially after how late you were earlier—“

"Crowley’s not my—," protested Aziraphale, then stopped short. He squared his shoulders and turned to face his three interrogators.

"No. You know what? Crowley is my boyfriend, as you put it, even if we’ve never said so in so many words. We’re partners in every way it counts, and I love him, and he’s in trouble. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. Now.”

It felt simultaneously like a revelation and like the most obvious thing in the world.

“This is absolutely unacceptable!” shouted Uriel, her face contorted with rage, the very last fragments of her normally icy demeanor having gone up in smoke, “Aziraphale, I’m warning you. I was willing to overlook the profanity, provided you issued an apology immediately and paid the fine personally, but this is going too far. Mooning over your boyfriend in front of the camera is bad enough, and then you think you can just run off to deal with your own little personal problems while you’re supposed to be doing your job? If you leave, so help me god, this is it. You’re done.”

"I can and I am leaving. Right now. Fire me if you like. I don't care. My personal life is absolutely none of your business, but I will say this. Crowley is more important to me than this job and the whole lot of you put together. So with all due respect please do not try and stop me.”

All three of them, momentarily shocked into silence, stared at Aziraphale. He paid them no more heed. Instead he addressed Newt, who had followed him over and was now hovering nervously off to the side, the knuckles of both hands white on the handles of a leather bag. It was his own satchel, Aziraphale realized, which he’d forgotten about in the rush to get out of there; Newt, always attentive despite, or because of, his anxiety, had retrieved it from beneath the weather desk, and was now holding it out to him.

“Newt, I’ll need to borrow the keys to the van, if you please.”

“Sure, yeah, of course,” said Newt, rummaging in his pocket and handing over a keyring along with the satchel. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you though? You know I’d be happy to, right?”

“I appreciate the offer, but I think this is something I need to do alone.”

“Are you sure you'll be alright? You never drive! Do you even know how?”

“Of course I know how to drive.”

“But—”

“I’ll be fine, Newt.”

He opened the studio door and took a step out into the hall. Then a second. And a third. Nobody stopped him.

“Aziraphale!” That was Uriel, who seemed to have found her voice again, shrill and seething. “Don’t you dare—"

The door closed behind him with a soft snick. Uriel’s voice vanished abruptly, testament to the exceptional soundproofing of the studio, and it was suddenly very quiet in the corridor.

Whatever it was that had turned Aziraphale’s panic into resolve back inside was still present. It kept his footsteps fast and steady as he strode down the hall and tromped down the four flights of stairs to the garage, and held his terror and uncertainty at bay as he got in the van and set off for Tadfield.

Aziraphale hadn’t lied to Newt. He did, in fact, know how to drive, and was even pretty good at it. Most of the time he just preferred not to. On the rare occasions that he did drive, however, he tended to be careful and abiding of the rules.

Today, though, he drove like Crowley.

It wasn’t until he was well on his way, the roads blessedly free of traffic and other distractions despite the ongoing storm, that he realized he didn’t actually know where he was going other than somewhere near the old Tadfield airbase. This direction was less helpful than it sounded, as the airbase was sprawling and vast, and the area around it spiderwebbed with numerous roadways.

Crowley himself hadn’t left any clues. He certainly hadn’t told Aziraphale where he’d gone, and his social media had been uncharacteristically quiet since early that morning. His mobile, when Aziraphale rang it, went straight to voicemail. There was no point, he thought grimly, in leaving a message, and hung up.

If past behavior was any indication, there were some spots where Crowley was more likely to have gone. Places where he was nearly certain to get good shots, where Tadfield’s infamous storms could run fast and unimpeded along long, straight stretches of road with little traffic and few obstructions.

Places where there was nothing to stem the ferocity, and the danger, of the storm.

It was still so many places, so many roads, some of them miles and miles long, to check. And there was always the possibility that there were other such places about which he remained unaware, places that Crowley hadn’t shown him or told him about.

He’d do it if he had to, of course. He’d drive down every road, from the hellscape that was the M25 to the meanest, narrowest dirt lane, and face down the fiercest storms, in order to find Crowley.

But there was another option that was both easier and, more to the point, faster. He called Eric.

“Aziraphale! I was just about to call you. What’s going—"

“So sorry, Eric, but I haven’t got time for small talk. I need information, actually, and quickly.”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“It’s about Cr— I mean, the person who was struck by hail. Do you happen to know the exact location of the, um… the accident?”

“Yeah, it was on Eden Road, near the northern border of Lower Tadfield. Right where it runs up alongside that old American airbase out there. It’s just a couple miles off the M40. I’ll text you the coordinates.”

“Thank you. And, uh, would you by any chance have any further information on his condition?”

“No, sorry. Last I heard the police were there, and an ambulance was on its way.”

“Oh. Well, thank you anyway.”

“I can check back in with my contact at the regional police HQ in a few? If that helps.”

“Yes. Yes, that would be most helpful. Thank you.”

“Um, Az?” asked Eric tentatively. “Is everything OK? I just got a call from head office a couple of minutes ago. Uriel said I needed to come back to the station ASAP to fill in for you. Funny you called when you did, because I was just about to pick up the phone to call you.”

Aziraphale let out a small, humorless laugh. It sounded brittle and bitter, and perhaps just a little hysterical.

“Am I alright? I don’t know, honestly. But don’t you worry about me. I’m sure I’ll be just fine.”

He wasn’t worried about himself, after all. Crowley was a different matter.

Crowley was the only matter, right now.

“Uriel wouldn’t tell me why you suddenly weren’t available, but Twitter’s blowing up. Did you really—"

“I’m afraid I did, rather.”

“Wow. OK,” said Eric. He fell silent for several seconds, long enough that Aziraphale began to wonder whether the phone connection had been lost. Just as he was about to hang up and call back, Eric began talking again. There was still a note of astonishment in his voice, but it had taken on a significantly less flippant tone.

“Oh, sh*t. The car. The Bentley. I should’ve put two and two together. It’s him, isn’t it? Crowley. Your boyfriend. No wonder you dropped that f-bomb on camera. f*ck, Az, I’m so sorry.”

“Crowley isn’t my—” began Aziraphale reflexively, then stopped short, for the second time in less than an hour. Had they really been that obvious all along? Eric had never met Crowley in person, as far as he knew, despite being a fan. But it was entirely possible that he’d seen the pair of them together – Crowley picked Aziraphale up and dropped him off at the station at least a couple of times a week. And even if he’d never gone out of his way to introduce Crowley to the people he worked with, it wasn’t as though they’d been particularly circ*mspect about being seen out together in public.

Had everyone else figured it out before he had? Had Crowley?

“Yes, I’m afraid that was Crowley,” he said.

“Hey, hey, I’m sure he’s gonna be OK, especially with you to look out for him.”

“I’ve not been doing the best job of that lately, it seems.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was a freak accident. You couldn’t have predicted this. Nobody expects to get hit by hail.”

“I suppose not. Anyway, thank you for the information. I really do appreciate it.”

“Any time, mate. I’ll call you right away if I hear anything else, OK?”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Take care, Aziraphale. And I hope he’s not too banged up. I really do.”

“Thank you. Oh, and Eric? Congratulations in advance.”

“Huh? What are you—“

Aziraphale hung up, cutting him off mid-sentence. Eric would find out soon enough that he’d been promoted to Chief. He was a highly competent meteorologist, a hard worker, and a charismatic presenter who was popular with the viewers. And everyone at the station liked him, even the higher-ups, who thought that he was meek and obedient and unlikely to cause trouble. It was true that, for the most part, he followed the rules and did as he was told. Privately, however, Aziraphale thought that Eric’s meekness and deference was at least partially an act, although his affability and kindness seemed genuine. Among other things, he’d more than once seen Eric comforting an assistant or tech who’d found themselves on the wrong end of Uriel’s temper or Gabriel’s condescension or Sandalphon’s cruelty. In any case, even if Eric hadn’t been the best candidate by far, management wouldn’t want to risk bringing on an unknown quantity. Not so soon after the abrupt departure of their previous Chief Meteorologist under such dramatic circ*mstances.

Yes, Eric would almost certainly get Aziraphale’s erstwhile job, and flourish in the position. At least until someone else – a competing station, or even someone like Agnes Nutter – inevitably made him a better offer and poached him from Channel Six. Who knew, maybe he’d even choose to strike out on his own, like Crowley.

Crowley.

As he drove, Aziraphale finally let himself think about their last conversation. Those words that Crowley had flung back at him – Off to do something reckless and ill-advised, what else? I won’t even think about you while I’m off having the time of my life! – had cut deep, as Crowley had undoubtedly intended them to. But Aziraphale knew Crowley, knew his voice, knew his face, knew his body language. He’d been too distracted by his own emotions at the time, but now he was beginning to see that Crowley’s anger had been superficial, an easily-cracked veneer protecting something aching and vulnerable beneath. Beneath the cutting words, Crowley had sounded lost. Hopeless. Desperate. It hadn’t been cruelty but agony that had twisted his face into that bitter sneer as he’d delivered the final, devastating words that still echoed inside Aziraphale’s head.

Crowley had been frustrated and angry, it was true, but above all, he’d been hurting.

And while Crowley had clearly had a very strong opinion about the relative benefits of Aziraphale taking Agnes Nutter’s offer versus remaining at Channel Six, and had made that opinion abundantly clear, it had been only that. An opinion. Not a demand or an ultimatum. Had Aziraphale chosen to turn down the offer, he’d no doubt Crowley would have supported him in the end.

Because Crowley, in his own words, would always catch Aziraphale if he fell. Would go through Hell and back for him. Would always be there for him.

And how had Aziraphale responded to this truest and most heartfelt of sentiments? He’d refused to acknowledge it. Refused to see the depth of Crowley’s loyalty and devotion. He’d let his own insecurities get the better of him, and told Crowley to be reasonable, as though his own holier-than-thou, head-in-the-sand act was anything other than completely irrational.

And Crowley had suffered for it.

Now, Aziraphale could only hope that he would get a chance to try and set things right.

He’d gotten nearly as far as the exit for Tadfield on the M40 when Eric rang back. The ambulance had come and gone, he said, taking Crowley to the hospital. Which hospital, his contact in the police didn’t know. But, Eric added quickly, clearly trying, if not entirely successfully, to be reassuring, that was good news, wasn’t it, because it meant that Crowley wasn’t too far gone for things like ambulances and hospitals to matter.

The nearest major trauma centre was in Oxford, but there were a couple of smaller, local hospitals closer by. Where the ambulance would have taken Crowley almost certainly depended upon the severity of his injuries.

Please, Aziraphale thought, fierce and desperate, don’t be Oxford.

He contemplated trying to call each of the hospitals to inquire whether Crowley had been brought in, but seeing as how he was nearly at the site of the accident anyway, the best course of action seemed to be simply to continue onward. According to Eric, the police were still there. Perhaps they would be able to tell him where to go.

Eden Road, when Aziraphale reached it, looked familiar. He recognized the little red-roofed house through the trees on the left shortly after the turnoff, as well as the place where a fallen tree had knocked down a section of chain link fence around the back of the abandoned airbase.

They’d been here before, he and Crowley. It had been late October. They’d gone a little ways down the road and stopped somewhere or other to film. He couldn’t recall right now which storm had brought them out there, or who had been filming whom. What he did remember, in great detail, was the way the russets and golds of the autumn landscape had complemented the darker, richer red of Crowley’s hair.

It had been so bright, so beautiful, set against thunderstorm grey.

Now, there was nothing so bright, nor so beautiful, to alleviate the gloom or lighten Aziraphale’s heart. The road seemed simultaneously endless and too short. About a mile out, it veered away from wooded terrain into open farmland, a sweeping vista dotted with sparse trees and the occasional low hedgerow. Off to one side were the flat, broad hangars and other low outbuildings of the now-abandoned airbase. He recalled Crowley telling him, on that drive months ago, that this terrain was as close to the wide-open American prairies as you could get in southern England, although nowhere near as terrifyingly vast nor prone to tornadoes. The road was straight and fast, and there were few obstacles to slow the path of an approaching storm once it left the trees of Hogback Wood behind. You could see ahead for miles. It was, in short, a storm chaser’s paradise.

It was also nearly deserted at the moment; he’d seen only one other car, going in the opposite direction, since he’d turned off the highway. This of course would have added to the appeal for Crowley – no one to get in the way of fast driving or perfect panoramas – but Aziraphale couldn’t help but imagine how long someone, injured and alone and unable to call for help, might have to wait before being found.

“No,” he said aloud, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. Someone had come along, likely only minutes after Crowley had been struck, and he was already on his way to the hospital.

The scene of the accident was unexpectedly placid. He’d steeled himself to expect chaos and commotion. Sirens and flashing lights. Hailstones and thunderbolts. Sturm und drang. Instead, there were only a few, lonely traffic cones to mark the approach, then the silent, dark bulk of the Bentley coming into view at the side of the road. A pair of police officers, wearing high-visibility jackets with their hoods up against the rain, milled around desultorily nearby. There was no urgency to their movements. The main event, as far as they were concerned, had come and gone, and they were merely dealing with the aftermath now. The police car, parked in front of the Bentley, didn’t even have its flashers on.

The weather too seemed to have gone from apocalyptic to merely dreary. Most of the hailstones, even the uncommonly large ones, were gone, having melted into ordinary rainwater and subsequently been subsumed into the muddy puddles along the roadside. It hardly seemed fair that they could just disappear so quietly and so quickly, as though they hadn’t wreaked havoc a mere half hour ago, as though they hadn’t thrown Aziraphale’s whole world into turmoil.

This wasn’t unexpected, meteorologically speaking. Hailstorms were always brief, and the stones themselves incredibly ephemeral. They started melting the minute they left the upper atmosphere, well before they even hit the ground. But, then again, nothing about today had been typical, so he could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the weather might behave in extraordinary ways as well.

It was only when he’d gotten out of the van and almost immediately had to swipe wet curls from his eyes that he really registered that it was still raining, and heavily at that. The storm hadn’t passed, only turned into something less overtly noteworthy. It wouldn’t do to forget that.

He hadn’t gone ten feet before he nearly stepped on something lying on the shoulder of the road. It was a pair of sunglasses, one temple bent at an odd, awkward angle and the left lens shattered beyond repair. He recognized them immediately, his stomach sinking. They were Crowley's lucky sunglasses, the ones that were superficially the same as every other pair he owned but which he always wore to drive into the hearts of storms.

Only a few feet away, he came upon something else familiar, the handheld video recorder Crowley used to shoot in conditions too wild and windy for a tripod.

Aziraphale stumbled, his eyes suddenly wet from more than just the rain. The adrenaline that had been driving him since he’d stormed out of the studio began to ebb quickly away. In the absence of urgency, there was doubt. Despair.

What was he even doing here? He couldn’t change anything. Couldn’t do anything to help. He was too late. He’d been too late even before he’d started out on this fool’s errand. He stared at Crowley’s sunglasses, lying abandoned and broken in the mud, and wondered whether he ought to just go home. Crowley was probably already at the hospital, where people who actually knew what they were doing would take care of him. The last thing he probably needed, or wanted, was to see Aziraphale’s face.

The sound of voices drifted over, distracting Aziraphale from his gloomy reverie.

“… guess we’re gonna have to get it towed.”

“Can you even tow something that old?”

“No idea. Have to give it a try though. Not like we can just leave it here.”

“Shame, really. Such a nice car. Would be too bad to see it get all banged up.”

The Bentley. They were talking about Crowley’s Bentley.

They were going to have her towed, probably with something involving heavy machinery, hooks and chains, and a distinct lack of care. There would inevitably be damage done, to the finish if not to the frame, as they dragged her along behind some clunking, lumbering monster of a tow truck. Crowley was going to be absolutely gutted.

There was no way Aziraphale could stand by and watch that happen. He had to do something.

He blinked the rain and tears out of his eyes, bent down to retrieve the sunglasses, and did the same for the camera a few paces away. Then, fueled by a sudden, renewed sense of resolve, he strode toward the Bentley and the pair of police officers circling her like hungry scavengers.

“Pardon me. I wonder if one of you officers could please tell me which hospital Crow— the victim, I mean, was taken to.”

“Eh? Who’re you then?”

“Lay off, Pete, I think he’s a reporter,” called the other officer, approaching from behind the Bentley and tipping her head toward the van, which was emblazoned on the side with an enormous Channel Six logo. Upon reaching Aziraphale, she held out a hand. “Officer Jane Wells, Tadfield P.D. And that’s my partner Pete. Sorry about him, it’s been a long day, what with this weather and all.”

“A. Z. Fell, Channel Six Weather,” Aziraphale replied automatically, shaking the proffered hand. He forced himself to smile.

“You’ve missed the main event, I’m afraid. We’re just cleaning up loose ends now, really. There was another fellow here earlier reporting on the weather and the accident. Had really spiffing hair.”

“Ah, yes, that would be Eric, my colleague. I’m just, err, following up on his report. Now, if you would be so kind as to answer my question, please.”

“Sure thing. They took him to Saint Beryl’s. ‘Bout five miles down the road to the south.”

St. Beryl’s. Not Oxford.

St. Beryl’s was a small, unremarkable local hospital, as far as Aziraphale knew. He could recall hearing about it only once or twice in all the years he’d been listening in on the daily news headlines. There had been a mild scandal some years back about two babies (or was it three?) who’d apparently been switched at birth, but nothing since. But its general lack of notoriety was a good thing, a wonderful thing even, as it meant that the paramedics didn’t think Crowley’s injury was severe enough to warrant the longer trip to Oxford, where all the really critical cases ended up.

“Wonderful.” The smile he gave her this time was real. “And would you happen to have any word on his condition?”

“Paramedics said it looked like a regular garden-variety concussion, no bleeding in the brain or anything. They didn’t seem too fussed about it. He was still knocked out when they left though. That’s all we know. Anything else, you’ll have to ask ‘em yourself.”

This was also, objectively, encouraging news, although the idea that any concussion that knocked someone out cold could be considered garden-variety was frankly bewildering to Aziraphale, and doubly so because they were talking about Crowley.

“Thank you. I’m sure, ah, our viewers will be very happy to hear that. What are you going to do with his vehicle?”

“We'll have it towed. Can’t leave it here, after all. They’re going to have a devil of time getting it hooked up to the rig though.”

“One of us could drive it. He left the keys, you know,” interjected Pete, sounding altogether too enthusiastic about the prospect. “I’ve always wanted to drive one of them fancy old cars.”

“Oh no. No. That won’t be necessary,” said Aziraphale hastily. He wasn’t about to let Crowley’s pride and joy be driven off by someone who probably hadn’t the foggiest idea how the Bentley ought to be treated. “I'll take care of it.”

Unlike her owner, the Bentley had survived the hailstorm seemingly unscathed. From what he could see, there didn’t seem to be so much as a scratch on her pristine black paint job, and all of her windows and mirrors remained intact. Most likely this was because she had been fortuitously parked beneath a large tree, which had protected her from the brunt of the assault. It was just like Crowley, Aziraphale thought ruefully, to have had the forethought and consideration to carefully park his car in a sheltered spot before diving headfirst into the fray without a second thought for his own safety and well-being.

Glancing inside the driver's side window, he saw that Pete had been right. Crowley’s keys were still dangling right there in the ignition, although the engine had been turned off. What was more, the door, when he gave the handle a gentle, experimental tug, was unlocked.

It was clear as day to Aziraphale what had happened. Crowley had been driving along this quiet stretch of back road, almost certainly at some inadvisable speed, when he'd seen or heard the first hailstones strike the pavement and the windshield. Any storm chaser would have viewed it as a stroke of incredible fortune. Crowley, no exception, would not have been able to resist the opportunity to get out and capture a few quick minutes of dramatic film. He'd left the keys in the ignition because he hadn't expected to be outside for long, given that hailstorms almost always tended to be brief.

“Whadd’ya mean, you’ll take care of it?"

"I mean I'll drive it to the hospital for him. I should think he'd like to have it when he wakes up."

"I thought you were a reporter, not a chauffeur.”

"Well, I— I work for Channel Six, of course I do, but, you see, I’m also his partner.”

They had no reason to believe him. He could have been some random stranger who'd seen an opportunity to make off with a valuable vintage Bentley for all they knew. And most likely there were rules and procedures to be followed at an accident scene that didn’t include allowing random bystanders, partners or not, to simply drive off in apparently abandoned vehicles.

Aziraphale would never forgive himself, however, if he didn’t at least try. So he summoned the full force of his television personality, the voice and demeanor that had made tens of thousands of loyal viewers tune in every afternoon to listen to him talk about the weather. He told the little voice in his head that sounded like Gabriel telling him he had no camera appeal to shut the f*ck up, instead reminding himself that Agnes Nutter herself had only a few days ago deemed him charming and charismatic enough to headline his own show. Then he proceeded to put on the performance of a lifetime, playing Crowley's distraught partner, letting the distress and despair and fear he'd been holding inside bleed out in an emotional torrent. He even put a bit of the truth into it, saying they’d had a bit of a row earlier on in the day and didn’t he feel awfully responsible for how things had shaken out, as it were, and he was trying his hardest to make things right by Crowley. Surely, then, the fine officers could see that the very least he could do was start by taking care of Crowley’s precious Bentley.

It was shockingly easy and didn't feel like even the tiniest bit of a lie or even an exaggeration. Both officers were thoroughly convinced.

“Alright then, I suppose you can take it. You’ll be doing us a favor if I’m being honest. Save us the trouble of waiting around for the tow. The sooner we can get out of this rain the better, if you ask me. Right miserable, it is.”

“Well then, I’m glad I could help.”

“I assume you know how to drive it.”

“Of course I do.”

Well, Aziraphale had seen Crowley drive it often enough anyway. He’d been captivated by the way Crowley’s fingers wrapped around the curved knob of the gear stick, made a study of how the muscles of Crowley’s forearm and neck stretched and corded each time he cranked the steering wheel to take them sharply around a bend, felt the tension in Crowley’s thigh as he bore down on the accelerator. Surely he could extrapolate from those observations and a hundred more like them how to drive the thing.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, officers,” he said, pulling the door open and sliding into the drivers’ seat. He accomplished this with somewhat less grace than Crowley would have but smoothly enough to suggest competence. So far, so good.

“I’ll just be on my way now. And, oh, by the by, I shall be leaving my van here. I’ll send someone along to collect it later. I’ve full faith that you fine officers won’t let anything happen to it, of course. Lest you find yourselves on the evening news tonight.”

They nodded agreement and let him go, without comment.

He took a deep breath, then released the clutch and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life; blessedly, it did not stall. At the same time, music began to blare from the radio at top volume. He did not turn it down, nor did he look at the officers outside to see if they’d noticed the way he’d startled at the sound. Instead, he spun the steering wheel and pressed his foot down on the gas, making a clean, sharp turn and speeding off to the south in the direction of St. Beryl’s and Crowley. On the radio, Freddy Mercury crooned, begging for someone to find him somebody to love.

Chapter 11: forecast uncertainty

Chapter Text

Once he’d made it around the first bend in the road and was safely out of sight, Aziraphale slowed, giving the Bentley’s dashboard a grateful pat.

His bluff had, improbably, worked, and so now here he was behind the wheel of Crowley's precious car, following the ambulance, and Crowley, to the hospital. Torn between impatience and anxiety, he found himself alternating between speeding and going too slow. Luckily, St. Beryl’s wasn’t far and the route itself was straightforward and undemanding, so it turned out to be an uneventful trip despite his somewhat erratic driving. The Bentley was no trouble, handling far more easily than he’d expected, almost like it knew what was at stake. Even the weather, which had caused so much anguish today, seemed to be cooperating now: in the ten minutes it took to reach the hospital, the rain lightened into a fine drizzle and then stopped altogether.

From the outside, Saint Beryl’s looked more like some sort of Victorian nunnery than a hospital, its dark brick walls and ornate decorations looming forebodingly against the grey sky. Inside, however, it looked like any other hospital – brightly lit, sterile, and somewhat lacking in personality – albeit a small and not-very-busy one. The Bentley having been safely stowed in a covered car park, Aziraphale entered the waiting room and strode up to the front desk, fully prepared to throw as much of his weight around as necessary until they let him see Crowley.

“Hello. My name is Dr. Aziraphale Fell. I’m told that my, ah, my partner—”

“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” said the receptionist in a disinterested monotone, without looking away from her computer screen.

“I’m afraid this is really quite urgent.”

“Hold up, did you say Fell?” She glanced up, eyes widening. In an instant all her attention was on him, whatever she’d been doing on the computer a moment ago entirely forgotten. “As in Dr. A. Z. Fell of Channel Six Weather? Oh, gosh, I just knew your voice sounded familiar. I’m a massive fan. You’re my absolute favorite, you are. Tune in every evening at six like clockwork. Oh, but where on Earth are my manners? My name is Mary, Mary Hodges. It’s ever so nice to meet you. Have I already said what an enormous fan I am? Well! It bears repeating in any case. Oh my goodness, my sisters Theresa and Mary – ha, I know that’s confusing, both of us being named Mary and all, but, you know, we aren’t biological sisters and it’s ever so common a name among the religious set – they’re going to be so dreadfully jealous I’ve met you. Imagine that, Dr. A. Z. Fell himself appearing in my hospital waiting room! Oh, goodness me.”

Mary was quite possibly the chattiest person Aziraphale had ever met, but once he was able to get a word in edgewise and explain why he was there, she was exceedingly forthcoming with all the information at her disposal. Whether this special treatment was because of his apparent celebrity status in her eyes, he wasn’t sure and didn’t ask. In any case, he was grateful for it.

(She hadn’t seen today’s broadcast yet, if her silence on the matter was anything to go by. A small blessing, that. Not that she seemed like the sort to be shocked by a rude word or two, but one never knew.)

Yes, she informed him, Crowley had been brought in by the paramedics about half an hour ago. She’d been busy at the time with another patient, but had noticed the ginger hair – quite striking, it was – and the commotion. It wasn’t every day someone got knocked out by hail in sleepy little Tadfield after all, its reputation for extraordinary weather notwithstanding. As for Crowley's diagnosis or current condition, she didn’t know, but promised Aziraphale she would personally go and find out right away. It was the very least she could do, she said, for her very favorite television personality.

Mary bustled off, leaving Aziraphale to stare at the clock above her desk. He was somewhat concerned that, given her apparently unlimited propensity to natter on for ages, she’d be gone for hours, but, thankfully, she returned not ten minutes later.

“Well, first off, your fella’s awake, so you can stop fretting about that. Came to in the ambulance on the way over here, in fact. He was probably only out twenty minutes at most. The doctors are just running some routine tests now, but it’s more than likely just a concussion.

“The paramedics that brought him in were still here, actually. They all like to take their breaks here when they can, seeing as how we’ve got the best biscuits in the staff room - the kind with the pink icing, you know. I remember when I first started here, years and years ago, and would you believe the only thing they’d let me do was set out those biscuits, and—"

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Erm, I’m sure the biscuits are quite lovely, but you were going to tell me about Crowley?”

“Oh! Right! Well, apparently when he woke up in the ambulance on the way here, your Mister Crowley seemed pretty lucid. Knew his name and the date and who was PM and all that. Remembered about the hailstorm too, so it didn’t seem like he’d lost any memories aside from the impact itself, which is perfectly normal. But then he started rambling on about angels. Was very insistent about talking to them, said he had something terribly important to say to them. Or maybe it was one specific angel, it wasn’t quite clear, I don’t think. Anyway, that had the paramedics a bit worried, apparently. That and they said he was talking kind of funny. Like he’d forgotten vowels existed. Can’t say as I can really imagine what that sounds like, but there you have it.”

Aziraphale, unlike Mary, could imagine it perfectly, every absurd sputtering consonant of it. The odd, overwhelming desire to laugh suddenly rose up in his throat, where it got all tangled up with words and relief and love. What came out was an incoherent, choked-off noise that was half garble and half wheeze and could probably have given Crowley a run for his money.

He wasn’t even sure what he’d been trying to say. Angel, or Crowley, or, very simply, oh. Whatever it was, it apparently sounded concerning enough to spur Mary to offer reassurance.

“Not to worry, dear, that’s rather common in people who’ve recently gone through a traumatic experience. Your words get a bit mixed up and you suddenly discover religion and suchlike.”

“Oh gosh no, no no no, you don’t understand. I’m not worried, my dear. Not at all. That… all of that. It’s honestly so Crowley it hurts. And I can’t tell you just how much of a relief it is to know he’s still talking about, well, angels.”

“Well, that’s alright then. You know him best, I daresay. Paramedics said he talked about them – the angels, I mean – practically the whole way to the hospital. Wouldn’t shut up about it, I’m told,” Mary said, with a chuckle. “He might be able to give me a run for my money given the right topic. Anyhow, it seems that he was quite insistent about making some kind of arrangement with the angels.”

“Arrangement? Did they say he used that word, specifically?”

“Yes. Thought it was a bit of a funny choice of word myself. Usually it’s deal or bargain, you know, when people start trying to negotiate with God or angels or whatever higher power they ascribe to in these sorts of situations. I’ve never heard—" Mary’s voice trailed off, and her eyes rounded with revelation. “Ohhhh! Are you the angel? You are, aren’t you! Oh goodness, that’s awfully sweet. And you do look quite the angel, you know, what with that hair of yours. Just like a halo.”

“Well, he does call me angel sometimes. I hope he still will, after today.”

“I’m sure you haven’t got anything to worry about there, love,” Mary was saying, but Aziraphale had stopped listening. Relief was pouring into him like a flood surging through a canyon, roaring in his ears and making his head spin and his knees weak. It was so sudden and so intense that he thought he might lose consciousness himself for a moment. All his senses receded to the background in its wake. Tears pricked at his eyes. It felt like the first shaft of sunlight, brilliant and blinding and beautiful, appearing after a long and punishing storm.

“Oh, gosh. Thank you. Thank you,” he babbled, seizing Mary’s hand between both of his and shaking it. She drew him in for a hug, and he clung to her while his knees trembled and his head reeled.

“There, there,” said Mary, patting his shoulder and steering him toward a chair. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll bring you a nice cuppa and some of those pink biscuits. They really are top notch. And I promise I’ll let you know as soon as possible when you can go in to see him. They’ve just taken him off for some imaging, so it might be some time, I’m afraid. That’s all routine for head injuries, by the way. Nothing to worry about.”

The tea and biscuits, both of which were surprisingly good, did help, and in due course Aziraphale found himself feeling a little steadier, if not exactly calm. This was good, as he had a potentially hours-long wait ahead of him. The waiting room, which was decorated with bland, pastel landscapes and fake potted plants, was uninviting and uncomfortable; it smelt of disinfectant and uncertainty. The prospect of waiting here for ages was not exactly pleasant, but the thought of leaving and returning later was entirely unfathomable. He was here, and here he would stay until they let him in to see Crowley. Every doctor in this place could swear up and down that Crowley would be alright, but all the reassurances from all the experts in the world couldn’t quiet the small, niggling voice in the back of his head that had surfaced out of the initial flood of relief, insisting on reminding him that even the very best of forecasts retained an element, however small, of uncertainty.

No, Aziraphale wasn’t going anywhere until he saw Crowley, conscious and healthy, with his own two eyes.

And afterward… well, that would depend entirely upon whether Crowley wanted him to stay.

The irony did not escape him that, in any other circ*mstance, Crowley would probably have been sprawled on the seat beside him. He would have come without being asked to keep Aziraphale company, brought him hot chocolate, cracked slightly outrageous jokes to lighten the mood. He would have made the waiting, the terrible uncertainty, seem less dire, less lonely.

Because Crowley was his foremost source of solace and support, and had been for a good long while, only Aziraphale had stubbornly refused to see it.

He wasn’t entirely alone now, of course. Mary checked in on him when she could, offering reassurances if no concrete updates. He was grateful for her company and her concern, but she wasn’t Crowley. No one else could be.

What would Crowley be doing right now if their positions were reversed? Well, that was easy. He’d be glued to his phone and, depending on how bored or antsy he was, possibly causing a spot or two of mostly harmless mischief on social media.

It wasn’t like Aziraphale had anything better to do at the moment, so he figured he might as well take a page out of Crowley’s book and log on to Twitter. He wasn’t at all surprised to see that his own name was trending, as were the hashtags #onebigavocado and #avocadogate. A screengrab of his face at the moment of his now-infamous gaffe was already making the rounds as a meme.

Along with this sudden notoriety came the inevitable speculation as to why the normally unflappable A. Z. Fell had finally snapped. The theories ranged from the absurd to the mundane to the almost accurate. Since it was Twitter, the ridiculous ones – “really, really hates avocados,” “just found out the cleaners lost his favorite bow tie,” and so forth – had, predictably, gained the most traction. At least a couple of people, however, had made suggestions that came uncomfortably close to the truth. “Maybe he’s just been dumped, poor sod,” one commenter had written, while another opined that the news of the unfortunate soul who’d been on the receiving end of that big avocado had reawakened some unresolved trauma in Aziraphale around a loved one who’d suffered a similar, tragic accident in the past.

Not a single one of the Twitter commenters, however, seemed to have figured out who that avocado victim had been. Nobody had tagged or otherwise mentioned Crowley. Aziraphale had already suspected, from Eric’s reaction earlier, that the cameras hadn’t broadcast him saying Crowley’s name aloud to the entire viewing public, and this confirmed it. The only people who’d heard, then, had been in the studio, and none of them seemed to have taken the knowledge public. That was one less thing, tiny though it was, to worry about.

Actually, he reflected, there was someone who both definitely knew the victim’s identity and wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation to tweet about it, although almost certainly without linking it back to Aziraphale or his unexpected outburst.

Crowley himself.

But of course Crowley was currently in no position to tweet about anything at all.

Well, thought Aziraphale, that was enough of that, and hurriedly laid his phone aside.

He wished he had a book. Something familiar, many-times reread, and entirely unsurprising, where he knew every revelation, every twist, every heartbreak and happy ending by heart.

His satchel, unfortunately, contained no such comforts. He’d, in fact, deliberately packed all his books away in his luggage, so as not to be tempted to read when he ought to be preparing his forecast for the afternoon’s broadcast instead, when he’d left Edinburgh that morning. (Had that really only been less than twelve hours ago? It felt like an eternity.) As a result, all he had with him now were a conference programme and some papers for work. A note jotted down in his own neat cursive on a map showing the projected path of today’s storm caught his eye: outside chance of hail. Unlikely but technically possible if the two fronts meet in just the right way.

He shoved the whole mess of papers back in the bag. It was unlikely he’d need them again, seeing as how he no longer had a job.

That last thought was, surprisingly, not particularly upsetting. He would have thought that the prospect of being suddenly unemployed would have been, if not outright distressing, at least cause for concern. Instead it felt strangely freeing, once again like one less thing to worry about.

But there was something else in the satchel, too. Something much more interesting. Something he’d put in there earlier for safekeeping and then forgotten about entirely in the ensuing chaos.

Crowley’s video camera.

It was streaked with dried mud but appeared to have escaped any major damage, at least of the visible sort. This particular model, Aziraphale knew, was touted for its toughness and ability to stand up to extreme conditions. It claimed to be waterproof, shockproof, shatterproof, and several other kinds of proof that he couldn’t recall at the moment. (He didn’t know whether anyone had ever tested whether it was hail-proof, but it seemed like a likely bet.) If you believed the advertisem*nts, it was even supposed to be able to survive a twelve-foot drop onto a hard surface, although, as far as Aziraphale knew, Crowley had never been so confident or reckless as to deliberately put that claim to the test.

It wouldn’t turn on, which triggered a brief, irrational surge of panic on Aziraphale’s part, but reason prevailed after a few seconds. The problem was very likely nothing worse than a dead battery. Crowley loved this camera for its portability and maneuverability, but the trade-off was a somewhat inadequate battery; lord knew he griped about it often enough while they were shooting together.

This, to Aziraphale’s great relief, turned out to indeed be the case. A borrowed charger from Mary solved the problem handily, and the screen came to life after a couple of minutes without fuss or fanfare. It was easy as anything, yet Aziraphale found himself hesitating to play back the saved footage.

What if this was the very last of Crowley's videos that he'd ever see?

No. He was being ridiculous and unnecessarily dramatic. Mary had said that Crowley had regained consciousness in the ambulance, and in all likelihood he would be just fine. There was absolutely no logical reason to think otherwise.

And even if Crowley wanted nothing more to do with Aziraphale after today, storms were in his blood. He’d still keep chasing them, still keep making his videos. And Aziraphale would keep watching them, even if all they could be were reminders of what he couldn’t have.

No, this won’t be the last one, he told himself fiercely, pressing his thumb to the play button before he had a chance to second-guess himself again.

There was a good deal of footage to start with from the drive to Tadfield, including a sequence where Crowley had rotated the camera in its dashboard mount to film himself rather than the world flying by outside the Bentley’s windows. Because Aziraphale was watching with the sound muted, so as not to be a bother to Mary or anyone else who happened to pass through the waiting room, he didn’t know what Crowley was saying. Even so, there was an edge of uncontrolled wildness, bordering on desperation, to his demeanor that, to Aziraphale at least, was immediately and unmistakably evident. The twist of Crowley’s mouth was more pained than wry, the set of his shoulders more tense than eager, the gesticulations of his hands more twitchy than exuberant. Of his usual joy, or even his deliberate mischievousness, there was no sign at all.

It was clear that Crowley didn’t want to be there, that he was forcing himself to go through the motions. The drive, the storm, this video: all of it was just an excuse, a distraction.

Crowley had been running away. From the bandstand, from Aziraphale, from their argument.

But hadn’t Aziraphale done exactly the same thing, and for the same reason? He’d fled to the perceived safety, the routine, of his work, rather than going after Crowley the way he ought to have.

And he’d found neither safety nor solace in the place to which he’d fled. Neither of them had.

Eventually, inevitably, the video wound its way to the main event. The big avocado, as it were. The moment when Crowley, still seeming more brittle and manic than usual, flung open the Bentley’s door and tumbled out into the hailstorm, without a thought for his own safety.

The camera panned and zoomed to show various dramatic images: large hailstones thudding down all around, pocking the earth and thrashing the shrubbery; the grassy shoulder of the road gone nearly white with fallen ice; the Bentley, parked upon a small, dark patch of relatively clear pavement. Finally, it came to rest on Crowley himself, talking rapidly while displaying an impressively large chunk of hail in his free hand. Although the camera work was perhaps a little less smooth than Crowley’s usual, there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about the sequence other than the remarkable size of the hail.

But then, in what seemed like the space between one frame and the next, everything went to hell. The camera jolted, tilting suddenly, dizzyingly, upward, and simultaneously went out of focus, the picture devolving into abstract, fast-moving streaks of grey and black and white and red. The red tumbled into the black and the black swerved abruptly into the white and the white went falling, falling, falling into a blurry, monochrome static. It happened so fast that only after it was over did Aziraphale realize what he’d just witnessed – the camera lurching upon initial impact, flailing in Crowley’s hand as he struggled to stay on his feet, and finally careening through the fog and mist to the ground as he lost both the fight and his grip.

Then there was a long stretch of time, nearly ten minutes, in which the camera showed only a static frame of wet asphalt peppered with chunks of ice, viewed from a disconcerting, low, sidewise perspective.

The initial, violent bout of hail began to subside within a couple of minutes, the large stones falling from above becoming less and less frequent until there was only rain. Near the end of the recording, there was another burst of intense hail, brief but fierce. It lasted for less than a minute, but nevertheless had Aziraphale wincing, picturing Crowley lying defenseless and exposed somewhere just out of frame.

Crowley did not appear onscreen again, and the video cut off before help arrived.

Aziraphale couldn’t help himself. He rewound back to the beginning of the penultimate scene, switched off the mute button, good manners be damned, and pressed play again. This time, because he was expecting it, he caught a glimpse of what he thought might be the hailstone itself, a fast, fleeting, blurry streak at the upper left corner of the frame. This time, with the sound on, he heard the dull thud of impact, quieter than he’d expected but more sickening, and the crunch as the camera hit the ice-strewn pavement. And in the interval between the two, another, quieter sound: Crowley’s voice, low and emphatic, saying “oh, f*ck,” just before the camera went flying.

It was funny, Aziraphale thought, that he’d unknowingly mirrored Crowley, all the way down to tone and phrasing, with his own on-camera expletive earlier. More proof that they were of a mind, the pair of them. More proof, as though he needed it, that he’d been lying through his teeth when he’d told Crowley at the bandstand that they had nothing at all in common.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t really funny at all.

And then when the camera’s perspective had gone still again, the world having been reduced to nothing but pavement and puddles and ice, there was that voice again. Aziraphale would have recognized it anywhere, anyhow, even as heartbreakingly small and disoriented as it was now.

“Oh… ow… didn’t mean to fall… oh f*ck, that hurts… everything—everything’s just tickety-boo…”

The final syllable, barely audible to begin with, faded out, lost beneath the insistent, clangorous drumbeat of hail against the pavement.

Aziraphale was left staring blankly at the now-unchanging view on the tiny screen, feeling like he’d been pummeled in the chest, while the hailstones beating down on the pavement kept on drumming their incessant, staccato beat.

After a bit, there was a short, odd, guttural sound that he couldn’t place. It took him a moment to realize that this was because it hadn’t come from the video at all, but instead belonged to the here and now. Mary, who from her desk on the other side of the room had evidently taken notice of either the sound from the video or Aziraphale’s own undoubtedly stricken countenance, was clearing her throat and looking over at him with an expression that was half curiosity and half concern.

Startled back into awareness, he jabbed spasmodically at the controls on the camera, managing mostly by dumb luck to hit the mute button. He gave Mary a watery smile and waved, mumbling something banal and apologetic; the whole thing felt horribly forced and fake, but was apparently convincing enough that she smiled in response and then turned back to her computer.

Then, paying her no more attention, he proceeded to rewind and rewatch the video in silence yet again. The audio was no longer necessary – all of it, from the background din of the hail all the way to Crowley’s faint, muzzy words at the end, was now lodged firmly in his memory, playing like a soundtrack he couldn’t turn off. And even though it was the third time through, and even though he knew exactly what was about to happen, Aziraphale still felt like he was going to be sick.

When it came to storms, Crowley had uncommonly good instincts. For all that he cultivated an ostentatious and occasionally outrageous persona in front of the camera, he was careful and clearheaded. He did his research beforehand, took precautions, and knew his limits. What was more, he had a healthy respect for Mother Nature and knew never to underestimate her.

It was rare, then, that a weather event would be so potentially dangerous that someone of Crowley’s talents wouldn’t be able to handle it. Today’s storm, even with its abnormally large hail, didn’t fall into that category.

That was not to say that accidents couldn’t happen, of course. There were always inherent risks; that was the nature of the weather, and of storm chasing.

But it was clear to Aziraphale that this hadn’t been a random, unlucky accident, whatever anyone else might think. Or, at least, not entirely.

The Bentley had remained undamaged, parked as it was beneath a large tree whose dense, spreading branches and foliage had effectively stopped or slowed the hailstones. A more level-headed Crowley would have realized that he too could remain beneath the relative safety of the branches and still capture the immediacy and excitement of the moment, taking full advantage of the excellent zoom capabilities of his camera. Aziraphale had, in point of fact, witnessed him do exactly that in person more than once in the past year.

But it was clear from Crowley’s behavior in the car immediately prior that he’d been upset. Very likely his mind hadn’t been on the storm at all but rather on their argument at the bandstand. So, it was at least a little bit Aziraphale’s fault that Crowley hadn’t been giving the weather its due. His fault that Crowley had been distracted enough to forgo caution and common sense. His fault that Crowley had gotten himself injured.

He needed Crowley to be all right so that he could apologize.

And, more importantly by far, so that he could tell Crowley what he’d told Uriel and the rest back at the station.

We’re partners in every way it counts, and I love you.

And while it didn’t really matter whether or not the rest of the world knew what Crowley was to him, it did matter that Crowley had come this close to never knowing the truth.

Watching Crowley’s fall felt like prodding at an open wound. With every subsequent viewing, Aziraphale found new hurts, new places to bleed. And yet, he couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen. Couldn’t help but rewind and watch it again. And again. And again.

Sometime during this cycle, his mobile pinged, the screen informing him that he had a text message from Newt. Half with relief, half with resentment, he set the camera aside to focus on the conversation.

The conversation with Newt having petered out, Aziraphale had just about succumbed to the overwhelming temptation to watch Crowley’s video again when Mary appeared at his side.

“Dr. Fell? You can go in and see him now.”

Chapter 12: shelter from the storm

Chapter Text

As Aziraphale followed Mary into the back, it occurred to him that, in all the time he’d spent sitting and fretting in the waiting room, he hadn’t once thought about how he was going to tell Crowley about the realization he’d arrived at back in the studio. He’d thought a great deal about the who (Crowley, Crowley, Crowley), and the what (love, no two ways about it), and the why (because he’d been willfully, stubbornly blind, because he’d been scared, because life was too short and love too insistent to be blind and scared), but not the how.

And now Mary was gesturing to an open door down the corridor, and there was no more time to think. To buy time would mean delaying this reunion, and that was utterly unthinkable.

“They’ve put him in the room down at the end there – it’s a private one. The nicest too, if you want my opinion. Less noise from everyone coming and going. Anyhow, you can go right in. The doctors have finished with all the tests, so he’s all yours. I’ll just leave you to it then. I’m sure you’re eager to be reunited. I know I’d be. I’ll just be back at the front desk if you need anything.”

She retreated, taking her chatter with her and leaving Aziraphale to approach the room – and Crowley – alone and in silence.

Crowley hadn’t yet noticed he had a visitor. Instead, he appeared to be contemplating the hospital supper tray beside his bed with a sneer of mild disdain. Aziraphale couldn’t blame him – from what he could see, the food looked distressingly beige, the only color coming from a pair of rather meager-looking prepackaged jelly cups in red and green, which was, he supposed, what passed as pudding around here.

Crowley looked strangely vulnerable in the hospital bed. He was wearing a too-large hospital gown, the sickly green color of which clashed horribly with his hair, and there was an alarmingly large bruise, dark and angry-looking, on his forehead, directly above his left eye.

He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, of course, seeing as how they were currently laying broken in the glove compartment of the Bentley, where Aziraphale had put them himself for safekeeping. Even so, the absence was jarring.

But Crowley was awake, and Aziraphale had never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

He must have made some involuntary noise then, something as small as a catch of breath, because Crowley looked up, surprise etched on his features.

“Angel,” he said slowly, wide eyes fixed on Aziraphale’s face. “Tell me I’m not hallucinating. You’re here.”

“Of course I’m here. Didn’t they tell you I was?”

“Nurse only said there was someone waiting to see me. Figured one of the folks who worked here recognized me, wanted an autograph or something. That chatty gal over at reception seemed like she might be the type.”

“Her name is Mary, and she’s actually a fan of mine, for the record.”

“Course she is. Figures.”

“Yes, well. She was very kind to me.”

“You’re here,” said Crowley again.

“Of course I am. How could I not be?”

“But why?”

“Because I’m quite incurably in love with you.”

It turned out that saying it was as easy as reading the weather. The words had just come out of their own volition, the sentiment grown too large to be contained or silenced, overflowing like a river spilling its banks after days and days of unending rain.

It hadn’t ever really been about admitting the truth to Crowley, Aziraphale realized, but about admitting it to himself.

Crowley, however, didn’t respond immediately. What was more, his gaze, which had been glued to Aziraphale’s face throughout the entirety of the preceding conversation, had abruptly gone downcast and heavy-lidded.

After what seemed like an agonizingly long interval of silence, Crowley, still staring fiercely down at his own hands on the white coverlet, muttered something under his breath that Aziraphale couldn’t quite make out. It sounded like “crisps,” but that made no sense at all.

Aziraphale didn’t know what exactly he’d expected in response to his confession – an enthusiastic assent? A stuttering denial? – but it wasn’t this, this apparent non sequitur while Crowley steadfastly refused to even look at him.

“Pardon?”

“The Ritz. Nine precisely. Driving back in style in my saloon. Was gonna—f*ck. f*ck.”

Crowley’s words, while more intelligible now, still didn’t make much sense. They were vaguely familiar – song lyrics, Aziraphale thought, although he’d be hard-pressed to name the actual song in his current, distracted state. But what the Ritz had to do with the present situation, he had no idea.

Silence descended again and stretched out, thick as fog.

Crowley still wouldn’t make eye contact either. Instead, he appeared now to be inordinately interested in the hospital supper tray, fidgeting with the items on it, picking them up, seemingly at random, and setting them down again with increasing agitation.

Aziraphale wondered if he’d grossly misread the entire situation. If he ought to leave before the bewilderment and confusion coiling in his gut bloomed, inevitably, into heartbreak.

“Ah, f*ck it,” said Crowley sharply, picking up the pair of child-sized jelly cups on the tray. He looked up, and finally, finally, met Aziraphale’s eye.

And all the bewilderment, all the confusion, vanished in that moment, burnt away by the fire and the conviction in Crowley’s gaze.

“It’s not exactly the Ritz,” said Crowley, proffering a cup in each hand, “but it’ll have to do. Red or green?”

“What?”

“Eh, you’d better take the red. Looks a little less dodgy,” decided Crowley, handing it over. He peeled the foil cover off the green, waited for Aziraphale to do the same, and then tapped the plastic cups together. “Cheers.”

Aziraphale eyed the so-called dessert dubiously, then looked around for some sort of utensil with which to eat it. Crowley, who seemed to be suffering from no such compunctions, tipped his head back and let the entire gelatinous wad fall into his mouth with a wet squelch. He swallowed it whole, like a snake with an exceedingly questionable egg, and grinned at Aziraphale.

“Angel. Aziraphale. I’m mad about you too. Have been for ages. I love you more than anything. Go out with me. For real. Officially. Exclusively. Whatever. Ngk. You know what I mean.”

“Oh, good Lord, Crowley.”

The whole situation was ridiculous, from the jelly cups all the way down to the schoolboy blush on Crowley’s cheeks, and Aziraphale was laughing, and he was blushing too, and he was in love.

“So?” asked Crowley, looking at him expectantly.

“Yes, you maniac. Of course I’ll go out with you. Did you even have to ask?”

“I kind of did, actually.”

“Touché. I hate to admit it, but you’re right. It did need to be said. And high time too. Although,” he couldn’t resist adding, “I did at least beat you to it.”

“By a minute. Two, if you’re being generous.”

“It still counts.”

“Besides, I was just unconscious for twenty minutes, which means I’ve won by nineteen. Eat your jello, angel.”

He ate his jello. Although it was jelly, thank you very much, and he ate it with the flimsy plastic spoon on Crowley’s tray, because he had standards. It tasted, to be charitable, red. It was still better than the green, which he discovered when Crowley kissed him.

Yes, the whole situation was absurd, and he wouldn’t have changed a single thing about it for the world.

“This is all fine and well and even kind of weirdly romantic,” said Crowley, “but I am still going to take you to the Ritz. I had grand plans, you know. Was gonna go all Good Old-fashioned Lover Boy on you. Win you over with a great big romantic gesture. Flowers and chocolates and everything. Eleven courses with wine pairings or whatever it is they do there.”

“It sounds rather lovely. But I’m more than happy to take a rain check.”

“I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

“You don’t have to. I’m perfectly content as it is. More than.”

“Twelve courses. See if I don’t. And afternoon tea the next week, and brunch the week after that.”

“And room service breakfast in bed the week after that?”

“Whatever you want, angel. Anything at all. Long as it’s not jello. Not even the posh sort.”

“What I want, right now, is for you to stop talking and kiss me again.”

He wasn’t sure how much time passed after that. Enough, anyway, that all the red and green were gone and they tasted of nothing but each other.

Someone cleared their throat.

“Sorry to interrupt an intimate moment, gentlemen,” said Mary from the doorway, “but Dr. Zhu is here and she’d like to speak to the both of you.”

“Mr. Crowley,” said the doctor briskly, “You’ll no doubt be pleased to know I’ve reviewed your MRI scans and they look all clear. There should be no lasting damage, and any residual headache and dizziness should resolve itself in a day or two. You’re a very lucky man.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Crowley, looking at Aziraphale.

“The getting knocked out part notwithstanding, your head injury is remarkably mild given the situation. I can’t figure it out, to be honest. I’d guess from the size of that bruise that the stone that hit you was at least ten centimeters in diameter, which I’d have expected to do a good deal more damage than you actually sustained. It’s almost like something blocked some of the impact.”

“I was wearing sunglasses.”

“In the midst of a storm?” asked Dr. Zhu, her tone somewhere between incredulous and bemused.

“He was,” confirmed Aziraphale, “I found them. The left lens was shattered.”

“Bit of an odd choice, if you ask me, but, well, they probably saved you from a lot worse, so cheers to odd choices, eh? I’m glad to have that mystery solved. Anyway, we’re going to keep you here overnight for observation, but you’ll be discharged in the morning, provided you have someone willing to stay with you for the next seventy-two hours.”

She paused and looked expectantly at Aziraphale. “Are you his partner?”

He hesitated. For all his brashness in declaring their togetherness to his former coworkers and the police earlier, it was entirely different to claim such a thing in front of Crowley himself. “Um, I—"

“Yeah, he is,” said Crowley easily, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Of course I’m willing to stay with him, for as long as he needs,” Aziraphale said, relieved.

“Very good then. It’s just a precaution, really. I don’t expect there to be any problems. Now Mr. Crowley, like I said, you should see significant improvement quite rapidly, but do ring me if any new symptoms turn up or if the existing ones get worse. And no driving, alcohol, or strenuous activity for a week, until after you’ve been cleared at your follow-up appointment. That’ll be in a week. I’ll have Mary schedule it for you before you leave. I’ve an office in the city so you won’t have to make the trek back out here. Oh, and you really ought to try and limit your use of screens for the next few days as well.”

Crowley looked like he was about to protest, possibly vehemently, so Aziraphale said quickly, “I’ll make sure he follows your directions, doctor. It all sounds eminently reasonable to me. And thank you for everything.”

“Of course. Do try and get some rest, Mr. Crowley.”

As soon as she was gone, Crowley flopped back on his pillows and heaved a deep, dramatic sigh.

“No screens, no booze, no driving. Well, there goes my entire f*cking life.”

“I know for a fact that’s not all you do. Now you’re just being melodramatic.”

“Yeah, I also do you. But you heard her. No strenuous activity,” said Crowley, making air quotes to forcefully punctuate his point. “What am I meant to do for a whole bloody week, angel?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, dear. I have faith in you.”

“I’m going to be so bored. Transcendentally bored. I don’t think I’ve gone a whole week without driving since—” Crowley stopped short, a look of real distress replacing the exaggerated theatrics. “Oh. The Bentley. f*ck. She’s been out there this whole time.”

He looked like he was seconds away from bolting out of bed and right out the door, doctor’s orders be damned. Aziraphale laid a hand on his arm.

“Crowley. It’s alright. I’ve got her. In the covered car park right across the way, in fact.”

“You took my Bentley? You drove her here?”

“Yes, I did. I’m sorry. I know you’re protective of your car, and ordinarily I’d never presume. Only, I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to leave her out there, in case there was more hail, you know. And the police, they were talking about having her towed. I do hope I haven’t done the wrong thing—"

He found himself abruptly silenced, because Crowley had suddenly surged forward, grabbed him by both lapels, and kissed him full and fierce on the mouth.

“Angel. You really are, you know? An angel. My angel. Thank you. For looking after the Bentley. For—for looking after me. For coming to find me. I know I don’t deserve any of it.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you deserve it, Crowley. You deserve everything, and more, and if anyone isn’t worthy, it’s me.”

“Aziraphale, you don’t have to—”

“No, let me finish, please. I need to say this. Lord, I’ve been such a blind fool all this time. I’m sorry I was so cruel to you earlier, at the bandstand. I’m sorry for doubting you. I’m sorry for making you think I didn’t care about you. About us. I didn’t mean it. Crowley. My dearest Crowley. Forgive me?”

“I already have. And if you were a fool, I was a bigger one. I should’ve let you explain instead of running off the way I did. I’d just about made up my mind to turn around and come back when this whole co*ck-up happened. Stupid hailstone. Scuppered all m’plans.”

“Quite rude of it, really,” said Aziraphale, attempting and failing to conceal the quaver in his voice with levity, “I shall be sure to write Mother Nature a strongly worded letter of complaint at my earliest convenience.”

“You do know I’ll stand by you, right? Always. I was always going to come back.”

“I know. I think I’ve always known.” He cupped his hand around Crowley’s cheek, wiping away a stray tear with the pad of his thumb. “And now, how about we accept that we’ve both been equally foolish, and set that aside in the past, where it belongs.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley wetly, “yeah, I’d like that, angel.”

After a bit, a nurse came in to dispense painkillers and check Crowley’s vitals. He declared the latter “excellent, aside from a slightly elevated heart rate”, but seemed nevertheless unmoved by Crowley’s entreaties that he ought to be let out now rather than tomorrow morning. Then, with a glance at the mostly-untouched tray of food, he commented that Crowley really ought to eat something “other than jelly” for supper, a good appetite being one of the signs of a good recovery.

“I’d love to,” said Crowley, “only there doesn’t appear to be anything edible.”

The nurse, to Aziraphale’s relief, looked sympathetic, like he privately agreed with Crowley’s assessment of the hospital food, rather than irritated, and said that he’d see what he could do. Ten minutes later, he returned bearing an apologetic expression and several more tiny jelly cups. This time, instead of red and green, there was an assortment of yellow, orange, and a rather alarming bright blue. He dropped them on the tray without comment and scurried hastily out of the room. Probably, thought Aziraphale, before he could be saddled with any more impossible tasks.

“Oh, terrific,” said Crowley, “more jello. Exactly what I’ve always wanted.”

“Why on earth do you keep insisting on calling it that? Jello is a brand name, not the thing itself. And we’ve not even got that brand here anyhow.”

“Dunno. Youtube thing, most likely,” said Crowley, shrugging. “Whole place is positively overrun with Americans. What’re you gonna do?”

“Oh dear. I do hope I don’t pick up any dreadful Americanisms there too.”

“You? Nah. You’re as British as—wait. Wait. Hold up just one bloody second, angel. f*ck. What do you mean, ‘there too’? Does that mean what I think it means?”

“In all likelihood, yes, it does.”

“But what about…”

“Channel Six? It’s funny you should ask. Or, well, perhaps not so much funny as—”

“Spit it out, angel.”

“I, ahhh, may have walked out on them this afternoon. Or been given the sack, depending on whom you ask, I suppose.”

“You—you did what? I thought you loved that job. Isn’t that what you said? Not the people but the job?”

“Well, it’s possible that I may have overstated the appeal of the job and understated the distastefulness of the people. And you were right all along. It turns out you can’t separate the two, not really, and it was all making me quite miserable.”

“So you what? Just told ‘em to go f*ck themselves and good riddance?”

“I may have also said the f*ck bit of that on air first.”

“You wot!?”

“In my defense, I was not having the best of days.”

“And I missed it? Aww, angel. Aziraphale. Bloody hailstone. What a time to get knocked out. f*ck. Oh, wait. I bet it’s all over Twitter.”

“Crowley.”

“Now where the hell did they put my phone—”

“Crowley. I said what I said because I’d just found out about you. About your accident. In the worst possible way, right in the middle of the live weather report, and it was—”

He paused. Swallowed the lump in his throat and felt it settle, tight and knotted, in his chest. Blinked back the sudden moisture in his eyes. Continued, in a soft voice, “…it was devastating.”

“Oh,” said Crowley, his mirth subsiding immediately into contrition. “sh*t. I’m sorry, angel.”

“And I know I can’t stop you from seeing it, because, as you said, it’s all over Twitter and probably the whole internet at this point, but I’d rather not relive that moment right now, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Crowley again, taking Aziraphale’s hand.

“It’s alright. You didn’t know.”

“Still. And I’m also sorry for worrying you.”

Crowley’s fingers curled round Aziraphale’s, warm and safe and whole and strong. Aziraphale squeezed back, and did not let go. The tight, twisted thing in his chest began to unwind, bit by bit.

“You can make it up to me,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, “by doing your level best not to get yourself struck by hail again.”

“Trust me, ’s not an experience I’m eager to repeat. Ever. Though I don’t actually remember it, y’know. I remember driving there, and the hail starting, and getting out of the car to film, and then next thing I know I’m in an ambulance with the sirens blaring and a headache the size of Jupiter.”

“I’ve been reassured that’s normal and nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not worried about it. Not like that anyway. It’s just… weird. Not every day you get hit by a hailstone the size of your f*ckin’ head. You’d think that’d be memorable.”

“It was more like the size of your fist, at best, dear. But I suppose you deserve the indulgence of a little hyperbole after the day you’ve had. In any case, you—or, your camera, anyhow—did manage to record most of it.”

“I did?”

“Yes, and I found it, and it still works, to answer your next two questions.”

“Angel, I could kiss you.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

“Well, if you don’t want—”

“I never said I didn’t want.”

It was funny, Aziraphale thought, as Crowley kissed him thoroughly, not just once but several times, that he’d wanted from nearly the moment they’d met, and through the entirety of the past year. And now that he had Crowley, the wanting had not diminished in the least.

Crowley, if the intensity with which he was kissing Aziraphale was any indication, felt exactly the same.

Although it wasn’t quite enough to make Crowley forget about everything else.

“Have you got the camera here then?”

“As a matter of fact, I do, but—”

“Lemme see it. Please.”

“Crowley, the doctor did say you weren’t supposed to be using screens.”

“Just for five minutes. Please. Listen, angel, it’s killing me that I don’t remember what happened. That I don’t know.”

Crowley sounded genuinely distressed. Upon reflection, it wasn’t surprising that someone like him, with his endless curiosity and joie de vivre, would be deeply perturbed by the missing memories, the lost time. Aziraphale relented. The fretting, he reasoned, was arguably worse for Crowley’s head injury than the screen time anyway.

“Fine. But just for five minutes, mind. Here you go. There’s rather a long bit there at the beginning before you get out of the car.”

“That part I remember,” said Crowley, fast-forwarding through it. He already looked more settled and less agitated with the camera in his hands, his fingers moving deftly over the controls. It was a familiar, welcome sight, and something in Aziraphale calmed as well.

Which was not to say that he didn’t still feel a clutching in his chest when the video approached the moment of impact. It was easier to look away, so he watched Crowley – the real, live, conscious Crowley in the here and now – instead. This turned out to be quite entertaining, as Crowley’s entire face scrunched up in a spectacular expression of shock when he heard his on-screen counterpart whisper the words "tickety-boo.”

“Did I really say that? Nooo. Couldn’t have.”

“The evidence is right there on the video, dear.”

“Could’ve been a—a passing duck.”

“A passing duck. With your voice. In a hailstorm.”

“Hey, it could happen. Ugh, I can’t believe I’m going to put myself saying that up on the Internet for the whole world to see.”

"You're going to post it?"

“f*ck, yeah. This is gold, angel. Gold.”

“Crowley, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t put it up on YouTube. They’d probably demonetize me faster than you can say tickety-boo.”

“Thank god.”

“I’d deserve it too,” said Crowley with a shudder, “Tickety-boo. What the hell was I thinking? But hey, anything goes on Twitter.”

“You really are shameless, you know that?”

Crowley smirked at him, seeming for all the world his same old impossible, irascible, irrepressible self.

“Well, far be it from me to stop you, my dear. Although I shall stop you if you try to do it now. It’s been five minutes, and you did promise.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll wait to post ‘til I’m home. Can’t do it without a computer anyway.”

“I still can’t believe you’re planning on putting that up on the web.”

“Anyone would, angel. Anyone.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“You’ll see,” said Crowley, grinning, “now that you’re going to be joining me in the wilds of Youtube. Look at you. Right renegade meteorologist, you are. How’s it feel, to be free of them at last?”

It felt like a storm had finally arrived to blow away the still, stagnant air that had been hanging over him for ages. And now, on the other side of the tempest, there was the whole world washed clean and new by rain. It was still the same world as ever, beautiful and surprising and endlessly wondrous, swirled about by clouds and currents, but now he could see. Now he could breathe. Now he could feel.

And it didn’t hurt that Crowley was looking at him like he’d hung the moon. Or, more to the point, the storm clouds gathering over the moon.

Like something worth chasing all the way to the horizon and beyond.

“It feels wonderful,” he said.

Chapter 13: a perfect storm

Chapter Text

⛈One week later⛈

It hadn’t stormed for a week. No thunderstorms, no hurricanes, no tempests, no typhoons. Not even so much as a drizzle of rain or a whisper of thunder.

What was more, Crowley hadn’t been allowed to drive, drink, or engage in any quote-unquote strenuous activity during that interval either. This despite the fact that, after the first couple of days, virtually all of his symptoms had vanished with the exception of the bruise on his forehead, which looked far worse than it felt. He felt as good as new. Better than, even. But someone had insisted Crowley follow doctor’s orders to the letter. And Crowley had never been good at saying no to Aziraphale.

And just because all of the above wasn’t enough, apparently, he’d also been told to limit his screen time, keeping it within the limits of what was strictly necessary. That last instruction, of course, was blessedly subject to interpretation. For example, it was of crucial importance that Crowley edit and upload his most recent video without further delay. It wasn’t every day that he caught himself getting knocked stunningly unconscious on camera, after all, by a hailstone of truly epic proportions. It was internet gold.

Gold or not, you still only had a critical and rather short window of time in which to post such things, before the fickle denizens of the internet were on to the next big thing and you lost all relevance altogether. Crowley hadn’t gotten to where he was today by sitting on his (very fine, if he did say so himself) arse and avoiding screens, after all.

Such necessary evils notwithstanding, the fact remained that most of Crowley’s normal sources of occupation and amusem*nt had been largely off the table for a week.

Except one, and that one almost made up for the loss of everything else. (Had strenuous activity been allowed, that almost would have easily been more than.) All in all, the previous week, despite seeming on the outside as though it would be a perfect storm of things designed specifically to drive one Anthony J. Crowley up the wall, had passed surprisingly tolerably and quickly. He’d even, shockingly, enjoyed it.

Being in love, and knowing that the person you loved returned the sentiment, did amazing things for one’s state of mind.

And things were about to get better, Crowley thought, adjusting his second-best pair of sunglasses (the first-best, having been irreparably damaged in last week’s escapade, were now only fit for taking look-at-me-I-got-hit-by-a-hailstone-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale selfies wherein the ability to actually see was optional) on his nose as he strode purposefully through the entrance gate of his favorite park. In his left hand he carried a bag containing a packet of frozen peas, freshly purchased from the Tesco just up the road, and a couple of sandwiches, also freshly purchased but definitely not from the Tesco.

(Aziraphale had standards, after all.)

Half an hour ago, he’d received a clean bill of health and an officially sanctioned lifting of all the restrictions of the past week.

And, to top it all off, it was going to rain, and very soon at that. Crowley hadn’t bothered to check the forecast before leaving his flat that morning, but he wouldn’t be much of a storm chaser if he didn’t know what the clouds gathering to the east, full of dark and stormy promise, signified.

Crowley’s old habit of nearly obsessively watching the weather on Channel Six every morning had quite precipitously fallen to the wayside. Eric Legion, the new Chief Meteorologist, had admittedly killer hair and makeup skills and seemed like a fun person, but he wasn’t worth enduring the rest of the show for. In Eric’s defense, the list of people for whom Crowley would willingly suffer through the ordeal of watching Gabriel Herald blowing hot air up his own arse for twenty minutes was limited to exactly one. And that singular individual had, in an audacious move that still made Crowley ridiculously proud and more than a little turned-on, delivered a resounding f*ck you to Gabriel and company by walking out in the middle of a broadcast exactly one week ago.

Anyway, like all sane, normal, and cool people who had things to do and places to be, Crowley got his weather from the internet. Or, alternatively and preferably, over a leisurely cup of coffee in bed from his own personal chief meteorologist and romantic partner.

(And wasn’t that the very best thing of all.)

He found himself whistling Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love as he sauntered toward the duck pond at the far end of the park, aiming for his favorite bench.

There was someone sitting on it already.

“That’s my bench you’re sitting on, y’know.”

“Oh, hello there. Lovely day we’re having, isn’t it?”

“Looks like rain.”

“Just so.”

“Ducks.”

“What?”

“The ducks. They’re expecting me. To sit there. Look, here they come now. Probably heard my voice.”

“I’m afraid you must be mistaken.”

“Don’t think I am. Ducks have got to have ears. How else do they hear other ducks?”

“I didn’t mean about the ducks. And, anyway, you don’t know they’re not coming because they heard my voice. I used to be a television presenter, you know, and my voice is quite well-known. But, no, what I meant was that you were mistaken about this being your bench. Last I checked, this was a public park, and so, by definition, these benches belong to the public. And I don’t believe the definition of public is brash upstart storm chasers, now is it?”

“It isn’t not brash upstart storm chasers.”

“Anyway, terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I was here first. And I’m quite enjoying the seat, to say nothing of the view.”

Crowley, who had circled around in the meantime so that he was square into the middle of said view, swiveled on his heel to look out across the water. The motion just so happened to present his best angle, the one that somehow managed to show off jawbone and neck and just a hint of arse in one perfect package. Quite the view indeed, if he had to say so himself.

Aziraphale, damn him, remained entirely unfazed.

“Your hungry ducks shall just have to be patient and wait their turn, won’t they?”

“I’ve got sandwiches. From that place around the corner.”

“Sandwiches? I have it on good authority that bread is just dreadful for waterfowl, never mind how sweetly they beg for it.”

“Almost as terrible as frozen peas are for bench-stealing hungry meteorologists, I’d wager.”

“Well, I never!”

“You never what? Beg for it?”

“Not for frozen peas! Goodness, what sort of a person do you take me for?”

“A bastard, that’s what.”

“You like it, you insufferable fiend.”

“f*ck me, I do. I really do, angel. And you like insufferable fiends. Would’ya look at that.”

“Lord only knows why.”

“I’m irresistible, that’s why. Plus I’ve got sandwiches. They had a new special up for spring, by the way, something with apples and Brie and caramelized onions. Now budge over, angel.”

Aziraphale slid over and patted the now-empty seat beside him.

“See, wasn’t that easy, dear? All you had to do was ask.”

“All I had to do was bribe you with treats, you mean.”

“Potato, potahto. Now what was that you said about apples and Brie? That sounds positively divine.”

Crowley sat. Aziraphale had left him just enough room to slouch down and settle in. It was a snug fit and comfortable as anything, with a warm, plush hip and thigh pressed against his own. He could feel the full-body wiggle of anticipation that went through Aziraphale as he watched Crowley rummage around in his bag.

Crowley grinned. Little did his angel know that he hadn’t quite capitulated in full. This was only a lull in the storm.

Accordingly, what he pulled out of the bag with a flourish was not the sandwich Aziraphale was expecting, but rather the packet of frozen peas. With exaggerated care, he opened it and carefully picked out a single pea with his thumb and forefinger, which he then flung at the waiting ducks. He watched them fight over it – the big white one came out the winner, as it so often did – and then repeated the whole process with a second pea, and then a third.

It was hard to tell which party, Aziraphale or the squabbling ducks, was more impatient.

Crowley had gone through about a dozen peas by the time Aziraphale broke, grabbing a whole handful of peas and tossing them into the pond all at once. They hit the surface with a shower of little plinks, like a sudden vegetal rain, and then the ducks descended, flapping and quacking and gorging themselves on the unexpected bounty.

Crowley was still watching the little gluttons when, without any warning at all, he felt himself being pulled forward by a firm hand on the back of his neck into a long, deep, and very thorough kiss.

There was tongue. A lot of it. And plump lips. And Aziraphale’s hand tugging slightly at the hairs at the sensitive nape of Crowley’s neck. You really couldn’t blame a man for getting a little distracted, a little hot and bothered. So much so that Crowley didn’t see it coming at all, despite a year’s worth of familiarity, when Aziraphale pulled back suddenly and triumphantly with the bag of sandwiches held aloft in his left hand.

“I’ve been practicing my sleight of hand, as you can see,” said Aziraphale, rather smugly. “I think I’ve gotten quite good at it.”

“Oh noooo. Please, no.”

Crowley could see exactly where this was going, and it was nowhere good.

“Oh, but what’s this behind your ear?” asked Aziraphale, leaning in close enough that Crowley could feel his breath against his cheek. There was a light and very distracting brush of fingers behind his right earlobe—

—and then the momentary shock of something small, cold, and metallic hitting his neck, followed by a ping as it struck the wooden slats of the bench.

“Oh, bugger.”

“Please, angel, I’m begging you. No more magic tricks.”

“Well, I’ll admit I might need to work on the coin one a bit more. But I’ve been thinking I might incorporate some magic as part of my new show. Now that I can, you know.”

“Last I checked, your new show was going to be about weather. Not magic. And thank f*ck for that.”

“Every show needs a little opening banter.”

“Look, I’m all for banter. Which is not anywhere close to the same thing as pulling rabbits out of hats.”

“I really do think it could work. Perhaps for the episode I’d like to do on weather magic. I think the audience will appreciate the thematic connection. Wordplay is always a crowd-pleaser, after all.”

“Eurghhhh. They might but I don’t. I can’t believe you’re even considering puns.”

“I rather think you’re the one audience member I don’t have to try to charm.”

(This was true, of course. Crowley had been well and truly charmed, sometimes against his own better judgment, for most of the past year. Puns and terrible magic tricks and smart mouth and all.

Not that he’d let Aziraphale have the satisfaction of knowing that.

And, anyway, Aziraphale already knew.)

“Speaking of the new show, how are your negotiations going with Agnes Nutter?”

“Shockingly well. It’s amazing how quickly and painlessly things get done when one doesn’t have to jump through every bureaucratic hoop known to man, and then some. When you’re not constantly at odds with one another. It’s refreshing, honestly. She’s agreed to most everything I’ve asked for. Full creative control of the show being the primary thing. I suspect that was what she wanted all along, anyway.”

“Full creative control? Wow. Not even a disclaimer saying no magic tricks? Bold of her.”

“Yes. I’m pleased as punch.”

“That Agnes is a clever one. Knows a good thing when she sees it.”

“I’ll even be able to hire a couple of assistants to help out.”

“Newt?”

“Yes, although only part-time and primarily as a researcher. Did I tell you he’s signed his own independent contract with Agnes? Apparently she thinks there’s an untapped market for broadcast-style live weather reports on YouTube, so Newt will be presenting those every weekday morning.”

“Probably for the best that he’ll be in front of the camera instead of behind it this time.”

“Quite. And he’s always wanted to do presenter work, you know, so I’m chuffed he’s finally going to get the chance. I’ve had my fill of it, personally.”

“Good for him. He deserves it.”

“So, I’ll also be hiring someone else. They’ll be doing a bit of everything, I think, at least in the beginning. Video editing. Social media. The in-studio camera work. I suppose I’ll have to put out an ad or something.”

“Maybe one of the crew from Channel Six is looking to jump ship? I can’t imagine many of ‘em last long there, what with how your old colleagues treat people.”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea! I’ll ask around. Eric might know. Oh, by the way, Agnes did ask if I also wanted someone for the on-location camera work, but I turned her down.”

“Yeah?”

“I told her I already had an Arrangement in place. And that I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

“How’d she take it?”

“Very well, I think. She didn’t seem surprised in the least, to tell the truth.”

“Do we, angel?”

“Do we what?”

“Still have an Arrangement?”

“Well, I mean, if you’d rather not—”

“f*ck. ‘S not what I meant. Not at all. I just meant… seems like we’re past that now, doesn’t it? Arrangements and whatnot. Just a work thing. All that tit for tat business.”

“Oh. Yes, rather. I think we crossed that line some time ago, my dear, if we’re being honest. Call it a joint effort then. A collaboration. A partnership, in all senses of the word.”

“A collaboration. Yeah. I like that.”

“Shall we shake on it? No, that doesn’t seem at all fitting, does it? Oh, I know. How about we seal it with a kiss?”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

They kissed on it. And again, for good measure.

“Speaking of sealing the deal, Agnes sent over my contract this morning. My lawyer’s reviewing it right now, but he’s already told me it doesn’t look like there will be any issues. So barring some unforeseen last minute hiccup, I’ll be signing it tonight.”

“Welcome to Youtube, angel.”

“Why, thank you, my dear. We shall have to celebrate.”

“Champagne at the bar at the Ritz tonight? My treat.”

“Champagne? Does that mean what I think it means?”

Crowley shot Aziraphale a pair of finger guns and grinned.

“Yup. Just got the all-clear from Dr. Zhu. Alcohol’s back on the table.”

“And the rest of it too, I imagine?”

“You'd bloody well bet they are. Driving. All the screen time my little heart desires. Don’t even try to stop me, angel.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“And,” added Crowley, winking and bumping his shoulder against Aziraphale’s, “as much strenuous activity as I like.”

“Well. We really do have cause to celebrate then.”

“We’ve got the whole weekend.”

“And a good deal of next week too. Now that I no longer have to be at the station by seven a.m. sharp every day, I expect my weekday mornings will be far more relaxed.”

“Freedom’s nice, innit?”

“I could get used to it, that’s for certain. Although I do have quite a bit to do already. It'll be at least a few weeks before we're ready to film our first episode, but Agnes suggested I get started on some promotional materials, for publicity – photos, some short introductory videos, that sort of thing. Apparently I need to get my name and face out there and on the viewers’ radar.”

“That’s solid advice. I’d start putting stuff up on social media ASAP. Which means you really ought to update your Instagram and Twitter profiles. I’d change the handle if I were you. PrincipalityAZF doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

“What’s wrong with— wait. You know PrincipalityAZF is me?”

“Course I do, angel.”

“But I’ve never said a single word to you on Instagram! And I never post anything!”

“Yeah, but you’ve liked every single thing I’ve posted for months, and you’re the first like too often for it to be a coincidence. And you’ve literally got your initials in there.”

“Oh, alright, fine, I’ll give you that last one.”

“Actually, I think you ought to make a whole new account for your show. Keep the old one for your sneaky secret liking purposes since you’re so attached.”

“You’d miss it if I stopped, you mean. Well, if I’m really doing this, I’m going to have to get some new promotional photographs taken. I’ve a whole stack of them leftover from Channel Six, but I’d feel odd using them for this new venture. I’d much rather make a fresh start."

"Agreed."

"I suppose I ought to look for a photographer. Good ones are so hard to find these days.”

“Twist my arm, why don’t you.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I can take a hint is what I’m talking about. I’ll take those photos for you.”

“Oh, would you?”

“On one condition, though. None of that fake canned backdrop rubbish they used for your old ones. We’ll go out and find a good storm, something real. Maybe out by the ocean. Get some wind in those curls of yours. Mess them up a bit.”

“Oh, that does sound lovely. Although I must insist on my clothing remaining dry. And fastened all the way.”

“We’ll see, angel.”

“We shall certainly not see. In the meantime, I was thinking I ought to sign some of the old photos, since I’ve got nothing better to do with them anyway, and send them to Mary from the hospital. She’s quite the fan, you know. And she was so kind to me while I was waiting.”

“Send her the sex-face one.”

“I beg your pardon. The what-face one?”

“You know. The one where you’re wearing that frilly vintage coat – yes, yes, I know, you got that coat in Paris, and it was such a fortuitous find and in tip-top condition – and making your ‘I’m about to have that abso-f*cking-lutely glorious co*ck in my mouth’ face.”

“Crowley! I was thinking about crepes!"

“You were thinking about crepes,” repeated Crowley. He tilted his head up, let his mouth open slightly, and inhaled, slowly and sensuously, while letting his gaze trail just as slowly all along the length of Aziraphale’s body. “Sure you were. Crepes.”

"And I most certainly do not have a— a that face!”

"You most certainly dooo."

“Crowley, that photograph was taken before I’d ever even met you.”

“Alright, fine. But next week, you and me, we’re gonna go take those new photos. Bring the f*ckin’ French jacket. I guarantee you won’t be thinking about crepes this time.”

“We’ll see. And do you know what I’m thinking about right now?”

“Not crepes, I hope.”

“No, not crepes. Sandwiches. I’m famished and I think I’ve been kept waiting long enough, don’t you?”

Some time later, after the sandwiches and the frozen peas had both been enthusiastically consumed, the former with many delighted moans and the latter with much splashing and quacking, Aziraphale stopped short in the middle of brushing crumbs from his trousers.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, turning to rummage about in his satchel, “I almost forgot! I got something for you.”

He handed Crowley a small, black leather case. Inside was a pair of sunglasses in precisely the style that Crowley liked best, with round lenses and side shields. They bore a striking similarity to the ones that had been destroyed by the hailstone last week, but there were small details that made them different and unique. And better.

Crowley couldn’t have picked out a more perfect pair if he’d tried.

“I thought,” said Aziraphale, “that since your previous pair has been relegated to artifact status, you could do with a new pair. For luck.”

“Gosh, angel,” said Crowley, around the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat.

“I know they’re not quite the same as your old ones, and I did think about just purchasing an exact duplicate, but then I saw these in a shop and they were calling my—well, your name, really. If you don’t like them, though, I can always—”

“Angel. Aziraphale. I love them.”

Crowley took off his soon-to-be third favorite pair of sunglasses and put the new pair on. They fit like they’d been made for him. And if they just happened to cover up the fact that his eyes had grown suspiciously shiny in the last couple of minutes, well, nobody needed to know that but himself.

(And Aziraphale. Of course Aziraphale knew. Aziraphale always seemed to know. And Crowley couldn’t honestly say that he minded even the tiniest bit. It was a extraordinary feeling, being known in that deep-down way.)

“Oh, they look rather nifty on, don’t they. I’m so glad they fit.”

“They’re already my new favorite. How do I look? And please don’t say nifty.”

“Well, they are nifty. And I think you look perfectly tempting, my dear.”

“Tell you what. Let’s go for a drive after this. Put these shades, and my poor neglected Bentley, through their paces. How about it, angel? Just you and me. Anywhere you want to go.”

“We’ll follow this storm, then, and see where it takes us,” said Aziraphale, gesturing at the clouds overhead, heavy with the promise of impending rain. From out on the water, one of the ducks began to quack loudly, sounding for all the world like it was offering its wholehearted approval. Its mates joined in, one by one, until they were being serenaded by a whole cacophonous chorus.

It was a glorious day, and it was going to be a glorious storm. Crowley laughed, giddy and free, at the thought of it. He leaned in to meet Aziraphale halfway, their mouths coming together in a kiss.

And just then, almost as though the weather was offering its own seal of approval, it began to rain, a brief but intense little squall in advance of the larger storm to come.

Crowley didn’t stop to get out his camera and Aziraphale didn’t stop to find his umbrella. Instead they smiled against each other’s mouths, and held each other close, and let the rain soak them right down to their skins, and kept right on kissing.

Chapter 14: epilogue: hail and well met

Chapter Text

⛈Six months later⛈

NICE AND ACCURATE PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS:

TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER

with

AZIRAPHALE FELL

Season 1, Episode 6: 'Hail and well met'

Opening titles appear on-screen, while orchestral music from the 4th movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 plays softly in the background.

Meanwhile, the camera pans slowly over a room, a study of some sort by the looks of it, cluttered with ephemera and illuminated with warm, soft-focus light. Much of the decor consists of well-preserved antiques, but there are some cutting-edge, modern objects, scientific or otherwise, mixed in. The tall bookshelves lining the room hold leatherbound books, antique brass weather instruments, and other oddments, such as a bronze miniature of a horse, which sports an incongruous pair of modishly flashy, human-sized sunglasses perched jauntily upon its equine nose. The left lens is quite noticeably shattered beyond repair. On a side table sit a decanter full of amber liquor, two matching cut-crystal glasses, and a handsome, inlaid chess board, mid-game. (White is currently in the lead, but black could still stage a comeback at any moment). In a corner, there is a gramophone, the old-fashioned kind with an enormous fluted brass horn, playing, presumably, the Beethoven. Old maps, decorated with sea serpents and other fanciful creatures, hang in frames on the walls, while a much more up-to-date version, marked up with blue and red isobars and front lines and directional vectors, is spread out atop a mahogany roll-top desk. In front of the desk, there is a cognac-colored leather armchair, comfortable and well-worn but not shabby, with a pale tartan throw draped over the right arm.

The opening sequence fades out.

Fade back in to our host, who is sitting in the armchair from before, both of his hands cradling a white mug with angel wings instead of an ordinary handle. The lighting makes his pale curls appear almost as though they’re glowing, standing out against the warm, muted bronze and russet tones of the room around him. He is dressed in a familiar manner – jacket, waistcoat, bow tie, pocket watch – but now he looks rather more relaxed and less harried than he did back when he was still presenting the weather on Channel Six. You get the feeling that this is exactly where he wants to be and what he wants to be doing right now. And maybe it’s just a trick of the lighting, which is warmer and softer than the bright studio lights of his former workplace, or maybe this new air of confidence and contentment is a reflection of something deeper, something more personal and more essential.

Aziraphale: [smiling] Good afternoon, friends! For those of you who might be tuning in for the first time, welcome to the show. And for all my returning viewers, welcome back! I’m absolutely chuffed you could join me. Or, should I say…

Aziraphale leans forward, puts his mug down, and winks at the camera.

Aziraphale: …hail and well met, since today's show is going to be about hailstones and related phenomena. One of the reasons why we’re seeing more hail and other extreme weather events here in the UK is, unfortunately, climate change, so I’ll also have my friend, the brilliant Dr. Anathema Device, on a little later in the show to tell us about the small, everyday things ordinary humans are doing to combat climate change.

But before we get started, I wanted to say thank you. First of all, to all of you, my viewers, for tuning in and subscribing to our first five episodes, and helping make this channel a success in the few short weeks since our first episode. The positive response has been truly astounding, and I cannot thank you enough.

Thanks also to Agnes Nutter, Newt Pulsifer, and Muriel Darling for everything they do to keep things running around here.

And, last but certainly not least, I want to take a moment to thank someone without whom none of this would have been possible. And I'm lucky enough to get to delivery my gratitude in person, since he's very graciously agreed to join me for a few minutes here today.

The camera zooms out. A lanky, long-limbed, redheaded man, wearing sunglasses despite the soft, indoor lighting, saunters into frame from the left and takes a perch on the armrest of Aziraphale’s chair. Whereas Aziraphale sits primly upright, his companion slouches in a way that seems like it ought to be impossible, particularly given that the armrest does not provide much in the way of either balance or support. He manages somehow, though; it’s kind of impressive, after a fashion. He's dressed in a slinky, slim-fitting black silk shirt and very, very snug black jeans, with a large and rather ostentatious belt buckle shaped like a snake’s head. One of his knees is bent, a snakeskin boot just visible at the bottom of the screen. His other leg extends down out of frame but is angled in such a way that it could only be pressed up against Aziraphale's.

Aziraphale: I daresay he needs no introduction, as most of you probably recognize him from his own YouTube channel, Thunderbolt and Lightning. It’s quite popular, I’m told. Please welcome Anthony J. Crowley!

Crowley: [waggles his fingers lazily at the camera]Hi, hello.

Aziraphale: Crowley has kindly—

Crowley sneers at the word ‘kindly’.

Aziraphale: Oh, pardon me. Crowley has very kindly been promoting my little show recently on his channel. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that this whole enterprise would literally not exist without him. Not only is he the whiz behind the camera for many of my on-location shoots, but it’s thanks to him that I even dared think about leaving broadcast television for Youtube. Crowley, my dear, you inspire me to be brave, every day. Thank you.

Crowley [mumbling]: You’re welcome, angel.

Aziraphale: And thank you as well for taking the time out of your busy schedule to visit my show today.

Crowley: Yeah, it took me absolute ages to get here.

Aziraphale: Oh, that’s very funny, dear, given that you live here. [turning to the camera] So, I suppose we also have an announcement to make.

Crowley: Prepare for the comment explosion below in three, two, one—

Aziraphale reaches over and takes Crowley's hand. Crowley blushes and says something inaudible, or at least untranscribable, given that it sounds, to a best approximation, like an extended string of consonants with no vowels to speak of.

Aziraphale: Crowley and I are, as they say, an item.

Crowley silently and exaggeratedly mouths the words ‘an item’.

Crowley: ‘As they say’? As who says? Who on earth calls it ‘an item’ these days, angel?

Aziraphale: I do, for one.

Crowley: Of course you do.

Aziraphale: Well, what would you call it, then?

Crowley: We’re together. Have been for a while. All shacked up too, now.

Aziraphale: What Crowley means to say is that, yes, we are in fact cohabitating. Although that bit’s still quite new. He’s only just moved in a couple of weeks ago.

Crowley: Officially, anyway. Gave up my old flat and everything. Now unofficially, on the other hand—

Aziraphale: Now, I know there’s been a lot of speculation online about the two of us, so we thought we’d clear the air, once and for all.

Crowley: [points at the camera] Congrats, you were all right. Aziraphale and I are absolutely, positively, definitely more than just friends. Your ship is real. Happy?

Aziraphale: I know I am. Happy, I mean. Unbelievably so. Crowley and I first met at the park. He'd come to feed the ducks, you see, and I happened to be occupying his favorite bench—

Crowley, who has turned a little pink, turns to Aziraphale. He puts his finger to his lips and shakes his head in an exasperated, but immensely fond, way.

Aziraphale: [smiles at Crowley] Oh, you're right, dear. I do tend to get carried away, don't I? And we do have a schedule to keep. Right. Now, as for today’s show—

Crowley: Hang on just a sec, angel. While I've got all of you viewers here, do me a favor, yeah? I've been thinking about putting together a calendar for next year, all profits to charity, and I've been trying to convince Aziraphale here to make an appearance in it. What do you think? Does he look like a Mr. February? April?

Aziraphale: We’ve been through this before, and my stance hasn’t changed. You won't convince me to change my mind.

Crowley: Just like I couldn't convince you to leave network TV for YouTube?

Aziraphale: That's entirely different. Apples and oranges. And besides, it wasn't just you. Agnes played an instrumental role too.

Crowley: Oh, you know Agnes would be first in line for one of these calendars. Agnes, darling, you're absolutely getting a signed copy the minute they come off the presses.

Aziraphale sighs audibly, in a dramatic and very put-upon way.

Crowley: Anyway, like I said, let us know in the comments below which month Aziraphale ought to be. My own vote's for June, by the way. My birthday month. [a pause, as a thought occurs to him.] That’s what I want for my birthday, angel. You. White shirt. Dripping wet. The whole Mr. Darcy package, if you know what I mean.

Aziraphale: [rolls his eyes]

Crowley: C’mon, you love Pride and Prejudice. And your fans will agree with me, I know it.

Aziraphale: I'm certain they've more important things to think about. Such as the weather. [turns to the camera] And if you must indulge this latest wild hair of Crowley's, please do so in his comments, not mine.

Crowley: You know I'll read them all out loud to you anyway, angel.

Aziraphale: Yes, dear. I know. And now, let’s get on with the show, shall we? I thought we’d begin by discussing megacryometeors. What are those, you might ask? Well, they're a bit mysterious and somewhat controversial, but essentially megacryometeors are very, very large hailstones that fall from the sky, often out of completely cloudless skies. And when I say large, I really do mean large. In 1849, megacryometeors measuring a whopping 2 meters across were reported in Scotland, and there was another in Brazil, much more recently, that weighed fifty kilograms. Great big buggers, they are.

Crowley: I nearly got brained by one once. Remember? Out on the road to Tadfield.

Aziraphale: That was just an ordinary hailstone. A big one, I'll grant you, but a regular one nonetheless. Which you'd know if you ever stopped to read up about the weather instead of just haring off to chase after it all the time.

Crowley: I know, angel. It’s just so easy to get you all worked up. Can’t blame me for being unable to resist.

Aziraphale: I'm sure they're not here to listen to us bicker, my dear.

Crowley: Wanna bet?

Aziraphale: Don’t you have a storm to go catch or something?

Crowley: In a minute. First, about that bet. [makes fingerguns with both hands and points them at the camera] Make you sure you all tell him in the comments how much you love the bickering, yeah?

Aziraphale: [sighs and looks beseechingly upward] Lord help me.

There is a sudden, unexpected, and very loud crack of thunder from outside. Both men startle minutely, their joined hands tightening around one another. The camera catches Crowley’s gaze flicking sideways to Aziraphale’s face, his features gone terribly soft for a split second. Then the sharp edges of Crowley’s smile fall back into place, and he laughs.

Crowley: Fine, I can take a hint. I’m going, I’m going!

Aziraphale: Mind how you go, then, love.

Rain can be heard now, drumming rhythmically against the windowpanes. Crowley leans over and kisses Aziraphale on the cheek, quick and chaste but unmistakably fond, then stands up and stretches luxuriously, revealing a sliver of pale skin above the waistband of his very fitted jeans.

Aziraphale touches his own cheek and smiles, his eyes following Crowley as he saunters out of frame. After a moment, he turns back to the camera and sits back in his armchair, wiggling a little to get comfortable. He picks up his mug and takes a slow, pleasurable sip.

Aziraphale: And now, as I was saying, it's time to talk about the weather.