You'll Never Get To Heaven (if you're scared of getting high)

The joker's always smiling in every hand that's dealt

Crowley's hands flew across the keys, taking credit for every ingenious human iniquity that came to mind. Putting flavoured syrups in coffee. Attempts by antivaxxers to give Pestilence a comeback. Data collection. Social RTS games. Manspreading, an art at which Crowley modestly considered himself a master. Cream in bacon carbonara. Keypad tones. Company complaint lines with several different departments—oh, wait, that was him. Charities spending their funds on board meetings in singles resorts. Singles resorts. He usually took the pride of an artist in his memos, but now he just wanted to be done.

He was so ridiculously happy that he thought he might shatter at any moment, as if his demon heart wasn't designed to hold so much love and hope. His human form knew quite well how to react to an influx of love and longing, and was aching and twitching, and it was all he could do not to abandon the keyboard and go fling himself on Aziraphale and demand more kisses, more promises, more... everything.

Pathetic, he thought, and it made him grin anyway. Some great tempter, acting like a besotted teenager because after thousands of years his angel was his and he was inches away from proving it—oh, no, no, that wasn't helping. Still, he held back on the miracle. He wanted to enjoy the desire, now it was no longer something broken and hopeless. Now Aziraphale loved him and wanted him and dear Crowley he needed to get a ring on him as soon as possible before he changed his mind about binding himself to a besmirched, fallen creature, then get him into bed to seal the deal, lavish so much love and lust on him and make him fall apart so completely that he wouldn't think of ever changing his mind and leaving, would just stay In Crowley's arms always... Oh, bless, Crowley had to concentrate or he would never get his report done.

He vaguely registered the door being knocked again. Well, Aziraphale of all beings knew how to deal with unwanted customers. Eleven pages, twelve—and sent. He hoped it would give Dagon a good laugh, and maybe be forwarded up the line to Lord Beelzebub. Crowley could do with some gold stars from Hell if he was about to marry an angel.

Marry.

Part of him was terrified that all his old hidden dreams were out in the open. As if being exposed like this made him unsafe. But—he had Aziraphale on his side now. They had already proved they could beat anything together. He shoved the chair away and loped out to the main bookshop, having even more trouble than usual remembering what to do with his legs.

Crowley was more than startled to realise that the customer was not only still in the shop, but had Aziraphale folded in his arms. He felt the hackles on his neck rise and his tongue lengthen and fork.

"Hullo." He did his best to hiss despite the lack of sibilants in the greeting. "Who'sss thisss?" Ah, that was better. Frigid. Not quite threatening yet, but asserting dominance.

Aziraphale broke away from the embrace with what seemed like relief. Good. "I think I had better handle this," he told the customer.

Crowley took the man in coldly. Short, pleasantly round. Not good looking precisely, but intelligent looking, with a strong nose and jowls and really quite lovely black eyes under a receding hairline, a type that gave Crowley a sudden nostalgia for far ago days in Thisbe, despite the immaculately tailored suit. Not a rival, he told himself. No matter how many books this man had read, no matter how sophisticated he looked, Aziraphale had made it abundantly clear that his type was gangling and loose-limbed and currently dressed like an attractively gone to seed rockstar. Aziraphale was his, he had promised, and this human could piss right off.

Human... There was the sense of great age. He had thought the eyes were beautiful because of lucky genetics, but they were perhaps too beautiful. Too large, too black, too luminous. The only eyes Crowley regularly saw the were as stunning as those were--