Better the Devil You Know

Neverending starts today

Crowley stared at the rings in his hands. They did look like they would fit him. Skinny fingers, serpent nature. He slid them both on, one on each hand, to see how they looked. They were bulky and fairly crudely made and beautiful, they were absolutely beautiful, he never thought iron could have a magical lustre like that, that gold could remind him of earthly sunshine instead of the frankly ostentatious streets of gold in Heaven. He was never going to take them off, custom be blessed.

"What about you?" Crowley asked, dazed. "Or was I too selfish to get you betrothal rings?"

"Oh, I kept mine too. Didn't seem quite right, to wear them when you weren't wearing yours." Aziraphale made no move to produce them.

"Were you planning to remind me we're promised any century soon?"

"I was going to tell you eventually if it came up. It never really seemed to be the right moment before." Aziraphale turned his soup spoon over and over, as if seeking an answer to the situation in his reversed reflection.

"There wasn't one right moment in two thousand years?"

"It does seem rather a long time when you put it that way." Aziraphale's brows drew together over his spectacles. "You seemed determined not to mention it, and never showed any signs of, er, romantic inclination towards me after that one time. In any case, it's hardly my fault that you're so touchy. You try tiptoeing around a highly-strung demon's moods for millennia."

Crowley was about to point out how unfair this was, how very little it took to make Aziraphale sniff and go cold for weeks or years, but the back of his mind was desperately sorting through the options. "Did we, um, er, consummate?"

Crowley didn't dare look at Aziraphale, and he suspected Aziraphale was also looking at the spoon to avoid looking at him. Crowley stared at the clock and pretended to be very interested in it. Surely he wouldn't have forgotten if they'd had carnal relations. Surely. It was hard to believe he had forgotten anything at all.

Suspicion flickered for just a moment. Crowley had only been consciously aware for a couple of days of things like the dimples on the back of Aziraphale's hands and the exact pattern of the laugh lines around his eyes, and he was pretty sure he would never stop thinking about them now. Let alone forget the soft warm feel of the back of Aziraphale's hand against his lips or even more so the yielding feel of Azirpahale's actual lips against his. But Aziraphale wouldn't lie, not about something big like this. "Angel? Did we?"

"No," said Aziraphale.

"Why not?" Crowley demanded, mind still on kissing. Had he had some kind of supernatural self-control back then?

"We were highly inebriated," Aziraphale said primly. "As I recall, you told me in great detail what you planned to do with me when you sobered up. To be quite honest it was all highly imaginative. I wasn't sure how we were supposed to manage some of your plans without some extremely dubious miracles. And then you passed out. Er."

Crowley groaned with humiliation, and let his head fall into his hands. "Tell me I at least managed to kiss you properly?" There was an embarrassed silence. "Oh, Satan."

"I'm rather glad you didn't," Aziraphale said, sharply. "I would hate it if our first real kiss was something you didn't even remember."

Crowley sat bolt upright, as if electricity had been shot through him. So Aziraphale thought the same about that. Aziraphale had kissed him, with all these memories of them getting sentimental enough to promise marriage to each other. Memories of Crowley getting amorous enough to say all sorts of embarrassing and revealing things. And instead of kissing his angel's breath out in return, Crowley had just spilled cocktails everywhere and bolted his appetiser. No wonder Aziraphale was ill at ease. "Oh. Yeah."