Chapter Text
“Can we go now?” Crowley groaned and theatrically threw his whole upper body around in a half-circle to make really sure Aziraphale was aware if how much the demon was rolling his eyes. You had to make do somehow if you wore sunglasses. “Our table at the Ritz is booked for half past six. We usually need 10 minutes to get there. And if I go over 60mph, you’ll complain about me ‘speeding’.”
“Yes, and you’ll speed anyway,” Aziraphale answered distractedly. He was holding a bill of sale up to his face, reading-glasses perched on the tip of his nose, open mouth drawn into something akin to a frown – as if all of that somehow helped him decipher the small-print numbers better. As if anything could make him see the document clearer – he was a celestial being! His eye-sight was perfect, just like his annoying eyebrows, his stupid cupid’s bow and his brilliant, bright eyes. Satan, there was not a single redeeming quality about this infuriating, fussy angel, was there?
“What happened to ‘punctuality is a virtue’?” Crowley heckled. “You’re usually the one who gets upset when we’re late.”
Aziraphale sighed the sigh of an adversary sufficiently goaded into thwarting and abandoned his papers in favour of aiming his pout at Crowley. “This is not ‘being late’, this is me repeatedly telling you that I have plans for this evening and won’t be going to dinner with you.”
“And your oh-so-important plans are…?” Crowley kept goading.
“I told you I will be filing my taxes today!” Aziraphale said in a tone that was actually annoyed – not the mock-annoyed he usually was at demons tempting him to dinner. “But you didn’t listen and made a table reservation anyway!”
“Sorry, I’m afraid that was me,” said a voice that was decidedly not Crowley’s.
Aziraphale wheeled around in his chair to see the unexpected visitor. Unfortunately, said chair was neither a swivel chair nor did it have actual wheels, so the accompanying scrape across the hardwood floor felt as if someone had just scratched their fingernails across a slate inside Crowley’s brain. He discreetly miracled the unpleasant tingles away.
“Maggie!” Aziraphale shouted in surprise. “How long have you been here?”
“You’d know if you hadn’t been nose-deep in your books for hours,” Crowley accused him.
Maggie, much to Crowley’s satisfaction, was too flustered to answer the actual question and left Aziraphale agonizing about how much of his ‘unhelpful bastard’-side she had witnessed. Perhaps she would even back Crowley up on in the inevitable squabble this was heading towards!
For now, all she said was: “I’m sorry, Mister Fell. I asked Mister Crowley to prepone our dinner because my cousin and his new partner will be visiting tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale said and flicked his eyes from Maggie to his desk and back. He was clearly thinking about how he couldn’t just walk out on their apology-dinner. After all, he was the one who had insisted on doing it – to reimburse the two humans they had accidentally gotten involved in all this Jim-business. But since he was a fussy fusspot, he also couldn’t just not do his taxes on the exact day he had marked in his calendar for that very purpose.
Crowley decided to take pity on him. (And on himself, to be frank.) Watching Aziraphale might be fun in general, but watching Aziraphale file taxes was torture for two very different reasons – one of them involving filing, the other one involving Aziraphale not giving him enough attention. “You can just miracle your taxes filed, angel,” Crowley reminded the bookshop owner in gentle exasperation – a mood that seemed to exclusively strike him whenever he was beside beige-clad celestial beings.
“I’m sure that sounds like an easy solution to you,” Aziraphale sniffed and Crowley’s hackles rose immediately at his tone, “but some of us value doing things the human way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Crowley demanded to know.
“Well, let’s just say if Hell ever cut you off from your clothes-related miracles, we’d have to move to a country that values naturism more than the English – or I’d have to pick you up from a jail cell every morning.”
“Excuse me?” Crowley noticed his eyes getting wide enough to show a peek of yellow over the black glasses, so he quickly tried to reel himself in, act nonchalant and pop his hip out to the side. It resulted in Aziraphale giving him The Look (not the good one – the bastard one... no, not the good bastard one, either), which may or may not have been due to the audible creak that came from the demon’s spine. Miraculously snakey anatomy only got him so far.
Anyway, Crowley decided that the most nonchalant thing he could do was ignoring the angel’s reaction. So he continued: “You think you’re the one who knows how to do things the human way? You wouldn’t even know the ‘human way’ if it hit you with a tax fraud investigation.”
He could see Aziraphale opening his mouth to make some excuse or another, so Crowley kept going with “Which has happened, may I remind you!” before a particularly bitchy tone, pursed mouth or – Satan forbid – wobbly lower lip could make his traitor of a brain take Aziraphale’s side in this argument. “And I had to miracle that away for you. Every. Single. Year.”
“All the more reason for me to do my taxes diligently and mindfully! Isn’t that right?” Aziraphale complained and gestured in Maggie’s direction, who got increasingly uncomfortable with the domestic dispute she found herself caught in the middle of.
Crowley didn’t yield: “You can’t do your taxes ‘diligently’ without a miracle because you don’t understand how a human bookseller would file their taxes to begin with!”
Aziraphale huffed even louder than before and turned his entire body towards the contrary demon to his right. The motion resulted in another scraping noise that grated on Crowley’s delicate nerves – the bastard had to be doing it on purpose, right? “Oh, and you’re oh-so in tune with how humans do things, I suppose?” the angel asked.
It was bait. Crowley knew it was. But Aziraphale had learnt about temptation from the best, so the Serpent of Eden couldn’t help himself but take it: “Of course! From whom do you think they got the ideas for Flappy Bird and blue check-marks?” With an air of self-satisfaction, the demon nodded to himself as congratulation for how up-to-date he was keeping with the youngins on his planet.
Even Aziraphale was slightly taken aback by his vast knowledge of the culture and begrudgingly huffed “Oh well!” while Maggie’s sceptically raised eyebrow went well ignored by both of them.
“Then I suppose you can just drive us to the Ritz without the use of miracles?” Aziraphale challenged Crowley as he finally got up and righted his bow-tie. “Perhaps even by driving under the speed limit like humans are supposed to?”
Crowley, finding himself almost nose-to-nose with a contrary angel and somehow (again) having an audience of one single human who would probably comment on anything weird happening, decided to cross his arms and lean backwards – away from Aziraphale. He had promised himself that before the next wall-slam, he’d make sure they’re well and truly alone, so this wasn’t the time and place. “Oh, I can go without miracles for centuries if I have to! You’re the one who keeps finding himself locked up and awaiting a beheading because he is craving crêpes. And who is going to bail you out if not me?”
“Oh, you’re so wily and cunning,” Aziraphale said in a tone that made Crowley regret having taught him sarcasm, “I’m sure you’ll think of something. And besides, if you can go – as they say – ‘cold turkey’ on the miracles, so can I. And I assure you, I know enough about manners to not get myself in trouble without miracles.”
“I hate to break up an intimate moment,” a fourth voice suddenly chimed in, sounding not sorry in the least, “but Maggie told me we’d be going to that fancy restaurant of yours by six and it’s quarter past already.”
Crowley and Aziraphale turned their heads towards the entrance of the bookshop and found that Nina must have wandered in during their little discussion. Crowley was just about to back off and usher them all into his car when Aziraphale, the utter bastard, said: “Oh, hello Nina! Would you and Maggie mind being the referees of our little bet – as representatives of the human race and connoisseurs of human culture?”
Just like Maggie already had, Nina raised the appropriate eyebrow. “Human culture, singular? As in, all humans, everywhere, on every continent? Their culture as a whole?”
“Exactly,” Aziraphale nodded, either not hearing her mocking undertone or simply ignoring it. “We’ll both go without miracles for as long as we can, and you judge how well we blend in. And the first one of us to give up and use a miracle has to do the apology dance and admit that he was in the wrong to think he could beat an angel at being human.”
“Sure of ourselves, are we? A bet it is,” Crowley teased and held out a hand for Aziraphale to shake and seal his fate.
“What on Earth is an apology dance?” Nina asked.
“Keep your nose out of things that don’t concern yourself and umpire,” Crowley shot back.
Nina threw her hands up and turned to leave the shop again. “Fine, as long as we can go and get this dinner over with, already!”
And thus, The Bet had been drafted between the angel and the demon – not unlike The Arrangement: Both with capital letters, both between hereditary enemies, but one crafted with considerably more forethought and tempting, and one with a single sassy bat of an angelic eyelash and a hint of spitefulness.
But this was not an Arrangement between hereditary enemies who conspired to secretly work together; this was a Bet between a group of two who were inherently on the same side but decided it was more thrilling to pretend to be at odds with each other.
So what was the worst that could happen?
“Can’t you start that Bet another day?” Nina asked while holding onto the passenger seat in front of her like she just jumped out of a plane and it was her only parachute. You’d think she would have gotten used to Crowley’s driving after the fourth trip up and down Piccadilly in search for a parking spot, but apparently not.
Maggie, of course, agreed with her, since that seemed to be her general modus operandi: “Or just forget about this Bet altogether. I don’t think either of you is going to like the outcome.”
“I’m afraid we already started,” Aziraphale said calmly. Apparently, now that he was not the only person complaining about the speed limit (or Crowley’s disavowal of such things), he was completely fine with wearing a smug expression instead of his usual terrified one. “But Crowley is of course perfectly within his rights to forfeit and miracle us a free parking space so we can finally get to dinner.”
“In your dreams,” the speed demon mumbled under his breath. Some way down the road, a battered Honda pulled away from the curb and filed into the thicket of traffic that was creeping through the streets of Mayfair. Crowley pushed the gas pedal to the floor and swerved into the right lane in order to get ahead of a driver who had already turned on his indicator and was aiming for the same parking space.
Suddenly, a white flash had them all squinting into the dark evening outside the Bentley.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Crowley griped. He was showing great restraint by not stopping the car right then and there, getting out and miracling up a Lego brick for every traffic warden in a ten mile radius to step on.
“What was that?” Aziraphale asked.
“You’re telling me this is how he always drives and you don’t know what the flash of a speed camera looks like?” Nina griped incredulously.
“Ah,” Aziraphale seemed to think about it for a second before he continued: “Those are the things that usually burst into flame when we pass them.”
“Goodness,” Maggie whispered.
Just one Volkswagen-length away from their goal (which was the newly free space on the curb), they watched someone coming down from Berkeley Street, slow to a stand beside the coveted spot, put their car in reverse and seamlessly file into the row of parked vehicles. There were mere inches between their car and the ones in front and behind – not even enough to parallel park a Hellhound-turned-mutt in, let alone a vintage Bentley.
“I told you,” Aziraphale said for the twelfth time today, “we should have walked.”
“Can’t you please just miracle us a parking spot,” Maggie begged from the backseat. Crowley suddenly had much more compassion for parents behind the wheel snapping at their kids for asking ‘are we there yet’ once too often.
“I am not going to lose The Bet,” he snarled through his teeth.
“Neither of you is going to last longer than a week with this stupid Bet,” Nina interjected rudely. “That’s what I bet on.”
“Challenge accepted, my dear,” Aziraphale said airily while Maggie elbowed her fellow human and whispered something about ‘making it worse’.
They were more than fashionably late by the time they finally had the Bentley tucked away somewhere in Mayfair (the demon silently vowed never to move her again if he could help it) and Aziraphale’s smug attitude against Nina and Crowley quickly vanished when he realised that the parking space happened to have a mud puddle right underneath the front passenger side door.
“My Oxfords,” he said unhappily and turned the high beams of two huge, blue eyes onto Crowley when the lament got no reaction. “Would you mind, dearest?”
“I’m not miracling them clean for you, angel,” Crowley clarified.
Those blue eyes got somehow even bigger. “But they’ll stain!”
The demon felt his resolve waver. “You could always miracle them clean yourself,” he suggested in a last-ditch effort to keep some sort of dignity in front of the two humans who – undoubtedly – would question why Crowley was willing to go through a fifteen minute traffic jam, followed by the half-hour hunt for the last parking spot in all of London, only to then give up The Bet for a mud-crusted sole that wasn’t even his.
“You know I would always know the stain was there, underneath the miracle,” Aziraphale sounded like he was on the verge of weeping.
This was torture. “You’re cheating,” Crowley said desperately.
Thankfully, it did the trick and Aziraphale’s wobbling lower lip turned into a pout. “Fine. But if they’re not letting us into the restaurant due to my dirty shoes, that’s on you.” The change in tone released whatever hold Aziraphale-in-distress had over Crowley, but the demon would be lying if he didn’t admit to himself that he fell in love with the unscrupulous bastard a little more at the same time.
They were indeed not being let into the restaurant while Aziraphale was dragging a trail behind him like an (uncharacteristically fussy) slug. Only appealing to the front-of-the-house staff by reminding them that Aziraphale and Crowley were their favourite patrons (What was the subtle scoff from two of the waiters about?!) and a generous tip from Crowley’s credit card to the host and waiters got them their reserved table (that they were horrendously late for).
“So, are congratulations in order?” Nina asked bluntly after they had all calmed down over a delicious first course of asparagus soup. “Did the two of you finally talk? Are you an item now?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Aziraphale mumbled into his wine glass in the hopes of it becoming incomprehensible.
It almost worked, because at the same time, Crowley said: “I talked at him a lot, immediately after you told me to.”
“Might not have been the best timing,” Aziraphale added and put the wine glass down to fret with his serviette instead.
“Then stuff happened,” Crowley continued as Aziraphale seemed like he was going to combust with discomfort if they didn’t put the topic to rest quickly. “Then we dealt with it. Now we’re here.”
“So you didn’t talk,” Nina corrected him and threw her spoon into the fancy soup dish with a loud clang. “Go on,” she waved between them with her freed-up hand and leaned back with crossed arms. “No time like the present.”
“Might not be the best timing again,” Aziraphale said faintly. “With, ahm… an audience.” His face had taken on an interesting colour somewhere between the hue of the carpet and the one of their Burgundy.
“You heard him,” Crowley said. It came out a lot more bitter than he had intended it to. “Never a good time to be ‘an item’ with me.”
“I didn’t say that,” Aziraphale said weakly.
They were interrupted by a cheerful clap and Maggie giggling behind where the tips of her fingers met. All eyes turned towards her with varying amounts of confusion, dread and gratefulness for the interruption. “Sorry! I just had a thought,” she proclaimed.
Nina narrowed her eyes. “Don’t!”
But Maggie wasn’t listening. “The human thing to do would be for you to date,” she continued; and she was picking up steam. “But maybe that’s too advanced in ‘human culture’ for you to do. Too bad you have to lose The Bet to Nina like that – didn’t even make it a single week, just like she said.”
There was a ‘thump!’ underneath the table and while Maggie yelped and bent down to rub her shin, Nina glared at her.
In the following silence, Aziraphale said “I assure you, we’re not going to lose The Bet because of a trifle like that” with a conviction that was usually only heard from him during apocalypses and rare book auctions.
Nina interjected: “You know that not all humans date, right? That’s not a requirement. Plenty of us don’t date. Ever.” Somehow, nobody seemed to hear her.
“We’re going to rise to the challenge,” Aziraphale promised. “Isn’t that right, Crowley, dear?”
“Ngk,” Crowley answered.
Aziraphale beamed at him, clearly satisfied with that eloquent reply. “Yes, quite.”
Rubbing her hands across her face, Nina let out a defeated groan. “I swear to God, Maggie, if they come to my shop for a coffee date…!”