Crawly was halfway to turning back from his snake form before he remembered angel, demon, not a great idea. Not that he'd forgotten he was a demon, but he'd forgotten that meant all angels he met from now on were his mortal enemies. Immortal enemies. Still, he'd already committed himself to it and the angel had already seen him there, so might as well see it through. Besides, he'd been aching for someone to talk to. Not great conversationalists, demons.

Of course angels weren't great conversationalist either Crawly remembered as soon as they started talking. All "The Great Plan" and "ineffability" and "the Almighty knows best." None of them ever questioned anything. There was a bit of fun in needling the angel, but it was all the same thing he'd heard before, over and over again. Except the bit with the missing sword. That was new.

Not just new, but different, special. That was putting care and kindness and compassion first. It was putting goodness over Goodness, something Crawly had never known any angel to do and something he could respect. As a demon he would never admit to liking goodness and he was inherently inimical to Goodness, but if he had to choose between the two it probably wasn't undemonic to say he preferred the former to the latter.

Even so and as interesting as the bit with the sword was, that still might have been the end of it. The angel might have nodded awkwardly and politely excused himself to see to the sealing of the Eastern Gate. Crawly would have thought of him from time to time, but less as the centuries went by. Eventually the whole thing would have been nothing more than a story of the time he'd met an angel that was the best of a bad lot – or a Good lot, as the case may be – and invented irony. Possibly, probably, that's what would have happened, except that was the exact moment the very first rainfall started.

It didn't take more than a drop or two for Crawly to decide he didn't care for this whole rain business. He certainly had no interest in getting all wet. Luckily the angel was standing downwind of him, and Crawly sidled in a little closer to protect himself from the worst of it. Then suddenly the rain stopped hitting him altogether.

"Oh dear, this isn't pleasant at all, is it?" the angel fretted. "I do hope those two will be alright." His left wing was held aloft over Crawly, keeping the rain off him. The angel didn't even seem to think about what he was doing. It was an instinct to protect so deeply ingrained that he would defy the Almighty's expectations to give his flaming sword to a couple of humans and he would unthinkingly shelter a demon.

The rain, having just been invented and not entirely used to being yet didn't last all that long. Once it was done, Aziraphale took his leave. Crawly watched him fly away, and it was a testament to his self-control that it wasn't with an awestruck expression.

Yes, please – please, he thought, please, despite never having used the word before as a demon and not having much use for it before he Fell either. Yes, please, I want that one.

"Oh, the books. Oh, I forgot all the books," Aziraphale said. "Oh, they'll all be blown to…"

Crowley thrust the perfectly intact bag at him. "Little demonic miracle of my own. Lift home?"

In an instant something that had been slowly building over the past five thousand nine hundred and forty-five years, give or take a few months, suddenly crystallized for Aziraphale.

It wasn't that Crowley had saved him from discorporation; that was just what they did for each other, after all. Crowley had saved Aziraphale rather more often, but after Aziraphale had stepped in to save Crowley from false accusation of being a witch, rather more accurate accusations of consorting with the devil, and the very real threat of holy water, they had agreed to not keep score. In light of that, Crowley walking over consecrated ground to rescue him went above their usual expectations but not beyond them.

It wasn't even that Crowley had saved the books, not precisely. Over the centuries their Arrangement had grown to a nebulous sort of agreement to save each other from inconvenience. A blessing for a temptation obviously, but also the inconvenience of discorporating, of dealing with some of the more inane aspects of humanity, of dining and drinking alone. Saving Aziraphale the trouble of tracking down new copies of his books would fall under that umbrella. If Aziraphale had asked him to do it.

The thing of it was, Aziraphale hadn't asked him, not even in any implicit way. Crowley had just known. He'd known Aziraphale was in trouble, known where to find him and how to save him, had known the bag contained Aziraphale's books, had known Aziraphale would want the books saved, had known Aziraphale would forget to save them, and so had done it himself. Crowley knew Aziraphale. After so many millennia that shouldn't be surprising, and it wasn't exactly, but Aziraphale had still somehow failed to notice it before just this moment.

Later he would panic and fret over what this could mean for him, for the both of them, and oh no, he couldn't really. But for the moment he watched Crowley walk away with the studiedly casual dignity of a cat who didn't want you to know how very much they wished your company and smiled.

Oh, my dear – words he had used countless times but never quite like this, with a feeling of selfishness and possessiveness; my dear, mine and only mine. Oh my dear, I do love you.

The day after the world almost ended but didn't quite, an angel and a demon walked out of the Ritz together after a very nice lunch. It was a lovely golden afternoon, and there was a nightingale singing in Berkeley Square. That neither of the pair could hear the nightingale from half a mile away was largely immaterial; they were a bit too wrapped up to have noticed it regardless. One of them, or perhaps it was the other, bridged the small space between them, entangling their fingers together. As grand declarations and epic endings went it was a rather small and quiet moment. But their relationship had been built on the small quiet moments, one by one, and ultimately this was only the next one in many more yet to come.

And as to what each of them thought in that moment when for the very first time they clasped hands for no reason beyond the wanting of it? Well, that was no one's business but their own.