“You alright, there, Angel?” Crowley asked.
Aziraphale tore his eyes away from the clock which was ticking closer and closer towards the hour.
“Wha-? Oh! Oh, yes! Yes, of course! Absolutely tickety-boo!” He replied, a nervous smile briefly alighting on his face before flittering away again.
“‘Tickety-boo,’” Crowley parroted, carefully sounding out each syllable. “That doesn’t even mean anything.”
“What? Of course it does!” Aziraphale insisted, temporarily distracted from his internal fretting. “It means alright, tiptop, hunky-dory.”
“Hunky-dory?” Crowley said, amusement evident in his tone. “You definitely just made that one up.”
Aziraphale huffed in offense. “It’s more of a word than ‘wahoo.’”
Crowley narrowed his eyes, which were blessedly free of the dark shades he usually wore. It was just the two of them, after all. “You take that back.”
But Aziraphale’s attention had returned to the clock. The time was drawing nearer, and he found himself burning with both terror and exhilaration equally. He wanted to do it now, just take the leap and land on the other side. But, human tradition said to wait, so wait he would. It wasn’t much longer, anyway.
The countdown had begun. He could hear Crowley trying to get his attention, but it was muffled and far away.
His eyes remained fixated on the clock. How could the seconds be moving by so slowly? Had Crowley stopped time again?
Now, here’s the thing about Aziraphale and swearing. Under most circumstances, he found it entirely crude and unnecessary, save for two certain special occasions. The first was, obviously, when one stepped into an active portal and found themselves inconveniently discorporated. The second was when one was finally taking the first step after six thousand years of waiting and found that time (a human construct, really) was entirely unwilling to cooperate.
At precisely three seconds before midnight, on the eve of a new year that they both had thought would never come to pass, Aziraphale pressed his lips to Crowley’s, cutting off the delighted noise the demon was making over hearing the angel swear for the first time.
This kiss was… Well, for perhaps the first time in his life, Aziraphale found himself unable to find the right words to describe it. ‘Tiptop’ was clearly insufficient, ‘tickety-boo’ didn’t even come close, ‘hunky-dory’ was right out. Strangely, and much to his chagrin, ‘wahoo’ seemed to be the only word his ecstatic brain could come up with.
Crowley was kissing him back, and Aziraphale could taste the love upon his lips, pure and sweet and so definitely there. It was everything he had hoped it would be. It was everything he never even knew he wanted.
At precisely six hundred and twenty-four seconds after midnight on New year’s Day, Aziraphale and Crowley pulled apart, finding themselves gasping for breaths that suddenly seemed so very necessary.
Crowley made a series of incomprehensible noises, his lips stretching into a wide grin.
Azirpahle nodded in understanding. “Quite right, dearest, very well said. I wholeheartedly agree.” And then he kissed Crowley again. And again. And again. Et cetera.
stormborns
germansingergirl
