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Crowley half stumbled into the bookshop at half-past ten, upending the umbrella stand and skidding with such a horrendous squeak that two customers instinctively slapped hands over their ears. For a brief moment Aziraphale thought he might be drunk until he realized that Crowley had just tripped over the threshold.
“Huh,” he said, staring at the stack of books now two inches from his nose. Crowley risked releasing one arm off the table to point blindly back at the door. “That new?”
“Not since 1800, dear boy.”
“Liability, it is. Health hazard.”
“Only to those who can’t walk properly.”
Aziraphale let him splutter for a moment while he finished wrapping a copy of Persuasion up in simple brown paper and string—also established in 1800, thank you very much. He really did hate to part with the volume, but it was a reprint, the spine was nearly unsalvageable, and the woman before him had exclaimed with such joy when she found it. Perhaps he was getting soft in his old age, but Aziraphale found himself patting her hand and wishing her a lovely time with the edition.
No sooner had she stepped aside then Crowley slid into her place. He radiated manic energy today, bouncing on the tips of his toes, looping that ridiculously skinny tie round and round his wrist. It was when his hands suddenly flew up to run through his hair that Aziraphale spotted the difference the shadows of his shop had hid from him.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “You’ve changed it.”
Crowley’s hair was still the same dark red of millenniums past, but it was a little shorter than it had been the day before. Less fluff on top, Aziraphale decided, like his hair was dead tired—weren’t they both?—after all this Armageddon nonsense and couldn’t be bothered to hold its shape anymore. The overall effect was a messy collection of tufts that appeared chaotic but had no doubt been meticulously styled that morning. Crowley would have never settled for anything else.
“Just a bit,” he said. “Figured, eh, new world and all that. New look. Too much?” and Crowley tugged at the strands again, ruffling the artful arrangement. “Too short, isn’t it? Bloody heaven I knew it. I’ll just changed it back—”
Aziraphale caught his hand mid-snap, giving it the same pat he’d given his Austen-loving customer. Crowley’s skin was cool and he spasmed briefly in Aziraphale’s grasp; trembled almost. Hmm. New nail color too. Plum purple.
“It looks marvelous,” he said. “Really. I’ll get used to it. Already halfway there.”
“Just halfway?”
“Three fourths, let’s say.”
“Hurry up then.”
“Well there’s no need to be rude about it.”
“You’re rude,” Crowley muttered, snatching back his hand and turning in a tight circle to look around the shop. Like he didn’t already know every inch of it (forgotten thresholds aside). The familiar banter had relaxed him some though. Aziraphale could see it in the line of his mouth, Crowley’s easiest tell whenever his eyes were covered. This was by no means unexpected. In fact, Aziraphale had been waiting for something like this the past four days. Whenever something relatively significant happened—discorporation, new orders from below, another human war—it was inevitable that Crowley came out on the other side of it with an altered look. Something about control in the face of the ineffable, if Aziraphale were inclined to use his books on psychology to analyze the 6,000 year trend.
Truth be told, he wasn’t.
“You ready to go then? I can wait around for you to get used to my hair, angel, but lunch? Nah. Chop-chop. Drinks to consume. Umbrellas to twirl.”
Aziraphale blinked. “Umbrellas?”
“You know,” Crowley made a series of complicated hand gestures that in no way mimicked an umbrella or clarified his meaning. “Tiny umbrella in pretty drinks. Cocktails. Stuffed with alcohol. Good for sprucing up your suit.”
Ah. Yes. Aziraphale did have vague memories of Crowley slipping one from drink to buttonhole some twenty years ago. However...
“It’s barely past ten.”
“So?”
“So, do you honestly expect me to drop what I’m doing, ignore my customers, close up early, and go drinking with you on a whim when it’s not even noon?”
The change was extraordinary. From vibrating ball of nerves to confidence incarnate. Crowley was all elegance and suave smile as he leaned across the counter, lowering his glasses just enough to reveal slit eyes alight with mischief.
“Yeah, angel. I do.”
Really.
Truthfully the whole display might have been impressive if Crowley hadn’t leaned against a bible. The shriek he let out two seconds later as his forearm caught fire sort of ruined the image.
Upside: Crowley’s blasphemous cursing and Aziraphale’s frantic attempts to miracle away the burn scared off the rest of his customers. So yes, he was free to indulge in an early lunch after all.
It’s while they were walking arm in arm towards a splendid little cafe that had opened last month—Crowley periodically twisting to look at his arm, muttering about stealthy books and ruined coats, despite the fact that Aziraphale had fixed the scorch mark good as new—that his mind caught back up to the subject it had been toying with before umbrellas and bibles got in the way.
“I’ve thought about it,” Aziraphale told the fire-hydrant ahead of them. Then a Pomeranian that passed by, attached to a harried owner. “Growing my hair out, I mean. Just a little, like you said. Though reverse, of course. I had thought that perhaps—gah!”
Crowley stopped so suddenly that Aziraphale nearly went with him. A near thing indeed. Balance restored, his head snapped up with a reprimand ready, only to find Crowley staring at him with such a blatant mix of incredulous shock that the words died right there in his throat.
“Well then why the deuce haven’t you?” Crowley asked. Demanded really.
Aziraphale straightened his vest with a huff. “You know very well that they don’t like that sort of...individuality upstairs. Do you have any idea the trouble I could get into if the head office found out I was deviating from the standard haircuts assigned during creation? It would be quite the mark against me and I’m sure I’d receive some sort of official condemnation at the very least and what precisely are you laughing at?”
“You,” Crowley said, lopsided smile growing wider by the second. “Fucking hell, angel. We canceled the end of the world and nearly got executed for it. Thousands out of a war, reality bending in on itself, or did you suddenly forget?”
“I certainly haven’t—”
“All that and you’re worried about hair?”
...Well. When one put it like that.
Aziraphale found the revelation as appealing as it was shocking and was just about to suggest that perhaps, just maybe, he’d start by experimenting with some product or something when he was unceremoniously yanked in the opposite direction. Crowley had managed to drag him back within sight of the Bentley in record time, as obedient of traffic laws on foot as he was while in the car. Aziraphale did his best to keep up with the long stride.
“I thought you wanted a drink! Where are we going now?” Though Aziraphale had the distinct feeling he already knew the answer.
“We’re doing this,” Crowley said, still dragging him along.
“We’re doing this?”
“Yep.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
A minute later Aziraphale was bundled into the passenger seat. His mouth opened periodically, but nothing else seemed to come out. Crowley had slid behind the wheel and gotten Brahm’s “We Will Rock You” blaring by the time his voice had even thought about working again. Then they were off.
Oh dear, Aziraphale thought and grabbed hold of his seat to ride out the switch from 0 to 90.
“I’m not sure about this,” he told his reflection.
“Just do it already.”
“It’s all so sudden.”
“Nothing sudden about eternity. Either miracle up some hair or I’m doing it for you.”
Aziraphale gnawed a bit at his lower lip, a horrible habit he’d picked up somewhere around the 16th century. He’d expected Crowley to drive them back to his apartment, not a bustling salon filled with all manner of people this time of day. No sooner had they stepped inside then a dark man in skirt and collared top came bustling over. Impressively fast in those heels too. He’d called Crowley ‘Anthony,’ Crowley had called him ‘Darling,’ and then they were sharing kisses on both cheeks with a familiarity that made Aziraphale bristle. In truth it wasn’t uncommon for them to make the rare acquaintance, friends who were around long enough to notice that only one of them was aging and, blessedly, not ask too many questions about it. Some humans were simply more open to the supernatural that way and it was clear at first glance that this ‘Darling’ was one of them. All Crowley had needed to say was that Aziraphale would soon be in need of a styling and they’d been escorted into a private room at the back. Now here he stood before one of the salon’s mirrors, watching Crowley’s reflection lounge and judge him scathingly.
“They’ll be paperwork,” Aziraphale said, his last line of defense. “Even if no one checks up on us for a while they’ll be an official record of the miracle.”
Crowley’s smile was sharp under the florescent lights. “Good.”
Apparently there was nothing left to say after that, so Aziraphale shut his eyes and let himself briefly imagine the expression on Gabriel’s face when this bit of info crossed his desk. He then pulled the threads of reality towards him; crystalized his thoughts. When Aziraphale opened his eyes again there was just a little bit more of him existing in the world.
It felt...heavy.
Curls, it turned out, changed when there were more of them and they all had to deal with the pesky existence of gravity. Aziraphale was used to tiny wisps floating about his head, not these defined ringlets that took up so much more space, falling past his shoulders and down into his eyes. He pushed some of them back and was shocked by how dense they felt. Soft too, his fingers easily slipping through the strands and leaving bits of frizz in their wake.
Something sounded behind him. Like an automatic door opening, near silent. Or a just boiling kettle from two rooms over. Aziraphale watched his own eyes widen as he realized the sound came from Crowley.
He was hissing.
“You... like it?” he asked, suddenly sure of this answer too. Because Crowley had half risen out of the plastic chair he’d been draped in, hand reaching instinctually to touch, all the while letting out a continuous hiss with every exhaled breath, the likes of which Aziraphale had only heard on a few rare occassions when they were both marvelously drunk. Crowley had stopped there though—didn’t even seem to realize he’d frozen—so Azriaphale stepped forward and ducked his head, pressing some of his new curls straight into Crowley’s palm.
He felt that hand spasm again, only this time Crowley’s fingers tightened and held on.
“Don’t pull them,” Aziraphale chided.
“Not pulling.” Crowley’s voice was hushed. Sluggish.
“You most certainly are. Be gentle.”
Amazingly Crowley was, now carding his hand through the curls with all the delicacy Aziraphale would have given to an authentically rare book. Funny thing was though, Crowley felt like the animal and Aziraphale the one trying to keep him from spooking. He held very still and didn’t let on that he could still hear the hiss, buried now beneath Crowley’s breathing.
They didn’t so much decide to separate as gravitate towards the door, Crowley suddenly straightening and clearing his throat. Breaking the moment opened a floodgate and Aziraphale found himself back among the hustle and bustle of the salon quicker than he would have liked, all that chaos assaulting his senses: hair dryers, scissors, flowery shampoos, endless chit-chat from humans that started a steady drumming right behind Aziraphale’s eyes. Perhaps some of it showed in his expression because Crowley jerked his head and that Darling fellow led them into another, adjoining room. Thankfully, this one was far less crowded.
“Spends his time in bookshops,” Crowley said, straddling the chair beside Aziraphale’s own. “Get’s real skittish.”
“I do not!”
“Food helps. Got any sweets around?”
“Oh really, I’m not some child to be placated with—”
Except Darling bent and opened a drawer, pulling out a tin of biscuits. Chocolate biscuits. Aizraphale’s traitorous hand had snagged one before he could call it back.
“Well, that is, thank you. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
Crowley snickered.
A warm hand squeezed his shoulder while another set the tin in his lap. “Don’t you worry one bit about it,” Darling said. “We get all sorts in here. Besides, I’m used to dear Anthony’s... eccentricities.”
Indeed, if Darling found it at all odd that the man he’d first greeted with about two inches of hair suddenly had a wealth of it down to the buttons of his vest, he certainly didn’t show it. Darling merely spread Aizraphale’s curls out over his shoulders, like it was every day such an impossibility walked through his door.
“You’ve known, uh, Anthony long?”
“Since I started, fresh out of school. That was nearly two decades ago now, can you believe it? Funny thing is, I knew a girl who was cutting Anthony’s hair long before I came on the scene. And she says a friend of hers was doing it before our little salon was even up and running.” Darling’s eyes slid towards Crowley, questioning.
He waved a hand. “Tall tales. Plus I’ve got a baby face.”
“Sure you do, sweetie.”
Sweetie.
Aziraphale huffed, turning in his chair to see how Crowley was handling this now highly inappropriate conversation... only to find that he wasn’t looking at Darling at all. Aziraphale startled, unexpectedly meeting Crowley’s gaze behind his glasses.
He was staring at his hair. At him.
Well. Aziraphale supposed that wasn’t so bad then.
In all honesty he had intended to secure the human’s actual name, but Darling hardly gave him the space to do so. Pleasantries over with, he’d begun a rather complicated process that, in Aziraphale’s humble opinion, showcased humanity’s ingenuity as well as its hedonism. Over the next hour he had his hair washed, conditioned, combed, cut, layered, dried, with all of it set in a lovely smelling cream that gave his curls an extra bounce. During the process Aziraphale ate his way through the biscuits (it was all quite pleasant, really, but he wasn’t used to humans touching him like this) and Crowley watched with the intensity of a hawk, periodically making noises in the back of his throat that Darling presumably knew how to interpret.
The end result was something to behold.
“It’s lovely. Truly. I’m quite, that is, quite impressed with your work, dear boy. What talent you have. What a gift!”
Aziraphale was turning his head this way and that, admiring how the curls now framed his face rather than obscuring it; the volume he’d gained and how healthy it looked. Aziraphale was still busy marveling at how the now shoulder-length cut changed the shape of his face when Crowley appeared in the mirror beside him.
Aziraphale’s grin was infectious. He could see it slipping onto Crowley’s reflection. “Well? What do you think?”
There were a lot of things Crowley could have said in that moment. Aziraphale watched how his hands fiddled with the lip of his pockets, the way he rocked back on his heels, and how despite both those things this was astoundingly still for Crowley. He looked like a coil wound tight, holding back words and actions and who knew what else.
“...I’ll get used to it.” He finally said, turning the smile into a smirk. Crowley materialized a credit card and handed it off to Darling. “Take whatever you want.”
As their hairdresser bowed and blew Crowley a kiss, Aziraphale felt distinctly like he’d been the one paid a compliment.
“You know they say vanity is a sin, angel.”
Aziraphale ignored him. They’d somehow meandered back to the shop without quite deciding to do so, even though the day was still young and it was really quite lovely out. They’d wanted more... intimacy. At least Aziraphale had. Upstairs, he started two mugs of cocoa in lieu of a lunch (he had eaten a number of biscuits), but he kept getting distracted along the way. Aziraphale had never realized how many reflective surfaces there were in his apartment and every time he caught sight of his hair in the stove top or the window he’d pause for a moment, admiring.
“Are you going to do that all day?” Crowley swiped a pencil off the couch and chucked it at his head. He missed by a mile. “If I’d known you’d be all obsessive about it I never would have encouraged you. Bloody annoying, that’s what this is. Don’t we have any peppermint schnapps?”
“No.”
“No?”
“A rather rude individual drank up my whole stash.”
“Well how is that my fault?”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes and continued heating the milk. Perhaps he was being vain. Just a little. It was all rather unbecoming for an angel, so Aziraphale set his shoulders and tore his eyes from the sheen of white in the pan’s side. It was just hair, after all. Nothing to get this invested in. Even if he did think this style matched fabulously well with his suit.
Only problem was, the more Aziraphale tried not to think about his hair the more it insisted on making itself known. Curtains of it kept falling back into his eyes whenever he bent over the stove and when the gas jumped Aziraphale jumped with it, frightfully sure that he’d catch the poor locks on fire. The disobedient things outright refused to stay tucked behind his ears.
“You’ve gotta tie it back.”
Aziraphale turned. Crowley was still lounging, still tapping his foot like everything about the change annoyed him, but his expression held all the intensity of...
Well, in all honesty Aziraphale wasn’t sure he’d ever seen its like.
“Right. Yes, of course.” He pulled his hair back, realized he owned nothing to tie it with, then puffed his cheeks in annoyance as a number of strands slipped from his fingers. Crowley’s mouth melted into something unimaginably soft.
“It’s layered, angel. You’ve got to braid it.”
“Ah, I’m afraid I don’t know how to—”
“I could help you if—”
They’d started speaking at the same time and stopped at the same moment too. Aziraphale opened his mouth, saw Crowley do the same, and, resigned, shut it again. With a Look he merely shook his head and crossed the distance between them.
Aziraphale could have easily sat on the couch beside Crowley, twisting his body to give him access. Instead he carefully sat down on the carpet, back leaning tentatively against Crowley’s legs, and kindly ignored the soft, strangled noise that sounded behind him.
It took a moment—a long one, truly—but finally he felt the tips of Crowley’s fingers at the edge of his hair, tentative despite having explored there just a few hours before. When Aziraphale neither pulled away nor reprimanded him, Crowley began separating out pieces, carding his fingers through each in a way Aziraphale really didn’t think was necessary for the end product.
He didn’t stop the indulgence. It was becoming a rather unsettling habit between them.
“It’s easy,” Crowley was saying, voice hushed. Aziraphale felt like it should be later than it was; the bustle of London outside their window seemed an unwelcome intrusion. “Just keep passing one side under the middle. Left, right, left again. Even an idiot like you could manage it.”
“I’m quite intelligent, thank you.”
“Stupidest genius I know. Happy?”
“Mmm.”
He was. Aziraphale knew on some level that this was a moment of instruction, that he should be paying attention to what Crowley was telling him in an effort to repeat it later, but this was a marvelous way to spend one’s time, wasn’t it? Nothing like what Darling had done because as lovely as the sensations had been, Aziraphale had been subtly tense throughout it all, knowing it was a stranger’s hands prodding and shaping him in unexpected ways. But this was Crowley. Enemy. Secret ally. Friend. The only one on his side. Aziraphale was hyper aware of how he tipped his head back for better access, effectively bearing his neck to the demon. Crowley in turn slowly spread his legs until Aziraphale was nestled between them, trapping them both.
And all the while he hissed. A light, subconscious sound that only someone allowed to get this close would have been able to hear.
“I always admired your hair,” Aziraphale said, keeping his own voice right above a whisper. “You did such marvelous things with it throughout the centuries. Such creativity. Beauty, really. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to teach me some of that too? Though I fear it might take quite a while. You know how I am with learning new things. Could take years.” Aziraphale gave a slightly put-upon sigh. “Centuries even.”
The fingers in his hair trembled. “Not sure your lot would like that much.”
“As another idiot recently pointed out, I’ve helped stop Armageddon and grew out my hair this week. I’m a veritable rebel. I think that I—we—could get away with a few more... discrepancies. If we so wished.”
For all his babbling, Crowley really wasn't one for words. He didn’t make grand statements like, perhaps, ‘I love you.’ No, he just tripped over 200 year-old thresholds because he was distracted by someone who, after 6,000 years, he really shouldn’t be distracted by anymore. He demanded lunches at half-past ten because there was no other excuse for stopping by, paid hairdressers obscene amounts of money for the pictures they painted, reverted to old, long forgotten habits at the mere touch of a curl.
So Aziraphale wasn’t at all surprised that silence reigned. However, when the braid was complete Crowley tipped it carefully over his shoulder, leaving the expanse of Aziraphale’s neck vulnerable before him.
He placed his first kiss there, reverent.
Aziraphale wound his hand up into Crowley’s own, shorter locks as he did. Across from the couch was the flat screen Crowley had insisted on buying him and their reflections were there, striking in the black frame. Aziraphale watched short strands mixing with long and thought, How perfect.
Yes. They could both get used to this.