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Crowley transplanted the last courgette seedling into the rich soil, warning it all the while that he expected a prolific harvest in return for his care. Once he deemed the plant sufficiently cowed, he stretched, letting sunshine warm his bones while he waited for Aziraphale to bring more plants from the greenhouse. This year, their vegetable garden would be even bigger than before, as the strong angel had helped him till the entire area designated for it. Privately Crowley thought the thicket at the edge of the property was an eyesore, but Aziraphale had insisted the local wildlife needed it. Maybe that was why when Crowley shrank Queenie and Brahms, their two cars, down to cat size so they could freely roam the land, they tended to congregate there.
“Oi, mind your paint job!” he shouted at a streak of black. The Bentley pretended not to hear him as she chased Aziraphale’s Beetle in their constant game of tag.
“They’ll be fine, dearest,” Aziraphale called as he closed the door to the greenhouse. He carried a large tray of seedlings over to Crowley, his bare forearms barely straining with the effort. His gardening outfit was simple: a pale blue shirt damp with sweat, well-worn linen trousers, and a tan straw hat that hid his beautiful white-blond hair. Crowley squinted suspiciously at the dark object clutched between a couple of his fingers.
“Someone bless it, how did you find that hat?” he complained once Aziraphale came within a few yards of him. Aziraphale had given him a black straw hat to wear for gardening. Crowley pretended to hate it and kept hiding it in different locations. If Aziraphale expected him to wear it, he had to find it first.
“It was buried in the potting soil,” Aziraphale said. “Don’t worry; I shook all the dirt off. I don’t want you to get sunburned, but I’m sure you don’t want to mess up your beautiful hair either.”
“I’m a demon, angel, I’m not going to get burned. What I will get is insults if anyone sees me in such antiquated headwear!”
“Listen to yourself,” Aziraphale said fondly. “You would look dashing in a potato sack.”
Crowley allowed him to place the offensive hat on his hair, still carefully styled despite all his outdoor work, but he muttered, “I’d rather be naked.”
“That can be arranged.”
Aziraphale’s fingers drifted downward, caressing Crowley’s cheek and neck before landing on the top button of his shirt. Crowley leaned closer to him. They spent all their time together now, but Aziraphale’s scent had never stopped tempting him. Crowley sought out the angel’s pink, soft, perfectly kissable lips—
Before they could proceed any farther, Queenie bumped against Crowley’s foot, playing “Save me, save me, save me!”
Irritated by the interruption, Crowley growled at the Bentley, “You’re going to need saving—”
“Crowley, wait!” Aziraphale raised his hand, but his attention was directed at his yellow Beetle, playing some sort of classical tune. “That’s Brahms’ ‘The Nightingale!’”
Before Crowley could demand to know what that had to do with anything, both cars honked once, then sped toward the thicket. A couple of small brown birds flew out, cheeping angrily.
Aziraphale halted. “I think those are our nightingales, dearest!”
When they’d purchased Eden Cottage, they’d asked the real estate agent if nightingales sang in the area. The property had been perfect for them, but knowing their private symbol of safety and love was on hand sealed the deal. They’d still had to wait until springtime, when the birds migrated from Africa, to hear the famous song.
“Do you know anything about nightingales, angel?” Crowley asked as he and his husband hurried after the cars.
“Not really, other than that they’re becoming rare in England,” Aziraphale admitted. “I suppose I could talk to that lady who helped us purchase our cottage. She’s keen on birding.”
They halted in front of the thicket. It seemed like the antithesis of Eden with all of the weeds hiding in between thorny branches, but the animals must have liked it. Another brown bird hunched protectively over her nest in the grass. Despite the daylight, both cars switched on their headlights and pointed them further into the thicket. Crowley squatted to peer inside. Something small and pale stirred feebly on the ground.
“For Someone’s sake, it’s a baby bird.” Since Crowley’s arms were narrower than Aziraphale’s, he attempted to reach it. Aziraphale carefully raised a branch out of his way. Even so, thorns pierced through Crowley’s shirt and prompted him to curse in several tongues humans had forgotten.
“Language, dear,” Aziraphale said mildly.
“It can’t understand me.”
“It’s still young and impressionable.”
Crowley contorted himself until he could manage the final few inches separating his hand from the bird. He grasped it as gently as if it was still an egg and pulled it out to examine it. It was mostly an open mouth surrounded by fluff. The baby’s pulse fluttered weakly.
“Angel, do something, quickly!”
Aziraphale gestured. With a cheep, the nestling raised its head to beg for food, its heartbeat now fast but steady.
“Oh, good, I didn’t overwhelm the creature,” Aziraphale murmured. “I split the blessing in half and sent it in two different directions to be sure. What do we do with the nestling now? Is it safe to return it to the nest, or will its parents reject it?”
“Call your bird lady and see what she says,” Crowley suggested.
As Aziraphale returned to the cottage—Crowley had given him a mobile, but he seldom brought it with him—the demon scanned the thicket, looking for the nest. He didn’t think the baby bird belonged in the one in the grass, since it was so far away.
“It was the nightingale, not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear,” he recited absently from Romeo and Juliet. “Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”
The nestling stopped begging long enough to turn its still-closed eyes toward him.
By the time Crowley managed to spot the nest, his husband returned, one ear pressed against his mobile. He interjected a few polite phrases before covering the phone and nodding at Crowley. Taking that to mean it was safe to put the baby bird back, Crowley cupped it with one hand and cast a miracle with the other. The baby bird floated out of his hand and into the nest.
“Right.” Crowley wiped his hands on his jeans. “Where were we, angel? About to snog each other senseless before we—”
“Dearest, I’m on the—oh, never mind, she rung off.” As Aziraphale tucked his mobile in his basket, he gave Crowley an arch look. “Well, I do recall you wishing earlier to be in a state of undress. I suppose the sooner we’re done with our tasks, the sooner I can accommodate you.”
“Are we going to make this into a fertility ritual, then? Stark naked in the middle of the field?”
“Crowley!”
As the two of them bantered during their work, Crowley put the incident with the baby bird out of his mind.
***
A couple of weeks later, a heat wave arrived that made even Crowley wait until the evening to tend the garden. As he was cursing at some grubs, a small brown bird hopped slowly toward him.
“You don’t eat tomatoes, do you? Aziraphale is planning to make pasta sauce after harvest.” Crowley waved a hand at the bird to shoo it away. Instead, it cocked its head, then fluttered closer to him. He sat and watched it for a few minutes as it searched for insects in the dirt.
When Crowley heard Aziraphale come outside, he headed over to the stone patio. What better way to enjoy the sunset than with a glass of wine and his beloved angel? Aziraphale raised an eyebrow as he stared pointedly at Crowley’s hat-free head. Crowley simply grinned. His husband would have to wait until tomorrow to search for the straw hat, currently squished into a watering can.
“Is that the baby nightingale we rescued?” Aziraphale asked as the bird followed, a few feet at a time. “Its tail seems shorter than the other birds we saw.”
“Oh, it can’t be ready to fly so soon.” Crowley flung himself onto his side of the swing, almost causing Aziraphale to spill his glass. A quick miracle saved his shirt from a stain.
“They do grow up very fast,” his angel replied.
Crowley leaned against Aziraphale’s shoulder as his husband gently rocked the swing. The young nightingale glanced around multiple times before launching itself toward the roof of their cottage. Once it had safely landed, it began to sing. Aziraphale paused their rocking so they could listen. The bird’s neck pulsed with every note, and its beak opened wide as if to release the liquid sounds. When it fell silent, it glided back toward the thicket.
Crowley gestured toward the cottage, miracling Aziraphale’s record player into serenading them with “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”
“Dance with me, angel?”
Aziraphale didn’t reply, but he rose before Crowley could and offered him a hand. The two of them clung to each other, not bothering with actual dance steps. They simply swayed in place, Aziraphale’s head resting on Crowley’s shoulder. When the music ended, they silently slipped inside to cap off the evening with a little magic of their own.
***
The next morning, loud birdsong made Crowley’s eyes open much earlier than he wanted. Even the sight of Aziraphale in his reading glasses and tartan pajamas wasn’t enough to improve his mood. “Why is that blasted bird still singing?” he grumbled.
“It’s not the nightingale this time,” his angel replied. “I think it’s a lark.”
“A lark? A bloody lark?”
“I think it might be a blessed one, actually,” Aziraphale mumbled. “Remember, I directed the miracle into two different baby birds.”
“Fantastic. They’ll be chirping at us night and day.”
Aziraphale set his glasses and poetry book on the nightstand. “I think it’s rather romantic,” he said as he slipped under the covers to embrace Crowley. “Even better than the line from Romeo and Juliet.”
“I might need that apothecary’s help to fall back asleep,” Crowley complained out of habit.
“I rather doubt that, dearest.”
Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s hair and planted little kisses all over his face until the demon relaxed. He closed his eyes, the better to appreciate the smells of old paper and tea that clung to his angel. The last thought he had before falling back asleep was wondering how long he could tempt Aziraphale into staying in bed with him.
***
The rest of the summer seemed to pass in an eyeblink. No matter when Aziraphale or Crowley left the house, either the lark or the nightingale was on hand to serenade them. The lark apparently learned (Aziraphale must have had a hand in it) to greet the dawn somewhere else where Crowley couldn’t hear it.
One warm late August afternoon, while Crowley pruned the apple tree, Aziraphale drove into town to donate part of their harvest to a food bank. The angel looked thoughtful when he returned. After a quick kiss, Aziraphale followed Crowley into the greenhouse as the lark serenaded him overhead. Aziraphale determinedly opeied every storage compartment while Crowley hung his tools carefully on a pegboard.
“Put everything back properly, angel. This is not your library!”
“I take much better care of my books than you do your hat. Aha!” He triumphantly pulled the battered hat out of the back of a drawer. “You’re wearing it tomorrow, like it or not. Hope it stays on.” He blew on it until a spider crawled off. Crowley crossed his arms and waited until Aziraphale crammed everything else back in. He’d have to sort it out later.
“How’d it go at the food bank?” Crowley asked as they walked toward the cottage.
“They were very grateful for the fresh produce.” Aziraphale paused to gaze up into the apple tree, but he wasn’t studying the fruit. “Crowley, do you remember how we asked about nightingales when we purchased this residence, and our agent told us we had to wait until the spring to hear them?”
Crowley grunted an affirmation, then changed the subject. “Been waiting all day for that cabernet you picked up last week. I opened it to let it breathe when I felt you head home. Ready for a glass?”
“In a minute, dearest. Our agent was volunteering at the food bank, and she was very surprised when I mentioned our nightingale was still singing. It should have flown to Africa by now.”
“And both that and the lark stayed because of us. Well, we’re not driving them there. Still too much to do in the garden.”
“We have to do something,” Aziraphale insisted. “It’s our fault.”
“Your miracle, your fault.”
His angel flushed beautifully, exactly as Crowley had hoped. Then Aziraphale turned that pleading blue-gray gaze on him, and Crowley knew he’d lost the argument. Again.
“But you’re so clever, the way you come up with solutions. Surely you can think of something.”
Crowley repressed a sigh as he led his husband back to their cottage. “You could just snap them where they belong….”
“They’re so tiny. What if I hurt them, or accidentally send them somewhere dangerous? What if they need to fly there normally, and they’re not strong enough to return?”
All points Aziraphale could address with enough intent in his miracle. It sounded as if he was really trying to justify keeping the birds here. Crowley supposed there was no harm in that.
“Fine.” He didn’t even bother to pretend to be annoyed. “You provide the food for them over the winter, and I’ll set up a special shelter for them.”
“Wonderful!”
Crowley suppressed a grin as Aziraphale hugged him. He could make his husband happy and score checkmate in their little game at the same time.
***
When an early frost warning ended garden work for the season, Crowley put his plan into motion. While Aziraphale prepared dinner, Crowley brought his black straw hat to the thicket. By now, he could easily identify both the nightingale and the lark. The birds were devouring a mixture of seeds, suet, and meal worms Aziraphale had set out for them. They didn’t fly away as Crowley approached.
“Hope you two like each other,” he said quietly. “You're going to have to seek shelter under the same canopy.”
The unspoken rule in their Find Crowley’s Hat game was neither of them could use miracles to hide, find, or transform his straw hat. After dozens of rounds of hiding it in the most unlikely of places, the black had faded to patchy dark gray, there were several holes in the brim, and it had developed an odor best described as peculiar. Even Aziraphale was disinclined to handle the hat for very long, let alone make Crowley wear it anymore. It was past time for the game to end, and Crowley was determined that the final move would be his.
With a snap, Crowley miracled his hat to stay as warm as the birds needed and not fall apart. He figured a miracle like that didn’t violate their rule. Then he flung the hat into the thicket. He’d expected it to fall to the ground, but it snagged on a branch. He glared at it, mentally warning it to stay in place, even when the birds took shelter in it for the night.
“Perfect,” he whispered. “He won’t expect me to wear it again after you two have been living in it all winter—”
The import of what he’d just done struck him. How could he reject any gift of Aziraphale’s, no matter what state it was in? Desperately, Crowley thrust himself into the thicket to retrieve the hat. A hundred thorns snagged his clothes and bare skin, holding him back. He hissed at them until he was free. Snake form, that’s what he needed right now, he thought as he rubbed his hand. An agile form slender enough to slip through the branches, with scales tough enough to defend him. He’d have to move fast, before the cold turned him sluggish—
“Crowley? What are you doing?”
He turned his head. Aziraphale stood a few feet away, still wearing his favorite tartan apron over his comfortable “at home” outfit. He carried a pair of kitchen shears and a small basket with several sprigs of green-smelling herbs.
In Crowley’s panic, the only words that came to mind were ones that had haunted him for over six thousand years. “I gave it away!”
Aziraphale widened his eyes.
Crowley gestured backwards. “The hat. For the winter. The birds, you know, to keep them warm. You’re not mad?”
“Oh, Crowley.” His angel’s voice was soft and warm. “How could I possibly be mad at the kindest being in the universe?”
Dropping his kitchen supplies on the ground, Aziraphale hugged him, whispering sweet words until the stings of his scratches faded. Crowley leaned his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder and basked in his angel’s attention.
As he was getting comfortable, Aziraphale finished with, “I’ll get you another hat just like it next year.”
He took a deep breath. “Aziraphale, Someone help me, but I love you.”
“I love you too, Crowley.”
Perhaps there was some extra miracle power floating around Eden Cottage that afternoon. For as an angel and a demon kissed, a lark and a nightingale sang a duet just for them.