And a Silver Sixpence in His Shoe

Day 1: Something Unexpected

“Azira.”

Anthony calls for him from his peculiar perch on Aziraphale’s bed - sprawled out on his back, with his head hanging off the edge, long hair flowing down to the floor. He stares ahead at a wall; his eyes are still reddened. It’s been a long day.

“Yeah?” Aziraphale responds. His attention, the whole of it, is now on the other boy.

He is - has always been - Anthony’s complete opposite. It shows, quite clearly, in everything about the two of them. Even how Aziraphale sits is a complete contrast to his friend - cross-legged, hands folded neatly in his lap, stiff where Anthony is loose, like liquid. He feels an urge to rock himself back and forth, and he knows Anthony won’t mind, but still, he resists it, straightens his back instead. He listens; just as his parents have taught him - ‘if you care, Aziraphale, you will not move a muscle’.

He needs Anthony to know that he cares.

“Let’s make a promise,” Anthony says. He shoots up like a spring unfurled and before Aziraphale can even blink, Anthony is in front of him, nearly-yellow eyes peering directly into his. Aziraphale doesn’t startle. He stares right back, head cocked to the side.

“What about?”

“Well…” Anthony mirrors him, cocking his head in much the same way. He clicks his tongue. “Let’s promise that… if…”

He’s dragging it out on purpose. Aziraphale knows him. He waits, patient.

“...by the time we’re… hm. By the time we’re 35…”

He leans in. So does Aziraphale. Their foreheads bump and they grin. It’s the first time Anthony has smiled that day.

“...if, by the time we’re 35, we don’t have a - wife or a husband or a girlfriend or boyfriend or anyone, we’ll marry each other. Okay?”

There is no hesitation.

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Anthony.”

If there is one thing to be said about Aziraphale Z. Fell is that he leads an ordinary, quiet life.

He lives in Soho, London, above an old bookshop that he’s been fortunate enough to inherit in his late twenties. He likes sushi and good wine. He has a few friends - like Nina, who works at the coffee shop across the street; or Maggie, who runs the record store that he takes an absolute pleasure in frequently purchasing from.

(He’s lonely. Terribly so. He’s been lonely for about ten years now, since - he does not want to think about that.)

Today is his 35th birthday.

That fact in of itself may be shocking to some people - people’s first impressions of Aziraphale tend to be that he’s awfully, gleefully gay; that he’s extremely eccentric (with his speech, his mannerisms and the whole of his being); and that he’s at least 45. He never corrects them.

He’s planned for today to be another ordinary, quiet day. He has, rather firmly, refused his family’s invitation to a big birthday dinner - they’ve been inviting him, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, for the last five or so years. Perhaps that is one thing that he’s kept from Anthony - this sudden, unwavering confidence that everything will be okay, even when it feels like the world around him is shattering whenever he has to say no to his family.

In any case, his plans for his birthday are simple and painstakingly ordinary. First, he’ll go out to his favourite sushi restaurant and have a perfectly ordinary meal there. He may even, if the fancy strikes him so, buy enough sushi so that he can take some of it back home and treat himself to a breakfast sushi the following morning. It is his birthday, after all!

Then, once he’s full of sushi and sated, he’ll stop by Maggie’s store and buy a new record. A record that he most definitely doesn’t need, considering the rather extensive collection he’s already in possession of, but, well. Birthday!

By the end of the day, nothing will have changed. Much as he’s woken up, Aziraphale Z. Fell, an ordinary bookseller, he will, too, go to sleep as Aziraphale Z. Fell, an ordinary, lonely bookseller. There is not even a second when he entertains the possibility that something unexpected might happen today. Not one. Not a moment.

(He’s turning 35.)

That is until, not long after he’s had breakfast and came downstairs to the main shop floor, there’s a knock on the front door. Aziraphale huffs - his bookshop is most definitely closed today - and then makes a beeline to the door, purely for the satisfaction of shooing away whoever has dared to bother him on his birthday.

(He’s turning 35 and he doesn’t hope.)

He opens the door. He knows, even before his brain has the time to register what’s in front of him. Or who, rather.

“Hey, angel. Been a while.”