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The letter arrived by the first morning’s post. Ordinarily, Aziraphale ignored the first morning’s post, which tended to contain rather annoying letters from Heaven saying how spectacularly badly he was doing. Or, just as often, more assignments for him to complete so that he could be chastised for how spectacularly badly he was doing.
In this particular instance, though, he was waiting for a particular letter. He had been waiting for over a week, and was really starting to get a bit impatient. But today, it had arrived.
He smiled as soon as he saw the familiar messy handwriting, opened it, and read it while standing just inside the door. Then, humming to himself, he flipped the bookshop sign to closed, and went to get properly dressed.
He didn’t bother picking up the mail from Heaven. It could wait until later.
It was a lovely spring day, with just a light breeze and a thin gauze of clouds across the sky. Flowers blossomed all over, beautiful spots of color. They had been blooming for a couple of weeks now, but they seemed so much brighter today. Aziraphale bent by one of the flowerbeds, then proceeded onward.
Crowley was right where he’d said he would be, on their usual bench in St. James’s Park. He was, unsurprisingly, surrounded by ducks who seemed awfully annoyed that he hadn’t started feeding them yet.
“Oy, Aziraphale!” he called loudly enough that some of the humans gave him deeply scandalized looks. “Over here!”
Aziraphale waved back, waded through the ducks, and joined him. “Welcome back from America, Crowley.”
He held out the daffodil he’d picked, a beautifully rich golden yellow that matched Crowley’s eyes and his own hat band. Crowley took it, grinning. “Thanks, angel. It’s good to be back.”
“And it’s good to have you.” Aziraphale had an awfully strong urge to kiss Crowley on the forehead, but as that would require removing both their hats and creating some awkwardness, he chose not to. Instead, he moved a duck that had jumped up on the bench. “Oh dear. There’s mud in my spot.”
“Whoops, hold on.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and the mud vanished.
“Thank you, my dear.” With a contented sigh, Aziraphale settled in beside him and took the bag of duck snacks from his lap. “And what do we have for the ducks today?”
“I needed to unwind after my flight back, so I chopped up some veggies for ‘em.”
Aziraphale gave him an alarmed look, pausing in the middle of pulling out a handful of diced carrots. “You flew back, all the way across the Atlantic? Oh, your wings must be so tired!”
Crowley’s expression went remarkably soft, and he chuckled. “Not that kind of flight,” he said affectionately. “On one of the brand new jets. They’re terrific.”
“Oh! Oh, yes. That does rather make more sense.” Relieved, Aziraphale tossed some of the carrots down, then watched the ducks scrambling after their snacks. They quacked eagerly, extremely excited. “And how was New York? Did everything go all right?”
“Oh yeah. Pretty simple jobs, honestly. Encourage greed, that sort of thing.” Crowley grabbed more veggies and scattered them in front of the bench. Even more ducks flocked over. “And you? Lots of good deeds here?”
“Oh, yes. Always. And I took care of that little bribery job, too.”
“Thanks. Handled your blessings.” Twirling his daffodil in one hand, Crowley smiled as he watched the ducks. Then he gave Aziraphale a questioning look. “Once they’re done eating, you wanna grab a bite to eat too? Travel always gives me an appetite.”
Aziraphale beamed at him. “Oh, yes! Breakfast sounds so lovely.”
There was a quick flutter of an eyelid behind dark glasses, a flirty wink. “It’s a date, then.”
Blushing, Aziraphale tossed down more carrots and watched as the ducks raced over to snap them up. Right now, even the thought of the other letters still waiting at the shop couldn’t dim his spirits. Crowley was back, and that meant that everything was simply wonderful.