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My Wild Heart Which Bleeds

Chapter 9: Epilogue

Summary:

Our heroines get a little taste of happily ever after.

Notes:

Thank you to everyone who has patiently followed this fic and Happy Halloween!

Chapter Text

The wedding had been a quiet affair.

Tracy had been there, of course. She had cried loudly the whole way through the ceremony, little sniffs and sobs that had made Crowley roll her eyes at the alter, though of course neither she nor Aziraphale had really minded. Tracy was Crowley’s oldest and, until recently, only friend, and it had made Aziraphale happy to see someone so overjoyed for her soon-to-be wife that she should be overcome with emotion at the whole affair.

They had married out on the moors, by the castle. This was by preference as much as it was for privacy; Crowley had offered to sweep her off anywhere she liked, off to London or abroad, anywhere she had wanted to go, but Aziraphale hadn’t wanted to be anywhere but here.

This is where she had first laid eyes on Crowley those scant three years ago, in her dark, billowing cloak by the sea. This is where Crowley had saved her from the vampires that had been (unbenknownst to her) stalking her as she walked the wet path into town that frightful night, where Crowley had saved her from tumbling off the cliff.

Aziraphale thought that Crowley had saved her in many more ways than one that night. It was only appropriate to be married on the same spot.

Anathema had officiated, to the surprise and delight of them both. Their relationship had been...awkward with Anathema since that night with the coven in the warehouse, since she had fought back every instinct in her body and let Crowley live. She had been keeping a close eye on them both since then, and not bothering to be very secretive about it, but Aziraphale didn’t blame her. It made Crowley happy to know that there was someone out there keeping everyone else safe from her, which frustrated Aziraphale a little, but she knew it was for the best.

The tension between the three of them had lessened somewhat over time, though, in no small part because of the tireless peacekeeping efforts of Newt and the many times he dragged Anathema to the castle with cake or gossip or even the name of a particularly troublesome person causing Crowley’s kind of trouble the next town over. Anathema had seen that Crowley wasn’t likely to go on a rampage and start killing indiscriminately. Aziraphale had gone out and bought a small herd of sheep (and read everything she could about good shepherding and animal husbandry), so she wasn’t even likely to go and disturb neighboring farmers’ flocks when she got hungry. Slowly, over time, Anathema had begun to trust Crowley.

This had been especially important, considering.

Crowley had been stunning, of course. Her dress was head-to-toe black lace so tight she might as well have been dipped in it, which nearly caused Aziraphale to rush up and kiss her senseless the moment she saw her standing at the little altar they’d made up by the cliffside. Her own dress was a somewhat humbler offering of white silk and lace panels, but the look in Crowley’s eyes as Aziraphale approached, bouquet in hand, had told her that her wife-to-be felt much the same.

Neither of them had any family to speak of, or at least none that they ever would have invited to such an affair, so other than Newt and a small handful of townsfolk that Aziraphale had befriended over the past three years that had been the whole audience. Azirpahale couldn’t have cared less; she had been there, marrying the love of her life, and surrounded by the only people that had ever really mattered to her.

That had been enough.

After the ceremony they had put on a banquet of lamb, which had given those in the know a good giggle, and drunk wine well into the night. There was much laughter in those stone halls that night, more than they had seen in over a hundred years, and Aziraphale had been happy.

If she had taken the opportunity to savor every bite of her supper even more than usual, no-one had commented on it.

After fruit tarts were served along with a nightcap of good scotch, they had bid everyone farewell. Crowley sent them home with little cuttings from some of her more prolific plants as a symbol of their new beginnings, which had caused Tracy to burst into happy sobs again, and she had nearly smothered Crowley in a sniffling embrace before making her way out of the grand castle doors. The others had followed suit, wishing the pair of them well before shuffling out into the cool late summer evening on the moors, their feet turned towards home.

Anathema had been the last to go. She and Newt had paused in the doorway, Newt pleasantly drunk and happy, Anathema as sharp as ever.

“Are you certain?” she had asked, an echo of that fateful night at the warehouse.

Aziraphale had just smiled and looked up at Crowley, whose arm was around her waist. “As certain as I’ve ever been.”

Anathema had looked at Crowley “And you?”

Crowley hadn’t smiled. She’d met Anathema’s gaze with a serious, sincere look and simply said, “Yes. I am.”

Anathama had nodded. Then she had turned, and the both of them had been gone into the night.

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Aziraphale giggled as her foot missed another stair, pitching her forward slightly into Crowley’s arms where she had been snogging her senseless. “Oh, do forgive me, wife of mine,” she said, voice high and nearly breathless from delight. “I must have lost my footing for a moment.”

Crowley pretended to growl and scooped her up with inhuman strength, spinning her around and slamming her against the cold stone wall of the stairwell. “You’re a terrible liar, wife of mine,” she said, though her on breathlessness betrayed her. She kissed Aziraphale again, stealing the giggle from her throat, causing them both to moan lowly.

“Bed, you absolute beast,” Aziraphale insisted after a few moments, though being lifted so effortlessly had caused her head to spin with want. “Come on, Crowley, it’s my wedding night and I’d like to do this thing properly.”

“You’re the one who started snogging me on the stairs,” Crowley argued rather weakly, but she allowed Aziraphale’s feet to meet stone once again and then allowed herself to be tugged by the wrist along to their bedroom.

Their chambers hadn’t changed much from when Aziraphale had gotten that first peek on her tour of the castle. It was still a large, lofty space with a huge four-poster bed pushed against the back wall. The room had significantly more bookshelves than it had had before, but considering how little convincing it had taken to get Crowley to buy them, Aziraphale didn’t think she minded.

It made Aziraphale happy, and that was what mattered.

This time it was Aziraphale who pushed Crowley down onto their black coverlet, immediately laying herself on top and continuing to snog her breathless. They stayed like this for a long while, drinking each other in, hands gliding smoothly over lace but never straying too far before retreating again, which served mostly to make the both of them even more desperate.

Aziraphale tugged wordlessly at Crowley’s shoulders, encouraging her to lean up and give Aziraphale access to the zipper at her back without having to break their kiss. She unzipped Crowley’s dress blindly but carefully, searching fingers spreading greedily over every inch of cool back as it was revealed. When she was fully unzipped, Aziraphale encouraged Crowley into a sort of shimmying motion to rid her of the dress, diving back in to meet her lips again when they were forced to part briefly as Crowley stepped out of the last of the lace, gasping again as though this kiss was the first one all over again. She hadn’t been wearing anything under her dress.

“Mmmrph,” Crowley tried to say, not quite managing to separate herself from Aziraphale’s near-frantic kisses as her wife was perched in her lap. She tried again, this time pulling away and laying a gentle finger on Aziraphale’s searching lips, “You too, love, need to get you out of this.” She tugged at Aziraphale’s white lace, “Be a shame to ruin such a pretty clean thing.” There was a lilt to her voice that Aziraphale could recognize, even through her fog of lust -- teasing, but with a deeper sort of anxiety that Aziraphale was well-versed in from her wife.

Somehow, she didn’t think Crowley was just talking about the dress.

Aziraphale pouted around the finger at her lips. Crowley had taken a monumental amount of convincing to get them to this night -- the first time Aziraphale had brought it up, she had been slightly worried Crowley would disappear into the night and never return just to protect her. She had slowly come around though, with Aziraphale working to convince her through careful logic and heartfelt declarations and the occasional bit of outright pleading. Still, Aziraphale knew it weighed on her mind.

“Fuck the dress,” she said, carefully and deliberately once Crowley had removed her fingers gently. She shimmied in Crowley’s lap almost cruelly, making them both shiver, and said, “Let it be ruined. I want you, please -- one last time?”

It was obvious Crowley was too weak to refuse this from her wife. Her eyes were full of a somewhat hesitant lust as they gazed up at Aziraphale’s face, but she didn’t argue as Aziraphale gently cupped the back of her head and guided her mouth towards the open expanse of her neck, the scooped line of her wedding dress leaving plenty of room for Crowley to give the warm skin a long, sensuous lick.

“Are you sure?” Crowley asked, huskily, as she had asked every time they had done this over the past three years.

As she in turn had done every time, Aziraphale huffed a laugh and replied, “Yes, I’m sure. I love you.”

Crowley smiled as her fangs extended in her mouth, the canines growing sharper and longer as she became closer to the creature she truly was inside. She laid one last kiss to the soft spot on Aziraphale’s neck where it just began to curve into her shoulder.

Then, she struck.

Sharp fangs sank into soft flesh in a flash and Aziraphale cried out, shivering and shaking in her wife’s lap as Crowley’s arms became an iron cage, holding her prey close as she fed.

Aziraphale breathed heavily through it, the sensation of Crowley drinking her hot blood making her head spin and her heart pump all the faster as it always did. She whispered soft words of encouragement as Crowley drank languidly, unhungry and unhurried, and moved in her lap in aborted sort of rocking motions that made her gasp in the aftershocks of her pleasure.

Crowley growled softly, then, a possessive and encouraging little noise much like a purr that made Aziraphale laugh with a dizzy delight.

Crowley held Aziraphale tight against her body while Aziraphale finally stilled and settled into the embrace, letting Crowley take her pleasure for the last time. Then, finally, just before Aziraphale began to wonder idly if Crowley was nearing the edge of too much, Crowley’s grip loosened. Her fangs slid carefully out of Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale winced at the sting of this, though the pain was immediately ameliorated by a healing lick from Crowley that made the small wounds close up and the sting ease.

There were flecks of blood staining the otherwise pure white of her lace gown, but Aziraphale couldn’t have cared less in that moment. She looked down at her wife for a moment. She took in the gentle smear of blood that was already being licked reverantly from Crowley’s lips, the little dopey look she always got when she had just fed.

And the love. Shining like a beacon from those beautiful yellow eyes was purest, most unadulterated love Aziraphale had ever seen. Her breath caught and her heart raced all over again, and she smiled.

“You are a fascinating creature,” she said, pressing a kiss to Crowley’s forehead and then, boldly, to her still-stained lips, “My vampire, my love. My wife.”

Crowley’s cheeks flushed -- another wonderful side effect of having just fed -- and she replied, “I must say, you’re not so bad yourself.” One of the hands that were braced loosely on Aziraphale’s hips wandered cheekily over her bum and squeezed, causing Aziraphale to laugh breathlessly again.

“Don’t think you can get out of the cheesy things that easily, you rascal, I know you love it,” Aziraphale insisted, teasingly. She cupped her hands around Crowley’s still-warm cheeks and said, somewhat more subdued, “Besides, I do believe it’s my turn now.”

Crowley released the breath she’d been holding slowly, slightly sobered by the reminder. It was a mark of just how many times they’d had the conversation over the past two years or so that she didn’t scowl, or argue, or ask ‘are you sure?’ but rather simply nodded, only a little discomfort on her face.

She looked up at Aziraphale again, eyes full. “Last chance to get off, then.”

Aziraphale smiled and raised one of her hands, the one with Crowley’s wedding band nestled carefully on her ring finger. “I do believe that ship has sailed, my dear.”

Crowley nodded again. She tilted her face up in an obvious request for a kiss which Aziraphale granted immediately, pressing her love and her certainty onto Crowley’s lips as though it could convince that last hesitant part of her that this was alright, it was what she wanted.

After only a few moments they parted again, smiling softly at each other as though they had just shared a secret. Then, Crowley brought the pointer finger of one hand up between them. It grew as they watched, lengthening and sharpening between them just as her fangs had a few moments ago, curling slightly into a claw.

They shared a few breaths together, just gazing into each others’ eyes. Then, Crowley reached down and made a short cut just over her left breast, by her heart.

Thick red blood pooled up immediately, too dark and sluggish to be fresh human blood but thinner and redder than it might have been had she not just fed. Aziraphale stared at it for a moment, watching it slowly work its way down the soft skin of Crowley’s breast. Then, carefully, keeping contact with her wife’s eyes the whole time, she leaned down for a taste.