The urge to press Aziraphael up against the kitchen counter, to kiss him and to start all over again, is so sudden and sharp that it feels being knifed.

And he can't -

Still, Aziraphael seems about as blithely cheerful as Crowley could hope for, and there's a sort of pride to be taken in that.

Mission accomplished, he thinks.

"Right," he says again. "And I'm sure in another few decades, they'll understand that when you opened the box and the rabbit hadn't turned up again, it was supposed to be a metaphor."