Chapter Text
The next few weeks passed excruciatingly slowly, from Crowley's perspective, but Aziraphale didn't seem as worried. The whole situation was worsened by a spate of bad weather, which kept the children inside and Aziraphale stuck at the lighthouse, watching over the great beacon to protect ships large and small. But Crowley visited her often, sometimes even staying the night, and they were slowly crossing off the names of some of the town's wealthier residents from a list Aziraphale and the children had made, so whenever Crowley got too tetchy, Aziraphale would try to help by reminding her of that. Sometimes, it even worked.
Crowley didn't need a cloudless night to be aware of her time running out; the cycles of the moon were in her blood, just like the motion of the tides, and she could feel the days slipping away, like the sand through the strange contraption Aziraphale called an hourglass . It was apt: she could no more stop the sand from flowing than she could keep the moon from waxing full and then beginning to wane again.
Time was running out.
Crowley was interrupted from her brooding -- staring out one of the lighthouse’s downstairs windows into the storm -- by a pair of thick, muscular arms sliding over her shoulders in an embrace, the hands clasping over her breastbone. “What’s wrong, my dear?” Aziraphale said, so close to Crowley’s ear that she could feel some of her angel’s flyaway hair brush her cheek.
“Worrying,” Crowley admitted, and Aziraphale’s arms hugged her tighter. “The time is passing so quickly, and I feel like I’m just sitting here doing nothing.”
“Well, there’s only so much poking around you can do, as a stranger to town,” Aziraphale said, and while she was absolutely right, her reasonable tone made Crowley want to hiss and claw at something, foolish though she knew the instinct to be. “And the children are limited, too, since their parents don’t like to let them out in this kind of weather.” There was a puff of a sigh against Crowley’s cheek, and she leaned into it, which allowed her to nuzzle said cheek against Aziraphale’s mouth until she chuckled and kissed her. There were some kinds of physical affection she and Aziraphale could never share -- ones that required them to both be able to stay underwater for far longer than even the strongest pearl-diver -- but there were land traditions that Crowley was definitely growing to enjoy instead, and the touch of dry skin in the cool air of the lighthouse was very different than touching underwater.
“I know,” Crowley said, instead of any of the things she was thinking about. “Brooding is just in my nature.”
Aziraphale chuckled again, the air of her breath moving enticingly against Crowley’s cheek once more. “I could distract you, if you like.” If her low, breathy tone wasn’t enough, the way she unclasped her hands and ran one down Crowley’s side, just this side of what Crowley knew would be considered acceptable in public, made her intentions clear.
“Is that so?” Crowley teased, turning in her chair so that Aziraphale’s lower hand rested on her belly…and the upper one on the slight curve of her breast. “Did you have any particular ideas?”
They had been experimenting with all the interesting ways they could bring one another pleasure in the long weeks while they’d been waiting, but mostly with Crowley in her sea form, making a mess of the lighthouse’s ground floor when sloshing seawater out of Aziraphale’s tin tub. They’d also cuddled and kissed in the big, soft old bed in the lighthouse’s upstairs bedroom, but Aziraphale had clearly been very careful to not push Crowley while she was in her less-familiar shape . It was sweet, but it could also be no end of frustrating.
“With the fire going, it’s likely to be less damp upstairs than down here,” Aziraphale posed. “Unless you prefer the damp,” she added quickly, blushing in clear embarrassment.
Now it was Crowley’s turn to wrap her arms around Aziraphale’s neck, kissing her pink cheeks until she giggled and wrapped her arms tightly around Crowley’s neck, pulling her up out of the chair to make them both more comfortable. “I’m a sea creature, certainly, but this kind of damp just gets into your bones and makes you miserable,” she groused, and Aziraphale grinned impishly. She hefted Crowley into her arms and began to carry her up the spiraling stairs in the center of the room, despite Crowley’s irritated squawks.
The squawks became much more pleased noises when Aziraphale gently set her down to sit on the foot of the humble but large bed, before stepping back to quickly and efficiently remove her clothes, folding or hanging them up neatly so she could get back into them in a hurry if she needed to redress quickly to tend her charge. Crowley began to eel out of her own clothes just as quickly but with much less care, until they stood facing each other in just their under-dresses, a contrast of black and white. Aziraphale looked searchingly over Crowley’s face, and Crowley was uncertain what she was trying to find, but she seemed to decide something, nodding her head once decisively. Those deft hands gripped the fabric that still ensconced her, and then she pulled it up and off in one smooth move, leaving herself naked in front of Crowley, seeming to glow slightly in the lamplight, like something golden half-hidden in the sand. Crowley gaped in what was probably a horribly embarrassing manner for a moment -- still astonished by Aziraphale’s beauty -- but before the embarrassed blush spread too far on Aziraphale’s cheeks, Crowley stripped off as well, standing bare and two-legged before Aziraphale for the first time.
Crowley had seen Aziraphale naked plenty of times by now, not that it in any way decreased her enjoyment of it, but this was the first time Aziraphale had seen her in human form, without the protection of her scales and the comfort of the thick paddle of her tail, rather than the still-sometimes-strange sensation of having legs. Crowley could see Aziraphale looking over her body, probably taking in the same differences that Crowley herself was thinking about, and she knew her blush of arousal had probably taken on an embarrassed cast by this point. She was slim and bony where Aziraphale was soft, fishskin pale even now where Aziraphale’s skin was a healthy peaches and cream in the lamplight. But her expression was not dismayed or disgusted; on the other hand, she seemed just as fascinated with this version of Crowley's body as the other.
“Like what you see?” Crowley attempted to tease, concerned it had fallen flat when Aziraphale was quiet for a long time.
“Oh, very much so.” Aziraphale’s reply was decidedly heated when it finally came, and as if to prove her point, she stepped up into Crowley's space until she was forced to sit back onto the edge of the bed. For once, Aziraphale towered over her, waterfall curls and fathoms of soft skin and billowing curves. “I like it very much. May I?” she asked, but before Crowley could ask what she was asking permission for, Aziraphale was kissing her deeply, and her hands were cupping Crowley’s breasts, only slightly larger in this form, although her nipples were somehow even more reactive; she found herself moaning brokenly at the first touch of Aziraphale’s fingers, turning into a wail when Aziraphale pulled back from the kiss, grinning, and dropped to her knees between Crowley’s thighs to get one of the raspberry buds into her mouth. They stayed like that for a while, Aziraphale worshipping her breasts, Crowley at a loss for what to do with her hands, before finally tangling them in Aziraphale’s curls, something she couldn’t do when her fingers were fully webbed.
Aziraphale seemed content to focus on her breasts for a while, but Crowley had no complaints. Eventually, though, Aziraphale pulled back, but only far enough to press on Crowley's knees, spreading her legs wide and making more space for Aziraphale to get closer…and putting Crowley's unfamiliar cunt on full display.
Crowley always had a cunt whenever she was in a two-legged form, but she'd never spend much time on land, and Aziraphale was the only land dweller she'd ever had sex with…and even then, while had a more than passing familiarity with Aziraphale’s body -- cunt and all -- this was their first time having sex while Crowley was in this form, and she was more than a little nervous, no matter how excited Aziraphale clearly was.
Speaking of Aziraphale, she was sweeping her eyes over the revealed space between Crowley's thighs, only the obvious pleasure and hunger in her expression keeping it from becoming too strange. Crowley felt her smile go fond, a delightful warm spreading through her body and washing the nerves. “What does it look like?” she asked, the words tumbling out of her in a rush with her even realizing they were coming.
“It's beautiful, you're beautiful,” Aziraphale said, sounding slightly breathless. She reached forward and used one thumb to separate Crowley's labia further, it felt like, and Crowley couldn't hold back the little moan at even such a delicate touch to the already-heated, damp skin. “I'm not exactly an expert, but you look human here, too, in this form. You're very pink -- like the inside of a conch shell -- and you're already quite wet,” which Crowley could feel with her labia parted, “and your clit,” Aziraphale continued, “is something I'd really like to get my mouth on, if that's alright.”
“Go ahead,” Crowley said weakly, with a feeble wave of a welcoming hand.
Aziraphale chuckled, surprisingly low and warm, which did something twisty to Crowley's insides, and then she dove into Crowley's cunt with reckless abandon.
***
The weather cleared at last overnight, leaving a clear summer day in its wake, so of course the Them and Warlock -- practically a member of the little gang now, which Crowley knew made Aziraphale happy for some reason -- appeared at the lighthouse that afternoon, as soon as they could get away from their other responsibilities. It took some cajoling, the promise of biscuits and tea, and Crowley raising an eyebrow at the collected children to calm the down from an outright cacophony to being able to speak one at a time, but they eventually got there, and the children shared what they'd learned, while Aziraphale asked clarifying questions and took careful notes. Crowley sat by the window and looked out at the waves; she didn't know anything about most of the people and things they were talking about, and she knew Aziraphale would alert her if there was something important she might be missing.
At last, the room fell silent, just the sounds of the children enjoying their snack, and Crowley turned back to them, watching how Aziraphale had sat back from the table and was rubbing the bridge of her nose, expression pained. Crowley desperately wanted to cross the room and run soothing fingers over her neck and scalp and the contours of her face, massaging away the discomfort, but land dwellers seemed reluctant to engage in all but the most basic physical touch in public. She wasn't sure if the Them counted as public , but maybe she could get her hands on Aziraphale after the children had left, whether or not her obvious headache was still present.
“So, what have we learned, in summary?” Crowley asked, allowing herself to leave the window and bring the chair over to the table, seating herself just close enough to Aziraphale that their knees touched under the table. Aziraphale tossed her a barely-there look of thanks, and spread her hand over the page she'd been taking notes on.
“It seems like our culprit is Gabriel Fell, one of the wealthiest men in Angel’s Point,” Aziraphale said. “Pepper’s mother is his housekeeper, and Pepper saw a shell fitting your description on display in Gabriel's office when she was at the house to help her mother.”
Pepper nodded in agreement. She snagged a scrap of paper from Aziraphale’s pile and pulled it and a pencil over to herself, and in just a few minutes she had sketched out what was clearly the pod’s shell, sitting in display in some awful land dweller’s home, like a pretty rock or a bit of broken-off coral with an interesting shape. Crowley growled slightly, but the children seemed unconcerned, and Aziraphale seemed to understand what she meant.
She tapped Crowley gently with her foot, and Crowley took a deep breath, forcing herself to at least project calm. “Thank you, Pepper,” she managed eventually, and the girl beamed. “That looks exactly like it.” Then Crowley turned to Aziraphale and asked, “He’s a Fell, too? Does that mean he's part of your lineage--your family, I mean?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale said, but she seemed reluctant. “The Fell family is quite large, and spread out all over Angel’s Point and the surrounding towns, but Gabriel is…not a member of the branch of the family that cares for this lighthouse, and while our parents threw us together often, we never particularly got along.”
“Mr. Fell is mean,” Adam said, almost whispering, and Aziraphale smiled slightly.
“ Actually , Mr. Fell is a man who has a large amount of money, and he cares about that more than he cares about people,” Wensleydale chimed in, and Crowley stared at him. “At least, that's what Mother told Father once, after he didn't help the carpenter who got hurt while fixing his roof.”
“Your mother is quite right,” Aziraphale said decisively, and the boy lost his defensiveness. “But that means that we may be able to use that trait against him. Crowley,” she said, and she looked up from where she'd been studying her fingers as they lay on the wood, trying to remain calm and not go storming into town to find this fake-Fell and tear him limb from limb. “Crowley, I assume you have relatively easy access to things underwater that land dwellers value but have a difficult time reaching.” Crowley nodded. “Well -- and I know this is somewhat distasteful, since if Gabriel were a good man, hopefully just the knowledge that the shell was stolen from your pod might be enough -- would you be willing to trade resources from the deep to get the shell back?”
“Absolutely,” Crowley said, nodding vigorously. “Short of preventing the taking of one of my pod into captivity on land, nothing is more important to us than that shell.”
Aziraphale looked out the window, then laid her hands on the table and pushed herself to standing. “It should be early enough that we can still call on Gabriel now. Children, you'll walk back with us into town, then Crowley and I will go to Gabriel to try to talk to him. Our family relation should hopefully at least get us in the door, then we'll figure out the rest once we've got him. Sound good?”
There was a chorus of agreement and the children hurried to finish their snack. Aziraphale tossed back the last of her tea and then went to get a light summer jacket. Human obsession with covering themselves so many layers had driven Crowley spare when she'd first arrived in Angel's Point, and while she was better used to it now, she still missed the freedom of underwater nudity, and sometimes ran around the lighthouse in just her shift if Aziraphale was confident they wouldn't be interrupted.
Soon enough, they were all ready to go, clustered at the door. The Them sprinted ahead once they got outside, and she and Aziraphale walked behind them at a more sedate pace. “You're quiet,” Aziraphale commented eventually, and Crowley glanced sideways at her.
“I'm working on how to be my most wily and persuasive,” she said -- which was mostly true, since only part of her brain was still stuck on that thing Aziraphale had done with her tongue earlier -- and the echoes of Aziraphale’s laughter accompanied them back to the village.
***
As Aziraphale had said, family connection was enough to get them through the front door and into a space clearly meant for entertaining -- Aziraphale called it the good parlour, interesting , whatever that meant -- with a big fireplace and lots of things to sit on, bookshelves lining the walls.
Crowley wasn't sure how she could tell, but there was something different about this library, compared to Aziraphale’s. Maybe it was the way the books sat in perfect, serried rows on the shelves, interrupted only by the occasional knickknack, but the books didn't look like they were touched very often, and seemed to exactly fill the room’s shelf space, no more, no less. Aziraphale's library was smaller, but filled with well-thumbed books on all the topics that interested her, bursting from the lighthouse's insufficient shelves into stacks on most available surfaces and even onto the floor in places.
They were left alone, the fire crackling despite the early summer heat, long enough that Aziraphale made a discontented noise over it.
But just as Aziraphale started muttering about ringing the bell for a servant or escaping the parlour entirely, the door opened and a man walked in. Crowley was not good with human faces, but she didn't see much of a family resemblance between the two. Gabriel was tall and muscular by land dweller standards, whereas Aziraphale’s strength was present but hidden, more similar to the whales and orcas of Crowley's experience. The man’s dark hair was perfectly styled, not a strand out of place, and he was smiling, but it was the smile of a shark, and it did not reach his flat, oddly-colored eyes. Crowley had never seen a land dweller with eyes that shade of purple.
“Aziraphale, cousin!” he cried out once the door was closed, rushing across the room to drag her into what looked like an uncomfortable hug. “What brings you here? You haven't visited in ages .”
“Yes, well, the lighthouse keeps me busy,” Aziraphale said, pulling away as soon as Gabriel's arms started to relax and taking a full step back to get out of his reach. She brushed at some wrinkles the hug had put into her dress, clearly avoiding Gabriel’s gaze. “I'd say you know how it is , but I don't believe you ever received any training, did you?”
Although Aziraphale's statement was sweet as freshwater, Crowley could read some kind of undercurrent there, especially in the way Gabriel's smile went tight and angry for just a moment before it returned to normal. She made a mental note to ask Aziraphale about it later. “Still, cousin dear, something must have brought you all the way into town and to my humble abode,” Gabriel said, draping a clearly-unwanted arm over Aziraphale's shoulders again and dragging her with him across the room so they stood in front of the fireplace. Not knowing what else to do, Crowley followed them at a safe distance, even if that meant coming into the sweltering space in front of the fire. “And you brought a friend ,” he added, twisting the word somehow so that it sounded like an insult.
“Ms. Crowley is visiting Angel’s Point, in part to recover a family heirloom that was stolen from her family seat, and she has good evidence that it ended up here in town, purchased perhaps unknowingly by a member of the town gentry,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley watched Gabriel's face, but he didn't even twitch.
“I see,” Gabriel said. “And you thought I might have information?”
“You are more likely to have access to gossip in that social group, yes,” Aziraphale said lightly, and Crowley had to hide how much she wanted to kiss the breath right out of her angel in that moment. “But we have already located the item in question.”
Gabriel's face went stony, and he dropped the arm from Aziraphale's shoulders; if she hadn't known better, Crowley would have sworn the temperature in the room even dropped slightly, despite the obnoxious heat from the fireplace. “What do you want,” he said finally, barely even a question.
Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, who nodded minutely. “I want it back,” Crowley said simply. “My…family has access to many underwater resources, and I was hoping we could make some kind of…bargain, I suppose.”
“Well,” Gabriel said, clapping his hands together and with obviously false cheer, “if we are going to be discussing business, we should relocate this conversation to the office, shall we?” He grabbed Aziraphale again -- the casual, clearly unwanted touching was making Crowley want to get her fangs and claws out, but she knew that wasn’t an option -- and half-dragged her out a side door into another room, Crowley on their heels.
This room was, if anything, more foreboding than the previous, clearly meant to impress. A massive desk faced into the room, big windows with heavy curtains behind it…and right there, on a display shelf between the two windows, was the shell, just out of Crowley’s reach as they came to a stop in front of the desk. Crowley had to resist the desire to dive over the desk, grab the shell, and flee, especially when Gabriel waved a careless hand at it and said, “I assume that’s what you’re here for?”
“Yes,” Crowley said, staring at it, knowing her expression was probably giving away her hunger but hoping the glasses would hide that somewhat. Still, even through the glasses, the shell looked undamaged, and she made a quick prayer of thanks to the Goddess Herself for that. “It has been in my family for longer than anyone can remember, and we very much wish it returned to its proper place.”
“How odd,” Gabriel said, resting an elbow in one hand so he could cup his chin. “It was found underwater.”
Crowley wasn’t sure what to say to that, but Aziraphale was her usual brilliant self, and cut in with, “Ms. Crowley told me that the thief who had originally stolen it had been seen boarding a ship, which must have sunk with the shell aboard.”
“Hmm,” Gabriel said, expression unreadable; Crowley wasn’t sure if he believed them. “Well, the magistrate declared it salvage, and I paid Mr. Sandalphon a great deal of money for it. It would take a great deal of pearls and fish to equal it,” he added, with a big, humorless grin. Crowley was once again reminded of a shark, the big ones who swam through the world teeth-first and that the pod always warned its young to avoid.
“Would the magistrate change his decision if he knew the item was stolen goods?” Aziraphale asked, and Gabriel’s expression shifted only slightly. It was a good plan, Crowley had to acknowledge, but it might take too long. “If I recall correctly,” Aziraphale continued, “neither you nor Mr. Sandalphon would be punished, as neither of you were involved in the original theft, but you would be enjoined to return it to its rightful owner, and I don’t believe you would receive any of that great deal of money back.”
“She’d have to prove it,” Gabriel insisted, his façade starting to crack a little. That was something Crowley had been worried might be the case, since at the moment it was only her word against the diver’s, and it wasn’t exactly like she could change into her sea form as proof.
“Perhaps,” Aziraphale said, “but the magistrate is a kind and thoughtful man, and I’m certain he would take Ms. Crowley’s suit seriously.”
“My family has found secret ways to reach deeper parts of the ocean,” Crowley added, after an idea came to her like the light of an angler fish in the dark. “Deeper than any fisher or diver. We of course cannot share our methods, but have access to minerals and plant resources land--most people could never even imagine. Much more valuable than mere pearls and fish .”
“I will consider it,” Gabriel said, after a long, tense moment. “Will you return in a few days for us to discuss the matter further?”
“Certainly,” Aziraphale said, but Crowley could tell something was wrong. She followed as Aziraphale went through the motions of ending their visit, and the two of them were quiet until they were passing through the outskirts of town along the path to the lighthouse.
“He didn’t believe us, or at least he didn’t believe me,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale nodded, expression pensive. “He’s going to say no, and he’ll call our bluff if we threaten to take him to the magistrate again.”
“Almost certainly, and he may hide the shell for a time even so,” Aziraphale said, eyes distant. “I guess there’s just one thing for it, then,” she said after a period of quiet. “We shall just have to sneak into his house and steal it back.”