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Crowley wasn't an idiot, he knew that there was something wrong with him.
It crept up on him like a spider climbing the back of his neck, slowly, almost ticklish, and suddenly he'd realize that he'd gotten his arms wrapped around himself, trembling in a way that would make his teeth chatter if he didn't grind them together as hard as he could.
He knew that it wasn't pain, but it wasn't not pain either. Sometimes he could fix it by sleeping out the year. Most of the time he couldn't.
It started, he reckoned, after the fall, but it didn't really peak until some time after that whole unpleasantness at the garden. One minute, things were mostly fine, mostly stable, and then a few generations on, there were humans everywhere and Crowley.
Well.
Crowley knew that there was something wrong with him.
He got bored too quickly. He got angry too fast. Small things grated, big things were unbearable, and if he had to see one more fucking human take another one in their arms, he was going to be sick. For a few decades, he nursed that resentment, let it bubble and grow. Other demons talked about it, getting up a head of steam and fury, bottling things up until they could unleash it in an unholy storm of fury. Death, destruction, that all sounded right as rain to Crowley, and he let it build up and up, stoking it by spying on humans kissing each other, humans walking hand in hand, humans comforting each other and allowing themselves to be comforted.
Oh yeah, he could tell, it was going to be amazing. He would rain fire and brimstone down on the unsuspecting populace. They'd talk about this destruction for an age. He'd get a commendation, maybe a medal.
It boiled up, boiled over and-
And he burst into tears.
Horrified, Crowley immediately sank into the earth, down to some echoing cavern that had no possible human entry. He berated himself for hours, commanding the crying to stop this instant, but that didn't work. He tried for what must have been weeks to hold back the torrents of tears and the sobs that felt as if they would tear his chest apart, but at the last, there was no help for it. The crying gutted him, tore him to bits, and all he could do was lie in the dark, shaking with his eyes shut tight, and let it run its course.
It was a good few months later when he emerged, squinting at the light and feeling a little like his head had been stuffed with pellets of lead. He felt weak and somewhat nauseated, and his headache necessitated the invention of sunglasses, like, yesterday, but he was okay.
He never let things get as bad again, but even on his good days, he could feel it, that soreness in his chest and the itch of his skin.
So something was wrong with him, and he couldn't figure out how to fix it.
All right.
If he couldn't fix it, he would bear it.
Crowley was sort of proud of himself, honestly. He learned to recognize that ache that spread from his core and made his skin feel too tight, and when he did, he knew he had to get out of town for a while, go out, spend a year or two in the desert kicking rocks. Better boredom than that shameful display of tears and snot and sobs, anyway, and things were rolling along, right as rain, until that time in Byblos with the angel.
They were walking along the newfangled paved streets, arguing one of the finer points of urbanization, (Crowley for, Aziraphale leaning against but willing to be convinced) when a bull who seemed to have forgotten the niceties of domestication came rushing down the street, traces snapping in his wake. A human would have been trampled outright, but Aziraphale was only knocked to one side, grabbing on to Crowley to regain his feet. Crowley's arms went around him in surprise, and the weight and the solidity of the angel's body against his made his jaw drop.
Warm, Crowley's mind rabbited. Warm, soft, safe, good...
He shut his mouth hard when Aziraphale pulled away, fussily tugging his tunic back into order and looking for all the world as if he hadn't whirled Crowley around seven or eight times and then shoved him towards a pond full of crocodiles.
“Oh, they will bring in big teams of oxen,” he was saying. “And that for your urbanization, Crowley, where people will insist on carts too big for the roads ...”
“Yeah,” Crowley managed. “Don't know what folks are thinking. Roads.”
He must have sounded off, because Aziraphale blinked at him.
“Are you all right, dear boy? You look a trifle-”
“Fine, fine,” Crowley said, only then realizing he had all unknowing reached for the spot where Aziraphale had grabbed onto his shoulder, covering it with his own hand as if he had to preserve it, save it up somehow. He hurriedly dropped his hand, and then jerked his head towards a courtyard tavern.
“Want a drink? Bet there aren't any rampaging bulls in there.”
Aziraphale gave him a strange look, but Crowley figured he had covered all right. At least, he thought he had until he was back in his own rooms and collapsed shaking on the ground. He tried to piece together the sequence of events, to bring it back as completely and as vividly as he could. There was the shout of the drover, the stumble, and then Aziraphale's hands, one at the small of his back, one on his shoulder? It was warm. The angel was so heavy. He took one step forward, draping against Crowley's body for a breath, maybe two or three?
He felt slightly drunk on it, and that confused the matter further, tinting it rose and making him shiver. He was shuddering now, those tears back again, but the sobs didn't come.
It feels bad, Crowley decided finally. Of course it felt bad. Things that felt good didn't leave him on the ground and whining like a newborn puppy.
He resolve to avoid it moving forward.
The thing about being effectively immortal was that eventually, you learned. Crowley did.
He learned that touch, which seemed so good for the humans, so nourishing and so necessary, was bad for him. Maybe it was because he was a demon, maybe not. He observed some humans who reacted as he did, crying from a hug, shaken and breathless from a companionable touch. They seemed as damaged as he was, and he avoided them, making a face and fading in the shadows, because who likes to come upon a mirror unaware?
The angel, on the other hand, seemed to relish touch. Whenever he saw Crowley, there was usually a clasp of the hand or a pat on the shoulder. It was okay if Crowley saw it coming (and if he were honest, a little devastating if he was expecting it and the angel too hurried to provide), and he decided, like literacy, makeup, and agriculture, that it must be an angel thing.
Angel things were fine. He could tolerate them, and after all, it was in his best interests to keep Aziraphale happy. If it made Aziraphale happy to lean against him as they watched the puppet show, if it pleased Aziraphale to walk arm in arm down the streets of Larissa, if it made the angel laugh to squeeze his hands in joy at the reinvention of the telescope, well, fine. No skin off Crowley's back.
It still felt bad. He wanted to be perfectly clear about that. It could still leave him shuddering when he was already feeling poorly, oddly jumpy and anxious even when he wasn't.
So it felt bad, and no matter what the humans were doing, touching, kissing, hugging, he was better off out of it.
The issue was sex.
Around about 700 years BC, give or take a few, Hell got curious. They were late to the party as always, and Crowley rolled his eyes at the paperwork they sent up, asking for details on appendages, matrimonial gifts, mate retention, and sexual cannibalism, among other things. Honestly.
Of course Crowley had given it a whirl a few hundred years ago. Could hardly have avoided it, what with how the humans were carrying on. It was.
Well.
It was fine.
(It was consuming, a bright flare against the the midnight sky, a blaze of pleasure that scoured him from head to toe and left him gasping in wonder, and then of course it was over. He would rather have gone without entirely than deal with the cold emptiness and skin-tight sorrow that came after. It didn't mean anything. It didn't matter. He wouldn't let it matter).
Of course when the request came along, he had been riding the victory of developing traffic jams for a while (no small feat when most towns by default only had one horse). He needed a win, and dutifully, he packed himself off to the most convenient brothel, which happened to be in nearby Ninevah off the Tigris.
The place he found was less a pleasure palace than it was a series of rooms in a low building by the river. The stamped clay tag next to the door told passersby that all employed within paid their taxes like good citizens, and a smaller tag reminded you to tip your provider, it was only good manners.
The small waiting area in the walled courtyard offered up some complimentary vinegar drinks, and Crowley sipped at his slowly, hanging back in the shadows and watching the people come (ha) and go. So far, it was just a night like another other, one where he might nurse that serrated edge inside himself as if he were afraid it might go blunt and dull. On another night, he might wait until that strange and broken hurt inspired some real mischief, but tonight was different.
Grimly, he finished his drink and tried to figure out who was going to help him fill out this particular Hellish report when he blinked in surprise.
Oh, no way, he thought, and before he could stop himself, he stepped out from the shadows and took the passing young man by the elbow.
“Ah good evening,” the young man who really wasn't said, and Crowley stared.
“Angel,” he said finally. “What the hell?”
The longer he looked, the more clearly it was Aziraphale, for all that this corporation was a good twenty-five years younger and crowned with dark curls instead of pale. Same heart-shaped face, same slightly snub nose, and it wouldn't have mattered if he was an octopus, those bright eyes would have given him away for sure. All very nice, Crowley supposed, but it didn't change the question of angel, what the hell.
“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale said. “I take it you are not deceived?”
“I'm afraid not. And I repeat, angel, what the hell?”
Aziraphale made a face, shaking his head. It was briefly dizzying to see Aziraphale like this, strange and uncomfortable, a little like seeing your teacher at the supermarket, if your teacher was an angel and the supermarket was a brothel in Ninevah.
“Oh, if you need the full story, come along. I'm paying for the room in any case.”
He followed the angel to a room at the rear of the building. The room smelled of burning juniper from the thorny twigs smoldering gently on the windowsill, and the only light came from a small oil lamp in a niche in the wall. Otherwise, the room was mostly taken up with a rope bed covered with a sheepskin, and for want of any other place to sit, Crowley went to perch gingerly on one corner while Aziraphale took the other.
“So you're renting the room?”
“Yes, at a flat rate. It's better than the other outfit down the river which takes a fee and a percentage of all profits, which is utterly unreasonable given-”
“Yes, but why?” Crowley exclaimed.
“Because I imagine they think they can get away with it, which is wrong, because they are certainly not the only game in town, and-.”
“Aziraphale.”
Aziraphale sighed.
“Well, if you must know, there's a young man in Ninevah who is looking at getting a scriptorium off the ground.”
“That explains absolutely nothing.”
“Oh, but it explains everything,” Aziraphale said enthusiastically. “It will be utterly splendid. I have seen the plans, and it will do such things for local small businesses, not to mention the dissemination of knowledge and the progression of communication. It will be wonderful, or at least, it could be wonderful. The young man in question is a genius, and he is, as so often seems to be the case, flat broke.”
“And you have decided to pitch in, as it were? Lend, er, a hand, see if you can get costs down?”
“Every little bit helps,” Aziraphale said, and then a little more sadly, “Heaven doesn't quite see the point, you know. I'm actually meant to be in Elam this year, recording the good and evil. I have an arrangement with Adriel. She's going to cover for me.”
Crowley stifled a sudden and completely inexplicable spike of jealousy over the angel having an arrangement with someone he didn't know. He shoved it down- he could deal with it later, if at all.
“So you've chosen the brothel because-?”
“Well, it's good honest work. And I sunburn so easily when I spend any time doing work out of doors. And all things being fair and equal, I rather enjoy it.”
“I don't see why,” Crowley found himself saying almost sulkily. “Sounds like a pain to me.”
“Well, not when you prepare properly,” Aziraphale said, and then he looked more closely at Crowley. “But that's not what you're talking about, is it?”
“For the love of Somebody, will you take off that ridiculous seeming?” Crowley burst out. “I feel like I ought to be drizzling your nipples with honey and writing you a poem or something.”
“Then it is doing its job,” Aziraphale said wryly, but with a snap of his fingers, he was the same angel Crowley had known since practically the Beginning, laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, pale curls, comfortably well-padded, and with all the charm of the perfect pillow in the pile. It was a relief, and it wasn't. Looking at the ridiculously pretty Aziraphale hurt his head, but he knew this one, and a small voice in the back of his head suggested that he was in danger. When it couldn't elaborate, he shoved it in the box where his common sense, second thoughts and ability to see a project through to the end seemed to live and turned back to the angel.
“That's better,” he said, and Aziraphale smiled.
“It is, isn't it? But whatever did you mean, that it sounds like a pain to you?”
Crowley leaned black against the wall, crossing his arms firmly over his chest. It was a little hard to look at Aziraphale just then, but he managed it with mulish defiance.
“Just what it sounds like. All of this. What's the point? What a silly thing after all, and how pointless it is. What does it all mean anyway, all this clasping and sighing and holding?”
Saying the words put a thick stinging weight through his sinuses, made his eyes burn. He ignored it, because while he knew there was something wrong with him, he had at least learned to control it somewhat better over the long years.
“Well, I think it's rather pleasant,” Aziraphale said with a frown. “If you're so set against all the clasping and so forth, why are you here?”
“Oh, it's only a work thing. Hell wants a full report on all the moaning and grunting, so guess who drew the short straw.”
He rolled his eyes extravagantly, but Aziraphale still looked worried.
“How cruel if you are so dead set against it,” he mused. “Perhaps I could –“
“Not dead set against it,” Crowley insisted, because damned if he was going to let the angel think he was some kind of frail and fainting maiden. “It's just annoying, isn't it? It's boring. It's stupid.”
He heard himself, a slight edge to his voice that shouldn't have been there. He cringed, but Aziraphale seemed to have come to a decision, patting his thighs with a startlingly decisive firmness.
“Well,” he said brightly. “If it is so stupid, we should get it over with, yes?”
“Yes?” echoed Crowley, and Aziraphale fairly beamed.
“Of course. You've a job to do, and I still owe you from … when was it?”
“Ugarit, couple decades back?” hazarded Crowley. He wasn't certain by a long shot, but the angel looked so pleased that it hardly mattered.
“Yes, the very same. And I assume you weren't planning to short someone their fee tonight?”
“Hey, I may be a demon, but I pay up,” Crowley said, offended. “Was going to leave a ridiculous tip and everything, nothing like spreading around a little avarice.”
“Quite right. So you'll have your score for evil, and I will have my fees for the scriptorium, and perhaps you would like to stretch out so I could start with some massage?”
“Massage?” Crowley asked, already lying down. “Why's that?”
“Just a little thing I like,” the angel said breezily. “You know. Set the mood, work out some tension.”
Crowley grumbled, but there was a knot tying itself slowly and nervously in his belly, his heart thudding in his chest, and tension making his shoulders rise up to his ears. He was suddenly grateful for Aziraphale's suggestion. It allowed him to turn away, to wrap his arms around one of the bolster pillows and press his face against it. Belatedly, he remembered that most massages of the sensual sort were done at least stripped to the waist, but if Aziraphale had any commentary, he kept it to himself. Instead, he only murmured with interest, coming to kneel beside Crowley on the bed, resting a comfortable hand at the small of Crowley's back.
“Now you must tell me if I do anything you do not like.”
“Of course I will,” Crowley mumbled into the pillow. “You'll hear about it first thing.”
“And it goes the other way as well, you should tell me if I do anything you'd like more of.”
“Sounds like a lot of work,” Crowley sniped, just to be contrary. “Dunno if I'm going to get my money's worth if I always have to tell you what's what.”
His chest already ached at the warmth and the weight of Aziraphale's hand on him, and the idea of having to ask for more with the possibility, however remote, of being denied, brought him close to to something awful and raw, but the angel didn't need to know that.
“Ah well, then, I suppose you should just let me use my best judgment,” said Aziraphale brightly. “Of course.”
All angels sang, it was hard-coded in, but Aziraphale was possibly the only angel who hummed, and he hummed softly and tunelessly as he passed strong hands from Crowley's shoulders down to his waist. Even with fabric between them, he felt the warmth radiating from Aziraphale's touch, and with every stroke, he balanced between a kind of shivery ecstasy and the bone-deep fear that it would stop.
It shorted him out, made his breath catch, and he only realized he was tensing against Aziraphale's touch when the angel made a slight tsking sound.
“Well, this won't do,” he said, and Crowley almost popped up to say he could do better, he could do anything, so long as Aziraphale didn't stop. Before he could embarrass himself, however, Aziraphale tugged at his tunic.
“Would you be a dear and take this off? I think I would like to work a little deeper, see if I can get... well. Work out the entire Gordian knot that is your back.”
Silently, still not facing him, Crowley stripped his tunic over his head before lying back down. He was horribly afraid that he was somehow ruining all of this, that even by lying still he was somehow getting it wrong. It made him want to jump up and get a clear explanation from Aziraphale of what it all meant, and he wanted maybe to unroll into his snake form and rattle and bite, and he wanted... he wanted... oh but he wanted more of Aziraphale's hands on his skin.
“Oh, there we are, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured, digging his fingers into Crowley's back. Far from hurting, it made Crowley think of a potter with his fingers dug into the good red clay. He felt as if he were becoming loose and pliable, shaped into something other. Well, he hadn't much cared for what he was anyway, he could take this.
It continued for some wordless time, the shadows in the room long and lovely, Aziraphale's hands on his back. They swept down his sides, firmly cupping his shoulders before squeezing, slow but relentless. There was something sharp underneath it all, something that would work him straight up and keep him from enjoying this if he let it, and he firmly locked it away and pitched it into some deep dark hole where he wouldn't have to deal with it for at least two weeks.
Crowley decided that absolutely nothing was getting in the way of Aziraphale's hands on his body. Gabriel could blow his damn trumpet, Beelzebub could rally the fallen, and it would all have to get on without him and Aziraphale.
Crowley only slowly realized that he was coming up from the boneless pleasure of Aziraphale's touch due to his own body. He stirred in confusion, and then he realized that for some little while, he had been rocking his hips against the mattress, half-hard and unthinking.
“Oh hey, how long have I-”
“Just for a little while,” Aziraphale assured him. “Perfectly natural, I am rather good at my work.”
He snorted at Aziraphale's smugness, and reluctantly sat up.
“S'pose it's our signal to get on with it,” he said. The absence of Aziraphale's hands on him made him shiver, but it wouldn't be so bad if he could just quickly hop to the next available thing.
“Get on with it?”
“Yeah. Go on, bend over, I shan't be more than two shakes.”
He knew the mechanics, had the questionnaire from Hell all ready to fill out, but Aziraphale gave him another one of those thoughtful looks.
“You know, I don't think I will.”
“Well, all right then, I could-”
“It's just that that isn't how I like to do things, I'm certainly not saying no to more.”
“Er?”
“Come here, darling.”
Crowley was aware that he should argue at least for form's sake, he was a busy snake on a schedule, but then Aziraphale lay down on the bed, patting the mattress next to him invitingly. Crowley was moving before he knew quite that he was going to, and he found himself perfectly fitting the curve of Aziraphale's arm, pressed warmly against his body.
“Like this?” he asked, his voice hushed.
“Yes, utterly perfect, my dear. If you want, we could simply lie like this-”
“Or you could do your job, and let me do mine,” Crowley insisted, because that antsy sensation was gnawing at him again. If he had to tolerate it too long, Hell only knew what he would do. He needed, just needed, and surely Aziraphale couldn't stroke him and pet him forever. It was time to move on to what he was really here for, and Aziraphale sighed.
“I suppose you are right. Shall I take you in hand, dear?”
“Sure, sounds good.”
“All right. On your side, with your back to me, please.”
He obeyed without thinking, and he bit his lip at how good it felt to have Aziraphale at his back, one arm slung over his hip. He felt encompassed, covered and protected, and he made sure his breath came slowly so he wouldn't sob.
“Well, get on with it,” he said, more roughly than he might have liked, but instead of taking offense, Aziraphale only chuckled softly in his ear.
“Why, as you like, of course.”
He stroked his palm down Crowley's smooth belly before deftly untying the drawstring of his trousers. It occurred to Crowley that Aziraphale was still fully clothed, and that he should probably do something about that, but now Aziraphale had worked the loose fabric down to Crowley's thighs, baring his stirring erection and brushing the very tips of his fingers along Crowley's shaft,
“We can do all of that bending over later if you like,” Aziraphale whispered in Crowley's ear. “I would adore bending over for you, opening for you. Would you like to get me ready with your fingers, dear? Would you like to see how I feel wrapped around you like that?”
Crowley's breath caught in his throat, because now that Aziraphale put it that way, yes he did, and he thrust into Aziraphale's hand. He suddenly wanted a great deal more than the slight pressure the angel was giving him, but Aziraphale kept his touch so blessedly light, tracing the underside of his cock before reaching down to firmly cup his balls and then repeating the gesture.
“I like kisses,” Aziraphale murmured, tracing just the tip of his tongue around the whorl of Crowley's ear. “I want you to kiss me when you take me. Kiss my shoulders and kiss my back, tangle your hands in my hair to keep me still and just kiss me all over...”
“Yes,” Crowley whispered dizzily. “Yes, I want to do that. Tell me.... tell me more, angel.”
“You could get me ready if you wanted,” Aziraphale murmured slyly. “Or you could watch me do that. These bodies, they are such lovely things, aren't they? You could watch me tend to myself, stretch myself out, get ready for your cock. You could watch me take my fingers and know all the time that you were what I really wanted.”
“Want me,” Crowley gasped, and he winced because it had been intended as a question. He wanted to know if Aziraphale really did want him, but instead it came out as a longing, needy plea.
Aziraphale only nuzzled the back of his neck, setting off nerves Crowley had never suspected before.
“Oh yes,” he said simply. “Every day.”
On the last word, he closed his hand over Crowley's cock, and instead of the dry warmth he had felt before, now Aziraphale's palm was gloriously wet and slick, gripping Crowley's cock and stroking it almost as if he couldn't quite keep hold. It made Crowley groan in surprise and desire. It would have overwhelmed him, set him to biting and scratching if he hadn't been partially held down by Aziraphale's weight draped over him.
He twisted under Aziraphale's body, half because it felt so good and half because he wanted to reassure himself that a little bit of squirming wouldn't make all of this stop. He was aware on some dreadful level that he had been anticipating the end as soon as he lay down, the moment when all of Aziraphale's care would pull back, and he would be so very alone again. Even now, he knew that that end was coming, but Aziraphale's body against his told him very firmly not yet.
“Oh please, please, take off your clothes,” he managed, thrusting into Aziraphale's hand. “Please, I need it, so much.”
Aziraphale didn't bother with words or with human possibility. Instead his clothes were gone as simply as if they had never existed, and now there was such a tide of warmth and care rushing over Crowley that he had to snatch up great handfuls of the sheepskin underneath them. It was almost too much, but it was that almost that made all the difference. Instead of being overwhelmed, he was suffused, and that was before Aziraphale's hand tightened firmly on him, drawing along his shaft in smooth strokes even as Aziraphale whispered in his ear.
“You are so very perfect, and you feel so very good with me and against me. This is going to feel so good, and I shall take such care of you.”
Something in him broke, and it wasn't a climax because Crowley knew what those were like. Instead it was as if something inside him had finally come loose at Aziraphale's words. It was hunger and satisfaction all at once, and he frantically reached back over his own shoulder, his nails scratching frantically at Aziraphale. He was desperate for more of him, wanted to be subsumed utterly, and for a miracle, Aziraphale seemed to understand. He leaned ever closer to Crowley and over him, half on top of him and pressing him against the sheepskin. Their legs were tangled together, Aziraphale's face was pressed into Crowley's hair, and Crowley wailed as Aziraphale took a firmer grip on him, stroking more quickly now.
“It's all right. It's perfect, you are just perfect, my precious serpent, it's all right now...”
And that was how Crowley came, spilling over Aziraphale's fist, half buried underneath him, and actually crying because he couldn't deal with it any other way. The pleasure tore through him, leaving choppy ripples in its wake, but the tears lasted longer, and to Crowley's surprise, they were a pleasure as well.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, burying his face in the wool. “Sorry, sorry, I'll stop.”
He wasn't actually sure he could, but Aziraphale only discreetly cleaned them both up and then firmly snuggled up to him again, turning him so that his face was pressed against the angel's shoulder.
“Of course it's all right,” Aziraphale said soothingly, stroking his back. “Remember, this is only part of the service, isn't it? All very normal.”
While there was perhaps a secret part of him that didn't want that at all, there was currently a bigger part of him that was just plain relieved even as he shook in Aziraphale's arms. Of course it was all right. Of course this was normal. Aziraphale couldn't tell there was anything wrong with him, and if Aziraphale didn't suspect there was anything wrong with him...
… He might let Crowley do this again.
Slowly, feeling like he was getting away with something, Crowley reached his arm over Aziraphale's plush hip, drawing him close and trailing his fingers fitfully up and down Aziraphale's spine. He was ready to be swatted away, because surely Aziraphale would be tired of him by now, but the angel practically cooed.
“What a pleasure you are, my dear, and how very good you feel.”
“Yeah, I'm pretty good at this, huh?” Crowley asked tentatively, and Aziraphale made the most delighted sound.
“Absolutely my favorite,” he said warmly, and Crowley relaxed into his arms.
“Well, as long as you like it, angel,” he said, hiding his hot eyes against Aziraphale's chest.
Soon enough, he would have to get up and get that bloody form. Soon enough, he would have to stand and remember, oh yeah, there was something in him that made his skin tight and unbearable, that made some days a misery.
The words came back to him, not yet, and sighing, he closed his eyes and forgot about a world where there was something wrong with him.