Archive of Our Own ^beta

THUMP! CRASH!

"Mgh, buh?" Crowley blinked at the darkness. Something stumbled and rustled outside of his bedroom door. Crowley yawned and covered himself with his blanket. Maybe that was just the cat.

... Cat? Did he have a cat? Heavy footsteps erratically paced around the room outside, and Crowley shivered. Right. That was either a tiger or a person. And Crowley doubted tigers wore shoes.

Crowley slipped under his blanket and, squinting at the blinding screen, dialled Gabriel, saved in his contacts as the clown emoji. 

There was a loud groan and a giant yawn. Crowley jolted and turned the volume down. “No, Crowley, I don't want to get curry fries," Gabriel grumbled through the speaker.

"I thought you do night shifts?"

"Not every goddamn night! Augh..." 

Crowley did wonder if he should call 999 instead and let Gabe get his beauty sleep. But not all cops were friendly towards sex workers like Gabe was. "There's someone in my flat."

Gabriel stilled. "Client refusing to leave?"

"No, a robber broke into my flat."

Crowley heard Gabriel leap out of the bed and rummage through his bedside drawer for his badge. "On it. Lock your bedroom door. Don't try to be the hero, that's my job." 

Crowley breathed out a sigh of relief. "Can do. Wait... what if it's a Jack Nicholson with a giant axe and-"

"Lock your room anyway. Can you at least wear some slacks? I don't want to see you in a glittery snake-print thong."

“... Tch,” scoffed Crowley, even though he was indeed wearing a glittery snake-print thong.

Crowley heard Gabriel march down the stairs and he imagined Gabriel, gun in hand, posing like an action movie hero. Meanwhile, objects got shuffled around outside Crowley's bedroom door, so Crowley curled up into a ball and listened to Gabriel's hero montage. Finally, Gabriel's cop car roared to life, sirens and all.

"Stay with me. Okay? Keep me updated, and... wait, why am I calling while driving?" Gabriel hung up.

And then there were two. Blood rushed through Crowley's ears and his heart thumped like a drum. More footsteps thumped outside. Carefully, Crowley peeled his blanket back to look outside.

A human-shaped shadow flashed across Crowley's wall and Crowley frozea. He forgot to close his door. Thank Someone that the robber didn't enter and moved on to Crowley's living room instead. Crowley would've closed his door and locked it if only his door didn't croak loud enough to wake the dead. 

Might as well find some trousers and hide then, Crowley reasoned. He looked around his carpet, hoping he had thrown it to the ground. To his despair, Crowley realised he had thrown his trousers in the corridor outside. It was a busy night, so the first thing to go after he went home was his trousers, obviously. Crowley then remembered that all his other trousers were sitting in the washing machine and groaned.

Crowley did briefly wonder whether he should wrap his blanket around himself. Oh sure, a thought in his mind retorted. Look up a Roman toga tutorial and fumble with the folds. That would be the perfect thing to do while hiding from a robber.

Crowley squinted as he heard his fridge open. The thief, probably a peckish little glutton, was in the kitchen now. That would give Crowley enough time to find his trousers before Gabriel arrived. He did try to talk himself out of that, he swore. But before he knew it, Crowley was outside in the corridor, picking through his clothes. Crowley picked up a red boa and hung it over his eyebrow, wondering why he left this on the ground for a week. At last, Crowley found his black skinny jeans in his living room, so he tiptoed over and picked it up.

Only to stare eye to eye at the thief.

He did admit, Crowley felt very naked next to the thief's black sweater and poorly cutout beanie. Crowley widened his eyes at the briefcase the thief clutched. "OI! Drop it. You don't want to know what's inside THAT."

The thief... held the briefcase tighter to his chest and shook his head.

Crowley squinted. "You do want to know what's inside?" No answer. "Do you actually know what's inside?"

The thief nodded rapidly and Crowley's jaw dropped. Crowley then realised that the thief's eyes stared at Crowley's groin, and the patch of skin that peaked out of the beanie was bright red.

The thief dashed for the fire escape and Crowley followed, but unfortunately, Crowley slammed his face into his living room dancing pole. "OI!" Crowley screamed as the thief hooked one leg out of the window. The thief stared back.

Crowley realised that there was still a good 5 minutes before Gabriel arrived. He had to distract him. Crowley looked down at his red boa, the dancing pole, and the 2-in-1 disco lights and music player. And then Crowley smirked as an idea so crazy it might work flashed in his brain.

"Come on now..." Crowley purred, draping the boa around his shoulders and swinging the tails. To be fair the thief did freeze and look all over Crowley's naked body. "Why not stay a little longer?"

Crowley turned on the disco lights and music player, and fuscia lights and Spice Girls filled the room. As Crowley hooked his leg around the pole and twirled, the thief widened his eyes, crossed his legs, and watched. The hypnosis was working, so Crowley simply danced harder, twerking and twirling to the beat.

Once the song finished, the thief shook his head and blinked, then ran but tripped. As he tumbled down, the thief's facemask beanie fell off. Crowley's eyes turned into saucers as a tuft of platinum blonde spruced up.

"What the... AZIRAPHALE?!" Crowley exclaimed at his very flustered neighbour. Aziraphale blushed and looked away. "Why the deuce are you stealing my shit? Why are you stealing my briefcase of dild- OW!" Crowley hopped and held his naked stubbed toe. He looked down and realised he was looking two dildo briefcases. "Wait. What's going on?"

"Oh no, oh dear... well." Aziraphale fiddled with his gloved fingers. Crowley then realised those were his Winter gloves. Maybe that was why Aziraphale was so red. "We have the same briefcases for our work. Your job as an... escort, my job as a uni professor. And our daily commutes have the same first leg, and we often sit together and chat, and-"

"We switched them out, didn't we?"

"We switched them out indeed."

Crowley imagined Aziraphale opening his briefcase only for a mountain of dildos to bounce onto his office floor, and he did have to admit, that was very funny. Although, if his client last night didn't turn out to be squicked at penetration, Crowley would've had a bunch of lit papers ruffle out in the middle of an S&M session.

"So, rather than tell me and swap tomorrow morning... you'd rather break into my flat and swap them out?"

"Well, no one would ever know!"

"You do realise I thought there was a tiger outside of my door, right?"

"I never practised!" Aziraphale protested.

And Crowley chuckled.

Crowley stopped chuckling. Another idea came into Crowley's mind. Crowley swung the boa over Aziraphale's shoulder and pulled them closer together. "You know, Angel... you're welcome to break into my flat anytime~"

Aziraphale's entire face turned brick red. "... I... well-! You-!"

Crowley cocked his head to match Aziraphale's gaze. "Tell y0u what... how about let's brush this all off as a bit of foreplay and-"

THUMP!

"HANDS IN THE AIR! YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN!..." Gabriel's face morphed into confusion and then utter shock. Crowley, too, stared in utter shock at Gabriel wearing only his jammies, slippers, and a lopsided police badge. "What? AZIRAPHALE?! YOU'RE the burglar? What the hell?!"

The three stared bewildered at each other as disco lights shone and Spice Girls music played. Gabriel looked at Aziraphale's burglar outfit, then at the pole, then at Crowley in thongs. Gabriel scrunched his eyes closed. "I thought I told you to wear some clothes. Christ. Did you... did you PLAN TO DISTRACT A BURGLAR BY POLEDANCING?!"

"Oh it did work," Crowley muttered under his breath, and he smirked and winked at Aziraphale.

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his bald eagle nose. "Okay, did Aziraphale break in and steal your shit or did he not?"

"He stole my heart."

Aziraphale swooned. Gabriel scowled. "Come on. You're not waking me up at 3AM just for me to drive here and do nothing. What's this, huh?" Gabriel tightly grasped something jutting out of Aziraphale's trousers and Aziraphale stifled a squeal. Crowley widened his eyes as well. "Gun? Folding knife? Baton? Whatever it is, buddy, looks like it's big and thick and-"

"Gabe, that's his cock."

Gabriel stopped stroking. He let go and wiped his hand on his shirt.

"Oh, fuck both of you." Gabriel left and slammed the door behind him.