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With the successful thwarting of two extinction-level events under his belt, Aziraphale is exceedingly proud. He’d never say so, but Crowley can see it in the skip in his step. He can hear it in the way Aziraphale mischievously tells him they can do whatever they want as he orders a third dessert (as if that’s unusual behavior) and can feel in the way he refuses to drop Crowley’s hand even when it makes going through doors laughably difficult.
Fingers entwined with Crowley’s and fair eyelashes catching the soft, chandelier light of the Ritz dining room, Aziraphale leans forward and says, smug as all get out, “We can be us now, just as you wanted. In every way.”
Crowley doesn’t know what that means. Privately, he hopes it includes more prolonged hand-holding. Maybe they could try for a better kiss this time. All the sinful self-congratulation looks good on Aziraphale, though, so Crowley smiles right back at him and says, “Can’t wait.”
They’ve hardly made it inside the bookshop when Aziraphale decides to rewrite the memory of their first, brutal kiss with a new one. He cups Crowley’s cheek and pulls him down and the press of his lips is so soft, so much better than when Crowley tried it. His lips move slowly against Crowley’s, and he makes a quiet, pleased sound when Crowley responds. His other hand sneaks into Crowley’s hair and his lips are parting, tongue teasing against Crowley’s mouth and making him gasp.
Aziraphale wastes no time slipping his tongue inside, skimming it against Crowley’s, and tugging lightly at his hair. When he sucks on Crowley’s tongue, an odd, devastating sensation that makes the Effort Crowley didn’t realize he was making stand to attention, Crowley lets out an embarrassing whine that’s both guttural and piercing, his hands suddenly coming to life and pressing on Aziraphale’s chest, putting space between them.
They pant into each other’s faces, foreheads nearly touching. Crowley’s sunglasses are digging into his temple on one side. He blinks his eyes open to find Aziraphale’s pupils blown wide, an attractive flush on his cheeks.
“Sssorry,” Crowley says. “S’a lot, isss all.”
Aziraphale’s eyes narrow a bit before his face clears. “You’re right.” He pats Crowley’s cheek and steps back, leaving Crowley’s legs to try to remember how to be legs. “The best things are worth savoring.”
“We don’t have to, ahmm. Don’t have to stop,” Crowley says. His lips tingle and he resists the urge to touch them. They feel swollen. Well-used. He shivers.
“No, no, I think you’re right, my dear. We’ll only have more to look forward to if we take things slow, as the humans say. Nightcap?” Aziraphale has turned toward the backroom before Crowley can argue.
“Yeah,” he agrees, confused, “sure. Slow.”
Several hours later, after Crowley’s sobered up, said goodnight, and driven back to his flat, the kiss is all he can think of. The kiss hadn’t been slow at all. Feeling Aziraphale’s tongue and teeth were novel sensations that Crowley’s brain insists on replaying as he carries on with the infuriating process of cleaning up Shax’s messes.
A miracle or two alone can’t replace a deep clean, and he can’t risk human cleaners encountering demonic goo or waltzing into a rogue Hellish portal. Deep cleaning the flat soothes something in Crowley, especially since he can do it while working his way back toward drunkenness. It’s a solid distraction, but not enough of one. It doesn’t stop him from remembering the shock of Aziraphale’s soft tongue.
If that was slow, what else does Aziraphale have in mind? Crowley knows what humans get up to. He’s encouraged plenty of it in his (former) line of work. Aziraphale must know, too, voracious reader and hoarder of antique erotica that he is.
(The small collection is tucked into the driest history section of the shop, presumably in the hopes that no one will see. Crowley had stumbled across a set of photographic plates from 1898 while nosily poking around back in the 1980s. He’d dropped one when he realized it featured not one, not two, but five humans finding uses for each others’ orifices at the same time. A quick miracle had fixed the cracked glass, and Aziraphale had been too wrapped up in The Satanic Verses to notice.
The angel always has loved a good banned book. Crowley likes Rushdie’s later novels more, but arguing the point would be admitting he’s read any of them.)
But knowing and doing are two separate beasts. They’re barely corporeal to begin with. Crowley dresses by pulling his clothes from a metaphysical wardrobe with a mere thought. He snaps away hangovers and most of the organs in his body are superfluous. Sure, he breathes sometimes, humans get suspicious when you don’t and it’s become a habit. They can tell, like a sixth sense that also pings when Crowley forgets to blink. It’s gotten him into trouble more than once.
His heartbeat is touch and go, though it’s more go, go, go when Aziraphale’s around. Right now, it’s racing. Crowley can feel blood pumping hard in the taut veins of his neck.
Crowley’s showered the human way since they invented it. It’s more satisfying than miracling himself clean, and it lends itself well to a grab bag of sins, namely sloth and greed — staying in long enough that he repletes the water heater for his entire building — but also over-consumption in the form of expensive and rare hair and body products. Showers are great, much better than baths, yet he usually falls back on a miracle for styling his hair.
He’s never brushed his teeth, never properly digested anything, never gotten an eyelash in his eye or worried about sunburn or had so much as a crick in his neck that he couldn’t wish away.
He exists on multiple planes of existence. They both do. Feathers and scales and eyes and fiery wheels on the peripheral. What humans get up to with their bodies has nothing to do with them.
Aziraphale’s call stirs him where he’d slumped on the stone tile of his kitchen floor sometime around 5 AM, giving up on staying awake. He still has the brush he’d been using to scrub the grout in hand when his pocket buzzes insistently.
“Oh, hello!” Aziraphale says cheerily as if it’s a surprise to hear Crowley’s mumbled greeting even though he’s the one who called. “I was thinking of dinner and a show this evening, what do you say? There’s a new adaptation of Dracula that Billy— you know, the nice young chap who works at the bakery down the way—” Crowley hums in agreement, not that it slows Aziraphale, “—he was raving about it the last time I was in, and it’s always a joy to support Bram or any friend of Oscar’s, plus! This show, it has…”
Crowley stares at the ceiling and lets Aziraphale’s words wash over him. He knows he’ll agree to whatever Aziraphale proposes, they both do, but Aziraphale must find some pleasure in the asking.
They’d kissed. Again. They’d fumbled through saving the world, also again, and then they’d kissed. Aziraphale had kissed him.
Crowley touches his dry lips and tries to listen to what Aziraphale is saying about a new Ethiopian spot in Hammersmith near the theatre. “And the show’s at 7:30, so that should give us plenty of time to eat. Maybe we could take a stroll through Ravenscourt if we finish early?”
“Sounds grand, I’ll pick you up at 5,” Crowley tells him.
“Fantastic! I… I look forward to seeing you, Crowley. Very much.”
Crowley presses the cheek he doesn’t have the phone against to the cold floor of the kitchen to stem his blush. “Yeah,” he says, strangled. “You, uh. You, too, angel.”
Dinner is splendid, according to Aziraphale. Crowley leaves the food to him, but he has no complaints about the coffee and tej he does partake in.
(He’s been a fan of a good honey wine since he first tried it in Luoyang during the Xia dynasty. Crowley had been sent to keep an eye on some royal astronomers who were, according to Hell’s records, ripe for temptation. One thing led to another, and Crowley was as sloshed as they were after a week-long mead bender when the solar eclipse hit. He hadn’t meant to distract them from warning everyone about it but distract he did, and the emperor’s citizens panicked at the unexpected daytime darkness.
Crowley thought it was all hilarious, and it garnered him a commendation, but it also left him rushing to covertly help quite a few astronomers avoid a pissed-off emperor.)
It’s well into dusk by the time they get the check, but no public park is ever closed when you have a miracle to spare. They admire Ravenscourt’s stately trees in the failing light until it’s time for the curtain to rise, and the play is a perfectly dark and spooky compliment to the chill autumn night.
Aziraphale had held his hand while they promenaded in the park, and then throughout the play, squeezing whenever he was startled. Crowley reaches across the Bentley and takes Aziraphale’s hand now, feeling like he’s swallowed a horde of butterflies. Aziraphale grins, and Crowley tries to stretch into the comfort of being open and honest with one another.
“Tipple?” Aziraphale offers back at the shop. He’s already pouring a generous helping of bourbon into two mugs of cocoa, and Crowley accepts one automatically.
The heat of it seeps through his skin, warming his hand immediately. It’s a nice feeling. A human feeling. And, the thing is, if Crowley thinks about it, Aziraphale likes human stuff, maybe more than Crowley does.
Crowley has a sharp-hewn appreciation for their movies and their cars and their fancy watches and well-fitting suits and the technological advancements that get them closer and closer to the stars. He likes to see their progress, despair over their setbacks, and tune in to whatever hot, new thing symbolizes wealth and exclusivity in any decade.
Aziraphale likes to physically experience the world humans have made. He treasures his old clothes, the worn fabrics and purposeful weaves. He regularly sees a barber and a manicurist. He loves tea, cocoa, and anything alcoholic. He eats and eats and eats because there’s no shortage to humans’ culinary creativity. He’s soft and sturdy, settled in his corporation in a way that Crowley is a stranger to.
Crowley’s shape is that of a man, or a woman, or of both, neither, et cetera, because he wants it to be. He can just as easily be a snake, big enough to scare all of Soho or small enough to drape comfortably across Aziraphale’s shoulders. (Not that he’s ever done such a thing, but he’s thought of it, in his loneliest moments.) His physical form is tangential. A convenient and mercurial thing to house the essence of him on Earth.
With Aziraphale’s lips pressed against his, it hadn’t felt tangential.
“You’re frightfully quiet,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley turns to him. He’s sitting on the sofa at Crowley’s side, not in his armchair. He sips his cocoa and watches Crowley from a scant cushion away.
Crowley downs his spiked cocoa in several, prolonged gulps and disappears the mug clean and back to the cupboard. He wants to try to live in his body the way Aziraphale does. “Will you— y’don’t have to, if you don’t want to, but will— can you…” Crowley throws his sunglasses onto the coffee table and all his worries to the wind. “Could you touch my hair again?” he asks in a rush. It had felt nice. It had felt human.
It’s a start, he figures.
Aziraphale smiles over the rim of his mug. “I’d like nothing more. Why don’t you set your head here?” He pats his thick thigh, holding his cocoa aloft, and Crowley’s heart starts up again at the intimacy as he carefully lies down on his side, head cushioned on Aziraphale’s wool trousers.
Aziraphale’s fingers are confident and sure as they card through Crowley’s hair. Crowley’s never tried being a cat, but he thinks he could purr.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Aziraphale tells him. “Long, short, any style. You’ve always had the most gorgeous hair. It’s like thick silk slipping through my hand.” Crowley turns his face into Aziraphale’s leg. Aziraphale’s fingers skim the crest of his ear and the angel laughs. “I love how you blush when I compliment you.”
“Do not,” Crowley says into Aziraphale’s trousers.
“Of course not. You’re a tremendously scary demon who has never blushed nor gotten stroppy with embarrassment,” Aziraphale says in a patronizing manner.
Crowley opens his mouth wide so he can press his teeth warningly into Aziraphale’s thigh. Aziraphale yelps and jumps, nearly dislodging Crowley.
“Point taken,” Aziraphale says, tugging on Crowley’s hair to get him settled again. “I don’t know that it was quite the deterrent you imagined,” he adds slyly.
Crowley frowns. “Why would you want me to— Aziraphale, you know I have fangs sometimes, right?”
Aziraphale hums in consideration. “Never you mind.”
Crowley does mind, or he takes it in his mind. Turns the idea over and over in his mind like a worry stone.
(He had a worry stone when he was stationed in Antigonea, before the Romans destroyed it out of spite. It was a sea-smoothed, icy white piece of quartz that he bought from a traveling merchant who told him each color meant something different. When he’d briefly considered a gray-blue stone, she’d asked if he was thinking of a lover’s eyes. He’d quickly picked the white and pretended it didn’t remind him of Aziraphale’s fluffy curls.)
He thinks of leaving the impressions of his teeth on Aziraphale’s skin and is torn between intrigue and guilt. He thinks of Aziraphale biting him hard enough to bruise or break the skin, and he realizes his body is making an Effort again.
“You don’t have fangs,” Crowley says in a rush. He can’t tell if he’s being brave or stupid.
Aziraphale’s hand stills, the weight of it heavy on Crowley’s head until it moves again. “That is true. Something to think about, hmm?”
“Mhmm, yeah,” Crowley agrees. He drifts with the feeling of Aziraphale pulling softly at his hair. It must be mussed beyond recognition, but he can’t bring himself to care. Aziraphale alternates between stroking his hair and massaging his scalp as they recline in comfortable, hard-won silence.
Crowley wakes at some point, and Aziraphale is still touching him, practically petting him. Crowley can hear the rasp of a turned page above him and something soft playing on the gramophone. He thinks it’s Debussy, but he always confuses his stuff with Lili Boulanger’s, and he’s too muzzy with sleep to pick apart his thoughts.
He should get up. He should apologize to Aziraphale for using his leg as a bolster pillow and go home. He opens his mouth, but Aziraphale’s hand slips to his shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
“Go back to sleep, Crowley,” he says, and Crowley’s never been good at denying Aziraphale anything at all, has he?
The pattern of their days isn’t too different from the years they spent in each other’s company between the failed Apocalypse and the staved-off Second Coming, aside from the long, painful months after Aziraphale took the lift skyward. They go out to eat; they order food in. They go to the theatre or the cinema; they watch movies on the obscenely nice television in Crowley’s flat. Aziraphale reads while Crowley starts online fights from his mobile. They both scare customers out of the shop and tempt or bless humans in small, inconsequential ways.
Now that touching has been introduced, it happens more frequently. Aziraphale is tactile, playing with Crowley’s hair or running a hand down his arm. Sometimes, he shepherds Crowley ahead of him with a guiding hand low on his back, and Crowley finds it hard to speak for minutes after. Sometimes, Aziraphale lays his head in Crowley’s lap instead, and Crowley tries not to worry over being uncomfortably bony and relishes the cloud-soft texture of Aziraphale’s hair.
They’ve kissed, too, a few more times, but none as — fast as the one that made Crowley’s Effort swell. It’s nice, the kissing. It’s soft and gentle and Crowley tries to be bolder about initiating it, and he dares to lick along the seam of Aziraphale’s lips, dipping briefly inside to feel the brush of Aziraphale’s tongue.
He has to take a breather, after, waving Aziraphale’s worried looks off. He doesn’t need to breathe. It’s uncalled for that his body is attempting to hyperventilate. Luckily, Aziraphale assumes it’s a delayed reaction to the spicy jjigae he insisted Crowley try at lunch. He brings Crowley water, and then a glass of miraculously chilled prosecco, and he keeps an arm protectively around his shoulders when they settle on the sofa.
Crowley’s not sure where all of these terrible feelings are meant to go. He wonders if the sensitivity of his corporation is turned up too high. He hasn’t been discorporated since the 14th century, but he supposes it’s possible he didn’t notice the error until now.
His cock hardening doesn’t give him an outlet, it makes it all worse. (He’d tried swapping it out for a cunt briefly last Wednesday, but then he had throbbed in entirely new and mysterious ways when Aziraphale had pushed his hair back from his forehead and proclaimed, “Lovely.”) All of his skin is so finely attuned to Aziraphale’s touch, the warmth and pressure of his body against Crowley’s.
Crowley can close his eyes to avoid the physical splendor that is a happy Aziraphale, but he can hear his fine voice and smell his cologne and taste his essence on the air. Maybe he should find one of those sensory deprivation rackets, or throw himself into the void of space. Exposure therapy definitely isn’t working.
“Aziraphale,” he says, staring at his own knobby fingers in his lap, focusing there so he doesn’t look at where their thighs are pressed together so tightly. “When you said we could be us, was there, I mean. Or, well, did you mean— is there something else you, nngh. What do you want?”
Aziraphale laughs. “I suppose I meant that I want the same us you envisioned the morning after the ball.”
Crowley suspects there’s a strong difference in what they envision. Maybe he should get his eyes checked, as if he wouldn’t send any optometrist running for the hills. There’s a human expression about pulling teeth and difficult things, and Crowley feels like he’s taking pliers to his mouth.
“The… the kissing, that’s part of it? The— vision?” he asks dumbly.
“I’d think so. I’m rather fond of kissing you,” Aziraphale says, and he kisses Crowley’s cheek for good measure.
Crowley’s next sentence gets lost in a growling whine and he has to swallow twice before he can form it again. “Yeah. Yeah, me too, angel. But is there…” His mind is a riot of words and none of them can find order in any language.
“More?” Aziraphale prompts. He holds Crowley tighter against him, encouraging Crowley to lean his head on his shoulder. “I would be thrilled to do anything more you can dream up, you clever imp.”
But for all his expansive imagination, Crowley can’t dream it up. He can’t even look at some old Victorian photographs, and he’s worked hard to keep anything he gleans from a successful temptation as vague and formless in his memory as possible. He’s been to orgies, of course, and he’s politely looked away, gotten drunk, and left early. He knows how it all works, in technicality, he just never expected it would involve him.
“I’d like… I’d like to kiss. More, I mean,” Crowley says, pulling back to look at Aziraphale.
Aziraphale beams. “Marvelous,” he says and leans in.
Aziraphale is less shy with his tongue this go-round, and Crowley follows as best he can. He’s always been a quick learner, and it’s easy to let Aziraphale tease open his mouth and tilt his head and, oh fuck, firmly pull Crowley into his lap, pointy knees digging into the sofa on either side of Aziraphale’s wide hips.
This, Crowley thinks dazedly, is what the humans would call “snogging.” It’s more in a way that Crowley had trouble imagining, and he can’t help grinding his stiff cock into Aziraphale’s full belly. If Aziraphale’s soft moan is anything to go by, he doesn’t mind at all, which makes Crowley feel acutely mad.
Aziraphale slows the kiss until they’re simply sharing air and soft pecks, staring at one another too close to focus. “I love you,” he says. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Crowley shoves his face into Aziraphale’s neck, certain he’s gone red as a pomegranate. He chokes out something like agreement, and Aziraphale giggles and rubs between his shoulders until his heart stops trying to escape. Crowley swears he can almost feel Aziraphale’s hand in his feathers.
Some days, Crowley feels more like a gas or a liquid than a solid. His density is mutable, he can spread to fill a space or be compressed into a smaller one. From some angles, on some planes, he can appear limitless. Under Aziraphale’s warm hands, his hips are a specific width, and they’re plenty solid when Aziraphale squeezes them between his palms.
Aziraphale’s thumb slips under his shirt to rub at his bare hip where it crests over the line of his trousers. He kisses Crowley again before stepping back, and Crowley sways forward. Aziraphale grins and kisses the tip of Crowley’s nose.
Crowley wrinkles his nose and steps back. “Why?”
Aziraphale only smiles. “I’m feeling peckish. Sushi?”
“If it keeps you from eating my nose, yeah, you nutter,” Crowley says.
“No promises, you are very scrumptious.”
“Uungggh,” Crowley groans. “Let’s go get your mouth filled so you stop saying ridiculous things.” Aziraphale trips on the threshold of his shop, and his cheeks are pink when Crowley steadies him. “Hey, you alright?” Crowley asks.
“Tickety-boo,” Aziraphale says, his voice faint. He must be hungrier than Crowley realized.
Every lunch, dinner, or other fraternization includes a variety of kissing. Crowley is treated to kisses hello and kisses goodnight, and sometimes kisses just because Aziraphale feels like it. It’s becoming Crowley’s new favorite activity, and he lets himself relax into the knowledge that if he feels like kissing Aziraphale — usually represented as a strange, twisty sort of warmth in his gut that he’s never put a name to in the past — he can do it. He can reach for Aziraphale’s hand or hook their elbows together or perch on the arm of Aziraphale’s chair and get close enough to share his warmth.
Aziraphale encourages him, humming with happiness whenever Crowley reaches out. If he’s busy, he’ll pull Crowley in close before shooing him away. Mostly, Crowley doesn’t mind. It’s its own pleasure to watch Aziraphale get wrapped up reading a book or carefully mending one or discretely miracling the outcome of online auctions through his ancient computer, and Crowley’s no stranger to wanting to be alone. He’ll go back to his flat or stay in the shop and entertain himself semi-quietly. He’ll go for a drive and come back with treats.
Today, though, nothing will keep his interest but Aziraphale. He’d woken on his bedroom ceiling with a half-remembered dream of Aziraphale’s smooth skin and hot mouth. He’d writhed with directionless want, falling to his mattress with a moan. He’d gotten to the bookshop in record time, forgetting in his haze that Aziraphale had plans.
He tosses aside his phone in distaste and stares at Aziraphale from where he’s sitting upside down on the couch, head hanging off and hair brushing the rug.
“Ang—”
“No,” Aziraphale says primly, turning a page. He doesn’t look at Crowley over the rim of his silly glasses. “You promised to give me a mere few hours to read this when it came out. It has been fourteen minutes.”
Crowley groans and slips to the floor, disconsolate. He practically invented being dramatic, might as well lean into it.
“It’s a short book, and it’s rather sweet, all about endangered animals. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“Tell me about it now,” Crowley whines, cringing at his neediness.
Aziraphale sighs. “You normally like doing what I ask,” he points out tetchily.
That gets Crowley on his feet. How embarrassing. “Yeah, yeah. Enjoy your book on seahorses.”
No matter how many times he explores the bookshop, there’s always something new to discover. This is partially due to clutter, but mostly due to Aziraphale’s insatiable need to stockpile more things and also to randomly reorganize those things.
Crowley spends a solid several minutes reshelving books as quietly as possible, focusing on that and that alone. Non-fiction into fantasy, fantasy into science fiction, science fiction nestled up to memoirs — specifically the sci-fi with the most benign titles and covers so they can pass.
(A few years ago, Crowley encouraged a fellow cinema-goer in their false and ludicrous assumption that a movie about a stranded astronaut was a true story. The theory had spread like wildfire, never mind that Mars was both unfit for human life and one of the most boring planets in the neighborhood. Crowley has been trying to spark similar misinformation ever since.)
When he slips Slaughterhouse-Five alongside a dry collection of Churchill’s speeches, he remembers the photographic plates hidden in the history section.
He peeks over a row of old Brittanicas, all filled with the most delightfully incorrect information of their respective period, to ensure Aziraphale remains caught up reading about lemurs or giraffes or whatever.
Besides the work-mandated orgy attendance and his accidental find in these same shelves in the ‘80s, Crowley hasn’t viewed pornography. He’s barely read erotica, despite tempting several choice authors into getting their quills wet. Hell is all for temptations involving lust, but even Satan doesn’t expect his agents to get their claws dirty. Hell views sex in the same way Crowley assumes Heaven does — a weird and disgustingly human part of the whole Earth experiment.
The plates are in the same hollowed-out book they were in decades ago, and Crowley decides to quickly flip past the fivesome. Except… the fivesome isn’t the first plate. Someone has looked at these since Crowley found them. Odds are Aziraphale has looked through them. Why wouldn’t he? They are in his collection. He’s probably taken them over to his little chair and had a leisurely exploration of these nude, desirous humans.
The plate on top features two men. One has the other bent over a table, and he’s leaning low so that he can kiss his partner’s spine. Crowley’s breath catches, and the heat that’s simmered inside him all day skyrockets. The next features two women intertwined. They face opposite directions, their heads hovering near each other’s thighs, and it takes Crowley a long moment to put together the benefits of such a position.
He’s achingly hard in his trousers thinking of himself and Aziraphale replacing the humans in each photographic plate he flips to. He’s surprised Aziraphale can’t hear his heavy breathing, or feel the heat radiating from his skin across the shop.
He wonders if Aziraphale has taken himself in hand looking them over. He wonders if Aziraphale has done any of this before, and with whom. Has Aziraphale taken a cock past his lips, or had someone else suck his? Is that — would he want Crowley to do that? Crowley could. Crowley thinks he — he wants to.
Crowley shoves the plates back in the book and stalks through the shelves to get to Aziraphale. He can read his animal book any time, Crowley wants, well. He wants something and he knows he wants it right now. What kind of demon is he if he can’t tempt the angel that, that <em<loves him away from some book?
(He knows there’s a very real risk that he’s setting himself up to fail, making Aziraphale choose between him and the written word. It’s okay if Aziraphale picks the book, Crowley lo— is fond of him just as he is. He’s pretty sure he can trust Aziraphale to let him down easy and make it up to him later, if Crowley doesn’t die from the shame first.)
He leans back against the counter, careful of the antique cash register. He tries to look as tempting as possible, with his sunglasses and jacket discarded and a couple more shirt buttons undone than usual. “Angel,” he calls, staring so intently that he knows Aziraphale must be able to sense it.
“Thirty-nine,” Aziraphale says without looking up.
“What?”
“It’s been thirty-nine minutes, total, since I began this book. Which, I’ll remind you, you agreed to let me read in peace.” Aziraphale glares at him over the top of his reading glasses. “What could possibly be so pressing that you can’t—”
Crowley doesn’t mean to moan, and he certainly doesn’t mean to press the heel of his hand into his erection through his trousers. Aziraphale is mind-numbingly hot when he’s bitchy.
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, his eyes wide.
“I want you,” Crowley tells him. “I, nngh. I need you. Aziraphale, please.”
“Well,” Aziraphale says in a high voice as he tucks a spontaneously appearing bookmark between pages, “why didn’t you say so?”
He moves faster than a human could, boxing Crowley in before he has a chance to process that he’s getting his way. He didn’t quite expect this to work, at least not so quickly. Aziraphale’s hands are on the counter on either side of him, their hips nearly touching. Aziraphale tilts his chin up, and then their mouths are touching, and Crowley’s clutching at his back, pulling him closer.
“You’re always so tempting,” Aziraphale says, lips on Crowley’s neck. He’s grinding their clothed cocks together, and Crowley’s lost the plot but he’s never been one for too much narrative structure. He gasps and holds on tighter.
“I’ve never—” he protests.
“Lowercase-T tempting,” Aziraphale assures him. “You’re just so very beautiful, and the way you move. And here, like this,” Aziraphale has somehow snuck a hand onto Crowley’s ass without him realizing and he squeezes it until Crowley squeaks, “you’re so very sweet for me.”
“You’re sweet,” Crowley says mindlessly. Aziraphale chuckles.
“What do you want? What can I do for you?”
Crowley thinks of the vintage photographs and of every way he can avoid more of this taking it slow or, worse, talking about it business. He twists in Aziraphale’s arms and leans over the counter, arching his back so his ass rubs against Aziraphale. “Like this,” he says, and he hopes it sounds more sultry than questioning.
Aziraphale groans, laying his big, warm hands on Crowley, and Crowley’s melting away his own clothes without a thought. He needs Aziraphale’s hands on his skin, and the shocked gasp from Aziraphale makes it doubly worth it. One of his hands is spread wide in the middle of Crowley’s back, pinning him in place.
“You’re a needy thing, aren’t you?” Aziraphale asks. Statistically, historically, it’s not true at all, but the question is clearly rhetorical judging by the way Aziraphale doesn’t wait for an answer, not to mention how Crowley whines when Aziraphale nudges his thighs farther apart.
Crowley feels the slight dip in atmospheric pressure as Aziraphale calls down a miracle, and then Aziraphale is rubbing slick fingers over his furled hole and Crowley doesn’t need to feel anything else. He smothers his moan and forces himself to relax as Aziraphale slides in a finger like it’s nothing. His fingers are thick, all-consuming, and everything about this is novel. Crowley chokes on his spit, holds his breath, and tries to relax and be sweet, as Aziraphale said.
It doesn’t hurt, not exactly. It’s strange, a little overwhelming, and Crowley has no idea how any cocks are supposed to fit anywhere, but he’s already sinking into the sensation. Aziraphale holds his hip tightly in his other hand and kisses his spine and says, “That’s it, dearest, just like that,” and Crowley knows he could take anything for Aziraphale.
Fingers, a cock, two cocks, maybe a wine bottle if Aziraphale wanted to see it. Crowley’s imagination is finally sitting up and taking notice, and it’s as wanton and limitless as the rest of him.
Two fingers are better, somehow, than one. There’s a pleasing burn to the stretch, and Aziraphale’s conjured so much lube that the sound is obscene. He curls his fingers then, searching, and Crowley howls when he finds his prostate.
(It’s a miracle of its own, really, that Crowley has one. He doesn’t need it to function, or at least it didn’t before this moment. He’ll have to reevaluate.)
“How does it feel?” Aziraphale asks, and Crowley can hear the smirk in his words.
“Go on, get on with it,” Crowley growls.
“I don’t want to hurt—”
Crowley flaps his hand back until he hits Aziraphale’s sweatered arm. He still has all his clothes on, for Someone’s sake. “I can take it, want to take it.”
“I want that, too,” Aziraphale says in a rush, like he’s confessing. “If you’re sure…”
“I’m fucking sure, angel, get inside me.”
He’s only felt Aziraphale’s cock against him through layers of clothing, and he has a new pet theory that it’s anything but small, but two fingers must be plenty. He wants to take Aziraphale like this, bent over and wanting. He wants to be something out of Aziraphale’s well-loved fantasies. Humans do this all the time, and they’re fine. Crowley has control over his body down to the tiniest particle. His body will do what he wants it to.
Except, Crowley realizes with startling and catastrophic clarity, he hasn’t figured out the whole sensitivity aspect, and the thick, hot stretch of Aziraphale’s cock is groundbreaking. Every synapse in his brain fires and his wings tremble on another plane and his knees give out, and his cock — his cock spurts, untouched, all over the side of Aziraphale’s checkout counter.
Aziraphale’s sturdy hands keep him from collapsing, but only just. Crowley’s drooling, practically melting into the counter, becoming one with it. Aziraphale’s hands and Aziraphale’s cock are the only things keeping him standing. He’s not sure if he came five seconds or five hours ago. Everything is bright and shining, gold-limned and delicious, illuminating him inside and out.
“Oh, that’s— oh, my dear. You feel sublime,” Aziraphale says with wonder.
“Back atcha,” Crowley gasps. He can’t stop clenching around the thick length of Aziraphale’s cock, shivering every time he feels the girth of it. “Can we, uh, unnggh… hold on a t-tick?”
Aziraphale straightens behind him and pulls out, making Crowley moan. “Of course! Here, allow me to help.”
Crowley doesn’t remember walking to the sofa. He has a sneaking suspicion Aziraphale may have carried him like he was something slight and weightless, but he can’t remember that, either. Maybe his memory is attempting to spare him.
He’s nude, and he’s draped across Aziraphale’s front like an especially expensive and showy throw blanket. His cock is hard, and so is Aziraphale’s, peaking out of his fly. His size theory was right and it was right in spades.
“Sssorry,” he says, before wrangling his tongue under control. “Needed a minute.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Aziraphale’s hands are warm on Crowley’s ribs, fingers easily stretching far across his middle.
“I’m good.” Crowley pushes himself up to straddle Aziraphale, ignoring the tremor in his limbs. “Just… intense, y’know? How’re you still wearing so many clothes?”
Aziraphale watches him for a long moment before he smiles coyly. “Will you be a dear and take care of that for me?”
It takes a couple of tries for Crowley to snap them away, leaving a more or less folded stack on Aziraphale’s reading chair. He moans as he gets his hands on Aziraphale, all his soft skin and plush curves. There’s so much of him to explore and to hold onto. If Crowley wasn’t hard before, he certainly would be now.
“Gorgeous,” he breathes. “Never letting you put on anything ever again. Why isn’t your dick in me?”
Aziraphale laughs and Crowley feels it, sees it shake through his body. His mouth waters. He’s always been stupidly gone on Aziraphale, even if he never thought of him in this specific, sexual way. Aziraphale is gorgeous. The whole of creation could have happened precisely just to make him, and She might as well have stopped with the sheer perfection of him.
“There’s no rush,” Aziraphale says.
“Fuck yes there is, come on.” Crowley fishes beneath him for Aziraphale’s cock, and Aziraphale helps him line up, holding himself steady as Crowley pushes down.
It’s a lot. It’s so much. It’s somehow more in this position, at this angle, but Crowley’s not troubled with geometry right now. How is this monster ever gonna fit? He clutches Aziraphale’s broad, sloping shoulders and grits his teeth and lets gravity warp stronger in their immediate area to help pull him down to the base.
He’s panting by the time he gets there, head tucked down to rest on Aziraphale’s shoulder, his back a tight curve under Aziraphale’s palms.
“Crowley, are you—”
“Shut up. I’m… nngh. Savoring.”
Aziraphale snorts, and his laughter sets off Crowley’s, too. He doesn’t relax, exactly, but the stretch is less daunting when they’re smiling at each other like loons.
“Didn’t know you could do that,” Crowley says without meaning to.
“Do what? Oh! The bit with the mass? That was very clever, if a little unsettling—”
“The laughing,” Crowley interrupts.
(There’s no reason Aziraphale shouldn’t have a complete understanding of physics, and yet every time he tries to talk about it Crowley ends up with a headache, explaining centrifugal force or quantum entanglement for the hundredth time to an easily distractible student.)
Aziraphale’s smile dims. “I find that laughter is suitable for most occasions and often makes them more enjoyable. Have you never laughed in bed?”
“M’not in bed,” Crowley points out.
Aziraphale frowns. “You know what I mean.”
Crowley shrugs and pushes down on Aziraphale’s shoulders, slowly lifting himself a few inches before sinking back down again. They both moan at the drag of Aziraphale’s cock inside his heat. Crowley starts to lift again, his knees digging into the sofa. “Haven’t exactly done any of it, have I? The laughing or the…” Crowley clenches purposely around Aziraphale’s cock and grins when Aziraphale gasps.
But then Aziraphale gasps again, and his hands are so tight on Crowley’s hips that he can’t move. “Crowley,” Aziraphale says slowly, “have you done this before?”
Crowley huffs. “I literally just said I hadn’t.”
The handsome flush in Aziraphale’s cheeks is fading. “This, ah, position or… any of this?”
“Does it matter?”
“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s voice is high, and a bit pitchy. “You can’t seriously be telling me that… that that,” Aziraphale waves toward the counter where Crowley’s come is still dripping down the wood, “was your first time.”
Crowley tilts his head. “You okay? Do you need a minute?”
“Do I need a minute?!” Aziraphale says, his hands tightening so hard Crowley finds himself hoping he leaves bruises behind and wow, that’s a new one.
“Well, I would like to keep going.” Crowley clenches again, admiring the way it makes Aziraphale’s eyelashes flutter. “You feel bloody amazing now.”
“Now,” Aziraphale repeats with a pinched expression.
“It was fine before! Good, I mean! Just, a lot. Wasn’t used to it yet,” Crowley reassures him. “Think I’d get plenty used to it now if someone would let me move. Or you can move, I’m not picky.”
Aziraphale releases Crowley’s hips only to cup his cheeks in both hands. His sea-glass eyes are damp. “Oh, Crowley, I didn’t know! I would never have taken you in, in such an uncouth manner if I had.”
Crowley grins, rocking his hips now that he can. “I like it when you’re uncouth.”
“I never should have assumed,” Aziraphale frets.
Crowley shrugs again. “S’alright. I think I let you, accidentally. I didn’t know what I wanted, and I didn’t want you too in your head about it.”
“Still…”
Crowley kisses him, and he’s relieved when Aziraphale responds. “I wouldn’t trade that orgasm for the world.”
Aziraphale’s jaw drops. “Was that your first orgasm?” he hisses, eyes darting around like they’ll be overheard.
“Yeah, never saw the point. I poked around once or twice, forever ago, was all messy and awkward. This body only seems to make an Effort around you, anyway.” Crowley tries to say it casually.
Aziraphale makes a noise like he’s swallowed his tongue. “Crowley, you do know that I’ve—”
Crowley waves away the words and lifts himself again, daring to go further. Aziraphale’s hips push up to meet him. It’s exquisite. “Yeah, yeah, I've started to figure recently. I wanna know, if you wanna tell me, but not right now.”
Aziraphale pulls him into another kiss, disrupting his slow rhythm. “It was only ever you,” he says when they break apart. “I was— of course, curious—”
“Hedonistic,” Crowley corrects.
“Curious, and I’ve cared for humans, you know that, but I only ever wanted you, really. I’ve only loved you.”
“Sap,” Crowley says, blinking rapidly up at the ceiling. “Sure know how to make a demon feel special.”
Aziraphale’s hands slip to his bare shoulders and stroke down his arms. “You could have told me,” he says softly.
“I didn’t think to,” Crowley blurts out, and he cringes because he knows it’s not true. “I wanted— I want whatever you want.” Aziraphale’s brow creases and he opens his mouth, Crowley talks over him. “Not like — I’m not doing anything I don’t want to. Promise. But I want to be, nnggh… enough.”
“Darling.”
“I wanted to give you what you wanted, what you expected. But I didn’t know what that was,” Crowley says.
“It was just you,” Aziraphale says. “It was only ever you.”
Crowley looks away and back. He gestures between them, Aziraphale's hands wrapped loosely around his forearms. “I didn’t think we did this, on either side.”
Aziraphale squeezes his arms. “I don’t doubt that no one else does, but I think we get to decide what our side does, no?”
Crowley nods. “Yeah, this is. S’good.” He rocks his hips and Aziraphale moans. “We should definitely embrace this, for our side.”
Aziraphale presses his lips together in a thin line. “If I’d known it was your first time, I would have wanted to make it perfect for you.”
“Trust me, your cock is perfect,” Crowley gasps.
Aziraphale rolls his eyes, but Crowley can see the heat there. His hands resettle on Crowley’s hips, holding him still. “I’m serious, Crowley. I’d like to appreciate knowing you’ve never been spread open on anyone else’s cock before.”
Crowley grins. “That’s doing it for you, isn’t it?”
“So what if it is?” Aziraphale asks haughtily. His cheeks are very pink.
“Then make it perfect now. You can do that for me, can’t you, love? You’ll make it so good for me,” Crowley says and Aziraphale’s eyes widen.
“How committed to this position are you?”
Crowley fights Aziraphale’s grip to push himself up so that Aziraphale’s cock is barely tucked inside until he slides back down. They both groan. Crowley shifts to rise again. “S’a good position.”
“It is, but I’d like to take care of you.”
Crowley moans. “Alright, I’m listening.”
“Hold on tight, darling.”
“Hold on? Wh— ah!” Crowley can’t make sense of it at first. His back collides with a bed that’s almost too soft, and he coughs at the cloud of dust that rises.
“Oh, sorry!” Aziraphale snaps. The dust vanishes. Crowley wonders if it all got moved downstairs to join its fellows.
“I didn’t know you even had a bed,” he marvels, looking around. He half-expected four posts but instead it has a wrought iron frame replete with graceful curved detailing. It looks quite a bit bigger than the beds the Victorians favored, though. The duvet is a luscious butter yellow that glows in the afternoon sun. “You got this sometime in the nineteenth, yeah? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Aziraphale’s eyebrows draw together and he pulls back, reminding Crowley immediately that his cock is still buried inside him. “We, ah, we weren’t speaking when I bought it.”
Crowley’s eyes widen. “Angel, did you buy this to— mmph!”
Aziraphale’s kiss is soft, slow. “I assure you no one else has been in this bed. I have barely been here.”
Crowley smirks. “Let’s change that, eh?”
He hadn’t thought it would make a big difference, him on his back instead of riding Aziraphale on the sofa. He hadn’t truly considered what it would feel like to be spread beneath his bulk, to be anchored by it as Aziraphale slowly worked his hips. With the way Aziraphale draws nearly all the way out before thrusting back inside, it’s like he’s being opened up again each time. Crowley clutches at his shoulders, mindful of his nails as they sharpen into something like claws.
“Christ, you—”
“I don’t mind if you scratch a bit, my dear,” Aziraphale says. He kisses Crowley’s temple, and Crowley has a sneaking suspicion there might be scales seeping through at his hairline. “You needn’t be so controlled with me.”
Crowley nods and takes him at his word, getting a firmer hold with his hands as he winds his legs around Aziraphale’s back, tilting his hips up and keeping him close. The way Aziraphale moans makes his whole body want to shake. Or maybe it is shaking, maybe it hasn’t stopped shaking since Aziraphale had him bent over. Maybe he’ll be nothing but a trembling mess for the rest of eternity, broken open by Aziraphale’s affection.
“Shh, it’s alright. I’ve got you. You’re so beautiful, so precious to me,” Aziraphale is saying, and Crowley can’t guess what kind of sound he’s making over the rushing in his ears.
He has more warning for his second orgasm, and recognizes the swooping, dropping roll of it as it builds inside him. The books and little trinkets in the room jitter in place, vibrating on whatever wavelength Crowley is subconsciously tapping into. He tries to stop it, but Aziraphale only shushes him again, and Crowley can feel the place outside of himself, outside of his corporation. He can feel the endless expanse of another plane, and the warmth of Aziraphale’s love filling it like paint spilled on canvas. He can sense the ways they’re tied up together beyond the physical and the here and now. He can hear Aziraphale’s heartbeat and the fluttering of his wings and the whisper of his own name as Aziraphale silently mouths it into his skin.
Outside the shop, a car alarm goes off, quickly followed by several more. Crowley starts to laugh, struggling for breath as he falls over the cliff of his climax, yanking Aziraphale along after him into both release and a fit of gasping giggles. He sobers a bit with the pulse of Aziraphale’s cock deep inside him. It’s strange but good. He wants it again as soon as possible.
Aziraphale waves a hand and the alarms stop, the silence ringing inside the small room filled only with their labored breathing.
“Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been weather,” Crowley says with a snicker. He clenches around Aziraphale’s softening cock, grinning when Aziraphale gasps.
“Yes, I’m sure everyone is grateful you didn’t conjure hail,” Aziraphale says into the crook of Crowley’s neck. He’s heavy on top of him, Crowley loves it.
“What can I say, your ability to fuck me through the mattress is… alarming.”
Aziraphale groans and pushes himself up. They both wince as his cock slips out, come dripping with it. “Do be quiet, you’re ruining the mood.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t be noisy in bed?”
Aziraphale tuts and slides his hands below Crowley’s thighs, pushing until they touch his chest. “Hold those for me, won’t you?”
Crowley frowns. “Not that I mind being bent in half, spine’s practically fake and all, but— ngk!”
Honestly, he should have expected Aziraphale’s tongue. Aziraphale loves to put his tongue on all manner of things. Why should Crowley’s freshly fucked ass be an exception?
“Are you, oh fuck. Are you really eating me out?”
Aziraphale takes Crowley’s balls in hand, fondling them so gently it’s playful. He barely pulls back to say, “Are you registering a complaint?”
Crowley can feel the puff of breath against his slick hole. “Fucking fuck, no, but I didn’t expect—”
“I think we’ve established you expected little of this variety,” Aziraphale says primly, and then returns to his task with the kind of vigor that pushes prim out the window and flailing to the ground.
Crowley comes like that, without a hand or tongue on his cock, and it’s easy to roll onto his belly afterward and encourage Aziraphale to, “Stick it back in.”
“Really,” Aziraphale mutters, but he does as instructed.
The bones of Crowley’s corporation creak with Aziraphale’s force, with his love. The bed does, too, until Crowley snaps it to attention. It won’t be fun for anyone if it were to break right now, and he makes sure the old iron understands.
Aziraphale holds him so fiercely that Crowley hopes for bruises and bite marks, and he hopes he’s left some in return. He craves the physical evidence of their desire on each other, a series of marks he can point to and say, See, he’s mine and I’m his. See, we’re an us.
It’s full-dark by the time they wear each other out, Crowley sprawled across Aziraphale’s chest as he flips through a book, occasionally reading a line aloud here or there.
“‘Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,’” he recites softly.
“‘Whose wakening should have been in paradise,’” Crowley responds smugly, tipping his head back to look at Aziraphale. “Chrissy was dead good. Her brother, too. Did you know I modeled for him a couple times?”
“Next you’ll tell me you inspired ‘Goblin Market,’” Aziraphale says with a fond smile.
Crowley grimaces. “You take that back, I am not a goblin.”
“Goblins don’t exist, dear. Why don’t you lie back down?”
Crowley huffs and sits up, the sheets slipping off his body as he straddles Aziraphale and pushes his book to the side. “I see how it is. You’ve already got me into bed so now you can call me names.”
Aziraphale cups Crowley’s face between his palms. “I’ve always called you names, you beastly fiend. You know you’re attractive. I’ve told you that you are. Do you need me to do it more?”
“Might do,” Crowley mumbles, twisting his neck to kiss Aziraphale’s palm.
Aziraphale pulls him in for a proper kiss before he breaks away and kisses his forehead. “You are so beautiful you take my breath away sometimes.” He kisses Crowley’s cheekbones, his closed eyelids, his nose. “So gorgeous I have always felt privileged to look upon you, even when I could not trust myself to do so.”
“You’re flirting with blasphemy there,” Crowley says, breathless.
“So what? I can build you altars, if you want. I can build you temples or raze cities—”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley chides. He blinks his eyes open.
“You would,” Aziraphale says. “For me. You must know I would for you too, my heart.”
Crowley sucks in a breath. There’s something sharp in his chest, pressing at his breastbone, his ribs. His eyes are wet at the corners and he’s clutching Aziraphale’s hands in his. He doesn’t remember reaching for them. He swallows, hard. His skin is tight and warm all over. He’s heavy and light at the same time, settled in his bones beside Aziraphale.
“Let’s take a minute, yeah? It’d be uncool if I started crying while I was naked.”
Aziraphale laughs and kisses him. “Maybe you could use your intelligent mobile and see if there are any restaurants still open nearby?”
Crowley groans and collapses onto his chest, startling an oomph out of Aziraphale. “I know you know it’s called a smartphone.” His empty hand is suddenly holding his mobile because he wants it to be. “There’s a chippy not too far from here. Up for a walk?”
“Are you sure you can walk?”
Crowley frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be able to— oh my god, angel.”
“I’m only saying,” Aziraphale says with a small yet exceedingly self-satisfied smirk.
Crowley forces himself up to prove a point, though it’s undermined by the way he sways. Aziraphale reaches over the side of the bed to steady him. “Looks like you’re going to have to try harder next time,” Crowley says. When he snaps himself dressed, his trousers might be tighter than before. He relishes the drag of Aziraphale’s eyes up his legs.
“I look forward to it,” Aziraphale says, clothing himself with a thought. “Perhaps after we’ve eaten?”
Crowley gasps and presses a hand to his chest where he can feel his useless heart pounding away. “You’re not even bothering to woo me with a fine vintage? What kind of demon do you think I am?”
Aziraphale drags Crowley down into a filthy kiss that leaves him half-hard. “An easy one, I hope,” he says, and walks out of the room.
Crowley follows him, because Crowley always follows him. “You’re lucky I like you,” he grumbles,” stomping down the stairs.
Aziraphale smiles over his shoulder, bright and adoring. “I am, aren’t I?”
(In 1141, an angel took a nasty spill in an Oxford castle where the tower stairs were purposely uneven to trip up intruders. Miraculously, a demon was there to catch him and keep them both from tumbling down while Empress Matilda escaped the siege a floor below.
Now, if a certain demon happens to miss a step on a bookshop staircase and is caught by a certain angel, it is merely history repeating as it is wont to do. Spiraling and folding in on itself around a true constant of two beings in an orbit so tight their physical edges blur.)