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Crowley fiddles with his mobile. Aziraphale is across town at some sort of antiquarian booksellers' thingy and he's left Crowley in charge of the shop. Which was unwise, true. But who was Crowley to argue someone -- even his someone, perhaps especially his someone -- out of an unwise notion? So far the bookshop hasn't seen fit to let a single customer through the door. Perhaps it knows Crowley is at the till. Crowley has used the quiet morning to rearrange the fiction in reverse alphabetical order by the last name of the author spelled backward. He's now placing bets with himself how long it will take Aziraphale to notice and trying to decide, once he does, what sexual favor Crowley should offer as an apology.
Maybe he'll grow out his hair again. If he starts now, by the time Aziraphale is back from his bookish adventures that evening it will be long enough for Aziraphale to fuss over. Aziraphale hasn’t spent time on his hair since -- Crowley pauses. Has it really been since that night -- the night -- in July? Well, he thinks, they've been busy. Maybe Aziraphale had only been using it as an excuse all along. But no. Crowley has noticed how eagerly Aziraphale pushes his fingers through the clinging strands when they're naked in the bed upstairs. On the sofa. In the stock room. In the shower (where Aziraphale insists on the superfluous exercise of washing Crowley's hair). Once even on the kitchen countertop. Crowley shivers happily at the memory. Yes, he'll grow his hair out as an ... invitation. It could be the beginning of a most wonderful evening.
The shop door opens, nearly startling him off the counter where he's been perched cross-legged since finishing the book reorganization project. It takes him a moment to recognize the child to whom Aziraphale sold Crowley's manga selections. The human has since cut their hair and dyed it electric blue, and is now sporting a pair of spectacles with frames that remind Crowley of the 1950s. A boring decade where fashion overall was concerned -- but the thick, black frames suit the child's face. He unfolds his legs and lets them dangle off the front of the counter, waiting to see what will happen next.
"I, um," says the girl. Possibly-girl. Aziraphale had said "she" but Aziraphale sometimes makes assumptions. Crowley would hazard a smile but people usually find that alarming and he feels a certain grudging fondness for this human who found their way to the shop on the very first day he and Aziraphale were lovers. So he holds his face in a carefully neutral position.
"Looking for something?" he tries to inquire in a helpful sort of tone. From behind his dark lenses, he glares down the aisle toward the slowly-growing collection of manga; the bookshelf shivers and doubles its holdings. "The, uh, manga section is that way." He points. The child flushes, but murmurs thanks and moves off in the direction he indicated. Crowley turns back down at his mobile as they move off. When a person wants to get on with something as personal as selecting a book, they don't need a demon hovering over their shoulder to make the experience any more agonizingly public.
so dinner tonight, he types deliberately avoiding capital letters; who needs the uppercase anyway? That seemed like a Gabriel invention to him, something to make his name look Even More Impressive on departmental memos.
sushi or that pub around the corner?
I was rather looking forward to an evening in, comes Aziraphale's reply a few moments later. Shall I pick up sushi on my way home?
plz
He might have used the zed because he knew it exasperated Aziraphale.
Have we had many customers today?
one
the manga child
They get younger every year. Did she choose the green or the blue for her hair? I said I thought the blue would be quite fetching.
Crowley looks down the aisle, trying to imagine anyone under the age of seventy asking Aziraphale for fashion advice. Not that he ever wants Aziraphale to stop being Aziraphale (though this morning's plaid had been a bit eye-watering). He just can't put Aziraphale's wardrobe choices in the same sentence with the small blue-headed human at the other end of the shop, currently sitting cross-legged on the floor with an open book on their knees.
took your advice
sure it's "she"?
I did ask, my dear. Her name is Sky.
Crowley looks down the aisle at Sky, absorbed in her reading, It hasn't been lost on Crowley that the manga section which he'd created on a whim has not only remained but grown steadily over the past few months. Is the bookshop courting Sky? Or has Aziraphale taken her on as one of his occasional projects? He wonders if Sky is also the reason for the new section labelled, alarmingly, "Queer Books" that had appeared in mid-August. It contains a fascinating collection of 18th, 19th, and 20th century works of many genres that suggest Aziraphale's reading habits have been much more wide-ranging than their dinner-table conversations up to this point have suggested.
Crowley feels a bit slighted that Aziraphale hadn't seen fit to mention a taste for lesbian pulps, for example. It would have made shopping for Christmas gifts much more amusing. Not to mention birthdays which neither of them had, technically speaking, but which they had fallen into celebrating together on May 1st because cake could be sold to either side as a secret weapon.
He feels ... unsettled, thinking about Aziraphale thinking about sex. Aziraphale thinking about the ways humans enjoyed it, reading the stories they wrote about enjoying it. Now that Crowley has hands-on experience of how much Aziraphale enjoys sexual activities, he’s … curious. Curiosity: It always did come down to that, for Crowley and his obsession with Aziraphale. Aziraphale was fascinating. And now that they aren't pretending not to be in love, not pretending sex is for humans only, now he has all sorts of new questions to explore.
what’s the first piece of smut you can remember? he types into his mobile.
Aziraphale doesn't immediately respond.
Crowley knows Aziraphale is in a busy convention hall; he’d stopped by the swanky reception the evening before and enjoyed causing a few near-catastrophes of spilled wine in the proximity of rare books and manuscripts. Aziraphale probably isn't deliberately ignoring him but been pulled away from his mobile by a customer or fellow exhibitor. It's just that the longer Aziraphale’s silence stretches out, the more Crowley regrets his last text.
sorry shouldn’t have ask-- he begins to type. Then he deletes it letter by letter because he isn’t sorry, not really. He likes the idea of Aziraphale sitting there, at his booth -- respectably dressed in that eye-wateringly plaid suit and a plum-colored bowtie that Crowley had tied for him that morning -- reading Crowley’s question. He likes recalling that the bowtie conceals a bruise that Crowley had sucked into Aziraphale’s skin that morning at Aziraphale’s own request -- a kiss for Aziraphale to carry with him through the day.
A kiss like the text -- in public, but still private. Just for the two of them.
There is still no response from Aziraphale. Perhaps he is irritated with Crowley for asking. Crowley feels the panicked free-fall sensation that sometimes barrels down on him, without warning, when they’re doing this thing that they do now and part of Crowley forgets that he doesn’t have to stop himself from thinking, speaking, touching, responding, as he had fought so hard to do for centuries. He sits very still on the bookshop counter while the wave of panic washes over him and fights the urge to topple the "Queer Books" bookshelf over due to nerves. Just as he has the bookcase stabilized, he feels some mold starting to grow in one of the volumes on the bottom shelf and has to redirect the energy to a hapless pedestrian outside who suddenly stumbles and spills their coffee on the pavement with an irritated curse.
His mobile chimes.
Really, my dear. "Smut"? I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific.
Crowley steadies himself. Not, in fact, irritated. It's a promising response. An intriguing one, as Aziraphale had no doubt intended. Before he can follow up, Aziraphale’s next text pops up on his screen:
First image of human genitalia? First image of copulation? First explicit poem? First description of the acts of copulation?
Well. Crowley had had nothing so specific in mind but now he wants all of them.
all of them
Or were you interested in the first that made me think of you?
Crowley nearly drops his mobile.
He stares down at the words, hearing them the way that only Aziraphale could ever utter them -- a perfect balance of knowing and innocence. A tone that conveys that Aziraphale knows exactly the ripple of desire he’s just provoked deep in Crowley’s body and that he’s in the mood not to admit knowing anything of the sort until Crowley has unwrapped him layer by layer, has him trembling on the brink of manifestation, both of them slick with Aziraphale’s intoxicating arousal. Crowley may have begun this conversation but Aziraphale has one-upped him with an ease that suggests Aziraphale should have been the one responsible for temptation all these years.
It was during one of my later visits to Damascus. Somewhere around sixteen-seventy, I think, Aziraphale continues as Crowley grips his mobile. An illustrated edition of the poems of Rumi. You remember him? I'm sure you do. He had a lover; another man. And this particular artist had drawn the two of them in an explicit embrace. Each man holding the other's penis, flushed with desire. I remember standing in that marketplace, the open book in my hands. It wasn't even the fact that the men were touching each other, although that certainly made an impression. It was something about the way the artist had captured their expressions. They were utterly absorbed in one another.
Crowley stares down at his mobile screen, unable to think of a single word in response.
I hadn't seen you in weeks, months perhaps. And that suddenly seemed ... unbearable. That I couldn't reach out and touch you just as they were touching one another.
Aziraphale is correct, as usual, Crowley thinks. Next time he will have to be more specific. Otherwise Aziraphale might cause him to discorporate on the spot.
He runs a suddenly-forked tongue along his lips and manages to type:
do go on
That was the first time it happened.
There are many possibilities contained in the word "it," all of which crowd together in Crowley’s mind and make him acutely aware of the pleasant ache building between his legs. A few months ago, he would have tried to ignore the sensation until it became unbearable and then throw himself into action: out for a walk, or a very fast drive, or some minor act of temptation to lust. Now, however, he can enjoy the heavy desire as it gathers strength and know that Aziraphale has chosen every word with intent. That, across town, Aziraphale is aware of how Crowley’s body responds to Aziraphale’s desire. That, soon enough, Aziraphale will be home and Crowley won't have to find an excuse to leave.
He rolls his hips just a little. Discreetly. Feels the inseam of his jeans bite into sensitive flesh. He looks down at Aziraphale’s last text again: That was the first time it happened. Aziraphale is straightforward and honest when he chooses to speak, picking words with care. He’s being purposefully vague because he knows Crowley will ask.
it
Crowley allows the two characters to hang there without a question mark, a tease that Aziraphale will understand.
While he waits for Aziraphale to respond, a second customer walks into the shop. Because of course now the shop lets someone in. Crowley considers them; they don't look familiar and hesitate in the doorway upon entry. He could ask them if they need help -- understands that's the done thing with customers these days. But while Sky's presence in the shop has become welcome -- she's quiet, but treats Aziraphale with a care bordering upon adoration (as Crowley feels Aziraphale should be treated) -- this stranger looks inappropriately disappointed by the interior of the shop. They had found the shop, so must have a reason to be here. But perhaps the shop has let them in so that Crowley has someone to torment before he becomes too bored. Or maybe the shop is not supportive of sexting.
<<See if I eat your mice next winter.>> he hisses at it in snake, with a glare up at the ceiling. The shop huffs.
Crowley returns his gaze to the newcomer and grins.
"...travel guides?" the person asks, warily.
Crowley shifts in his seat on the counter, thinking hard about not turning every book the newcomer picks up into erotica. He considers them in silence.
"Look," the intruder says, irritably. "If you don't want the sale, I can just --"
"Right down this way!" comes a bright, unexpected voice to Crowley's left. Both he and the customer look in the direction of the sound and Sky is standing there at the end of an aisle. "C'mon," she says, beckoning with the hand not holding her chosen book, "I'll show you."
Crowley watches the customer follow the blue head toward the back corner by the comfy chair where, last Crowley had bothered to look, the gardening books were kept. But then again both the shop and Aziraphale enjoyed rearranging things.
His mobile chimes again.
have you considered hiring her? he types before reading Aziraphale's text.
The first time thinking of you made the iridescence appear.Aziraphale had been typing for longer than that. Crowley wonders how many versions of that sentence he's attempted.
"the iridescence"
like it
I know you like it. He can hear the waspishly fond tone in Aziraphale's voice from across London. But I didn't know that at the time.
(Hire her?)
sky
much better at bookselling than either of us
so what
you just ...
sparkled all over damascus?
Crowley isn't sure how he feels about Aziraphale leaking his desire for Crowley while wandering around Syria.
Actually, no, he knows exactly how he feels about it: Equal parts jealous that anyone besides Crowley might have beheld Aziraphale’s want and breathless at the thought that maybe they had and Aziraphale had allowed none of them near enough to touch.
Of course I didn't. Aziraphale can make even texting affronted. I went directly back to my rooms.
Oh, that, though. Crowley licks his lips. That’s even more promising.
and?
Mmm. And experimented.
Crowley tries to picture Aziraphale in the vast convention hall sitting in his little booth amidst all the other antiquarian bibliophiles. Or had he ducked out into a back hall for more privacy? No, Crowley thinks, with a twist of want: he prefers to imagine Aziraphale typing to him on the crowded convention floor. All the rich collectors with money burning a hole in their tailored suit coat pockets. And among them sits a (former) Principality on his little folding chair describing the first time he had ever orgasmed.
tell me. Crowley types.
I thought perhaps I was ill. A fever. But I didn't feel sick. I could tell it was angelic, but I had never seen or heard of it before. Something my human form could not contain.
Just the evening before Crowley had licked the stuff from one of his favorite places: the groove at the inside of Aziraphale's thigh met his groin. There were damp, almost-white curls there and the iridescence filled his senses sweet and sharp and fresh and wholly Aziraphale. He licks his lips, remembering the taste and tingle of it, a restless yearning energy. He thinks of the way Aziraphale had shuddered under his lips and teeth and tongue, how Aziraphale had struggling to get closer, closer, his grip on Crowley’s hands urgent, snatches of syllables please and want and yes and more.
It hurts to imagine Aziraphale in such a state without Crowley to hold onto.
what did you do?
I tried to clean it off, which worked for a time. But as soon as my thoughts turned back to you, I felt it return. I had to take the evening meal in my rooms. I felt restless. I couldn't settle.
As Aziraphale is typing the customer, with Sky hovering at their elbow, reappears before Crowley.
"I'd like to pay for these?"
"Yeah, alright," Crowley agrees. It comes out a bit hoarse and he has to clear his throat. He isn’t sure his legs would hold him up at the moment so he doesn’t move from the counter. He holds out his free hand. The customer hands him the books.
Crowley knows Aziraphale pencils the prices in the front cover but also that he is very flexible about adjusting prices as it suits him. Crowley has a brief internal struggle. He wants to add a surcharge for rudeness (the human is frowning at Crowley's face rather sourly) but he also doesn't want to ruin the triumph of Sky's first sale.
"A bag?" The customer hands over their card for processing and Crowley sighs.
"Right. Yes. One moment." He shoves the mobile in his pocket and slides only slightly unsteadily to his feet. It's just as he's going behind the counter for the paper sack that Aziraphale's next text comes through.
"Sky," Crowley says, handing the paper sack stamped A.Z. Fell, Bookseller to the customer. "Are you, by chance, interested in a job?"
Sky blinks at him. "A ...job?"
"Wages are eighteen pounds an hour," Crowley hazards. "And you could start immediately."
"I ...yes," Sky says, decisively, raising her chin to look him in the sunglasses. Crowley's estimation of her takes a steep rise. Responding gamely to the unexpected is a useful skill to have when employed by a former Principality and his demon.
"Excellent," Crowley says. "Consider yourself hired. Would you like a coffee as a signing bonus? Su Lin makes the best macchiato I've had outside of Rome."
After glaring the customer out the front door, and leaving Sky at the till with her book, Crowley steps out into the cold November sunshine. He instantly regrets not having stopped for his muffler and gloves and leaves his hands firmly in his coat pockets until he steps into the steamy warmth of Su's Sweets. While he waits for the two coffees, he pulls his mobile out of his pocket and thumbs open Aziraphale's latest message.
I was aroused. I desired you. But I didn't have those words; didn't think they applied to me, to us. I still thought of them as human words. My wings felt itchy and my human skin felt tight. I didn't know how to make the feelings stop.
Crowley pictures Aziraphale, frustrated -- perhaps even angry -- at himself, confronted with new knowledge about himself and unable to make what was happening make sense according to the rules he’d been taught, the information he’d been given.
And then I realized that I didn't want the feelings to stop. I wanted you . Having you there would resolve them.
I thought about what I would want you to do, if you had been here.
Crowley is not going to survive this text, he decides. Perhaps he should step outside before he discorporates. It would be a poor way of thanking Su for all of the drinks she has made for him over the years. Besides, discorporation can sometimes be messy and would probably be a health code violation on a number of levels.
Three new customers have walked into the bakery since Crowley placed his order. Su pushes his drinks across the counter with a smile, then turns back to assist them. He nods his head in thanks, pulling the cups toward himself one at a time as the other hand still holds the mobile protectively to his chest.
I thought, well, I would want you to touch me.
This would have been during the years, decades, centuries, when Aziraphale was only allowing himself the slightest moments of contact between them, the lightest and most excusable of touches. Fingertips on an arm. Knees bumping under a table. A hand gripped in greeting. Crowley's going a bit weak in the knees at the thought of Aziraphale letting himself imagine how Crowley would touch him.
tell me, Crowley types back. This is what he whispers to Aziraphale in bed (on the sofa in the kitchen amidst the boxes in the storeroom): "Tell me." Tell me what you need. Tell me how this feels. Tell me what you taste, hear, know. Then he stuffs his mobile in his pocket and picks up the coffees to return to the bookshop.
Sky looks at home behind the counter when Crowley pushes open the door with his shoulder. It's a little disconcerting to see a human there, even this human whom Crowley likes. But she's already done a bit of tidying at the counter since he left and Aziraphale's desk remains untouched so he pushes the coffee cup he hasn't been drinking from over the counter toward her.
"Thank you," Sky says, accepting the cup. She sips at the macchiato and hums her satisfaction. "Is there, like, paperwork you need me to do or anything?"
"Oh, Aziraphale'll take care of that," Crowley says waving it away. It will probably fall to Crowley in the end, because Aziraphale gets a bit white-knuckled around forms, but that can be dealt with when the time comes -- certainly nothing he feels like doing today. Not with the mobile burning a hole in his pocket. He notices Sky's rucksack and coat tucked neatly away behind the counter and glares at the door of the stockroom until it shivers a coat rack and locked wooden cabinet into existence. He fishes in his coat pocket with his free hand and produces a key. "There's a cupboard for your things just back there --" pointing with the key -- "If you want to, I dunno, keep tea and snacks on hand."
"I, um," Sky says taking the key and glancing at the stockroom door. "I have a lecture at 4 o'clock?"
"What subject?" Crowley hasn't been to a university lecture in ages. Perhaps now that his nannying days are over and the world is still carrying on he should find a new course to enroll in. He hasn't earned a new D.Phil in -- he stops to think about it -- fifty years? They’ve come up with all sorts of new fields one can earn a degree in since then. Could be interesting.
"I'm reading Divinity and Theology," Sky says. "It's a course on religion in the Ottoman Empire."
Crowley blinks. He had ... not been expecting that answer. Although perhaps he ought to have. What else would a queer pixie-sized girl with blue hair and a taste for tentacle porn study these days, anyway?
"Excellent choice," he manages. "I'll be back down to -- when will you have to leave?"
"Quarter past three?"
"I'll be back down then. I, ah -- plants. I've got some gardening to do." He waves in the direction of the stairs and suits action to words. Aziraphale's text messages have been chiming with distracting regularity in his pocket.
Aziraphale's flat is disappointingly sans Aziraphale but also sans anyone else which means Crowley can get cozy with his mobile and really enjoy the story Aziraphale is sharing. He hadn't actually imagined Aziraphale would leap with both feet first into sexting. He should have, though, because sexting isn't, at heart, an invention of twenty-first century wireless networks but a practice of the written word. And that’s practically Aziraphale's native habitat.
He divests himself of sunglasses, jacket, and shoes at the door, then gets comfortable on the sofa before waking up his phone.
Clothing felt ... uncomfortable. So I undressed, imagining you were there helping me. Fingertips against my skin. You would have to stand close enough to untie, unwrap, push fabric away. It was hard to imagine more. I knew what your hands felt like on my arm. But on my chest? Hips? I tried to extrapolate. It made the restlessness stronger. I could feel the iridescence slick and warm and tingling on my skin, almost as if you were caressing me.
Crowley trails his own fingers down his throat, encounters shirt buttons and undoes one, then two. He tries to imagine Aziraphale doing this and thinking of him. He can feel the idea filling his soft snakey bits, still aching, the muscles pulling back, slickness and openness between his legs. Aziraphale, too, would have felt his parts changing, filling; his penis warm, heavy, ready to be held.
love to get your sparkly stuff all over my hands, Crowley types with his thumb. His other hand rests low on his exposed belly, just above his trouser zip. He's undone the button, pinky finger grazing below the belt. The snakeskin there is warmer than his palm; he's not ready to go any further without giving Aziraphale's story all the attention it deserves.
on the sofa now
catching up with you
Oh?
getting comfortable
where are you?
Still at the convention hall.
mmm
feeling restless?
Very.
Crowley scrolls back up the thread to the unread messages that came while he was talking to Sky.
Once unclothed, I lay down on the sleeping mat. Humans often seemed to do this sort of touching while prone so it seemed a reasonable next step. I thought of the last time we had shared a sleeping place. How you had lain so close in the night the scent of you -- cool, mossy earth and stone -- filled my dreams. When we awoke, your hand was curled beside my shoulder, barely making contact. But there. I thought what it would be like to have you wake me with soft touches.
Crowley remembers so many mornings across the centuries when they had awoken side by side, Aziraphale's ever-present warmth drawing him in, his scent and taste in the air all around them. The morning Aziraphale describes could be any one of them. He wonders how it would have been between them if on any one of those mornings they had broken their mutually agreed upon silence, had taken the risk that had felt too absolute to take.
He remembers to breathe and inhales the scent of Aziraphale's flat, a scent that for centuries already has smelled of a life shared. Now the scent is even more. They have shared orgasms on this sofa. Crowley can taste pleasure on the air. He cants his hips, letting the movement draw his fingers downward over the scales of his belly to the opening between his legs. The metal zipper of his jeans pulls open with a rasp across his knuckles. The tip of one finger, two, meets his opening and nearly slides inside before he stops himself. He can feel his pulse beneath his fingers, clitoral nubs rigid beneath the cloacal folds. He’ll touch himself there, soon. For now, though, almost-but-not-quite is a lovely edge to ride.
I thought about all of the places I had imagined your hand upon my form. I touched them each in turn. Lips. Jaw. Neck. Throat. Breast. Belly. Hip. Thigh. I thought of the illustration in the volume of poetry. I hadn't dared to look again, but I didn't need to in order to remember the two men depicted, each caressing the other with such adoration and intimacy. Without shame. I felt my body react to the conjured idea of you doing the same with me.
Crowley has reached the point where he rejoined the conversation, and at the bottom Aziraphale has asked: You’re restless, too? What will we do tonight when I return?
more than restless, Crowley types. open and aching for you. It still feels surreal that he finally gets to say. That he finally gets to have.
I had an orgasm, for you, that night, Aziraphale writes back. Crowley growls at his mobile. He wants to nip at Aziraphale's lip, suck bruises into his skin. The air around him feels empty. There isn't enough resistance, solidity, he wants Aziraphale to grind against, to pull inside, to grip with urgent fingers and lick clean of arousal and sweat and come. He loves that Aziraphale first spent thinking of him, about him, for him.
show me, he writes back, as he pushes his other hand further down, shifts on the sofa to bring his hips up to meet slippery fingers as he allows himself to push inside. Aziraphale’s fingers enter him at a different angle, deeper, and Crowley lets out a soft whine of frustration that Aziraphale isn’t here to fill him. He makes himself stop, trembling, and finish saying what he wants to say:
that's what i want when you get home
show me how you came for me
Are you coming for me now? Aziraphale asks. Please.
It's the please that does it: Aziraphale asking, begging, as if Crowley might not, might need persuasion. He's stroking himself now, feeling the pleasure build and twist and build until he can't think out words any longer. It's just him and Aziraphale's please as if Crowley's orgasm is Aziraphale's pleasure. And he's coming, with a tight clench of every muscle, reaching, reaching, and then unspooling into the long, sweet thud of his own heart in the silence of after.
The clock on the mantle chimes twice for two o’clock. Crowley breathes in and out, the scent of Aziraphale-home a rich note on the back of his tongue overlaid with the musk of his own orgasm. In … and out. He listens to a lorry backing up in the lane outside, and below the sounds of someone’s heels click click click past the stairwell. Sky’s voice filters up; a laugh in response. At least the shop seems to have accepted Crowley’s hiring decision. He’ll look into that paperwork in the morning. In .. and out. He lifts his mobile from his chest after a few more breaths and types: yes.