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There are some stories that feel as if they will never get told. Wants that press like poetry against the lips, aching to spill out into a terrible world that isn’t ready. The ones that live in secret corners of the bookshop of the mind, the ones played out again and again in the imagination because there’s no way, if they were ever told, they could have a happily ever after.
Which is why Aziraphale is still getting used to this, it’s quite overwhelming. This is the part of the story that comes right between, or the part that they stop telling, the part after the happily ever after, which Aziraphale is swiftly realizing is his favorite part. The furious, aching relief of the beginning just starting to soften into a new reality. It’s been nearly a year, but they’ve got quite a few millennia of secret longing to undo. There had been no prophecies of this, no precedent. This careful unlocking, these long-buried passions unearthed at last, breaching, ready to grow.
It’s so much at once: Crowley’s slim, soft hand in his. To let their eyes meet and not have to look away, to press their lips together, to brush copper curls from Crowley’s eyes as he falls asleep, to kiss him awake in the mornings. After all that mess, the mechanics of love feel quite simple. Little pleasures, how Crowley brushes out Aziraphale’s wings and makes tea for him without being asked, how he lets Aziraphale braid his hair now. How they don’t have to be parted anymore, or make excuses to see each other, they can spend their days as they please, in the park or the bookshop or the latest restaurant. Crowley revels in this, in the dates that they can call dates now, in planning and plotting the best ways to spend time together, and Aziraphale revels in Crowley. All that torment for these small moments.
It’s everything. This fairytale they get to live now, it’s absolutely everything. It’s remade Aziraphale’s entire world, to have everything he thought he could never have, and he is frightfully, dizzyingly happy. He can’t believe it took this long, though he supposes it had to, to get Hell and Heaven to leave them alone. Now, though, he would fight Gabriel in the flutter of a wing for one evening with Crowley, just sitting next to him and doing anything at all.
Like watching a movie.
“You know, I’ve never actually been to one before.” The scene changes nearly before Aziraphale gets the words out, it’s just a passing moment in the movie they’re watching. Aziraphale mentions it merely as an idle observation, meaning nothing by it. He’s half-asleep and pliant, sinking into the armrest of the plush couch he made Crowley move into the Mayfair flat months ago, his fingers tracing their usual routes through Crowley’s hair. The demon is sprawled across the rest of the couch, one leg flung over the back of it, his head resting heavy and sleepy in Aziraphale’s lap, the slim fingers of his hand threaded through those of Aziraphale’s free one.
“One what?”
“A drive-in movie.”
Crowley gives a little gasp. He pushes himself up out of Aziraphale’s lap and fumbles for the remote to pause the movie, which Aziraphale very much was not expecting.
“Really?” he asks, turning to the angel. He seems far more awake now, a glint in his golden eyes that Aziraphale knows quite well by now. It means he has an idea, bless him, and Aziraphale feels that familiar tug in his belly, this sweeping, soft thrill, a rush of the love that’s always there. “Never?”
“Does that surprise you?”
“Well, you love the movies!”
“I don’t drive, Crowley, and you’ve never taken me, so how would you suppose—?”
“You’re right,” Crowley acknowledges, positively beaming now. Aziraphale can’t help but grin too, leaning in to kiss him softly on the mouth. “Well,” Crowley murmurs, excitement barely contained in his voice now, “we’ll have to fix that, shall we?”
“If you’d like.”
“Only if you want! But I think you’d like it, wouldn’t you?” Crowley gives Aziraphale’s hand a squeeze before pulling it up to press a kiss to the knuckles. His lips are pillowsoft and so, so careful. Aziraphale can always feel the love coming from him, the love he’s always felt but now he can let himself name at last, and it’s only grown a thousandfold since Aziraphale kissed him after their post-unApocalypse dinner, and a thousandfold every day after. Aziraphale basks in it. It’s a sunrise-warm glow, safe and tender. Crowley sees him, he knows everything Aziraphale is, all of his wants and silly preferences, and he loves him so, so much. Aziraphale has never, ever known that this is what it is to feel loved. He does now, and he’s a mess of it. “We can go to one playing one of the classics, something you’re particularly fond of? Or something new, if you’re game? Either way...a sunset, a starry night?” Crowley caresses Aziraphale’s cheek with his thumb, gazing at him steady and thrilled and fond. And then he flashes a grin that lights his entire lovely face up like a sunrise. “I could pack a picnic!”
Aziraphale swoons, beaming right back at his darling.
“Oh, you do know what I like,” he chuckles. He reaches up to clasp his hand over Crowley’s, turns his head to press a kiss to Crowley’s wrist there (he knows what Crowley likes, too). “I’m game, my dear. Take me to the drive-in, please.” He lets his teeth graze so gently against the underside of Crowley’s wrist, eliciting exactly the low gasp he’s hoping for.
“It’s a date, then. And, I’d rather say I do know what you like, angel,” Crowley says softly, shifting closer on the couch, his voice hitching.
Aziraphale looks up from Crowley’s wrist, grinning cheekily. The movie on screen forgotten, to be resumed some other lazy evening, the promise of the drive-in bright on the horizon.
“You do, do you?” They’re close enough to kiss, if Aziraphale wanted.
“I’d say I’ve got a pretty good idea, yeah.”
“Mm,” Aziraphale hums quietly. “Prove it.”
Crowley sinks to his knees in an instant. He does, in fact, prove it quite quickly, his mouth eager and hungry, and Aziraphale presses his thighs to Crowley’s temples and cries out.
*****
A few weeks go by, Crowley waits until the London weather shifts to that brief, bright burst of summer before he brings it up over lunch. There is a particularly fine selection of tea-cakes and pastries at the Wolseley that afternoon, it’s all the softest scones and Aziraphale’s favorite petit-fours. They used to sit across each other at a table in the middle of the floor—-now, Crowley sits next to him in a corner booth, their knees pressed together. Just a nudge of heat through fabric, but it feels entirely different. Aziraphale knows that knee now, doesn’t just catch a glimpse of it black-clad or beneath this robe or that toga through the years. He’s learnt the bones, the joint there, keeps it under his palm while he reads in the evening, parts it from its partner and presses his mouth to it and the thin thigh above, and he gets to touch it here now too, out where anyone can see, as subtle as a sword on fire.
Crowley gazes at Aziraphale unabashedly through his glasses, chin in his hand, as he works his way through the tea-tray.
“Tonight’s supposed to be lovely warm,” Crowley says at last, a barely suppressed grin playing at the corner of his clever mouth.
“Is it?” Aziraphale asks innocently, over the rim of his teacup.
“Supposed to be,” Crowley repeats, and he would be the absolute picture of nonchalance to the outside observer, but Aziraphale knows that clenched fist, that taut jaw, the lines of secret and want in Crowley’s body. He always has. He spent millennia explaining them away to himself, then another millennia purposely ignoring them, terrified. Now, he gets to delight in them, in how there is nothing of Crowley he cannot know. Nothing that needs to be hidden. He lets his eyes scour those lines like they’re pages of a beloved story (they are).
“Did you have something in mind?” His voice mild, curious. Aziraphale knows already, he’s been waiting for this. Let Crowley have it, let him do it, he wants to so terribly badly. It’s one of Aziraphale’s very favorite things to do to Crowley, letting him make the plans, play the hero, be embarrassingly romantic. And though it’s quite equally fucking perfect even when they simply come home and enjoy each other’s chaste company afterwards, it more often than not leads to a number of Aziraphale’s other favorite things to do to Crowley.
“There’s a film playing on the cinema green down by the coast,” Crowley says casually.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the summer screen they’ve got going on. In the South Downs, I reckon. You ever been?
“I can’t say that I have,” Aziraphale says honestly, dabbing his napkin at a bit of jam from his mouth.
“It’s a drive in, so we could take the car—”
“A drive-in?” Aziraphale asks, the picture of gentle surprise. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“Shut up,” Crowley whines, grinning openly now. “Do you want to go, then?”
“My dear.” Aziraphale places his napkin on the table. He reaches for Crowley’s clenched fist. It opens for him, and he takes it in his hand and raises it to his mouth, pressing a kiss there. “I couldn’t think of anything I’d like more.”
Oh, the smile that spreads across Crowley’s face. Bright and brilliant as dawn on the horizon, it pushes its way to the very edges there, transforming it. His eyes are hidden behind the glasses, but Aziraphale knows they’re gleaming, gilt-gold and crinkled in the corners. Aziraphale wants to make him smile like that every single day there is. Every day there’s a sun to rise, he wants to make Crowley smile, just like that.
He thinks this, fiercely, and then he realises he can say it aloud. Still getting used to this, to placing the words out into the world.
“You have the most magnificent smile, my darling.” He squeezes Crowley’s hand. “I love making you smile.”
Crowley turns a shade of red that clashes terribly with his hair; he’s all the more handsome for it.
“Good, angel. You do it an awful lot.”
“I should like to do it every day.”
It’s Crowley’s turn to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s hand now.
“Lucky me.”
*****
It’s two hour drive to the South Downs. Once they get out of the city, the sky is a blaze of Byzantine blue in the late afternoon sun. Crowley cracks a window, his shoulder-length hair fluttering in the breeze.
He drives too fast. Aziraphale loves it, now that he can let himself at last. Now that Crowley’s not doing it in a frantic panic, but for the fun of it, glasses tucked in the compartment, Queen thundering through the speakers. They bowl through the countryside, mortal farms and petrol stations and silly billboards blurring along the horizon, and Aziraphale feels the thrill coursing through him just as much as he feels wonderfully safe with Crowley at the wheel. There isn’t always much to say, but the stretches of quiet, of letting the music fill the car and the world rush past, those are such a luxury. There’s no urgency now, there’s time to sit and be in each other’s company with nowhere else to be. They could be driving anywhere, aimlessly, even, and Aziraphale would still be overwhelmingly joyful. So much so that he’s really quite lowered his expectations for the theatre itself. As they wind their way through farmland and forest, he pictures a small-town cinema, a projector pointed at the back of a barn, perhaps, and he would have found it just as charming, so long as Crowley’s there, but they take their final turn, and—-
“Oh, goodness.”
An enormous clearing sprawls beyond the ticket-gate, a good smattering of cars there, not too crowded or sparse. Nestled into the treeline is the largest outdoor screen Aziraphale’s ever seen, even larger than the cinema screens in the city theatre Crowley’s so fond of. But it’s the landscape itself that makes Aziraphale gasp. There’s lush, vibrant elms, vetiver and cypress, oaks as ancient as the cliffs. And oh, there are cliffs there, out behind the screen, and if Aziraphale tries he can hear the waves brushing up against the shore. There is nothing of the city here, just a deeply blushing expanse of sky, air strung with seasalt and pine—-and a very earnest demon, who very nearly crashes into the car in front of them because his eyes are tracked on Aziraphale.
“Sorry, sorry—-” Crowley brakes with a start that flings Aziraphale against the seatbelt, but he’s laughing as he goes.
“My dear,” Aziraphale giggles, pulling out a pair of sunglasses from the glove compartment. When Crowley leans in to let the angel place them on his nose, Aziraphale kisses him first, right there on his mouth, which is curved up into that self-satisfied smile he gets when he knows he’s done something cheeky and good . Oh, I love his face right after he kisses me like this. He keeps his eyes closed, his lips parted, for just a moment too long, like he’s chasing the taste of me, like he’s savoring. He wants me so shamelessly, right here, out in the daylight, out where I can see it, it’s there on his face.
Crowley blinks, dazed and grinning, as Aziraphale perches the glasses on his nose, gets them hooked on his ears, letting his fingers drag through Crowley’s curls just once as he does. “You like it?”
“Yes, yes, my love, but—”
“Hmm?” Crowley murmurs, tracing a fond knuckle down Aziraphale’s cheek.
“The attendant!” Aziraphale hisses, but it’s gentle and he’s smiling too. He gestures in mild mortification to the young man at the turnstile, who has been pointedly avoiding looking directly at this display.
“Oh, right.” Crowley lets his thumb brush over Aziraphale’s bottom lip (oh dear, oh dear— Aziraphale can’t help but think of everything else Crowley can, and does, let sit upon his lip) and turns to the attendant with a miraculous credit card in hand. “One car, two tickets, please.”
“And we’re begging your pardon for holding up the queue!” Aziraphale adds, leaning over Crowley to give the attendant an apologetic wave.
“No trouble at all, folks,” the young man says, handing over their tickets and a parking pass. “Pop this in your windshield and you’ll be good to go!” He holds onto the tickets a moment too long before letting Crowley take them. “I just want to let you know I think you two are really sweet,” he says, his voice warm. “It’s really—er. It’s really lovely to see.” The attendant’s cheeks have gone pink, he’s fiddling with his wristwatch, and Aziraphale understands his meaning instantly.
“Oh, thank you, young man. That’s very kind of you.” He says it with enough conviction in his voice that the attendant understands that he understands, and they beam at each other. “Have a lovely evening,” Aziraphale says. He squeezes Crowley’s knee to get him to keep driving, they’re holding up the queue, but he sends a minor blessing to the attendant as they pass. He would have sent a larger one, but the gentleman for whom the attendant is longing is secretly longing right back at him, so only the merest of nudges is necessary.
“You old sop,” Crowley says out of the corner of his grin. He pulls into a spot right in the center of the lot which certainly hadn’t been vacant a moment ago, with a perfect view of the screen.
“I prefer romantic,” Aziraphale replies primly. Oh, how he loves that grin. And the way the world is just so supremely theirs for the taking, and how Crowley takes it so carefully (they both do), shifting the merest planes of reality to make the time they finally get to spend together all the sweeter.
“I know you do, angel.” He opens his door and oh, the sunset spreads spectacular over the field, pinkgold blush staining the grasses there, the wildflowers. “C’mon.”
“I thought we watch the movie from inside the car, isn’t that the whole point?”
“Movie doesn’t start for an hour.” Crowley grabs something from the backseat Aziraphale hadn’t noticed, then comes around to open his door and extend his hand. The sky is shell-pink and clear, the air a heady blend of vetiver and cedar mingling with cheap popcorn, and Crowley’s there, there with a love-soft smile and an outstretched palm, and if Aziraphale could spend another thousand years in this very moment, he would.
“So then—”
“Promised you a picnic, didn’t I, angel?” Crowley, wind-wild curls tangling. He looks for all the world like the hero of a romantic drama as he pulls Aziraphale gently to his feet, and Aziraphale can see in his other hand a laden picnic basket with a blanket laid over the top.
“Oh,” Aziraphale says in a small voice. He had, in fact, forgotten—this evening was already shaping up to be far and beyond what he’d hoped. He loves food, no one would argue otherwise, but he would gladly forgo it in an instant if it meant he could spend forever with Crowley. Thankfully, Crowley isn’t about to make him choose.
Crowley spreads the blanket out over the grass in front of their car, giving it a quick glare so the corners don’t fly up in the breeze. Out comes platters full of finger sandwiches, gravlax with dill, cucumber and cream. Then the scones, Aziraphale’s favorite crumbly soft sort, and a small pot of currant jam, a jar of manuka honey, apple butter too. The wine comes last, three bottles of the ‘78 Bordeaux, which, rather embarrassingly, has become one of their favorites.
“Oh,” Aziraphale breathes. Crowley looks up from where he’s kneeling on the blanket, getting everything laid out. His toes pressed into the soil there, wildflower-buds peeking out from between the grasses, burgeoning towards the sun. This has been happening—-little, inadvertent spill-overs of magic, whenever one of them brims with too much love to keep inside. Crowley in particular has been berthing small gardens in St. James Park nearly every time they walk through it.
“Hope I did alright,” Crowley mutters, running one nervous-wreck hand (oh, those excellent hands) through his redwine hair, his other hand fretting around a loaf of sourdough (he’s been keeping a starter, it’s one of Aziraphale’s favorites). He looks up at Aziraphale, and though his eyes are behind those blessed glasses, Aziraphale can feel the love sloughing from him in earnest, just as always.
“Oh,” seems to be all Aziraphale can say at the moment, so he says it again and again, shaking his head, kneeling to join Crowley on the blanket. “Oh,” he murmurs, cupping Crowley’s face in both his hands. He dusts feather-light kisses over Crowley’s brow, his cheeks (they’re hardly sharp anymore, not when they’re scrunched in a smile), his perfect nose, before settling on his mouth. “Oh, oh darling,” he says softly, into those thin and brilliant lips. His thunder-beat heart pounds hot in his chest and he lets it, he always does when it’s Crowley, now that he can. They both do, and he can feel Crowley’s pulse mirroring his when he presses his mouth to Crowley’s wrist. They let love fill them in every way, the mundane, the profane, and the divine too, because this here is its own sort, the best sort, of divinity. Right here with Crowley, at a summer-stage drive-in, here between the sunset and the soil. He can’t get any other words out. This happens not too infrequently, that Aziraphale, for all his love of books, can’t find the right words to describe a love this enormous. But Crowley deserves to hear it, he’s been living off of scraps and sideways glances for too long, so Aziraphale has to try. “You—-oh, you’re marvelous, you know that? You’re so terribly romantic, and you’re so good to me.” Instinctively, Crowley ducks his head. He goes to flinch away, but Aziraphale doesn’t let him, cradling Crowley’s hands in his and squeezing the meat of his palms. “No, my dear. Stay here, don’t get in your head.”
“‘M not.”
“You don’t have to be, Crowley. You can let me tell you how good you are.”
“It’s just a picnic, angel—-”
“It’s one of the best things anyone’s ever done for me, and you’ve done all the rest.” Aziraphale says it gently, but firmly, and Crowley’s eyes meet his over the top of his glasses. “None of that, my love. This is spectacular, and so are you.”
Aziraphale pulls Crowley close, presses a kiss very gently to his forehead, a benediction, the sort of blessing only he can give. The sort that doesn’t burn, that’s theirs and theirs alone. It never existed before. They both know it. This love of theirs, it’s wholly theirs, it belongs to no one else, there is nothing of fate or destiny there, only choice, and they each make it every day, and in this way their love rewrites the universe. Shifts it into a place in which love can survive the most insurmountable odds. Aziraphale presses a kiss there, feels the weight of it—-then, grinning, so full of his love and Crowley’s, scatters kisses across the demon’s temple, into the dips beneath his cheekbones, across his lips and his nose too, until Crowley’s chuckling at him and they’re both laughing outright around the press of peppered kisses.
“All right, all right, angel. I get it.” Crowley looks at him above his glasses, his expression tender as a touch. “Let’s not upset the sandwiches.”
“I would never,” Aziraphale insists, catching his breath. He picks up a cucumber sandwich, popping it into his mouth. He closes his eyes to savor the fresh, lush taste of it. “Oh, my dear, that is absolutely divine.” He opens an eye. “Or infernal, should I say.”
“You absolutely would upset the sandwiches,” Crowley drawls, pouring the wine, “and then you’d make me miracle them tidy again and complain you could taste the picnic blanket on them.” He passes Aziraphale his glass, and grins. “I’m glad you like it,” he says, his voice softening.
“I love it.” Aziraphale raises his glass. “And I love you. To us.”
Crowley goes apple-red, his throat working furiously, but Aziraphale doesn’t let him look away, keeps gazing steady and smiling at him. This is real, and I’m going to savor it.
“To us,” Crowley manages, and their glasses chime together.
Crowley watches Aziraphale eat as they chatter softly into the sunset, even letting himself be fed a jam-streaked scone (Aziraphale only lets his finger linger on that lip there for an instant). The sun settles into the embrace of the horizon, turning the page of the day into a chapter of dusk. Twilight shifts the theatre into its own sort of magic, twinkling lights chirping on in the aisles, mirroring the waking stars above.
The film begins to play, a silly romp that begins with a tale, a child in bed and a grandfather, and soon gives way to what Aziraphale can tell will be an absolutely predictable love story.
“That day,” says the man on the screen, “she was amazed to discover that when he was saying ‘As you wish,’ what he meant was, ‘I love you.’”
A dizzying heat creeps up Aziraphale’s cheeks, and when he glances across his cleaned plates, the empty jam-pots, he can tell Crowley’s gone red again behind his glasses.
“Oh, my darling,” he murmurs. Low enough so as not to disturb the other filmgoers, but loud enough for Crowley to hear him and swallow, hard.
“If this is just. An unconscionably cheesy, ridiculous idea, you know, look. We’ve had our picnic, we can head back if you like—”
“You’re going to stop that,” Aziraphale cuts him off, “right now. No second guessing this, darling, I couldn’t be clearer about how fond I am of you. Now, then.” He concentrates to ensure no one’s watching, and tucks all the plates cleanly back into the basket with a wave of his wrist. “May I?”
Crowley’s face relaxes into a grin.
“All right, angel. If you insist.”
“I do,” Aziraphale says, and crawls awkwardly over the blanket to settle between Crowley’s outstretched arms and legs. He lets Crowley drape around him, snake-like, while he leans back into Crowley’s warmth. He presses his cheek to Crowley’s, lets his hand come back and card through the windswept curls. Crowley gives a low moan, digging his fingers into Aziraphale’s thighs and snuggling closer as the chill of the night creeps into the cinema green.
“You know, he’s really being terribly deceptive to his beloved, don’t you think?” Aziraphale tsks to the screen. “Letting her believe he’s the man who killed her lover, instead of revealing himself. I understand that he wants to be sure she remains in love with him, but still.”
“I love this movie, angel,” Crowley says, his chin poking into Aziraphale’s shoulder as he talks, “but you’re right. He shouldn’t’ve let her suffer like that. Better to know right away. He does get very heroic though, I promise!”
“Oh, I believe you.” Aziraphale dots a kiss on the side of Crowley’s nose, bumping his brow against the glasses. “But I should think,” he adds idly, “you’d never let me ache like that.”
“Never,” Crowley says immediately, his voice hoarse, body going rigid, and Aziraphale realises he might have taken it a stride too far. “Never, I would never—Satan, Aziraphale, if I was taken from you, you know I wouldn’t waste a moment in getting back, and I’d never test you—”
“I know, love,” Aziraphale says. He means for his voice to be soothing, but there’s a tremor there too. He knows all too well that Crowley still has nightmares about the bookshop, and he never means to be the one to bring him back to it. “I know. And you know I came back to you. The moment I could.”
“Yes,” Crowley says—shakily, but Aziraphale feels him slump against him, relaxing. He leans back against him, pushing his mouth into Crowley’s cheek, wrapping Crowley’s arms around him tight. “Yeah. I know.”
“I love you, sweetheart. My darling, my own.” Aziraphale pulls back to smile at Crowley over his shoulder. “You got me, you know. You drove through fire for me. You faced Heaven for me, and Satan too. For me and this world we get to share, and I’m yours now. All yours.”
“I’m yours, too!”
“I know, love.” He bites his lip. “You’re the hero of the story, Crowley. I need you to know that.”
“So are you,” Crowley mumbles, quite red now. “That’s an important bit.”
“No more than you, though,” Aziraphale persists. “And it was only because of you that any of it got done at all. And you did it all without making me feel in the least unsafe with you, unlike this fellow.”
“He does get quite romantic! I promise!”
“I believe you,” Aziraphale says, his voice cracking into a giggle. “But I’d take you any day.”
“Better do,” Crowley growls, but hardly, because Aziraphale’s shifted to turn to face him and kiss him full on the mouth. Crowley groans low in his throat, that low rumble of burgeoning desire that delights Aziraphale every time, sends a thrill coursing through his body. He rakes his fingers through Crowley’s hair with both hands, tugging him deeper into the kiss, and Crowley’s hands go around his waist, clutching at his coat, holding him steady.
When Aziraphale pulls back, the very last rays of the sun sneak below the horizon. The sky is scatter-strung with stars, bright against the velvet of the night. The summer-night air is refreshingly cool, humming with birdsong and the lilt of insects, the story foolish and lovely there on the screen behind them, and Crowley gazes at him, kiss-drunk and giddy. Aziraphale has never been happier in his entire life, and says so.
“Except,” he considers, “for rather every other day I get to spend with you.”
“Lucky me,” Crowley murmurs, shaking his head, and when Aziraphale leans to kiss him again, their smiles press together, just as foolish and lovely and, Aziraphale thinks to himself, preposterously romantic.
Presently, Crowley pulls away. “D-do you want to get in the car?”
“The car?” Aziraphale blinks. He can’t mean...
“Only if you’d like,” Crowley backtracks quickly, which means he certainly does mean, and desire and love together spiral through Aziraphale. “Sorry. We can definitely just keep kissing! And finish the movie if you’d rather—”
“No, goodness, I’d like, I just never thought—”
“What?” Crowley asks, relieved and genuinely confused. Aziraphale runs his thumb along Crowley’s well-kissed bottom lip, this time intending very much to make use of it shortly.
“Well, it’s your car, Crowley!”
He gives a soft chuckle, his hands massaging Aziraphale’s thighs.
“Yeah, well. It’s you, isn’t it?” He buries his nose in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck and breathes deeply.
“You don’t let me eat in it.”
Crowley laughs low in his throat. He takes Aziraphale’s earlobe between his teeth gently, humming in approval as the angel gives a weak moan, and he murmurs the next words so only Aziraphale can hear.
“Think I can make an exception.”
Aziraphale scrambles to his feet, dragging Crowley with him. They stumble-step into the backseat of the Bentley like teenagers and then Aziraphale is on him, yanking the door shut and kissing him hard on the mouth. He pushes Crowley against the seatback, tugs his trousers up and straddles him, planting himself on Crowley’s lap.
“Are you quite sure?” Crowley asks in earnest. “We can drive home, if you like, I can get us there in no time—”
Ridiculous and romantic, indeed. Because they want to, and they can at last, and Aziraphale is going to make sure they will. He plucks Crowley’s glasses from his face, tosses them into the front seat.
“If you don’t fuck me right here, right now, Crowley.”
“Oh. Oh.”
“Yes.”
“Oh fuck, angel,” Crowley manages between kisses. Aziraphale grinds against him harder in response, burying his hands in Crowley’s curls, red as the faded sunset behind them.
“I love your hair like this,” Aziraphale says, tugging it back, exposing the curve of Crowley’s throat. Crowley’s hands are on his waist, traversing the expanse of his back, his arms. “Love it all the time, when it’s fuzzed and short, or swept up in those extravagant hairdos you like, but I do love when you let it go like this and even longer, when I get to get my hands in it.”
“I like when you get your hands in it.” Crowley’s voice cracks as Aziraphale pulls harder on his curls, drops his mouth to suck on Crowley’s exposed throat as he does. He drags his teeth over the skin there, bringing his tongue in their wake, bites bruises into it until Crowley’s rocking up against him, erection pressing up between Aziraphale’s legs, one of Crowley’s hands in Aziraphale’s hair and the other squeezing his ass through his trousers.
“I know you do,” Aziraphale says, pulling back abruptly to flash him a wicked smile.
“You’re the fiend here, you know that?” Crowley mutters into Aziraphale’s mouth, for he’s kissing him again, fingers working Aziraphale’s buttons, getting his jacket off.
“You like it,” Aziraphale whispers.
“I do,” Crowley says, and spanks him.
“Fuck,” Aziraphale hisses, grinding into him, “fuck, fuck. Look, this place is too romantic. And the picnic, I mean. You planned this, you knew I’d love it here.”
“Well, yeah,” Crowley acknowledges, undoing his bowtie, “but I couldn’t’ve known it’d make you want me right here.”
“Too romantic,” Aziraphale says breathlessly. He’s becoming almost painfully hard. “Though I suppose so is every thing you do.” He seizes Crowley’s face in his hands and pulls him into an aching kiss. “Crowley. Crowley.”
“What do you want, angel?” Crowley always asks, always gives him exactly what he needs. Aziraphale caught on a while ago, knows to make sure to confirm that their wants line up. He’s done just taking what Crowley gives, wants to make sure they’re on the same page, always. It’s worked out quite spectacularly, as they’ve ended up having sex in nearly as many configurations as they can think of. Aziraphale’s always eager to try more, head over heels for anything they can do together, but at the moment, there’s only one thing he’s craving.
“If you want, darling. I’d like you to fuck me. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” Crowley growls, nearly before the words are out of Aziraphale’s mouth, “yeah, yeah, I want that.”
“Even—”
“Yes, you bastard. Even if it means defiling my poor car.”
Aziraphale grins, satisfied, then gasps as Crowley pushes him off his lap and onto his knees in the backseat beside him. There shouldn’t be quite enough room for him to fit comfortably, sprawled out there with his hands by the door and his thighs on Crowley’s lap, but there is, and Crowley drags his trousers and pants down to his knees.
“I do know you love this car,” Aziraphale teases, wriggling to get comfortable on its leather.
“Not,” Crowley says, squeezing his ass, “as much as I love you.” He lets his careful, sun-warm hands splay up and down Aziraphale’s back beneath his shirt, warming him, teasing him. Aziraphale’s erection is just to the side of Crowley’s thighs, dripping wet against the seat but angled too far off it to get any friction. Crowley palms his ass, parting the cheeks and humming his approval.
There’s a thundering of music from the screen.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this in here,” Aziraphale whispers, suddenly very aware of the film going on outside, the hundreds of people just there. He knows it was his idea, and he wants it more than anything, but goodness, he gets ahead of himself sometimes. He’s still figuring this out, what this love does to him, and sometimes it still surprises him.
“Anytime you want to stop, angel, just say the word. But no one’s going to catch us.” Crowley leans to run his fingers through Aziraphale’s hair. He means it soothingly, but Aziraphale whimpers at his touch, feeling his cock harden. “Promise.”
“Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale says. He lets go of the anxiety, finding it replaced with the adventure of being wanted out here, like this, by his impossibly, infuriatingly attractive boyfriend. “I trust you,” he says, squirming in Crowley’s lap, and Crowley chuckles in response, correctly interpreting Aziraphale’s body.
“Good,” Crowley murmurs, returning his hands to knead Aziraphale’s ass until want courses through Aziraphale’s body, his knees trembling.
“Crowley—”
“I’ve got you.” Crowley’s voice brushes him like torn velvet. He’s quite hard himself, his cock untouched below Aziraphale’s thighs, but he makes no move to touch himself. Aziraphale hears him reach into his jacket pocket and can’t help but make a small, eager noise at the sound of the lubricant uncapping, Crowley getting his fingers slick. Sometimes they’re too frantic for it, miracles a useful convenience, but they both do love getting drawn open the human way, by each other’s clever, filthy fingers, and when Crowley presses two into him Aziraphale arches off the seat.
“Oh! Oh, yes, yes, love,” Aziraphale cries, trying and failing to keep his voice down. “Oh hell, I’m sorry, I know I’ve got to be quiet, I know I’m crushing your legs, aren’t I, but you feel so good, please…”
“Don’t you dare apologise,” Crowley mutters, working his fingers deeper, “you gorgeous fucking creature. It helps if we’re a bit quiet, yeah,” though then he presses in just so and Aziraphale whines, “so I can focus more on you and not keeping attention off us, but I’ve got you. I’ve got us. And,” he adds, leaning low so Aziraphale can feel his hot breath on his ear, “I love the way you sound when I fuck you.”
“You do, you do,” Aziraphale stammers breathlessly, “you’ve got me, fuck, another, please, please.”
“As you wish,” Crowley whispers. Aziraphale can hear the grin in his voice.
“Oh, you bastard—oh!” His admonition is cut off as Crowley complies, three slick fingers curling deep into him, working him open with his ass in the air and his cock rubbing frantically at the seat.
“Couldn’t help myself,” Crowley says cheekily, and blast, Aziraphale loves him so much it aches. “Did I ruin the mood?”
“Embarrassingly,” Aziraphale manages, grinding back on those fingers as best as he can without kicking the Bentley’s window, “you’ve done quite the opposite, darling.” It’s quite the awkward position but Crowley’s still managing to drive his fingers in at exactly the angle Aziraphale likes best, his other hand stroking Aziraphale’s hips, his back, his throat, his hair, rumpling his clothes to touch as much of the angel as he can.
The interior of the car smells so much like Crowley, here with his nose so close to the leather. Woodspice and spark, hearth-warm and welcoming, nearly the color of that apple-red hair. He’s surrounded by Crowley and Crowley’s love, lets it fill him, breathes it into him.
“Good,” Crowley says, obviously pleased with himself, and Aziraphale loves him so maddeningly much. “You feel good.”
Just that, then. Just oh, just Crowley’s voice telling him you feel good, that does it quite as much as his fingers do, fuck it all.
“Now.”
“Ngk,” says Crowley. Aziraphale can feel his cock twitch beneath his thighs. “You sure? You’re ready?”
“Fuck me,” Aziraphale growls, “now.”
“Yeah,” Crowley says, almost to himself, “yeah, yeah. Okay. Er.” Crowley lifts Aziraphale’s hips and slips out from beneath him. Aziraphale gets on all fours on the seat. He watches over his shoulder as Crowley gets his own trousers down, bites his lip at the sight of Crowley stroking his own cock slick, hard and ready.
“I want to get my mouth on you,” he whines, rocking on his knees.
“Oh, love.” Crowley leans forward to kiss him gently on the lips. “I want to get my mouth on you, too. Want to tongue you open,” he says, his voice going harsh as he strokes himself, “want to fuck you with it. Want your cock down my throat, want my lips on your balls, want to fuck you with my tongue until you come all over me.”
“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s near-delirious with want. He means it, is the thing. Crowley is exceptionally good at talking dirty, but he’s equally as good at delivering on his promises. He’ll make an absolute mess of Aziraphale with his mouth alone for hours and hours, ignoring his own erection until Aziraphale’s come ten times at least. But right now— “fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me until you come inside me. I want your cock. I want you to fill me up, please. Please.”
Crowley makes a strangled sort of noise. He gets one knee between the seat-back and Aziraphale’s hip and crouches over him, brushing the head of his cock over Aziraphale’s hole.
“I want it,” Aziraphale beseeches him, reassures him, “I want it, I want it, I want you.”
“Angel. Oh, angel,” Crowley says, and pushes the head of his cock inside.
“More! Oh, fuck. I can—I can take it, more, more, please,” Aziraphale bites off a gasp. He digs his fingers into the edge of the seat, his cock fever-hard between his legs. “Do I feel good?”
“You’re perfect.” Crowley sinks into him with a ragged moan. “Perfect, angel.”
“Move,” Aziraphale commands. He’s lost in it now, Crowley’s buried deep in him, his brilliant hands gripping Aziraphale’s ass. “Give it to me, please, oh, oh, yes, just like that.”
Crowley draws out until the head of his cock teases Aziraphale’s rim, bending over the angel’s body so he doesn’t knock his head on the roof, and snaps those smart hips forward.
“Yes,” Aziraphale hisses, “yes, darling, more. Faster.”
“Whatever you like, angel,” he says, voice lush with want, and quickens his pace.
“You’re so hard in me,” Aziraphale moans. Crowley thrusts into him again and again, giving Aziraphale his full length, burying himself to the hilt. He pauses every so often to press in as deep as he goes, pulling Aziraphale’s ass flush against him and rolling his hips so his cock presses ruthless against Aziraphale’s prostate, just how he likes it. The angel’s mouth falls open, stars sparkling before his eyes, his knees would give way if Crowley wasn’t holding him up. “You feel so good,” he hears himself say, “you make me feel so good, fuck.”
Crowley fucks him hard into the seat, until Aziraphale’s pushing back against the door, until he’s sure no miracle could prevent the car from shaking with Crowley’s powerful thrusts, until he’s fucked so good and open he could come just like this, he’s so close, so close, they’re out here among the stars and so many mortals and nothing, nothing can keep them apart, and he finds suddenly and surely he doesn’t want to finish before Crowley, and he wants to watch him as he does.
“Crowley,” he manages, hoarse. Crowley stops immediately, recognizing the difference in his tone, and Aziraphale smiles weakly into the seat. So attentive, always, always.
“What is it, love?”
“Can I get on top of you?” He feels Crowley’s fingers twitch involuntarily on his waist.
“Fuck, yeah.”
Crowley pulls out of him carefully, and Aziraphale scrambles to push himself upright, to get Crowley seated. He can’t help but take in the view as he does. Behind him, a flurry of swordfight crashes on the screen. Constellations wink out from the expanse of the night. And here, Crowley’s chest heaves, his hair is stuck to his sweat-damp brow, his hands flexing, waiting to get back onto Aziraphale.
“Come here,” Aziraphale murmurs, overcome. He miracles his poor bunched-up trousers to the car floor and straddles Crowley’s lap. “My love,” he kisses into Crowley’s mouth, and sinks onto his cock.
“Oh!” Crowley cries out, head flinging back. Aziraphale steadies himself with his hands on either side of the headrest, planting his knees firmly in the leather, and begins to ride Crowley hard. Crowley’s hands come to grip Aziraphale’s waist, to run up his back, to gather as much of the angel as he can in his arms. “Aziraphale,” he moans, “you’re incredible.”
“You are,” Aziraphale gasps out. He seats himself fully on Crowley’s hard cock with each thrust, angling the head of it up against his prostate. His own erection grinds between their stomachs, and Aziraphale chases the friction there, leaning into him. “You are, you are, Crowley. You feel so good, darling, you are so good. You’re so good to me.” He tangles one hand in Crowley’s hair and pulls, grinning as he feels Crowley twitch inside of him in response. He drags his teeth down the bruises he’d bitten earlier, sucking new ones into the curve of Crowley’s throat. Mine. “You take care of me. You listen, and you’re so giving, and you—you prepare the most delicious food, and don’t think I don’t notice that you make the bed, and I love all of these outings you take me on, these dates, I can’t— fuck.” Crowley’s thrusting up to meet him now, Aziraphale very much still in control but Crowley’s face is buried in his shoulder where he’s laving frantic, open-mouthed kisses, and Aziraphale knows he’s close. He quickens his own pace, riding Crowley hard and clenching tight around him. “I love our life together. I love exploring this world with you, this one we saved, you and I. We have so many new chapters ahead, I still nearly can’t believe it, darling, but we do, we do, and it’s just the very best I could ever have dreamed, Crowley, writing them with you.” Aziraphale’s cock is dripping, making a sticky mess of Crowley’s stomach, and Crowley’s writhing beneath him. “You are extraordinary, my love, and you make me so happy. I love you,” he says, thighs beginning to ache. He kisses Crowley hard, hands in his hair, his lip between Aziraphale’s teeth. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Crowley thrusts up hard into him.
“Aziraphale, I’m—”
“Do it. Fill me up,” Aziraphale tells him, “I want it, my darling boy, give it to me. Your cock feels so good in me, you always do. I love how you fuck me. Come inside me, Crowley.”
Crowley shatters apart. It’s exquisite to watch and Aziraphale drinks it in: Crowley’s worn-wretched brow, the blush of his sunset-pink cheeks, the taut lines of his throat. He cries out, one arm wrapped around Aziraphale’s waist and the other hand curled in his hair.
“Just like that, my dear,” Aziraphale whispers. “Yes. Yes.” He rides Crowley hard through his orgasm, moaning obscenely as Crowley’s come fills him hot and deep.
“Aziraphale.” Crowley shudders to a halt, slumping against the seatback.
“Mmm,” Aziraphale hums, rolling his hips in Crowley’s lap. “I like that.”
“Yeah?” Crowley raises his head, spent but so, so eager to please. He gently lifts Aziraphale off his softening cock, settles him on his back on the seat. “You like my come inside you, angel?”
“I do,” Aziraphale whispers, clenching his fists to keep from grabbing his own aching cock, he’ll take care of me, I know he will. Crowley folds Aziraphale’s knees and pushes his legs close to his chest. Aziraphale thinks for a moment how clever Crowley is for getting the windows foggy, so there’s no way anyone can see his feet bobbing near the roof, but then Crowley’s mouth dips between his legs and he stops thinking about anything else at all.
“You want a taste?”
“ Yes,” Aziraphale gasps, his cock twitching, “please…”
Crowley laughs, tired but so fond and maddeningly sexy. He dips two fingers into Aziraphale’s fucked-out hole and gets them dripping with his own come. He brings them to Aziraphale’s mouth, and Aziraphale sucks them sloppy, his tongue chasing every drop.
“I love how you taste,” Aziraphale sighs.
“Just one more,” Crowley says, reaching down. Aziraphale shudders at the touch of his fingers, gentle and teasing as they push inside him. “I want the rest.”
Aziraphale moans low around his fingers when Crowley brings them to his mouth again, then bites off a cry when Crowley crowds himself by the car door and brings his own mouth to Aziraphale’s hole.
There are few acts that Aziraphale enjoys more, no matter the context, no matter which side of it he’s on. Crowley knows. He laves the flat of his tongue over Aziraphale’s entrance, licks obscenely at the length of his crease, pressing his lips to Aziraphale’s perineum. He works the tip of his tongue around Aziraphale’s rim until Aziraphale’s digging his fingers into the seat, one hand flung back against the car door so he can push himself against Crowley’s mouth. All the while, Crowley’s making the most lascivious noises, making it entirely clear how much he too loves this part, his tongue and lips delving into as much of Aziraphale’s loose, clenching hole as he can. Aziraphale can feel the come and spit dripping down the cheeks of his ass and getting on the seat, and Crowley just moans, getting his tongue as deep as he can, fucking him with the length of it and sucking on the rim of his hole at the same time.
Aziraphale aches to come, desperately, but he can’t help take a moment to breathe in deep and take in what’s happening, step back from the whirlwind of it. Crowley adores this car. He’s kept it pristine through world’s end and back. He drove it through hellfire to get to Aziraphale, true, so Aziraphale really shouldn’t doubt him, but that was different! The world was at stake. This is rather something else entirely, or perhaps just an extension he didn’t know he could have. Crowley here, crowded on his knees in the back seat, his shoes leaving dirty prints on the door, his hungry tongue making a mess of Aziraphale and a positive ruin of the upholstery. But well, look at me, then. My jacket. Indeed, his beloved jacket is crumpled somewhere under the front seat while the angel is gleefully being taken quite apart.
“This feels good,” he says, and he doesn’t only mean Crowley’s mouth on him. I love what we get to have now.
“Yeah, it does,” Crowley agrees, and when Aziraphale glances down their eyes meet. His gaze is terribly tender, and Aziraphale is quite sure he’s thinking the same thing. “Now, you get out of your head, angel. Here, let me.”
He gives Aziraphale a series of swirling, toe-curling licks, until the angel’s mind goes blissfully blank, until the world is but backdrop to Crowley’s tongue on him and the pleasure he’s conjuring, filthy and sharp, coursing through Aziraphale like electricity, like something otherworldly, like something really and truly divine—like love. And then, when Aziraphale’s clawing frantically at the leather, pushing back as hard as he can against the car-door, Crowley shifts, replaces his tongue with the teasing tips of his fingers, and wraps his lips around Aziraphale’s throbbing cock instead.
“Oh, yes, Crowley, oh—I’m close—”
Crowley moans around his cock, grasping it at the base and taking Aziraphale deep into his throat again and again, tightening his lips around him. He slips two fingers inside Aziraphale’s wet, wanting hole and pushes up into him, and Aziraphale flings his head back against the seat. He reaches down to thread his fingers in Crowley’s hair, not guiding him, Crowley’s got the pace perfectly, just reaching for another point of connection, brushing the sweaty curls out of his lover’s eyes.
On another night, he knows, Crowley would take this part slow. He’d rub his tongue against Aziraphale’s shaft, tease his slit with the tip of it, finger him deep and slow. But Crowley knows Aziraphale wants to come, now, and so he gives him what he needs.
“Just like that, baby, just like that,” Aziraphale sighs. The endearment slips out, rare and helplessly demonstrative, but Crowley only moans and tightens his grip, pushing in harder. “Yes, please, love, I— oh, Crowley.”
Aziraphale comes with a wail, thrusting up into Crowley’s mouth and bearing down on his fingers. Crowley holds him tightly through it, pressing up against his prostate so the pleasure spirals through him in waves, and he swallows every pulse of come.
When Aziraphale shudders at last, Crowley withdraws and immediately shifts to take Aziraphale in his arms, but struggles to maneuver from his cramped position in the corner of the car. He’s all angles of elbows and his trousers around his knees and his shiny, panting mouth, and Aziraphale lets out a hazy laugh.
“Come here,” he says hoarsely.
“‘M trying,” Crowley rasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He manages to dislodge his ankle from wherever it was stuck in the door and falls into Aziraphale’s arms, burying his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s shoulder. “How was that?”
“Perfect,” Aziraphale tells him, pressing a kiss into his damp hair. “I can’t believe how perfect.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Always, Crowley.” Their breathing slowly, slowly steadies. Aziraphale rubs his hand over Crowley’s back beneath his clothes, Crowley mouthing tired, chaste kisses into his throat. Somewhere out there, a swell of romantic music plays. There is a happy ending, Aziraphale knows. He doesn’t have to have watched the movie to know the story Crowley’s brought him to. He looks up through the rear window, out at the sprawl of stars. “You made miracles in far-flung places, my dear. And now you’re here, we’re here, and you coax them out of me.”
“Pretty lucky,” Crowley agrees, deferring any responsibility.
“Certainly, but it’s more than that,” Aziraphale corrects him. He tilts his chin down, tugging Crowley’s hair until their eyes meet. “We get to have this now. I get to love you however I want, wherever I want, don’t I?” He says it wonderingly, sex-dazed and just as much for himself as for Crowley, and Crowley blinks up at him. “Yes, I rather think we’ve proved that. We made this happen. We chose this, we choose each other. This story can be ours, and it is now. We get to have this. We get to tell it.”
Crowley’s mouth falls open.
“Fuck, angel.”
Aziraphale giggles, pulls Crowley up to him in a kiss.
“Yes, darling. That too.”
Aziraphale supposes they fall asleep then, because when he opens his eyes again his back is a mess of sore knots and his rumpled shirt is wet with Crowley’s drool. The sun is just starting to soak gold into the dew-dropped cinema green, and Crowley must have made sure no one saw them indeed, for all the cars are gone, the theatre empty, and the night sky succumbing to the wreckage of a cliffside daybreak is for the two of them alone.
“Oh, that is beautiful.” Aziraphale says, gazing at it through the window. He runs a sleep-cramped hand through Crowley’s hair.
“Yeah, you are.” Crowley’s voice is creaky with sleep, and he doesn’t open his eyes all the way before leaning up to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s mouth. “Morning, angel.”
“Good morning, darling. I do believe we’ve overstayed our welcome at this theatre.” Aziraphale is beaming at him. Crowley pushes himself up, stretching spectacularly, taking in the mess they’ve made of each other and the backseat.
“Looks like we have,” he yawns, and Aziraphale’s heart catches in his throat. “S’pose we’d better get going—what?” he asks, catching Aziraphale’s expression.
“I love waking up with you,” he says simply. “And I love that I get to tell you now. I love that just as much as I love everything else,” he says, pushing himself up, running his fingers through Crowley’s perfectly morning-mussed hair. “I love everything about last night, but I love it all the more that I get to have the morning with you. And the whole day ahead, too.”
Crowley gulps, lip trembling slightly, he’s still not used to this, but Aziraphale leans in and kisses that lip, and Crowley kisses back, tenderly, reaching to pull Aziraphale in by the back of his neck.
“Days,” Crowley rasps. “Days and days, please.”
“Days and days and days, darling, as many as you’ll have me.”
They drive around the back of the theatre, when they’re ready to leave, so they don’t need to bother magicking the gate open. The path brings them to the cliffside, where they’re just in time to catch the cataclysm of the daybreak on the shore, brilliant and fire-red and ever-shifting, something both a pure miracle and the most mundane, everyday earthly occurrence. They sit atop the hood of the Bentley and hold one another, breathing in the expanse of the seasalt air, and the intimate scents of each other, lingering there on each other’s skin.
Crowley offers to miracle the picnic basket full again, but Aziraphale’s feeling more substantially peckish. They drive to a nearby village and find it just the most delightful spot: open skies, cozy-warm shops, a tidy library, a smattering of local-run cafes, the embrace of sycamore and vetiver, and lovely little garden patches. They settle into a charming tea-shop, where Aziraphale sates himself on fresh pastries and Crowley lingers over three cups of black coffee, watching Aziraphale fondly through his glasses.
“It’s really been the loveliest day,” Aziraphale sighs, licking lavender jam from his thumb. “I do like it out here. Very much. The stargazing, the theatre, this village...we should come back.”
“Quite right.”
The idea has barely begun to occur to him when Crowley reaches across the table to squeeze his hand.
“You know, there’s just one thing this town is missing, angel.”
“What’s that, dear?”
Crowley smiles at him, unguarded and dizzyingly happy. He brings Aziraphale’s hand to his mouth, presses a kiss to the fourth knuckle there. That’s it, love. We get to have this now. We get the happily ever after, we get to write those chapters. You’re the hero of my story, and I do believe I’m the hero of yours. I’d go anywhere for you, I’ve gone to hell and back and I’d do it a thousand times again. I’d go anywhere in the world with you, and I know you’ll take me someplace good, as many good places as there are. It doesn’t matter if the world is ready, because we are. This story is ours to write, no sad ones here, only the funny ones. I know you. I trust you. I love you. So tell me, my brilliant, beautiful darling, what’s next?
“A bookshop.”