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“Stop.” Aziraphale dropped the word coldly between them, his chin lowering a fraction so that his eyes slanted up at a dangerous angle.
At first, when Crowley had startled him, it had been the more typical hand wringing and plaintive tones: “Give it here, already.” and ”Oh, Crowley, enough.” and “Will you just?!” But Crowley hadn’t stopped. He’d laughed at the angel’s reading material, long and loud, that hard bark that was genuine and in any other circumstance might have charmed Aziraphale.
But as Crowley had plucked the tiny chapbook from his hands and unerringly found the more salacious passages to recite in a breathless falsetto, Aziraphale’s patience had worn very thin, very quickly. He had repeatedly reached up to snatch it back, but Crowley had whipped around the back room until he was standing on the sofa, heel up on the armrest, no less poised than Henry himself at Agincourt.
Aziraphale pressed his lips thin, looked away. And waited.
“If I’d known this is what you’d wanted, angel, I would have been more than happy to indulge you.” His smirk had been lewd as he climbed down, eyes casting possessively. “Trussed up and left waiting for my pleasure? Mmm.” Crowley had reached out to cup the angel’s chin greedily.
But “Stop.” Aziraphale had said, the watercolor seafoam of his eyes coming back into sharp focus, chipping like ice against his own reflection in Crowley’s dark glasses, and that’s when Crowley realized far too late he’d played this all wrong.
“Oh, fuck. Angel, I--”
"Too late." Reaching up, Aziraphale snapped his fist closed around Crowley’s wrist, spinning himself behind the demon to twist his arm up against his back. The small book of 17th-century erotic verse tumbled to the floor with a soft, dull thump as Crowley cried out, shuffling on unsteady feet against the bulwark of Aziraphale’s frame.
“C’mon, I didn’t realize--!”
“No, you didn’t. Obviously.”
“Alright, alright.” Crowley tries gamely enough, an easy smile in his voice as he steps out to turn himself around. He’ll cuddle the angel, make it up to him in soft nuzzles and apologies whispered up behind his ear. Maybe try quoting a few more verses after all, just to spice up the afternoon.
But Aziraphale wouldn’t let him. And he had been reading 17th-century erotic verse for the better part of two hours. Instead, he wrapped an arm across Crowley’s shoulders, drawing him flush against his chest. The demon’s bent arm was still pinned up between them.
It was all supposed to be a surprise. Of sorts.
So far, it’s been Crowley guiding their way through things, propping himself up as something of an expert in the field and Aziraphale hasn’t had the heart to dissuade him from the presumption. His demon takes a tremendous amount of pride in satisfying him and he would never wish to rob him of that enthusiasm (or himself, frankly). But Aziraphale has been an avid reader since the first cuneiform was pressed into clay. There is no single carnal act he has not read about, seen illuminated in the borders of scripture or had presented to him as ‘artistic nudity’ in collected provenances. He has standards, but that has never made him an innocent.
But here was Crowley, back half a day early and presumptuous as ever.
“Oi?! Now, what’s this ab--”
“Do shut up? You’re already in a tremendous amount of trouble and I’d hate to see you make it worse for yourself.” And yet in obscene contrast, Aziraphale pressed the hardening length of himself into the cleft of Crowley’s ass with a low, pleasurable sigh. It challenged Crowley to fight back, dared him practically.
“Hey! How-- I-- what even-- you--” He chewed off half a dozen other starts in an ever elevating pitch, struggling gently at first but then with increasing desperation. “Aziraphale!”
Crowley had a terrible, stupid habit of always forgetting; of always underestimating the angel. That while his blushing smiles and diverted gazes were tender in their authenticity, they were no less wrapped firm around a steel core. Around a Principality of Heaven, a Paladin of the Host. Around an angel who, often on the flip of a cheated coin, went off into the world to Tempt on Crowley’s lazy behalf with nary a smudge on his downy wings to show for it and with a far better track record then Crowley would ever care to admit to.
What Crowley somehow always seemed to forget was that, on occasional, Aziraphale could be a right fucking bastard about things.
He dropped his voice curt, turning his chin sharply to try and see over his own shoulder. “Alright, angel, this is enough. I said I was sorry.”
“No, actually, you never did.” Aziraphale kicked at Crowley’s feet, knocking his legs wide. “But you will, I promise you that.” With his arm bent up behind him still, it was only by the angel’s benevolence that Crowley didn’t fall flat on his face.
“Fuck! Aziraphale!” Crowley resumed struggling again, twisting his shoulders and reaching behind himself to scrabble with his free hand. But he was off balance and Aziraphale let him pitch forward even further all while the bastard’s prick was still firmly tucked in the crack of his ass. The angel made another shameless sound, pressing his hips forward at the expense of Crowley’s footing.
“Angel, so help me, I swear!”
“There’s no need for swearing.” Aziraphale sucked his teeth in a gentle tut, voice light and conversational and utterly incongruous with the way he grappled Crowley, snatching up his other hand and pinning both wrists up behind him.
“You’re home early.” He rocked Crowley off his balance again, making him squawk. “You’ve interrupted me.” Aziraphale tucked the bulge of his erection back against the seat of Crowley’s too tight jeans. “And if that wasn’t enough, you’ve had to be rude about it, stomping all over the davenport like an idiot.” He let ease a soft, slow sigh of appreciation as Crowley resumed his efforts to struggle himself free. He was practically doing all the work for him at this point.
“I am warning you angel!” The rasping anger in Crowley’s voice was unmistakable and had Aziraphale been a calatheas or a hoya contemplating a bloom, he might have been intimidated.
But since he was neither, Aziraphale ground himself once more against the demon before -- letting go. With no balance or brace, Crowley squawked again, his arms coming out to pinwheel. He had just enough time to flinch at the impending impact.
And then something caught up against him, something all-encompassing. Something that held him fast and firm and aloft but sent his dark glasses tumbling. When he cracked one eye open, he could see the delicate wood grain of the floor in far too intimate detail.
He knew this was Aziraphale’s doing, could feel the feathery buzz of its angelic workings all around. But there are certain rules to the celestial bureaucracy: while a demon and an angel might work against each other’s will when it came to humanity, they couldn’t directly impact one to the other. So how was Aziraphale…?
There was another set of snaps behind him, making Crowley realized he’d actually heard the first set but was so ready to plant his face into the ground, he’d missed them for what they meant. Now it was a second set, and then a third, the scrape of Aziraphale’s shoes behind him signaling his movement.
Crowley growled again, teeth set together as he wrestled whatever… this… was that held him. “AzirAPHALE!”
Aziraphale bent to retrieve his book, dusting it delicately with unnecessary fingertips. He glanced over, Crowley hovering in a rictus of a fall but held moments before the collision. His shoulders wiggled; he really was proud of this one. “The cleverness of me,” he murmured. He took a moment to remove his cardigan, hanging it neatly on the rack, before taking a seat.
“Be a lamb and play mother?” Aziraphale asked, spinning his fingers in a crooking motion. Crowley found himself lifted and spun, hands tucked up behind him, and pirouetted to face front.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
Aziraphale sat in Crowley’s chair. In Crowley’s throne. A tiny golden side table held a tea service that the angel was motioning towards.
“You absolute shit. Did you just fucking miracle my chair from my flat for this bullshit?!”
Aziraphale tutted again, eyebrows lifting together in a mockery of scandal. “Such language!” Leaning back, he crossed his leg, one ankle set wide against the knee, and let one wrist break over the ornate armrest. The damnable chapbook dangled like an afterthought.
Once he was sure Crowley had taken him in, appreciated the detail of it all, Aziraphale turned his face once more towards the tea service, his expression benign and hopeful.
“Fuck you, fuck this, fuck it all!” Clenching his fists, Crowley flexed against Aziraphale’s hold and felt it slip, bend just a fraction against him. Not much, but enough to figure out how the angel was doing it. Aziraphale wasn’t holding him - he couldn’t, not really, not as completely as this. But he could hold the air surrounding him. Crowley actually smirked at that, an ugly slash of his mouth. It was a rather clever trick after all, one he was going to fucking remember.
Aziraphale’s eyebrows spiked in self-indulgent pride, his shoulders twittering again.
“Tea, Crowley. Before we move on.”
“Make me,” he spat.
Aziraphale’s head tipped contemplatively. “I could--” And Crowley felt like a puppet wrapped in wool, his limbs moving in a poor mimicry of proper movement. “Or you could earn a little grace and do as you were… asked.” They both heard the substitution for “told”.
“Get your jollies now, angel,” Crowley said, teeth bared. “Because when you’re done here--”
“I gave you the chance, remember that.” Aziraphale’s prim reprimand cut like a knife as he beckoned Crowley to him with an indifferent flick.
In a blink, Crowley stood before the throne, before Aziraphale. His sharp features were twisted furious, his still-clenched fists working against the magics holding him. Aziraphale’s smile up to him was warm and winsome.
Crowley growled down into it.
Tucking the book against his hip, Aziraphale used both hands to pour for himself, the delicate scent of jasmine suddenly fragrancing the air. “Now,” he said, dropping in one sugar and resuming that air of idle conversation. A tiny golden spoon was at hand to stir.
“Kneel.”
Crowley’s laugh was more of a snarl, a single harsh sound of disbelief. “Go fuck yourself.”
Aziraphale set the spoon down, drew the cup up to his lips, saucer held delicately beneath. “Well the thought had occurred to me, yes.” His eyes flicked over Crowley, top to bottom, one and done. He cleared his throat and leaned back into the demon’s throne, uncrossing his leg to frame Crowley between his knees. His intention was a clear, defined outline dressed to the left of his trousers. He sipped and waited, pinky held up.
The demon stood, growling low from the back of his throat and breathing heavily as he pushed and pulled at the invisible bindings. He could feel them slip and wiggle, but not enough to do him any good. Aziraphale arched an eyebrow as he watched, taking another sip of tea.
“If this is all too much for you,” Aziraphale said cooly. “All you need say is ‘marigold’, Crowley. I’d understand.”
Their safety net of a word: creativity, passion, understanding. Crowley had suggested it, Aziraphale had delighted in its meaning. Now he offered it up as an escape - if Crowley was willing to admit defeat. He leaned into an angle, cup and saucer held aloft while resting one elbow on a lion-headed armrest. The golden spire of the throne rose behind him, the rich red velvet cushion making a halo of his white-blond hair. Aziraphale’s expression was still pleasantly condescending.
“What?!” Crowley knocked out through clenched teeth. “Why the fuck would I--”
Oh. Oh.
“Really? You think, after all this, I’d-- that’d we’d--!?”
Aziraphale nodded with haughty superiority, setting his tea aside. “I’d understand if you couldn’t ‘take it’, darling.” He squinched his nose just a fraction, parroting back an off-used demand of Crowley’s in the heat of their moments.
“Give it a rest, angel,” Crowley sneered, projecting a level of control he clearly did not have. “You can dress the stage, but that doesn’t mean your milk and honey prose is going to--”
Crowley’s head snapped back as the woolen puppeteers drove him to his knees. “Fuck! Shit! Fuck!” Pain laced his profanities but Aziraphale was through listening.
Instead, he stood calmly, working the gauntlet buttonholes of his shirt cuffs. He carefully folded each sleeve up, turning them out just below his elbows before moving to his waistcoat. “I had hoped you would be more apologetic at this point, a little more compliant. I do so enjoy it when you undress me. But your insistence on being obstinate, surly and using such foul language…?” He shook his head in disapproval before sighing in resignation. “But you are a demon, I suppose. Can’t entirely be helped, hmm?” He brushed the vest open not unlike drawing back a curtain.
In contrast to the careful fanfare of his shirt and waistcoat, Aziraphale simply unzipped his trousers and pulled himself free, stroking himself once with ghosting fingers. The other hand reached out and secured itself in Crowley’s hair, twisting sharply against the wine-colored waves.
“Open.”
But Crowley thinned his lips tight. Obstinately.
“I can pry your mouth open, darling.”
“And I can bi--” As soon as Crowley spoke, Aziraphale’s hand slid down to his cheek and crooked two fingers and a thumb into his mouth. It was easy bait and he fell for it like a fucking moron. He’d’ve cursed again except Aziraphale was roughly shoving his cock into his mouth.
“There now,” Aziraphale sighed, a full-body shudder running down the length of him. “Isn’t that nice.” He waited a few moments, both hands weaving back into Crowley’s hair. He took a deep breath and waited. Waiting to see whether or not the angry thing at his feet would truly bite. Waited to see just how far his gambled play could go.
He looked down, catching and holding the candle-bright eyes of his demon. They were indignant and resentful… but tractable. He wouldn’t bite, not yet anyway, and Aziraphale rewarded him with a knowing smirk. Holding Crowley’s head to him, he guided them both down as he retook the throne.
“I think you know how this works? Or do you need my help with this, too.” His fingers flexed against Crowley’s scalp, less a threat as foreshadowing. He pulled Crowley down onto him once, sheathing himself fully down his throat with a pitched moan before taking his hands away.
Crowley involuntarily swallowed around him, the angel thick and heavy against his tongue; hot and bitter against the back of his throat. Aziraphale moaned again, his back arching into a gentle curve. He felt the force that had been holding him so tight loosen a bit. Not completely, his wrists were still pinned up behind him, but an accommodation of latitude that he could work the length of Aziraphale’s cock with.
If he wanted to.
There was a fierce war waging behind Crowley’s teeth. A part of him wanted to bite and rend, use his fists to draw blood, his heels to break bones. Make this bastard pay for humiliating him. He owned that as the demonic part of him. Just ignore the fact this was Aziraphale - and everything that meant to him, for him, of him - and just work this bitch the fuck over for the audacity.
While the other side… well, it wanted to also make the bastard pay. But by beating him at his own game. Not that this was a game; there was no ‘game’ here. Games were held between two equally matched rivals and this was not that, oh no. So the angel thought reading some musty old porn suddenly made him an expert? Miracle a big chair, use some flash magics to bind him up, and that’s that?
Oh no.
Crowley had created the independent filing form for Seduction, moving it on from just a tickbox under Temptation; received a commendation from the Cubi - Succubi and Incubi collectively - for twisting the myth of the Changeling into a Cambion on their behalf. Anthony J. Crowley knew how to suck and fuck, and if this great Southern Pansy thought he was going to…!
Aziraphale cleared his throat again, chin angling down, eyebrow arching up reproachfully.
He was waiting. And war or no, Crowley wasn’t entirely sure his sweet, blushing angel wouldn’t just take fistfuls of his hair and fuck his mouth raw.
So Crowley swallowed again, laving his tongue against the underside of Aziraphale’s cock. The angel's eyes fluttered briefly against the sensation, that self-contented smirk pulling at his mouth again. “Good, yes. Thank you.” But what he meant was “finally.”
When Crowley normally went down on Aziraphale, it was something he kept soft and tender. Intimate, for the whispers and shadows of their lovemaking. Not out of any sense of guilt or shame, but because it was meant for Aziraphale and Aziraphale alone. If Crowley didn’t, the angel would get so twisted up in some misguided attempt at mutual reciprocation, nothing would work itself out. No, Aziraphale had to be coaxed and guided into compliance, like a shy dance partner who kept forgetting he wasn’t the one leading until finally, he was willing to give over to the indulgence of something meant for him alone.
Tiny kitten licks into broad swipes of Crowley’s tongue, tricky maneuvers that involved the foreskin and curled tongue tips. Petting and kneading, his long fingers splayed wide against the creamy flesh. Words of encouragement, of endearment, until Aziraphale’s thighs would finally part like petals wantonly over their bed. Soft sighs built up until they inevitably crescendoed with his name on the angel’s lips in moved reverence. Crowley loved undoing Aziraphale with his mouth.
This was absolutely nothing like that.
As Crowley didn’t even have use of his hands, he was left with nothing but his teeth and tongue and spit, and the sheer physical force of the act itself.
Pulling himself almost off completely, he roughly swallowed the length of Aziraphale down again in one fast sheathing, letting the head of his cock hit the back of his throat again. Then again, and again. This wasn’t tender. These were not enticing licks played out from under coy eyelashes, meant to tease and tempt. This was raw and brutal, full of too much spit and swirling tongues that were still tricky but also filthy and rough. He suggested teeth, though never employed them, not really.
He put himself to the task with determination. If he had had use of his hands, he would have been running his nails up Aziraphale’s calves, over his thighs, digging into the meat of him. But Crowley didn’t. He only had this, so he gave it everything he was. And if every time he bobbed down he thought “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you”, well. It helped him keep pace.
Almost immediately, Aziraphale started to come apart. He had originally thought he’d play indifferent, maybe even read again to help Crowley get into the true spirit of things -- but Crowley took to the spirit and ran himself completely off the track with it. Zero to 90mph in nothing flat. It was the Bentley all over again. “G-g-good lord,” he stuttered, his fingers scrabbling against the gilded details of the throne.
The slick, obscene sound of Crowley, his lean frame knelt between his thighs and the heat of his mouth on him was a countermeasure to the low moans pressing out of Aziraphale. He jerked back with each stroke, each time the hot coil of Crowley’s tongue somehow wrapped itself all the way around him before he banged against the demon’s soft palate. This was nothing as they’d done before and was exactly what Aziraphale had been looking for.
Daring a glance up, Crowley watched as Aziraphale threw his head back. Watched a hand drag up his chest, press against his flushed cheek, pass his parted lips (but not before dragging wet across them), and pull through his daisy blond hair before coming to clutch at a spindle to help him lever himself more fully into an arch. Ringlets were forming at his temples from the sweat collecting there. His other hand worked at his bowtie, then collar button, a palpable but short-lived relief washing across his features before consumed once again by greedy desire.
It was debauched and disheveled, practically incandescent with libertine decadence. And was maybe the loveliest thing Crowley had ever seen in all of creation.
It made Crowley moan around the cock in his mouth, which was something he immediately regretted. Not just because it made Aziraphale jerk again, made him moan in a new, desperate octave, or made the hand done with the tie curl soft at the nape of Crowley’s neck -- but because it may have implied Crowley liked any of this whatsoever. Which he did not. Not at all.
He redoubled his efforts: fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou the metronome he set for himself. It made Aziraphale’s eyes fly open, made his breath hitch and pulled his attention from the shop’s ceiling back down to Crowley (finally).
The hand already back in his hair worked in tandem with his hips; it wasn’t quite as commandeering as it could have been, considering, but it firmly reasserted Aziraphale’s command of the situation. Against his back, Crowley felt the press of the angel’s shoes, sharp heels biting into him as he drew Crowley in.
“Yes, Crowley, keep doing, yes, that, please, yes. Keep, yes, please, please, please!”
Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou and then Aziraphale arched off the throne completely, both of his hands finding purchase in Crowley’s short hair as he thrust up, thrust in, heels digging in harder, hauling Crowley in. His cry was inarticulate and as loud as anything they may have accomplished that first week after the Notocalypse.
But it wasn’t the sweet tones of reverent delight. It was a loud, guttering growl, nearly a low roar, something Crowley had never heard break loose from his angel. It ran a shiver down his spine, coiling itself deep behind his balls because fuck.
Crowley worked his throat, swallowing and swallowing, dragging the orgasm from Aziraphale. He gasped over Crowley, around him, curling in and holding him tight as the tremors ran over and through him.
Suddenly Crowley felt the bindings that had been holding him disappear, fall away, ethereal feathers brushing against the inside of his wrists as they fell - but Aziraphale only redoubled his efforts to crush him to himself.
Thighs clamped around him, ankles locking behind him, hands in his hair sliding to the back of his head: the angel knew he couldn’t hold that many miracles all at once when he was so out of control of himself, so made sure brute force took over.
“What? No! Fuck you!” Crowley tried to say, but with a cock still in his mouth, it was just a sputtering mess that made Aziraphale giggle hysterically above him, be it actual humor or the feel of it fluttering against the last edges of his orgasm, hard to say.
There were a few more furtive thrusts from his hips before Aziraphale was easing Crowley off with a deep, satisfied sigh. He cradled the demon's head to thigh, the half fold of his trousers pressing into Crowley’s cheek. Shaky fingertips ran over his hair, over the shell of his ear, down his jaw. They were both breathing heavily.
His thumb ran an idle swipe across Crowley’s bottom lip. The demon knew this was his chance: upend the throne, snatch Aziraphale up by his stupid bowtie, thrash him good. But…
He pressed a kiss into the pad of Aziraphale’s thumb.
“Well,” the angel sighed again, the unmistakable contentment warm in his timber. “That certainly took the edge off things, hmm?”
Edge? Wait, what? Crowley’s head snapped back again as Aziraphale hauled him up off his knees, stood them both up. His face was flushed and the damp ringlets at his temples were feathering out.
But his eyes were bright and impish.
“What?” demanded Crowley, his voice cracking rough.
“Marigold?” Did he dare see where else the angel took this?
Crowley grit his teeth as his eyes flicked over each of Aziraphale’s smug features.
Aziraphale only smiled back in that coquettish way of his. It was the look that wanted crepes in the middle of the Reign of Terror and garlic pastrami during Milhemet Sheshet ha-Yamim.
The demon very pointedly pressed his bruised lips thin again. The angel looked delighted at this and pressed a chaste kiss to him.
“Then, in that case,” and Aziraphale slid a hand down Crowley’s body, cupping his erection trapped behind his jeans.
Crowley took in a sharp hiss of breath, narrowing his eyes. “Give us a cunt, sweetheart?” Aziraphale asked. “I have plans for you and while I could work with this, it would be easier with a button than a lever.”
It took a few generous seconds for Crowley’s brain to catch up to every vulgar word he’d just heard, but when it did, he was grateful for the hold on him: his knees gave a bit.
Did that crisp, poncy, over-enunciated highbrow voice really just-- Crowley issued a string of sounds that may have wanted to be words, but never really made it that far. Aziraphale felt the definition of Crowley’s effort melt away, replaced with something soft and warm that he squeezed none too gently.
Crowley took in another sharp breath, eyes desperate to stay open and not flutter closed; not give in to the overwhelmingness of it all.
Aziraphale hummed again in that low, self-satisfied way that was beginning to border on possessive. Ethereal feathers swirled up around Crowley once more, but this was a sensation he was familiar with: his clothes had been miracled off somewhere. And even in the warmth of the shop, the warmth of Aziraphale’s soft body pressed flush against his, gooseflesh prickled over him.
The angel, no longer hindered by tight black denim, sunk a finger into Crowley.
“Oh, G-- S-- fuck!” His hands came up to clutch at Aziraphale’s bare shoulders.
“Let’s leave this just between us, hmm?” Gently he pumped his finger up into his demon, his other hand coaxing at the small of Crowley’s back as Aziraphale sat them back down in the throne, Crowley astride him. “And here we are.”
Aziraphale was, of course, hard again and Crowley could feel him dragging against the inside of his thigh. He risked putting his arms over the angel’s shoulders, tucking his face against his neck. A second finger slid up inside of him and Crowley bit hard into his bottom lip with a whimper.
“Ask for it, Crowley.” The voice was gentle in his ear, a warm puff of breath against his temple, against his name.
“Fuck you,” he muttered instead, grinding down onto his angel’s hand.
“I said ask!” The hand that had been ghosting the small of his back lashed out to slap Crowley’s flank, and not playfully or coy. It stung, quickly leaving a hot pink contrast against his freckle-dusted skin.
“And I said fuck you!” Crowley pulled his head up to stare Aziraphale down.
Aziraphale set his jaw, ground his teeth, but held his temper. Held most of his temper. “Still being defiant? Difficult? My poor boy.”
Crowley really should have remembered his angel was twice as clever as he ever was a bastard.
Aziraphale forwent anything tender or sentimental, simply dragging Crowley down the length of his cock in a single stroke. His hands were anchors on his hips and the cry from the demon’s throat was as ecstatic as it was betrayed.
And immediately Aziraphale’s thumb found his clit, dragged across it rough. Set up an ambitious and unrelenting pace, and Crowley screamed against it.
For the next five hours Crowley screamed against it, the golden hour of afternoon spilling out into the dusting of twilight then long into the pitch of night.
Aziraphale took him seated on the throne (Crowley came twice there). He stood him up, leaned him against the back of it, and took him from behind (three more times). He pulled the demon up onto a table and went down on him for a solid hour alone (four more times). Aziraphale only indulged his own pleasure again when he hauled Crowley up against him, braced him against the end of a bookcase, and let his feet dangle while rutting into him till completion (Crowley came another three times, then). Not to give the demon hope, Aziraphale tumbled him promptly onto the rug before the hearth, propped him up on his knees, and dove back in (twice more).
For every shift in position, every change in location, the angel never once let Crowley’s ‘button’ alone. It denied Crowley the chance of respite, even the hint of catching up to himself. The moment he crashed down he was already being wound back up, each time like it was the first and not next in a never-ending line. Each as if ‘inspired’.
At first Crowley had tried to protest, letting loose more profanities then the bookseller had ever heard in his shop to date. But the longer they went, the more loosely connected Crowley became to language. Incoherent babblings about how fucked Aziraphale was but yes, please, that, more of that gave into inarticulate sighs and moans that occasionally broke into shouting and screams. He shook against the angel, tried to shove him off, clung to him, did what he could to kick him away. It was all a losing battle.
Aziraphale batted away protective hands, pinned wrists when necessary, kicked open knees, pushed apart thighs and continued to thoroughly destroy Crowley from the inside out.
Somewhere around the fourteenth or fifteenth time Crowley came against Aziraphale (on his tongue again, draped over the damn counter; the sharp protrusion of his hip kept banging against the till and he couldn’t find the will to care) a sob, a genuine sob cracked loose from Crowley.
“An’jel.”
From below, fingers and tongue and nose deep in the sloppy mess of his cunt, Aziraphale hummed inquiringly.
“Marr-- Mary--” Crowley slurred. Marigold.
Aziraphale slowed everything down, gentled everything. Crowley whimpered, jerked in tiny, oversensitive spasms. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Aziraphale stood from his crouch to collect his demon to him like a bridegroom. Crowley clung to him weakly, wrung too limp to do anything more than that. Every ounce of fight had been fucked right out of him.
He rested his head against Aziraphale’s shoulder as the angel took to the stairs, leading past the shop’s mezzanine to the second floor proper. The second floor that did not exist before the Apocalypse That Wasn’t but did after that first week Crowley had held Aziraphale’s hand in Victoria Park.
Aziraphale cradled Crowley against him, their nude reflections caught out soft against the darkened windows. No one from the street could have seen them even if they’d been blessed enough to have been looking up into A.Z. Fell & Co’s Rare Books at such an hour. Mister Fell had made sure of that hours and hours ago to ensure the privacy of said company.
With a wave of Aziraphale’s hand, dim lights lit the cozy bedroom as they came in, the gush of water from the ensuite drifting through. Crowley groaned gently in his arms, eyes drifting between focused and muddled.
“I have you, love,” he murmured soothingly against Crowley’s temple, his lips soft and sweet against the sweat-salted brow.
There was absolutely no reason for them to give in so thoroughly to their corporations. Absolutely nothing stopped them from shaking off the dazed afterglow, draw a miracle through to tidy up the mess of themselves, cast away the weary stretch and pull of sore muscles. Certainly, Aziraphale had kept a line in the sand against elements of reality - four hours or more of an erection sent the average man to hospital - but Crowley had completely, deliciously succumbed to it all and was now a sodden wreck against his angel for the plunge.
Of course they had ‘gone native’. Their appetites were both the strength and weakness of Their Side: fast cars, strawberry bavarois, expensive wine, sex. Every second experienced building onto the next, the revelation of humanity writ bold into the moment and crammed into the margins of every breath.
It made them love one another so fiercely, in such totality; in their sharing of it, their understanding of it, that nothing in Heaven or Hell could possibly hope to understand. They were something else, something more, but nothing new.
Lilac and geranium drifted through the steam rising out of the clawfoot tub as Aziraphale eased Crowley down into it. The demon hissed in half-hearted protest, head lolling against the angel’s chest. Aziraphale murmured soothing nonsense into his ear as he slipped in behind him. They shouldn’t have been able to both fit, but did, an everyday moment yielding again to her caretakers.
The washcloth was soft and sluiced away the sins and delights of their day’s efforts. What bruises, bites and scratches Aziraphale found too offensive, he healed because there is nothing in creation an angel cannot make whole again, even of their sworn enemy; mercy had begun as a universal constant, but even if the Home Office seems to have lost that memo, Aziraphale has not.
Crowley was growing softer, quieter, which ironically meant he was coming back down into himself. Only when he was so far gone beyond the pale was Crowley ever communicative enough to be useful to Aziraphale, though this was admittedly new territory for them both. The dynamic was usually flipped, Crowley’s tongue loose because he’s checking in on Aziraphale because it was the angel who whimpered and whined against the tedious task of rebuilding himself.
When he was satisfied, Aziraphale plucked Crowley from the water and wrapped his spindle-limbs in a thick towel before sweeping him back up in his arms. Crowley typically steered Aziraphale through this part like a rudderless ship, gently guiding him by the shoulders no less like a borrowed sea captain; Aziraphale had simply decided to take things that one step further.
Tucking Crowley into his side of their bed, he sighed contentedly against his pillow, burrowing down into it. A smile twisted the corner of his mouth around, eyes still shuttered closed. It was the truest witness to his new found comfort in vulnerability and it made Aziraphale’s heart swell.
Slipping in from his side, Aziraphale crowded up behind him, curving Crowley into his lap, into the little spoon. He waved a hand over them, plunging them into darkness before drawing the duvet up and over.
His arms came up around but finally - finally - Aziraphale hesitated.
“You brought this all on yourself, you know,” he whispered into the dark, into the ruffles of Crowley’s damp hair.
The demon chuffed a sound that was neither confirmation or denial, but he wound his arms through Aziraphale’s and pulled them tight against himself, burrowing deeper against the angel.
“Fuck you,” he muttered one last time, lips brushing a kiss on the inside of Aziraphale’s wrist. The angel smiled warmly, tucking himself down.
“Good night, darling. I love you, too.”
“Hmph.”