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(“I am taking my time, Crowley. It’s far too early to rush.”
If there’s anything he knows how to do, it’s to savour what he can bring to his lips, giving it the attention it deserves, the reverence due a long preparation. This one’s had six thousand years’ worth, and this is one time he’s going to make sure he honours it.
“Do you remember Dr. Coppelius, back in the eighteen-oughts in Vienna? The one with the Perpetual Motion machine? It did eventually run down, but you can keep some things going for quite a long time, I’m told.”)
An hour ago
It’s rained in the night, dawn nudging the clouds apart, so that the first level rays to clear the rooftops fleck the windows of the upstairs flat with a scatter of diamonds. The sounds of London waking up – the muffled banging of bins, the airbrakes of omnibuses – filter up from the street below. The world’s clean, the morning new, like that first one in Eden.
He’d woken with a heavy demon head on his shoulder, cutting off the circulation, and wondered if there could be anything more precious than Crowley managing to drool and snore at the same time. Numb hand notwithstanding. It’s a while before he tries to work his arm free.
“Fnff. Mornin’, angel.”
Crowley snorts and shifts; wriggles enough to let the arm escape, wraps around him again, like bindweed with territorial ambitions. He seems to still be half asleep, but part of him definitely isn’t, and doesn’t appear choosy about what random tract of thigh it prods through the pyjama bottoms. Aziraphale kisses the top of his hopelessly disheveled bed-head.
“Good to see the rest of you woke up.”
“Hmf? Ah. Mmmm.” He shifts again, pressing hard warmth against ample flesh, sighing lazily. “You okay this morning?”
He’s not too fuddled to remember last night.
Perfect, Aziraphale assures him, and what’s this and are we exchanging presents?, enjoying a long noise between a growl and a purr as the angel strokes and thumbs what Crowley’s brought out of sleep with him - a fine effort at this hour - knowing how he fancies the feel of silk sliding over it. He shifts, and the sheets brush against the crosshatching of Nanny’s chastisement, bring the deep heat of it back, and a specific memory.
“I made Nanny a particular promise last night. But I could just as easily keep it to you.”
He lifts Crowley’s fingers to his lips meaningly, kisses the tip of each with a slow wet suction, brushes their mouths together. “Not a problem, angel,” mumbles the demon, or at least that’s what it sounds like, before their tongues are sliding past eacn other, tasting slowly. Then there’s a ripple in his arms, a sense of space replacing presence, and the wiry body against him becomes soft, slender, fine-boned, the leg wrapped around his shorter and lighter. The murmur is a pitch higher as she samples the dip at the centre of his upper lip, falls back against the pillows.
“Proper ssservice,” she sighs. “Did, di’n I? Mmf. ‘signment.”
“Nanny’s earned a lie-in,” he says, “no rush,” and she stretches languidly, eyes dropping shut again, head falling to one side to expose the graceful line of her throat. Waking up quickly is not a feature of Crowley’s routine.
The pyjamas are two sizes too large now, making her look almost fragile, the small breasts barely changing the line of the jacket. “Lovely little flowers,” he says, stroking over them as lightly as he can and still hope to be felt at all.
“They stand up so prettily for me,” he observes presently, flicking the tip of each with the back of a nail.
He bends his head to mouth and tongue her through the silk in a random rhythm. Slow. Slow. Nothing truly good happens fast, whether it’s the work of Creation or the careful thickening of a sauce or the ripening of an apple. When she arches her back a little, seeking friction, he slides away.
“Suck me,” she breathes, but he only brushes what are now tight little knots with his lips, barely closing over them through the pyjama jacket, dancing away.
“Ssshhh. Go back to sleep. You’re having a lovely dream.”
(In the dream she feels the hard edge of a single tooth rake over one nipple, the ghost of a bite. A fingertip trailing from the divot of her collarbone to the first button of the pyjamas, working it open.)
The spray of light freckles thins as it reaches the tops of her breasts; further down her skin’s milky, almost translucent. He thinks of drawing on it with his neatly trimmed nail – he’s written his name there in the old language of Heaven, kissing the welted pattern that rises up after a few minutes, like invisible ink. But her sleepy bliss is too precious to disrupt; and he continues the line with the pad of his finger instead, to one button and then the next, till the jacket falls open and he’s tracing her navel above the soft small curve of her belly. He catches her hand just as it steals past his, under the waistband that’s now loose around her hipbones.
Nanny loves to play with herself – it’s an indulgence that seems to especially fetch Crowley in this form – and in the past he's been an enthusiastic accomplice, kissing that white throat, murmuring encouragements; but today he’s got other ideas. He lifts the small hand gently away, up past her head, pins it against the heaped pillows in a soft but unyielding grip. The jacket pulls open on that side, falling away from the summer-apple swell of one breast, the little flame of hair in her armpit.
Perhaps a bit of art work, an abstract sky like the one outside, with its blushes of pink and mauve tracing the crests of the parting clouds. The skin of her breast follows his delicate suction between his teeth, the lightest that’ll leave a mark; pops away again in an already raised comma of pink. A matching one on the opposite side. Her free hand trails along his shoulder to ramble through his hair, falls back.
“Just a lovely dream, darling,” he repeats. “Float away. You’ve done so much, let me do this.” The coppery wisp under her arm tickles his nose as he leaves a signature where her breast rises from her flank, the warm faint musk of her body filling his head. Crowley fancies a woody cologne, Nanny stores her undergarments with sachets of lavender, but this is the scent that opens every space in him. He brushes his lips over the ends of the hair, imprints another seal on the thin skin.
She starts to make small wanting noises when he ventures, almost as if by accident, in glancing range of a nipple that’s turned dark and puckered, pulling the decorated skin tight. Slow wandering circles bring him to it, lips brushing, then opening. It’s hard and tempting under his tongue, but he doesn’t linger, lets the cool air of the room strike it where he’s left it wet.
“Very lovely like this,” he says, pulling her hand a little further above her head to make her breast jut. The other one falls a little away toward her side, and he cups it, resting a thumb on the redcurrant nipple, not moving, flickering away when she tries to rub herself against him.
“Still dreaming… You had a pretty dream where someone loved you. Found you, worshiped you, more perfect than when She made you.” Every mark that Hell laid on you to claim you, he wants to say, only makes me love you more. Someday Crowley will believe that. He holds the nipple between finger and thumb lightly, traps it, dips to tongue the other. “Wanted to give you all the pleasure there is in the world. You deserve it.” This time finger and thumb twist a quarter-turn, feather off, close again.
The sounds she makes are half little drowsy snuffles, half moans, and it’s a serious question whether she’s merely feigning sleep now, but there’s no movement other than the slow rock of her hips as he pulls her nipple tight, licks over the top of it, strokes with his thumb. She’ll come from this if he goes on long enough, works her a little harder, and he teases that promise, sucking each sweet peak up in turn till they’re angry and swollen, measuring their fullness with his tongue-tip. Grazes them with slow twists of his fingers that gradually turn to hard dragging pinches, until she’s crying through panting, quickening breaths; lifts his head, presses a tender kiss to her breastbone. “Worshiped you, brought you close... “
His hand trails down to rest on her belly, calming, She bucks toward it, chasing her elusive climax, but he’s not going any further, only palming over the soft rise and fall; hushing noises, sshhh, we’re not done. Her breathing quiets slowly.
His lips briefly replace his hand. The trace he licks over her glistens in the climbing light.
“Made me promise to do you service with that wicked tongue. I hope I’m performing satisfactorily so far.”
He slides the pyjama bottoms away, lifting her hips, brushing the silk lingeringly over the fiery thicket beneath before pulling them off in a smooth motion.
“Though I’m not sure I can trust you to let me work. Without, you know, interference. You have such a long history of thwarting me. No, it won’t do.”
A sharp inhale as he pulls both hands above her head this time; loops the pyjama bottoms around the rungs of the brass headboard, ties each empty leg around a wrist with two turns and a neat reef knot. Pauses to plant a long kiss in each palm. The little breasts are tugged into prominence by the position, tip-tilted.
“You’ve only yourself to blame for encouraging the notion. I had no idea how lovely it can be. Letting someone else do everything.” The markings he's made are already fading. “You’ve put me in mind of a poem. You so often do.”
Nanny’s voice is thick with sleep or need, it’s hard to know which. “Tie a girl up ‘n’ torture her with poetry. You wait.” But the tug at the wrists is only token.
“No, you wait. I am taking my time, Crowley, it’s far too early to rush. Ah, this is lovely, do you know it’s just that little bit lighter than the hair on your head? And so thick.” Apparently thick enough that it needs to be delicately brushed out of the way, leaving her exposed but untouched. “Do you remember Dr. Coppelius, back in the eighteen-oughts in Vienna? The one with the Perpetual Motion machine? It did eventually run down, but you can keep some things going for quite a long time, I’m told.” He imprints an almost chaste kiss on the tender flesh high inside her thigh.
“Civility we see refin’d: the kiss
Which at the face began, transplanted is,
Now to the hand, now the Imperial knee – “
The muscles are long and slender, tapering to the inside of bony knees, and he spends a good half minute thoroughly kissing the crease of each.
“Now at the Papal foot delights to be – “
“Oh if we’re bringin’ the bloody Pope into – ah!”
The neatly turned arch of her foot’s soft, sensitive. She jerks a little, so that he has to hold her ankle.
“Tickles, angel.”
“This won’t.” Lips close over her great toe. There’s a long shudder and she subsides. Evidently it doesn’t tickle.
The web between her ankle and heel cord elicits a long throaty purr, a renewed rocking of her hips; she’s trying to dig her heels into the mattress, get a purchase. He pulls the leg out straight, holds it down.
“If kings think that the nearer way, and do
Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too.”
By the time the circuit’s complete she’s uttering a long, slow hiss, like the sound of a distant surf crashing.
“Oh, I do wish you could see. I’d let you feel, but you can’t be trusted… Like the thin honey on those wonderful filo pastries we got in Piccadilly, you remember the Turkish place? Runs out onto the plate, gets all over everything?“ She whimpers as two fingers open her, pull slowly out again, rub the satiny little rhomboid behind the junction of the lips; there’s a cool spot on the sheet that she can feel as she shifts, where she’s already soaked it. The forefinger probes further back, to the tiny pleats of the tight rosette beyond, teasing and coaxing. He’s got a point about the Turkish honey: his whole hand is slick with her, and she gives a sharp gasp and jerk when his finger presses past the outer ring of resistance and sinks in to its full length, the amber eyes finally snapping all the way open, irises blown wide.
“Well, I see that wakes you up completely. I’ll make a note.”
The warmth of his breath seems to linger indefinitely before his tongue makes the lightest of contacts, barely moves over the small, protruding peak of her sex, leaving her aware of every slow glide out the velvet channel of her backside and in again.
“I do neglect this when you’re in this form. Remiss of me.” Tongue and lips are as delicate and random as they were over her breasts at the start, no matter how she tries to ride up against them, until he finally seats the finger deep and holds it there while he begins to lap and suckle her in earnest. He’s pretty sure the words she’s uttering under her breath are swears, though Nanny always tries to respect the polite conventions, until she doesn’t any more, and they’ll get to that. She’s trying to grind upward against him; he waits till he can feel her beginning to clench around his finger, and slowly slips it out, lifting his head.
“Close, darling?”
“Don’t ssstop – “
“Hush. You know we waited so long." He's got his fingers laced through the tussock of hair, pulling up on her mound in slow circles. "The whole age before the Flood. Persia and Rome. Arthur and the Carolingians. Watched while they tamed horses and built waggons. Carriages and railroads. Always taking us away from each other. We waited beyond the End of the World. You can wait a little longer for this.”
He lets go of the curls with a light ruffle, listening to her breath tremble on long inhalations, short huffs. “Do you need a bit of water to stay the course? Lift your head, there we are…” She turns her head, swallows, hisses and tries to jackknife as he trickles a thin stream from the bedside ewer down over her belly. “Cool, safe, nothing holy about it…”
He sets the ewer down, scoots level with her hips again.
“Let’s have a look in then, shall we?”
It’s the longer middle and ring fingers this time, and they follow a familiar path through the slick, tight heat, searching out the springy bump that's just in reach. His other hand traps the soft flesh of her mound, pulling it taut towards her navel. “Mmm, very nice. You always do like me to rub you here, I’ve never felt it so swollen up…" She's clasping now, bearing down, breathing like a distance runner, and there's a flush spreading down through the lavaliere of freckles that fans out from her collarbones. "Hard enough?”
“A little faster – “
“Though if I’m intruding – “
“Get back in there – “
“Only you seem put about – “ Put about, because Aziraphale is polite and adoptively British, means tossing her head one way and the other, yanking on the strained pyjama legs, both fangs now denting the thin lower lip, eyes crimped shut. She almost yowls as he slides his fingers back in, tugging against the headboard, and there’s a sharp ripping sound as she arches up, squirting over his hand with a sweet faint scent of earth and rainwater.
“Damn you, you filo-eating etiquette manual, fuck me or I’ll – “
“When you ask like that, my dear, how can I possibly refuse?”
A high whine as she feels him lodge against her, pause. “Though do you think I can without hurting you? I’ve made you so tight, is it sore?…” He presses just inside; she’s still rippling, squeezing – he’s wondered more than once if there’s a bit of the constrictor in Crowley’s snake nature – and then with a last glissando tear, the pyjama bottoms give up the ghost and two quartets of nails rake up his tender arse, short-circuiting his show of hesitation into a splitting thrust. She's still riding her orgasm, and slams her hand into the mattress hard a half-dozen times with a catamount screech, approximately three seconds before he bears into her as if he's never going to leave.
Aziraphale finds leisure to reflect that he, himself, has not gone entirely unaffected by the pace of the proceedings.
Presently Nanny lifts her hand, detects the remains of the pyjama leg still dangling from the wrist, and waves feebly. "Wicked, wilful creature," she says weakly. "Look what you've done."
"Miracle you a new pair," Aziraphale mumbles. "My treat."
Things go a bit murky after that.
Crowley rubs his eyes. His eyes now, apparently, since the semi-conscious rake of his palm across his face just encountered a half-day stubble and a short-trimmed forelock. There’s a blissful smell of perfect coffee in the room, and the warm yeasty aroma of toast, which is the only thing he’s ever willing to face at breakfast. A thick fingertip touches his lips, sticky, aromatic.
He ventures just the tip of his serpent tongue. Aziraphale’s finally gotten into the Silver Shred from Fortnum and Mason’s that Crowley slipped into his stocking at Christmas.
“I thought I’d let you try it before I put any on the toast,” he said. “It’s a farmhouse boule from that little startup bakery down the street.”
Crowley expresses his approval by closing his lips over the angel’s finger, licking and sucking until the sweet coating's exhausted. “All you’re gonna get right now,” he finally says, flopping back melodramatically. “Were you tryin’ to discorporate me, or just feeling ambitious?”
“Hm. Well. Possibly the latter. I admit to the sin of Pride. I don’t think Nanny’s ever done that on her first before.”
“You were planning on a second? I’m immortal, angel, not inexhaustible.”
“I believe you said something about changing forms before I could try. After a bit I went out for the bread and coffee. I judged you'd be asleep for a good while.”
“Lucky I don’t go down for another decade.”
“Goodness, please don’t. I can’t eat all this myself and it’s best fresh.” A fragment of toast touches his lips, and he tongues it in.
“You will have to sit up eventually.”
Crowley makes a vague negative noise. “Disabled me. Never get up again. Be a noodle in your bed for eternity. Fuck were you thinkin’ of?”
Another morsel of toast. “Ah – I just wanted to make things last, since you did have to wait till morning – well, I was a bit curious about how long I could – remember the first time?”
Crowley winces. “Christ. You hardly even had my flies open. I was like a teenage kid in the back seat.”
“As I recall, we were in the back seat.”
“Whose fault was that? Finally decidin’ to kiss me in the middle of Palace Park.”
“It simply overcame me. And out there on the picnic blanket would have been unacceptable. Much as you seemed ready to proceed there.”
Crowley refrains from comment and opens his mouth for another bite of toast, like a baby bird.
“My dear, you simply must sit up. I’m not siphoning the coffee into you. It’s from that Turkish delicatessen, I couldn’t get it out of my head. There's baklava too.”
That finally gets him up on his elbows, with great complaining. “Bribery, that’s what it is. Brazen bribery.”
The cherub seated (still somewhat gingerly, Crowley detects) on the duvet twinkles at him. He’s bow-tied and watch-chained again, absolutely proper and completely archaic and utterly prim, and Crowley wonders for something like the thousand and ninth time how anyone can pass him on the pavement without throwing themselves at his feet. “Simply pampering. You’ve done so much for me, darling. Looking after me. Correcting me. Being sensible when I’m not… Allow me to take care of you.”
“Did that already.”
”And a joy it was.”
“Sure you weren’t just bein’ a bastard?”
Aziraphale says nothing this time, merely goes on twinkling. Which is all the answer Crowley wants, or needs.
“Hand that coffee over, then. Reckon I’ll need it.”
finis