Archive of Our Own

1348

Take your mouth in my mouth

The first time they kiss, it's in the middle of the fourteenth bloody century, and Aziraphale is the one who kisses Crowley.

They've been drinking in some squalid little place that somehow still manages to have drinkable ale and delicious seafood soup in bread trenchers, because Aziraphale always knows. They are slightly sozzled, but not past sense, and have just agreed to go back to Crowley's lodgings to correct this oversight, when they see a grey-cloaked figure passing down the street. She turns, curtseys to them with skirts of veil around her wasted legs, and passes into the first house of the street.

"I've seen her far too often," Aziraphale says, biting his lip. "Following in Famine's footsteps. War never leaves. Some of the humans are saying it's the End Times."

"It's too early," Crowley says sharply. "I haven't heard anything from our lot. Yours?"

"No. But would they tell me?" Aziraphale stares up at the stars, as if he can read the answer there.

"They're not--they're not necessarily assembling. Just, you know, in the same time and place. Hanging out. You know our jobs get lonely. Nice to see someone who can understand." Crowley touches Aziraphale's cheek, to reassure Aziraphale or himself, he's not sure which one, and suddenly Aziraphale is kissing him.

Kissing him abruptly, against the wall of the tavern, in a stinking alleyway, all seeking lips and eager hands pulling his shoulders close even while a thick warm body is pushing him backwards, as if Aziraphale doesn't know which direction to steer him. Crowley, boneless, tries to be and do all things at once, whatever the angel needs of him, snaking his arms around Aziraphale's neck and crowding forwards even as he's pulling him back. It's clumsy and desperate and their lips crush and teeth clash, Crowley's sensitive nostrils are full of beer and stinking water and rotting food and sweet, sweet angel, and it's like nothing Crowley has ever imagined.

It's not like he hasn't thought about it. A lot. In his imagination, it was always himself doing the kissing. Seducing and tempting. Slick--or maybe romantic. Since the twelfth century he's had guiltily ludicrous daydreams of Aziraphale locked in a prison tower, deprived of his powers for vague reasons, and himself singing outside like Blondel, until he hears Aziraphale's voice. Crowley's imagination blurs over the fact that he tends to hiss more than sing with seraphic beauty since he left Heaven, and skips right to a grateful angel lifting his lips to his in promise.

Before that, accidentally coming on each other bathing in hot springs was a popular theme in his imagination, as if he was a nymph rather than an overall man-shaped demon, certain details aside. He would rise out of the water, droplets streaming off his skin, and Aziraphale's mouth would open as round as those river-stream eyes. Crowley would sway seductively close, as if the snake was the charmer for once. As if he was an incubus of otherworldly beauty and not a minor spreader of temptation and inconveniences in a bony, lanky form. As if Aziraphale was a heroic hunter or young demigod and not a fussy angel in a plump, middle-aged corporation. Daydreams work like that.

Even in his daydreams, kissing Aziraphale was something to be carefully worked up to, with immaculate plotting. Don't scare the angel away with your crude demonic desires. He never dared fantasise it would be without plans, without warning, and with the angel crushing his mouth to his, as if Aziraphale's own uncontrolled desires had somehow spilled over without warning.

Reality is so much better.

He's made a mistake in thinking Aziraphale would be pliant and passive when kissed. No, Aziraphale is, after all, stronger than him, more solid, more stable, not a frantic rope of self-hating nerves barely wrapped in skin. Of course Aziraphale is the one to take Crowley's thin body in hand and kiss, and kiss. Kiss him until the unfamiliarity and clumsiness eases and their lips are clinging and tongues touching and bodies arching together as if it's all these forms were designed to do, all they know.

And oh Crowley's body knows. His skin is on fire, his belly is on fire, there is fire between his thighs and for the first time ever he doesn't feel like an occult being crammed clumsily into a human body, the body is all he is, this body and its eagerness to touch and be touched by and absorb this soft marvellous other body.

Aziraphale pulls back at last, and Crowley parts his lips again to say something--something sexy, passionate, adoring, something that can't be taken back. Ever. Any more than the difference between "we have never kissed" and "we have kissed" can be.

"I'm most terribly sorry," says Aziraphale. "That was completely out of order." There's a rush of wings, more ethereal than physical, and he's gone, and Crowley doesn't see him for decades.

Apparently "we have kissed" can be taken back, after all.

Crowley tries to content himself with the old fantasies, and finds to his horror that they don't work anymore. Every time he starts to get up there, stoking himself with the memories of unexpected contact, the polite apology rings in his ears and he can't, he can't.

Crowley hates the bloody fourteenth century.

##1642 ###The expression of your eyes makes me ill, I'll clasp within my kiss your eyelids**

Kissing Aziraphale, Crowley reflected somewhere near Edgehill when Aziraphale abruptly stops accusing him of causing the Civil War, pushes him against a handy tree and starts trying to kiss the breath out of him instead, was something that didn't seem at all likely for at least three millennia.

Kissing, and everything that followed, was in fact a bit confusing in the early days of the world.

He knew that Aziraphale's body was beautiful in a way that was deeply satisfying, the thick enticing thighs and curve of the belly and the way his shoulder blades were beautifully covered in a cushion of flesh. The worried indents between his brows and the joyful indents of his laughter lines and the long philtrum down to thin lips. The way his chin would draw in when those same lips parted to show teeth in an out-flashing of joy, creating more wrinkles in in the soft neck, or would jut out gently when he smiled close-lipped and sweet. The Almighty knew what she was doing when she made Principalities, or at least this one, designing them to be solid and touchable as if begging to be trusted and loved. By humans presumably, rather than demons, but sometimes She was a bit scattershot in her effects.

It took longer to piece his feelings together with what humans did. At first Crowley didn't even associate his mad impulse to touch his assigned enemy with what Adam and Eve and their children did. That was just something undignified mammals did to make baby mammals, the Almighty in her infinitely ineffability deciding that safe and sane methods like creating new beings out of the ether or tears were better replaced by something called birth that was messy, painful, inefficient and dangerous. (It was a long time before Crowley realised that he, the Serpent, was being blamed for the suffering of women and deaths of babies. He got blind drunk and ranted at Aziraphale for hours about the unfairness of it all, it had nothing to do with knowing the difference between right and wrong, as Aziraphale nodded a drunk and wise and sympathetic head and pretended to think there was some reason for all that crap.)

None of it necessarily had anything to do with pressing mouths together.

It didn't take long for humans to start doing the similar things with other humans in ways completely disconnected from creating other humans, and with humans with which it was impossible to create other humans in the first place.

At this point Crowley's understanding shifted, and he began to realise his irrational, annoying impulse to drag his hand up Aziraphale's thigh or sink his teeth into his shoulder had everything to do with what humans did, and he started to take a more lively interest in the whole business of sex. A few times he tried it out, but they were all wrong, none looked or felt or smelled right. Crowley was already awkward and ill at ease in his own body and felt a fastidious cringing from the pain and mess. He also kept bruising them with his sharp elbows. He rarely felt in control of his human form while walking, let alone trying complicated sloppy things like sex. And being wanted by humans was all well and good until it started getting somewhere, and then it felt a bit demeaning, like he was taking them seriously or something.

Still, he learned enough to fill his own head, and his fist, when he thought of Aziraphale's forehead and arms and neck.

Aziraphale feels right, looks and smells right, feels perfect against him, even with the shouts of humans killing each other so close, and Crowley's body suddenly knows exactly what it wants. He manages to pull Aziraphale on top of him, and the weight of him is soft and comforting and at the same time makes Crowley feel like he is exploding, celestial and earthly selves in harmony at last. Fuck, yes, his body does know what to do right now, and he suspects "fuck" is the perfect word.

"Sorry, I'm so sorry," Aziraphale is saying between kisses, and Crowley pulls away, sees fear and remorse in his eyes, and tries to kiss it away, Aziraphale's eyelids hot and fragile under his lips.

"Shut up. Don't say sorry, don't ever say sorry for this," he says against the tickle of golden eyelashes. He deliberately tangles long legs through stockier ones, trying to trap him close, ears already straining for the burst of wings. Still unable to believe Aziraphale will stay.

"I know it's not your fault, not really." Crowley's face is pulled close again, frantic kisses peppering his lips, and Crowley keeps up, returns kiss for kiss. "You didn't cause this battle. I'm sorry I keep thinking the worst of you, my dear, I'm so sorry. You deserve better."

So little to deserve so many kisses, Crowley thinks dazedly, just not actually making the poor pathetic humans slaughter each other. Well, if that's enough to make Aziraphale kiss him like this, then Crowley will embrace any low standard.

Even though, the treacherous part of his mind that stays cold and analytical now even with hungry, adored lips pulling on his reminds Crowley, it's probably both their fault. Treating Court and Parliament as counters in a silly game, messing the humans about. Aziraphale pushing self-denial and austerity like the adorable hypocrite he is, and Crowley supporting heedless decadence, seeing which side would win. A game. Crowley had triumphantly expecting his own victory and treating Aziraphale to any treat and luxury his heart desired as his prize, dressing him in silk and feeding him delightful treats. Humans always had to take everything too seriously, and now they were dying.

They'd all be dead in a few years anyway, they would spend far longer in the Afterlife, and neither Heaven nor Hell would be much fun. Can't worry too much about idiots. Crowley puts them out of his mind, or rather they dissolve completely from his mind when Aziraphale breathes Crowley against his mouth and all he can do is buck up, roll his hips against that delicious weight, feel that between the softness of thigh and belly Aziraphale is as miraculously hard as he is.

Aziraphale makes a sound that shatters Crowley's universe for one delicious second and then pulls back. "Someone will see."

Crowley snaps his fingers. "Nah." He tries to push up again, but strong arms are holding him pinned against the tree, which would be delightful if not for--

"Not them," Aziraphale says, and is gone again. Not even a goodbye brush of lips.

Crowley is left panting and wanting and to his slight terror nothing he does can ease it. The slide of his own hands is useless, and tears are sliding down his stupid human face and his stupid body is rebelling against him and it hurts. Body and heart congested alike, all the wanting bottled up until it is nothing but pain.

"Don't go," he whispers to the night. Uselessly.

"Oh, I'm happy right here," War says, grinning at him as she hoists her sword over her shoulder. "All right, demon?"

"Piss off."

In the end, it's easier to turn into a snake. Snakes don't want, at least not anything that doesn't keep them alive.

He can be a snake for a bit.

1887

trail my light tongue along your arms and around your neck

Crowley doesn't really understand what the rules are now, how they make sense in Aziraphale's brilliantly, chaotically anxious mind. Why they must seem to meet by chance, but once they have, it's all right to dine together, to chat, to walk arm in arm, to talk and get drunk together. Surely, if they were really enemies, they should quarrel, or at least depart each other's presence. Why would Heaven notice Aziraphale inviting him to one of his many clubs for a brandy and a noxious pipe, but not notice them running into each other at the Zoo and strolling together, surrounded by courting couples and resolutely not thinking of the past? Notice if they held hands, not notice Aziraphale cursing one of Crowley's targets as part of the Arrangement? Notice them on a picnic or in Crowley's flat, not feeding ducks or in the bookshop?

Still, if this game is what Aziraphale needs to feel safe, Crowley will play it. He's not going to argue, not when it used to be decades, centuries, millennia between seeing his angel, and now a year rarely passes without seeing a smile like the promise of summer thought clouds. Sometimes, rarely a week goes by without a meeting. No more kisses, but no more resulting pull away. Instead there is brushed skin when their gloves are removed, a steadying hand on a plump elbow, looks held too long as they sip drinks in deep armchairs and bicker about music. It's like moving from a desert to a rainforest heavy with fruit.

Crowley hasn't noticed much observation since a few hundred years ago when that poor young carpenter was nailed to a tree. Somehow, that seemed to signal a loss of interest in their missions from both their sides. Sure, you get the traditionalists like Ligur and Hastur who like to do an occasional corruption planetside. Aside from that, Beezlebub is off sequestered with the other Princes of the Dark Council all the time, plotting away. Dagon has gone completely off their rocker, if they had ever been on one in their first place, and sees the acquisition of paperwork as an aim in itself. If Crowley ever wants his reports read, he has to go down and make a big song and dance about it himself. He doesn't bother very often.

If Crowley thinks about it too hard, his head hurts and his pulse throbs. Six thousand years seemed such a long time, oh, five thousand nine hundred years ago. Now time seems to be more crowded.

So he tries not to think about it. There are so many more interesting distractions in this planet and the nineteenth century.

You never see angels around on Earth these days, either. No smiting, no messages of peace. Humans still report seeing visions of them, but Crowley is pretty sure they are lying. Only his own particular angel ever registers on his senses.

No one, he is sure, is watching, as he and Aziraphale 'accidentally' book the same two tickets at the Savoy Theatre and turn up without their companions and agree, amicably and politely like gentlemen, that it's perfectly all right, they can sit side by side. If the Savoy Theatre had boxes, they could have done even better and spoken more, but side by side in the centre stalls is better than nothing. At least this theatre has the new electric lights, wonderful humans and their wonderful clever inventions, and Crowley can breathe here better than in any other theatre, as well as he can in London this century. Only yesterday, he had seen Pestilence walking hand in hand in a peasouper with her new pal Pollution, frowning at Crowley as he used his powers to protect his corporation's lungs. Poor pathetic humans, choosing between death from January cold and death from coal.

Crowley brings a comically large box of chocolates, ostensibly for his lady friend, and it's no one's business if with the lights lowered the box ends up perched on the angel's knee. Demons are never supposed to be perfectly happy, but now, side by side with Aziraphale, the warmth of a plush thigh near his thin one, all quarrels forgotten, listening to faint delectable sounds of enjoyment as Aziraphale eats the sweets he, Crowley, has bought for him, feeling Aziraphale's repressed wriggle of excitement and the way he is buzzing with joyous anticipation of the show, it's easy to forget that the damned aren't supposed to feel bliss. He pops a chocolate in his own mouth from time to time, and plans where to take Aziraphale for supper.

It's going to be a funny one. All of Gilbert's works are funny ones ¹, and Sullivan's music ranges from sublime to at worst moderately bearable. To be perfectly honest, Crowley finds most opera funny, but Aziraphale gets sniffy if the demon laughs loudly enough at the suicides to attract attention.

The show's going to be about a witch's curse. Should be even funnier than Macbeth.

It is funny. Until Aziraphale stops chuckling, stops eating chocolates, his soft profile becomes hard and his shoulders like rocks. He reaches out for Crowley's hand and grips it convulsively, and for once there is no joy in the touch, no burning, just cold.

Poor children, how they loathe me—me whose hands are certainly steeped in infamy, but whose heart is as the heart of a little child! But what is a poor baronet to do, when a whole picture-gallery of ancestors step down from their frames and threaten him with an excruciating death if he hesitate to commit his daily crime? But ha! ha! I am even with them! I get my crime over the first thing in the morning and then, ha! ha! for the rest of the day I do good—I do good—I do good! Two days since, I stole a child and built an orphan asylum. Yesterday I robbed a bank and endowed a bishopric. To-day I carry off Rose Maybud and atone with a cathedral!

Unfair, unfair, Crowley thinks. The parallel isn't even all that close, but he is powerless to stop Aziraphale from drawing it.

Go bend the knee at Vice's shrine,

Of life with me all hope resign. Farewell!

Oh, fuck it. If Gilbert thinks he is going to live a single day without migraines for the rest of his existence after writing this bullshit, he's wrong.

Crowley takes Aziraphale to the bar at the interval, and at least the whiskey is decent, thank old D'Oyly Carte for that. Good whiskey, chocolates, that's the ticket. A decent supper. A bit of cossetting to undo the harm.

He thinks of saying nothing, but Aziraphale is tucked in on himself, miserable, and he needs to dispel that frown, brighten those pitying eyes.

"Yeah, it's a stupid play," Crowley says, with a theatrical yawn. "Doomed to fail. Take me back to the bookshop for a nightcap instead of forcing me to sit through the second half?"

For a terrible moment he thinks Aziraphale is going to refuse, is going to send him away, but then the golden-white head nods just once, and they walk back in silence to the shop. No touching.

They are into a third miserable glass of rather good wine before Crowley says, out of nowhere, "I am not good deep down. Hell doesn't force me to do evil for fear of destruction. Get that thought right out of your fluffy head. It's just a job, and a job I chose."

"I saw that street urchin, yesterday. There was no money dropped on the ground until she found it."

"I do blessings for you. It's part of the Arrangement, not a deal with my conscience. I don't have a conscience. That's why I'm still so good looking." Crowley attempted a smile. "Look, I'm not cursed. I chose. All of the Fallen did. And, well, you've hardly gone insane through loving me yet, have you?"

Too much whiskey and wine. Far too much. The admission is there in the air between them, I know you love me, and there's no taking it back.

Crowley bows his head, waits for Aziraphale to deny it, throw him out. Back into the desert. Instead, there is a muffled sob.

"Not yet." And Crowley's arms are full of angel, his mouth is full of angel that tastes like chocolate and alcohol. The kisses feel like they are dragging his battered heart out of his bony ribcage and cradling it with something that is as soft as cloud and as iron as desperation. "I feel I will indeed go mad any day," Aziraphale says between kisses. "I feel like I can't bear it. I feel like I will--"

Crowley wants to say, You won't Fall, wants to say It's all right, wants to say I will protect you. His throat strangles the words, because how can he know, really know, any of it is true? It's just what he wishes to be true, because he is in love and this stupid human body wants and it's his Aziraphale, his, and Crowley needs him so much...

What comes out of his mouth when Aziraphale leaves it alone for a moment is "Urrghmph." He feels like Aziraphale understands.

Crowley allows himself kisses, allows himself to loosen Aziraphale's silky cravat and taste sweat-salted, coal-dusted skin, skin that registers on his tongue far too much like Hell to belong to an angel. Tainted. Allows his tongue to split and fork, to push back a cuff and find the pulse in Aziraphale's wrist and learn the rapid flicker of the pulse against his tongue. Allows himself liberties he's never taken, his hands travelling down and under the jacket to memorise the curve of that magnificent backside, because he's sure he never will again. The luscious roll of fat above the waistband, begging his fingers to press in. There are tears on the cheeks between them, and he doesn't know who the wetness belong to, because even his snake-demon eyes are human enough to weep.

He hates having a human body. It gives away too much, too much, and wants too much, just like this human heart trapped in his chest wants too much. In the end, all he can do is wrap his arms tight and cling.

"Don't send me away," he begs, not caring how abject he sounds.

"Not forever, I swear not forever, my love. But I think--for tonight. For a few weeks."

He goes, obedient as ever, his body aching as badly as his heart. No relief, either. He's given up on the thought of relief. It will only happen under Aziraphale's touch, and that isn't going to happen. Crowley perversely cherishes the discomfort, the nausea. If his soul is hurting and frustrated, so should his body be. It's what he deserves for making Aziraphale weep.

When he comes back "to buy a book on demonology" he brings a bunch of spring flowers, a fabulously valuable scroll of Nabatean prophecies and a quarter of aniseed twists. Aziraphale greets him with a face like the dawn, scolds his attempts to buy a book, and Crowley is happy. He is happy. How can he not be, when Aziraphale is so filled with joy to see him, and it has nothing to do with the apology gifts he brings, really?

They don't go to the theatre together again for a very long time. Aziraphale doesn't call him "my love" again, either.

1984

I shall drag the long-drawn kiss of my nails along your tender sides

The Gala is to raise money for AIDS. Pestilence has officially retired, but sometimes she likes to turn up and cause suffering for the apparent fun of it.

Rich humans like to party on any pretext.

While Crowley has reason to believe many of the guests are gay or drug users, they cluster in their little man-woman pairs and only take coke in the loos, none of this nasty common intravenous stuff like the victims of the latest fashionable cause. He calculates that, at most, ten percent of the fabulously expensive tickets goes to any kind of research or help for the victims.

It's the kind of event that attracts both angels and demons. Aziraphale believes firmly and against all evidence that the guests actually care about the dying, and also argues that ten percent is better than nothing. Crowley glories in the hypocrisy and excess. They both like the food and champagne.

Aziraphale, always proper, is in a black suit and white bowtie, his red ribbon pinned to his collar. It all suits him, slightly out of date and slightly pompous, oozing money. Crowley's suit is similar, if tighter and more stylish, and wispy hair flops over his face. No one can see, but he knows he is wearing eyeliner under his glasses. He would never admit it, but he hopes someone mistakes him for a rock star.

Of course they end up together, and arguing over the Arrangement.

"I don't see why you care about tempting people into sexual liaisons. Isn't it all a little tawdry? And inefficient? I thought you were going in more for mass inconveniences these days."

"It's as efficient as it gets. It's not about the sex, or which man or woman they have it with. It's about what the powerful will do to avoid anyone finding out about it. And the effect on everyone around. Bribes, blackmail, intimidation, lies, forcing their employees and friends to compromise themselves. And the media coverage, and all the people indulging their nasty little vice of getting off on other people's troubles."

"I suppose so." Aziraphale sighs and sips his champagne, wrinkling his nose when bubbles hit his nostrils. It's so precious that Crowley has to look away for a while.

"You know you're better at this stuff than me," he says, pushing his advantage. "People confide in you. People like you. I can't push someone to indiscretions without them getting all suspicious. And they don't have to do it, and they don't have to cover up about it afterwards."

"So what will you do for me in return?" Aziraphale looks at him, wide-eyed and tender, and Crowley chokes down the impulse to say anything, anything, I will pluck the stars out of the sky.

"Yeah, okay." He shrugs with mock reluctance. "How about this? I'll suggest to some of the people here that really big donations will be great for their PR and their tax returns. That do?"

It does do. Aziraphale's eyes shine and his cheeks colour and his lashes flicker and Crowley forgets that he is holding himself in and grasps his hand.

"Dance with me."

"My dear, I am hardly accomplished at modern dance. And I've seen you move. I'm not sure their insurance covers it."

"I don't care. Look, they all call it the Gay Plague when they are alone, you know they do. And there is not a single couple of men dancing out there. Don't you think that is, well, wrong?"

"We're not men. And you don't usually care if things are wrong."

"They don't know that. And I do care about making sanctimonious people uncomfortable." Crowley steps closer, still holding his hand, looking for little signs. A pulse flickering in a lovely neck above the collar, heightened colour, faster breathing. The way Aziraphale is looking at him as if he can't break the gaze, even with tinted glass between them.

Crowley knows they are drawing attention already. He knows what an unlikely couple they look. Crowley somehow wants to dance together more than anything in the world.

"Come on, angel," he cajoles. "It's easy. A slow song, we just kind of hold each other and sway and shuffle." That's what the humans are doing, anyway, and it looks easy. He pulls Aziraphale out onto the dancefloor.

Aziraphale is so self-possessed when he walks, his posture so perfect, as he moves that Crowley is completely unprepared for how incompetent he is on the dance floor. As for himself, his body suddenly registers that this is not just dancing, not a disco in hell, this is being nose to nose and chest to chest, hands clasped together, Aziraphale's hand on the small of his back burning through his suit jacket and the plush softness of a waist under his own hands. They are so close that Aziraphale's stomach is brushing against his. How the heaven is Crowley supposed to remember how his feet work?

And the music, the bloody music is changing. He doesn't know if it Fate, or God fucking with him, or his own powers trying to destroy him, but he was pretty sure it was Phil Collins a second ago and now George Michael is crooning I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor. Great, even the music has to undermine his confidence. At least it isn't Queen, although apparently his demonic powers have no bloody taste in pop music.

"We can do this," he says through gritted teeth. "We can dance. It's slow. It's easy."

"if you say so, dear." Aziraphale is sparkling with amusement.

Crowley nods, sharply, and begins to moves. George coos guilty feet have got no rhythm just as he gets Aziraphale's full weight on his instep. The perfect timing of the lyric makes him snicker, and Aziraphale is chuckling, and they are swaying and clutching each other's hands and smothering laughter on each other's shoulders and still shuffling and stepping all over each other's feet.

"They're right to warn of the wiles of demons. Who could resist the sinful temptation of your dancing?"

"Shut it. You're ruining the effect. We're sending everyone in the room wild with lust, I can--ow!--tell." In a moment of complete lack of judgement Crowley decides to attempt a spin, but he can't decide whether it would be more effective to spin himself or Aziraphale, and ends up yanking them both ways at once and stumbling forward into the angel, crashing their heads together. "Ouch".

Aziraphale is all amusement and fondness. "You are adorable," Aziraphale whispers. Crowley knows he should take offense, but Aziraphale kisses him.

This kiss is different from the others, as soft as the whisper, tasting of laughter and affection, just a brush of lips. Aziraphale's expression is open and kind and loving, the smile lines crinkling around lips and eyes, sheer euphoria at being together.

Time can never mend the careless whispers of a good friend

Crowley wants to take this moment, seal it in his heart. Let it cut through his heart, he doesn't care. As long as he can remember this look, he can remember that Aziraphale loves him, and all he has to do is not mess it up. It's enough. It has to be enough.

Unfortunately he's a fucking demon, or a fucking idiot, and all he can think of is everything else he wants, the dark wave of lust building up and ready to crash.

"Let's go," he says. "We've entertained the crowd enough with our sinful sophistication. We can do the tempting another gala." Aziraphale, his smile fading, nods.

Should've known better than to cheat a friend and waste the chance that I'd been given

They are quiet on the trip back to Soho. Crowley for once minds the speed, tries to handle the Bentley delicately on the corners, nothing to frighten Aziraphale, nothing upsetting. Aziraphale is quiet and it's impossible to read his gaze.

Crowley pulls over, and they sit there together for a moment.

"Here we are, then," Aziraphale says with suspicious cheeriness.

"Here we are." Crowley removes his glasses, places them in the glovebox.

Well, if Crowley can attempt to pull off a corny move like slow dancing, there's no depths to which he won't stoop, as if demons were even afraid of depths.

For example, he could pretend to reach across to open Aziraphale's door, and end up pressed desperately against him, hands sliding around his neck, kissing him clumsily and voraciously like a human teenager on their way home from a date.

For example.

Crowley is sprawled awkwardly across the car and the gearstick is pressed painfully into his thigh and however he writhes he can't get into a position that is anything like dignified. It doesn't matter, it can't matter, those plump manicured hands that have taken up permanent residence in his dreams are actually in his hair, he hopes they won't get too sticky with mousse, mousse tastes horrible and he has plans of sucking on those fingers. He scrabbles on Aziraphale's shoulders for purchase, manages with a heroic effort to swing his legs across so that he can settle on his lap. This is better, this is perfect, even though he is half kneeling and there's no way to wrap his legs around and pull the two of them as close as he needs them to be. It's still perfect.

Aziraphale gasps into his mouth and Crowley sucks the taste of champagne from his tongue, rolls it in his mouth. Aziraphale's hands are gliding down Crowley's sides, and yes, yes, he thinks, find the hem of my jacket, find my waist, pull out my shirt and glide beneath, I need to feel you on my skin. Scratch me, claim me.

"My dear," Aziraphale manages, "you can hardly be comfortable."

"Don't care," Crowley mutters. Actually it's horribly frustrating, he wants to press and to grind, he can't get Aziraphale's clothes out of the way comfortably. He's terrified that if they stop and let go for a second this won't resume. He lifts up for a moment, resettles on one of Aziraphale's thighs, and rocks desperately, the sound in his throat almost unfamiliar to him.

Selfish, why is he being so selfish? This is Aziraphale, he should be thinking of loving and cherishing and pleasuring him, not making himself come. Crowley forces his hips to freeze, slides a loving hand down over the curve of Aziraphale's hip to find the harder, hotter curve of arousal trapped in his trousers.

Aziraphale catches his hand. "Crowley. We can't. Anyone might see."

"Then invite me in. Let me take you back to my place. Let me get a hotel room, a palace. Anything for you, anything. I'll make it perfect, no mortal will ever have been loved the way I will love you, my angel."

"Crowley, I can't."

Crowley draws back, and in the light of the street lights, he can see Aziraphale is breathing hard, desperately aroused, and the line of his mouth is a line hard and steely enough that he will never be able to break it.

"You're a demon, I'm an angel--"

"Do you think I haven't fucking noticed that yet?" Crowley howls, trying not to let the despair rise.

"Language."

"Language? At a time like this? Aziraphale, I want to fuck your clever brains out and be fucked by you until I can never belong to anyone else and you are worried about the word?"

"Crowley, it can't--"

"It can!"

"It won't happen. I'm sorry, dear."

"And that's that, then." The despair is there after all. Crowley crashes back into his seat. "Sorry."

"I am. If I could control myself better, if I never kissed you..."

"It's all right, angel," he says, resigned, although it is never all right, it never will be. The absolute stupidity of a demon besottedly in love with an angel isn't something that can be fixed. "Oh, Aziraphale, it hurts."

He means his soul hurts, but Aziraphale misunderstands and asks timidly, "If you need to relieve it?" Always so bloody considerate.

Oh, blessed heavens, this is more than he expected, and like the greedy fiend he is he asks for more. "Can you hold my left hand while I do?"

"Of course, dear," and it's said so warmly and tenderly. The cruel, kind, utter darling. Crowley wishes he could hate him for his generosity and sweetness.

He deals with his fastenings as quickly as he can, cheeks burning while he springs loose, and reaches out. Warm fingers interweave with his, palm to palm, holding reassuringly, and surely this time the stroking will work, with his lips bruised and Aziraphale here beside him, loving and accepting of at least this much.

The familiar heat, and tingling, and--pain and congestion.

"Tell me it's all right, angel. Please. Tell me to come, for you."

All he hears is a sad, tiny whisper.

"I'm an angel. I can't help you sin, dearest."

Crowley doubles over and sobs into his still dry fingers and he supposes the pat on his back is some comfort, somehow.

1998

I shall kiss from end to end the long black wings

Going to Hell in a handbasket is suddenly an expression that makes perfect sense. Crowley has no intention of going back to Hell, handbasket or not.

In some ways, he supposes, he is trapped in his own personal Hell, a demon in love. That never works out. Still, it's not all that bad, not when, even when he suspects the Horsemen are really going to assemble this time, not just hang around frightening them.

Really stupid optimism is a trait he's always been perversely proud of having, even if technically it may have gone a long way toward his Fall. So the Antichrist is on the Earth. So the Horsemen are really going to assemble this time, not just hang around causing trouble.

The end of the world is looming, and Aziraphale is sitting there, with the sweetest and gentlest of smiles, and is on his side. Not Heaven's. And looking at him--well, as if he is expecting to be kissed.

Crowley tries not to make the same mistake more than twelve million times, absolutely tops. He sits back, and smiles, and loves--

He is good at waiting.