Happy Holidays, HolRose!
Dec. 3rd, 2024 05:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchange Title: I feel my heart beat for you
Recipient Name: HolRose
Rating: Explicit
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley (TV)
Warnings: Crowley steps on his own rakes
Summary: Crowley plans a really romantic first sort-of-date for Aziraphale. What could possibly go wrong? Featuring: immortal peril, BAMF (but very polite) Aziraphale, first kiss, lots of kisses, lots and lots of kisses, really bad home decorating, first time, even more kisses, a marriage proposal, absolutely no mention of Season 2, and a happy ending.
Crowley wasn’t sulking. Demons didn’t sulk. He was brooding. No, wait, not brooding, that was what fluffy hens did, wasn’t it? He was—he was deep in demonic gloomy thoughts, and looking really cool while he did it, incidentally.
*No thank you, Crowley, I have a lot to be getting on with.* What kind of answer was that to an invitation to ditch the bookshop for Crowley’s flat, where the wine selection was better? Just because he’d been elaborately casual and Aziraphale had no idea he’d got in stock a particularly acceptable vintage of Romanée-Conti, just so Aziraphale could pretend to be shocked at drinking a couple of thousand pounds in a glass. Just because he had failed to mention that he’d raided the best patisseries in London for the occasion. Aziraphale had no business being busy when Crowley was bored and lonely.
What was he busy with, anyway? They were retired, weren’t they? Heaven and Hell were busy pretending they didn’t exist, humans were bumbling along committing acts of grace and sin as if the Apocalypse hadn’t happened. And the Arrangement was in abeyance.
That didn’t mean Aziraphale had decided he had no reason to keep up a friendship with a demon.
Aziraphale liked Crowley. He did . More than liked him. It was there in the flutter of eyelashes and hands, in the telltale throb of a pulse in his neck, the excessive warmth of a hand grip, the token nature of any protests when they really had been stupidly reckless to maintain their friendship. It was even possible he—
Crowley fingered the small box he’d been carrying in his pocket since the Tuesday that shouldn’t have happened. It was stupidly optimistic, but it was a new world, and perhaps one day, if all the signs were right… They didn’t need anything like that, obviously. That was for humans, and Crowley’s professional expertise required knowing just how seriously they took it. But Aziraphale did enjoy acting like a human, or at least the fun bits, and so, admittedly, did Crowley.
Perhaps the angel wanted to be romanced. Crowley flushed at the thought. He wasn’t… he didn’t… oh, all right, perhaps he had a guilty collection of love ballads, opera, romance novels and romantic comedies that he just might occasionally get drunk and imagine the best bits with Aziraphale. Perhaps, when he had the chance to swoop in and rescue Aziraphale from some danger the angel was perfectly able to escape from himself, he did feel cool and sexy and useful, and perhaps he was more than a little aware that Aziraphale blushed and preened and fixed a starry, adoring gaze on him that Crowley would hug close to his heart for centuries. But such things were undignified for a demon.
Just like apologising. Holding hands. Letting tenderness and fondness and indulgence creep into his voice. Paying for dinner, albeit with conjured-up money. Spending hours watching someone eat cake while adoration and arousal swirled in the pit of his belly. Driving through a wall of fire. All the things he had already done for Aziraphale.
He’d do anything for Aziraphale, and that wasn’t really a secret to either of them. Perhaps he could also be romantic.
He growled and picked up the phone. He obviously had been too elaborately casual with his invitation. Aziraphale needed things spelled out sometimes. This was going to be a romantic date.
“A. Z. Fell & Co.,and I’m afraid—“
“Aziraphale,” Crowley snarled. Okay, maybe snarling wasn’t the best way to start being romantic. Somewhere, probably Down Below, old Will was tittering at him. He hadn’t had much practice, to be fair.
“Crowley!”
Aziraphale didn’t sound taken aback by the snarl. In fact, Crowley could feel* his delighted beam radiating down the phone, drowning him in light and warmth.
“Look, Aziraphale. I know you’re busy. But I have a nice little bottle that cost as much as the Bentley, and some tartellettes and petit fours and you know that chocolate cake you liked so much in Vienna and…” He took a deep breath. Time to be suave and romantic and let Aziraphale know just how wanted his company was, just how spoiled and cherished he would be. “You can come over if you like. Don’t care.”
“Oh, you didn’t need to go to so much trouble!” Aziraphale’s round tones did the equivalent of clapping their hands in delight. “I did rather have important plans but… as you’ve put in so much effort, I’m sure I can rearrange them. I’ll be over in an hour.”
Crowley felt a stab of jealousy for whatever human Aziraphale had made plans with, followed by triumph that whoever it was could go hang, Aziraphale had chosen Crowley. Or at least the sacher-torte and the bottle of DRC. The point was, Aziraphale was going to come over, get drunk, and eat cake.
Perhaps it was the fierce jubilation that led him to say, “It’s a date!”, hang up, and panic.
A date.
It didn’t necessarily have to mean date -date, he reassured himself. It could just mean appointment. Aziraphale was terribly old-fashioned, even if his mind seemed to frequently get stuck in the fifties and Crowley was pretty sure he remembered the term being used romantically even then. But it didn’t—
What if Aziraphale expected something romantic? What if he was disappointed?
Crowley frantically searched his memory for romantic things humans did. Sending a pair of gloves… only it was summer, and in any case Aziraphale's deliciously plump hands couldn’t fit into any of Crowley’s gloves. He could give him a wooden spoon, but that involved thinking of a carving that indicated deep affection and desire—while also plausibly being interpreted to mean nothing of the kind in order to avoid embarrassment to them both—and Crowley wasn’t sure he could come up with anything like that in the next fifty minutes. A goat? No, he was losing it, and Aziraphale was off goats ever since one in Sumeria ate some of his most precious books.
Music. Candles. Panic flared at the thought of Aziraphale in proximity to naked flame. No candles. But music, he could do…
He waved his hand at the plain black surface of his stereo, and the delicate piano notes of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 in E-Flat Major floated into the flat. Cliched, perhaps, but Crowley remembered sitting in the Guildhall watching, not the performance, but Aziraphale’s face, literally shining with joy as the graceful melodies swept upwards. Crowley had wondered how the humans hadn’t noticed they had an angel among them; an angel more enchanted by human art that he had ever been by celestial harmonies. Crowley had loved him so fiercely at that moment that he had ached all over, and barely had the attention to miracle fleas inside the trousers and gowns of the wealthier attendants.
What else? Oh… flowers.
He took the stairs two at a time, the lift being far too slow, and was soon leaving McQueen’s cradling an astoundingly beautiful bundle of roses, leaves, rosehips, and even a few clusters berries in case Aziraphale got a bit peckish after his cakes and fancied snacking on his bouquet. Perfect.
Crowley put the bouquet down on his coffee table, looking critically at the rows of delicacies he had assembled for the angel to choose from. His eyes fell on the Linzer biscuits, the raspberry jam glistening in the heart-shaped cutouts—oh. He really had already “accidentally” chosen romantic symbols, hadn’t he? Had he no pride as a demon?
Might as well be hanged for the whole fucking sheep.
He cast a burning gaze around, surveying his flat. It was mercilessly bare, elegantly so—sharp angles, shadowy corners, black-on-grey-on-black furniture, and enough glass to make it feel less like a home and more like a Bond villain's lair. It was extraordinarily expensive. It was minimalist. It was a perfect showcase for the kind of human he liked to pretend to be, wealthy and heartless and edgy and more than a bit dangerous. And it was completely lacking in romantic atmosphere.
Which was why—he decided in a surge of reckless, absolutely un-demonic resolve—it definitely needed some more bloody hearts.
Because fine. Fine. Maybe he was pandering to the whole cheesy, capitalist human idea of romance. Maybe he felt an embarrassing, squirmy thrill at the idea of Aziraphale walking in, wide-eyed and rosy-cheeked, overwhelmed by the romance of it all. And maybe, just maybe, he wanted to see if he could pull off making romance match his own aesthetic. Black hearts. Cool hearts. Hearts somehow oozing “dangerous and sexy” instead of “twee.” Hearts to make a different, angelic heart pound.
His finger snapped and the flat transformed.
It was awful. Truly, spectacularly awful.
Dark crimson hearts hovered above every surface like floating lanterns, glowing faintly with hellfire. They pulsed faintly in rhythm to the music; the effect vaguely, nauseatingly anatomical. Mirrors on the walls reflected flickering scarlet light, bouncing it around until the place looked like a satanic Valentine’s disco. Black candles sprouted from sharp-edged steel fixtures and lit themselves one by one, casting romantic little shadows that danced across his concrete floors.
Fuck that. No candles near the angel. He snapped again, and they became electric candles, which was somehow worse.
Crowley paced around the room, stepping around a particularly large heart. When it brushed against his ankle, it felt alive. No, no, no. This was not good. Aziraphale was going to take one step into the flat and think Crowley was completely off his rocker.
And then, just because his lizard-brain clearly had a humiliation fetish, he snapped his fingers again.
The hearts became pink and started shedding rose petals. His sofa developed a deep red velvet throw, tassels and all. God. No, no. He snapped again—velvet gone, replaced by pink and red tartan silk. Better? Worse? Bloody hell, why was this so hard? Humans managed this kind of thing all the time.
He snapped again, and again, with increasing desperation, only stopping when his wall developed a full length portrait of a beaming angel dressed in translucent robes, looking coyly over one chubby shoulder, cherubs—terrifying, real looking ones, not fat babies—shooting heart tipped arrows at swans in the background.
Aziraphale was going to be here any minute. Crowley had to return the flat to normal by then.
The tremors started behind him, faint at first—a low, almost imperceptible shake in the air that rattled through the glass decor and set the floating hearts trembling. Crowley froze, the back of his neck prickling as he glanced around. The shadows shifted—too fast. Too much like they had a mind of their own.
When the lights flickered, the disturbance crescendoed into an all-too-familiar sickly feeling, a sharp tang of sulphur and bile in his nose and tongue and soul, a tangible memory of what he was ever since the Fall, of what they would do to him if they sensed a moment’s vulnerability.
Shit.
Crowley straightened, sunglasses materialising over his eyes as he pivoted smoothly toward the centre of the room. He pitched his voice low and nonchalant, but his chest tightened all the same. “If you lot are here to comment on the… decor, don’t. You can take a petit four on your way out, if you like. They’re good, Hell should introduce them to one-to-one performance reviews meetings. Performance meetings were one of mine, by the way. One of my best.”
Shadows splintered into figures. Four or five, Crowley couldn’t be sure—short, hunched ones, the scrap-level demons who crawled out of the darker corners of creation and saw every chance, no matter how out of their league, as an opportunity to grab hold of Hell’s favour. Even they looked unimpressed by the floating hearts.
“Look at this,” one of them rasped, its voice like metal scraping against concrete. “Didn’t think we’d find even you stooping to this, traitor. ”
“Right, because surprises really keep things interesting, don’t they?” Crowley bared his teeth in a grin, hoping the lingering flicker of anxiety didn’t creep out onto his face. “What’s the agenda, then? Come to beg me to return to Hell’s bad graces?”
The largest demon stepped forward—sharp, angular, its shadow-fingers tapering into claws that dripped something thick and oily onto the floor. Its grin mirrored Crowley’s, though with far less charm. At least, Crowley hoped he was more considerably charming than that.
“No,” it said, all pointed edges and venom. “You escaped once because the bigger players weren’t paying attention. But we’re not stupid, Crowley. Heaven doesn’t want you. Hell wants you dead.” Its gaze flicked around the room, taking in the hearts, the cake, the flowers, the general cloud of oh no, someone is completely gone on an angel . “And you're weak.”
“Gotta say, I’ve heard less predictable dialogue in those human daytime dramas you lot all seem so keen on. You’re lucky I’m too bloody polite to lecture you about originality. The agreement stands. Get out, or I bring out the holy water.”
They hesitated a moment, then the smartest of them nodded slowly.
“Yeah? From where? I don’t see no tap on this room, and whose gonna bless it? Your fat angel boyfriend? Don’t see him, either. And I bet Lord Beelzebub will be really pleased to have this little pimple popped.”
“Fine, I’ll sort the decor later. Just have to deal with you lot first. No problem. I am not fucking going to let you interfere with my date.”
Their howls of laughter almost drowned out the Chopin.
Crowley’s mind flickered around his flat, looking for an escape. There probably was holy water behind the cartoon of the Mona Lisa. Adam had returned everything else, including, if rumours were true, Ligur, despite the trial. But there was no chance of getting to it in time, and if they saw the slightest drop touch him, well, his ruse was up and his goose was cooked. He’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.
He just wasn’t sure he could.
They were low level, sure, but sometimes low-level demons had a kind of ruthless stupidity that meant they could achieve things their more savvy superiors wouldn’t risk. And the ones at the bottom of the hierarchy were desperate. Hell wasn’t fun at the best of times, that was the whole point, but being a low level demon in Hell was, well, Hell. Crowley had seen the terrible brave, cruel, stupid things humans would do once desperation came into the equation, and they didn’t even see themselves as evil. These demons…
He draped himself against the back of the sofa, mind desperately looking for strategies and exits. The house plants? Perhaps he could turn them into demon-eating cannibal plants? Or—his treacherous brain chased the rabbit down the hole—was it actually cannibalism for a plant to eat a demon? Demons weren’t plants after all, they…
The closest demon, braver or stupider than the rest, raised a claw, just as there was a polite knock at the door.
Aziraphale. Only Aziraphale could manage to sound so prim when knocking. It was infuriating and adorable and—
—demons stupid enough to attack a demon who could wield holy water were stupid enough to attack an angel who was supposedly immune to Hellfire, and Aziraphale *was not.*
“Don’t come in!” Crowley yelled.
“Why not? You invited me.” Aziraphale’s voice through the door was decidedly put out. “I rearranged my evening, and—“
The door swung open almost theatrically, slamming against the wall with an audible bang.
Idiot, Crowley thought desperately. Not the demons—well,yes, the demons—but Aziraphale, too. Of course Aziraphale would insist on coming in after being invited. Polite to a damn fault as he usually was, he was also deeply stubborn.. For someone so supposed to be so wise and ineffably all-knowing, the angel could be astoundingly dense.
Aziraphale stepped in, all soft warmth and radiance, clutching a small basket under one arm that was clearly stuffed with freshly baked scones. “I brought a contribution. Freshly baked with my own hands,” he announced cheerfully, squinting against the glowing pink ambience of Crowley’s flat as though trying to understand what exactly had happened between the invitation and now. His gaze flicked to the electric candles, the flowers, the cakes, the pulsating hearts, and finally landed on Crowley—lounging across the back of the sofa like he hadn’t just almost been mauled.
For the briefest moment, Aziraphale’s face lit up like sunshine, his eyes soft and liquid, as if this nightmare attempt at a romantic atmosphere was everything he had ever dreamed about. Crowley, despite the situation, flushed furiously.
And then Aziraphale’s face fell, just for a moment, noticing the pack of demons for the first time as though spotting a bit of misplaced parsley on a dish. When his smile returned, it was slightly glazed.
“Oh dear,” he said brightly, in that brittle, self-effacing tone he only adopted when he knew the only way forward was to make himself very unpopular. His talking-to-Gabriel voice. He put down the basket and unbuttoned his cuffs, rolling them up to expose some rather lovely forearm in a way Crowley recognised as a declaration of war. Aziraphale generally only did that when he was about to ask for the chef, and the entire kitchen of an exclusive establishment trembled with panic. “You already have company. I do hate to intrude.”
“Angel...” Crowley gritted from behind gritted teeth, undraping himself upright with a new spurt of panic. “Didn’t I just say not to come in?” He gestured—wildly—toward the demons now advancing as a collective. “This entire conversation right here? Welcome to exactly why.”
“I wondered why the air felt so dreadfully musty." Aziraphale sniffed and turned back to Crowley. “Well, I’m here now, aren’t I? Surely there’s room for just one more.”
“Bloody brilliant,” Crowley snapped, flinging a hand at the greasy shadow nearest him. “Next time, I’ll miracle you a bloody memo.”
“Right,” the lead demon said, spreading its claws grotesquely wide, probably for dramatic intimidation points—but Aziraphale merely wrinkled his nose at the display. “How convenient you both turned up. Saves us time.” Shadows leapt over the flat, curling dark tendrils around chairs, snapping of several candles, and edging closer with unnerving precision.
“How tedious,” Aziraphale said, suddenly stepping forward toward the centre of the room with a look Crowley did not trust. " Did you rehearse the whole ‘shadowy menace’ act, or shall we skip right to the groveling apology for ruining our evening? Crowley and I had a date ."
The nearest demon stumbled in its tracks, either from shock or confusion. Possibly both.
Aziraphale clasped his hands. His smile would have seemed nervous to someone with as little knowledge of the world as the demons, but Crowley knew that smile, and it made his glasses creep slightly lower down his nose. That was the smile of someone standing up at the end of a parents’ meeting at a school, just as everyone was about to break off for coffee and gossip.
“Oh, please pay close attention. Six against one is hardly fair, even when the one is Crowley. But it will be a nice even two against two in a moment if you don’t apologise."
Crowley stared at him, impressed beyond words. Aziraphale had to be terrified. Aziraphale had lived in fear most of his six thousand years of his life. But this was the Aziraphale of Tadfield Airport, raising a finger to Gabriel and Beelzebub themselves. This was the Aziraphale who had gone into Hell and asked the Archangel Michael for a towel.
Crowley was almost too enamoured to be terrified for them both. Almost.
The demons hesitated—just the faintest fraction of a second—and Crowley knew why. Every millennia-old instinct in whatever passed for their collective brains could feel something . A wrongness. A weight in the very air, bearing down on them like the promise of a celestial hammer descending. Memories, old and painful, of the War, and the casting out, and all that followed.
“You fools. Take him out now!” said the leader demon.
The three nearest demons lunged forward at once, claws and shadows extending, but Aziraphale—soft, fussy, butter-wouldn’t-melt, pacific Aziraphale—raised his index finger and the world cracked open. A blast of otherworldly energy rippled out from Aziraphale’s raised palm, flooding the room with a pure, searing light that stung Crowley’s eyes even through his glasses.
The demons screeched and scrambled backward, their shadows splintering across the floor like shards of broken glass. It was horrific in a way Crowley didn’t quite understand, as if their essence had fractured while their bodies survived. Where Aziraphale stood, the air itself seemed to shimmer, bending faintly—as though the laws of the universe had been rewritten just around him.
Crowley, rooted to the spot behind the sofa, stared.
This wasn’t the angel he’d squabbled with over lunch menus or swapped barbs with over centuries of waiting for the apocalypse-that-wasn’t. This was something much, much older. Much brighter. And far more terrifying. Crowley had the dizzied thought that it was lucky Beelzebub hadn’t pressed the issue and tried again to execute “Crowley”, or Hell would be short half its hierarchy.
Bound in Heaven, Crowley hadn’t sensed much Grace. But his old friend was resplendent with it, his eyes the blue of the hottest desert sky.
“No,” Aziraphale said simply, his voice cutting through the room like molten steel. “You will not lay a hand on Crowley.”
One of the demons hissed something guttural and unintelligible, pointing a claw toward Crowley. But Aziraphale stepped forward—slow, deliberate, his shoes clicking faintly against the concrete floor—and blocked his approach.
“Did you not hear me, gentlemen?” Aziraphale’s voice hadn’t raised even slightly, but the effect was of finest silk wrapped around a half-brick. “You will not touch him.”
The demons fell back another step, hissing and spitting, incapable now of doing anything but circling the angel like trapped animals. One of them, drenched in shadow, snarled through clenched teeth, “You’d protect one of us? ”
Aziraphale stopped, head tilting to the side in something that resembled patience—but only just. “Naturally.” His voice dropped faintly in pitch, ringing somewhere terribly low in Crowley’s chest. “He’s mine.”
The air burned hot now—too hot, as if Aziraphale’s proximity alone was enough to make the concrete floor melt. When one of the demons darted forward again—as fast as a fissure spreading across stone—Aziraphale unleashed the heat in a flash. A meteor of light slammed into the ground in front of the demon so suddenly that Crowley flinched in place. Blinding, crackling, impossibly white-hot throughout the space. The demons recoiled backward—from the holy light, from the scent of burning shadow that now hung acrid in the air.
“I will ask you one last time to leave. There won’t be another warning shot.”
Everything hung in the balance for a moment, and then the floor opened, and only one demon remained in the room.
Aziraphale drew a deep breath, and sighed, the holy energy retreating back into his corporation until it was just his usual pearly lustre. “Thank goodness for that. I was rather afraid I’d have to hurt one of the poor things.” He straightened his bowtie. “Would you believe, I didn’t even know I could do that?”
Crowley made a serious of incoherent noises as too many thoughts tried to escape at once. Aziraphale was—he’d just done—how dare he endanger himself like that—but he had been magnificent—*mine*?
He stuttered, and stepped forward.
“You—you—you bloody idiot! They can produce hellfire! Why would you do that?”
Aziraphale wilted, his glow visibly dimming, and Crowley wanted to snatch his words back immediately. “You were in danger. I thought—”
His voice faded out, and Crowley realised with a terrible poignancy what Aziraphale had thought. He’d thought it so often, hadn’t he? Running into the rescue, a little high on the danger, but most of all on the thrilling thought of being Aziraphale’s hero, of seeing shining eyes and admiration. And Crowley had shouted at him instead.
“I’m not worth it, angel,” he said softly.
“You most certainly are!”
“You don’t understand.” Crowley took another step forward, more slowly this time, as if facing a threatened animal that might feel or bite. But this was important. This wasn’t a risk of an inconvenient discorporation or paperwork. “Six thousand years or more… Aziraphale, what would my existence be without you?”
Aziraphale’s lips were pale. “About what mine would be without you,” he whispered, and Crowley finally realised why Aziraphale had not wanted to give him the holy water.
This time both of them stepped forward, and before he knew what was happening, Aziraphale was in Crowley’s arms, or Aziraphale was in his, it didn’t matter, they were tightly clasped together as if they would never let go. Crowley realised he was muttering like a soothsayer, broken, unintelligible sentences in all the languages he knew, but knowing Aziraphale would understand the “love you, angel, love you” even if it was in conversational French.
“I love you too… I couldn’t let those dreadful creatures… of course I must pity them but I won’t let anyone touch you… I love you, dearest, my own.” Aziraphale, usually the most fluent of them, seemed to be having difficulty getting words out too, and Crowley was almost sure half of them were in Enochian.
He leaned back, wanting to see Aziraphale’s face, and Aziraphale did the same. Crowley only had a minute of taking in the most tearfully tender expression he had ever seen and then they both leaned in again.
He wasn’t sure if he was doing it right. Aziraphale seemed to be delivering one long, sweet kiss, while Crowley’s mouth had decided of its own accord to start moving, as if it was trying to spell out his love more coherently without his vocal chords interfering. Or perhaps it was just that Aziraphale’s lips were so unexpectedly pliant that he couldn’t stop greedily pulling at them. He felt he was delivering about five kisses to one of Aziraphale’s, and felt panic flutter under his breastbone. Perhaps he should have made time in the last six millennia to get a bit of kissing practice under his belt, although there was only one being he’d ever been interested in kissing, really, and he hadn’t been at all sure it was something Aziraphale would be interested in.
Just when Crowley was beginning to really panic that, amazing as it felt to be kissing the angel, his angel, he was messing it up and should apologise and start over, Aziraphale sighed and parted his lips and, oh, that was something else entirely, the slide of a velvet tongue against the roof of his mouth, his own instinct to taste and enter and adore.
His skin burned and his head swam and Aziraphale was so warm against him, so warm and solid and soft all at once, and his arms were holding Crowley close and on the very edge of his awareness he felt one of the pink hearts bump against his hip and couldn’t let go of Aziraphale long enough to push it away.
It felt like an eternity until the kissing was on the edge of too much, he had to break for a moment or he would drown and never surface. He pulled back, and Aziraphale let him go, gently, his arms encircling Crowley’s waist lightly now, to let him know he could break the grip if he wanted.
Crowley missed the angel’s mouth already.
Aziraphale’s eyes were a complex grey right now, none of the harsh light of heaven, and his expression was dazed, his lips already kiss-swollen and wet. Crowley thought he might discorporate at the sight, which would be awkward.
“Well then,” Aziraphale said. “I think I finally realise what all the fuss is about.”
This answered a certain question about all the human moths that were drawn to Aziraphale’s light bulb to Crowley’s satisfaction. He’d been almost sure, but jealousy, and possessiveness where he had no claim to possess, could be a strange beast.
On that thought followed, “Seeing you’ve already noticed I’m yours, say you’re mine, too.”
“Heart and soul.” Aziraphale’s lashes flickered demurely. “And body?” he added hopefully.
“Nngh.” Crowley buried his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Yeah, yeah, that would be great,” he said into his jacket. “Give me a moment.” His nether regions, however, didn’t think they needed a moment at all. At the thought of getting all that lush softness bared and in bed, he’d sprung to attention in a flash. That was new.
“Indeed. I need to install demon repellent charms around this place first. I’m not risking you again.”
“Inconvenient if I was repelled from my own flat.”
“Not for you, you silly goose. Although…”
Aziraphale’s voice trailed off, and Crowley was too busy wondering what he’d meant and too love-struck and aroused to even make a token objection to being called a silly goose. Let Aziraphale call him a goose. He’d be anything Aziraphale wanted.
Somehow he kept hold of himself, even if he trailed around after Aziraphale and get in the way of the rituals, gaining much mock-angry eye rolling and a few stolen kisses as a result. He wasn’t sure which he liked best. Well, the kisses, of course, he could kiss Aziraphale forever, but the eye-rolling was good, too.
Then somehow they made their way, hand-in-hand, to his bed, which one of Crowley’s desperate snaps had apparently turned into a large, heart-shaped waterbed.
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow as he pulled back a quilted satin corner, if corner was the right word for something that shape.
“Checking for evidence of my hordes of other lovers, angel?”
“Of course not,” Aziraphale said hurriedly, but there was a suspicious tremble in his voice.
“Angel.” Crowley took both Aziraphale’s hands in his. “There’s only ever been you, right from the start. Never wanted anyone else. Besides, don’t you think I’d at least clean the sheets?”
“That’s true,” Aziraphale said, brightening. “Your lairs have always been very fastidious. Usually with less hearts, though.”
“They’re for you,” Crowley said, abandoning all dignity and taste in favour of making Aziraphale blush, and then kissing the pink cheeks, and the mouth again.
Undressing each other seemed far more complicated than in films, especially when they kept stopping to kiss, and they ended up lying face to face across the bed, legs dangling off, shoes still on, half in and half out of their shirts, trading kisses.
It was all very well doing things the human way, but…
Crowley clicked his fingers, and then nearly passed out. He’d seen Aziraphale naked before, one way or another, humans weren’t always shy about bodies and they tried to fit in. It hadn’t really prepared him for Aziraphale, all expansive flesh and pale hair and flushed skin, aroused and hard for him. Panic rose up. Aziraphale was too pure, too perfect and beautiful, and he was bony and hairy and fallen and corrupt and didn’t deserve…
“Crowley.” Aziraphale's eyes shone green and brown and blue. “My precious Crowley.”
Crowley was rolled onto his back and with Aziraphale's soft heaviness on him, his hands roaming and his lips finding one of Crowley’s nipples. He squirmed under the soft wet pressure, panting as if he really needed to breathe to live. Had he ever been precious, even as an angel?
“Aziraphale… I should be taking care of you…” he protested weakly.
Aziraphale released the nipple, and the air was cold on its wet, heated peak. He looked up at Crowley with the purest love Crowley could ever have imagined.
“I could have lost you, dear boy.” Aziraphale’s voice wobbled. “Let me show you what we mean to me, darling.”
Darling, darling, darling. Crowley rolled the word around into his head, and then released he was chanting it aloud, a broken prayer, as Aziraphale lapped and lathed and sucked and bit at his other nipple, and Crowley’s aching hardness was wrapped in firm, soft hands… he had scoffed at Aziraphale’s pampered hands, but he had been wrong, they felt like… not heaven, something better, something Aziraphale.
Crowley’s hips were snapping up of their own accord. Aziraphale released the sweet torture on his nipple and came up close again, pressing his cheek to Crowley’s, his spare arm wrapped tight around Crowley as his hand twisted and pumped, dragging inhuman noises out of him. Crowley clutched his back, his hips, his round luscious buttocks, anywhere he could touch, trying to claw him even closer as he thrust desperately into Aziraphale’s fist.
“Hold me when I come,” Crowley grunted against Aziraphale’s face, as if he wasn’t already being held.
“Always, my love.”
Crowley cried out and came, and came again, pulses of pressure escaping him in hot spurts, feeling like something that had been banked up a very long time was escaping. He felt stripped bare and vulnerable, but it was all right, he was safe in Aziraphale’s firm arm, he was pressing messy open-mouthed kisses to Aziraphale’s cheek and he was safe to feel, safe to love.
Loved. Aziraphale loved him. Crowley raised his face, knowing he must look a mess, tear-wet and just moments away from being humiliatingly snotty, and was kissed full and fondly on the mouth. Accepted and found worthy and loved.
Aziraphale’s other arm wrapped around him, and he let himself just be held for a moment, until he came to himself again. Well, his usual self. He had the oddest feeling that that creature reduced to pleasure and love was completely himself, too, a self only safe to show to Aziraphale.
He snaked a hand down and touched the beading wetness of the head of Aziraphale’s erection. Aziraphale gave an unangelic yelp, and a satisfying little sputter.
“Crowley!”
Crowley grinned at him, slow and snakelike. All of a sudden, he felt in control of the situation again. “Can’t let you have all the fun, angel.” He slid his hand down silky skin, very very slowly, pretending that it didn’t make his stomach swoop with love to feel the way the blood beneath pulsed with desire for his touch. “Let me use my mouth?”
Aziraphale bit his own lower lip and stiffened, and Crowley, amused and adoring, realised he was trying very hard to force himself to hold off long enough to say yes. He kissed Aziraphale’s shoulder soothingly until he relaxed. Silly angel. If Aziraphale came almost untouched, then there would be an eternity of other times for Crowley to love him that way, and every way there was.
When Aziraphale’s breath became almost normal, Crowley trailed his kisses lower, delicate as a snake’s tongue, trying to communicate all he felt. So much softness, the curve of a well-fed belly, his worldly angel did so love good food and human pleasures, but no human would give him this pleasure, this was Crowley’s alone. No one loved him the way Crowley did… and Aziraphale could love no one the way he loved Crowley, could not arch up eagerly seeking anyone else’s mouth.
“My own heart,” Crowley breathed, an old-fashioned endearment he would have been horrified at the thought of saying at another time, and took the head in his mouth.
He let instinct govern him, swirling his tongue, clinging with lips, sucking slowly and gently as his cheeks hollowed, his hands kneading thick thighs as if he were more cat than snake. He had no idea if he was doing it right, but Aziraphale was whimpering and repeating his name and seemed to have no complaints. It was fascinating, worship and carnality all at once, pleasuring his Aziraphale, mouth filled with him, he could do it forever…
Or at least until spasms racked Aziraphale’s body and Crowley’s mouth was flooded, so that he had to swallow to avoid choking.
He kissed and gentled Aziraphale through it and then slid up again, because Aziraphale needed to be held, too.
“I love you,” Aziraphale mumbled into his hair. “Oh, Crowley, to say it at last…”
“Love you too. Always did. Never could resist being close to you, talking to you, knowing you saw me.”
“I knew… At least I thought I did, but to be sure…”
They wriggled to half sitting up on the heart-shaped silk pillows where they could let their bodies cool while looking at each other, hands joined between them. One or the other of them had miracled the mess away at some point.
“Why were you busy, angel?” Crowley asked, remembering something.
“Oh, darling, don’t pout, not after…”
“Sorry. Just wondering.”
Aziraphale, still rosy from exertion, deepened in colour. “If you must know, I thought… Well, nothing had changed much after we quit our jobs, and I had been hoping it would… Since 1941, you know. I realised then that you really loved me.”
“Took you long enough.”
“But I didn’t know if you loved me this way. So I…” He sighed. “I hired an events consultant to arrange a romantic picnic. They do the quaintest little things, you know, treasure trails to pick up the most delicious little treats and then you end up at a romantic picnic spot.”
“Was this a treat for you or for me?”
“For both of us, I hoped. I have noticed… you pay such attention when I eat…”
“I like to see you having pleasure.”
“If you let me give you pleasure too.”
“You do, oh you do,” Aziraphale said fervently, and they broke off to kiss again.
“So the scones were for the event planner?” Crowley asked at last, lips quirking.
“Yes. But when you were brave enough to invite me on a date yourself, of course I cancelled. Thank h—thank goodness I did! To think of if I hadn’t turned up!”
Crowley kissed him again, vowing that he would never tell Aziraphale either that it hadn’t been intentionally expressed as a date, or that his attempts to be romantic had been the cause of the demonic invasion.
“No harm done, angel. There’s still wine and cake and flowers, and…” His jacket reappeared, neatly folded on the bed. Crowley grabbed it and rooted around in the inner pocket.
“You said I was yours. And that you’re mine. So…” He flipped open the box. The ring inside was simple, carved of moonstone, none of the gold favoured by heaven. No wars had ever been fought over moonstone, no cultures colonised. It was unassuming and easily overlooked and so very beautiful. “Make it official, Aziraphale?”
It was difficult to manoeuvre a ring onto a plump finger while he was being very thoroughly kissed, but Crowley managed somehow.
He probably looked cool while he did it, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-03 11:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-11 11:16 am (UTC)Thank you, it’s fabulous
Date: 2024-12-03 12:35 pm (UTC)Re: Thank you, it’s fabulous
Date: 2025-01-11 11:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-03 07:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-11 11:17 am (UTC)Great job!
Date: 2024-12-03 08:50 pm (UTC)My favorite part: "Crowley paced around the room, stepping around a particularly large heart. When it brushed against his ankle, it felt alive. No, no, no. This was not good. Aziraphale was going to take one step into the flat and think Crowley was completely off his rocker."
Great job!
Re: Great job!
Date: 2025-01-11 11:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-04 04:05 am (UTC)This was so sweet, thanks for the fic!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-11 11:18 am (UTC)Aziraphale kicking butt!
Date: 2024-12-05 01:01 am (UTC)“Did you not hear me, gentlemen?” Aziraphale’s voice hadn’t raised even slightly, but the effect was of finest silk wrapped around a half-brick. “You will not touch him.”
Protecting what's HIS. I love it.
They're so sweet.
Re: Aziraphale kicking butt!
Date: 2025-01-11 11:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-12-13 04:33 am (UTC)Oh, Crowley, what a mess you are....I love how this goes from funny pining, to horrible nightmare, to slightly less bad nightmare (I'm sorry but those hearts are just even worse than the demon threats), to adorable :)
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-11 11:19 am (UTC)