#Crowley wanted to play the beauty so Aziraphale would kiss him to wake him up

[starmaker-astral]

After 1y and half in the ineffable fandom I understand only now that since Crowley slept 100 years he's technically the Sleeping Beauty ????

WHAT

[sleepymccoy]

Just a bit of morning fluff cos the last hour of my shift was quiet

-

Crowley rolled out of bed, turning his femurs into spines briefly so he could bend enough to catch himself into standing before he fell on the ground. He shook his legs as he walked to the kitchen, encouraging the bone back into one solid form as he went with a wobble. 

He grabbed the coffee pot and slammed it onto the stovetop. Fifteen seconds later he'd gotten bored of staring out the window at the old lady struggling to figure out the bus times so the coffee began to bubble up. He opened his cupboard to find it empty of cups and checked the dishwasher while the coffee threatened to burn. It was full and unclean. He pulled a cup out and shook it a few times. It had only had coffee in it, should be fine. 

He walked to the plants as he poured his cup, letting a few drops hit the floor with cultivated negligence. The coffee pot was left on a snake-legged side table placed nowhere near a chair and Crowley burnt the roof of his mouth as he entered the plant room. 

He smacked his tongue against his new burn in a way that was both somewhat gross and very self indulgent. He looked up at the towering leaves and turned a corner before looking down and coming face to face with-

"Oh, shit!" Crowley exclaimed, spilling a small amount of coffee due to his uncultivated surprise. 

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow and hummed in greeting, then looked back down at his newspaper. 

Aziraphale had started doing this. Just turning up, and not only when Crowley was asleep. Crowley would almost prefer it be only when he was asleep, but no, he'd been halfway through an upsetting display of emotion after watching Titanic once, another time he'd been found shouting at plants (many disapproving frowns followed that one). One time he had woken to an empty chair in his room with the remnants of tea and cake, sign of an abandoned visit. 

Now Aziraphale was sitting in an armchair that Crowley usually kept in another room, newspaper and pen in hand as he attacked the crossword.

"Hey," Crowley said.

Aziraphale didn't look up. "Hello, dear."

"Coffee?" 

Aziraphale glanced at the proffered cup and sniffed. "No, thank you," he said preciously, "I believe it's burnt."

Could well be, Crowley admitted to himself. He'd fucked his mouth with the first mouthful and couldn't rightly tell now. No need to waste bad coffee if you couldn't taste it, though. So Crowley took another sip and enjoyed Aziraphale's wince.

It was nice waking to find Aziraphale. Nice that it happened now, and with at least semi-regularity. Well, not regularity so much. There was no pattern Crowley could yet glean, but at least it was frequent enough to not be abnormal anymore. 

"Hey," Crowley repeated. 

"Everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah, just. Amazing, innit?"

"What's that, dear?"

Crowley strolled. Aziraphale wasn't looking at him, so he could seem busy too. He went steadily from plant to plant, quietly inspecting the leaves and stems. Just a cursory look, not hissing in threat but playing it more distant. Give them a false sense of security, he could come back and punish shortly.

Once Aziraphale left. Those frowns he'd received still shook him.  

"You know," Crowley continued. He drank and unfortunately some of the flavour made it to his quickly healing taste buds and he sneered. A leaf shivered guiltily, taking his focus.

He lifted the leaf and saw the slight miscolouration. He touched the mark and looked directly at the plant, no threat in his gaze (for Aziraphale's sake) but plenty in his meaning. The plant froze, then began to shiver again as he walked away. He'd be back. 

"You and me," Crowley continued. "Mornings together. Amazing."

"It is nice," Aziraphale agreed. Then, to Crowley's utter bemusement, he said, "To feed data into a computer."

Crowley turned. "What's that?"

"Five letters, starts with an i somehow," Aziraphale said. He was studying the crossword with a frown.

Crowley walked over, he'd been practically invited afterall. He sat on the ground by Aziraphale's legs, settling into the space Aziraphale made as he shifted aside. Crowley tipped his head back and looked up at Aziraphale's lovely face before squinting at the crossword. "Entry, but with a typo," he suggested. 

"There's hardly going to be a typo, dear," Aziraphale said. "Not in a word like entry. They rarely have typos in words like pulchritudinous or myrmecophilous." His hand rested on Crowley's head and began to scratch at his hair lightly. "Like you."

Crowley frowned. "You think I'm fond of ants?"

"I meant the first one, you twit."

Crowley hummed and tipped towards Aziraphale's hand, encouraging the scritch. "Well, you're a pretty fine piece of ass yourself."

He felt Aziraphale's silent laugh move the chair. 

A minute later, after Crowley had kissed Aziraphale's knee and Aziraphale had filled in seventeen down with a flourish, Crowley interrupted the pleasant quiet without any tact. 

"Input!" He shouted.

Aziraphale juddered, the paper crinkling loudly in his hand. "Oh, my- what are you on about?"

Crowley stood with difficulty, pulling himself up by will more than muscle. "Thing-a-me thing-a-me, computer starts with an i, fuckin' input!"

"Oh," Aziraphale said, looking down at the paper. "Oh! You're right!" He wrote it in and shifted over, giving Crowley room to sit on the arm of the chair as he was trying to. 

"You're welcome to join me, dear," Aziraphale said as though he wanted precisely the opposite, "but if you bring that disgusting cup of ash any closer to me, so help me I will destroy it."

"Right," Crowley said. He had one leg on the chair already, so rather than undo his good clambouring work he just downed the last of the coffee, grimaced, and threw the cup across the room where it shattered loudly. 

Crowley shimmied forward and sat on the arm comfortably, peering at the paper as he settled his legs to rest without putting any weight on Aziraphale. 

"Good, okay," Aziraphale muttered, "how about this one?" He wrapped his arm around Crowley's hips to hold him close. "A fruit with red and yellow and green skin. Ends in e so it can't be mango."

Crowley tipped forwards, letting his arms fall down Aziraphale's front and back. He kissed the top of Aziraphale's head then smiled and rested his cheek on his hair and said. "Apple, angel."

Aziraphale chuckled, not bothering to write the answer in as he had already filled it in correctly, and turned his head up for a kiss. 

-

Pulchritudinous means physically beautiful

Myrmecophilous means fond of, associated with, or benefiting from ants. Which is a wild ass word to exist

I got a crossword app and I'm not very good at it

[holycatsandrabbits]

                                      Give Me A Kiss

Released as part of the #Great Good Omens Snake-Off event!

ficlet by @holycatsandrabbits (Dannye Chase) based on a comic by @hayamiyuu 

*comic reposted with permission*

Crowley learned that Aziraphale was comfortable with snakes in Crete around 3000 BC. Crowley had been fleeing from something—probably some mob of humans he’d played a trick on. He’d taken his serpentine shape to hide, turning himself small and dark and slithering beneath some stones in a field. It was cold, and the meager autumn grass didn’t offer much protection, but that had seemed the least of all evils at that point. Eventually, he’d become cold enough that he drifted off to sleep. Which was rather a dangerous thing for a snake to do, but again—a lesser evil.

When Crowley woke up, though, he was warm. No scratchy grass surrounded him, no dry dirt. He was somewhere with a heat source, somewhere soft. He opened his eyes to realize that he was curled up in the lap of an angel, who looked delighted to see him awake.

“You missed our lunch date,” Aziraphale said, with obviously false reproach, his blue eyes sparkling sharply as only an angel’s could.

“Sssssorry,” Crowley managed to say.

“Oh, no matter, dear. I was able to track you down. You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you as a serpent since Eden. It’s quite becoming.”

It took a lot of determination, but Crowley slithered off the warm angel’s lap and back onto the cold ground.

Aziraphale’s smile faded. “Oh,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, I’ve upset you.”

Aziraphale got to his feet. He towered over Crowley like this, and Crowley felt almost claustrophobic. He stretched himself back into human form, the right size, right temperature, right face. He shrugged, and they said no more about it.

But he never forgot what it felt like to wake up feeling so warm and—and safe. It was a harsh thing to realize that he could trust an angel.

                                                          oOo

Crowley discovered that Aziraphale was comfortable with giant serpents in 1038 AD in Cappadocia. Hell had ordered Crowley to hang about in a cave, menacing the population of a nearby town, collecting treasure and making some sort of legend of himself. Crowley had thought that sounded like quite a nice assignment for once. Of course, Hell had failed to mention that the presence of an enormous serpent-monster in a cave would attract knights with swords. That part was not fun.

The first few knights ran away at the sight of Crowley, and so he’d relaxed a little. Then had come a braver man who’d held a blessed weapon. When he got past Crowley’s defenses and stabbed him, Crowley had nearly passed out from the pain. He managed to win the fight, sending the knight fleeing for his life, but Crowley wasn’t sure how long it would be until he came back, with more men and more swords forged with priestly aid.

Crowley needed to leave. The problem was, he was too injured to change form, and he could hardly crawl about the countryside hoping no one would notice a dragon. So he’d blocked off the entrance to the cave as best he could and tried to sleep enough to heal.

He woke later to a sharply cold sensation and the sound of someone humming a hymn. He knew who it was without looking. “Angel,” he growled.

Aziraphale stepped into view around one of Crowley’s enormous black coils, looking a little more dusty than he usually did. “Oh, you’re awake,” he said, in an ordinary tone, quite as if he were talking to a person and not a giant snake. “I’m sorry, I had hoped you’d sleep through the healing. It can’t be pleasant.”

Crowley wanted to hiss at him, but in this form he feared he’d terrorize the angel. He pulled in on himself, groaning in pain.

Aziraphale gave him an admonishing look. “I’ve been here a week, my dear. If I was frightened of you like this, I’d have left by now.”

“A week?”

“And without my magic cloaking this cave, you’d have had other visitors by now. So you can be self-conscious later. Right now, you’ve got to let me heal you.” Aziraphale bustled away out of sight again behind a serpentine coil, but he kept chattering. “Bloody irresponsible of you to do this, you know. Become a dragon, fight knights. We just set up our Agreement, and now you’re risking it all without a thought for me. What am I going to do if you get discorporated? I don’t want Hastur or Ligur as an adversary. Disgusting, the both of them.” His voice fell low. “And if someone comes back with another holy weapon, you could be destroyed completely, so—”

“Ssssssorry,” Crowley said, and the sound filled the cave, making it uncomfortably loud.

Aziraphale popped up again, completely unimpressed. “I should say so. Now, hold still, I don’t fancy being knocked about by your tail.”

The healing took another two weeks, during which Crowley mostly slept. Aziraphale didn’t normally sleep, but the work seemed to take a lot out of him. Once Crowley woke up to the startling sight of an angel curled up for a nap with an enormous demonic serpent, tucked among his coils like a little white mouse. As if prey had found itself protected by its predator.

Apparently Aziraphale trusted Crowley as well. This was not good news. In fact, this was really going to put a cramp into the whole falling-out-of-love-with-Aziraphale plan that Crowley had been working on for the last thousand years.

                                                      oOo

It took a lot longer for Crowley to discover that he was comfortable being a snake around Aziraphale.

After the Abotchalypse, when Crowley was free to visit the bookshop as often as he pleased, he found that it was quite fun to lurk among the books as a small snake, scaring away customers (and startling an angel, if he could manage it). One day, Aziraphale made an exasperated noise and shooed him out of the Yeats section and onto a sunny windowsill. Crowley found that it was actually quite pleasant there, even if it was out in the open, and still a great place from which to menace potential customers.

The point of being a snake in the bookshop, Crowley had told himself, was just that it was an age-old instinct to avoid making it obvious that he and Aziraphale were friends. If Gabriel came through the door, Crowley could easily hide. The problem with that was, if Gabriel made one false move toward Aziraphale it was very likely that he’d be met by a giant serpent who definitely was not attempting to be inconspicuous.

The truth was that Crowley still just wasn’t sure how Aziraphale loved him. He knew that Aziraphale did love him. Aziraphale had said so, and looking back, he’d certainly acted like he had for millennia. But Crowley was a demon. Could an angel really love a demon? Could he love someone who didn’t even have a human face?

One night Aziraphale was sitting on the couch by the fire, reading a book with those ridiculous little glasses on his face, and he was simply the most adorable, impossible, beautiful thing Crowley had ever seen. So Crowley, in snake form, slithered down off of a chair and crawled into Aziraphale’s lap.

Aziraphale gave him an absent-minded caress, still reading. Crowley lifted his head up over the top of Aziraphale’s book, getting in the way. They sat there a moment, human and snake, angel and demon. Aziraphale didn’t recoil or pull back. He never had. He just smiled a little, looking patient. Crowley kissed him.

It was a wonderful thing to be a demonic snake who was trusted and loved in all of his forms. But, Crowley discovered, after having given Aziraphale a small snakey kiss, that it really was much nicer to kiss an angel if you had hands to hold him with.

HolyCatsAndRabbits (Dannye Chase) on Ao3. Fic Commissions for OC’s open!

@summerofspock thank you so much for organizing this event!!

[ohhelga]

hi, hello. i'm leaving behind one (1) message for tipsy kirstin because i fucking love tipsy people. alright. hammer down ten of your headcanons for crowley and aziraphale as an overbearing, domesticated couple.

okay okay okay how about:

•crowley loves to bother aziraphale when he’s trying to read. they’re in the bookshop and aziraphale is trying to read but crowley is demanding attention. he’ll ask questions, he’ll sit right next to aziraphale and read over his shoulder, asking about the plot because he’s only read that page. he’ll start toying with the cuff of aziraphale’s shirt, or his bow tie, anything really just to get aziraphale to pay attention to him. and aziraphale cant even be mad. “my dear really, i’m trying to read.” “but angel, i’m bored.” and aziraphale just looks fond as he runs a hand through crowley’s hair.

•but don’t think aziraphale can’t be just as annoying as crowley. crowley loves napping in the sun, finding a nice quiet spot either in the shop or his flat and stretching out, almost luxuriating in the suns warmth. and aziraphale will come along and start talking, asking if they can go to the park, or the ritz for lunch or “oh, crowley they’re showing hamlet again and we really must go. i know you prefer the funny ones, but my dear it’s hamlet. can we go, please? crowley?” and crowley will sigh and make a fuss, but the trips are always worth it to see aziraphale practically radiate joy.

•crowley gets aziraphale into the habit of sleeping. at first, after the almost end of the world, when crowley would get tired (his body accustomed to sleep by this point) and he’d retire to bed, it felt weird not having the angel come with him. so, crowley would encourage aziraphale to join him in bed, “i get lonely without you, angel,” “crowley, you’re asleep, how can you possibly miss me when you’re unconscious to the world?” “i just do, now no more questions. bedtime.” And aziraphale would follow with a book, and let crowley curl against his side as he read. but eventually aziraphale wanted to try it for himself, “you just look so peaceful, i thought i might give it a go, dear boy.” and now when it’s time for bed both angel and demon curl up with each other and fall into a peaceful sleep.

•aziraphale sneaks into crowley’s plant room after he’s been in demanding and shouting at the plants to grow better. aziraphale whispers to all the plants telling them how well they’re doing and how lovely they look and “don’t mind that wily old serpent, he truly does care about you all. he just has a funny way of showing it,”. after he’s brushed a few leaves, aziraphale casually (not casually at all) goes back to the living room. “angel, what were you up to?” “nothing, dear.” even though crowley knows fine well what he’s been up to but can’t find it in him to be annoyed because it’s too adorable that aziraphale thinks he’s being subtle, when’s he’s as subtle as a punch to the face.

•after witnessing first hand how cold and cruel the other angels are to aziraphale, crowley makes it his mission to show the angel the love, kindness and adoration he deserves. he becomes very tactile with aziraphale, brushing hands when they pass things to each other, straightening his bow tie, fixing his lapels, touching the small of his back to guide him. so many different little ways. he encourages aziraphale to link arms with him when they go on any of their walks, takes his hand when they’re sitting on their bench, feeding the ducks one handed. he plays with aziraphale’s hair when they’re curled up together on the couch, he’ll take aziraphale’s feet into his lap and dig his fingers into the arch, watching as aziraphale relaxes with a small pleased smile. crowley is determined that everyday he’ll show aziraphale how special he is and how much he means to him.

•aziraphale is just as determined to show crowley how much he means to him, to make up for lost time. to make up for all those years that aziraphale denied his feelings to keep crowley -them- safe. while crowley really only sticks to calling aziraphale ‘angel’ (which after all this time aziraphale still adores because he can hear the love behind it) aziraphale has a few different pet names he peppers through their interactions. “oh, my dear how wonderful,” “dearest, we’re going to be late,” “a first edition? darling, you really shouldn’t have-” and when they’re lying in bed, cocooned away from the rest of the world his words only get sweeter (which crowley is still getting used to as his cheeks burn red, but his heart beats fond) “i adore you, light of my life” “you make me so happy, my love” “sweetheart, you truly are wonderful” “darling, i love you”

•sometimes days are tough. after living on earth for 6 milennia and witnessing everything they have, being persecuted by their sides and almost being destroyed, it’s no wonder that some days are hard. on days such as these crowley will be wound up and tense, itching for a fight, his patience on a knife edge. he’ll (verbally) lash out and then end up disappearing- slamming the door on his way out- leaving behind a frustrated and annoyed aziraphale. but later, when crowley has calmed from his initial vexation, he’ll return to his angel with an apology half formed in his head. before he can say anything, aziraphale wraps him in his arms, unfurls his wings and wraps them around him too for good measure and just holds him. aziraphale will murmur sweet nothings in crowley’s ear and tell him how much he loves him, adores him and crowley will just melt against him, “angel”.

•crowley can immediately tell when aziraphale is having a bad day. he’ll wake up and the space next to him on the bed will be empty, the sheets cold. (on a normal day if aziraphale is awake before crowley he’ll either just cuddle him or read). when crowley goes downstairs, he knows he’ll find aziraphale wandering aimlessly around his shop, unable to focus on any one task. he’ll be jittery and fidgety and he’ll have a pinched, sad look on his face that always manages to cause an ache in crowley’s chest. so, crowley will gather aziraphale in his arms and keeps holding on even when he can feel the angel tense and still. crowley will rub his hands gently up and down aziraphale’s back, pressing tender kisses into his soft blond curls. eventually, aziraphale will let out a shuddering sigh and wrap his own arms around crowley, his hands fisting into the fabric at his back. aziraphale will hide his face against crowley’s neck and may or may not cry as crowley brings up one of his hands to cradle the back of aziraphale’s head. “you’re okay, angel. you’re okay.”

•after a few years, aziraphale yearns for a quiet life away from the hustle and bustle. a quiet life to share with crowley, with no shop to worry about. yes he’d miss the ritz, but nothings stopping them visiting every now and then. he says as much to crowley, who agrees wholeheartedly and says “i have the perfect place, angel.” They buy a cottage in the south downs with a beautiful garden that crowley can tend to until his hearts content and plenty of space for shelves upon shelves of books. the quiet is soothing and at night they can see the expanse of the sky above them, filled with crowley’s creations, uninterrupted by streetlights unlike in the centre of the city. on clear, warm summer nights they’ll both lie side by side on the grass and stare up at the sky. sometimes they’re quiet, just content to hold each other’s hands and enjoy the other’s company. often times they quietly murmur, swapping stories and secrets that span milennia, sharing soft kisses and i love yous.

•with the privacy afforded to them with the cottage in the middle of no where, they can unfurl their wings and relax. crowley adores spending time grooming aziraphales wings “really, angel. how do they even get in this state?” It relaxes both of them, this form of care and attention that they had both been missing for more time than they care to think of. by the time crowley is finished, aziraphale is radiating a faint glow with how happy and soothed he is and crowley can feel his human heart thudding in his chest. aziraphale enjoys reciprocating and running his hands through crowley’s obsidian feathers that are the inverse of his own and no less beautiful for it. aziraphale can see all the tension leave crowley as he continues and he goes almost boneless like the snake he is. when they’re done, they leave their wings out a little while longer, their feathers overlapping, white against black.

[ineffable-endearments]

Sweet Surrender

(2178 words)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)

My contribution to the first volume of the wonderful “Flaming Like Anything” zine.

Check it out on AO3 or read more below!

In the countryside of the South Downs, nestled near Devil’s Dyke, there’s a tiny, strange little cottage.

From far away, sensitive humans might get the feeling something is alive and dreaming inside, even when it’s the middle of the night and all the lights are off and nobody has been seen there for a month or more.

These are subtle miracles keeping the place safe. It’s a sanctuary for a pair of supernatural beings who’ve developed an affinity for the Earth, including the occasional countryside retreat from the hustle and bustle of central London.

And on this particular afternoon, muted sunlight streams to the interior of the sitting room through sheer curtains. The angel, clad in his favorite cardigan, is reading a book on one end of the sofa, while the demon naps, sprawled out, an arm flung haphazardly across the angel’s lap.

Crowley

Crowley isn’t deep asleep, just taking the time to doze and enjoy the moment. He’s surfacing to consciousness, stretching as he luxuriates in the comfort of the cushions and the company, when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“You know, I think I’m in the mood,” Aziraphale murmurs, “for a taste of you.”

Crowley yawns. “Been reading dirty books again, have you?” He smirks as he lifts his head. This is a teasing little game they play ever since the first time he caught Aziraphale reading the humans’ smut.

“Hmm, yes, but not this one in particular.” Aziraphale puts his book aside and leans over for a kiss. “The one I finished earlier. I have been waiting for you to wake up,” he adds, brows arched suggestively.

“Well then,” Crowley purrs in his most devilish voice, “far be it from me to stand between you and your cravings.” He pauses before asking, “Bedroom?” and gets that knowing smile in response, Aziraphale’s eyes all alight with something between raw joy and mischief, a blue as soft as petals and deep as dusk.

“Bedroom,” Aziraphale agrees.

Crowley drags Aziraphale on top of him as he tips onto their mattress. He receives a soft full-body embrace with tantalizing friction, plus a drawn-out French kiss, which eventually becomes a trail of smaller kisses and licks down his neck.

Aziraphale helps Crowley out of his shirt and trousers, starting with the buttons - not necessary, but part of the ritual, and yet another excuse for them to grope each other through their clothes. They get hard in the middle of this task and spend rather more time than intended touching each other flirtatiously before they finally finish removing their outfits.

Crowley is grateful for the buildup, the seduction, the anticipation of the pleasure he knows will be coming next. Aziraphale neatly folds their clothes onto the dresser and presses their naked bodies together as he returns to bed, starting all over with another deep kiss on Crowley’s lips.

As always, he takes his time working his way down, eventually pressing kisses into the seldom-touched flesh on both sides where Crowley’s legs meet his body. He licks and sucks the tender skin with a relish Crowley isn’t sure he deserves. As if he can hear this thought, Aziraphale reaches up to caress the corner of Crowley’s hipbone.

“Hngh.” Crowley grins, soft, too embarrassingly enamored to use his words right now. He laces the fingers of both his hands in the flaxen curls of Aziraphale’s hair.

“So lovely, my dear,” Aziraphale whispers. He tilts his head forward to be better touched without taking away his mouth, for which Crowley is very grateful. Aziraphale licks and kisses Crowley’s bollocks with delicate regard, supports them with the warmth of his hand so he can suck at the base of his cock. As anticipation beads on Crowley, he musses Aziraphale’s short locks, gently, and smiles through a sigh.

With one more squeeze, Aziraphale moves his hand from Crowley’s hip in order to hold his cock up and lavish him with broad, wide tongue-strokes. Licking the drop of excitement from the top of Crowley’s length, Aziraphale hums and puts the very tip between his lips in a wet kiss, playing with sweetly torturous little swipes of his tongue.

“You taste,” Aziraphale murmurs, breath teasing-hot, every syllable an ember against his skin, “absolutely exquisite.”

“Thank you,” Crowley manages.

Bless it, Aziraphale chuckles. It’s nice (he’s beautiful), being this at ease, so Crowley lets himself be silly for the moment and doesn’t complain.

Aziraphale does not simply take him in all the way, as every one of Crowley’s nerves is craving. Instead, he licks the sweet spot just under his head, showers more kisses on it, swirls his tongue around it. He hums delightedly, the way he does when he’s sipped a particularly fine wine, and closes his eyes in concentration.

“Oh, come on, angel,” Crowley groans. Aziraphale flashes him another look, and even though his mouth (delicate, pink, how lovely) is highly preoccupied, Crowley can see the corners of a telltale smirk and a glint in his eyes. Oh, mercy, it’s a splendid madness; Crowley bites his lower lip, anticipation curling his toes, runs his fingers through that fluffy hair again.

At long last, Aziraphale takes Crowley’s cock all the way in, wrapping his hand around to fully engulf him all the way to the hilt, and makes another profoundly satisfied moan as he sucks to his fullest indulgence.

“Ahhh, fuck,” Crowley whispers, clawing at the bedsheets with the fingers that aren’t busy tousling his angel, tempted to throw his head back but refusing to look away from Aziraphale, from where this secret part of himself is being savored.

Aziraphale draws his mouth up and down along Crowley’s length, following with his hand, working thick and heavy strokes with his blessed tongue. He’s inspired with carnal fervor, too, pushing his hips into the bed as he relishes Crowley. Watching him thrust to the taste of sex drives Crowley almost as wild as his mouth itself does.

“Oh, angel. Look at you,” he breathes, chest heaving. Aziraphale’s hips roll to the same rhythm he’s availed to slide Crowley in and out of his mouth; his insatiable moan resonates in Crowley, and then he peers up with eyes as needy as the ocean’s undertow lapping at the shore.

At Crowley’s encouraging noises, Aziraphale quickens his pace. The sounds of his ministrations, hungry slurps and greedy groans and shuffling sheets, could be vulgar. They’re not. They’re the sounds of a sacrament, of two beings satiating themselves with the mutual unrestrained euphoria of getting to be this close together when they had once thought it impossible.

Crowley is going to come. Aziraphale plays up the moment, crooning and sighing his pleasure, continuing to grind on the bed as Crowley crests that wave and then falls throbbing into it. He grabs the sheets in one hand and lets his fingers clutch at Aziraphale’s hair with the other, biting his lip. And at last, he sighs from deep within, an “Ah, yesssss” hissing past his lips as the miracle of the human orgasm carries him to bliss. Aziraphale keeps playing, just a little, with his tongue, as Crowley fills his mouth.

The sight of Aziraphale swallowing his come and licking his red, swollen lips with a cheeky smile immediately makes Crowley want to give him the orgasm of the century.

Aziraphale

Aziraphale holds Crowley’s face in both hands, staring into those stunning eyes. He’s rather proud that they’ve gone full-serpent and haven’t returned to normal. As a matter of fact, this isn’t uncommon during sex, yet still, it’s always a thrill to see him so overcome.

Aziraphale threads his fingers in Crowley’s hair, just like Crowley had done for him, but this time face-to-face. He could wax poetic for a lifetime about burnished red hair and eyes with irises like the keyholes to the sun; he settles, for now, on pressing his lips delicately to Crowley’s. He is received with enthusiasm.

After a long moment, Crowley pauses, leaning his forehead on Aziraphale’s. “Insufferable, you are. Making me all soft like this.”

“Strictly speaking,” Aziraphale says, “I don’t know about that. If I remember correctly, a minute ago…”

“Oh,” Crowley huffs, kissing him again, “shut up.”

Aziraphale would like very much to respond with something like perhaps you should make me, but Crowley has in fact already done a delightful job of it.

Meanwhile, Crowley also has Aziraphale in a close embrace, one arm around his back and an enthusiastic hand on his rear. He obligingly slips his thigh into a position Aziraphale can rub himself against while they kiss, even encouraging a rhythm to his advances with a suggestive pull on his arse.

The thing about the human body is that it can indeed blur the line between the physical and metaphysical. Having Crowley all wrapped around him like this is an experience nothing short of transcendent. Still, Aziraphale’s desire aches hot and heavy between his legs. The truth of the matter is that he’ll be easy to take apart, and he wants, oh, how he wants to come apart like Crowley just did.

“Please, will you stroke me?” he whispers.

Crowley reaches between them, caressing Aziraphale’s flushed, desperate cock with a feather-light touch that draws forth another pang of desire. “You are really fucking ready, aren’t you?” he murmurs, kissing Aziraphale’s cheek.

“I suspect,” Aziraphale chuckles breathily, “you’ll make short work of me.”

“Hmm, can’t see what I’ve done. It’s all been you so far.”

He’s being nice and also a tease. Crowley knows full well how wonderful, how perfectly luscious, oral sex is for Aziraphale. It’s the combination of close intimacy he never thought he’d have, the universally satisfying slide of whichever parts Crowley has chosen against his lips, his tongue. It’s the ambrosial taste of Crowley’s tender heat…

“Oh,” Aziraphale practically whimpers. “You know how I enjoy having your pleasure in my mouth.”

“I know, I know. Whatever you’d like, angel.” Crowley kisses his temple. “I’ve got you.” A smile lights up his sharp features, a campfire illuminating the carved stone of a secret sanctuary.

Aziraphale presses impatiently into Crowley’s splayed fingers, kissing that graceful neck of his. In response, Crowley slips his hand deep between Aziraphale’s legs, fondling him and sighing into his hair. Aziraphale hums his approval, grinning, and finds himself reaching up to thread both of his hands in Crowley’s thick copper locks. Meanwhile, Crowley grabs Aziraphale’s cock and starts working his hand from base to head and back again.

For someone who’s always trying to sell how self-interested he is, Crowley is a beautifully thoughtful lover. He knows exactly how Aziraphale wants to be stroked, rather on the languid side but thorough every time from hilt to tip, with a grasp gentle and firm enough at once to feel like reverence. It overcomes Aziraphale in the best way and pulls a gasp from him, as if he were sinking directly from the cold air into a hot bath.

“Perfection. Please, please keep doing that, Crowley.”

Crowley maintains his steady pace, adds a smattering of kisses to Aziraphale’s neck and shoulder. He ignites a spark in Aziraphale’s belly by moaning as though he were the one being pleased again. Aziraphale finds himself clutching at Crowley, one hand still in his hair and the other around his back, rutting with slow, greedy thrusts into his gentle fist. Aziraphale bites his lip and allows his breaths to be punctuated by little whines, the sounds of sweet relief taking flight.

Crowley chuckles. “You really don’t enjoy anything halfway, do you?” In his voice is a gentleness that he reserves only for Aziraphale, a tone so soft and private it beckons something torrid from within, something that rouses to meet Crowley.

“No - certainly not...not anymore,” Aziraphale pants, gruff with delectation for the cock-massage Crowley is giving him. The thrill of Crowley’s teeth grazing against his neck finally pushes him up to the very edge. Unable to keep a faint grin from his lips, he tilts his head back and slides his eyes shut with a pleased groan. “Ooh, Crowley, I’m on my way…”

“Oh, angel. Look at you,” Crowley whispers. “Look how lovely you are.” His words take Aziraphale back to Crowley’s orgasm, the candid way he had hissed in pleasure, the throbbing of his cock in Aziraphale’s mouth. And like Crowley had at that moment, Aziraphale comes, thick waves spilling into Crowley’s hand.

Time seems to stand still when this happens, existence narrowed into the tiny space that contains the two of them. Once the tension is all drained away, Aziraphale sighs dreamily and opens his eyes, blinking himself back to reality.

Crowley is lifting his wet hand to his lips, waiting for Aziraphale’s attention. When their eyes meet, he starts licking fat drops of come off his palm with broad, curling tongue-strokes.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale laughs, still out of breath. “You can just miracle that away!”

“No way. The look on your face,” he nods at Aziraphale and arches his eyebrows suggestively as he takes another slurp, “is priceless.”

Aziraphale closes his eyes and smiles in sweet surrender.

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Perception

Crowley loves Aziraphale.

At times with angry frustration- like when he insisted on wearing those absurd antlers to the party - I can’t believe I’m in love with such an idiot.

Other times with a sort of hopeless joy - when Aziraphale brushed a hand across his cheek, soothing his worries, assuring him they would only stay for a few hours and Crowley didn’t have to talk to anyone he didn’t want to. I can’t believe such a perfect being is in love with me.

But what Crowley can’t understand is how Aziraphale fails to have this effect on everyone else.

How did Renaissance painters not throw their brushes to the ground in frustration, knowing they could never create something so beautifully perfect, so perfectly beautiful?

Aziraphale went to every one of Shakespeare’s plays, yet not a single sonnet was written about him. An absolute crime.

All those humans saw him stand up to Gabriel at the airbase, it was the most powerful and amazing thing that Crowley ever witnessed, he had never been more in love - yet, all those humans were perfectly content to go and marry each other.

It didn’t make any sense.

Madame Tracy had Aziraphale inside her head and yet she still settled for Shadwell. Isn’t that just a source of endless disappointment?

“Oh, your angel really is a dear,” Tracy admits, shooting a sly smile at where Shadwell sits grumbling into his tea, wearing some form of hideous holiday sweater. “But he really isn’t my type.”

Apparently utter perfection isn’t her type, which makes sense: Shadwell is about as far from that as you can get.

At the other end of the room, Aziraphale is talking to Anathema, who is explaining an old family recipe for hot cocoa. The look he gives her should be enough to set her on fire; the bliss on his face when he takes a sip from the offered mug would make poets weep.

And yet she stands perfectly content with her arm around that useless dork (Anathema insisted he saved the world but that must be her memory acting up) and neither of them look ready to abandon the other to spend the rest of their lives worshipping the transcendent being before them.

Newt especially. What could he possibly have ever experienced equal to the sheer joy of Aziraphale’s smile? But there he stands, looking unphased, or rather, as generally phased and lost at sea as he ever did.

Aziraphale turns and walks toward Crowley. The gravity of the room, the world, the universe shifts as its brightest star moves, pulling and reshaping everything in its wake.

And yet the humans fail to notice. The children had barely glanced at any of the adults in the room since opening those plastic robots, and now Adam is directing them to build some kind of space ship out of boxes and random objects. Even the dog doesn’t react.

Aziraphale offers the awful mug covered in cartoon reindeer and snowmen, and a beatific smile that nearly stops Crowley’s heart. “Here, try some of this, my love. It’s absolutely scrummy.”

Crowley was unprepared for the way sheer embarrassment and pure joy blended into ecstasy inside him, and he needs to find an armchair to settle into until everything stops spinning.

“I’m sorry, dear. Is it too much? We can go if you want. I know you don’t like parties.”

Under normal circumstances, this sort of social event would have been a nightmare. The jangly, repetitive music, the smell of pine on everything, the pointless small talk, the constant need to be normal to not frighten the humans.

But with Aziraphale here...there is no place he’d rather be.

“M fine,” he mumbles, trying a sip from the ugly mug. Yes, as delicious as promised. “But I think after this, I’m going to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.”

Aziraphale slides into the chair next to him, and the whole of creation contracts to just that point, warm thighs pressed against his, arm around his waist, wonderful spicy smells, foam antler almost poking him in the eye, kiss lain on his cheek. “That sounds lovely. I think I might join you.”

And somehow, in the presence of all this - the humans go about their lives as if nothing had changed.

—

Idk this started as a meta about whether Crowley feels jealous when Aziraphale talks to other people and it kind of spiraled out of control but I think the answer I reached was “not jealous, just confused.” Also, I guess Crowley has social anxiety not really surprised I’ll have to think about that.

[livingintheworldofstories]

forgiveness (can you imagine)

Genre: angst with a happy ending Word Count: 8273 Summary: After Beelzebub slams the door to Hell in his face, Crowley walks to Aziraphale's bookshop, but he can tell that something is off. He falls to his knees in pain - and then he realizes. She is making him Rise. It's painful. It's what he would never admit that he wanted. (Maybe now he can be loved.) ao3: forgiveness (can you imagine) If there is one thing Crowley is absolutely certain of, it is this: Once a demon, always a demon. However, what Crowley is absolutely certain of and what Crowley dreams of are quite different things. On lazy afternoons, he dreams he is a serpent and has always been a serpent. On good days, he dreams he is a demon and has always been a demon. But on the bad days, Crowley dreams he is forgiven. And loveable. And loved.

(Once an angel…)

Same side, he dreams voraciously. White-winged and golden-eyed, he dreams wolfishly. Untainted, unsullied, unmarked. Every blessed four-letter-word. Good, nice, kind, he dreams ravenously.

(You were an angel once.) And hungrily, hungrily, he dreams, a soft warm hand grasping skinny fingers. Yellow eyes and dark heart forgotten. What was once wretched. What was once wicked. Forgiven. Skin that has forgotten the shape of scales. I recognize you. I see you. We are the same. (Flames so hot they dance blue, licking up and licking down and licking everywhere as of yet untouched by pain.)

A Shakespeare play unwritten. Stars uncrossed. The sweetest love confessions, like poems, honey of the soul. He dreams so desperately. Two angels, side by side.

(Feathers burning so quickly, so easily, like they were meant for it. Stubborn flesh burns harder.) On worse days, at his weakest, Crowley dreams he is whole. He has never broken his wings. He has never disappointed anyone. He has never made a mistake so bad it can’t be forgiven. Pathetically, he dreams, I deserve to be loved.

(That was a long time ago.)

Crowley wakes up, and knows the nature of a demon, and knows to hold his tongue.

It’s just after the Nahpocalypse that he gets it a little mixed up and washes his dreams over into his carefully separated reality.

Demons, typically, do not hope. Hope is just a few technicalities removed from faith after all. It had been viciously burned out of them when they screamed during the Fall and no one came. Crowley, of course, has always been a rather terrible demon.

(This is where the sunset will take inspiration from. How beautiful, it thinks, watching white wings burn hot red, ardent orange, spiteful yellow. I will make those colors mine.) So for a few awful days after the world doesn’t end, Crowley is consumed with shameful, treacherous hope. His whole corporation is brimming with it. It’s brimming with idiotically composed hypotheticals. What if Heaven was holding him back? What if he lets himself have things now? Or some more pathetic ones. What if he will hold my hand?

(You do not land from a fall like this.)

But, of course, among all the things that changed, there are things that didn’t.

(You crash.)

Crowley is still a demon. It is intrinsic to his being that he can not be loved, certainly not by an angel. Unloved is woven into his pitch black feathers. Unforgiveable is braided into his fire hair. Maybe that’s what’s holding Aziraphale back.

(The crash is what leaves the life of what once was an angel hanging by a string. Any being with burning wings thinks it knows pain. But then their bones shatter. Then the fierce power of the impact knocks the breath out of their lunges. They would think, that knocked the soul out of my body, if they could still form coherent thoughts.)

Because Aziraphale knows. The very core of his being is rotten and wormed. There is no unseeing that. And hope dies a slow death in Crowley’s heart, as days pass, and everything is different and stays the same.

(You can only live through this if you convince yourself you do not have a soul.)

Maybe that is why he chooses to wander into hell, under thinly veiled excuses. No one bothers him on his way in. He makes it all the way to his office before he is stopped, two demons grabbing his arms and the Lord of Flies fixes him with an angry glare and crossed arms.

(In toxicity and heat, only the most stubborn beings survive. Maggots crawling up your calves, flies kissing your eyes, leeches clinging to your skin, a parasite disguises its greed as love and you reach for it without hesitation, without inhibitions. You let yourself be fooled with the hopeless desperation of a starving man.) “What are you doing here, Crowley?” Beelzebub asks, head tilted.

“I was just – ehh, y’know, clearing out my office -”

Beelzebub waves a hand, a cue for the demons to drag him through the narrow corridors of Hell. They ignore Crowley’s struggling and his shuffling feet and keep a tight grip. Outside the doors of Hell, they sent him on an undignified tumble with a shove. Crowley takes a moment to find his feet, but then he whirls around. Beelzebub and their demon bouncers are standing in the doorway.

“You can’t just – I mean, no hospitality, you people. I’m a demon too! I have rights! Worker’s rights, ever heard of it?”

“You’re no demon,” Beelzebub buzzes and slams the door in his face. Crowley blinks at it for a few moments, feeling oddly dejected.

(An apple that isn’t picked falls.)

Downtrodden, Crowley starts to walk somewhere, anywhere. He follows the familiar way to the bookshop almost automatically. He doesn’t know what he wanted in Hell, not really. He hasn’t belonged there for a long time. Perhaps he was looking for some familiarity. Perhaps he wanted to remind himself of what he deserves.

He breathes in the open space and lets himself think of Aziraphale. It’s not too late for lunch. Forget about what he can never have. Most dreams are best locked away. He just needs to put a lid on it somehow, the same way he has done for millennia.

Oh, he knows. There are some questions you do not ask. There are some strings you don’t pull. Not if you want to keep – not if you want to stay - He breathes in deeply, the smog-filled dirty London air, the free sky air, cold breeze air.

(But you do rise eventually. Sulfur dripping from what remains of your wings, every bit of you that can still feel aching, and strangely certain She doesn’t love you anymore, you rise.) This is how to carry on: You saunter forward. You keep your eyes ahead. On his way, he notices a total of four (four!) people who smile at him. It’s like the opposite of people staring because you have something on your shirt. It’s like everyone being very impressed with you because you don’t have something on your shirt. Crowley is thoroughly unsettled by it.

He does not expect the sudden piercing pain in his chest. It makes him crumble to his knees. The humans start sending him irritated glances now, so he scrambles to his feet and ducks into the nearest alley. Next to three black trash bags, Crowley lets himself be consumed by the ache.

Crowley has had his fair share of pain and millennia to feel it, but he has never felt anything like this before. It’s pain reinvented, like someone changed up the formula, just to make torture a little more interesting.

Fuck. Where the bloody Heaven is it coming from? Crowley’s knees buckle again and he props himself up by his hands, the rough asphalt digging into his palms. Fuck, is he dying? It feels like dying. He has never touched holy water, but he imagines this is what it must be like, like burning without burning.

It’s the mirror-image of agony. It’s pain in a different flavor. It’s death by – love. That’s what it is. Love. Bloody angelic fucking love. And there is something distinctly holy about it. It’s been an eternity since he’s felt like this, like this without the pain, like this but like it belonged in his body. But he remembers – fuck, he remembers and back then it was good, so good. (It’s a method of torture to put someone in a room for days and never turn off the light.)

He looks around frantically, searching for who did this to him, if it was Beelzebub and her demons, if it was an angel because only an angel could cause divine agony like this. But there is no one – he is alone in the alley with the trashcans – there is nobody but him, just like back then.

It’s everywhere, even in his toes, even in his fingertips. If he could feel pain in his hair or his nails, he would.

Maybe it’s Her. What if it’s Her? What if She is punishing him now, for saving the world or for asking too many questions or for not being good enough of a demon? Maybe She’s decided that if he doesn’t fit in the two categories she has carved out for them, he doesn’t deserve to exist at all. Maybe She’d decided he’d asked for too much. (He had. He’d asked for the world and for love and for nights spent stargazing and holding hands with an angel.) And She wouldn’t even let him say good-bye to Aziraphale. How is that for mercy? (He had never known Her to be merciful.)

He tries to grab his phone through the pain, but his hands are shaking and it slips through his fingers. Tremors roll through his body and he leans forward.

“It’s not fair,” he mutters, grinding his hands against the ground. He feels like he did in the burning bookshop, only this time he doesn’t have to lose his world. His world will stay, it’s only him who will be gone. That’s better. That’s almost something resembling okay. Aziraphale will be fine.

He’d thought he was dying back then, he’d really thought he would, back then he had still thought she would be merciful. Maybe this is Her finishing the job.

If he’s dying, why does it have to hurt so much? Couldn’t She have done it in his sleep, if She’s oh so powerful? (But he doesn’t deserve it, does he? He doesn’t deserve a peaceful exit. That’s what She’s always thought, that he should BURN BURN BURN) He screams

broken s o u n d s  tumbling out of his mouth

Drowning

It’s like DROWNING

He has died like humans do a few times he has never drowned but almost so he knows -

It is drowning and surviving. Gulping up water, have it fill your lungs, and it does, it’s everywhere, holy and everywhere, he is choking on it and gasping for air that won’t come and never being granted the mercy of death.

This is the holy water that will refuse to kill you. He is  n o t  dying, dying is easy, he has done it over and over, he is living and that’s worse WORSE Where is HER MERCY? Humans die, and they say it’s like walking toward the light at the end of the tunnel. Why do they get to have it so easy? Why does light burn burn burn like water does. . And his wings. They hurt so much, he has to drag them onto this plane of existence.

. !

? Blue, everything. is. blue. ?

?

?

? They move

drag

on their own accord

on SOMEONES accord

-

upwards

UPwards

u p w a r d s - but they drag down go up but drag down heavy as lead as a lead balloon as the beginning of the world But you fly anyway, impossibly, against each downwards drag of your wings. (It’s like falling upwards.) (It’s still losing. It’s always losing.) He flies with wings in agony. Drowning. Only there is no water to drown in. It wells up inside of him, invisible and not really water.

Tears, though. Those burn. Like holy holy water. Surviving. Even though you’ve run out of air long ago and all you breathe is water, wet and cold. And it is Good.

He could feel how very bloody Good it was. (And Goodness hurts and scathes and sometimes kills. And Goodness does not repent. Goodness leaves a trail of bodies after itself and does not glance back a single time.) Why does She want him so high? So She can drop him? So he can Fall again? And again and again?  Why is he surprised?

She brings him closer and closer – to Heaven – to what he once was - She will drop him - She will drop him out of the clouds - And worst of all -

He will never see Aziraphale again.

(Can She drag him up again by broken wings?)

He always thought he would die by love, all the love that has always consumed him and eaten him and devoured him and sustained him and nourished him and healed him – but Aziraphale is not even here, but Love is and doesn’t leave.

He doesn’t need Love with a capital L, he never has. He had love instead.

(And he was good at it, if there was one thing at all he was good at, it was this. He loved. Like a human. Like an angel. Like a demon with nothing else to live for. He’d loved, and it had been so, so good, and She would never take it away from him.)

And it had been so much. Too much. He had expected to drown in love, yes, but not like this. (He had expected a touch lingering too long.) (He had expected a gaze too intense.) (He had expected words too harsh.) (Those were the things he had prepared to die for.) (And oh, the love he had lived for.)

Higher, higher, he keeps shooting higher, he cannot stop his wings. (He will fly too close to the sun.) More than he would like to admit, I am scared. If this is dying, when do we get to the good part? If this is not dying, what is it? Is this my punishment for hoping? For asking? Should have known better than to hope. Am a demon after all.

demon aren’t i why does it feel wrong to think demon (unforgiveable it’s what i AM) I am a demon, I am unfor- I am un- I am a- I am an Giveable for u n Able lov u n Nomed N O M E D I am. Scattered letters on my tongue. I am an. I will die touching the clouds. (I am flying too close to the sun.) (But you don’t know how much I have always ached with it.) (You think your Love can kill me, go on, try it. I fucking dare you.) (Torture me with kindness. Whip me with niceties. Hollow me out with your Love, I fucking dare you.) You do not get to shape me. You do not get to make me. I am not your bruise to press on.

(I did ask when I was Burning.)

(I begged.) (Resurrect my soul. Glue my wings back on. Heal those sulfur burns. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.) You are slicing through the air and it is slicing through you. You are the weapon and the wound.

(You have flown too close to the sun.)

You are Her Enemy. You are Her detested door-to-door salesman. You are a dried leaf under Her boot and She likes to hear it crack.

…

You are Her child. … You are My child.

you are my child i love you i’m sorry -

The Goodness and the Love and the Holiness flood his veins and his essence and everything, until there is no room for him anymore.

It will keep pressing, he knows. Until he is burned away. And it’s okay. Aziraphale is safe. And it was all worth it. He has loved. He is ready to go.

But then it eases – but She will not let him – he can breathe again – his wings are his again – he is floating -

He gains control of his wings and lands on the ground of the alley softly. And he can tell. Something is Gone. And something is There.

There are two things he is certain of: He is Forgiven. He is Loved. Which makes him not certain of anything anymore.

He is shaking, even though the pain is gone. Once a demon. (Once a demon…) ? Once a.

? ?

?

He will not be loved. He will not be forgiven. He is. He’s.

It’s everywhere. He has felt it before, but that was a long, long time ago.

Love is not something to have. It’s a passer-by. It’s a precious visitor. It is not in its nature to last. (Not for someone like Crowley.) Love will not be owned. (And if there is one place it does not belong it’s behind yellow slitted eyes.) He knows what it feels like to have Love bleeding from your fingertips. Love oozing from star-maker’s hands. Love dripping red from curled angel hair. Love is not to keep. What just happened? What happened? Something is Missing. Something is There.

He is a demon, he has wings. He has… White. Why are they white? Fucking shit. Fucking hell. Holy fucking shit. Fucking Heaven. They’re white. They can’t be white. It’s impossible. (They burned in fire and in acid. They broke and healed. They are as black as a void where goodness used to lie.) He tears off his sunglasses and turns them around, quickly skimming his reflection in the glass. The eyes are still there. But the wings are looming behind him, as if he were – some sort of – holy – ngk

And if there’s one thing Crowley is absolutely certain of, it is this -

(It’s WHAT I AM -) once. crowley was once an angel. Fuck. As a matter of fact, no. No. No no no no no.

Crowley does not run to Aziraphale’s bookshop. It is an emergency, but not one that warrants superfluous exercise. He does, however, walk at a very brisk pace.

He does not think anything but a never-ending string of swear words and curses. He throws open the door to the bookshop and there he is. Safe. Whole. Tartan bow tie and everything.

He almost walks back out when he is hit with a wave of love stronger than anything he felt out on the street, love that he knows is not his own.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley rasps. He can’t say the other thing at the moment. “Oh, Crowley!” Aziraphale starts walking toward him, hands anxiously fidgeting in front of him. “What’s going on? What happened? Is it angels? Are angels after you? I could swear I’m sensing one close by, I’ve been a little… nervous about it.” “Nah – no, it’s not – it’s not angels, I don’t think, it’s -”

“But I’m usually never wrong about these things.” Aziraphale frowns.

“Well – well you’re not wrong, technically, it’s just.” Crowley can’t say it and tries to scramble for a place to start. “I went to hell.” “Hell? Why? Did they take you? Did they hurt you? Are you hurt?”

The expression on Aziraphale’s face is heartbreaking. But Crowley is fine. Isn’t he? Nothing broken. This time, there are no scars. Skin is unblemished now. “No, I’m not hurt, well, not anymore, but… I don’t know why I went into hell, it was stupid. But then she – she slammed the door in my face and said you’re no demon, which ha! Fair enough. Just Beelzebub being petty, you’d think. You don’t just un-become a demon. It’s not like – not like I could be some sort of an aardvark all out of a sudden. That’s not how it works.” Aziraphale has come very close now and reaches out his hands to clasp Crowley’s, which is probably meant to be reassuring but makes the panic flare up inside of him. Maybe it’s not even panic, but some other embarrassing emotion close to it.

“My dear, what are you saying?”

Crowley clenches his jaw. He can’t say it. Aziraphale will think he’s mad. He is mad. This is mad.

Aziraphale is fine. Now that he’s seen it, he should leave. Maybe he can just… sleep it off. Maybe it will all turn out to be a very strange dream. He will wake up in his flat, as demon as ever, and there will be nothing to be confused about, nothing to dread and nothing to hope for.

But he can still feel it. As real as anything. Buzzing under his skin and above his skin. In the bookshop, he can tell it’s everywhere. Is that Aziraphale’s love? It’s… shining. It’s so beautiful. No, it can’t be. There’s too much of it.

His lips are clamped together, but his wings are not. He unfolds them right here in the bookshop. They are so bright. Brighter than they should have any right to be.

Aziraphale lets go of his hands and stumbles back. He makes a small ‘oh’ sound.

What will he think? That it’s ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

(That it shouldn’t have happened. Crowley doesn’t have what it takes to be one, that’s obvious to anyone.) (That he has wanted this to happen. That he has wanted to upend Crowley’s entire being and remake it ever since they met on the wall. That this is good.) Aziraphale presses his hands in front of his mouth and just stares.

That’s when it occurs to Crowley – things are different now. He hasn’t changed, but things have. Unforgiveable unraveled and turned into forgiven. Unloveable unraveled and turned into loveable. How much more would it take for loveable to turn into loved? Maybe Aziraphale will let himself -

(Is the apple still so tempting when it is not forbidden anymore?)

“Is this -” Crowley asks, “Could we -”

He thinks, Aziraphale will just know. Because of course he is asking. He is asking.

But Aziraphale is shaking his head. Still staring.

Oh, the eyes. He forgot about the eyes. Quickly, he puts on another pair of sunglasses. His eyes are still demon. He is a demon, but watered down. Still too demon. Even when he’s not.

“I – I know the eyes are still – but it doesn’t matter, I’m -” and it doesn’t feel right, but if this is what it takes to convince Aziraphale – “I’m an angel, right?” We’re on the same side, right? We’re the same. Right? Just don’t look past the sunglasses, and it will be fine. Just forget that my wings were black only yesterday. Aziraphale’s expression changes, but Crowley can’t tell. “You being -” Aziraphale hesitates too, “- an angel doesn’t change how I feel about you, dear.” “Oh.”

Crowley had let himself hope again and he’d barely even noticed it. But he shouldn’t have. Maybe in time, Aziraphale would get used to it. Maybe in time, he would fall in love. But not so soon. Crowley has waited six thousand years, he can wait a little longer.

Unless.

Unless it doesn’t matter. Unless what’s on the surface doesn’t count, only what Aziraphale knows to be true and what he knows to be true is that Crowley is a demon and meant to be a demon and demons can never be redeemed. Maybe She has changed Her mind about that, but that doesn’t mean Aziraphale has.

Aziraphale knows.

(Maybe it was never being a demon what made him unloveable.)

But he can wait. He will. He’ll be patient.

Oh, the love. It’s starting to become unbearable.

“How did it happen?”

“I don’t know – it just suddenly started. I was walking here and then suddenly I was Rising.” “How? How do you Rise?” Aziraphale seems astonished by it. And Crowley thinks of burning love. Of water that is not water. Of divine agony. “Just… sauntered vaguely upwards,” he says and shrugs. It’s strange how different and familiar it feels. How foreign and home. How far and how close. “There’s just so much love here,” he says, just to say anything else, “where does it all come from?” Aziraphale looks surprised and then bashful.

“Maybe it would help if I stepped outside for a moment?” “Why, what’s the problem?” Crowley asks, confused. “Oh, wait, you don’t mean – all that love is coming from you?” Ah. That explains. It was a stupid question earlier, although it’s not like that’s ever stopped him. He should have been able to tell. So much love, so much, and none of it is directed at Crowley. (There is the proof Crowley never wanted that Aziraphale was not just lying to Crowley or even to himself.)

“It is,” Aziraphale says softly, resigned, almost like he just admitted to something. “I am an angel after all.” But Crowley has always known that Aziraphale loves. But he had not known how sweet it would feel, even if it’s just a dream that it’s for him.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asks and comes closer again. “I know it must be a startling change.” “Ha! You can say that again. Count me startled alright.” Crowley runs his fingers through his hair and lets out a slow breath. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just… don’t understand why She would do this. Why would She just – shake everything up again? I thought – She made the rules clear all these years ago and now I feel like maybe I was playing an entirely different game all along.” Like he thought they were playing chess, but it was really Monopoly all along.

“Maybe… maybe She wanted to reward you.”

Aziraphale had not been there. He had not felt it. To him, being an angel comes without a price attached. “No,” Crowley insists immediately. “No way. It must be some sort of punishment. I just can’t see how yet.” “Is it so hard to believe that the Universe would simply be kind to you?”

“Yes,” Crowley says tersely.

She isn’t kind, She plays games. The Universe has never granted him favors. Anything Crowley tried to do right has always gone wrong.

“I can’t,” he realizes suddenly, “sorry, angel. I can’t.” He rushes out of the bookshop and doesn’t listen to Aziraphale’s stammering and doesn’t turn back around. It’s not just the conversation he can’t do, it’s all of this. He’s not an angel. He’s not a bloody angel. He doesn’t want to be an angel. Angels are stuffy and hypocritical. Angels have hurt him and have hurt Aziraphale. He doesn’t want to be an angel. (He has never wanted to be a demon either, of course, but that’s semantics.) The Bently is still at the entrance of hell, so he takes a Taxi back to his flat.

“I’m not an angel,” he says to the air. He circles his throne and flops down on it. A moment later, he gets up again and starts pacing the room.

“Do you think this counts?!” he says, growing more agitated. “Do you think the pain just – goes away? It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t mean you never let me suffer. You did. You did.” He slams his hands down on the table, then braces himself on them.

“You might have Forgiven me. Maybe. Maybe you did. But that doesn’t mean that I will forgive you.”

He just can’t figure it out. So he yells. Yells loudly, as if something like volume could ever make Her hear him. “Why did you do this?” he yells, “what do you want from me? Do you want me to forgive you because I won’t. Do you want me to be your perfect little angel because you can forget that.” She has never heard him. For millenia he has begged her, he has asked her, he has yelled at her and She has never responded. “FUCK you,” he yells. “You hear me? Yes, I just cursed your fucking name. Are you going to make me Fall again, now? Then go ahead and do it.”

Is that Her game? Are those the stakes? He’d never known back then. That that was something that could happen. But now he does. Now he knows Her and what She is and what She will do.

“Is that what you want? For me to make the next mistake so you can push me out again?” That must be it, right? Why else would she do this? It’s oh so in-fucking-effable.

“I won’t be your blasted clean slate!” His plants are shivering, even though it’s not them he’s yelling at. “I won’t be your blank canvas, just for you to hurt again.” (I will not have everything just to lose it all.) (I will not climb high just so I can fall deeper.) “I am a demon,” he says with a certainty he doesn’t have, “I don’t care how white my wings are, I am a demon.” Demon means many things and most of them Crowley has always hated with his whole being. But demon also means ‘abandoned’. Demon means ‘pushed over the edge of Heaven’. “I am a demon. You didn’t not hurt me just because I don’t have the scars to prove that you did.”

She cannot erase him. She can’t write him out of existence, it’s too late for that. He might die, yes, but he was here and he was a demon and she can’t take that from him. “Twice,” he snarls, “twice you’ve ripped away who I am. Redefined my being how it pleases you. I am not your plaything. I am not your game piece.”

He pushes himself away from the table again, suddenly drained from anger. “I am not Crawly,” he says. And refuses to be.

***

The angels come for Aziraphale the next day. He is not expecting them. They scoop him up outside his bookshop and drag him up.

Gabriel is with them, but not to get his hands dirty. He is here to taunt. To mock.

“You’re not an angel, Aziraphale,” he says, “you should have Fallen. We’re just helping to – speed things along, as it were.” So that’s what they were after – a Fall. Aziraphale had often wondered what it would be like to Fall. He had wondered if the freedom would be worth the pain.

In the privacy of his mind, he has drawn up a list of things he would say if he were Fallen. And a list of things he would do.

There were times he had wanted it. (Our side.)

They keep dragging him up, knows he is too weak to break free and he will not miss Heaven.

They break his wings with a well-placed blow half-way to the clouds and he will not miss the angels.

When they reach the lowest cloud, he slips free.

It’s not the angels who make him Fall. Angels don’t have that kind of power.

What makes him Fall is a thought that starts with How could She do this to him? The thought follows Why do you let him be an angel now and not six thousand years ago? It stumbles briefly over Why do they get to be angels? The thought reaches Are you saying he didn’t deserve it before? Because he did. He deserved everything. It dives right into You don’t know what’s right or wrong, do you? And hits You’re just playing a game with full force.

It’s not quite I don’t believe you did the right thing that does it. It’s the thought he ends with: I don’t believe in you. He falls. He looks up at the sky and the clouds and the somber faces of beings that were supposed to be good. And he thinks, I don’t believe. And then he Falls.

He doesn’t try to move his broken wings. He lets it happen.

(He had thought Falling would take longer.) (But it’s over quickly.) (It’s hitting the ground that hurts.)

(The force of his fall denting the asphalt.) He lies in the rubble. And he knows that something is Gone. And something else is There.

Several of his bones are broken, but it’s nothing he can’t mend. His corporation survives the fall. Love doesn’t.

He lies and lets himself feel the loss of it. I don’t want your Love, he thinks and misses it terribly.

He stares at the far-away sky for a long time. It is untouchable now. For a long while, he lets himself feel the pain - and finds it’s not a fresh wound. It’s very old and has been bleeding for a long time. Maybe it can finally start healing now.

Then he thinks, I should get on with it. If Crowley can do it, so can I. Then he rises up in his spot of rubble. And then he does. ***

(He does not call Crowley. He locks the bookshop and closes his blinds.)

(He cries for as long as his corporation will produce tears.)

(He tears half of his books apart with his fingers and all the brute force he can summon, then he miracles them back together. Once. Twice.) (He screams at Her, but he doesn’t use words. She will understand.) (He lets his phone go to voice mail and miracles it apart when it keeps ringing.) (He does not answer the knocks on his door.) “Aziraphale!” (Not the banging either.) “Angel!” (His bones have healed but the pain fills him from head to toe.)

“Please let me in.” (He posts Crowley a letter. I’m fine. Go away. He lets it float outside the bookshop.)

(It goes quiet.) (He can still sense an angel around.) *** A week later, Aziraphale dusts the bookshop.

It’s ineffable.

Aziraphale is Fine. He lifts the blinds. To Hell with ineffable.

He gets on with it.

*** Crowley is leaning against the door of the bookshop when it opens. He gets to his feet swiftly and turns around, but he balks when he sees Aziraphale’s face.

“No,” Crowley says and backs away. Scared. “She can’t – She can’t, She wouldn’t dare. Not you.”

Because I would tear Heaven apart for you, and She knows it – I would tear her whole Creation apart until She was the only being left and then I would put Her to trial.

“No. It’s fine.”

Aziraphale looks indeed fine for someone who has spent a week holed up in a bookshop. He looks too fine. Unnaturally fine. He ushers him into the bookshop and closes the door behind them.

“It’s not,” Crowley says quietly.

“Well, it is what it is. No use in dwelling on it.”

But Crowley will dwell on it. For a long time.

“What happened? Why didn’t you call me?”

He is frantic with concern, the shock of finding the locked-up bookshop still deep in his bones. He hadn’t expected this. He would have expected angels to come and get their revenge. Not Her. “I believe this is something I had to do alone,” Aziraphale says.

These are the repercussions. This is the price. Why would She make Aziraphale, Aziraphale of all angels, the best angel there is, why would She make him Fall?

“Did it hurt?”

Too much time with a demon. Where is the limit?

You can have my soul, you can have my heart, you can have my wings, I let you take it all, but not him – you can’t have him. “It didn’t hurt a lot for a Fall.”

He has dreamed of this. He is a complete and utter bastard and he has dreamed of this. What if Aziraphale were a demon? What if I were an angel? He had never imagined those two would collide. “But it hurt.” Aziraphale doesn’t answer, which is answer enough.

This is the cruelty he knows from Her. She will keep them forever apart. They can never touch. They will never be the same. Maybe that’s her punishment. (It is ever more cruel if you had hope. And Crowley has always been a terrible demon.) “I’m sorry,” Crowley says.

In a general bad-things-should-never-happen-to-you way but also in a very specific this-is-my-fault way.

“Don’t be,” Aziraphale says kindly. “We were always rather terrible at our jobs, weren’t we? You a bad demon. Me a bad angel.”

(I would give my grace to you, if I could.) (I don’t deserve it, I never did.) “I was a terrible angel too.”

“And I imagine I’ll make a terrible demon. I suppose it doesn’t really matter then, what we are.”

Why him why him why him why HIM?

“It does. It does!” Crowley is growing angry. “I can’t believe how calm you’re being. Why aren’t you freaking out? I’m freaking out.” “My dear, I’ve had six thousand years to learn that, angel or demon, it’s not important. They’re really just labels.”

“Just. Labels.” Crowley repeats dumbstruck.

He steps past Aziraphale to the sofa, grabs one of the pillows and presses it to his face. And then he screams.

Aziraphale doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t understand, this is all on Crowley. Crowley never should have talked to an angel on the edge of Eden. He never should have gotten so close.

“What about Love?” he tries, choked up.

“It was a bit overwhelming sometimes. All that Love.” If Crowley could sense love, then so could Aziraphale back then. Then he’d sensed Crowley’s love – then he’d always known – and of course he’d known something so blindingly obvious – and it had all been too much for him, Crowley’s love, so much that he was glad to be rid of it. Not having to sense it anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley says again and he is. More than anything.

Crowley should go.

This is why Aziraphale had barricaded the bookshop.

It’s over. They both know it’s Crowley’s fault. He ruined this. He’d wanted to much. He’d wished a doomsday upon them.

“’s my fault,” he speaks it out into the open quietly. The sorry wraps around his throat like a snake and starts to strangle him. “It must have been my fault. I made you Fall. I tainted you.” (This is what happens when you touch an angel.) (When a demon touches an angel, they bleed into each other. It is as unholy as it is holy.) Aziraphale, who must be the kindest demon there is, if Crowley can ever accept he is a demon, does not condemn or accuse him. He will be gentle about his rejection. Aziraphale is an expert in wrapping brush-offs in nice words. He kicks people out of his bookshop with sensible shoes.

Can’t you see, angel? I did this I did this I did this to you I am worse than a demon

I am your monster, I am your nightmare, I am your Personal Hell I am your punishment, I am your crime, I am your worst mistake He is a thief and a scoundrel. He took it. He took Aziraphale’s grace. Aziraphale should hate him. Should kick him to the curb.

(He had seen something precious and wanted to own it.) And Aziraphale has always known, has rejected him at every turn because he always knew what was really there, but nothing has ever been as bad as this. There is no coming back from this. He will walk out the door of the bookshop and never return. Won’t be allowed to. (The most unforgiveable thing he has ever done is to be forgiven.) But Aziraphale looks at him, with his kindness. He steps toward him.

(You should not have let me touch your wings, lest I turn them black.)

You might not be Heaven’s angel, but you will always be mine. (I turned them black.) Aziraphale puts a hand to Crowley’s cheek, as if to soothe him.

(I never even kissed you, but I burned away your Grace.) Aziraphale tugs his sunglasses off gently. (Not burn, but take. Take and take and take.) “Dearest, don’t insult me,” Aziraphale says then, “this was nobody’s choice but my own.” “Choice?!” Crowley croaks.

“I was never much fond of being an angel, as you well know.” How can Aziraphale accept this so easily? Doesn’t he know - Why does he always understand but never understand -

But there is nothing to change it. This is the new world now. We are an angel and a demon has become true once more.

***

“It’s strange,” Crowley says, “I thought all your angel-love would disappear, but it’s all still here.” Aziraphale lets out a strangled sound. “Yeah, s-strange.” *** For a day there, they were both angels. But now Crowley has missed his chance.

*** “She has been quite cruel, from time to time,” Aziraphale says. *** “Even the kids.” *** A man rushes past Crowley when he enters the bookshop.

“Who spit in his coffee?” he asks Aziraphale, who is sorting books.

“Oh, I have a feeling he suffered a minor delusion and thought the book he picked up had maggots crawling all over it, but who knows.” “Okay, and who spit in your coffee?”

“Satan,” Aziraphale says innocently.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley exclaims, equal measures scandalized and bemused.

“Didn’t you see that book he was carrying in his bag? Full of dog-ears. I will not tolerate a book-abuser in my shop.”

“I see.” Crowley hides his smirk.

*** A girl runs along the sidewalk and trips over her own feet. Crowley, sitting in the Bentley, sees her fall. Her knee is scraped and starts bleeding. She’s crying. Crowley’s heart flies into his throat.

He wants to heal her. It’s a forbidden emotion. It’s Something Not To Think About. He is not allowed to want things whole. Except now he is.

It’s a subtle miracle. Crowley gets out of the car and gives a short wave of hand. The skin mends itself and the scrape is gone.

He has done this kind of thing before, of course. When there were no other demons around. This time he doesn’t feel guilty. “Did you just heal -” Aziraphale starts when he walks into the bookshop.

“Shut up.” ***

“Oh, but you can’t leave without trying the crème brûlée,” Aziraphale tells the couple on its way out the French restaurant. “It’s simply – well, divine.”

The couple has a change of heart. “I’m starting to think it’s the opposite,” Crowley remarks and raises an eyebrow.

“I have no idea what you’re insinuating,” Aziraphale says cheerfully and takes a bite of asparagus. *** Crowley leaves for the homeless shelter every now and then. Aziraphale knows better than to ask.

***

Crowley doesn’t know what to do with Love. It feels like it belongs to somebody else. But he also knows that missing it is worse, so much worse. He knows Aziraphale doesn’t tell him everything.

And he can’t bear the thought, not even of Aziraphale being a demon but of Aziraphale suffering like a demon.

He won’t feel Unforgiveable, not now that they know that demons can be Forgiven. But cut away from Love, from Her Love, not being able to sense it anymore… Crowley knows that it’s hard. It’s lonely.

Sometimes, it’s like freezing out in the cold. Sometimes, it’s like starving of something. He wants to give it back to Aziraphale, even if only a sliver. Only a modicum of what he really deserves.

And Crowley… well, he has Love but he does not have love. Not the kind he wants.

“I want you to know… it’s not gone,” he tells Aziraphale on a quiet evening, sitting next to him on the sofa.

“What, my dear?” “I… I know you always knew… and of course, I know you don’t return – I just want you to know. Because it’s the not knowing… that’s really painful.”

Crowley is explaining himself badly, but it’s been in his mind for so long, it’s hard to let it out.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Aziraphale diverts his full attention to him now. “Well, it’s… It didn’t really become clear to me that you knew, must know, until I could sense love myself.” Quickly, Crowley adds: “But I still do.” “Do what?” Aziraphale looks very confused, which means he’s not being deliberately obtuse. And he’ll have to say it. It hurts to say it, but nothing is as bad as Aziraphale not knowing.

“I love you,” Crowley says softly. “And you know that. You must have been able to sense it for millenia. So I hope you realize… you’re not unloved. Could never be. Not as long as I’m alive.”

Aziraphale’s mouth drops open.

“You don’t have to respond!” Crowley rushes to say. “All this time, you haven’t said anything, so – so that’s an answer in itself. I mean, I sense love, of course I know you don’t. Can’t.”

This will not break them. If nothing has yet, this does not have the power to. But it still hurts. Oh, it hurts. And he has always, always wanted too much. “My darling, I think you’re not yet an expert at the sensing of love.”

Crowley rolls his eyes.

“It doesn’t exactly require a lot of skill.” Aziraphale sends him a calculating look.

“Who do you think my love belongs to, then?”

It sounds like a trick question. “Wha – the world?”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “A nice thought, but I really don’t love the world all that much.” “Then what?” “It’s a misconception, you know. That angels can tell where the love comes from. We – they can only tell that it’s there.”

So he didn’t know. He didn’t know that Crowley loved him – well, he should have been able to tell anyway.

But then Crowley’s throat goes try. His mind should not go there, but it does. The well of hope inside of Crowley is endless. No matter how much of it you snuff out, there is always more to come.

“So hypothetically,” Crowley says.

“Yes, hypothetically…” “All this love could be directed… at one person.”

Crowley scoots a little closer to Aziraphale. “Even a demon?” Crowley adds. “Yes, a demon,” Aziraphale breathes. Yes, feast yourself on my tainted love. Do you think you are immune to poison because it was home in my veins? Are you willing to take your chances?

It’s bad. Crowley shouldn’t do this. But he can’t stop his hand from reaching out. He stops at at the last moment, just before touching Aziraphale’s and quickly draws it back. He almost forgot. There’s a crater between them still.

“But you won’t let yourself,” he says and is certain that it’s true. They are an angel and a demon, it doesn’t matter who is which. Aziraphale thinks they don’t fit. “We’re an angel and a demon. ‘S probably some sort of law of nature against it.”

Hope dies a slow death in his chest. “You’re probably right,” Aziraphale says, which speeds up the process a little. “But -”

“But?” “As of late, it turns out, I’m a bit of a rebel.” Crowley’s head shoots up. “What?” “And I don’t care much for rules.”

I have always been venomous, you should have known to stay away. You shouldn’t have let me tempt you. (Soft-seeming lips, did you let yourself be caught off-guard by the teeth behind?) “Aziraphale,” Crowley whispers and it’s do you want this will you let me can you forgive me? Aziraphale takes his hand. Please don’t let me bite you. “You really shouldn’t,” Crowley says.

“Why not?”

Aziraphale looks at him so earnestly, so seriously, like Crowley matters. “Falling for it wasn’t enough of a clue?” “You didn’t make me Fall, dear. That was all me.”

“But I’m not g-” his voice is wet “good for you.” “You are.” Aziraphale’s voice is rising. “You didn’t need to be an angel for me to know that.”

He wants to lean in, lean so close he can breathe Aziraphale’s breath, he wants to press his lips to Aziraphale’s but he’s frightened that Aziraphale would let him.

Venom on my lips and poison in my blood, I taste so sour, darling, don’t drink from me. And I know you are a glutton for it, you are a glutton for the finer things. But don’t drink your punishment from me, it won’t taste well. But then Aziraphale leans forward and kisses him and Crowley can’t stop him and he doesn’t want to and Aziraphale’s love tastes so, so sweet. And Crowley doesn’t like eating pastries or candy but he loves this.

She will never have this. She could never create this. She could never remake the world in a way that he won’t fall for Aziraphale.

It’s a slow kiss and it’s a little difficult to fit all that love between their lips, but they manage it.

She could never take this. She can drown the world and She can burn the world and She can banish the angels and She can grow a garden in Hell, but this love will always be there. She can’t touch it.

Crowley is not rotting, not anymore – he is blooming, like the blossoms on an apple tree. Not even he can destroy this.

He is touching the sun. He is living in it.

“Well then,” Aziraphale says and beams at him. “Can I tempt you to dinner?” Crowley groans. “Oh, you’re insufferable.”

Aziraphale looks very smug.

“Then I suppose you’ll just have to smite me. With, what was it? Your angelic righteousness.”

They stand up from the sofa at the same time and start walking toward the door.

“You’re a real bastard, Aziraphale,” Crowley tells him. Aziraphale preens at the compliment. Things are shaken up. They are a little different and a little the same. But Aziraphale and Crowley carry on as always. And Crowley still glues coins to the sidewalk every now and then. Aziraphale still blesses babies once and again. One of them might be an angel and the other might be a demon.

Semantics, really.

[nicnacsnonsense]

@saretton was talking about a Cyrano de Bergerac AU earlier and y’all I got carried away again. Basic backstory here is Crowley is Cyrano, Aziraphale is Christian, and Anathema is Roxane. Crowley is in love with Aziraphale (obv) and Aziraphale has convinced himself he’s in love with Anathema because of internalized homophobia. The turning point in the story is when Anathema turns Aziraphale down in favor of Newt and Aziraphale realizes he’s actually rather relieved and maybe he wasn’t all that into her after all., Then Anathema points out all the things Aziraphale has been saying to her and writing to her (words that he is getting from Crowley) sound like they’re actually intended for someone other than her. Aziraphale does some thinking and concludes that Crowley is in love with someone, which is problematic because Aziraphale is actually in love with Crowley. Anyway, I wrote the very end scene where they finally get together because I’m Azcrow trash and have no self-control. Here you go:

“What brings you to my humble abode, angel?” Crowley had sprawled out in his usual position on the settee, and Aziraphale’s breath caught in his throat. The sinewy beauty and easy grace of the man – how had he been so blind as to never notice it before? How was he supposed to go on now that he did? How was he supposed to listen to Crowley call him angel in that tone of casual fondness without losing all control over himself and doing something that would ruin their friendship forever?

“Aziraphale?” Crowley prompted.

Aziraphale shook himself and took a seat in the armchair he always sat in, the one he’d come to think of as his in the back of his mind. “My apologies; I was lost in thought for a moment,” he said. “I stopped by because I spoke with Miss Device yesterday afternoon.”

Crowley tensed. It was a subtle movement, but Aziraphale was watching too closely to miss it. He assumed it was out of concern for Aziraphale; the meeting yesterday had not been one they had anticipated, so Crowley had been unable to help Aziraphale prepare for it. “How did that go?”

“She informed me that while she values our friendship and is flattered by and appreciates the overtures I’ve made of late, she bears no romantic feelings toward me and has instead decided to accept the suit of Newton Pulsifer.”

“I’m sorry,” Crowley said, genuine regret lacing his voice. “I know you love her.”

“That’s the funny thing,” Aziraphale said, and in the light of a new day it did seem funny. One of those casual anecdotes about an embarrassing moment some years past and oh, wasn’t I foolish? “I don’t love her; I don’t think I ever did. That is, I certainly return her sentiments regarding our friendship, but beyond that my infatuation stemmed more from the idea of her as the sort of person I ought to be in love with than any genuine feeling.”

“It certainly seemed genuine enough,” Crowley remarked archly. A fair enough attitude as he as certainly suffered the brunt of Aziraphale’s misguided infatuation.

“It seemed so to me as well, but I have a rather marvelous gift for self-deception I’m discovering. Though I suspect deep down part of me must have known, which is why I failed so abysmally at expressing it.” He was quite certain of that in fact. Because looking at Crowley now Aziraphale felt he could write sonnet upon sonnet, pages and pages and pages of love letters. He would go on his knees before Crowley and spill his heart out in hundreds of thousands of eloquently-spun words if he thought it would do any good.

Aziraphale sighed. “It all worked out for the best, I suppose, and I do wish the two of them happiness. I very much appreciate all the help you’ve given me throughout this endeavor, regardless of how it ended.”

“Of course,” Crowley said easily. “I’d do anything for you angel, just say the word.”

Aziraphale’s smile faltered for a moment, but he reclaimed it by forcing himself to take Crowley’s offer in the congenial spirit it was offered and to ignore how differently Crowley might feel if he knew of Aziraphale’s unnatural desires. “Thank you. And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Really, don’t play coy. When we were speaking yesterday Miss Device pointed out how most of the things you wrote for me to give her actually sounded as though they were written with someone else in mind entirely. You’re in love.”

Crowley bolted up in alarm. “That’s not—I didn’t— Don’t be angry ange— Aziraphale. Nothing has to change; I just—“

“Don’t be absurd, Crowley. Of course I’m not angry. Well, perhaps a little hurt you didn’t think to mention that you’d fallen in love, but I understand some people finds these kinds of things difficult to talk about. I don’t hold it against you. As for nothing changing…” Aziraphale found he could no longer stand to look at Crowley, so ducked his head and watched his hands gently wringing in his lap. “Things should change. I read everything you wrote and heard all the words you said; it’s clear how deeply you feel for this woman. You should tell her— no, I insist that you tell her how you feel. There’s no way she’ll turn you down with how beautifully you express yourself. I realize my experience with Miss Device might not be exactly confidence-building in that regard, but I’m sure your lady will be able to sense the genuineness of your feelings. And of course if there’s anything I can do to help, I—“

Crowley kissed him.

Aziraphale barely had time to register what was happening before Crowley pulled away again. At some point he must have risen from the settee and was now knelt on the ground in front of Aziraphale, gazing upon him as earnestly reverent as any man at worship.

Aziraphale felt like he’d been hit by a runaway carriage. All those lines, all the little clues to the identity of the woman Crowley loved that Aziraphale had seen, but had been unable to puzzle out. They were all about him. “You’re in love with me,” he breathed.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Crowley placed his hands on Aziraphale’s knees and pulled them away again, as light as a butterfly. When Aziraphale didn’t protest, Crowley set them back down, his long fingers curled tight as though he feared Aziraphale might bolt any second. “I meant what I said. Nothing has to change. Just let me stay by your side as your friend. Let me stay in your life. All I’m asking for is just the smallest, most insignificant crumb of you, and I swear to you I will never—“

Aziraphale kissed him.

Crowley seemed too shocked at first to respond, but Aziraphale continued the kiss until Crowley, tentatively at first and then with more and more fervor, returned the gesture. Aziraphale straightened back up, gently guiding Crowley along with him until they were both in the chair with Crowley astride Aziraphale’s lap. Crowley’s hands were fisted in Aziraphale’s shirt as he desperately tried to pull them even closer together. Aziraphale’s own hands were resting on Crowley’s shoulders, but after a minute he daringly reached up to run one through Crowley’s fine fire-strand hair. Crowley whined into Aziraphale’s mouth. He broke the kiss and buried his face in Aziraphale’s neck, ripping his glasses off and tossing them across the room to do it.

Aziraphale held Crowley in his arms, one hand still gently carding Crowley’s hair, and marveled at the turn his life had taken. An hour ago this was something he believed he would never have. A day ago this was something he had never even knew he wanted. And now here he was. At that exact moment he decided that the world was wrong about these feelings. How could they be anything but good and right when he felt so blessed?

Crowley mumbled something into Aziraphale’s neck. “What was that?” Aziraphale asked. “I didn’t quite catch it.”

Crowley turned his head slightly. “I said, is this real?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, his voice choked with emotion. He urged Crowley up to look at him and, oh, there was the reason for the glasses. Because Crowley’s eyes were so expressive. There was so much love there, Aziraphale felt he was drowning in it. And alongside the love there was hope, cautious and terrified, but hope.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale repeated. “My darling. My dearest. My closest and truest companion. My love, my light, my joy. My heart’s only.” Aziraphale watched as with each endearment the hope in Crowley’s eyes brightened. Crowley had gifted Aziraphale with so many beautiful words, and though Aziraphale hadn’t always listened as closely as he should have, he’d heard them all. And now it wa time he shared some of his own with Crowley. He leaned forward and spoke directly into Crowley’s ear:

“I confess this to you now, my dear,

The strangest truth I have.

Because you have always seen more clear,

Than I myself ever have.

I feel the warmth of you in my arms.

You scent is far too dear to be faked.

I wish to keep you here safe from all harms,

And to always bestow upon you more love than I take.

  The beauty of your eyes–”

Here Crowley made a noise of protest. Aziraphale hushed him and continued.

“The beauty of your eyes,

Burnt amber in the light,

Is far greater than imagining could provide.

My mind would never get it right.

  These sensations are far too vivid,

For this to be a dream.

But the joy here is far more fervid,

Than I have ever experienced in reality.

  I no longer know what is true,

And would not care if I did.

For either I find myself here with you,

Or we lie together dreaming instead.”

For a long moment Crowley said nothing, and Aziraphale began to get nervous. “I know it’s not as good as the ones you wrote. Some of the rhymes were dreadful and I’m sure the meter was all wrong and—“

Crowley gently cupped Aziraphale’s face. “I think you’re right. This is too perfect to be anything but a dream.” He kissed Aziraphale, long and slow and deep. “So let’s never wake up.”

[moveslikebucky]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Good Omens (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) Characters: Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) Additional Tags: lockdown - Freeform, Fluff, Pining, also a mouse is there, First Kiss, Love Confessions, the love language of wax seals, two months shouldn't be a long time for immortal celestial beings, but when you're pining, with art!

Everyone and their mother is writing a Lockdown fic and here is my contribution!  Featuring them actually staying apart for the full 2 months, Aziraphale having a lot of introspection and befriending a mouse, and little clips of Crowley sleeping away 2 months of time xD.  

My magical airplane friend @akinmytua2 did beautiful and amazing art for this fic and I cried about it a lot; so if you read this for nothing else go read it for her beautiful art and show her some love! <3 <3

---

“You know,” Crowley drawls through the phone, “I could hunker down at your place.  Slither over and watch you eat cake.  I could bring a bottle, a case, of something drinkable.”

And wouldn’t that be something, Aziraphale thinks to himself.  Some company right now would be lovely.  The burglars had been unexpected but not entirely unwelcome.  The thought of Crowley here with him drinking wine and watching him eat sends an all too familiar thrill through him.  

Things had been nice lately.  More relaxed.  Clandestine meetings were now just days spent at the park.  Lunch was no longer a means to an end, but something to be enjoyed together.  None of the rendezvous points had names anymore (except when Crowley was feeling particularly ridiculous) - they were just places that they visited together.  Gazes lingered, hands brushed over glasses of wine.  Crowley spent more time sleeping in Aziraphale’s backroom than he ever had in the past.  But, inevitably, he’d still wake up and go back to his flat - murmuring something about the plants on his way out.

“Hunkering down” seemed like a lot.  There was no way to know how long this would last at the outset.  Crowley could be stuck here for months.  Lots of time to get sick of one fussy angel; lots of time to remember just how much Aziraphale had done wrong by him.

Besides that…they’re living by the rules of humanity now.  Their own side - them and humanity.  That’s what they had agreed to during their long lunch at the Ritz all those months ago.  This is the important thing, to take care of them, even if it means being apart for a while longer.  They’d risked everything for humanity, to save them from the forces of Heaven and Hell (actual level of usefulness notwithstanding).  It wouldn’t make sense, none at all, to throw it to the wind now.

“No, I… I… I… I’m afraid that would be breaking all the rules,” Aziraphale stammers out before he can stop himself, falling back on that comfortable old pattern.  “Out of the question!  I’ll see you… when… this is over?”

He hopes Crowley can’t hear the sadness in his voice.  That he doesn’t do what he always does and circles back.  Tempt, deny, tempt, give in - their well-worn dance of centuries and millennia.  Aziraphale knows if Crowley insisted he wouldn’t be able to say no.

“Right.”  Crowley says with resignation in his voice.  “Um... I’m setting the alarm clock for July.”

July is so far away, Aziraphale nearly tells him to stop, to not go to sleep.  They can chat on the phone again, be with each other that way.  Spend time together over this distance with the sound of their voices at least.  He says none of this.  His coward’s tongue remains silent even as his sadness builds.

“Goodnight, angel.”  Crowley says in a voice soft as anything before hanging up the phone.  Aziraphale sits in the silence of the darkening bookshop and tries desperately not to imagine hearing that every night.

--

Across town at his flat in Mayfair, Crowley taps ‘end call’ on his phone.  He heaves a heavy sigh, setting a reminder for 10am on July the 1st and rolls over onto his side.  It’s not all bad, he’ll see Aziraphale when this is over.  Maybe he’ll tell him when all of this is over, the extent of these emotions that eat him up inside.  His eyes start to fall shut as sleep begins to overtake him, and he wraps his arms around a pillow pretending that it’s an angel.

--

Two weeks in and he’s getting sick of it already.  Aziraphale has a sweet tooth, of course, but there’s only so far that can go.  He’d really love to sit down to a nice plate of gravlax and dill sauce, or maybe a coq au vin.  Something luscious with a nice bit of umami.  Savory, earthy, perhaps a bit spicy.

For the good of humanity he is stuck here in the shop, so he peruses his cookbook section for something a bit more savory 1.  He misses restaurants.  He misses the waitstaff; someone else pouring the wine for you is always a bit of a treat.  He misses the clean linen tablecloths and opening a menu, starting a new journey of his own with every new establishment.  He misses getting to know the chefs, blessing them and their businesses.  He misses softly playing music and the chatter of humanity in a background hum around him.  He misses yellow eyes behind sunglasses across the table from him.  He misses clinking wine glasses together in a toast to whatever the thing of the moment is.  He misses a Cheshire Cat smile, mischievous but fond, flashed at him in these moments.  He misses…well, he misses a lot of things.  Best not to go down that road at the moment.  Nothing to be done.

He stops on an old volume called A New Booke of Cookerie , taking a second to smile to himself at how languages change and evolve.  He opens it and flips through for a bit, landing on a recipe for, of all things, pickled oysters.  “Halfe a pinte of white Wine, and halfe a pinte of white Wine vinegar.”   Oysters sound delectable.  Though maybe not pickled.  But maybe…on the half shell.  With some lemon juice and a bit of honey.  Mixed with just a bit of wine.  Briny and salty, that would be the ticket, just like-

Oh.

Just like Rome.  Petronius and those oysters; good wine and good company.  That had been the first of he and Crowley’s, well, he didn’t want to say ‘dates’.  Actually, he did want to say dates, he ought to say ‘casual friendly lunches’.  Right now though, in the still and silence of the bookshop, he can’t quite bring himself to care one way or the other.  

He holds the cookbook in his hands and thinks.  Thinks about the way Crowley’s long fingers curl around the stem of a wineglass.  About how open and unguarded Crowley is while he drinks his espresso, content to let Aziraphale eat his fill, wanting nothing for himself.  About how right now Crowley could be here, watching him eat cake.  

And Crowley had said that, hadn’t he?  Aziraphale hadn’t imagined it, he’s sure.  An odd thing to want to do with a friend, outside of an eating establishment at least.

He puts the cookbook back on the shelf and sighs, not feeling much like cooking anything now.  He has an old Milton that needs re-binding, he’ll distract himself with that for now.

Seven weeks left to go.

--

Snrrtt

In a flat in Mayfair, under artificial pitch black darkness (bit of a demonic miracle), a demon snores away.  He snuggles up to his pillow, arms still wrapped around it.  A faint mumble that could possibly sound like “Aziraphale” escapes from his lips as he continues to sleep.

--

Skitter skitter skitter

The scratching and skittering is driving Aziraphale up the proverbial wall.  Soon enough, possibly the actual wall, if that’s where he has to go to get away from them.

Currently, he’s on his hands and knees with a broom handle, arguing with a very stubborn little mouse.  It’s taken up residence under one of the larger bookshelves and refuses to see reason2.  All the mouse does is stare at him with his beady little eyes while he rubs his tiny hands together.

Aziraphale does not trust the tiny little hands.  Too much mischief.

He has his face pressed to the floorboards, one eye closed.  He can see the mouse there, sniffing at the broom handle.  He’s trying to be gentle, moving the handle slowly, trying to coax the little thing out of hiding.  “Come on then, little one, not gonna hurt you,” Azirpahale coos at it through gritted teeth.  “Just going to catch you and drop you outside, everything will be tip top then.”

The mouse stares at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale stares at the mouse.

The next events happen in such quick succession that they must be broken down accordingly:  The mouse, sensing impending danger, shoots forward directly towards Aziraphale’s face.  Aziraphale, sensing an impending mouse, jumps back and screeches in a high pitched tone that only occurs when one hits the high notes in some of the harder celestial harmonies.  The shelf behind him, sensing an impending angel, braces for impact as he knocks into it.  Twelve of the books on the shelf, sensing impending floorboards and being able to do nothing about it, fall with various thunks and thuds, most of them landing directly on Aziraphale’s head.

[Continue reading on AO3]

[morosexual-aziraphale]

38 for the prompts pleaseee

38. Please don’t forget me.

Here, take some Ineffable Partners angst because I love writing pain, crying, and comfort!

“I can’t do this,” Crowley growled, standing up from the bookshop’s threadbare, overstuffed sofa. “I can’t do this anymore, angel!”

Aziraphale stared at him from his armchair, teacup poised halfway to his mouth. “Do... what?”

“This!” Crowley gestured between them. “This... this tension! This not-talking-about-things! This ‘there’s something there but neither of us are going to acknowledge it because Aziraphale is afraid of feelings’ thing!”

Aziraphale blinked. “I don’t understand, Crowley.”

“I love you,” Crowley said, blunt and emotionless. “And you don’t love me back. Not the way I love you. And I... I can’t do it anymore.”

“Crowley...” Aziraphale set down his tea. “Crowley, I—”

“Don’t, angel,” the demon interrupted. His voice was flat. “I’m... I’m leaving. And I’m not coming back until I forget about you.”

He turned and headed for the door, but paused just as he opened it. “And don’t come looking for me, either,” he added, “because you won’t find me. Just... live your life. Be happy without me. You’ve done it before.” And then he was gone.

Aziraphale stared at his door, bewildered and dazed. “Right,” he said faintly, and then he sank back in his chair and grew lost in thought.

Crowley loved him. This was a fact. This was something Aziraphale had known for a very long time. Of course Crowley loved him, when had Crowley not loved him? Their relationship was built on the fact that Crowley loved him.

Aziraphale hadn’t even given thought to how he might feel about Crowley in return. He was so busy thinking about Heaven and Hell and the Antichrist and the Apocalypse, and then afterwards, his bookshop and London and the people who lived around him, that he’d never even stopped to think about his feelings for Crowley.

Did he love Crowley? Well, of course he did. Angels loved everything, it’s what they were meant to do. It’s what they were built to do. So of course, in a general, generic sense, Aziraphale loved Crowley. (Agape.) But he also thought of Crowley as an ally, a confidant, a companion, someone to talk to and confide in and lean on when things were difficult. He trusted Crowley wholly. So of course, in a friendly sense, Aziraphale loved Crowley. (Philia.) Crowley to Aziraphale was also his main source of fun. They would go to the cinema together, and have lunch or dinner. They would share a bottle or six late at night, talking about nonsense and laughing. Sometimes they would play cards, or charades, or “Who Am I?”, or Twenty Questions. They would tease each other, laugh with each other, whisper inside jokes to each other. So, in a joking, teasing, playful sense, Aziraphale loved Crowley. (Ludus.) 

Aziraphale could not deny that Crowley was also beautiful. In all of his forms, through all of the years, Aziraphale has always thought that Crowley had a sort of forbidden, serpentine beauty to him. If he were to be perfectly honest, he had spent a good portion of the last 6,000 years just staring at Crowley, watching the way he moved, admiring the way he dressed. There was something enchanting about Crowley’s corporation. So, in a sensual, superficial, almost lustful way, Aziraphale loved Crowley. (Eros.) But the cherry on top, the real kick in the teeth, the thing that gave Aziraphale pause, was the last way he loved Crowley. It was a love that had built up slowly, slow enough that he hadn’t even realized it. It was a love that made Crowley the most important thing in the Universe to Aziraphale. It was a love that put Crowley above humanity, above Earth, above Heaven. It was a love that made Aziraphale choose Crowley again and again. It was a love that sent Aziraphale running into the demon’s arms, seeking him out, at every turn. When he was hopeless, he found hope in Crowley. When he was depressed, he found joy in Crowley. When he was lost, he found himself again in Crowley. So, in an eternal, enduring, all-consuming way, Aziraphale loved Crowley. (Pragma.)

Aziraphale blinked. He noticed, vaguely, that he was covered in dust. He had a feeling a lot more time had passed than what it had felt like. “Oh,” he said, voice hoarse and rusty. “Oh, dear. I’ve been a terrible fool, haven’t I?” he asked his bookshop. The bookshop didn’t answer. That was alright. He knew the answer.

Slowly, he stood, shaking off the dust and stepping out of the door. It was much chillier than it had been when Crowley left. He assumed he’d been sitting there for at least a month, but probably much more. Which meant...

“He could be anywhere,” Aziraphale murmured in horror. “How will I ever find him?”

“When I’m off in the stars, I won’t even think about you!”

“Unless...” Aziraphale said slowly. “No. He wouldn’t. He’d know I’d find him there.”

Unless he wants you to find him, somewhere deep down, he thought.

“Well. It’s as good a place to start as any,” Aziraphale decided, and spread his wings, shocking and awing a good portion of Soho as he took off from the street and propelled himself through the atmosphere and into space. “Second star to the right,” he muttered, “and straight on ‘til morning.”

*

Crowley was there, because of course he was. Of course he’d wanted Aziraphale to find him.

He hovered in chilly space, wings spread, eyes closed, floating in the vacuum. Alpha Centauri was a bright spot, providing some heat and light to him, but frost still glittered on his hair and skin. He floated in and out of consciousness, barely thinking. His arms were wrapped tight around himself, curling up in something close to the fetal position, self-soothing even as he broke his own heart.

“Oh—” Aziraphale began, and drew himself up beside Crowley. “Oh, Crowley, darling, please, wake up. Please. Please, don’t forget me—I love you, I love you like you love me. I think I have for a long time, my demon. Please wake up.” He gathered Crowley into his arms, then, and cradled his stiff body. “Do wake up, my love, don’t leave me here.” Tears pricked in his eyes and froze on his cheeks, the ice counteracting with the hot press of sorrow. “Don’t leave me here, Crowley.”

“Mmnnnh. ‘Zirfle?” Crowley mumbled through numb lips. His eyes cracked open slightly. “What...?”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale yelped, and almost crushed the demon in the hug that immediately followed. “Crowley, oh, my darling, oh, my love. I found you, I can’t believe—why would you do this to me?”

“I... you didn’t... you don’t...” Crowley tried, blinking sluggishly. “Thought you didn’t love me.”

“Well, of course I love you, silly demon,” Aziraphale chided through a grin and his tears. “How could I not, after everything? After all that I’ve seen you do? After everything we’ve done together? Of course I love you. Of course.”

Crowley blinked again. “Oh. Huh.” Then, “Took you long enough.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and drew Crowley in for a kiss, warm and joyful and saturated in love. “Come on, my demon. You’re in desperate need of cocoa.”

“‘S long as you kiss me again,” Crowley said, dazed, lips quirked in a smile.

“Oh, a million times a day, my love,” Aziraphale smiled.

And they went home together.

[aziraamane]

More Human AUs, anyone?

'Cuz I've got a slow-ish burn right here, and I bet it's all already been done before, but fuck it, imma post what I have so far.

In short, it's Aziraphale (Ezra) as a fussy, demisexual university librarian who's had custody of Warlock since he was a baby, and Crowley (AJ) as a high-flying yet rather reluctant socialite who drinks a bit too much and just acquired custody of his godson and nephew, Adam.

~*~

Everyone knew AJ Crowley, if not by name, then certainly by face. With his mane of magnificent auburn ringlets, ever-present sunglasses, and prominence in the tabloids, he wasn't exactly a nobody. Women wanted to be with him, men wanted to be him (some probably wanted to be with him, too) -

And every morning, there he was at the school gates, ushering a curly brown-haired boy through the main entrance, with no security or bodyguards to speak of, just a cup of coffee in one hand and the bleary look of someone who didn't much deal with early wake-ups. 

"Right. You got everything, yeah?"

"Yes…? Um…" Adam looked at his rucksack, hanging on its peg, his jacket behind it. Both shoes, yep, got those on, and his uniform. He nodded, pleased. "Got everything!"

"Great. Okay. I'll be off, then -"

"Good morning, dear fellow!" Mr Fell bustled past, touching Crowley on the arm as he went. 

"Mornin'," Crowley murmured, swigging his coffee. Nothing "good" about being awake before midday, far as he was concerned, but Mr Fell had a smile to brighten up any dreary London morning, and he'd take that whenever it came. 

Adam hopped over to the black-haired boy holding Mr Fell's hand. "Hiya, Warlock."

"Adam!" Warlock trilled.

"Wanna play?"

"But, but we gotta have register first!" Warlock looked scandalised.

Mr Fell laughed lightly and knelt to plant a kiss on Warlock's forehead. "Why don't you and Adam go sit on the carpet together? Playtime will come before you know it."

"Okay!" Warlock dropped Mr Fell's hand, grabbed Adam's, and they ran off.

Crowley scratched his head as he watched the boys go. "Still feels weird."

"Having him with you, you mean?"

"Yeah...guess so."

"You'll get used to it," smiled Mr Fell. "Shall we?"

"Yeah.”

The throng of parents parted before Crowley, as they always did. Mr Fell in tow, they descended the steps and headed for the gates. Crowley stuck his hands in the pockets of his too-tight jeans and cast a look at Mr Fell, who was humming to himself cheerily. "Off to work as usual, then?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. No rest for the wicked, as they say. And you, my dear?"

"Ugh, don't remind me."

"That bad?"

"You don't know the half of it." Crowley chucked his now empty coffee cup into a nearby bin.

Mr Fell made a sympathetic noise. "No rest for the wicked, indeed."

"An' I'm the wickedest," chuckled Crowley. They'd reached his car, a beautiful, vintage Bentley that was his utter pride and joy. "Tempt you to a lift?" he offered as he unlocked it. 

Mr Fell just smiled. "I rather like the walk, but thank you. Perhaps another time."

Crowley shrugged. It had been a little game of theirs since Adam had started at school, since he and Mr Fell had become parental acquaintances. "Suit yourself." 

He slipped into the driver's seat without further conversation, taking note of Mr Fell's cheery wave in the rearview mirror as he drove away.

One of these days, he'd actually find out the man's first name. 

~*~

It was Ezra, by the way; Ezra Fell. His mother would tell you he's a lovely Jewish boy, if she were still alive to say so, and he would blush and flap his hands in a fluster, but what he was, without a doubt, was a thirty-five year old with bright blue eyes, plump pink cheeks, and the mannerisms and dress sense of someone twice his age.

And he had gotten sidetracked in the park by the delightful sight of two swans and their cygnets, and subsequently was an hour late for work. 

Again.

"Ezra!" whined Newt from behind the checking-out desk. "Why are you like this?"

"Terribly sorry, dear boy," Ezra replied as he slid into his seat. "Must have had my head in the clouds."

"I had to use the computer."

"Is the poor thing still alive?"

"The screen went blue. I had to call IT," whispered Newt in a horrified tone. It wasn't that Newt - Newton Pulsifer, to give him his full name - was bad at his job, exactly, but, well...technology wasn't his strong point. He was in his early twenties and a recent graduate at the university in which they worked, but rather liked the place, so he'd stayed on as an apprentice librarian, and tried to do as much on paper as he could.

Ezra patted his hand sympathetically. "How about you pop the kettle on. I'll man the desk for a while."

Newt immediately brightened. "Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks, Ezra."

Technology was rather alien to Ezra, too, but he, at least, could touch fingers to keyboard without potentially blowing the whole thing up. He'd still prefer to do things manually, but, as he often lamented, it wasn't the Nineties anymore. Sighing at the nostalgic twinge, he scooted his chair over to the computer, saw the screen back to normal, and ever so slowly, typed in his login details. 

Newt reappeared, holding two mugs of tea, and set one on the drinks coaster next to Ezra's elbow. "Don't forget," he said as he leaned against the desk, "you've got Introduction to Library Facilities at eleven -" Ezra groaned, for he had forgotten, "-and I've got training at twelve, so I reckon you'll be by yourself for most of the day."

"Wonderful. Marvellous. Simply tickety-boo." 

"Sorry."

"Not your fault, dear boy. Oh, I really must get Gabriel to stop sending all these students my way…"

"I swear, Ezra, if it weren't for the books, you'd never be here at all."

Ezra sipped his tea with a wry smile. "I daresay you'd be right."

(Part 2 here)

[eveningstarcatcher]

Ineffable Valentines Day 14: Be My Valentine

When Aziraphale woke the next morning Crowley was still asleep, arms wound around his plump middle, chin resting on Aziraphale’s shoulder. The angel snuggled back against the demon’s chest, placing his hand over Crowley’s and breathed in the scent of him, deep and earthy, smokey and spiced. He closed his eyes and basked in the warmth of the sun spilling in through the  split in the curtain. His heart felt full in a way he never knew was possible.

Of course he was a being of love, as angels were intended to be, but this was so different. To be able to wake up next to Crowley, to confess his love, to reach out and touch, to be filled with love from another being as much as he was giving, it was intoxicating, addicting. He would never tire of it, never get enough of it. He would remind Crowley of his love at every opportunity, would tell him and show him and reassure him every minute of every day.

He drifted off to sleep again, dreaming of all the ways he would demonstrate his love.

Crowley woke around late morning. His angel’s back was pressed against his chest and Crowley had an arm around his waist, holding him close. Aziraphale was still asleep, breathing deep and steady, a soft smile playing at his lips.

“What’re you dreaming about, angel? I hope it’s me,” Crowley whispered. The sun was peeking in through the curtain panels that hung over the window. A shaft of warm, golden light lay across Aziraphale’s soft features, framing his head in a heavenly halo of pale curls. The soft roses on his cheeks all but sparkled in the light, like he had been dusted in flakes of pure gold.

Crowley nuzzled against Aziraphale’s neck and placed three sweet kisses there.

After 6,000 years of breaking rules, of being a demon who loved, his angel was here, in his arms, asleep and vulnerable and knowing he was safe in this demon’s embrace. Aziraphale, who had tried to stay loyal to Heaven for so long, who had bitten back the questions that lay heavy on his tongue, who had defied heaven’s orders from a place of good intentions and angelic love, trusted him, loved him. It was almost more than he could bear. He had fallen in love with Aziraphale completely in Eden and had had countless fantasies of confessing his feelings, touching the angel, kissing him, but all of that paled in comparison to this simple domesticity they had found together.

He kissed the angel’s cheek and wriggled out of the sheets, shivering as his bare feet hit the cold wood of the floor. He suck away, knowing Azirpahale wouldn’t be asleep long without him. He had found that he enjoyed sleep, but wouldn’t do it on his own, only with Crowley. The demon wasn’t sure he was even aware of it, but he wasn’t going to complain. He treasured every moment he was able to spend with Aziraphale, especially when he could get lost in the feel, the warmth, the scent of the one he loved.

When Aziraphale woke again it was nearly noon. Crowley was gone, but had left a note on the side table. Aziraphale rolled onto his back and reached for it, smiling at the familiar scrawling handwriting that danced across the page.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my angel

-C

Aziraphale pressed the note against his heart, which had fluttered in his chest. Oh, to be loved was a glorious thing indeed.

He replaced the note on the side table and swung his legs out of bed. He stood and ran a hand through his hair, then froze. There was a line of rose petals leading from the bed to the door. Azirphale grinned and followed it from the bedroom to the living room, down the stairs, and into the bookshop.

He hardly recognized it. The room seemed to be caught in a haze of romance, vines cling to bookshelves, potted trees stood tall and proud, and flowers were everywhere, creating the most enchanting forest in the middle of his shop.

Crowley was seated at the piano, dressed a suit that Aziraphale was sure must be new. A sleek black coat lay over a pressed white shirt and white trousers. Around his neck was a thin tie of gold and silver that disappeared behind a crimson vest. From his skillful hands flowed a romantic tune that must have been Debussy, but Aziraphale’s focus could not be pulled away from the sight before him long enough to remember its name. He softly padded over to the piano and leaned his elbow on it, supporting his chin as he admired the man before him, long red curls falling over his shoulders, his face soft, eyes closed, glasses nowhere in sight.

He was a heavenly vision and Aziraphale’s  heart fluttered again, beating against his chest and causing a breath to escape from his lips.

Crowley opened his eyes, but kept playing, steady and gentle. His eyes didn’t look at the keys, but focused on the tartan pajama clad angel before him.

“I got your note,” Azirpahale said gently after the last note had rung and faded out. “This is beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful,” Crowley was still staring at Aziraphale, unhindered adoration in his eyes.

“Oh, that would be  you, my dear. You are very striking in that suit. I’m still in my pajamas!” Azirpahale laughed, gesturing to himself for emphasis.

“You in pajamas is one of my favorite things, dove. I’m the only one who gets to see you like this and I can’t get enough of it.” Crowley pulled Aziraphale onto his lap. “I’m glad you like the suit. Picked it out just for you, for today. Have something else for you, too.” Crowley reached behind his back and pulled a out bouquet of flowers. They were lovely, fragrant and bright, a rainbow of colors in different varieties.

“Flowers!” Aziraphales gasped, a hand flying to cover his mouth, the other placed over his heart. “You are a true romantic Anthony J. Crowley!” He took the flowers reverently and inhaled the sweet scent, eyes fluttering closed.

“Only when it comes to you, my angel.” Crowley waved his hand and the flowers were in a vase on the piano, sitting next to the sheet music open on the stand.

“Rose petals, music, flowers, a brand new suit, I think you’re spoiling me!” Aziraphale teased.

“I’ve been spoiling you for thousands of years, but I’m glad you’ve finally noticed,” Crowley shot back with a warm smile.

“My dearest, darling, I love you.” Aziraphale pressed his palm to Crowley’s cheek, running a thumb over his sharp cheekbone.

“I love you so damn much, angel.” He brushed a chaste kiss against Aziraphale’s lips. “Better get dressed, we’ve got reservations.

“Reservations?! I thought you didn’t want to go out for Valentine’s day!” Aziraphale’s  jaw had dropped, his eyes sparkling.

“I don’t think I’d mind the whole universe seeing you on my arm, knowing that you’re mine.” Crowley pulled the angel against his chest tightly for a few long moments, then released him. “Now, get dressed.”

Azirpahale nodded and flew up the stairs, pulling his new suit out of his wardrobe. They would make a handsome pair, Crowley wearing dark over light and Azirpahale wearing the opposite.

He pulled on the dark trousers, swiftly buttoned the pale blue shirt and cream vest. He carefully tied the sleek black bow tie around his neck and shrugged on the cream jacket, smoothing it down over the thin black lines that made up the wide tartan pattern.

He brushed his hair and made final adjustments in the mirror before returning to the bookshop.

Crowley stood in the center of the room, waiting for him.

“So handsome,” he complimented when Aziraphale reentered the room. “Here,”

He held a box out to the angel, wrapped in red and gold.

“More chocolates?” Aziraphale was glowing.

“Yeah. You liked the other ones so much I had to get you more,” Crowley shrugged.

“Thank you, my dear.”

“And one more thing,” Crowley snapped and waved his hand in the air in a quick flick, producing a single red rose. “I promised you I’d get you a fresh one.”

“That you did,” Aziraphale concurred as Crowley pinned it to his lapel.

When the task was complete, Crowley stepped back and took Aziraphal'es soft, sturdy hands in his.

“Aziraphale, I fell in love with you thousands of years ago and I will love you until long after this world has turned into a puddle of burning goo. I know that you love me, too, which is so much more than I could have ever expected or asked for and not a day will go by that I’m not in awe of that fact. My angel, my dove, my Aziraphale, will you be my Valentine?”

“Yes! For today and for eternity!” Azirpahale whispered through the tears that trickled down his cheeks.

Crowley swept him up in his arms and kissed him.

After all, isn’t that what Valentines are for?

For @mielpetite‘s @ineffable-valentines Also on A03

[ineffable-bisexual]

Okay but Crowley takes up painting in retirement. Like, imagine he just ends up binge watching Bob Ross on Netflix and then suddenly bursts into Aziraphale’s study screaming, “ANGEL, I MUST PAINT!”

He doesn’t use any of his “magic” either, he practices because it’s what Bob Ross would have wanted!!

Yeah, so he fucks up! So what if he smears paint everywhere, on his face, his clothes, Azirphale’s clothes (”Sorry, love.”)? Who cares that he’s going through canvasses and sketch pads full of rough drawings? Yeah, he collects palettes. Of course he experiments with watercolors and oil paints!

Crowley listens to his soul music collection while he paints, too. Blares it the hell up until Aziraphale complains that he can’t concentrate on reading. It’s cool though because Adam tells him about noise-cancelling headphones and Aziraphale gets to listen to his classical music and read in peace while Sam and Dave play in Crowley’s studio.

Months go by, and every day Crowley wakes up, kisses his husband good morning, gets a GIANT cup of coffee and goes back to painting. He emerges only to have his meals with Aziraphale, and if he can twist his arm a bit, his angel takes him for a walk because “Some air would do you good, dear, and perhaps you’ll be inspired.”

Aziraphale buys him books to study and brings him hot cocoa or lemonade to his studio where he has to be careful not to trip on the old bed sheets that are lining the floor. Whenever he brings him refreshments, Crowley quickly throws a sheet over his work, refusing to let his angel see his work in progress.

“It’s not quite a painting yet, love,” he explains.

Aziraphale only laughs. “Well, do let me know when it’s ready.”

One afternoon, Crowley comes into the den, where Aziraphale is reading. He is in his speckled painting smock and his hair is disheveled.

“Angel?” 

“Yes, dearest?”

“It’s ready.”

“What is?”

“My painting. You can see it now if you’d like.”

Aziraphale instantly closes his book and gives him a grin. “Of course I want to see it!”

Crowley winces and smirks. “It’s not very good.”

“I’m sure it is, love,” his angel says. 

Crowley sighs. “Come on, then. Be gentle.”

“You’re so dramatic.” Aziraphale grasps his hand and follows him to the studio.

He pauses in the door and he softly gasps.

A huge canvas is resting on the easel and it’s an exquisite rendition of a garden.

No, wait a moment...it’s the Garden.

Aziraphale steps closer to it. “Oh...darling.”

It’s just as he remembered it: lush trees of all sorts, animals grazing and frolicking, and fruit-bearing bushes scattered here and there. There was a glorious stream running through the Garden and he could make out the silhouette of a large shoal of fish under the surface, and birds of all kinds in a bright blue sky.

“Crowley...this is...marvelous.”

“Angel...” 

“I know you’ll never believe me, but love, this is...beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. You’ve captured every detail! It’s amazing.”

Crowley finally grinned. “I don’t remember too much, but that particular day is one I won’t forget.”

“How so?”

Crowley stepped to his side and pointed to the left corner of the canvas. “See that wall there?”

Aziraphale looked and realized that it was the Eastern Gate, and upon it, overlooking the desert, were two figures with wings.

“Oh, yes...” the angel smiled sweetly and looked at him. “I’ll never forget that day either.”

“It was before the first rain,” Crowley said, linking his arm with Aziraphale, “and there upon the Eastern Gate, I met an angel with a misplaced flaming sword.”

Aziraphale giggled.

“And...I didn’t know it then, but...that flustered being in white seemed to pop up everywhere I went.”

“Dear, please...”

Crowley kissed his cheek. “From that day in the Garden, to when he put a ring on my finger, to where he is now.”

The angel’s eyes stung with tears and he kissed him.

He turned back to the painting and admired the figures at the Eastern Gate for another moment.

“I love you, my angel.”

“I love you, too, darling. And I’m so proud of you.”

Crowley looked down at his smeared smock with a bashful smile. “Thank you...” he muttered.

[king-of-swords-57]

Loverboy

(What if your life was a dream?)

A lovely boy

Mr. Zirah Fell saw him, the poor boy trying to hide behind the bookshelves.

He looked young, maybe 16 or 17 years old, natural wild red hair hidden under the black cap, the red glasses hiding beautiful honey eyes almost golden, sharp pupils, nervously standing, clumsy hands playing with his school shirt

(as lovely as a red rose about to open)

the boy had been through the bookstore every day for a couple of months, had a little foreign accent and looked so new in the city, a pretty boy ,an inexperienced stalker.

Mr. Fell was delighted with this little stalker

He stood in the Coffe Shop across the street, drinking a glass of apple juice, a pair of red headphones on his neck, looking directly at the window next to Zirah, holding a notebook and carbon pencils

They made Zirah want to pose, knowing that the boy was drawing him

Mr. Fell did not understand, what could be interesting about him? an old bookseller who spent half his thirty without much glory

oh but this young man was so insistent, entering his shop from 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm, walking without buying anything, rather, he seemed to stagger on the shoulders of the customers, menacing, the tall boy trying to look like a bully, determined to dissuade them of buying something

so lovely, so suave, so cute

leaving dollars, tickets for book fairs, coupons for tea from the corner store in the books that Zirah kept on his desk

Discreetly approaching the cup of hot cocoa trying to steal some sips, Poor boy seemed to have cat's tongue, He made sure to keep his cocoa not very hot since then, even adding a couple of ice cubes and less sugar on hot days when his stalker spent too much time outside

he also made sure to turn on the heater on rainy days, because the darling was trembling in his leather jacket

They made the bookseller feel like a courted maiden

his little rufian could one day kidnap him

Is it still a kidnapping if he goes by his own will? or should Mr. Fell be the kidnapper?

let's leave those thoughts for later, when his darling finishes school, education is important

it was fine, to see the boy wander around him, being so obvious, make the heart of Zirah so tender

Everything was so boring, so pointless, it had always been that way, until he saw this beauty in front of his shop

All good, until it was not

Something changed ,then Mr. Fell starts to notice several things

the boy seems too thin, too tired, stressed, there are dark semi circles under the red glasses

(Zirah wants to hide this little darling from the world, wants to feed him with a lot of food and desserts, wants to wrap him in tartan blanket, wants to kiss his hair, the Fell family is so old and so rich, Zirah the only heir, could buy any whim, pay any amount for his rose, he has a large house in the countryside outside london, with a very very high fence, hard to pass, whether you try to enter or leave)

and when the dear boy arrives with a black eye, a busted lip and badly hidden nail marks under the silk scarf, Mr. Fell could no longer control himself

There was no one in the store that afternoon, on a Friday, the bookseller turned the sign from open to closed in silence, looked at the darling who was looking at an astronomy encyclopedia

(He made a mental note about looking for more books on these topics, he already knew that the boy liked fantasy novels and the guides of medicinal plants and gardening)

-Are you looking for something young man?-

-ah, mm, I ... I was just looking around and-your eyes ah are so blue, cobalt blue, ah but, but they have spots of Arctic blue, you, you look like an angel- The little stalker jumped, looking directly at Mr. Fell, his mouth spilling sugar without being able to stop, good boy, sincere boy

-What's your name boy?-

-I, You, Angel...-

-Darling please, your name-

-My name is Raphael, but, I don't like it, you can call me Crowley-

Crowley, His beautiful rose was called Crowley, perfect

-So tell me dear Crowley, tell me who hurt you, please?-

Zirah had made bad calculations, this might seem like a teenager on the outside, but he was just a helpless child

-Mom, she was angry, I've been late and she say father left because of me and-

his dear child

-oh beautiful child don't say more, everything will be fine from now-

-Angel...I , think I love you! don't leave me angel, not like dad-

-Shhhh Darling, Come, let's go upstairs, I have a very comfortable room, with a big bed, and many pillows, would you like to take a nap? -

-Yes angel please!!!-

-Call me Zirah dear-

while the beloved rested, Mr. Fell could do a quick inspection of his backpack, carefully examine his student card, disappear from the map that stupid woman, empty a house, and pretend to be Crowley's father while calling his school

Nobody knew more about a young man named Raphael Archangeel , his disappearance was never reported either

Mr. Fell moved out of London with his nephew Anthony J. Crowley

Despite criticism, Mr. and Mr. Fell marry in a foreign country

Years later, when a handsome man leans next to her husband's bed, crying for his loss

An angel opens his eyes

-oh my dear demon, no matter what form you are, you always wake up the worst of me, would you let me show you?-

And with some grace and some soul

Golden Snake Eyes Open

-Same My Angel, same-

(The Apocalypse took more of his kindness, human life brought more shadows to his sins, everything was worth it, he still didn't know why he didn't fall, but he may no longer be able to "fall" when the world is a new creation of the antichrist, completely different administration)

Aziraphale kisses his Redhead and knows that this time not even death can separate them

[patricianandclerk]

☀️ (aziraphale/crowley) having sex in a sauna/bathhouse is all fun and games until a certain cold-blooded Someone gets a little too sleepy and can barely keep his eyes open...... he's doing his best...... you can wake him up aziraphale i believe in u......

It was warm in the bath house. Very warm.

It had been Aziraphale’s idea, and when he’d suggested it, Crowley’s skin had been alight with excitement, that Aziraphale would suggest something so public, so kinky. Sure, it was a bit of a cliché, and had been for the past few thousand years, but cliché was alright with Crowley, if it meant something... in public. 

Except...

It was warm in the bath house. Aziraphale had managed to get the key from a friend, because it was usually closed on Tuesdays, and the air was hot and thick with a pleasant humidity that lingered on Crowley’s skin as he settled on Aziraphale’s lap in the sauna, nuzzling against the angel’s neck. 

Aziraphale’s fingers were playing over Crowley’s lower back, sliding through the moisture on his skin, and his fingers felt nice, but the steam felt like it was permeating him, and Crowley let his eyelids, which felt heavy, close shut as he relaxed against Aziraphale’s chest.

“Dear?” Aziraphale asked. 

“Mmm,” Crowley hummed, lazily rocking his hips against Aziraphale’s belly even as he stifled a yawn against Aziraphale’s neck. He felt like melting. The heat was glorious, beautiful, and it was seeping under his skin, making him want to curl closer to the angel and--

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said sternly.

“Hm?”

“You’ve got scales.”

“Oh.”

“Are you asleep?”

“Mmm... No...”

“Oh, for--” Aziraphale stood, hooking his hands under Crowley’s thighs, and Crowley groaned as the dislodgement, shoving his nose more sharply against Aziraphale’s neck as Aziraphale carried him out of the sauna room. For a moment or two, Crowley complained for the sudden cold, wriggling and hissing in his place, but then Aziraphale stepped down into the jacuzzi, and Crowley let out a sigh of satisfaction at the warm water against his skin, the pleasant bubble of the jets. “I didn’t bring you here so you could sleep, you devious little serpent.”

“It’s niccce,” Crowley hissed, his tongue flicking against Aziraphale’s neck, and he heard Aziraphale chuckle, patting his arse affectionately under the water. 

“Beastly,” Aziraphale murmured against his ear, but then he kissed Crowley’s temple, and Crowley curled more tightly against him. 

[iris-writes-things]

Two Guys and a Baby: Day 7 part 1

Read on AO3, FF.net or under the cut, or read up to 2 chapters ahead as a $1 Patreon patron!

You smoked to hide your shaking fingers. You wore sunglasses to hide the fact that the very sight of his shining smile made you tear up. You dressed in black to mourn something that never was, but could have been. Should have been. You got up and tried again.

Or, Crowley asks Ezra on a date. But not that kind of date.

Chapter 9 of 20 Ongoing 2700 words Romance/Humor

That morning, Adam didn’t wake to bright rays of sunshine warming his soft cheeks, nor did he wake from his internal clock telling him it was time to get up and give Crowley an earful about requiring breakfast ASAP.

Instead, he woke from sweet tones coming from Crowley’s ancient tape deck.

‘I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things…’

This was because Crowley was really much better at brainstorming when he was in the right mood, and nothing quite set the mood like just the right Queen song. After all, Queen had at least one song for every possible human emotion, so desperate times often called for Best of Queen. 

‘We can do the tango just for two…’

His mum had given him the cassette tape on his tenth birthday and he had been over the moon. They didn’t have much to spend at the time for reasons Crowley would rather not think about and his mother had been too busy for much of anything for those same reasons, but when he woke up that fateful morning in 1997 he found a neatly wrapped, brittle plastic box sitting on his nightstand and the gesture had meant the world to him. It was in those years that Crowley learned that true love isn’t proclaimed; it’s shown. Not in grand gestures or melodrama, but in the mundane. In a birthday present waiting for you on your nightstand, in packed lunches sitting in the fridge, in bringing your crush chocolate croissants after a massive cock-up.

‘I can serenade and gently play on your heartstrings…’

But as effective as actions were in expressing one’s soul crushing love for another, they were terrifying. They had terrified. Two years ago, he had almost kissed the love of his life, but he’d hesitated. He didn’t know if Ezra wanted it too. He hesitated and was met with Ezra’s painfully blue eyes darting around the bar. He was nervous. He was shaking. And then he paid the tab and booked it out of there. How do you come back from that?

‘Be your valentino just for you…’

The answer to that was, you didn’t. You tore down everything you had painstakingly built up in one fell swoop, and then pathetically, when everything slotted together again, you started pathetically building things back up again, like some kind of wonky Lego castle. You smoked to hide your shaking fingers. You wore sunglasses to hide the fact that the very sight of his shining smile made you tear up. You dressed in black to mourn something that never was, but could have been. Should have been.

‘Ooh love, ooh loverboy…’

You got up and tried again.

*

Ezra had always had a way with the written word. Not so much the spoken word. This was why he had Gabriel for communicating with potential publishers, and his pseudonym to hide behind. It was why he couldn’t convince his family that writing novels was a perfectly respectable pastime, and that, despite not being the most virtuous, Anthony was actually a genuinely good person. 

‘Dearest Anthony…’

But what good were words, even the written ones if you couldn’t find the right ones? Because how did you tell a man you’ve known for a decade that you’ve been in love with him all that time? How would he explain that he hadn’t told him earlier? Why he had wasted their collective time by being a coward? It didn’t bear thinking about; it just wasn’t justifiable.

‘I’m sorry about the way I’ve failed to act on my feelings before…’

He grunted as he hoisted a stack of books from the box in the doorway of his shop and placed it on the new arrivals table, rearranging it as he tried to worry about other things. Things had been slow for the shop lately, but he’d been keeping afloat well enough. The recession hadn’t forced him out of business; the dawn of the ereader hadn’t, either; a slow month was nothing. People would be gearing up for their beach vacations any time now and his books would sell like anything. Well, his books… He chuckled. It would still take well over a year until his, or rather, Aziraphale’s book would hit shelves, which was a tremendous relief. Sure, he had read the book and project Anathema had left at the shop, but he would have to revise almost the entire story, especially now that he knew who his subject’s last surviving descendants were. He wanted to do right by Anathema, her mother and Anthony.

‘The simple facts are these:’

Everything always seemed to gravitate back to him, like the universe revolved around him. Creative Anthony, who found joy in drawing things for him and, once upon a time many years ago, would sneakily sketch him. Happy Anthony, who made his chest swell and burst with butterflies with every dorky, snarky, nervous laugh of his. 

‘You are my sun; beautiful, bright and blinding. You caught me in your orbit many years ago and I would be forever unable to escape. However, a satellite,’ no, that’s not right, ‘a moon of all of my accumulated fears eclipsed your light that warmed my world…’ No. No, that won’t do, either.

Ezra wondered briefly if his books, should they suddenly become sentient (he hoped they wouldn’t), would be jealous of his feelings for the other man. In fact, he hoped they would be happy for him, and quickly decided that they would be more than okay with a break from his fussing, but his admittedly odd train of thought was interrupted by the jingling of the bell over the door.

‘Dearest Anthony, I love—’

“Ezra Fell, you absolute genius, you’ve done it again!” Gabriel cried as he strode into the shop.

“Ex-excuse me?” he stammered.

“The publisher. They want your book. Turns out ‘medieval, strong female-led with a touch of the supernatural’ is exactly what they were looking for. They agreed to all of our terms in regards to royalties and compensation.”

A feeling of pride swelled within him. His book. Exactly what they were looking for. He couldn’t help but grin as even Gabriel seemed to smile down on him. “Well, did they give you any notes?”

“They wanted more from the witch’s perspective, which I told them you can do,” Gabriel started.

“Yes, of course, that will be no problem at all,” Ezra confirmed excitedly.

“And they want you to do some public appearances to promote the book. Mostly just signings.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Ezra, it’s in the conditions.”

“I don’t care what’s in the conditions, I won’t do it!” Ezra cried. Just now noticing that he was growing slightly lightheaded, he drew in slow, deep breaths to steady himself. His mouth set into a thin line. Gabriel frowned at him.

“If this is still about your family,” the American tried. “I suggest you let that go. You’re forty-one, what can they do to you? Really?”

Ezra shrugged but looked down in defeat. There was nothing they could logically do to him, and yet he was afraid. The feeling of pride he felt before was as good as gone. Drained completely by the idea of having to be publicly known. 

He didn’t write for the attention, for the fame, even less so for the fortune. He wrote because he loved it and there was no other option for him than to write. “I just don’t like being in the spotlight…” he mumbled, and Gabriel would have to take his word for it.

“Okay, fine, I’ll try to negotiate it out of the conditions.”

“Thank you,” Ezra mumbled faintly.

“Right, so, in other news,” Gabriel said, trying to turn the mood around. “Ever found out if ‘he was really into you’, or whatever that silly magazine said?”

Ugh. This again. Ezra buried his face in his hands, not really wanting to answer, but he nodded nonetheless.

“So? What did he say? Did you ask him out?”

He shook his head, face still firmly planted in the palms of his hands.

“Oh my god, you’re unbelievable. You asked him if he liked you, didn’t you?”

He shook his head again.

“Then how? How do you know?” Gabriel asked, some exasperation in his voice.

Finally, Ezra looked up, frowning. “His niece told me, alright? She told me all sorts of things. That he loves me. That he’s loved me for about a decade, and, you know, I’ve loved him just as long. But she said he loved me too much to want to risk our friendship, which nearly did go down the drain the last time we almost acted on our feelings. And then—”

The bell over the door jingled.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Speak of the devil and he appears. 

In the doorway of the shop stood Anthony. Adam on one arm, a carton with two paper coffee cups in the other hand, and a paper bag clamped between his upper arm and his chest. Ezra recognized the logo on the bag from a few days prior. It was undoubtedly filled with more chocolate croissants and other delectable baked goods as their smell slowly but surely filled the shop.

Ezra glanced up at Gabriel, whose eyes were fixed intently on Anthony. He didn’t show much of a reaction, but his lips didn’t curl down in disdain. He quickly glanced at Ezra, quirked his lips, then turned his gaze back to Anthony.

“You must be ‘him’, then?” Gabriel asked, extending his hand to Crowley, who gestured his full hands. Adam recoiled slightly.

“I must be ‘who’, then?”

“Ezra’s—”

“Artist!” Ezra interrupted. He got up from the stool behind the counter and hurried up to them, taking the carton and paper bag out of Anthony’s hold. “He’s the artist I want to make the cover. Anthony Crowley.”

Finally, Gabriel shook his hand. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“I mean, I guess,” Anthony almost stammered. “I hope Ezra hasn’t been overselling my work too much.”

“Not at all. I look forward to reviewing your portfolio with Ezra and the publisher. Anyway, I gotta fly. Ezra, we’ll discuss those re-negotiations later. You gentlemen have a nice day.” 

Anthony turned and stared at the man as he walked by the windows, before looking to Ezra and mumbling “Well, he’s a character, isn’t he? Your agent?”

“How did you know? You’ve never met before.”

“No, but you’ve talked about him before. ‘This unnatural glint of perpetual jolliness in his eyes’.” Anthony impeccably imitated his tone and speech. “Or something, you said. Well, he fits the bill,” he mumbled.

A shudder ran up Ezra’s spine. 

“See? Gives even you the chills.” 

Adam giggled.

Ezra shrugged. “Perhaps that’s how he does his job so well. Anyway, will you have some of this today? I’d feel horrible to eat all of it,” he said as he held up the bag.

“If you insist.” Anthony waved his hand noncommittally.

“I do.”

He walked over to the counter and put down the carton with the cups to open the bag and see what’s inside, but not before he breathed in the rich, decadent scent of the food inside. There were definitely chocolate croissants in there.

*

Crowley couldn’t help but smile at the look of sheer delight on Ezra’s face as he dug into the pastries. There was a child-like sort of honesty about him that made him such an open book. When Ezra liked something, you knew, and if Ezra hated something, you knew. Currently, as far as Crowley could tell, he was on cloud nine, and therefore, so was Crowley. 

This was much to the frustration of young Adam, for who Crowley had been picking bits off a regular croissant, feeding them to him. He made a noise.

“Ngk.” Crowley tore his gaze away from Ezra to turn to Adam. “Sorry to keep you waiting, your highness,” he mumbled as he tore off another bit of the croissant and fed it to Adam’s waiting mouth before taking a larger chunk for himself. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring until Adam made him painfully aware.

*

Painfully aware of the eyes burning holes in him, Ezra nibbled on one of the chocolate croissants. Anthony was definitely staring at him. There was no denying it, as alien as it felt. Ezra wasn’t much of a looker and he was well aware of that fact. He was never stared at, no, ogled so openly… so… so… obscenely. Did Anthony always look at him like this? How had he not noticed before?

It wasn’t a bad feeling per se, but it was quite overwhelming to experience for the first time. Ezra wasn’t sure how much he could take of it in the long run. He had to speak up. Had to say something. Come on Ezra, he thought, how hard could it be? He may be the man that you fancy an awful lot, but he’s also your friend, and friends trust each other and tell each other the truth. He took a sip of his lukewarm cocoa to calm his nerves.

‘He cares enough about you not to want to risk what you have.’

Then what kind of friend did that make Ezra, who would give anything for Anthony to be his?

*

There had been a change. Something was bothering Ezra, Crowley could tell. Even when he’d been so happy just moments before. Something would have to be done about that. He gave Adam the final bit of the croissant and settled him down in the windowseat before getting up and walking up to the counter. Whatever it was that was dragging Ezra down would have to square the fuck up.

“Angel, what’s wrong?”

*

‘Your staring makes me nervous,' Ezra wanted to say, but didn’t.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Ezra mumbled instead, trying to keep his cool. He swiveled in his stool and wiped his hands on his trousers. They were growing sweaty.

“Are you sure?” Anthony asked. He tilted his head. With his dark clothes and shining, amber eyes, he looked all the more like a concerned black cat. “There’s nothing I can do to make it better?”

Ezra felt a blush creep to his face and he quickly broke eye contact. “S-silly Anthony, you know you don’t have to do anything for me. You know I’ll be quite alright on my own.”

*

This, Crowley doubted.

“Ezra, what would you say if I, after this whole business with Adam, took you out for dinner? Properly. Like back in the day. We could go to the Ritz,” Crowley suggested as casually as he could. Ezra’s gaze snapped back up at him.

“How would you— Can you even—” Ezra stammered, but finally summarized his thoughts in a single “Why?”

Crowley’s gaze turned towards the floor. “Because I want to make things better with you. I went too fast, I hurt you, and then I didn’t even call the next day.”

*

Ezra took a shaky breath as he tried to formulate an answer. “Well, it’s not like I contacted you either…” he trailed off.

“Well, yes, but I scared you off—”

“You didn’t! I—” Ezra started, but he caught himself, glanced further away and took a moment to reorganize his thoughts. “Alright, perhaps in that moment, you did. But… It was just, you know…” He gestured his hands wildly in hopes of illustrating the point he was trying to make. Anthony nodded, but his eyes told Ezra that it didn’t really land. “I’d very much like for things to go back to the way they were before.” Ezra said, lying, but knowing it would keep them within the safety of their comfort zone, he settled for it. “I’ll go to the Ritz with you after all this.”

Anthony smiled the brightest he had all day.

“On the condition that you let me return the favour some time after. It’s a real pleasure just seeing you again, and if you’re going to treat me to thank me for barely helping you at all, I feel like I should get to do the same.”

Anthony looked taken aback, but tried very hard not to show it. It didn’t work out. “Sure?”

Ezra smiled. “Good. Then it’s a date.”