Chapter Text
It took about seven minutes for their bodies to rally. And then Crowley was bending Aziraphale over the desk, just like he wanted.
Crowley fucked him into the tabletop, over the one-hundred-and-something sticky notes that Asa had arranged previously, the cups of pens and markers rolling around and spilling on the floor. Pounded into that sweet, plush arse amidst cries of “harder” and “fuck me” that made Crowely plenty glad he’d just come ten minutes ago. Only in his filthiest fantasies did Aziraphale ever use the words “fuck me.” And even then, Crowley had felt guilty afterward for imagining something so unrealistic.
“Oh, yes, yes, fuck me, Crowley—harder, yes, like that, like that—”
Crowley did. He did it so hard, Aziraphale could barely speak. Aziraphale still tried to, though. He had a mouth on him, Crowley was finding out. It was terribly, terribly hot.
“Yes, ruin me, split me open, fill me up—”
“Jesus,” Crowley swore, the desk legs groaning under the slam of their combined weight. His teeth were chattering again. This might be a thing with him. With Anthony, rather. “Jesus, that’s hot—”
“God, I love you inside me—god—”
It was fun to blaspheme together.
(Although perhaps it wasn’t quite so accurate to call it blasphemy, anymore.)
“Fuck,” Crowley gasped, all his muscles taut, driving his hips with a force he didn’t know he could possess. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come. Oh shit.”
“Yes, yes, do it, fucking come—”
Crowley groaned and spilled. His hips regressed to stuttered jerks as Aziraphale’s arse clenched and clenched, milking him dry. And then Aziraphale howled—there was no other word for it—his own hand under his body, fisting his cock, spattering come all over the underside of the desk.
They collapsed panting on the tabletop, covered in sweat and sticky notes.
“Jesus,” Crowley swore again. He slid off to the side, supporting his weight with his hands on the wood. “You really are full of surprises, aren’t you?”
Aziraphale was still bent over, arms and head resting on the table. He turned his face toward Crowley. “That was exhilarating.”
Crowley gave a half-laugh. He didn’t have enough breath to do a full one. There was a sticky note attached to Aziraphale’s forehead, by his hairline, and Crowley plucked it off. Aziraphale smiled at him, then closed his eyes in an image of post-coital bliss worthy of Crowley’s best dreams.
Crowley glanced down at the note. His brow creased a little as he brought it closer to his face. The handwriting was indeed Asa’s; this was Asa’s desk, where he did most of the work on his book.
The note said, Reunite at Tadfield or pub?
Crowley cocked his head. He leaned over, squinting at some of the others still stuck to the tabletop:
Book of Life: develop more pages
Which ice creams do they eat?
C. plays Monopoly?
Replacement for “lead balloon” (historical accuracy)
Crowley’s mouth twitched. “Angel, are you—”
—writing about us? he wanted to ask, because if it hadn’t been clear before that Aziraphale was influencing Asa’s book, it sure was now. But Aziraphale had mistaken Crowley’s lean toward the notes as an invitation to kiss his neck, and so he moaned instead.
“Am I what?” Aziraphale murmured. He kissed Crowley’s neck again, sucking a little on the sensitive skin there.
Crowley closed his eyelids, his own version of post-coital bliss. Er. Make that pre-coital. “Are you wanting to go again?”
“I was just thinking… perhaps you should try it.” Aziraphale’s breath brushed across his ear. “Over the desk, I mean.”
Crowley’s whole body flushed with heat. Well, nearly his whole body. His cock was apparently immune to the suggestion.
He checked Anthony’s watch. It was a cheap one, water resistant to only fifty meters, the silicone band discolored from use. “Gimme another seven minutes?”
Aziraphale chuckled. It was a beautiful laugh, unblemished and unguarded. “Mmm. How about six?”
The sticky notes fluttered to the floor.
Okay, so six minutes had been ambitious.
Twenty minutes later, they’d forgone the idea of the desk and were banging on the rug instead. Reason being, they wanted to be face to face. And there was more space on the rug, especially after they’d pushed the coffee table out of the way. More comfortable. At least until their fifty-plus-year-old human bodies had to get up off the floor.
In the interim, Crowley had made endless fun of Aziraphale’s dirty mouth. Aziraphale had blushed, all the while knowing that Crowley only did it because he loved it so much. Crowley knew Aziraphale knew because Aziraphale did it again, on the floor, with Crowley’s legs in the air and his cock in Crowley’s arse.
“You like it when I fuck you like this?” Aziraphale asked. His tone was conversational. He gave a nice, pointed thrust on the word “fuck.”
“Ghrhgh,” Crowley replied, already so far gone that he was incoherent. Aziraphale was going slower this time, but purposefully, giving it to him as deep as he could then gradually drawing back out before giving it to him again.
“What was that, dearest?”
“I love it,” Crowley managed. “Fucking—love it.”
Aziraphale smiled, so happily, and he did it again.
Crowley whimpered. He was still sore from the time before. It felt exquisite.
“You think we can get your cock to come by itself, again?” Aziraphale tilted his head. He considered it, Crowley’s cock, like he was determining whether to sample an eclair or a cream puff. He thrust. Crowley’s cock bobbed, slapping back on his stomach, smearing precome all over the trail of hair beneath his belly button. “Or shall I use my—oh, what did you call it—” another thrust “—‘dirty, filthy mouth.’”
Crowley’s cock pretty much decided that one for them. The thought alone—it was too much, and Crowley was spasming again, spurting up into the air. He groaned at the stabs of pleasure in his arse as Aziraphale fucked him through it at a merciless rhythm, his hand wrapped around Crowley’s dick and jerking it like a teenage virgin with a porno mag.
“Gah,” Crowley gasped as he came down. He realized he’d forgotten to breathe. His orgasm had gone on for at least half a minute this time, he was sure it had.
Meanwhile, Aziraphale was still fucking him. He let go of Crowley’s cock. “Oh,” he said breathlessly, staring down at his hand. It was covered, covered, in come. Dripping from his fingers, his palm. “Oh my—”
He put the fingers into his mouth.
Crowley wished he had miracles. He wished he had a second cock. His whole body spasmed, wanting to come again but unable to. Wretched thing.
Aziraphale climaxed, feasting on Crowley’s come, moaning like it was the seventeenth century and he’d just had his first taste of pot de crème.
Crowley, true to form, just watched.
“Wake up—oh god, wake up—”
Crowley blinked awake to the sound of a frantic voice and hands on his body, shaking him. He squinted. Everything was blurry. He needed his glasses.
Anthony’s. Anthony’s glasses.
His eyes flew open as he sat bolt upright. His shoulder pricked him, full of pins and needles. His neck was stiff. They were still on the floor in the back room, and it was still daytime, though the shadows looked longer. Sunlight streamed in low through the curtains, making the entire room a warm, buttery yellow. They were still naked.
They must have fallen asleep.
Aziraphale was staring at him, sitting close enough that Crowley could see his face. His eyes were wide and petrified. Aziraphale must have fallen asleep too, the way his hair was mussed on one side and there was an imprint of the carpet on his cheek. He must have woken first. Aziraphale must have—
—or… or was it Asa?
Crowley froze. He stared at the creature in front of him. He breathed in and out, trying to think. Was it still Aziraphale? Or had sleep exorcised him from Asa’s body? Crowley had managed to hold on, but had Aziraphale—
“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice was meek, almost a whisper. “Is it still you?”
Crowley closed his eyes and let out a groan of relief. “It’s still me, angel.”
“Oh! Oh my god, I thought—I thought—”
“I know,” Crowley said, gathering him up in his arms.
They immediately started making love.
And it was making love this time. There was a lot of cradling, a lot of stroking. A lot of desperate kissing. They had both been terrified that it was over—their one time, their only time, done before they’d decided to be done. They wanted to decide when it was done. They should get to decide, if Crowley had anything to say about it. After everything they’d done for the world, for humanity, at the expense of themselves. They should get to have this for as long as they wanted.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale breathed, arching his spine. Crowley’s body was curled around Aziraphale’s on the rug, spooning him under a blanket. They’d procured the blanket from a trunk in the corner, one of Derek’s old things, full of crumbling photographs and old letters and wool jackets and a quilt hand-sewn by his mother. The quilt was just big enough to cover them both. It smelled like mothballs and old parchment, cedarwood and dust. Like Aziraphale’s bookshop, from the universe long forgot.
Crowley readjusted the blanket over Aziraphale’s side. He pressed a kiss into the crook of Aziraphale’s neck and slid one hand down over his buttocks, fingers smoothing the skin between his thighs. He twisted his wrist, got a handful of the thigh and pushed, so that Aziraphale bent his knee. He reached for the bottle of lube on the floor next to them, uncapped it, turned it around and squirted some into his palm. It was quite a feat with one hand, if he did say so himself. (The other hand was busy keeping Aziraphale close, its arm beneath Aziraphale’s head, wrapped around the front of his shoulders.)
“Shhh,” Crowley said. He didn’t know why he thought they needed to be quiet. They certainly hadn’t been before. Perhaps it had something to do with the golden light. The dust motes, the blanket. Something about being curled up with the love of his life (his long, long life) in the warmth; just the two of them, together. It was probably the most intimate they’d ever been. And this, after they’d literally shared each other's bodies.
Crowley didn’t know why it felt so intimate. He couldn’t even see Aziraphale’s face.
“What if you’d been gone?” Aziraphale gasped. His back bowed again. He pressed his arse, that gorgeous, round arse back against Crowley’s cock, which was already hard and leaking. “What if it was over?”
“Shhh,” Crowley said again. He cupped the lube in his palm and reached back under the quilt, smearing it between Aziraphale’s cheeks. He found the furled entrance to Aziraphale’s body and smeared it there too. “It’s not over.”
He pushed a finger inside. Aziraphale moaned, loudly.
“I don’t want it to be over,” Aziraphale said. There was a raw quality to his voice, which wobbled and strained under his words. He squirmed on Crowley’s finger as Crowley pushed and pulled, rubbing at him from the inside. “I don’t want to stop.”
Crowley’s mouth was open on the back of Aziraphale’s neck. He was humping his cock into the cleft of Aziraphale’s arse, amidst the lube that had traveled there. It was solid and slick and wonderful.
“We won’t,” he murmured, adding another finger. “We’ll never stop.”
He crooked his fingers, finding the spot he’d been looking for. Aziraphale cried out, his breath ragged, straining his neck, twisting his face upward.
“Shhh, angel. Easy.” Crowley fingered him a little longer, drawing sounds from him, little muted things as Aziraphale kept his lips pressed together and tried to be quiet. Crowley stopped when he couldn’t take it anymore. Not without coming himself.
Aziraphale gave a lamentful wail as Crowley removed his fingers.
“It’s alright,” Crowley soothed, pressing another kiss to Aziraphale’s neck. He dragged his lips up over his ear and added, in a scratchy whisper, “’M gonna fuck you now.”
Aziraphale whimpered. Crowley reached for his own cock, withdrawing it from its cozy arse-cheek cocoon. He positioned it at Aziraphale’s entrance. The way they fit together, god. Crowley would never get over it.
Aziraphale cried out again as Crowley breached him, sliding in with a newfound practiced ease.
“I’ve got you, angel. ’M gonna make it good. Gonna be so—good—” Crowley began to thrust. He moved his lube-wet hand down Aziraphale’s thigh, towards his knee, the one that was bent. He gripped underneath it, pressing Aziraphale’s leg up even more, getting at the angle he wanted.
“Oh,” Aziraphale sighed. “It’s good.”
“Yeah,” Crowley replied. His throat felt thick, his mouth full of cotton. He swallowed, suddenly realizing just how close Aziraphale’s face was. Close enough that, if Crowley lifted his head up a little higher, he could angle his own face downward and kiss him.
Crowley did.
It was a soft kiss. An open, soft kiss. The softest they’d ever shared. It made Crowley melt, the center of him oozing sugary and hot. His prick was hard, Aziraphale’s lips were soft, his body was touching Aziraphale’s body in every place that it could, and Crowley was happy. He was. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been happy, not like this.
He really couldn’t.
“I love you,” Aziraphale said against his lips. “Oh. Touch me. Touch me, my love—”
Crowley did. He let go of Aziraphale’s leg and found his cock, swollen and hot and wanting. There was still some lube on his hand. He made a fist, sliding it up and down to the rhythm he’d set with his hips.
“Tighter,” Aziraphale gasped, his body arching and twisting more. He kissed Crowley again. It was messy this time; he was still gasping.
Crowley squeezed his fist. He pumped his arm, speeding up.
“It’s so good. It’s so good.” Aziraphale was delirious. He was repeating himself. That clever, filthy mouth had nothing for him right now. His faculties had fled, it seemed, as he squirmed, rutting into Crowley’s hand, his arsehole ensconcing Crowley’s cock, somehow taking him even deeper.
Crowley curled closer to Aziraphale’s back. He put his mouth next to Aziraphale’s ear again. “I love you too,” he whispered, to Aziraphale’s cries and shivers. Aziraphale was coming; Crowley could feel it, his cock starting to pulse in his hand. “Always have.”
He felt the wave of his own crest coming on. He pressed forward, pushing in as far as he could, tightening his arm over Aziraphale’s shoulders as he crushed him to himself.
“Always will.”
“I’m so happy,” Aziraphale said, afterward.
He was turned toward Crowley now. Still under the blanket, still bathed in sunbeams, his hair bright and golden in the light.
He smiled. He touched Crowley’s face. Outlined his nose, the top of his upper lip, the bone under his cheek. His eyebrow. The drawn-on tattoo next to his ear.
Crowley smiled too. He touched him back. They explored each other’s faces as if they were seeing them for the first time. They sort of were, in a way. New faces, much like the old ones, but still with plenty to discover.
Crowley said, “Me too.”
Instead of another go-round, they rustled up some food.
“I think Asa has a few protein bars under the—yes, here.” Aziraphale finished rummaging around under the till.
Crowley was lounging, practically upside down, on one of the two wingback chairs in a corner of the shop that was labeled, quaintly, The Reading Corner. His spine was flat on the seat cushion and his knees were hooked over the back of the chair, his feet dangling in the air. It was providing some nice traction for his lower back, which was quite vexed due to recent antics.
“Asa eats protein bars?” Crowley watched Aziraphale walk toward him, floor on the ceiling. He’d recovered Anthony’s spectacles and done his best to mend them. Aziraphale had found a roll of tape in the boiler room.
Aziraphale handed him one of the bars. It was past sunset; they’d redressed, though not thoroughly, and had closed all the blinds at the front of the shop. Things were calming down outside. It was the Sunday evening lull.
“Anthony’s been trying to convert him,” Aziraphale explained. The tone of his voice made clear how successful he thought that particular venture was going to be.
Crowley cackled. He took the wrapper off the protein bar and took a bite, still upside-down. “The chocolates were a better idea.”
“Oh! From over the road? My, those were scrumptious.” Aziraphale looked forlornly at his hunk of whey protein isolate.
Crowley stopped chewing. “You had one?”
Aziraphale glanced at him. He blushed. “Well, I—just the one. When he first brought them in. He’d meant for it as a surprise, and I didn’t know—”
Crowley nearly slid off the chair and onto his head. He scrambled the right way up. “I was there!”
“I… I beg your pardon?”
“I was—I mean, I watched the whole thing! That was you?” Crowley’s heart was doing somersaults. Apparently, it still thought he was upside down.
“Only for the first part. Anthony had some, er. Ulterior motives, so to speak. I left when he started with the kissing.”
Crowley’s heart lurched up into his throat. “That was me.”
Aziraphale blinked at him.
“Me,” Crowley said again. “I did the—the kissing. I mean, you’re right, that’s obviously what Anthony was going for originally, but that—that was all me.”
Aziraphale’s eyes were wide. He looked as if he’d passed over shock and gone straight to awe. “You?”
“How long did you stay?” Suddenly Crowley had to know. He had to. “Wait a second—you kissed me!” He stood out of the chair. He remembered now. “I wiped the chocolate off your lip, and then you practically attacked me—”
Aziraphale’s face was bright red. “Poppycock.”
Crowley was beginning to grin. “You ravished me, angel.”
“I didn’t stay for long.” Aziraphale looked wholly mortified. Crowley was eating it up. “Just for the first bit of—of kissing. I left before anything else happened.”
Crowley shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. They’d been there, together, and hadn’t even known it.
“I didn’t know it was you!” Aziraphale added testily.
Crowley snorted. “Right. You’re lucky I’m not the jealous type.” It was a lie, of course; Crowley was, but this was different. He knew, with this. That Anthony was just an approximation, just as Asa had been an approximation. Not the real thing. Not even close.
Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You’re one to talk.”
Crowley grinned again. “Guess I’m lucky you’re not the jealous type, either.”
Aziraphale’s lips twisted. He was trying to look reprimanding, but he wasn’t doing a very good job. He mostly just looked fond. He took a large, aggressive bite of his protein bar.
Crowley simply laughed.
The next go-round was beneath the oculus.
It wasn’t a true oculus. Not like it had been in the old shop. It was just a skylight, rectangular, covered in grime and algae. It barely let in any light. And at this time of night it might as well have been a solid piece of roof for all the good it did to illuminate the room.
“Do you think Anthony believes in angels and demons?” Crowley asked. They were lying on their backs, hands intertwined, looking up at the ceiling. At least the ceiling was decorative. Someone had gone and done a mural of mythical creatures from all kinds of fantasy books. It was the sort of thing that had been added to over the years. And yes, there were angels and demons up there.
“He must do,” Aziraphale replied. “He’s religious, isn’t he?”
“Just because you’re religious doesn’t mean you believe in angels.”
“I suppose.” Aziraphale pointed to a corner where there was a snake twined around an apple tree. “See that bit, there?”
“Sure do.”
“I had them add it.”
Crowley turned his head on the floor so that it faced Aziraphale’s cheek. Aziraphale was still looking up. At the snake, the tree, the apple.
“Derek didn’t understand it,” Aziraphale went on. “Because Asa’s an atheist. He wondered what an atheist would want with religious imagery in the shop.” He swallowed. “I told him… it’s a good story.”
His eyes shone, the colors from the ceiling reflected within them. Crowley thought of the sticky notes on the desk, the pages of Asa’s book scattered around them on the floor.
Aziraphale’s book.
“It was a comfort,” Aziraphale added, softly. “Whenever I was here, whenever I looked up… to think that you might be here, too.”
Crowley rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow. “I fucking love you,” he announced.
Aziraphale looked at him, finally. He smiled. His eyes were very wet. “I fucking love you too.”
They touched each other under the apple tree. Under all the stories, all the mythical creatures that humans had dreamed up in this universe—and some they hadn’t, too.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said. They were cuddling again, back on the sofa, sated and chafed and unendingly happy. “I meant what I said before.”
They were splitting another protein bar. It was the only thing to eat in this whole damn shop. Crowley couldn’t believe it. That Asa hadn’t squirreled away something else to munch somewhere. Maybe they just weren’t looking in the right spots.
“What’s that?”
“About… what I want.”
Crowley thought back to the last several hours. “A good seeing-to over the desk? ‘Cause we did that already, angel. And to be frank, I don’t think this thing’s got another one in it for a while.” He gestured to his lap, to his middle-aged cock, which was shriveled and hiding somewhere under his pants.
Aziraphale huffed. “Mine seems to be in much the same state. Tell me, what’s the point of creating a new universe if you’re not going to do away with refractory periods? That’s what you should have asked for.”
Crowley choked on his mouthful of protein bar.
“Anyway, that’s not what I meant.” Aziraphale cleared his throat. He reached over and caressed the back of Crowley’s hand, which was laying on the sofa between them. “I… don’t want to stop.”
Crowley chewed the remainder of his bar. He swallowed.
“It’s just… every time I think of going back…” Aziraphale squeezed Crowley’s hand. Holding on. “How can we? Go back there, after all this?”
Crowley felt the beast of protectiveness rear up in his chest. “So we’ll stay.”
“We…” Aziraphale blinked up at him. “We can’t stay.”
“Sure we can.” Crowley thought about it. Not sideways, like he had been doing for the last sixteen hours, but straight on. His heart swelled. A feeling buzzed inside him from his fingers to his toes, tickling the top of his head. Hope.
Aziraphale wanted to stay. Aziraphale didn’t want it to be “just once.” He wanted the same things Crowley wanted.
“But—”
“I wanna stay too.”
Aziraphale’s remonstrations fled. He looked at Crowley with a blank awe. “You do?”
“Course I do.” Crowley shifted, angling himself to face Aziraphale’s body. “We want the same things, remember? You and me.”
Aziraphale’s lips wobbled. “Us,” he whispered.
Crowley flipped his palm over and squeezed Aziraphale’s hand. “Look. We don’t have to decide now. Right? What’s a bit more time, in the scheme of things? Let’s just—” His brain was suddenly whirring at ninety miles an hour. Which was, coincidentally, his favorite speed. He spotted the wrapper of the protein bar on the coffee table. “Let’s go out.”
Aziraphale frowned. “What do you mean, out?”
“I mean out. Out, out. To dinner. What time is it?” (The watch had found its way to the bin.)
“It’s, er…” Aziraphale squinted at the clock on the wall above the door. “It’s four AM, Crowley.”
“Okay. Breakfast.” Crowley smirked, the kind of smirk that would inevitably turn into a full-on grin. “At the Ritz.”
Aziraphale stopped squinting and looked at Crowley again.
“Come on.” Crowley licked lips. He was really trying not to grin, here. “It’ll be a scream.”
Aziraphale’s eyes roamed Crowley’s face. Like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Like he was checking to make sure it wasn’t a joke, there wasn’t a catch.
Crowley knew that look. He knew all Aziraphale’s looks. It meant he was going to agree.
“Really?” Aziraphale asked.
“Why not? Gotta eat a proper meal at some point, haven’t we? Keep these old human bodies ticking.” Crowley patted his thigh, which, despite being thin as a rail, was quite well muscled. All that running, probably.
“Well—for one thing I—” Aziraphale’s mouth moved, lips forming half-starts to several different ways to end that sentence. “I’ve got nothing to wear.”
Crowley’s grin overtook his face. “Is that your objection?”
“It’s the Ritz.” Aziraphale began to pout. “Asa’s wardrobe is not up to the task. Neither is Anthony’s, for that matter.” He glanced pointedly at the trainers.
“Right,” Crowley said. He was still grinning, all his teeth on display. “I think we can take care of that.”