Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Like most places that contained large numbers of books, Aziraphale’s bookshop had a complicated relationship with the laws of time and space. Sometimes it seemed as though it could sprout new librarinthine passageways at will, narrow spaces opening up between the shelves and leading him down a new row entirely filled with German translations of late 1990s erotic romance novels. 

 While a lot of this was perfectly normal behaviour for a second hand book shop owned by a celestial being and recently restored by a well meaning young Antichrist, Aziraphale was acutely conscious of his own influence. 

 He had changed a great deal in a short space of time. He’d fallen in love and discovered sex and all the other interesting things two people could get up to in bed. Like sleep. And dreaming. 

 Angels didn’t sleep, or at least they weren’t supposed to. They were supposed to be alert from halo to wingtips, ever vigilant to the presence of evil. Some of them even went to all the trouble of having eyes literally everywhere, all over their wings and all sorts, but Aziraphale didn’t hold with any of that business. It was far too flashy and – if he was honest – a bit too much like making more work for yourself. He had more than enough eyes to be going along with. 

 Dreaming was a revelation. As soon as Aziraphale discovered that he could do it he immediately realised why Heaven was so keen on insomnia. The moment you snuggled under the duvet, plumped your pillow under your head and drifted off, your mind was free to do absolutely anything it wanted to do. 

 And apparently his mind wanted to do Crowley. 

 Aziraphale’s German wasn’t quite what it should have been, but it didn’t need to be. It was obvious that the sudden influx of late twentieth century erotica had sprung from his sleeping mind: Crowley was on all the covers. 

 Sporting long red flowing locks and wearing nothing but a pout, Crowley reclined on a bed of black satin. The sheet was pulled up to his waist, but it was a pathetic attempt at concealment. Aziraphale could not only make out the exact shape of Crowley’s penis through the satin, but if he squinted he was sure he could also see the little almost-heartshaped freckle just under the frenulum. It was all very embarrassing. 

 Aziraphale was trying to figure out how to explain this new phenomenon to Crowley when the demon himself walked in through the door, bringing pastries from the coffee shop around the corner. “Mental in there this morning. Hopefully got the right order. You did say hazelnut latte didn’t…” He paused in the middle of handing Aziraphale his coffee and frowned. “Uh…what have you got there? Is that…?” 

 “Yes.” 

 “And I’m…” 

 “Yes. Very,” said Aziraphale. “I don’t suppose you want to set my mind at ease and tell me that you spent part of the late nineteen nineties lounging around Frankfurt posing for the covers of dirty books, do you?” 

 Crowley, still admiring the cover photo, shook his head. “You know I didn’t,” he said. “Although my hair looks great. Do you think I should revisit the whole curls thing?” 

 “Never mind your blasted hair. I’m dreaming softcore pornography into existence.” 

 “This was you?” 

 “It must be. An adolescent boy isn’t going to fill the back of my bookshop with German hausfrau porn, is he? Even if he is the bloody Antichrist.” Aziraphale sat down, stricken. “I think there’s something terribly wrong with me. Every time I close my eyes and go to sleep the inside of my brain turns into some kind of…sex Olympics.” 

 Crowley, nose already in the book, waved a hand. “Yeah, that happens to everyone.” 

 “It does?” 

 “Course it does. That’s what dreams are for. They’re like a release valve for sexy thoughts. And anxiety.” 

 “Anxiety?” said Aziraphale, carefully removing the lid of his coffee. 

 “Yeah. Like when you have those dreams that Satan’s called you personally to his office, but you’re halfway down the hallway and you realise you’re not wearing trousers. And then when you get to the office you realise you’re totally naked, Satan’s turned into a giant blueberry muffin for some reason, and Beelzebub is doing their nut screaming ‘WHY THE FUCK IS OUR LORD AND MASTER A GIANT BLUEBERRY MUFFIN?! AND WHY IS YOUR FUCKING COCK OUT, CROWLEY?!’” 

 Aziraphale blinked, taken aback. The Beelzebub impression had been startlingly accurate. Not to mention loud. “That sounds…horrible,” he said. 

 “It is,” said Crowley. “It can’t be all fun and games and…” He peered into the pages of the book. “Rimjobs. I hate to tell you this, angel, but this isn’t exactly softcore.” 

 “I didn’t know you read German.” 

 “Berlin. Nineteen twenties. Picked up a bit while I was there. Just basic phrases, really. Nice weather we’re having. Where’s the train station? Would you like to snort pharmaceutical grade speed off my freshly spanked buttocks? That kind of thing.” 

 “Right,” said Aziraphale, determined not to be sidetracked by spanking and amphetamines. “But why am I dreaming in German?” 

 Crowley shrugged. “Why is Satan a blueberry muffin? Why does the queen parachute into your living room and announce that she’s changing her name to Ernest? That’s dreams for you. Weird and random is pretty much their entire job description.” 

 “Yes, but they don’t usually manifest, do they?” 

 “No,” said Crowley. “But you’re an angel. Let’s face it, one time you got an erection and turned Britain’s oldest hot spring into a cheeky little Mouton Rothschild 1959. Then there was that time you dreamed an entire roof terrace into existence, which was nice. Very nice, actually.” He lowered his sunglasses and made hopeful eyes over the rims. “Do you think maybe you could make that one a recurring dream? I know your dreams usually disappear by lunchtime, but it would still give me a window to top up my tan.” 

 “I doubt it,” said Aziraphale. Crowley had been devastated when he’d gained and lost a roof terrace in a single morning. He was even more annoyed that Aziraphale hadn’t yet managed to dream him up a hot tub. “I really don’t think my dreams work like that, Crowley. It’s like you said – they’re ephemeral, and undisciplined, no matter how many times you lie next to me and whisper ‘Jacuzzi’ in my ear when you think I’m unconscious. I can’t just…dream to order.” 

 “Well, no. You haven’t been at it very long. You just need to practice, that’s all.” 

 “Wait…you can dream to order?” 

 “Yeah, up to a point. I’ve never manifested, though. That must be an angel thing.” Crowley put down the book and reached for his coffee-adjacent drink. “It’s all that generative power you’ve got going on, shooting out in weird directions.” 

 “Generative…?” That seemed unlikely, if not actually impossible. “No, I don’t think so. Angels don’t…generate.” 

 “I hate to be the one to tell you,” said Crowley. “But you do. Every time you have an orgasm all the houseplants go into a growth spurt. Oh, and there’s like a whole pocket of humanity that literally exists because one time you got hot and bothered in a damp church in Lancashire.” 

 “Yes, but I wasn’t directly responsible,” said Aziraphale. “I simply inspired a lot of…” 

 “…fucking?” 

 “Perhaps. I’d like to think there was some tender lovemaking involved somewhere.” 

 “Doubt it,” said Crowley. “I got a good lungful of your inspiration, and you know what happened to me. I got so antsy in the pants that I had to sit on a witchfinder’s—” 

 “—yes, all right. Do we have to revisit the incident?” said Aziraphale. “It still doesn’t explain why I’m filling my bookshop with half-baked smut. Maybe I should just…stop sleeping, before I cause any actual mischief.” 

 “But you like sleeping.” Crowley got up from his chair and slunk over, hips moving in a distracting cobra sway. His thumbs slid down the back of Aziraphale’s collar and rubbed, expertly finding the spots where Aziraphale’s wings most often put a crick in his neck. “We’ve had this conversation, angel. Why shouldn’t you get to do whatever you like whenever you like?” 

 “Oh, I don’t know.” Aziraphale sighed, trying to relax into the touch. There was absolutely no reason why he couldn’t pull Crowley into his lap right now, miracle his trousers off and fuck him senseless on the pile of temporary German porn, but he was still enough angel to feel a twinge of shock at his own unfettered impulses. “Be patient with me, darling. I’ve been training myself to think and feel a certain way for six thousand years. That’s a lot of habit to break.” 

 “I know,” said Crowley, teeth scraping the nape of Aziraphale’s neck. “But you’ll get there. You always do.” 

 His mouth fastened on a patch of skin and he sucked, a gentler version of the lovebites where he’d draw the blood to the surface of the skin and leave a reddish purple bruise. He liked, he said, to leave Aziraphale looking like a demon had been all over him. 

 “What are you doing back there?” Aziraphale said, even though it was obvious. Crowley was now nuzzling, with purpose and intent. 

 “Nothing.” 

 “Nothing?” 

 “Mmhm.” Crowley circled him and – with the swing of a long, skinny thigh – slithered astride his lap. His kiss tasted warmly of coffee and sugar and his hair suddenly seemed longer than it had a moment ago. He tossed his glasses aside with a clatter and came back for seconds. His waist still seemed inhumanly small, even though he’d lately gained a handful of much-needed pounds. 

 “I think you might be doing something,” Aziraphale said, against his lips. 

 The shop bell tinkled. Crowley stiffened, said, “Fuck off, we’re closed,” and they were alone once again. That was the trouble with Crowley: he was good at things, especially things that Aziraphale was supposed to be the expert at, like keeping people out of secondhand bookshops. His hair was definitely longer, and sometimes it was hard to tell if the new softness about him was a few extra pounds or something else itching beneath the surface of his current corporation, something as shiny and fascinating as the pristine new scales glimpsed beneath the ragged sloughings of a molting snake. When he raised his arms to twist up his hair his t-shirt rode up, and the band of his underwear was black and lacy. He was wearing an earring, too. Not a man’s earring, but a little rococo droplet of red – ruby or spinel – dangling beneath a diamond encrusted silver bow. Aziraphale pictured him scooping it up from a ballroom floor, in Paris perhaps, or Vienna. Lost forever to the other one of its pair, because red was a demon’s second favourite colour. 

 “What are we going to do with you, hmm?” Crowley said. “How do we stop your unfed imagination squirting all over the bookshop at night?” 

 “Don’t say it like that. You make it sound so disgusting.” 

 “It is disgusting,” he said. Or she said. It was hard to tell with Crowley sometimes. “Did you read those books you dreamed? Anal fisting? I didn’t know you had it in you.”

 “I haven’t,” said Aziraphale. “Nor will I ever. Stop laughing, you fiend.” 

 “Your subconscious is filthy, angel. I’m impressed.” 

 “Oh dear God,” said Aziraphale. “What on earth is the matter with me? Do you think this is why angels aren’t allowed to sleep?” 

 “Nope,” said Crowley. “Angels aren’t allowed to sleep because Heaven doesn’t like you having uncontrolled thoughts.” 

 “That’s a very cynical interpretation.” 

 “Is it?” said Crowley, raising an eyebrow. He was wriggling again, a slow side to side sway that drew Aziraphale’s eye to that tantalising little sliver of black lace peeking over the top of his jeans. It had been over a decade since Crowley’s feminine side came out to play, and the last time had been business, not pleasure. 

 Aziraphale had watched her, as he was supposed to. He’d seen her walking back to the house through the Dowlings’ orchard, three fingers and a thumb of one hand given over to carrying a bag full of picnic chair and colouring books, her pinky extended for Warlock to grip. In the other hand she’d held three small apples the size of juggling balls, because she could never help her instincts when confronted with an apple tree. He’d seen her scooping up the boy when he fell off his bike, soothing skinned knees, and – this one had been a shock – steering the child around the swimming pool on his inflatable water wings. She’d worn a modestly cut black one-piece suit, complete with an ugly black latex bathing cap pulled down over her fire red bob. Smoked glass goggles instead of glasses. Hardly a bathing beauty, but oh the legs. And then Crowley had turned sideways and Aziraphale had absent mindedly soaked his shoes with the hose he’d been supposed to be aiming at the tomato plants, because Crowley had really committed to his disguise. 

 He had always known Crowley could do this. And he’d seen it more than once. It had just happened that at the time his psyche had not been prepared for the sight of wet lycra and hard nipples, and that night he’d ended up deep in a bottle of whiskey, attempting to make the phrase ‘champagne cup breasts’ stop bouncing off the inside of his skull like some kind of desperately erotic squash ball. 

 Crowley nosed closer, his hand on Aziraphale’s cheek. His hair was very long, past his shoulders and falling in curls, the way it had the very first time, when he’d slithered past Aziraphale’s feet and shifted into the shape of something gold and black and crimson and somehow even more exotic than the ten foot serpent he’d been a second before. “What have you done to your hair?” said Aziraphale, touching, because he could. 

 “Do you like it?” 

 “I think I do. Do you?” 

 “You know me,” said Crowley. “I like to switch things up a bit.” 

 He knew exactly what he was doing, of course. He loved having his hair played with as much as Aziraphale loved to play with it, sitting in the bathtub with Crowley between his legs, stroking conditioner through the wet strands until Crowley’s scalp was slick under the pressure of his thumbs. Crowley liked it best when Aziraphale rubbed hard enough for him to feel the skin move over the bones of his skull, and Aziraphale wondered if the new hair was an invitation to run a bath and laze around until their fingers and toes were like prunes. 

 “What are you up to today?” he asked. 

 Crowley dismounted from his lap and stretched. “Eggs.” 

 “Eggs?” 

 “Mm. I’m obsessed with that confit egg yolk thing they did on the steak tartare at the Savoy, and I think I’ve figured out how to do it.” 

 “Really?” 

 “Sixty degrees. Olive oil. Oh, and then there was a little truffle amuse bouche thing I wanted to try. You should come and play. It’s fun.” 

 Aziraphale shook his head. The last time he’d tried cooking had been in the late fifteenth century, when he’d reduced a Roman nonna to hysterics by the Colosseum-like consistency of his bread. “I don’t think so. I feel like…like it might kill the magic for me to find out how food happens. Besides, it’s your thing. I don’t want to step on your toes.” 

 Crowley tied up his hair. “Okay,” he said, with a knowing tilt to his lips. “Fair enough.” 

 “Don’t look at me like that.” 

 “Like what?” 

 “Like you suspect I’m at a loose end,” said Aziraphale. “I’ve got plenty to be getting on with.” 

 “I know.” 

 “I might even have a go at running a bookshop.” 

 Crowley twirled two index fingers at his surroundings. “Ohh. Is that what all these books are about?” 

 “Yes.” 

 “Oh, sor-ry. I thought you were just a hoarder.” 

 “Piss off,” said Aziraphale. 

 Crowley laughed. “Love yo-uu,” he singsonged, and sashayed off upstairs. 

There were always Consequences. 

 Aziraphale had been made aware of this fact back when his wings were still downy, and despite everything that had happened to him in the intervening six thousand years some small, haloed part of him still believed it. Evil held the seeds of its own destruction, the righteous would never be uprooted, and no bad deed went unpunished. These were the little rules by which he had lived his life, and which invariably drove Crowley to poke two fingers down his throat, make exaggerated gagging noises and complain that Heaven’s rules all sounded ‘like they should be stitched on a fucking needlepoint cushion.’ 

 Needlepoint cushions or not, you didn’t break the rules without Consequences. And Aziraphale had broken a lot of rules. 

 The empty bookshop had been the scene of many of these infractions. The couch. The desk. The table. That bit behind the Travel section. The other bit in the Drama section where he’d shoved The Complete Plays of Euripides under the base of Crowley’s spine in order to get to just the right angle. The rug. It still had scorch marks in it. According to Crowley, rugs were supposed to give you burns when you rolled around on them in the throes of passion, but it had often worked the opposite way with them. More than once they’d had occasion to reach for the fire extinguishers that Adam had thoughtfully provided when he’d restored the bookshop. 

 There was no sign of Crowley. 

 This is it, thought Aziraphale. This is my punishment. He goes off and does other things and I’m left here, alone and haunted by the ghosts of my own self-indulgent lusts. 

 He waited. 

 Any minute now. Crowley liked his little surprises. They kept things interesting. Any minute now, he’d stroll downstairs and start trying to pole dance around the pillars of the rotunda. 

 Any minute now. 

 Aziraphale put on his glasses and picked up his pen. This was usually a guarantee that the next time he looked up Crowley would be lying naked across the table with a rose between his teeth. “I know you can’t resist,” he said, under his breath. 

 But apparently Crowley could. 

 Aziraphale flipped the sign to CLOSED (a formality around these parts) and wandered upstairs. The flat had changed a lot recently. There were new bookshelves, new floors and a small jungle of houseplants that Crowley liked to hiss at and Aziraphale liked to pamper with Baby Bio and Monteverdi. Each one insisted that his method was the reason why the plants flourished.* 

 The kitchen was Crowley’s masterpiece and his domain. He had transformed it into a near unrecognisable space, full of stainless steel, dark wood and extremely sharp knives. There were slate floors, a temperature controlled wine room and all the space Crowley could desire to indulge his fondness for gadgets. A long pottery window trough housed a collection of the most luxuriant (and neurotic) herbs in the whole of London. He’d been seduced by the idea of fire and playing with knives, but today he was as soft as butter, separating eggs with his cupped bare hands. Aziraphale drew close and watched, fascinated, as Crowley cracked the eggs, tipped out the contents and let the translucent white drip through his slender fingers into a bowl beneath. He took the raw yolk, held together by nothing more than a fragile membrane, and dropped it intact into a ramekin. 

 “Hi,” he said, and swayed on his big, bare feet, leaning in to bestow a casual kiss. 

 Aziraphale narrowly resisted the urge to cup his jaw and plunge in. Oh, he was hopeless. He was so far gone that just watching Crowley separate eggs made him ache. Somewhere he had read that if – when newlywed – you put a penny in a jar every time you made love, then after a year you took a penny from the jar every time you made love, you still wouldn’t empty that jar until death did you part. Which was a worry, especially for immortal beings. “What are you making?” he asked, determined to be sensible. 

 “I told you. Steak tartare. The rest is a surprise.” 

 “I think it’s marvellous, the way you apply yourself.” 

 Crowley shrugged. “What can I say? You inspire me.” 

 Inspiration. Wonderful. Aziraphale had always been the Inspiration. It was part and parcel of his powers as a principality. He’d cheerled for Shakespeare, convinced Henry Fielding to take up satire, suggested male pseudonyms to the Brontë sisters**, and – and this one counted as a bit of a cock up – rode in a hurry from Porlock to tell Samuel Taylor Coleridge about an exciting new apothecary that had opened up in the high street. 

 He watched as Crowley whisked up some of the egg whites and stirred them rapidly into a pot of something bubbling and savoury smelling. He’d never seen Crowley like this before. Aziraphale had always been the one with the hobbies. Foolish things, now that he looked back at them. Dancing, book collecting, stage magic. He’d even attempted knitting, but could never get the tension right. He’d bobbed along with enough peace of mind to amuse himself with these things, secure in the mistaken knowledge that he was squarely on the side of the goodies. 

 Crowley, on the other hand, knew that Heaven was basically rotten and Hell was much, much worse. His only real hobbies had been houseplant abuse, gratuitous drinking and worrying what either side’s next move was. He had never, despite his pose of draping himself all over the place like a sexy novelty draft excluder, really relaxed until now. He looked an absolute picture with his bare feet and his yellow eyes, all those demon parts shamelessly on display. His impossibly red hair was caught in a fat, careless knot at the nape of his neck, the front of his black apron getting flecked with egg white as he picked up the whisk again and went to work, adding sugar this time, spoon by spoon. It was a joy to see him so absorbed, but at the same time a flicker of regret at not being the subject of his focus. Aziraphale sighed, sure it couldn’t be healthy for an angel to be jealous of egg whites. 

 Crowley turned off the whisk and blinked at him. “Come on. Out with it.” 

 “Out with what?” 

 “Whatever’s going on in your head,” said Crowley. “I can hear the mental cogs grinding over the sound of the hand blender. What’s up?” 

 “Oh, I don’t know,” said Aziraphale, not quite ready to admit that he pined for Crowley whenever they weren’t in the same room. “This manifesting business has me worried. I’ve never done it before. Do you think it’s some sort of symptom?” 

 “Symptom of what?” said Crowley, leaning his bare, sharp elbows on the kitchen island. 

 “I’m not sure. Perhaps some side effect of abusing my angelic powers to give you orgasms.” 

 “Nuh uh,” said Crowley. “You use your powers to make me come because you love me. You’re a being of love, giving love. How is that abuse?” 

 “It’s not, I suppose. When you put it like that.” 

 “Put it like what? My logic is flawless. You’re not going all Victorian values again, are you?” 

 “No,” said Aziraphale, who wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t. “Anyway, how would you know anything about Victorian values? You slept through most of the nineteenth century.” 

 “So? You don’t have to have lived through a century to know what it was like. May I acquaint you with the human thing called History? You might have a few books on it downstairs.” 

 “All right. There’s no need to be sarcastic.” 

 “Isn’t there?” said Crowley, arching an eyebrow. “I know how your mind works, angel. Your idea of good behaviour is very Victorian. Proper diction. Good posture. Immaculate fingernails. Not saying fuck. Stands to reason that you might have a few nineteenth century cautionary tales bobbing around in the dark corners of your psyche. You know – the ones where they told you that if you touched your own penis you’d contract instantaneous neurosyphilis and your nose would fall off.” 

 “Hmm, yes,” said Aziraphale. “Hairy palms.” 

 Crowley held up both hairless hands. “See? Total bullshit. If that was true, I’d be a werewolf.” 

 “You know nobody really paid any attention to that, don’t you? All that Victorian prudery was the thinnest of veneers. My overwhelming memory of the nineteenth century was that everyone around me seemed to be at it like rabbits. Going into the twentieth, too, now that I think of it. George Mallory kept taking his clothes off, for some reason. He’d just be nude at every possible opportunity. Then of course there was Frieda and D.H. Lawrence, and whatever was going on between Virginia and Vita…” 

 “…ah. The Bloomsbury set.” 

 “It was very hard to keep track, to be honest.” 

 “I’m not surprised,” said Crowley. “If you tried to draw a line diagram of who banged who in that nest of horny bisexuals you’d come out with something that looked like a plate of dropped spaghetti. What the hell did you do with yourself while all that was going on?” 

 Aziraphale waggled five fingers. “I think you’ve just answered your own question,” he said. “Besides, I had hobbies.” 

 “What? Your dancing and that?” 

 “No. I only really managed to master the gavotte, which was old fashioned even back then, of course. Never got the hang of the polka. Or the waltz. Of course, you needed a partner for those.” He sighed. “And you know how time flies. Fashions change. On the cusp of the twentieth century I thought I’d almost got the hang of the foxtrot, and the next thing you know it’s the bloody Jazz age and everyone’s doing the Charleston. I couldn’t keep up with that. I don’t think my knees even bend that way.” 

 Crowley laughed. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “You’re a lot bendier than you look. Trust me on this.” 

 “Naughty.” 

 “Always,” said Crowley. “What happened to the Twist?” 

 “The what?” 

 “The Twist. That night, at the Ritz. When we got hammered and talked about what we were going to do now that the world hadn’t ended, remember? You were going to learn how to do the Twist.” 

 “Oh. That,” said Aziraphale. “No. I did that.” 

 “The Twist?” 

 “Mhm. It’s sort of…” Aziraphale started with one foot first. Lift the heel, wiggle it back and forth, get the arms going. “Like this.” 

 Crowley pressed his lips together very hard, but his eyes said he was quietly having hysterics. “That’s it?” 

 “Yes. That’s it,” said Aziraphale, twisting to a halt. He smoothed down the front of his waistcoat. “Rather underwhelming, I’m afraid. Not a patch on the old gavotte. I’m told there’s some deep knee bending and something called the ‘mashed potatoes’ that goes on, too, but I think that’s more for the advanced classes.” 

 Crowley made a heroic effort at keeping a straight face, and almost managed it. “Well, it’s very good.” 

 It wasn’t. Crowley was – much as he would never admit it – being nice. 

 “Maybe I should try knitting again,” said Aziraphale. “Or something improving and healthy. Like jogging. Or golf.” 

 “Blrk,” said Crowley. 

 “Don’t be like that. This is partly your fault. I think you might have broken me.” 

 “Uh, how so?” 

 “All the…frantic shagging,” said Aziraphale. “I’m afraid it might have ruined me for everything else that isn’t sex.” 

 “Shut up. I’ve seen you go hog wild on a patisserie box. I know Lust is your new favourite sin, but don’t count yourself out of the Gluttony game just yet. You’re still very much a contender, baby.” 

 Aziraphale shook his head and chewed his lower lip in thought. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. Everything else seems so dull in comparison with…well…with you. It’s the strangest feeling. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced it before.” 

 “What? Boredom?” 

 “Boredom? Do you think that’s what it is?” 

 “Sounds like it.” 

 “Well, I never. How interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever been bored before,” said Aziraphale, conscious that Crowley was starting to look restive. “I’m sorry, dearest. Would you like me to experience boredom elsewhere?” 

 Crowley visibly relaxed. So that was a yes. “It’s not that I don’t want you here, but this is supposed to be a surprise.” 

 “Of course, darling. I shall take myself out of your way. Is there anything I can bring you for dinner? Flowers? Chocolates? Any particular wine?” 

 “No, I don’t think so. Just bring yourself. And an appetite.”

That night Aziraphale brought flowers anyway, the freckled pink stargazer lilies that Crowley loved because their heady scent reminded him of the first flowers in Eden. He was glad he’d done so, because Crowley’s sleek, stylish kitchen looked and smelled inviting and romantic. Tea light candles floated in an amber Murano glass bowl in the middle of the kitchen island. The wine glasses stood ready to be filled and the wine was breathing. The first time Crowley had done this the kitchen had still smelled slightly of burned linoleum, even though they had already replaced the floor. He’d cooked spaghetti in a bolognese sauce that his present self would have eyed with pity and shame, but it had been the most wonderful dinner of Aziraphale’s life. That night Crowley had agreed to officially move in with him. 

 “Something smells delicious,” Aziraphale said. 

 Crowley, sweating next to the eye-level grill, gave himself a none too furtive sniff. “It’s definitely not me,” he said, and dabbed his forehead. “Pour me some wine, would you? It’s way past booze o’clock.” 

 His first cooking experiments had been hit and miss. Mostly miss. On more than one occasion Crowley had got a little hellfirey with the flambe and reduced dinner to a series of charcoal briquettes. At first he’d pronounced other chefs cowards for leaning too heavily on tried and tested flavour combinations, but thankfully he’d got over that in a hurry. Crowley may have had an ego, but he also had a superb sense of smell, and consequently a palate too good to let him cling to the illusion that smoked haddock and white chocolate – to cite a truly unforgettable example – ever deserved to be part of the same flavour profile. 

 What he brought to the table tonight looked a lot more enjoyable. It was an espresso sized cup of a hot, clear, savoury smelling broth, with a thin, tiny slice of toast for dipping. “Oh my,” said Aziraphale, impressed. “How fancy.” 

 “Don’t get too excited,” said Crowley. “It might be revolting.” 

 Aziraphale shook his head, already revelling in the first sip. The soup tasted even more savoury than it smelled, rich and truffly and yet incredibly delicate. “It’s not. It’s really, really not. Good lord, that is remarkable. You’ve outdone yourself. It’s close to an erotic experience.” 

 Crowley grinned and dipped his toast into his cup. “Wild mushroom consomme, with black truffle shavings,” he said. “And then we have a black garlic crostini topped with just a sliver of melted pecorino, and a little…something else.” 

 “Something else?” 

 “Something you said, back when you figured out that metaphysical edging was a thing you could do to me. A little bit at once, you said. Like a tasting menu.” 

 Aziraphale paused in mid nibble and stared. “Crowley, you didn’t…” 

 “I did,” said Crowley, flushed and sweaty-sexy from the heat of the kitchen. “You know how you’re always on at me to tempt you? And I always worry that you’re going to trough on temptation until smoke comes out of your ears again?” He leaned closer on the bar stool, his knee touching Aziraphale’s. “I figured out a way to refine the delivery system. Feed it to you in bite size pieces.” 

 “You mean this is…not just close to an erotic experience? It actually…” 

 “…is, yeah.” Crowley stole a kiss between bites of crostini. “I stirred temptation into every mouthful.” He laughed at Aziraphale, who was already fingering his collar. “Take it easy, tiger. This is just the amuse bouche. You’ve got a four course tasting menu of temptation ahead of you.” 

 “You’re a genius,” said Aziraphale, thinking of those infinitely delicate golden bubbles of egg yolk in Crowley’s bare hands, and how somehow the sight had excited him. No wonder, if Crowley had been working his magic on the stuff at the time. “Does it have any effect on you?” 

 Crowley shook his head. “Not directly, but I’m sure you’ll find a way to reciprocate. Feel free to show your appreciation in the form of celestial orgasms, by the way.” He spotted Aziraphale’s glance at the kitchen floor and guessed what he was thinking. “Relax. Slate’s fireproof. That’s why I chose it. And I had them put in sprinklers.” 

 The next course was a delicate salad of rocket leaves, basil and ribbons of fresh peach, with oily, toothsome pine kernels and a strawberry balsamic dressing. It was the lightest of dishes, yet as he ate Aziraphale felt a dark, delicious heaviness settle beneath the backs of his ribs. Crowley nibbled and picked at his salad, watching every bite and drinking in every sigh of pleasure. He’d been doing this for centuries, of course, in grotty taverns and expensive restaurants alike. He’d sit as still as something mesmerised, his eyes hidden behind smoked glass, but every line and angle of his pointed body language betraying not just interest but a fascination that at times had made Aziraphale wonder what on earth he got out of it. 

 Instinct, Crowley had finally admitted, now that everything was allowed. “It’s probably what I was put here for – to hold my breath while watching people take bites of things that aren’t good for them. Or for anyone. The first time I saw you moaning over an oyster all my demon parts stood up, tore their clothes and screamed.” 

 Crowley wasn’t wearing glasses any more, so Aziraphale could see everything. He could observe the swell and slit of Crowley’s pupils as Crowley watched him eat. Extraordinary eyes, unnaturally beautiful with their strange, intoxicating shades – chartreuse, whiskey gold and flecks of absinthe. White teeth, red hair, the little diamond bow with its ruby drop dangling against the black snake that curled down from his ear. Aziraphale’s gaze flicked downwards, searching for that scrap of black lace that he’d seen before. The heaviness beneath his ribs – sticky and dark as molasses – seemed to ooze down his spine from the inside, bleeding out the end of his tailbone and pooling in the soft, swelling places between his legs. He leaned in and Crowley – tongue red at the corner of his mouth – fed him a curling piece of peach flesh from his fingers. 

 “How does it feel?” said Crowley. 

 Aziraphale remembered how to breathe. “Like…like gravity has shifted. And you’re at the centre of it. I’m in your orbit.” 

 Crowley reached over and unfastened Aziraphale’s tie with a practised tug. “It’s cumulative,” he said, lips wet, fingers at work on a top button. “At least, that’s what I was going for. A slow build. Like a curry that gets hotter as you eat it.” 

 There was spice in the next course, a monkfish ceviche with coriander, ginger and green chili. The gentle burn made Aziraphale’s lips tingle, the clean, green flavours a contrast to the thick, silky darkness filling him, bite by bite. With every mouthful Crowley seemed to become lovelier, the gold of his eyes rarer, the red of his hair an incitement to riot. He smelled of sweat and sugar and spice, and sat so close that his knees were pushing against the edge of Aziraphale’s bar stool. “Are you under my spell yet?” he whispered, his breath fragrant with fresh ginger as he leaned in to kiss between bites. 

 “In your thrall. Exactly where I wanted to be.” Aziraphale ran a finger over Crowley’s lips, but Crowley didn’t take what he was offering. “Don’t you want it?” 

 Crowley shook his head and smiled. “I’m saving myself,” he said. “For now. Believe me, I fully expect to be fucked at the end of this.” 

 He fed Aziraphale the next course, steak tartare, raw as lust, the salted egg yolk unctuous from its slow bath of olive oil. As the richness of it coated his tongue, Aziraphale once again pictured Crowley lifting the yolks from the whites, standing barefoot in the kitchen, hips swaying subtly in an eldritch danse du ventre as he trickled his power into the more mundane – but no less thrilling – magic of herbs and heat and flavour. The pooled, luscious darkness inside him rose and pressed against the bottoms of his lungs. He was so hard that his body couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be hard, not to have every muscle and heartbeat and molecule straining toward the demon who was holding the fork, inviting him to take another bite. “Good?” Crowley whispered, stealing a kiss between mouthfuls. 

 Panting, Aziraphale grabbed a handful of hair and held him there, needing more. “I love you. I want you.” Crowley’s tongue seemed longer. His kiss was all flickers, flesh and yolk and slitted pupils, and Aziraphale had never been more aware that he was tasting the mouth of the serpent of Eden. “Please,” he said, offering the tip of his own tongue, wanting to pour some of that lapping darkness – now mingled with the high tide of his own desire – back into Crowley. “Take it.” 

 But Crowley shook his head again. “There’s dessert.” 

 “Crowley…” 

 Laughing, Crowley slithered off again. His hip sway, always hypnotic, seemed more pronounced than before, recalling those nights when she’d sneaked down to the gardener’s shed and had a few, too many to maintain Nanny’s stiff-backed, no-nonsense posture. He walked back, a dish in each hand, and the slight, lovely outward curves of his long thighs consumed every last thought in Aziraphale’s head. The peek of lace above his waistband. Dear God, was it even possible to want someone this much without accidentally self immolating? 

 “Wait,” said Aziraphale, as Crowley set down the dishes. He reached out and pulled Crowley closer. Black lace on hot skin. Crowley’s tight jeans looked curiously flat at the front, perhaps another symptom of the sloughing, eager-to-shift energy that had crackled around his corporation lately. “I like this,” Aziraphale said, caressing the little strip of lace. “A lot.” 

 He felt a static crackle against the tips of his fingers as Crowley shifted, already tiny waist narrowing even further under Aziraphale’s hand. She smiled down at him, her new face – with its smaller jaw – all yellow eyes and black brows. “Dessert,” she said, determined to be impossible from the get-go. 

 Dessert was a delicate raspberry and grenadine mousse, with light-as-air amaretti. She was trying to tease, but she was getting impatient, too, panting and squirming in her seat. “Do you want me like this?” she said, her fingers in his mouth again. He sucked them clean. 

 “I want you every single way there is to want you.” 

 She was so lithe, so delicate. Thin wrists, sharp elbows, small breasts stretching the fabric of her t-shirt so that it rode up at the front, revealing pale bare skin where there would usually have been hair. Her jeans were tighter over her hips now, and she exhaled in relief as she popped open the fly button, revealing more lace. He was close to madness now, his whole being consumed by the desire to find out what was between her thighs. He’d had that particular delicacy before, notched and soft and greedy, but it was different like this. She was a woman, the woman who had tempted popes and defiled puritans. He reached up, tracing the shape of her side, her breast, and touched his finger to her mouth. 

 “When do I get to taste you?” he asked, and this time her lips closed over the end of his finger. She sucked gently but she barely had to do so, because he was so full, brimming with lust and love. Her mouth fell open in a gasp, and he held his finger to the end of her tongue as she rocked into her own cupped hand, grinding against the seam of her jeans. 

 “Fuck,” she whispered, breaking the contact, hips still writhing. “Fuck, fuck.” 

 And there it was, the answer to a centuries old mystery: now he knew for sure that this wasn’t the first time he’d seen her come. “So beautiful,” he said. 

 Crowley stripped off her t-shirt, baring high, firm breasts. Hard red nipples. She was in his lap again in an instant, her tongue in his mouth and her hand down her jeans. She licked another climax from the tip of his tongue and offered him her wet fingers to suck. She tasted of salt and heat, temptation direct from the source. The darkness surged inside him, flooding every part of his body until it reached that little switch in the very centre of his brain, the one that whispered yes and made orgasm inevitable. All that gooey black lust had a finer texture now, tempered by Crowley’s love. Now it was less cloying, more velvet, the deep red-black at the heart of the darkest rose. He moaned around her fingers as he felt it burst and bloom inside him, a slow, delicious explosion that left no space for breath or thought. He came the way he had the first time, upright, untouched, fully clothed, his head full of her, of him, of Crowley, Crowley, Crowley. 

 “Oh God,” he said, still shuddering, her fingers wet on his chin. “I love you. I love you.” 

 She grabbed a handful of his shirt front and pulled him to his feet. “Show me,” she said, and there was a soft snarl in her voice. “Eat me.” 

 At some point the jeans had disappeared. The next thing he knew he was following her into the bedroom with nothing on his mind but how to get those tiny black lacy pants off her. She was way ahead of him, kicking them off her toes as her arse hit the bed and her legs – pale and endless – flew up and apart. He’d seen her like this only once before, strands of tangled red hair falling into her moaning mouth as she writhed around in her sleep. Off limits, he’d told himself, sternly. Absolutely forbidden. The kind of thing that would definitely cost you your wings. (But would still be worth it.) 

 Only now he could. He could have everything. She was spread out on the bed, wet and wide, one hand at work between her thighs. The other hand stretched out to reach for the raspberry mousse that Aziraphale hadn’t even noticed her carrying into the bedroom. He dropped to his knees, stupefied, as Crowley scooped up a messy handful in her tapering fingers and smeared it – pink on pink, temptation laced – between her legs. “Not like you not to finish your dessert, angel,” she said. 

 Her laugh trailed off in a throaty cry as he dived in, up to his ears in sugar and her. The sweetness filled him again, dark heat and sticky hunger. He was beginning to realise what she’d been afraid of, because his appetite seemed endless, no matter how much he knew that at some point all that temptation would have to burst out of him. It almost hurt, as though it was straining the seams of his corporation, and feeding her the tips of his fingers and tongue weren’t going to be enough any more. He was three knuckles deep, the flat of his tongue pressed against her, red hair tickling his nose until her fingers came down and wriggled their way either side of her clitoris, pressing down and making it stand up slick and swollen, as hard as the tip of one of her nipples, an occult teat between her legs. Aziraphale gently nudged her fingers aside, fastened his mouth over her and suckled, so that she bucked and cried out. 

 “Please,” she said, pulling his hair. “Please, angel. Please.” 

 “Yes, all right, dear.” He scrambled back onto the bed and unbuttoned with shaking hands. She was so wet he barely had to push and as she closed around him it was like another soft, dark explosion deep inside his head, a purely metaphysical orgasm this time, leaving him trembling from skull to tailbone. He hadn’t even started to move yet, but this, he supposed, was what it felt like to fuck a succubus. He’d read somewhere that they were cold inside, but she was blood hot and velvet, her hips rising to meet him. He was brimming, dangerously full, once again slightly terrified to have been given what he’d begged for. She’d fed him until he was overflowing, his veins pumped full of Hell’s hungers and her love. 

 He went slowly, but Crowley was having none of it. She wrapped her legs around him, fucking with two strokes of her hips to meet every one of his. She felt like blown and spun glass, a vessel too fragile to withstand the roaring tide inside him. Her tongue flickered and searched inside his mouth, unerringly finding the tip of his tongue and coaxing him to spill once more, sucking down the lust she’d poured into him, now tempered with the heat of his own. He felt her come and she immediately came back for more, drinking greedily from a stream he could no longer dam. She was coming and coming and coming, squeezing him, milking him with the ripples of her internal muscles. “Careful,” he said, one last desperate objection before he forgot how to talk entirely. “Be careful.” 

 “Fuck careful,” she said, in a clench-toothed voice, her heel digging into the small of his back. “Come on. Come on…” 

 His last sane thought was that he probably should have tested the fire extinguisher before they started, but by then it was far too late. The bedroom walls shook as he poured into her, his whole being radiating, ringing, singing like a full glass when a wet finger was drawn around the rim. Pitch perfect, rising higher and higher and higher. She was wailing in counterpoint, quivering around him, her hair streaming down. He saw the shadow of her wings against the wall and then everything was white and gold and far too bright, his body far too small and soft and human for this. Crowley felt like she could shake apart in his arms, but her voice was loud and throaty. All of a sudden she was heavy in his arms and he realised with a start that they had both left the mattress and were hanging in midair above the bed. He almost dropped her, landing on the bed and drawing a dry throated wheeze from Crowley beneath him. 

 “Sorry,” he said, and rolled off. “Are you all right?” 

 Tears streamed from the corners of her closed eyes, her small breasts heaving in time with her panting breaths. She licked her lips several times and said “Nnhg,” or something similarly devoid of vowels. Steam rose from her skin. Slowly she uncurled her toes. The joints cracked noisily in a room that was suddenly far too quiet, vibrating with a bombed-out hush that Aziraphale recognised from that unforgettable night when they’d both survived a direct hit from a V2 rocket. “Crowley,” he said, fighting the urge to twitch back the curtain and check that Soho was still there. “Are you okay?” 

 Crowley opened her eyes. “Oh yeah,” she said, after a couple of abortive attempts to speak. “Oh, hell yeah.” She grinned. “I’ve been waiting for that particular dicking since sixteen forty-nine.” 

 Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God.” 

 “Why are you thanking God?” She sat up and miraculously detangled her long red hair with a single shake of her head. “That whole dinner date was very much an infernal affair, thank you very much. Brought to you by yours truly.” She laughed and kissed him. “Don’t need to ask how it was for you. You’re glowing. Want some wine?” 

 “Definitely,” said Aziraphale, but she was already off the bed and halfway out of the room. He walked to the window on wobbly knees and drew back the curtain far enough to satisfy himself that this time his climax hadn’t had a blast radius. So far, so good. Just a regular Friday night in London – drunks, tourists, pizza delivery people, all of whom were magically ignoring the 1926 Bentley illegally parked outside the bookshop. Aziraphale wriggled out of his remaining clothes and slipped under the covers. “Turn on the tap,” he called. “After sex like that I wouldn’t be surprised to find I’d turned central London’s entire water supply into Chateauneuf du Pape.” As he often did whenever they tried something new, he reached for the notebook he kept in the bedside drawer. He had barely got the cap off the pen when Crowley reappeared, stark naked, champagne flutes in one hand and bottle in the other. She had just popped the cork and a wisp of vapour curled from the open neck and against the side of her thigh like smoke. 

 “No, angel,” she said. “Not the sex notebook.” 

 “I like to be thorough.” 

 “Yeah, and I like to be romantic,” she said, pouring out the pink champagne. It was the same Laurent Perrier they’d enjoyed at that place in Covent Garden. “Which doesn’t involve taking notes like you’re fucking birdwatching or something.” 

 “Sorry,” said Aziraphale, and closed the notebook. For now. 

 “I should think so,” she said, with a nannyish primness belied by the way she clinked her glass against his and then immediately downed her champagne in one before he even had a chance to ask her what they should drink to. Nanny Ashtoreth had been able to put it away, too, especially that time when Ambassador Dowling had decided that certain childhood illnesses built character, therefore Warlock should be subjected to a thing called a ‘chicken pox party.’ “All very well for him to say,” Nanny had said, swinging a stockinged foot over the arm of a chair as she seethed into her fifth or sixth single malt. “He’s not the one who has to stay up all night explaining to a small, itchy, miserable human why he’s not allowed to scratch his pustules, is he?” And then she’d sniffed the front of her stained maroon blouse and lamented that she’d be smelling of calamine lotion until kingdom come, which had been around six or seven years away at that point. 

 “When we were with the Dowlings,” Aziraphale said, watching her refill her glass. “And you used to sneak out for drinks, did you ever…?” 

 Crowley slurped up the foam that had spilled over the top of the glass. Some of it ran down her chin and between her bare breasts. Aziraphale leaned over and licked it up, making her laugh. “What?” she said, and slipped into the refined lowlands accent she’d used in those days. “Did you think Nanny was in need of a little bit of hanky panky? Think I’d come tiptoeing up to your door in kitten heels and no knickers?” 

 “Mm. And those stockings with the seams up the back.” 

 She laughed again and shook her head. “Nope.” 

 “No?” 

 “No. You seriously think I’d let those teeth anywhere near my clitoris?” 

 “The teeth were part of the disguise. I was incognito,” said Aziraphale. 

 She shook her head, long red hair swirling over bare shoulders. “I don’t know what you were,” she said. “But trust me, for the first time in six thousand years I didn’t feel so much as a twitch below the belt for you. You should have taken a leaf out of my book. Gone a bit feminine with it.” 

 “What? A lady gardener?” said Aziraphale, which Crowley seemed to find incredibly funny for some reason. 

 “Yes, a lady gardener,” she said, leaning against the footboard of the bed in fits of giggles. “Could have been quite sexy. Bare legs and wellies. Little denim shorts and an inadequate bra, like that woman who used to be on Ground Force.” She sucked in a lusty, hissing breath between her sharp white teeth. “Sister Frances. I’d have been at your back door with a wet snatch and a bottle of Glenmorangie every night.” 

 “Crowley!” 

 She laughed, punched a cushion into shape and shoved it behind her, then settled back, cross-legged. As she opened her thighs one of the inner lips of her cunt got caught between the outer and stayed there, the sliver of pink poking out from the dark red hair like the tip of a saucy tongue. He’d always admired and sometimes envied her effortless, fearless fluidity, and wished he had the nerve to join her, but he was accustomed to being man-shaped, and besides – as Crowley was fond of pointing out – being a woman was a lot easier when you happened to be a being who had no particular concerns about being perceived as nice. 

 “You are wonderful,” said Aziraphale. “What a marvellous evening – the food, the wine. You. Especially you.” He refilled his glass. “Are you sure I didn’t cause any accidental miracles?” 

 “Not that I could see,” said Crowley. “But we’ll probably go downstairs tomorrow and find that all the houseplants have turned the bookshop into a rainforest. That or there’ll be a weird spike in the birth rate in about nine months from now.” 

 “Once, Crowley. I did that once.” 

 “Yeah, but it was a thing. You were very potent, back in the day.” She sniggered and prodded him with her foot. “Hey, maybe I’m pregnant.” 

 “You’re not,” said Aziraphale. 

 “I could be. You’ve fucked me in every hole I have and some I had to invent for fun. Could be all kinds of pregnant right now.” Crowley burped and inspected the label on the wine bottle. “‘Avoid alcohol if pregnant or trying to conceive.’ Oh shit. I’m already a terrible mother.” 

 “Stop it. You’re not pregnant, Crowley.” 

 She emptied the bottle and frowned. “You seem very sure about that.” 

 “I am sure,” said Aziraphale. “I…I can’t. I’m actually…I’m sterile. So. There you are.” 

 Crowley shuffled forward on the bed, all wide eyed concern. “Shit,” she said. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” 

 Aziraphale shook his head. “It happened to everyone,” he said. “After the whole nephilim debacle, we were all ordered to report upstairs for treatment.” Crowley’s eyes were still far too big. “It’s really not a big deal. We all had it done.” 

 “They gave you the celestial…?” 

 “…snip. Yes.” He swallowed hard, moved not so much by what had happened to him but by Crowley’s reaction. “It was merely a management decision. Please stop looking at me like that.” 

 “I can’t help it,” she said, her hand on his shoulder. “Angel, that is…that is fucked up. That is dark.” 

 “It’s not that bad. Didn’t your lot…?” 

 “Nope,” said Crowley. “Demons are all about the spawning. Very big on spawning, us demons. I mean, my lot are monstrous, but at least they left my knackers alone.” 

 “Well, yes. That’s why I didn’t worry about prophylactics or anything like that. Because I…I can’t.” 

 “Come here.” Crowley put both arms around him. Aziraphale returned the embrace, baffled as to how after all these years it still did something to him when Crowley – who should have been able to do nothing of the sort – extended to him a style of simple, perfect kindness that would have made any observing archangel squirm in shame and realise they needed to try harder. 

 “It was a very long time ago,” he said. “You’re making a fuss about nothing. I’m fine, really.” 

 “I know that,” she said. “It’s just that the idea of anyone harming so much as a feather of your wings makes me want to…burn things. Or people.” 

 “Oh, darling. That’s very sweet of you.” He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her. “You always were a soppy old serpent deep down.” 

 “Whatever,” she said, suitably embarrassed. “Don’t spread it around.” She kissed him back then reached for her wine at the end of the bed. “Look, if it’s any consolation, if by some terrible accident of Heaven or Hell we did managed to procreate, they would definitely come down – or up – and kill us all. So, you know. Maybe it’s a good thing that that won’t happen.” 

 “You’re absolutely right.” 

 “See?” said Crowley, stretching out on the bed again, her feet towards him. “Silver lining. Anyway, we’re perfect as we are.” 

 “We are,” said Aziraphale. “Just the two of us.” 

 “Totally. We’d be lousy parents. We’re old. And weird.” 

 “Set in our ways.” 

 “So set in our ways,” she said. “There’d be no more dinners like this, for a start. Instead it would be those dinners where you end up wearing a plate of linguini Genovese because mummy’s little antichrist has decided he’s far too important to tolerate wheat.” She poked an invisible spoon into the air. “And that thing where you think you’ve got the food in there and you think they’ve swallowed it, but then they do that kind of reverse eating thing, like someone’s just run the film backwards. They can do that for hours. Starts with playful aeroplane noises, ends with sobbing, begging, bribery and carrot puree all down your Donna Karan.” 

 Aziraphale sipped his champagne. “Oh dear. That does sound awful.” 

 “It is, angel. I have literally witnessed tortures in Hell itself that are less stressful than trying to administer essential nutrition to a human toddler. And bedtimes? Don’t get me started on bedtimes. A kid’s not like a bookshop, you know. You can’t just hang a ‘closed’ sign at three o’clock in the afternoon and go and get pissed. No, you have to stay sober.” 

 “What? All of the time?” 

 “Pretty much,” said Crowley. “Until they get past that age where they have no instinct for self-preservation and you have to be alert all the time in case they try to eat pills or stuff their fingers in the garbage disposal.” 

 “And how long does that last?” 

 Crowley drained her glass and burped. “Well, for most of them it tapers off round about the time they’re allowed to vote, so…eighteen or so. Although in some humans it lasts longer. That’s how you get mountaineers, you see. Formula One racing drivers. Or that other thing. What’s that one where they throw you off a bridge and you’re attached to a big rubber band?” 

 “Bungee jumping,” said Aziraphale. “I think it’s called bungee jumping.” 

 “That’s the one. I mean, what happens to your blood pressure if you happen to give birth to one of those? A bungee jumper, or a racing driver, or one of those people who sees a mountain nicknamed the Widowmaker and is like ‘Oh, that sounds like a fun thing to climb’? Nobody needs that, angel. Especially not us. We’ve had enough stress and aggravation.” 

 “You’re absolutely right, dear. We’ve reached a time of life where we deserve to take it easy.” 

 “Exactly,” said Crowley, leaning over and kissing his bare knee. She smiled and trailed her long, soft hair up and down the length of his shin. It tickled. “Booze, food, sex. Lots of sex.” 

 Her hair looked like the lava from an erupting volcano. In this, too, she had always been fluid, from the long Venetian red curls that had blown across her mouth in the hot, carrion scented wind from Golgotha, to the short, shaved-nape spikes that had smelled of ash and brimstone on the night bus back to London. She lifted the strands high above her head, baring the two matching dark-wine tufts in each pale armpit, then leaned forward, spreading her hair over his belly and thighs. He felt her breath beneath the blanket of silk and fire, the soft huff of her laugh and the tease of her tongue, wet on the tip of his stirring cock. He wanted her again, gentle this time, and human, losing themselves in the slap and slide and rhythm of simple flesh and friction until they were touching an ecstasy that was – in its own sticky, heart-thumping way – perhaps even more divine than anything Heaven could offer. 

 “Turn around,” he said, wanting to taste her again. 

 Crowley shifted on the bed, legs too long for the distance between Aziraphale and the headboard. They shuffled up and down on the bed, Crowley already complaining that he always got the pillow end whenever they did this. He shushed her with a lick between her thighs, but she didn’t return the favour, obviously now in the mood to tease. She stroked using only her fingertips, her breath gusting over him, and he responded in kind, rubbing his cheek against the damp tangle of her bush, drowning happily in her scent. He felt something tickle and looked down to see that she had wound a long strand of her hair into a tight curl and was using the fanned out ends like a brush, tickling and down the length of him and the inside of his thighs. She laughed and he very much wanted to return the favour, but of course his hair was far too short for that. 

 In a moment of inspiration, Aziraphale reached into the space behind his shoulder and rummaged through the invisible feathers until he found one that felt as though it might yield. He gave it a sharp tug and pulled a pure white feather into visible space. “Now,” he said, and trailed the feather along the inside of her thigh. 

 It sparked against her skin, startling both of them. “Sorry,” he said. “Did that hurt?” 

 “No.” Crowley arched, one knee in the air, spreading her legs wider. “Do it again.” 

 Fascinated, Aziraphale stroked the feather along the insides of her thighs. Molten gold dripped from the tip and sizzled and spat when it touched her skin, like water on hot metal. In its wake it left a glittering residue, oily and smelling faintly like burnt incense. Crowley shivered and licked him, her mouth closing over him and her moan vibrating around him as the feather moved high enough to tickle the curls of her pubic hair. She was wide open, pink and glistening, and he was suddenly on fire to know what would happen if he touched her there. 

 “What does it feel like?” he asked. 

 She released him for a moment, her panting breath cooling the spit on his cock. “It’s a bit like when you do the Thing, but softer. Concentrated…” She gasped as he brushed the feather very gently over the edges of her lips. “Please. Fuck, yes. Please.” 

 He meant to tease, but he could never resist temptation. He brushed the feather right up the centre. The sparks danced higher and she swallowed him again, pushing his thigh into the air and spreading him almost as wide as she was. Her long fingers pushed, penetrating him with a lack of ceremony that recalled old fantasies of Ashtoreth – the pencil skirt, the leather gloves, the low, authoritative voice, and the hard ring of her heels on marble. And now he was finally here, worshipping at her altar while she sucked and fucked him. The feather struck sparks off her clitoris. He felt her lips – both pairs – tremble and twitch, and plunged in to kiss and lap and suck, devouring her as she came. She pushed deeper into him, making him roll and collide with something cold, hard and spiky. It rattled loud enough for Crowley to extract her head from between his thighs for a moment. “Whassat?” 

 “Light fitting. Not sure when we ended up on the ceiling, but…” 

 “Who fucking cares?” said Crowley, and rolled them both away from the light fitting, her fingers still inside him. “That’s better. Now…where were we?”

That night Aziraphale didn’t dream. Perhaps it was the food or the wine or the acrobatic sex, but something knocked him out thoroughly that he woke up with a new appreciation of why Crowley was so fond of his little naps. There was something very refreshing about taking a brief dip into oblivion whenever you felt like it, even if he didn’t completely approve of the way Crowley had once used it to punctuate his sulks. 

 Crowley had left a note on the pillow, saying he’d gone to get coffee, or at least the semblance of, from the place around the corner. Aziraphale dressed, went downstairs and started to potter through the lazy almost-motions of opening the shop. He opened the front door just as Crowley wiggled up, clutching coffees and a bakery bag. On the doorstep was a reusable Waitrose bag filled to the brim with used copies of Fifty Shades of Grey. 

 “Oh shit,” said Crowley. “You didn’t dream those, did you?” 

 “No,” said Aziraphale, glaring up and down the street in the hope of identifying the perpetrator of this offence. “This is just a thing that happens to every secondhand bookshop and charity shop the entire length and breath of this green and unpleasant land.” Appealing to nobody and everybody at once, he pointed to the neatly lettered sign begging people not to donate their copies of Fifty Shades of Grey. “There’s a sign.” 

 He left the books on the doorstep and huffed indoors, his tranquility already shattered for the morning. 

 “I don’t know what your problem is,” said Crowley, catching sight of his scowl. “You’re always trying not to sell books, and you sure as hell can’t shift those. And don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t responsible for that thing. That was one hundred per cent human.” 

 “Plus ca bleeding change,” said Aziraphale. “I liked it better when it was called Pamela. It was still over two hundred thousand words of crying and rape threats, but at least the syntax didn’t make me want to throw up, drink heavily and curse the invention of language.”*** 

 “I don’t think I’ve ever read it,” said Crowley, who had snagged a copy on his way in. He opened it at the first chapter, read a line and made a face like someone in the throes of a minor brain event. “Ooh, shit,” he said, and closed the book. “Well, that was a sentence. I think.” 

 “I’m afraid it doesn’t get any better,” said Aziraphale, correctly identifying one of the cardboard cups as containing the tea he’d requested. He’d asked Crowley to stop bringing him hazelnut lattes, on account of how snug his waistband was starting to feel. “Is that an almond croissant?” 

 “Mmhm.” 

 “Crowley. Really. I’m fat enough as it is.”

 Crowley reached up, grabbed Aziraphale’s lapels and pulled him down for a kiss. “Don’t care. I think you’re sexy.” 

 “Oh. Thank you.” Aziraphale felt his cheeks burn hot. “And obviously I…” All the words in all the languages in all the world and somehow he couldn’t find the ones to explain precisely how the motion of Crowley’s hips and the golden flash of Crowley’s eyes made his brain melt. “…I feel the same. About you.” He glanced at Crowley’s coffee cup. “So what’s today’s coffee flavoured sugar concoction?” 

 “Chocolate vanilla something,” said Crowley, sipping. “I’m not sure. Definitely doesn’t contain coffee, though. I’m off coffee.” 

 “But you love an espresso.” 

 “I know. It’s weird. Just couldn’t stand the smell of it this morning.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe I didn’t sober up properly last night. God, we were pissed.” 

 “We usually are,” said Aziraphale, furtively miracling his indifferent tea into a spine-stiffening morning Assam. “Do you ever worry that we’re sliding into a drunk and unproductive old age?” 

 “Worry? Me? No. I’m embracing it.” Crowley riffled through the pages of the book in front of him. “I think I saw her on Newsnight once.” 

 “Who?” 

 “Fifty Shades woman. They were talking about the book. Jeremy Paxman was reeling off a list of sex acts that sounded like it should end in ‘The Aristocrats.’” Crowley frowned. “At least, I think it was Jeremy Paxman. Come to think of it, he might have had a reptile on his head. Made the book sound absolutely disgusting, anyway.” 

 “It’s not,” said Aziraphale. “We’ve done weirder things in the missionary position.” 

 “What? Like levitating?” 

 “Among other things.” 

 “You should write a dirty book,” said Crowley. “You’re always dreaming them. You may as well write one. You’ve got time now.” 

 “Pfft. No. I couldn’t.” 

 “Yes, you could. Fifty Shades of Crowley. I could be on the cover wearing nothing but a tie.” 

 “Well, I did finish my translation of Boccaccio, I suppose,” said Aziraphale. “And writing books does sound like the kind of thing people ought to do with their retirement.” 

 “Exactly. You’d be brilliant at it.” 

 “Do you think so?” 

 “Yeah. You’re witty. You’re funny.” 

 “Devastatingly debonair?” said Aziraphale. 

 “Obviously. And you’ve read every book…ever. It’s like you were made to do this.” 

 “Strictly speaking, I was made to love.” 

 “There you go then,” said Crowley. “You should write a romance novel. Put pirates in it. One of them should have red hair. And tight trousers. And amazing fashion sense.” 

 “I’m not putting you in my novel, Crowley. Otherwise it all gets a bit F. Scott Fitzgerald. Besides, my feelings for you are private and sacred. I’m not going to write them down.” 

 “Ah, but you write them in your weird sex notebook, don’t you? You don’t even hide it. You reach for that thing before the sweat’s even dry.” 

 “It’s a notebook,” said Aziraphale. “Not a novel. And it’s strictly for reference.” 

 “Reference?” said Crowley, through a mouthful of almond croissant. “What do you need to refer to? You’ve had your hands all over me in so many different ways you could probably draw a map of me in the dark. You don’t need a reference section to know where all the happy bits are.” 

 “Do I? Your…happy bits are occasionally interchangeable.” 

 Crowley looked like he was about to say something, then decided not to. He got up from his chair, yawning and rubbing his stomach. “All right,” he said, stretching his spine. “I’m going to go and muck about in the kitchen. Have fun pretending to run a bookshop.” 

 “I will.” 

 Aziraphale had no intention of even pretending today. He hung the CLOSED sign, pulled down the blinds and went in search of the elderly Remington typewriter he’d once acquired just to see how it worked. He’d never produced anything original on it, although he had enjoyed teaching himself to touch type, clattering out typed versions of Herman Melville or – this was advanced level stuff – Ulysses. 

 “There,” he said, once he’d miracled the worst of the dust off the thing and set it on the coffee table in front of the sofa. He made himself a nice cup of tea, threaded a sheet of old but expensive paper into the machine and stared at it for a long moment. 

 An hour later, he was still staring at the typewriter. 

 He was astonished to find his mind was even blanker than the sheet in front of him. Once, in his desperation to be a little less scatty and a little more angelic, he had attempted Buddhist meditation. It hadn’t gone well. His mind – as it happened – was a frantically busy place, full of Baudelaire and Radio Four and the half-forgotten names of charming bakeries in the back streets of Bath. He had given up after half an hour, and consoled himself by thinking cattily of Gabriel and that surely minds were like homes: only dull angels had immaculate ones. 

 At the time it hadn’t occurred to him to write a romance novel, although if it had he would probably have reached nirvana by now, if an angel could reach nirvana, of course. His decision to write a novel had effectively wiped out all thought and turned the inside of his head into a microcosm of Purgatory. 

 After another hour he reached for his tea. It was cold. 

 Crowley chose that moment to come down, trailing the smells of wine and flesh behind him. He flopped down on the couch and glanced at the typewriter. Aziraphale had a sudden urge to throw the thing across the room. 

 “How’s it going?” said Crowley. 

 “Um…you know. Not…really…going at all, actually.” 

 “Does the typewriter work?” 

 “Yes. I think so.” 

 Crowley turned the typewriter towards him, and – to Aziraphale’s sudden and unexpected annoyance – started typing. Just to add insult to injury, his typing speed was fairly impressive. “Keys are a bit sticky,” he said, and returned the typewriter to its original position. Where once there had been a blank space, Crowley had typed ‘It wasn’t a dark and stormy night, but don’t let that fool you.’ 

 Aziraphale blinked. “Did you just…make that up?” 

 “Well, I’m paraphrasing, but yeah.” 

 “What? Just off the top of your head?” 

 “Yep.” 

 “Just like that?” It seemed outrageous. How did he do that? He wasn’t allowed to do that. He had his cooking. He didn’t need to be able to make things up, too. Aziraphale hadn’t even started his new hobby and already Crowley was better at it than him. He’d done a whole sentence. Without even trying. 

 Crowley lifted the cup of stone cold tea and sniffed. “Is there booze in this?” he said. 

 “No. Of course not.” 

 “Ah.” Crowley set down the cup and unfolded himself from the couch. “I see where you’ve been going wrong.” 

 “What? Where? How?” 

 He slunk over to the drinks cabinet. “Alcohol,” he said, bending over in a somewhat deliberate fashion. His jeans seemed even tighter than usual. “I’ve been drinking.” 

 “What’s that got to do with anything?” 

 Crowley fished out a couple of old fashioned glasses and reached for the Glenmorangie. “Every time you see a film,” he said, sloshing out two generous measures. “And there’s a writer in it, he’s always got a glass of something on the go, next to the typewriter. Cigarette, too, back when everyone still smoked.” 

 Aziraphale gave a small gasp. “Of course. Do you think that’s where I’ve been going wrong?” 

 “Definitely.” Crowley sat back down on the couch and handed Aziraphale the glass. “Here you go, Hemingway. Get your laughing gear around that. You’ll be banging out a Booker winner in no time.” 

 Aziraphale sat back and sipped, relieved. “It’s not that it’s difficult,” he said, after a while. “I just…I can’t seem to…you know.” 

 “No. What?” 

 “Begin. I can’t seem to begin. Where does one…begin?” 

 Crowley sucked his bottom lip. “At the beginning?” he said. 

 “That’s not helpful.” 

 “Yeah, but that’s where most books start. In the beginning was the word. Call me Ishmael. Sing, oh muse. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It is a truth universally acknowledged—” 

 “—that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Yes, I know how books work, Crowley. You don’t need to explain them to me.” 

 “I’m just trying to help.” 

 Aziraphale sighed and squeezed his knee. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He glared at the typewriter. It seemed to be making matters much more difficult in some indefinable way. “I just don’t know why this is so complicated. I’ve spent my life surrounded by books. I should be able to write one. Especially a romance novel. It’s character driven, for God’s sake. All I need is a hero and a heroine…” 

 Crowley stifled one of his disturbingly jaw cracking yawns. “Why?” 

 “What do you mean, why? That’s how romance works. There’s a man, and a woman…” 

 “Or a woman and a woman,” said Crowley. “Or a man and a man. Or an angel and a genderflexible snake demon whose legs look fantastic in high heels.” He wriggled closer on the couch. “Did you know that snakes have two penises?” 

 “I’m not putting you in my romance novel, Crowley.” 

 Crowley set down his drink and straddled Aziraphale’s lap. “Go on. I could be your muse.” 

 “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, trust me.” Could muses get writer’s block? 

 “Go on,” said Crowley, wriggling suggestively. “Let me inspire you. Something fresh. Something new. You can write about it in your sex notebook.” 

 Aziraphale put down his glass and devoted his attention to Crowley. Snakey hips, whiskey eyes, boozy tongue and long, lovely thighs braced either side of him. He could get lost between Crowley’s thighs and frequently did, wrapped in endless legs with Crowley’s crossed heels digging into the small of his back. 

 “Now?” he said. 

 Crowley stripped off his t-shirt. “Why not?” 

 “No, nothing. It’s just that you’re always telling me I should find a new hobby. I’m trying to find one right now and this is when you slither out of the kitchen and start wanting to play ‘What have I got in my trousers?’” 

 “What?” said Crowley, nibbling on Aziraphale’s ear. “You don’t want to play?” 

 “I didn’t say that.” You never knew exactly what was going on in Crowley’s trousers. One time Aziraphale had confidently identified an erection beneath the denim only to discover that Crowley had thrown him off the scent with a cucumber, and that there was something quite different going on downstairs. Something soft and hot and so delightfully accommodating that Aziraphale still couldn’t look a cucumber sandwich in the eye without blushing. 

 Crowley raised himself up on his knees and popped open the button of his fly. His jeans looked suspiciously bulky. “Any guesses?” he said. 

 “Oh come on. At least one of those is a cucumber. You can’t actually…” Aziraphale trailed off as the trousers came down, shimmied over slender, mobile hips. “Oh. Apparently you can.” 

 Crowley grinned. “Yep.” 

 “And what am I supposed to do with two of them?” 

 “Use your imagination,” said Crowley, pushing him down on the couch. “And both hands.”