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"I swear your love
would raise me
out of my grave,
in my flesh and blood,
like Lazarus;
hungry for this,
and this, and this,
your living kiss."
Carol Ann Duffy, If I Was Dead
A cottage in the South Downs
2020
Do you know what a demon is? A castout. A castaway. Rejected, pushed out.
A falling star.
This is a cottage tale. Watch how Aziraphale leans across the kitchen counter, his wandering hand in everything Crowley has set aside for the meal. Angelically pilfering thyme and rosemary too. Strips of bell pepper. A purloined brunoise of shallot. A nick of tomato.
“Get your damn hands out, angel. I need that.”
A rack of lamb. Duckfat-roasted potatoes. A reduction of red wine mounted with butter. He’s good with a knife. Handy with a bit of twine. Wrap it here, right around the bones, tie it tight. Twine will get a cleaner rack of lamb than the back of the knife will. It’s about knowing what you’re doing. About knowing how to get your hands dirty. (Crowley is red. Everything about him is red. His hair gleams red under the kitchen lights. When he cuts himself on the boning knife, his blood runs red. Look at him. Devil red. We dance around the mouth of hell. We tease the dead, dig up the bones. Put on a brave face. We don’t invite the Devil in; we never set him a place at the table. No one loves a hellthing. Crowley is well aware.)
“Look at you,” Aziraphale murmurs as Crowley moves about the kitchen, shoving the persillade-crusted rack into the oven, “You gorgeous thing. You are , my love. You’re too terribly good to me.”
“Not possible,” Crowley grouses, his brow spiked like a head on a pike. Never too good, especially not for you. The war is over and we are beginning. Tell me how we mean to go on.
“I love you," Aziraphale says it while holding his winestem in two hands, something gentle in his middle-aged face.
Crowley pauses. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why ?” Aziraphale frowns. “I love you because I love you.”
Crowley shakes his head. “Can’t figure it out, angel.” He doesn’t say it doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t say you could do a lot better. Look at him, he knows what he is. Too little, too late. There’s no meat on his bones, there’s nothing to chew on. Nothing to offer. When he kisses Aziraphale, it’s always with an apology on his lips. Sorry about the blood in your mouth, he wants to say, it’s probably mine.
“My dear, you don’t need to figure it out.” Aziraphale hesitates, his hand reaching up to brush the long hair away from Crowley’s face. “You’re thinking too much again, aren’t you?”
“Dunno.” Yes.
“What if you simply believed me because,” Aziraphale raises an eyebrow, “I told you to?”
You can tell me to do anything you like. Crowley is red. As red as embarrassment, as red as shame. I love you, Aziraphale says. It’s hard to believe, it’s hard to say yes to. (Crowley knows that if he says yes, he’ll lose it all. If he allows himself to say yes, he’ll fumble the grip, drop Aziraphale’s heart in the dirt. If he says yes, then you might think I think I’m worthy of you. You’ll pull away, you’ll be disgusted. I wouldn’t blame you. You shouldn’t have this stain on you, this mess of me. It’s hard to get red out. White wine sometimes helps. Seltzer too. If you want, I’ll spend the night with an eraser. When I say I love you, please know it’s an apology. Comes with a free bottle of bleach, for whenever you need to get rid of me.)
“Don’t overthink.”
Crowley nods. Let go. It’s Aziraphale, so it’s safe. Trust him. This spun-wool softness of an earthbound angel. Trust that cream Fair Isle jumper. Trust the tweed coat hanging in their shared closet. Trust the mail on the table, addressed to both of their names. (A magazine, junk mail. A wedding invitation. A.Z. Fell & Anthony J. Crowley scrawled across in black ink. Yes, their names together in print. It is written, it must be true.)
"Sure, yeah, I mean - that's easy to say, right? Just walk around telling my head to take a hike. Let everything slide off like ducks off the water's back." Crowley pauses, frowning. "Wait. I mean - "
"What do you want?" Aziraphale asks. His hands folded primly together and set upon his trousered knee. The glass of wine on the counter, dark and red. Full-bodied. Crowley wants to knock back the whole thing.
"Don't want anything." This is a lie. Crowley thinks about everything and wants all of it. The shame of his wants licks up his spine, flames up his back. The heat curls up his ears. Not very respectable of me, wanting things like this. Not very demonic. I want you to wash me clean, to take me back. I want to pretend that nothing ever happened, that I never tried to get between you and God. That I never asked anything from you. That you loved me from the first moment I walked blinking onto that wall. That Heaven and Hell never existed. That it was just the two of us and the garden. The two of us and the open sky.
"I've wondered if - well, would you consider … direction giving?"
Crowley breathes in. If you want me to. Not really something I'm into. "I mean, if you want. Is that something you want me to do? S'not really my scene but - " He closes his eyes. Darkness, darkness everywhere. Not a candle to burn.
" No ," Aziraphale says, holding his gaze firmly. "I want you to listen."
A shiver rattles Crowley's spine, hot and dry. Do you want me? Like that? He licks his narrow lips.
“Are you sure? Don't wanna make you have to -“
“I want to. Let me be the strong one for a bit, love.” I saw them swapping shoulders.
“Fucking hell.”
"Come here," Aziraphale says, leading Crowley to the sitting room and settling back into the sofa. He pats his lap. Crowley doesn't miss a moment of the movement over the trousers, the focus in Aziraphale's river-bottom eyes.
"What about the lamb?"
"I miracled it. It'll wait."
Crowley nods. He could say something. Could make it a joke. Instead, his legs solve the problem and he goes to Aziraphale. "You want me to sit on you?"
"Yes. Facing me, please," Aziraphale says, his voice somewhat breathless.
You want me to straddle you? His chest feels very warm. His ears, his throat. Crowley settles onto Aziraphale's lap, there against steel-hard thighs and his rounded stomach (as curved as the earth itself, as beautiful as a horizon). His hands uncertain against the waistcoat, brushing up and over the shirt and the bowtie. The wine does the work for him, wrapping Crowley's arms around Aziraphale's neck.
"Angel," he murmurs. Looking down at his lover beneath him. See the open mouth of the upturned face, the crinkle of a smile at the pale eyes. The flush in the cheeks and the faint freckles. The white eyelashes, pale brows.
"I'm going to make love to you and I'm going to tell you what to do," Aziraphale says. He's got one hand on Crowley's back and the other tips Crowley's jaw downward. "Is that alright, dear?"
"Yeah," Crowley breathes, his heart shifting gears, speeding up. "Yeah, that's fucking alright ."
"If you want to stop at any time, no matter what, then I want you to say aster. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good," Aziraphale says, his hand cupping that jaw more firmly now. Possessing it. Possessing him. Crowley feels like loose shavings drawn to a magnet. He had been scattered, here he is being found. Collected. Aziraphale holds him in wide and steady hands. "Kiss me."
Crowley falls into him. Mouth against open mouth. Their lips slotting together like a key finding its lock, turning the tumblers. Yes, open up. His eyes are tight, eyelashes dark against his cheek. Kissing Aziraphale is always intoxicating. Yes, that wheat skin, hair like opals. (Crowley is not like opals. Not like wheat. Skin like the underbellies of frogs and dead alewives. Hair like traffic cones and warnings. Stop. Do not touch.)
But Aziraphale touches him. Again and again and again, never coming back stained. Never looking at him differently.
"Unzip yourself," Aziraphale murmurs. It's quiet but there is nothing in the room but the crackle of the fire. The record has long since spun down. Outside, the winter has lured everything to sleep. Crowley flushes. His hands make quick work of his zipper. One of Aziraphale's manicured fingers moves forth, running up Crowley’s leg. Crowley catches himself in surprise. The tip of the finger rubs against his boxer-covered cock, the dark spot clearly showing his already wet slit. Yes, he is treacherously hard. There is nothing between Crowley and the questing hand but his few inadequate inches of dark cotton boxers.
"Oh, look at you." Aziraphale runs his warm hand over Crowley's cock. "Already hard for me, aren't you?" There is a bright glimmer to the blue eyes, a curve to Aziraphale's mouth. That inquiring hand finds the gap in his clothing, pulls his furiously-red dick out from his clothing.
" Fuck ." Crowley tilts his head back, hair falling to his shoulder blades. He moans as a steady thumb moves slowly over the head, rubbing his own leaking wetness back into himself. Aziraphale doesn't touch him anywhere else. No, Crowley is untouched save for the arm securely around his back, save for where his legs pinch around Aziraphale's thighs, where he rests here on Aziraphale's lap. His chest is untouched, his neck, his arms. His bare cock.
Except for this too, a steady rhythm of a thumb barely teasing the head.
" Christ, angel," he hisses.
Aziraphale raises his paperwhite brow, the fire spreading to his eyes. "Can you come like this?"
"Dunno," Crowley mutters, his eyes slammed shut, his shoulders twitching. Yes yes yes if you keep going.
"I think you can."
Crowley sucks in a breath, his skinny chest heaving. His fingers grip tighter into those sturdy shoulders, the arm at his back strengthens. Aziraphale's hand splays out across Crowley's scapulae, these bone-wings of his human body. Where they wander, Crowley feels the ghosts of his feathers bending under. "Yeah," Crowley says, gasping. "I might."
"No, you will. I want you to come for me. Just like this." Aziraphale varies the rhythm, speeding up the small circles on his wet tip. Crowley bites his own narrow lip, his canines digging into the meat of himself, trying not to cry out. "And I think you want to. For me. Don't you, my love?"
"Bloody hell - "
Over and over and over again, that barest pressure of Aziraphale's teasing touch. Crowley drops his head to Aziraphale's chest, clutching his twitching hands to beloved shoulders, begging for an edge he's scrambling to find. A precipice somewhere, looming unseen.
He comes then, on the barest touch, dreaming of falling. Gasping and desperate, a ruin in Aziraphale's lap. A shipwreck dredged up, there on Aziraphale's pressed trousers. Crowley stays there, heaving and catching his breath. When he finally looks up, pulls back with stars in his eyes, Aziraphale has miracled the mess away.
“Now, then,” Aziraphale cups his chin with a soft and open palm. “On your knees.”
Crowley slithers downward, his blood hissing with the drop to the floor. The Berber carpet presses into the skin of his knees, there through the night-dark denim of his jeans. Crowley bows his head, pressing his forehead into the bend of Aziraphale's knee. A gentle hand weaves through his hair, loving fingers in endless patterns. A lover's knot, never undone. There’s a pillow miracled into existence under his patellas. Aziraphale. Bright-eyed. Steady and blue, everlasting as the sky. Crowley closes his eyes and sees blue. The blue of dawn and the blue of deep night. Sky to navy, always present. Count on the sky. Count on the stars.
Aziraphale watches him. Crowley shifts in his position, squirming a little. It's strange, being watched and seen. He's not used to it. Most take a look, take the basic measure of him and fill in the rest as they like. Here he is, a dark scribble. Aziraphale doesn't do that. Crowley shivers. Here, under Aziraphale's direction, he doesn’t have to apologize for wanting. Doesn’t have to hazard the lesser of his evils. Usually, if Crowley is asked what do you want, he squints and blinks behind his glasses, trying to guess what Aziraphale wants him to say. I want one thing more than anything else. Don’t let me fuck this up. Don’t let me make a joke out of line. Don’t let me want a red flag. I’m all red and you’re my rose-colored world. I don’t know where your edges are. I don’t know if you’ll want all of this, all of me. I’ve clipped back so much, wrapped myself up. Blunted the edges, put bumpers on the sharp parts. You should know this. I’ve got knives for bones. Daggerpoint feathers. Don’t touch me, not without being careful. I’ll cut you. Get blood on you.
It's different like this, his head resting on Aziraphale's knee, this gentle hand in his hair. The gold ring (matching his own) warm against his skin. There is a place for him and he does not question it. The beauty of direction rolls out in front of him. He doesn't have to overthink, doesn't have to second guess. He doesn't need to worry. Crowley lets go. Of the fear, of the anxiety trip wires running through his skull. Here, guided by someone who has loved him since the Garden of Eden, someone who has loved him forever, Crowley can just be.
“Your mouth, dear.”
Yes, god, please. He bites his silver tongue while easing Aziraphale's cock from his trousers. This weight in his hands, pulsing and living. This piece of Aziraphale. Crowley is a mouth-proud creature, he knows how to take Aziraphale apart with the twist of his tongue and a well-placed swallow. He can tie a knot in a cherry stem with his tongue and he can pull moans out of the angel that would shatter windows. He wants to spend weeks between Aziraphale's legs, his head trapped between those gorgeous thighs. I'd stay down there, day after day after day. The stars would shift, the weeks would pass. I would make you come over and over and over again, as much as you'd ever want. I'd never let you out of my bed.
When he swallows Aziraphale, Crowley hears a moan ring out from somewhere above him. Hands find their way to the mess of his helter-skelter hair, pulling at the strands, wrapping them around the palms. Crowley feels himself guided by the pull at his hair, this way and that way. Faster, slower. He closes his eyes, lost in rapture as his hair is pulled by needy fingers, while his tongue traces serpents on the underside of Aziraphale's blood-hard dick.
"Fuck," Aziraphale breathes, dropping his head back against the sofa. He pulls Crowley off and up alongside him. Crowley drapes against him, listening to the sound of that knocking heart. "I should take you to bed," Aziraphale murmurs, combing his fingers through Crowley's lion's mane of hair. It's wild now, as untamed as it had been in the seventeenth century, turning up at theaters when Aziraphale just so happened to be around. (Crowley had taken to carrying hazelnuts with him, just in case the angel was peckish .)
"You should, yeah."
"And so I shall," Aziraphale says, kissing the crown of Crowley's head. "You impossible, beautiful creature."
"Shut up." Crowley flushes. Dark red on his cheeks and neck, dark red in the center of his chest. Crowley is red. As red as Mars, as red as Toliman, the second star in Alpha Centauri. As red as an escape route, a getaway, a flushed face saying we could go off together. A confession, obvious and bare, standing in the middle of a bandstand.
A confession, yes. But it's okay, isn't it? It's you. I love you. You love me. You put this ring on my hand, let me place one on yours. You let me hold you at night, curled up on my bed with your head tucked safe under my chin while you told me that you had always dreamt of a small cottage somewhere quiet. With wildflowers and a windowsill to grow potted herbs. With shelves for every last book. (I'd had to bend geometry there, apologize to Euclid.) With a fireplace too. It's okay if you know me like this, if I let you love me this close.
They move toward the bedroom, one after the other. They don't make it far. There, halfway down the hall, Aziraphale crowds Crowley up against the eggshell-matte wall. Crowley's hips flattened and his legs spread. His cock is brilliantly red and obvious, leaking without his permission. Here, pushed against the wall and pulled apart, he is on offer, here for the taking. Take me. I can't breathe without you. Be the bones of me, hold me up. We can be one body. Sink into me, become part of me. You can fill in the empty spaces (I can fill in yours). Aziraphale's hands in Crowley's hair, his breath against Crowley's neck. Touch me, please.
"Do you remember when I said I was going to fuck you?" Aziraphale whispers, bare breath against Crowley's superheated skin. He nods, wordless and voiceless. Aziraphale works into him with clever hands and miraculous oils. His desperate cock there in the undone opening of his trousers. Purple as a bruise with arousal, dripping on Crowley's stomach where it pushes in. Crowley is an occult being, his body listens as he rearranges atoms and changes expectations.
"Fuck me then, please," he begs, "I'm ready."
Aziraphale dips in, teasing him, reminding him of what is coming. (Please. Please. Please.) Aziraphale pulls away, rubbing lightly over him. He doesn't fuck Crowley. Not yet. (He pulses around nothing. Empty. So fucking empty. Please.) "You're being so patient," Aziraphale whispers, there at his ear. His breath hot and moist. "So good for me, darling."
"Angel," Crowley whines.
"So beautiful, I could keep you here for days, waiting and open for me. Just to look at. Michelangelo should have carved you."
"M'not," Crowley moans, "Not - nothing like - look, you splendid bastard, you can't keep holding off -"
"You're brilliant, my darling," A hand grazes lovingly over his cheek, traces the line of his jaw. "Sure kept me on my toes, didn't you? Always thoughtful, giving. You're impossible to stop thinking about, you know. That red hair should be a sin. Do you know why I don't sleep?" Aziraphale presses a kiss to the space where Crowley's neck meets his shoulders. His lips linger there on the surface, teeth teasing his skin like a mouth might tease a plum. Ready to bite, to take. To swallow down.
" Fuck - "
"Patience."
"No, that's not what I, you complete nutter - " Crowley breaks off with a moan as Aziraphale sinks his teeth there into the meat of his throat, scraping along the tender skin. Sucking at him like a lamprey eel, pulling the sparks of Crowley to the surface. He shudders. His cock twitches, useless and hard again.
"I never slept because I always dreamt about you."
" Ngk. " Crowley pushes his head back against the wall. Aziraphale brings a hand up, cupping his skull against the hard surface. Giving him a soft place to land. He presses closer against Crowley, teasing him with that impossible wait. Ready and legs wide apart, empty, aching.
" Please ."
Those solid fingers curl tightly around his wrists. Aziraphale fucks into him. His cock and his tongue, both hot and seeking. Crowley cries out in pleasure. Overloaded at last, the circuit finally completed. He arches into it, electricity sparking along his nervous system, his vagus nerve, shooting from his fingertips. There, finally. Aziraphale at last inside of him, pulled close, pulled safe within his own body. Crowley aches, blissfully full, clenching around. A slick hand pushes between their sliding stomachs and their shining flesh. Aziraphale fucks into him and Crowley fucks his fist too.
When he comes, it's with the taste of lightning on his tongue. Aziraphale tumbles in through the desperate after, gulping for furious air and his fingers tilling Crowley's skin like soil. There, in the space of after, Aziraphale leans against the wall, trembling and still gasping. His sweat-damp forehead drops onto Crowley's shoulder. Crowley rests his own head on Aziraphale's, pressing exhausted, fevered kisses into the white promise of his hair.
"I love you," Crowley says, spilling it out there again for no reason at all. That's the trouble with love. There's no keeping it in. We say it unpredictably, we shout it out to the sky. Love is always uncapped. Love is a shaken soda bottle. To leave it unsaid is a dangerous thing. (Crowley says it now and says it often. They both do.)
"And I love you." With an inhale, Aziraphale looks up. His eyes as bright as the center of a flame and just as warm. "Now, shall we love each other in a bed?"
Crowley laughs. "Yeah, six-thousand years is pretty hard on the knees."
“Come here,” Aziraphale says, stretching a hand out. They fumble toward their bedroom. It's small, cottage-cozy. Just big enough for two and decorated by their four-hands and two beating hearts. See it now. Their four-poster bed, cut of mahogany. Their paired armoires. This hope chest here (hiding linens, yes, and ancient letters too). These argued-over sheets (this week, tartan), the position of the bed picked for the spill of the soft morning light.
Aziraphale undoes his bowtie, resting it on the slipper chair. (Crowley gives a strong side-eye to the awful jacquard pattern of the chair. He’d lost that battle to Aziraphale’s baroque taste. Could’ve been black. It’d look better in black. ) Crowley shifts from foot to foot, waiting impatiently. His long spindle fingers running restlessly over the banding of the dresser. Aziraphale turns and folds down the duvet cover. He seats himself on the bed. "I do love to look at you."
Crowley stutters. He wants to say I’m sorry for what you find but Aziraphale has struck it from his tongue. So he stands there, hesitant, uncertain of what to say. Aziraphale's eyes are soft and his mouth softer still. See the beloved face, study it. These crosshatching lines, this every century etched into skin as pale as unstained wood. These shining eyes, as bright as Neptune.
"Do you want to unbutton me, love?"
Crowley nods, just a hair too quickly.
"Undress me."
Aziraphale's eyes are heavy on Crowley as he walks across the room. There's a prickle on the back of his neck, knowing that he is being watched, being considered. That the shape of him is being seen, the way he walks across the thick rug, the way he displaces the air. He wants to touch himself already. His restless hand dips down, he presses a firm palm against his already hard cock, biting his own lip. He sits on the bed next to Aziraphale, keenly aware of his own nakedness. His superheated and bare skin, open to the air. How Aziraphale still in his trousers and waistcoat, buttoned up to the top.
His hands shake as he undoes the buttons. Hidden in his mouth, Crowley bites on his own tongue to focus, to keep himself somewhat steady. Inch by inch, bit by bit, Aziraphale's skin is revealed. Something bright grows in Crowley's chest as he unwraps the angel. This skin, softer than his imagination had ever given it credit. Softer than the moss in Eden and the lichen too. Crowley ducks his chin, his hair brushing against the horizon of Aziraphale's bare stomach. Rounded as a star, rounded as a sun. There to be worshipped and Crowley offers his prayers to the sloped shoulders, to the plush wealth of his beautiful body. You're perfect, you're what songs are written for, you're what beauty is. Yes, he presses his mouth to the silver curls on Aziraphale's chest, he makes pilgrimages along his silk-soft arms (the muscle hidden underneath, steely as a sword), tracing the stretchmarks and the moles. The freckles too. I love these parts of you best. The ones that are just you. No one has these exact marks, these exact lines. There is no pattern of freckles in the universe like yours. Not even in all the stars in the sky. (I should know, I put them there.)
Sturdy fingers still his starmaker hands, bring his jaw up into a kiss. Use me, Crowley thinks. Touch me, please. Yes, just as he needs. Just as he likes. The heat of it licking up the back of his neck, down his shivering spine. Aziraphale's finger is hot to the touch, running up Crowley’s leg. He catches himself in surprise. Aziraphale kisses his neck. Crowley's eyes roll back, blind and unseeing. The hand rubs against his cock, already wet and obvious. The rock hard need between his legs. Both of Aziraphale's clever hands slip through his legs, nudging them apart. There's no one else here. No one but Aziraphale to see. Yet still, Crowley knows he is being watched, feels the weight of being appraised. His cock throbs, open and undefended, pushed forward by his spread legs. His copper curls stretch like a comet trail up to his navel. The glimmering red wet head of his dick, twitching in the open air.
Begging touch me, please.
It won’t matter. Aziraphale draws long ovals up and down Crowley's back, gentle and soothing. Aziraphale will take his time. "Patience, darling," Aziraphale murmurs. A finger against him, teasing him, dipping inside of him over and over again. Crowley aches, empty and needing. This hand that teases, promising something else. Consider incompleteness as a verb. There is an ache inside of him, his body clenches around the emptiness, aware of the negative space. Fill me, please please please.
"All in good time," Aziraphale whispers, breath hot against the curl of his ear.
Those fingers trail over his skin. Crowley moans under the careful touch. These wide and steady hands, these beloved fingertips with their meticulously clipped nails (shined to a mirror's polish). They've been alone for millennia. Yes, thousands and thousands of years, left to their own devices, left to learn the art of wanting. Aziraphale doesn't hesitate, stroking his ankles, his calves, his thighs, there at his hips. Soft lips glide down his neck, rain across his chest. These gentle hands in his hair, fingers tightening around his arms. One brushes against his cock (too easily, he's still dripping, still so fucking wet). A tease. Promising to be something more soon. Crowley falls into the bed, bent backward and blind to it all.
God, he needs this. "Your neck is like the tower of David," Aziraphale murmurs, his fingers tracing the divot of Crowley's throat, catching on his Adam's apple. "Built in rows of stone; on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors."
"Are you reading poetry to me?" Crowley gasps.
"Mmm, I suppose so," Aziraphale says. Crowley can feel the smile pressed into his shoulder. "Well, reciting, more accurately. Do you mind?"
"God, no."
"I'm going to fuck you now," Aziraphale breathes. Crowley shivers. He is softly pushed down into the mattress, his head landing on a white pillow. Still soaked and open, still bare and available. Aziraphale guides himself back into Crowley's body, crying out as he does. Crowley moans, turning his head to the side, half-muffled by blankets. His wrists held down by firm hands, his fingers tearing at the tartan sheets. Aziraphale fucks him steadily. Crowley is drunk on the cock inside of him, the drag of Aziraphale within his body, pushing and pulling, faster and faster, over and over again. Aziraphale widens his stance, spreading his knees, pushing Crowley's legs wider apart. Crowley hisses and angles his hips higher, presenting more of himself. Deeper, harder, faster, please. Aziraphale slams into him, hips held hard against his own and eyes slammed shut. Crowley closes his eyes and an image flits in his mind. See how his body stretches and throbs, filled to the top with Aziraphale. Crowley feels Aziraphale's body twitching and stilling inside of him, filling him deeply, impossibly full. Come between his thighs, salt and slick spilling out. There, on the sheer idea of Aziraphale coming within him, Crowley comes again with a sharp cry. White stars scatter past his eyes and civilizations rise and fall. This solar flare of his twitching, shattering self, his thighs shaking around Aziraphale's body and white and gold tumbling through.
I remember the first time I saw you, standing across a wide marble room. You didn't know it was me. I looked different then, had gold scattered across my shoulders. My eyes were green then, that bright green-gold of goldmound. Spirea japonica. We'd had no reason to speak, the Principality drilling for war and my lazy, useless self. I hung stars. Not much else. They called me a healer. (There had been no one to heal then. There had been no reason for war.) They gave me a different name after I took a swan dive off of that pedestal, after they saw I didn't belong there. Didn't fit in. Wasn't good enough. I never told you the first one.
It didn't matter.
"Crowley? Darling?" Aziraphale's voice fades through his haze. The yellow eyes are still shut, something of a moan falling from his mouth. "Stay hard for me," Aziraphale commands. Crowley hisses, his world half-faded and blending. Oversensitive and overwhelmed. Standing on a shoreline, plunging off an edge. He focuses through the too-bright world, coming up to the surface again. There is a warm hand curled around his stinging, miraculously-still-hard cock.
"It'ssss too much."
"I want you to come for me."
"Again?"
"Yes."
"Angel," he gasps, "I can't. It's - I can't. S'not possible." I'm bone dry, sucked clean. There's nothing left. Nothing left but ectoplasm and starstuff. If I come again, I'll crumble into dust. A ruin, a colossal wreck. I am Ozymandias, king of kings. King of dust.
"If it was too much, you'd use another word. You still have that, don't you? Aster?" There is a pause, a marco waiting for a polo. Aziraphale allows the moment to shiver between them, waiting to hear the word. It never comes. Crowley shivers there on the bed, undone and threadbare. Pulled apart. Keep at it, keep pulling at my strings. Undo me. "You’re going to come like this,” Aziraphale whispers. Determined and careful, cupping Crowley in his two water-bearing hands, not spilling a drop. “Because I want you to.”
He slides down Crowley's body, taking his searing cock fully into that impossible mouth. Those fingers curl tightly around Crowley's wrists. He cannot move (save for a minor miracle, Aziraphale has been careful to give this leave, this escape hatch, just in case). Crowley pushes his head back into the mattress, writhing in the wet heat of it all, trying not to snap his hips dangerously up into Aziraphale's mouth. His body twists, upward and downward. He doesn't know if he's trying to move away from Aziraphale's lively tongue or to fuck the mouth upon him deeper. It doesn't matter how he moves, how he shifts. The stroking tongue goes along with his movements, flicking up and down his desperate cock. Oh fuck. He's going to come and he's not going to be able to do a thing to stop it. His orgasms are not his own anymore, they're owned by Aziraphale. Yes, Crowley knows, he'll come as many times as Aziraphale wants. Over and over and over again.
“Angel, please, ” Crowley begs, asking for nothing in particular. A gentle, yet very firm hand presses upon his knee. His hips fall further open, his legs like a door in welcome. Knock and you can enter. Crowley cries out with not even a fist to shove in his mouth to keep it quiet. He comes there, held on Aziraphale's soft tongue. His hands digging into the mattress, his toes curled against the carpeted floor. White light in his eyes, white heat in his blood. The world is over, the world is new again.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
When Crowley opens his eyes, there has been a skip in time. Perhaps he had slept for a minute or two. The table lamp is switched on, bathing the room in a soft golden light. Further down the bed, Aziraphale runs a warm, damp towel over Crowley's stomach. He looks up at Crowley's shifting, leans in to kiss his forehead.
"Er - did I do the - " Crowley waves his hand around in a wild gesture, giving up on human language.
Aziraphale laughs. "Yes, you were unconscious for a few minutes."
"That's bloody embarrassing," Crowley grumbles, hiking himself up to get a better look. See Aziraphale, bare to the world, holding a damp cloth. His curls wild, his pale eyes shining. Nebulae. Your eyes remind me of nebulae. The evening sky is dark outside the windows. The duvet is in a ruin on the floor. And Aziraphale is smiling at him, one gold-ringed hand resting on Crowley's calf.
"It's rather flattering, I think."
"Yeah, well, think what you like. You're a menace."
"Just enough of a menace to be worth loving?" Aziraphale wears a smile on his face that says he already knows the answer. There is no other answer to the question. There never has been.
"Come here." Crowley peels back the sheets, moving over to make room. The night is dark around them, the light burns brightly. Aziraphale presses in against Crowley's chest, his head, as always, tucked under Crowley's sharp chin.
"I love you," Aziraphale murmurs, half-asleep.
With drowsy eyes and fingers drawing constellations on Aziraphale's bareskinned back, Crowley hums a little in acknowledgment. "Love you too," he whispers. Something lost in the night. The night is wide and dark, endless and immortal. They were fashioned in the night and born into the silent dark. In the end, it will be dark again. Crowley closes his eyes and the yawning black infinity is there, carried inside of him. There is nowhere without the dark. But light exists. Here in this quiet cottage, here in these milk-white curls of hair. Here in blueshift eyes and glimmering off of gold bands. Where light exists, it changes everything. White light, yes.
Starlight is red too.
Crowley holds the white light in two red-blooded arms. Pure and blazing, bright and fierce. Look up at the night sky. The stars piercing through in the dark, lifted in furious triumph, these lanterns guiding our way ever somewhere safe to sleep.
What light is left on for you? Tell me where you call home.