Chapter Text
I.
Aziraphale was not a violent angel, but the minute he saw Crowley leaned up against the Bentley, he was struck with the urge to wring that demon’s neck. Knowing him, he'd probably like it.
Crowley was dressed to kill with a highly feminine presentation, all in black as per usual, hair longer than Aziraphale had seen it in decades. The angel flushed because the black leather sheath dress he was wearing was entirely inappropriate for a business meeting in the middle of the afternoon.The demon looked like he was fit to go to a nightclub halfway around the world, somewhere that night had already fallen.
“Oh really, my de — Crowley , I agreed to meet you to talk, not for — “ Aziraphale closed his mouth, cutting off the sentence because with one loftily idealistic choice, he’d upended the foundation of their relationship. In truth, he had no idea where he stood with Crowley now.
“For wot?” the demon asked, his voice rough, demanding as he tipped his dark glasses down and peered over the top of them.
The demon may as well have punched him in the gut. They’d been apart now for hardly a year, a drop in the bucket compared to the millennia that had come before, but somehow he was unprepared to be in his presence again. He was and always would be the most beautiful thing Aziraphale had ever seen. Crowley had come to remind him aggressively .
He cleared his throat and glanced away to try to regain some of his composure. When he looked at him again, he had to suck in a sharp breath. “Good Lord, Crowley, what has gotten into you?”
“Wanted to get your attention,” Crowley shrugged. Aziraphale swore he saw him smirk before he turned away. His eyes trailed downward, observing the stick straight, perfectly centered seam of his black stockings running up the backs of his calves. He blinked when those long legs disappeared behind the Bentley and looked back into his face as he leaned over the roof, arms folded under his chin. “And here you are.”
Aziraphale hated how smug he sounded because Crowley was right. He was standing across from him, struggling to remember how to breathe, and feeling every inch of his corporeal form. It felt heavy and much more sensitive that he’d recalled. Suddenly he understood why Crowley preferred to manifest his own clothing. He was painfully aware of the feeling of fabric against his skin.
“You fiend ,” Aziraphale hissed.
“Uh huh,” Crowley replied as he took off his shoes, opened the door to the driver’s side, and tossed them in the back. “Get in the car, angel. We have to talk.”
Aziraphale hesitated as he watched him swing his lanky body into the Bentley and thought that he didn’t have to go with him. He could go back to Heaven and tell them he never showed up, wait awhile, and reschedule it. Maybe the demon will come a bit more abashed. No good could come of getting in that beast of a vehicle. He wrung his hands and stood frozen on the curb until Crowley pushed open the passenger’s side door.
“You comin’ or not?”
Such an innocuous phrase, but his serpentine eyes peering over dark lenses spoke volumes. Their relationship wasn’t perfect, far from. This wasn’t the first time a disagreement had separated them. No matter how furiously they quarreled or long the years stretched between the last time they’d seen each other, Aziraphale had never questioned Crowley’s loyalty. For a demon, Crowley was terribly forgiving. This felt different. Maybe they really would be over this time. Just thinking about it made his eyes burn and throat constrict.
“Aziraphale, please . “
Crowley’s voice broke softly and Aziraphale stopped hesitating. As he pulled the door shut, he was profoundly comforted by the familiar surroundings of dark leather and the scent he’d long since come to associate with Crowley. The awareness of being close to the demon was a whole other matter.
He barely had time to think in Heaven. His schedule was tight and never ending. There was no sleep in Heaven, no breaks, no vacation time, and the only thing to read was scripture, personnel, and project files. Now his thoughts ran wild, awash in memories, old sensations made new, and emotions. God . Just allowing himself to feel anything felt novel. Heaven was a cold and stoic place. His tongue would have been rent bloody within weeks from biting it had he not been incorporeal.
“How’ve you been?” Crowley asked, to Azirpahale’s complete astonishment.
“I think the more relevant question is how have you been?” he huffed, giving him a sharp look. “Honestly, Crowley, is my attention really worth all this chaos?”
“Says the angel that got all tarted up, waltzed into the middle of a revolution, and risked getting beheaded because they knew bloody damned well I’d be there.”
“We’ve been over this. I wanted crepes,” Aziraphale protested as he always did.
“Oh come off it, it’s just a really thin pancake, innit? There is absolutely no reason they’d be better in Paris,” Crowley argued. The angel smiled when he felt the car accelerate with his agitation. Aziraphale had missed this .
“You just don’t understand, Crowley,” he sighed wistfully. “Anyway, I’ve seen you eat. It’s a wonder you’ve tasted anything in your life.”
All this talk about food was making him absolutely famished. “Where are you taking me? I know we talked about getting coffee, but I do hope they have decent pastries. I understand you not wanting to meet at Nina’s with it being so close to the shop, but it is a terrible shame. I don’t know who her distributor is or if she makes them in house, but her scones are brilliant and light. Do you know how rare it is to find one that doesn’t settle like concrete in the stomach?”
“You’ll see,” Crowley replied vaguely. “There’s a tin of biscuits in the glove compartment.”
“I’ll see?” Aziraphale gave him a quizzical look before going to retrieve said tin of biscuits. “Tim Tams? Spoiling me, I see.”
Crowley didn’t say a thing, just reached over to squeeze his thigh, like they hadn’t parted in heartbreak, like he hadn’t choked back tears, and watched Crowley watch him leave with Metatron. Aziraphale wanted to cry. He put a palm over the back of the demon’s hand instead.
“I’ve missed you,” Aziraphale confessed softly.
Crowley scoffed. “Coulda fooled me. Had to raise a whole lotta hell before you even called me.”
“Don’t you start,” Azriaphale crossed his arms and dared to glare at Crowley’s handsome side profile. “I’ve not had a minute to myself since I took the position. It’s just been paperwork, training seminars, and meetings, oh it’s been an absolute nightmare .”
His eyes widened when he realized what he’d just said. It wasn’t a lie, and even worse, it was kind of his fault. When Adam had refused to play his part, Heaven and Hell had returned to the drawing board and was planning another major apocalyptic event. They were calling it the Second Coming but debating adapting some human ideas, as well — Namely The Rapture. Aziraphale had been spending what little time he was granted to himself looking for a loophole.
“Heh,” Crowley gloated. “Regretting it, are you?”
“No,” Aziraphale replied sullenly. “What I regret was your utmost refusal to come with me.”
“Angel — “
“Oh, I know! It was foolish of me to suggest you would want to become an angel again. I was over excited about the prospect of us being together without waiting around for the other shoe to drop.”
The few years of retirement after the apocalypse-that-wasn’t had been some of the best of his existence. Yet it had been marred by the feeling that they were walking on eggshells under the Sword of Damocles. The idea that Crowley would be allowed to return hadn’t felt so much like retribution for a hasty judgment but a relief from the paranoia that had shadowed them for so long. Certain things had been misconstrued. He could see that now.
Crowley was silent for a long time before speaking again. “You know I’m not safe up there, any more than you’d be safe in Hell.”
“Yes you would !” Aziraphale insisted. “You’d have been under my protection!”
“Oh, so what?” Crowley yanked his hand back so he could bang the heel of his palm against the wheel in a flare of frustration. “God damn you , Aziraphale! You saw what they were willing to do at the end, not even to speak of the fuckery you’ve seen since practically the beginning! Judas wept, angel, they were going to execute you! Why do you still give Heaven the benefit of the doubt?”
“I’m not! Crowley, I want to make changes, not have it continue as it has been.”
“Yeah? Made any headway?” The demon’s lips curled in a cynical sneer.
“Darling, please .”
“Don’t you ‘darling please’ me. Answer the damned question, Aziraphale. Have you made any feasible changes?”
Aziraphale pouted in the direction of the tin of biscuits that remained untouched in his lap. He certainly hadn’t missed this , when Crowley pushed at and interrogated his faith in God and Heaven. In the way that Crowley often bemoaned him being “so clever yet so stupid”, the demon could easily be called “so empathetic yet so cynical.” Aziraphale used to think it was a demon thing, some switch in his brain that clicked on when he was cast out, the way Adam and Eve became aware of shame when they ate from the Tree of Life. The more he'd gotten to know him, the more it had started to feel more personal than that.
He felt guilt settle in his gut. Crowley hadn’t really fit in even as an angel. He didn't seem to fit in as a demon either. They had seemed a little too eager to watch his execution. All Crowley had was him — Rival, best friend, and beloved partner. Tears obscured his vision.
“I didn’t come to fight,” Aziraphale said quietly.
The tension coiled in Crowley’s long limbs, beneath his absurdly provocative frock, eased a little bit. “Yeah, I figured. Me either.”
Not that long ago the silence that settled between them would have been comfortable. Now it was charged with everything that had gone unspoken since their separation. Desire, too, but that was nothing new. Aziraphale wished Crowley would touch him again; he wished he felt bold enough to touch him first. He sighed ruefully and settled on tasting food for the first time in months.
Aziraphale’s unbidden moan of pleasure broke the awkward silence. Crowley laughed, rested his brow briefly against the wheel. “You ridiculous thing,” he shook his head. “I’m glad you came.”
The angel smiled and cast him a furtive look. “You know I couldn’t stay away forever.”
He couldn’t eat like he used to, either, or maybe chocolate was too rich on an empty, anxious stomach, and he was soon putting the tin back into the glove compartment. Aziraphale straightened, took stock of the fact that they had since left the outskirts of the city and were surrounded by the rolling hills of the countryside. He admired the scenery for a spell. Earth really was beautiful. It made his heart ache with nostalgia and…homesickness. He realized with a shock that this felt more like home to him than Heaven ever had. God had saved all Her warmth for this tiny planet, it seemed.
“Crowley, where are you taking me?” Aziraphale asked again, more more serious this time.
The demon grimaced. “Don’t get mad.”
Aziraphale frowned deeply. That didn’t bode well at all. At least they were still in England and not space or however Crowley had intended to transport them to Alpha Centuri. (He would not have put it past him to sort out how to drive the Bentley all the way there.) “I won’t,” Azriaphale promised and hoped he wouldn’t regret it.
“Tadfield,” Crowley replied, dragging his fingers through his hair anxiously.
“Tadfield? What ever for?” He was so surprised he didn’t have the capacity to even be upset. “I’d have thought it the last place you’d ever want to be again.”
“Ohhhh you know, it’s not that bad,” Crowley drawled, his voice deceptively lazy, though his hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles gone white with the tension that had returned to his body.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Aziraphale asked coldly, leveraging that particular tone being the demon’s weak point.
“Ngk, there’s still a shield over the town. I think it’s going to stay that way so long as Adam remains there.”
The angel gasped sharply. “How is that possible? Didn’t he reject his birthright?”
Crowley just shrugged. “We declared ourselves free agents, doesn’t change what we are.”
“Touche,” Aziraphale murmured before something else occurred to him. “You didn’t want us interrupted!”
The gall of him! Putting them in danger if his absence piqued too much interest. Granted, Heaven was pretty terrible when it came to time management, so he could probably take an afternoon or even an evening away, especially for the very good reason of “sorting out his pet demon”. Aziraphale clenched his teeth, trying not to think too hard about how they spoke about Crowley behind his back and to his face.
“Pull over,” Aziraphale demanded.
Crowley growled but did as he was told. The silence was thick when he cut the engine. Aziraphale shivered as he watched him remove his shades and massage the bridge of his nose.
“Listen, I’m sorry, I just — “
“What, Crowley, what ? You’re unbelievable, do you know that? I figured I could trust you not to make or get into too much trouble until I….” Aziraphale made a helpless gesture. “I’m worried about you, my dear.”
The demon’s jaw clenched and Aziraphale wondered what he was thinking. He pressed his lips together so tightly that his lips formed a dark slash of red across his face. Crowley turned his face away. “Y’should be,” he grumbled. “This is the first time I’ve been alone, y’know. Really alone.”
An extremely petty part of Aziraphale, one that had been cropping up more and more since he’d returned to Heaven, made him want to remind Crowley that it didn’t need to be that way. The demon had been given the option to come with him. The feeling didn’t last, however. How could he possibly have thought Crowley would happily agree to returning to the fold that hadn't really accepted him in the first place. Crowley’s inquisitive nature aside, he’d always secretly believed that Lucifer had just been that charming, especially to someone that had been thus far a victim of social ostracization. Aziraphale often wished he’d been closer with Crowley back then, but it was easy to forget that personal relationships weren’t really a thing in Heaven. There were angels that you were cordial with, but even before Aziraphale realized he wasn’t comfortable with everything done in God’s name, he hadn't been exactly familiar with friendship. Crowley was his first, best, and only friend.
“I’ve been lonely, too,” Azriaphale whispered. He looked at Crowley and felt hopeless. The angel was increasingly suspicious that they were using him. Metatron hadn’t thought that Aziraphale was anything important but certainly a nuisance to be neutralized. Keeping him busy in Heaven would definitely make it harder for him to plot thwarting another apocalyptic event. “I think…I might have made a mistake.”
“Aziraphale —” Crowley touched him again, and it was that second time that broke him.
He slid across the front seat and wrapped his arms around the demon’s neck, lips parted, near to tears when he felt Crowley’s arms go around him. Maybe he was angry, maybe he was far from forgiving him, but the affection, the love was still there, inescapable as rain in the springtime.
“Can I — ?”
“Please,” Crowley breathed and Aziraphale closed that distance.
Kissing was one of Aziraphale’s favourite things to do. He loved the physicality of it, the heat of Crowley’s breath, the slick sensation of his tongue sliding over his own, teasing softly. It was shocking how it made him feel. He realized that he’d barely been touched in the time he’d returned to Heaven. The rare handshake, at most. Not that he wanted to kiss anyone in Heaven. He had a very particular Crowley shaped preference, after all. Yet it was jarring to become aware of how touch starved he’d been.
“I need you,” Crowley’s voice was an almost unrecognizable whimper. In his head it would always be smokey and seductive. He’d nearly forgotten how he sounded when he was near bursting with emotion, especially when lust was overtaking him. Aziraphale burned with a familiar sense of pride. The way Crowley could make him sin made him wonder if it was less a matter of morality and more one of control. His sense of right of right had never impeded in the things that brought him pleasure. He’d never felt it necessary; there was nothing truly perverse about his desires.
“I know,” Aziraphale murmured, slipping a hand up his thigh, careful, watchful, though finding it unnecessary when Crowley grabbed his hand, placed it higher, and not far from their apex. “Daring aren’t we?” His tone was stern, but his eyes were fond. The vertical slit of the demon’s pupils became wider with his increased excitement.
“Hm-mm,” Crowley hummed softly as he opened his thighs further, the movement a little clumsy in the relatively narrow space they were inhabiting.
It was often a surprise what would be between Crowley’s legs. Like his sense of style, he really didn’t adhere to any sense of sex much less gender. Whether the organ was hard and phallic or soft, slick folds seemed to be entirely at Crowley’s whim. He let out a shaky sigh to go with Crowley’s whimper when he touched him, finding him so wet it was almost shocking. A single finger slid in easily as anything, two made the demon moan, and when his thumb slipped over his clit, he shivered so hard it was nearly spasmodic.
“Hng, w…wait,” Crowley gasped, grabbing his wrist.
Arizaphale was quick to take his hand away, frowning. If it weren’t for Crowley’s grip on him, he would have moved away entirely, worried that he’d gone too far, too fast, but then it was his turn to make a surprised sound when Crowley began to pull at the buckle of his belt, undoing it quickly. Nimble fingers were quick to get him out of his trousers and he was faintly mortified by how loudly he cried out when Crowley’s touch burned along the length of his cock.
“Fuck ,” Crowely swore sharply as he handled him capably. “You’re so hard.”
Aziraphale nodded dumbly, unable to remember any erection that was so strained, nearly to the point of pain. He was faintly startled when Crowley pushed him back against the passenger’s side of the seat. Aziraphale gasped as the demon followed him over, straddled his waist, and began to position himself over his cock. Though his mouth watered with anticipation, the angel met Crowley’s eyes with a degree of concern.
“Crowley, are you sure?” he asked softly, an edge of desperation to his tone because he needed this just as badly, but they both knew the ramifications of their mutual tendency toward recklessness and impulsive behaviour.
“Never been more in my life,” Crowley replied sharply, hiking his dress up a little more, giving him a better look at simple black straps of the suspenders attached to black silk stockings.
Time could have stopped then and Aziraphale wouldn’t have noticed nor cared. His senses were entirely focused on Crowley as he sank down, joining their bodies intimately. He leaned in to kiss his throat as the demon threw his head back and shouted his name, the sound nearly deafening in the small space. If kissing was divine then being inside Crowley was transcendent. He always felt like home: A truer haven than Heaven had ever been.
His own cries echoed Crowley’s as the demon began to move. It was surreal enough to make his head spin. They had been arguing not long ago, and now Crowley was riding him hard and fast. It was almost too much and Aziraphale grabbed his face, kissed him roughly, swallowing a hoarse moan that might have been his name. He held his chin between deceptively strong fingers to keep their gazes direct, and found that the demon’s eyes spoke volumes. A dangerous brew of emotions were reflected in his eyes, nearly black now with arousal, faintly rimmed by a sclera gone gold as his control wavered. It was like looking at the tumultuous surface of a raging sea.
The demon shook his head, the gesture jerking him out of Aziraphale’s grip and he didn’t seek to re-exert it. Instead he stroked his hair as Crowley wrapped his long arms around his neck and buried his face in the hollow of his throat. He swore he heard him sob as his hips continued to rock in his lap, the strong, slick muscles clenching around his cock with every stroke. The angel wasn’t sure if it was a sound of pleasure or anguish. Love could be a double edged sword.
Hours or minutes went by. Sex had a tendency to dilate time in interesting ways. He often wondered if it were the same for humans or just some strange magic between them. Words slipped away, replaced by the feral and obscene sounds of their bodies moving together as Azriaphale had started gripping Crowley’s slender hips at some point. As Crowley drew himself down on his cock, Aziraphale arched his hips high enough off the seat to thrust up into him. The rhythm of their bodies was hypnotic until Aziraphale felt the urgency of his orgasm fast becoming a reality. He squeezed Crowley’s thighs until the demon lifted his face to look down at him. Crowley looked drunk, and Aziraphale felt even more overwhelmed. It had been too long since the last time he’d been in a corporeal form much less climaxed in one.
“Oh God, I think I’m dying,” Aziraphale laughed shakily, feeling like he was going round the bend.
“Shh,” Crowley soothed him, expression tender as he ran long fingers through platinum curls. “You’re gonna come, angel, aren’t you?”
Aziraphale nodded desperately, wondering if it had always been like this. These sensations were too big for his body, and he felt like it might explode in a brutal display of violence and ecstasy.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” Crowley breathed. Judging from the tension in his limbs and the way his body tightened around him, the demon wasn’t too far from his own orgasm. Aziraphale felt a little light headed from the very thought.
It felt like reality was unraveling when it hit him like a bullet, his hips jerked in an unsteady rhythm, and he watched with a sense of wonder as Crowley rode his staccato thrusts into his own release. He was so beautiful that it made his heart ache and he thought that if he could turn back time, he’d have broken away from Metatron in front of the elevator and escaped into Crowley’s embrace. Instead, he reeled with the body high of ecstasy and intensity of the vulnerable emotions between them.
“I love you,” Aziraphale murmured into the gathering darkness. He hadn’t noticed when the afternoon had turned into dusk.
“Me too,” Crowley replied quietly, resting against Aziraphale as he came down, core still shivering around the angel’s cock.
Aziraphale’s heart was in his throat and for the moment he allowed himself to be angry. Not at Crowley but the whole bloody situation. At the end of the day, he’d be returning to Heaven with only memories in his head when he wanted nothing more than to remain here on Earth. He closed his eyes as he let that ugly feeling go. Aziraphale had to remind himself that if he’d run away with Crowley they’d still be running. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to be with Crowley or had rejected them being ‘us’, more that he’d wanted them to be truly free. Maybe it was impossible, but those tranquil years in the wake of the apocalypse they’d halted burned bright in his mind. He wanted that to be their future, not living like refugees fleeing from a vengeful regime.
“Um,” Crowley gave him a rare, sleepy blink. “We should keep goin’, huh?”
“Ah, yes, I’d say so,” Aziraphale replied, clearing his throat as he watched Crowley lift himself off his lap and pull the hem of his dress back down. He got a glimpse of black underwear materializing over the glistening folds of his sex.
Though he didn’t feel embarrassed about his body or sex, he felt a little strange in the aftermath, bereft in a way he hadn’t before. He was acutely aware of the separation of their bodies and the awkwardness of tucking his cock into his pants before buttoning up his trousers. The angel startled a bit when the engine rumbled back to life and Crowley jerked them back into the road.
He didn’t push the car to the upper end of the speedometer. Maybe he was deliberately dragging this rendezvous out into the evening and planning to convince him to spend the night, as if he couldn’t just snap his fingers and return to London. Aziraphale couldn’t work up the ire to be annoyed by this suspicion.