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Crawly's snake form in the beginning had been mostly anatomically correct, and he was fairly confident that the venom in his fangs had been relatively normal during the First Days— but then he had fallen from the Tree of Knowledge in a tangle of human limbs, Eve rushing off to find Adam— and Crawly, curiosity his ever-defining fault, had taken a bite too. What other knowledge could he possibly gain, beyond knowing the difference between good and evil?
Something worse.
His essence was altered, his venom a catalyst for knowledge, and if he bit someone, they could satisfy his curiosity and answer any question he asked, as long as it took them to purge it from their system.
He never bit anyone.
He had all the power in the world to ask and ask and ask, and gain all the truthful answers he could possibly desire endless truthful replies back, but he found that he didn't want to, in a twist of irony so pointed Crawly more than half suspected the gift had been intentional purely to test him.
On the other hand— as he discovered when he split open his lip drunk-stumbling with Aziraphale in Mesopotamia— he could also dose himself.
(That had nearly been a disaster, but thankfully Aziraphale’s only questions came in the form of; Do you remember where the woman with the fried bread and dates is? And then consequently, Do I have anything on my face? And Crowley, drunk on beer and truth serum, had blurted out a nose).
The second time he dosed himself with truth serum, he was in the middle of the desert, having spent the day traveling as a snake across the dunes. He stood underneath the moon, wings out, and gently bit his knuckles until they broke skin, bones shifting under his fangs.
Nothing happened.
He shifted in the cold, feeling rather ridiculous. There was no heat like there was before, no compulsion that unhinged his jaw and spoke with his tongue.
“What am I?” He asked the empty air, and jumped as he answered himself almost immediately. “A demon.”
“What’s my name?”
He frowned when he didn’t get an answer, more confused than before. He tried a few names out, rolling syllables on his tongue, twisting and elongating sounds, and when something clicked he tried again. “Who am I?”
“Crowley.”
It soothed something in his chest, being a more authentic version of himself, and Crowley decided to use the venom for similar endeavors. The kinds of personal questions that made him Fall— and then even harder ones after that, too.
“Do I love Aziraphale?” Crowley asked her mirror in 1915, having woken up to the war and a boarded-up bookshop. Crowley bit her lip, just once, just enough for her reflection to murmur “I do,” as she painted her swollen lips red.
“I missed him,” he said into a finger of scotch two decades later, scorched feet resting in a tub.
“He is everything to me,” xe admitted to a sterile hospital room in 1990, holding the brittle fingers of humans desperate to not be alone.
“I would do anything to keep this,” they whispered into the leather of the bookshop’s couch, creeping into hour 27 since the antichrist had been on Earth.
“It was worth it,” she admitted to herself, watching Aziraphale try to coax 8-year-old Warlock out of a tree.
Crowley practiced, and practiced, and practiced saying difficult, vulnerable, embarrassing things; the reflex of bite-ask-release so ingrained in him that by the time he realized what he’d done, it was too late.
____________________________________________________________________________
The bus ride was quiet, something they hadn’t known they needed, as they passed darkened fields and sleepy villages. The constant frenzy of the day offset by the endless syrup of night, rolling into the outskirts of the city. The M25 was empty, the streets clear. London, metropolitain as it was, was uncharacteristically peaceful, it’s slumber forced— but necessary.
Aziraphale was still holding his hand, his fingers soft and new compared to Crowley’s sootstained palms. Yet— Aziraphale did not let go even as the bus hissed to a stop in front of Crowley’s building. Even as they blessed and cursed the driver in thanks and crossed the courtyard. When they entered the lift, Aziraphale started to look at him, studying him when he thought Crowley wasn’t looking.
When they stopped in front of his door, Crowley allowed himself to look back. There was something guarded in Aziraphale’s expression— something cautious and pained in the crease of his brow, the set of his lips, the corners of his eyes.
Crowley looked away to open the door. “Should be safe,” he muttered. “Wards haven’t gone off since this afternoon.”
Crowley tried to tug them forward, but Aziraphale seemed rooted to the spot in his foyer.
“Crowley,” came the gentle whisper. “I think there is something we must talk about.”
Crowley tried to urge him to move again; worried that if they didn’t, one of them (him) would pass out in the hallway. At last, Aziraphale thankfully moved, and the door swung shut behind them. “Yeah the prophecy, I know. Trying to get you to drink while we do it.”
“I— I actually have an idea about that,” Aziraphale said as he followed Crowley’s guiding hand to the kitchen.
“Do tell.” Crowley squeezed his palm once— memorizing the feeling— before he shook loose from Aziraphale’s fingers, the absence of his touch unwelcome but necessary as he fished out expensive glencairn glasses for equally expensive single malt scotch.
Aziraphale barely glanced at the label, despite it being an older vintage that Crowley had been almost certain would’ve provoked him into a monologue any other night; however, Crowley’s didn’t notice any of the normal nervous ticks: no straightened waistcoat or smoothed jacket or adjusted tie.
“Aziraphale?” He prompted as he fiddled with the seal of the bottle, tugging at the stubborn cork. “Your idea?”
“I’ll get to it in a minute.”
Aziraphale looked practically disheveled, and beautiful; and despite everything that had happened, he looked perfectly, utterly, calm. “I was hoping to talk about us.”
The next moment— one of the most crucial moments of the night— had many things occur within its short timeframe.
Crowley processed the words and he, in his frantic and fractal pattern of thought, jumped right from the word “us” into nearly every possible way the conversation could go. And while his higher functioning was distracted, the rest of his body ran on autopilot trying to do the two different tasks he had assigned it.
The first was one he wasn’t aware of was doing. It was the initial step in the muscle memory of bite-ask-release, his sharp fangs coming down to worry at his bottom lip. An instinctual reaction to vulnerability when it came to Aziraphale.
The second was to tug the cork free and open the bottle, something that should be second nature at this point in their long, long lives.
The cork gave, and Crowley hit himself in the face.
“Ow,” he rocked back, shaking out his hand, and he registered the pain that came with it with a mounting sense of horror. “Fuck.”
“Oh dear—,” Aziraphale was in his space, staring at Crowley’s split lip, and Crowley felt it heal with a small miracle. “I’m sorry dear boy, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s fine,” Crowley said quickly. “No harm done.”
He relished the lie and swallowed it down, cursing his own bloody brilliant timing.
“Wasn’t aware there was anything to discuss,” Crowley fumbled for the bottle and firmly shoved the cork back in. “Actually I think I’m feeling something else. Wine? Let me get it—”
“Crowley—”
Crowley snapped his fingers a few times before he could focus long enough to get the miracle to catch, mead appearing on the counter.
“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and now was even closer, even as Crowley shoved a cup in his direction. “My dear, please. Look at me?”
A moment passed, the serum’s hold fully in effect, and Crowley reached up and removed his glasses, letting them dangle from his fingers with one raised eyebrow. A forced nonchalance found its way into his shrug. “I’m fine— ‘m just tired.”
“You only go for the sweet things when you’re nervous,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley was cornered in his own kitchen, defensive over the care in Aziraphale’s gentle tone. “What about this is making you nervous?”
The burn was instantaneous, the compulsion hooked deep into the tendons of his jaw and throat.
“Everything,” Crowley blurted, mentally scrambling after the word. Deflect, deflect, deflect.
“Of course I’m nervous,” he said, breath hitched. “Why aren’t you nervous?”
“I am,” Aziraphale admitted, though he did not look like it; the strongest emotion that radiated from him was concern, and it was towards Crowley, and Crowley was so very very fucked if he didn’t get control over the conversation soon.
“Crowley, there are a great many things that I want to talk about, but before anything else— well I want to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Crowley found it in him to croak.
“Well yes—“
“No,” Crowley interrupted. The absolute last thing he wanted was to open the door to feelings when he was hopped up on truth serum. “Nope. Today has been very long, and I feel like shit, and I want to drink with my best friend and plan to ensure our mutual survival. You don’t have to apologize.”
“Well I want to,” Aziraphale replied, the furrow of his brow deepening. “You deserve to hear it. I thought it would be better, so that we can start fresh, together.”
“Together?” Crowley breathed, overcome for a moment.
“Yes— oh,” Crowley watched dimly as Aziraphale’s fidgeted, his hands clasping together, confidence waning. “Crowley please tell me I am not making a fool of myself in this.“
“You’re not,” Crowley realized too late that while he had successfully avoided a conversation, he had also dug himself into a hole straight for Hell. “You’re not, I just— I can’t do this right now.”
Aziraphale looked stricken, a rejection as loud and pointed as a tome snapping shut.
“Wait,” Crowley gritted out, glass in his throat, pleading with himself more than with Aziraphale. “I’m not— I don’t mean— ”
If he continued down this path, it could take years to recover the lost ground. Aziraphale would lose whatever nerve he currently had, and Crowley would convince himself it had never happened to preserve his own ego. He could not do that to their relationship.
“Aziraphale, I do want this.” He whispered, pained and repentant. “I want to talk about it. I want ‘together,’ whatever that means. Give me a little time and I’ll be fine, and then we can— then we can talk about us.”
Aziraphale’s hands clasped together, tension in his stance. “You’re right,” he said to the wall, the floor, everywhere but Crowley. “I shouldn’t have brought it up now, my apologies.”
“It’s not you,” Crowley said. “I messed up, I’m not— um.”
Aziraphale’s careful glance turned into an outright stare, reading Crowley in a way that was both familiar and terrifying. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Crowley winced. “...not exactly.”
“I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m interrogating you, my dear.”
“You’d be good at it,” Crowley mumbled. “Especially right now.”
He glanced up, and could tell that Aziraphale was trying very hard to look like a kind and understanding middle-aged bookseller. “You don’t have to tell me, but you might feel better if you do.”
“Hate when you do that,” he hissed, defeated, but Aziraphale’s pleased hum was a step up from nervous rejection.
“I accidentally spiked myself with a truth serum,” Crowley said, feeling his face heat up under the scrutiny. “And I want to wait for it to wear off.”
Aziraphale made no sound at all, and then of all things, he looked angry. “You’re having me on.”
Crowley reared back, affronted. “Am not.”
“If you didn’t want to tell me that’s fine, you don’t have to treat me like I’m an— like I’m an idiot Crowley.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Crowley hissed, slightly horrified at the conclusion Aziraphale had drawn. “That’s the whole point.”
He pointed to his mouth, as if the gesture would help his case. “It’s in my fangs, bit through my lip. Ask me a question and I have to answer.”
Aziraphale sniffed, too polite to call him out on it, but his scowl was growing, and Crowley could hear the metaphorical gates shutting him out.
“Fine,” Crowley said, clipped, hurried, a tad desperate. “Let me prove it, ask me an embarrassing question.”
“Oh, um,” Aziraphale blinked, obviously put on the spot. “Your favorite... colour?”
“Green,” Crowley said automatically, even while he gave Aziraphale a long look. “Really? That’s it?”
Aziraphale huffed, but the tension was starting to drain from his shoulders, familiar with their banter. “I am not exactly prepared with a list of things you tend to be cagey about.”
Crowley leaned against the counter, trying to mask the way his pulse was racing. “You’ve known me for six thousand years, I know you’re curious.”
Aziraphale’s lips thinned but he didn’t disagree.
Crowley pushed a little more, the bitter price of offering himself. “You have carte blanche, angel.”
Aziraphale stilled, suddenly statuesque in the muted chrome of his flat. “No.”
“No?” Crowley felt the earth move beneath him, terrified in his uncertainty and yet still more terrified of his certainty that he had said the wrong thing.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale gave him a small strained smile — and the moment was broken, Aziraphale’s brightness filtering back into his eyes, sunlight through stained glass, holy and knowing. “I’m sure there are things that you aren’t comfortable with having me ask about. Please tell me what they are.”
Crowley swallowed, feeling like water in cupped palms; fragile but held.
“Us,” he said, humbled. “Hell. Her.”
“That’s a rather short list,” Aziraphale commented.
Crowley shrugged, acting as nonchalant as he could manage. “It’s you.”
Aziraphale nodded, and looked around the kitchen and the sparse den, and then back on the scotch and glasses that had been tucked back onto the counter behind Crowley, and Crowley itched under that gaze.
But he nodded, and it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. “Go ahead.”
“Why did you buy that bottle?” Aziraphale asked softly. He knew. Of course the bastard already knew.
“For you,” Crowley was forced to say, but he didn’t mind. Not really. “Just in case you ever visited.”
Aziraphale hummed an affirmation and slid his glass to Crowley. “Then let me nurse it while I tell you how we are going to guarantee our mutual survival.”
Crowley showed his gratitude with a generous pour, and his long fingers gifted the glass, brushing against Aziraphale’s.
“Deal.”
____________________________________________________________________________
Crowley felt the burn in his lungs disappear somewhere around the 23rd-minute mark, but he was too busy arguing the finer points of how mutual demonic (celestial) possession would even work to really notice, right up until they were holding hands again and testing the waters, so to speak.
“Wait,” Crowley said, squeezing the hand he was holding. “It— it wore off. The thing. So don’t worry about it.”
“Do you want to talk about...?”
“I don’t know where to start— and no, no apologizing.”
“Can I ask,” Aziraphale said, hesitating. “How did you know that your venom could do that?”
Crowley swiped his thumb over Aziraphale’s skin. “One of my first assignments. I had to delay a small caravan. They weren’t exactly friendly to strangers either, so I eventually resorted to going in as a snake and biting the leader when they stopped for the night. Not to kill, just thought the pain would slow ‘em down a day or two, miraculous recovery after, mission accomplished.”
He finally looked up at Aziraphale, trying to gauge his reaction, but Aziraphale just squeezed his hand. “Fight broke out over whatever was said. Not everyone made it to their destination. I’m—it’s my job, I won’t apologize for it.”
“I’ve done temptations for you, Crowley. I would never ask you to apologize.”
Crowley shrugged, feeling a little warm at the reminder he didn’t know he needed. “I know. I just— the venom feels worse, because it’s just from me and not Hell. Removing consent and choice just to get the truth— it’s the most demonic thing I could possibly think of, but… I just use it on myself now. Doesn’t feel right to use it on anyone else.”
“You don’t have to answer,” Aziraphale said in the same tones he used that suggested he would be somewhat put out if he didn’t. “But I’m curious about when you say you use it on yourself.”
“Lying is part of the job description you know?” Crowley tried to joke, but it came out more hushed than he meant it to. “Lying to myself included. But it— it helps sometimes. Being more honest with myself. Figuring out my name, or reaffirming my gender.”
He glanced up at Aziraphale’s face, meeting his eyes for a brief, blushing second. “...admitting my feelings.”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale— and that little exhale had Crowley hooked, the breathless-lovely way his eyes lit up in understanding.
Crowley ignored his pounding heart. “Aziraphale…. Aziraphale I…”
Say it.
He swallowed, his throat closing, “I…”
Say it. Say it. He’s waiting, he’s looking at you, say it, Sayitsayitsayit—
Crowley flung himself forward, pressing his lips to Aziraphale’s.
Aziraphale made a startled sound, but fumbling hands gripped his shoulders, preventing him from pulling away. Crowley wanted to apologize. He wanted to scream. He wanted to crawl into Aziraphale’s skin and stay, even as he gasped and gasped and held on just as tightly as he was kissed back.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and he sounded just as overwhelmed as Crowley felt. “I love you. I’m sorry for always forcing you to be the brave one. I’m trying— ”
“New rule,” Crowley’s voice wavered, as he stared at Aziraphale’s lips, his rumpled clothes, the desperate broken stained-glass of his eyes. I love you. You love me. We’re as old as time and terrified. “No apologizing when you’re kissing me.”
Aziraphale’s eyes flicked down to Crowley’s mouth. Crowley stopped breathing.
Aziraphale leaned forward and pressed their lips together, careful with this new permission, and even still said reluctantly, “I don’t want to stop, but we should probably switch corporations soon.”
Crowley looked down at their bodies, where he was half sprawled over Aziraphale. “Right.”
He let the logic wash away the sting of the half-rejection, knowing that there were bigger things to worry about, and also knowing that this wasn’t something they were going to be able to forget. He made peace with the separation— but he also met resistance when he tried to pull back.
“Aziraphale,” he said, slightly strangled. “You’re going to have to let go of me for this.”
Aziraphale turned a lovely shade of pink, but the set of his jaw suggested that he was refusing to be embarrassed— and with some convincing, might even become coy.
“One would think,” he murmured, stepping up to the plate so Crowley wouldn’t have too, because he was trying, bless him. “That more contact would make this easier.”
Crowley felt wanted. It tasted like salt and felt like home— something strange and full of potential.
“One would,” Crowley echoed, and let himself shuffle a little closer. He forgave himself for the way his body burned at the contact. “If we’re going to switch, you’re going to need to learn how to hide them though.”
“Them?” Aziraphale looked mildly distracted and a little dazed. Crowley wanted to paint that expression on his ceiling.
“Faanhggs,” Crowley said, his mouth open for show. “We’re trying to pull off the greatest magic trick you’ve ever done, for the worst audience, and the last thing you need is to be dosed in the middle of an execution.”
“Not the worst audience,” Aziraphale muttered, and the blush returned. “But you’re right of course. We need to be more prepared this time. And I actually should, erm, let you go.”
“You’re not letting me go,” Crowley said quietly, more of a reassurance than a statement. “You’re protecting me. That’s what you’ve always done, innit?”
Aziraphale made a noise that could only be described as sappy, and Crowley was being kissed again. And again. It was a rather nice development, all things considered.
Time stretched and condensed all at once as they switched bodies, a few precious seconds melting into slow motion, and then snapping back into place, a disorienting affair— rather like waking up in an unfamiliar bed. Weight suddenly settled on Crowley’s chest, and he realized exactly how uncomfortable his own couch was.
“I hate this,” Crowley said with Aziraphale’s voice. “I just remembered why I don’t possess people anymore. How in Heaven did you stand this?”
“The madam was a rather willing hossst,” Aziraphale said with Crowley’s lips, looking surprised as he spoke around a forked tongue and unfamiliar teeth. “I wasss along for the ride. This isss… different, to say the leasst.”
“The hissing will be expected,” Crowley said as he reached up to hold his own face. “The teeth are first priority. Now retract your fangs— my fangs?— your fangs.”
“Because I’ve had sssso much practice already,” Aziraphale deadpanned.
He made no move to get off of him though, so Crowley miracled the couch to be a touch softer, and let himself sink into it, rolling his eyes. “You’re literally an angel, find the neural pathway for the teeth, and then switch them to the same plane of reality your wings are on.”
Aziraphale blinked rapidly, a strange sight with Crowley's reptilian eyes. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re on about.”
“Well how do you do things in your body?”
Aziraphale’s nose twitched, his expressions open and clear as he thought. “Everything tends to be in harmony. Even when my wings and other eyesss are gone, they still move with me as one unit. I listen to my body’s needsss and think of it as many layers, instead of a removal from reality.”
“Like a robot,” Crowley quipped.
“Like a soldier.” Aziraphale sniffed. “Though I rather dislike thinking of it like that. Still, isss this knowledge of your nerves and tendons why you’re ssso…”
Crowley leaned forward eagerly, setting the bait. “Sensual?”
“Erratic.” Aziraphale clicked his tongue. “High strung.”
Crowley gasped in mock outrage, a perfect mirror of Aziraphale’s expression. He fought back the urge to grin, unsure if it was Aziraphale’s body that smiled so easily or his own bubbling happiness that nothing had really changed. They were the same as they always had been.
“I’m just aware of what these bodies are made of,” he explained. “Everything is supposed to be deliberate when you’re a predator. It’s a snake's body, all muscle and speed and hundreds of bones.”
“Hundreds?” Aziraphale squinted down at him. “Crowley, do you know how many bonesss a human body is supposed to have?”
“Well I don’t know, it changes doesn’t it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Crowley scraped the bottom of his mental barrel of facts, but tried very hard not to show it. “Er, babies. They have more bones that they lose when they grow up.”
Aziraphale’s voice wavered with a laugh. “My dear, are you talking about teeth?”
“No, you smug pillock, like actual bones. They like, fuse together or dissolve or something.”
“Where on earth did you hear that?” Aziraphale was shaking with barely suppressed laughter, his grin wide and sharp, reminding Crowley of why they were arguing in the first place.
Crowley went through several aborted sounds of frustration before: “Stop winding me up and get rid of the fangs.”
Aziraphale just stuck his nose higher in the air. “Ah yes, remind me again of how aware you are of your own body?”
“Kindly fuck off. My last medical degree was in 1457.”
“So which of the four humors dissolve bones of infants?”
“That’s it,” Crowley groaned. “Get off of me you utter bastard.”
It took a considerable amount of nose-scrunching in front of Crowley's bathroom mirror, but eventually Aziraphale opened his mouth and found perfectly normal teeth in his reflection. He smiled with Crowley’s face, bright and proud, which apparently caused him to smile more, preening in the mirror.
Crowley behind him made such an exaggerated eye roll he nearly pitched Aziraphale’s body into the tub, his center of gravity all off— but it was worth it. They had a future to fight for, after all.
Together.
____________________________________________________________________________
Twelve hours passed into the late afternoon. An elegant lunch and a toast were had. A future secured, two executions thwarted. Crowley wanted to drift comfortably in this moment, as resistant to change as he often ribbed his counterpart for being—
And then Aziraphale had them necking on the bookshop’s couch in the middle of the afternoon.
“I feel ambushed,” Crowley griped from underneath him, (when had he laid down?). “Waylaid, accosted.”
“How dreadful,” Aziraphale sympathized, as if he wasn’t the one kissing the very air out of his lungs.
“You’re just smug that your plan worked,” Crowley teased without heat, more flustered than anything.
Aziraphale drew in a sharp breath, suddenly serious, staring at him— through him. “Yes,” Aziraphale agreed shakily. “I am.”
Crowley thought he had known what it meant to be important, until this moment. “Me too,” he said on an exhale, the taste of smoke on his tongue.
“I love you, Crowley.” Aziraphale said simply. “You have no idea how happy you make me.”
Crowley tensed underneath him, and took a breath. “I have some idea,” he said back, a nervous jumble of words. “I—”
He had never said it. It’d been hours, a full fucking day, and he had never said it back.
Crowley froze, chest unable to draw in more oxygen, watching Aziraphale’s expression change from warm to confused. And from confused to concerned. “Crowley?”
“Sorry,” Crowley said, shuddering. He opened his mouth, willing the words to come, but his throat closed on the sound, hot and wet. “Sorry, I’m trying to say— you need to hear—”
His fangs came out without his permission, tears starting to burn behind his eyes. “I…”
“Crowley,” alarm bled into Aziraphale’s tone as he moved to sit up, but Crowley’s hands clutched at Azirphale’s jacket, every nerve in his body rejecting the distance. Urgency bubbled up from behind his throat, because needed to tell the truth— he needed to get this right.
“I love you too,” He said brokenly, reverently. A heartbeat of silence went by; concern and cautious joy in Aziraphale’s eyes.
Crowley burst into tears.
He hid his face into Aziraphale’s neck and clung, his body trembling in Aziraphale’s arms, and he realized rather belatedly that he was having a panic attack during the most important moment of his life.
“It’s alright,” was the first thing out of Aziraphale’s mouth, startled but gentle, the bookshop’s couch suddenly a bit bigger, enough for two. Crowley distantly observed the change— the way Aziraphale’s corporation took measured breaths, the instinctual calming strokes of a hand down Crowley’s spine, his lips pressed into his hair.
“It’s alright,” Aziraphale repeated, threading the words into a mantra. “Thank you. It’s okay, I have you. I love you. It’s alright.”
“I can’t,” Crowley gasped after a few moments, his brain finally catching up and processing the words Aziraphale was pressing into his skin, both a balm and a brand. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why—”
“What was your rule?” Aziraphale reassured, clearly uncertain but somehow still resolute in his comfort. “No apologizing while kissing? An addendum will be made to include crying.”
Crowley shivered, his jaw tense through gritted teeth, as a headache threatened to bloom. “Let me show you— whatever you want, I’ll do it.”
Aziraphale’s embrace somehow turned even more gentle, and his hand settled on the back of Crowley’s neck, thumb rubbing circles into his skin.
“Oh my dear,” came the soft reply. “I'm pretty sure you’ve been showing me your love for close to a millennium.”
“Over,” Crowley corrected faintly, hesitant to assume that it would be okay. That they would be okay. “Over a millennium.”
Aziraphale let out a soft sigh, melancholy for a past they cannot change, but let them carry on in silence. Crowley let the sounds of the city outside distract him, and the steady weight of Aziraphale grounded him.
“I didn’t think,” he said eventually, the sunlight through the windows having shifted. “That this would be the thing that gets to me. The words themselves.”
“Could I... show you as well?” Aziraphale asked, the tremor in his voice just as hesitant, just as hopeful. “Would you permit me to kiss you?”
“If you still want to,” Crowley said and he dragged his cheek along Aziraphale’s jaw as he pulled back out of hiding, oddly touched by the way Azirapahle tried to meet him in the middle. “I’m gross now.”
“You’re lovely,” Aziraphale breathed.
This he could do— his truest, most authentic self, was the one that kissed Aziraphale with all the tenderness he could not voice. But still he tried.
“You always have permission,” Crowley said, trying to get his voice to return to normal. “To kiss me. I know it’s new, and strange, but I want this, Aziraphale. I want all the bells and whistles. I want you. I’m just no good at it.”
“Dear, I think out of the two of us, you’re better at it. You’re the romantic.” Something in Aziraphale’s face seemed to soften, affection melting into his tone. “Your actions and gifts mean so much to me. You’re incredibly thoughtful.”
“Stop it. You can actually say these things though,” Crowley sat up, a blush climbing up his throat at the compliment, and Aziraphale followed suit, a tangle of limbs on the bookshops couch. “It’s just words! Thousands of different languages and I can’t— not in any— not ever—”
He froze, a bad idea bubbling to the surface. “Not without help.”
“Help?”
Crowley swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, and he pushed Aziraphale back further into the cushions, bolder than he had ever let himself be as he straddled his lap. He needed Aziraphale’s full attention, and he owed it to himself to look him in the eye.
“As embarrassing as last night was, I don’t usually think of the serum as a bad thing, when I use it on myself.”
“Admitting your feelings.” Aziraphale made the connection, his stare suddenly intense. “That’s what you meant.”
Crowley’s voice shook under his own admissions, needing Aziraphale to understand. “I’d bite and ask myself questions about how I felt about you. I want to say that it was practicing, but now it’s recital night and I don’t know a single step.”
“Is that what you’d like to see it as?”
Crowley’s hands kept moving over Aziraphale’s shoulders, his hair, his chest, the act of touch novel and yet soothing. “It makes you uneasy.”
Aziraphale’s hands smoothed down the front of his chest, just as reverent. “I wouldn’t say that. I am... worried. I don’t want to force anything out of you. It’s— if you are suggesting what I think you are, you’d be quite vulnerable.”
“I was embarrassed last night, worried about going too fast, about being too honest, but that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you— I was trying to protect you. From— from me.” Crowley tried to be firm, plowing ahead before Aziraphale could even respond.
“Angel, do you really think that after all this time, after the day we’ve had, that I don’t trust you?”
Aziraphale looked up at him with careful anguish, near hushed with awe. “I don’t deserve that trust, Crowley.”
Crowley squeezed his eyes shut, and with great care, placed his forehead on Aziraphale’s. A place for intimacy. A place for secrets. “They messed us up pretty bad. I could’ve run, you could’ve stayed behind. We didn’t. I need— I need you to trust me, I think? Trust me trusting you.”
“I did,” Aziraphale whispered. “I do. I will.”
The kiss this time was softer, a pact, a tacit agreement.
Aziraphale’s hand over his heart was steady and warm. “I am agreeing to this my dear, but if it’s too much—”
“Aziraphale I want to. I think I’ll be less of a wreck, but I know it’s a lot to ask of you—”
“We can,” Aziraphale confirmed. “Is it just through… asking questions?”
“Don’t ask me things you don’t want to know the answer to,” he said half-joking, but Aziraphale broke their contact to kiss his forehead, a tenderness Crowley never thought he’d be allowed to have.
“There is no part of you that I wouldn’t want to know.”
Crowley took a breath, and watched as Aziraphale brought one of his wrists up to kiss, the sensitive skin jumping at the contact. He did the same to the other, holding Crowley's wrists close to his chest, urging Crowley to lean into him again, to press their lips together.
The hint of teeth against his swollen lips made him gasp, heat curling in his stomach.
“Ready?” Came Aziraphale’s murmur, the first spoken question in a series of unspoken decisions.
“Don’t worry,” Crowley grinned. “You’ll get to kiss it better.”
Crowley had never built it up this much, but the warmth he felt, the solid weight of Aziraphale’s lap and hands and bless it all—
A shift of feathers and Aziraphale brought out his wings. He curled them around Crowley, sheltering them both from the outside world. Soft feathers brushed against his back, the afternoon’s light making them glow gold.
Crowley loved him, and he so desperately needed to tell him.
He bit his lip.
Aziraphale remedied the sting with the promised kiss and just enough tongue to make Crowley gasp.
“Ask,” he mumbled before pulling away to press his mouth to Aziraphale’s throat— to curl deep into his chest and make a home there. “Please.”
Aziraphale’s hands moved, a sculptor’s touch on his body, one burning palm at the small of his back, and the other cradled his head, and Crowley could write entire sonnets dedicated to the way Aziraphale’s hands felt in his hair.
“Do you love me?”
And there it was, a flustered burning rising in his throat— and a form of relief. It was out of his hands now. He could fight it all he wanted, he could spend precious seconds struggling to further deflect—
Crowley was so very tired of being terrified. It was easy, letting himself be honest with Aziraphale. It was breathtakingly easy.
“I love you,” came the truth, a sigh escaping with the words. “I did, I do, I will.”
The moment stretched between them, a beat between each action; a reflex to acknowledge the thing created between them that was both sacred and sin.
Crowley was the one to bring their lips together, to seek out comfort, to trust— and be rewarded for his faith. No greater intimacy, than to be in the shelter of an angel’s wings once again.
Aziraphale sounded near-reverent when they broke apart. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes,” Crowley melted, his hips pressing down further, so unused to the touch and yet unable to bear the thought of separation. “Aziraphale I don’t think you understand how badly—”
He broke off with a sound that was not unlike a whine, throat closing in self-defense, but Aziraphale’s eyes widened, growing dark and hungry.
“Do you want me?”
“Always, in every way.” The admission seemed to startle them both, and Crowley plowed on, continuing the thought. Practicing. “I want you with me.”
Aziraphale’s voice was hushed now, fingers grasping at Crowley like he couldn’t hold him close enough. “Oh, will you let me return the favor darling?”
Crowley nodded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about but I’m already going to say yes.”
Aziraphale's blush only grew. “It would be fairer I think, that if questions are to be asked, we both answer them.”
“So you’re saying?”
Aziraphale nodded a quick, sure movement. “Ask me.”
Crowley swallowed. “Do you want me?”
“I want to see you smile,” was the first thing out of Aziraphale’s mouth, and they both looked a little struck by it, by forbidden words said so easily, without aid, but Aziraphale recovered first. “I want to hold you, and I want to bring you pleasure, and I want to make you happy.”
“Oh,” Crowley said, throat tight. “Is that all?”
“Are you alright darling?” Aziraphale’s thumb brushed his jaw, cradling him as if he were something precious, and normally that would bother him, to be seen as fragile but—
There's only so much more vulnerable a demon could get.
“I am happy,” Crowley whispered, and he was smiling bless him, the fire in his throat indistinguishable from the aching in his chest. “I also think I’m going to cry again.”
“You’re beautiful,” Aziraphale whispered back. “Can you tell me what you need or should I ask?”
“Ask,” Crowley ordered, embarrassed. “The first question again.”
It took a moment, but when it clicked, Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled, adoration etched into the very lines of his face. “Do you love me?”
Crowley shuddered and worked the truth around his tongue, not satisfied with just a yes or no. Aziraphale deserved to hear it all, for as long as he could say it. “I love you. I love the you that was in Eden. I love the you that’s a bastard. I love the you that’s free.”
“You’ve only known that me for half a day.”
Crowley laughed, and his eyes were stinging. “Really? It feels like it’s been millennia.”
Aziraphale smiled, equally watery. “I love the brave you. I love the kind you. I love the thoughtful you. And the roguish parts too. The still-healing parts. And I love you even if you never say it again. Because I know, Crowley, I know.”
Crowley wondered how it was possible that he could feel this much all at once, his body too small for the feelings between them.
Aziraphale’s hands slid down Crowley's back, settling carefully on his hips. “Are you ready for another question?”
Crowley said yes the same moment that he crushed their lips together, and a moan followed his words, just as uncontrollable and twice as sweet.
“Darling,” Aziraphale was smiling into the kiss, affectionate and kiss-mussed and Crowley did that. “How does it feel when I kiss you?”
“Like stardust,” Crowley murmured. “Molten.” He paused. “Sacred.”
Aziraphale’s grip on his hips tightened, mouths centimeters apart. “How does it feel when I touch you?”
“You’re warm and you’re soft, and your hands are big and you feel like— like liquid sunshine.”
“Oh my... oh Crowley,” Aziraphale said gently. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I could get drunk off of you,” Crowley said easily, “just let me stay in your lap forever.”
He was hard, he noted vaguely, only now aware of it as Aziraphale’s palm slid down his thigh. Soothing. Possessive. Fond.
“What are you thinking, angel?”
Aziraphale’s kiss was more of a smile pressed to Crowley’s own. “I am thinking that you deserve every good thing I could possibly give you.”
“Fuck, Aziraphale.”
“It’s true.” Aziraphale said simply, and Crowley bucked into the feeling of Aziraphale’s thumb on his inseam, desperately close to the cock trapped in his jeans. He felt a spike of uncertainty, but Aziraphale’s touch was purposeful.
“Let me see to you,” Aziraphale didn’t frame it like a question but Crowley felt burned regardless, overheating in his clothes. “I would like to take you in hand, bring you pleasure. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” Crowley shivered. “I want you to touch me. I want you to talk to me like that again.”
Crowley gritted his teeth on a moan while Aziraphale palmed his cock through his jeans, his other hand moving to undo the button and fly. He fumbled for Aziraphale’s waistcoat, sending it to his closet, but the bowtie he undid himself, needing to undo the top buttons of his shirt, needing to taste it. Aziraphale’s face was flushed, his eyes wide and dark, sharing Crowley’s desperation in this moment, to touch and be touched.
“I— How do you want me to talk to you?” A slick palm pulled Crowley’s cock from his pants, the other slipping under his shirt to drag through the hair on his chest, and Crowley’s jaw opened, his cry louder than the blood pounding in his ears.
“Like I’m yours,” he said in a rush, the soothing warmth of the truth only adding to the intensity. “Like you’re taking care of me.”
“Kiss me?” Aziraphale asked, fingers curling around Crowley’s cock, and Crowley surged forward to do so, hands flying behind Aziraphale’s head to dig into the couch as Aziraphale stroked him, the pressure light and teasing.
“How do you feel?”
Crowley's eyes shut on a moan. “Good. S-safe. But also like I belong to you. Like I belong with you and— and I never want it to stop.”
“Our side,” Aziraphale reminded him, brushing his hair away from his forehead as Crowley shivered, bucking into his fist. “Together, today and tomorrow and the day after that.”
“More,” Crowley asked against his lips, unprompted, and Aziraphale’s wings shifted, pressing against his back, supporting him, keeping him. “Can I— touch you too? Please?”
“After,” Aziraphale promised. “Let me take care of you. You’re so good, letting me do this.”
“That,” Crowley said, throwing his pride to the wind. “Say that.”
Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and he leaned up for a kiss, breathless and beautiful. “You’re so good for me, aren’t you?”
“I don’t think I am.” And the truth bubbled up his throat, raw and wet and painfully tender. “But you make me feel like I can be. I want to be— for you.”
“Darling.” Aziraphale looked overwhelmed, lips trembling as if a flood wanted to spill from them, but he just redoubled his efforts, his hand moving faster as he tugged Crowley’s chest closer by his shirt, teeth sinking into his neck.
“Oh fuck,” Crowley gasped as Aziraphale’s thumb rubbed over his slit, the two sensations almost overwhelming, the throbbing dark bruise on his neck making him feel claimed.
“Are you close?”
“Yes,” Crowley trembled, crying out as Aziraphale bit another mark into his skin.
Aziraphale’s feathers shook against his back, pinning him between his teeth and his wings, nails digging into his hip as Crowley squirmed in his hands. “My brave darling. I want to see you come. What do you need?”
“I don’t know,” Crowley wailed, cramped thighs shaking, his body tense and fever-hot. Crowley’s hands scrambled, fingers twitching, and it was then that Crowley felt the serum-warmth in his throat start to fade, and he chased it, panicked and desperate for this moment not to end. “Aziraphale—”
“I have you,” Aziraphale said, kissing over bruises. “You’re mine.”
Crowley came, his hips bucking against Aziraphale’s grip, feeling warm and fragile and held.
Aziraphale was murmuring soft reassurances, a hand petting his hair, and trembling aftershocks made his eyes flutter shut, even as he slumped forward into Aziraphale’s chest. They breathed together, and Crowley shivered as Aziraphale’s snap miracled him (them?) clean.
He tried to open his mouth, tried to prompt something, anything, and was met with more anxious-flustered nothing. He whined, a mortifying sound, his hand low on Aziraphale’s stomach.
“What do you want dearest?”
Crowley shook his head, signaling that he could not answer, frustration hot in his throat. The serum had worn off— but they weren’t back at square one. Crowley refused.
“Can I show you?” He slid his hand lower, fitting it between their bodies as Aziraphale had done for him, and was rewarded with a sharp inhale. Crowley double checked that his fangs were well and truly away.
Aziraphale’s hands slid low on his back as he kissed his jaw. “Only if you want to.”
“Do you,” Crowley flicked the top button of Aziraphale’s trousers, and flicked his eyes up to meet his, his words drawn out in a breathless-heavy temptation. “Want to?”
“God yes,” came the whisper, and Crowley—
Crowley’s knees hit the floor.
He didn’t even register slipping out of Aziraphale’s embrace, all that mattered was touch, and action, and trousers miracled off and Aziraphale moaning his name. Sweat and musk hit his tongue, the warm cradle of Aziraphale’s thighs, and Crowley’s mouth watered.
He lapped at the base of his cock, knees protesting the angle even as he leaned forward, because Aziraphale’s startled moan was worth it. He traced veins with his tongue, only savoring for a moment before moving on, eager hands wanting to touch everything he could reach, eager tongue wanting to serve. He rubbed his lips against the head, tilting up his chin to make careful eye contact.
“How does it feel?” He asked, because well— it was only fair.
“Good,” gasped Aziraphale, a hand coming up almost automatically to press over his mouth, smothering the sound. “Crowley.”
Crowley took the tip into his mouth, testing the weight of it on his tongue, and he reached up for Aziraphale’s hands, guiding them down to his head. Fingers threaded through Crowley’s hair, careful as he moved, and Crowley wanted to make him pull.
He relaxed his jaw and slid down the length of Aziraphale’s cock, pressing his face into the swell of his stomach and he swallowed.
“Oh—”
Fingers tightened in his scalp, and he rubbed his tongue along the underside as he pulled back, a little dizzy and suddenly desperate to do it again.
“Where did all your words go, angel?” Crowley rasped, a tongue flicking out to catch a bead of pre-cum. “Did you use them all up on me?”
“Darling—” Aziraphale whispered, and one of his fingers pressed into a bruise below his ear. “You’re rather distracting.”
Crowley leaned into the touch with a gasp, relishing the ache, even as he wrapped a hand around Aziraphale’s cock. “You can be loud, angel. No more hiding okay?”
He flicked his eyes up, waiting for a hesitant nod, Aziraphale’s eyes dark with need, the flushed red of his face trailing down his throat.
“This is for you. Just feel.” Crowley swallowed him down, pressing a thumb to the base of his cock, and was rewarded with a muted groan.
Crowley threw himself into it, bobbing his head and listening for every choked sigh and breathless moan, half-stuttered sentences all the encouragement he needed. He followed the direction of Aziraphale’s hands in his hair, determined to make him feel everything.
The hands in his hair tightened, a sharp sting that made him moan as Aziraphale’s thighs trembled around him, muscles tense in an effort to keep still. Crowley moaned again, encouraging, sliding down to the base, and Aziraphale came, spilling down his throat with a bitten-off cry, his thighs closing around him.
Crowley let his eyes close, and he kissed every patch of skin he could reach, soft and deliberate in his worship. There was a hitched breath above him as Aziraphale came down, and Crowley rested his cheek on Aziraphale’s knee, feeling a weak hand pet his hair, an apology for the rough treatment.
“Angel,” Crowley murmured, his voice low and sore as he crammed three words into one. He flicked his eyes up to meet Aziraphale’s, his tone akin to a broken prayer. “Angel.”
“I hear you,” Aziraphale said softly. “And I you. Come up to bed?”
Crowley did a double take, crawling up on shaking legs back into Aziraphale’s lap, just to make the point of looming over him.
“You’re telling me,” Crowley said slowly. “You had a bed this entire time?”
____________________________________________________________________________
“I need you to know,” Aziraphale said sometime later, face close to his on a shared pillow. “That your affection— your touch— so freely given after so long… it's meaningful to me. More meaningful that I had thought it would be.”
Their legs were tangled, fingers interlocked.
“Heaven has become cold,” Aziraphale continued softly. “Maybe it always was. I always thought it was me, that everyone wanted to keep their distance from but— your affection makes me feel worthy, Crowley. And welcome.”
“You belong,” Crowley whispered with a growing faith that he would be listened to. “Here.”
Aziraphale's smile told him he had been heard. “This is going to take some adjustment, isn’t it?”
“Can’t imagine why.”
Aziraphale squeezed his hand. “My dear, I would adjust my entire lexicon to make sure you felt even as half as loved—”
He stopped, searching eyes making connections Crowley couldn’t see. “Oh.”
Crowley propped himself on an elbow, waiting eagerly with half-lidded eyes for his clever bastard to share this new development. “Oh?”
Aziraphale’s laugh was somewhat bashful. “We don’t have to use those words, Crowley. What does it matter? Humans have thousands of ways to say ‘I love you,’ and not all use specific language.”
Crowley’s opened and shut his mouth. “Run that by me again?”
Aziraphale’s eyes were soft. “I will, to you, if you would like. But we don’t have to.”
Crowley’s heart was in his throat. “Are you sure?”
Aziraphale tugged him closer, and Crowley went willingly back into their embrace. “I think I am tired of living by the rules of others,” he said. “Aren’t you?”
Crowley smashed his face into Aziraphale’s chest and groaned. “I can’t believe you. After all that and now you’ve gone and make me feel ridiculous.”
“Oh dearest, I didn’t mean— “
“Shut it. This is going to be your downfall, you know that right? I’m going to get creative. Obnoxious, even.”
“How do I adore thee?” Aziraphale recited as he kissed his hair. “Let me count the ways.”
“The language of humans?” Crowley asked, and it felt secure, like Aziraphale had cleared space for him in his life, among his treasured authors.
“It has never once failed me,” Aziraphale replied. “Just have to make a few revisions. And you, the language of service?”
“Touch,” Crowley corrected, soft in ways that were new. “Devotion.”
“Prayer?” Came the gentle teasing.
“Watch it,” came the playful bite back.
The dance began anew, two beings in sync, the banter of domesticity.
Aziraphale’s eyes were sparkling. “And, I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first care for me?”
Crowley pretended to think about it, stretching luxuriously. “For them all together I think, which maintained such a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer... emotion for me?”
“Suffer emotion! A good epithet. I do suffer all of the emotions indeed, for I adore thee against my will.”
Crowley kissed him, reaching up to trace his lips with gentle fingers. “In spite of your heart, I think. If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never adore that which my angel hates.”
Aziraphale beamed, radiant against their shared pillow. “Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.” And then he laughed, kissing Crowley’s fingers. “Nor cannot woo in festival terms.”
Crowley scoffed. “You emulate the gentleman soldier to woo me in your festive tongue just to then further quote that all great lo— poems were written by a bunch of fakers.”
“They did not feel as deeply as I do,” Aziraphale murmured. “I am he that aches with amorous intent. Does the earth gravitate? Does not all matter, aching, attract all matter? So the body of me, to all I meet, or know.”
Crowley pressed their noses together, a tender temptation. “Angel. Ask me.”
“Do you love me?”
Crowley kissed him, and they had their answer.