Chapter Text
“This sex thing is a lot of fun,” Jim said as he and Crowley got dressed. They had gone back to bed after drinking hot chocolate, and hadn’t left since. But now that Aziraphale was on the way back, the fun had to end. “We should do that a lot.” Jim grabbed Crowley’s arm and made sure he was looking at him. “Like, a lot a lot.”
Crowley scoffed and patted him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, we will.” Then Crowley pulled his arm free and finished putting on his shirt. “As long as you remember our rule, of course.”
“No telling anyone,” Jim repeated, smiling proudly at his good memory.
“Especially not who?”
“Aziraphale.”
“Good boy.” Crowley laughed softly to himself as Jim’s eyes lit up a bit. “Now let’s go make sure the shop’s in order, hm?”
Jim nodded and followed Crowley downstairs. “Crowley, why can’t we tell Aziraphale?”
“Tell me what?” Aziraphale asked.
Crowley stumbled on the last step, slipping back a little against Jim behind him. Always too close behind him. “Er, nothing.”
Aziraphale fixed them with a cold glare. “Jim?”
“Uhh.” Jim leaned down and whispered in Crowley’s ear. “What should I say?”
“Crowley?” Aziraphale said, his voice growing darker.
Crowley needed to think of a lie, and he needed to do it quick. The problem was he didn’t usually lie to Aziraphale, especially lately. And his brain was still kind of coming down from the marathon sex session he just had. And so he just opened his mouth and made a low, long, “Ahh,” sound for what felt like hours.
Aziraphale frowned and shook his head. “If you two don’t tell me what’s going on right now,” Aziraphale warned, a threat hanging in the air. But no specific threat.
Crowley crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow at him. “What?” he asked with a shrug.
Aziraphale’s face faltered a little, and he shifted his stance a bit. “Or else,” he said.
Crowley smirked. “Or else what?” he urged.
Aziraphale pursed his lips and looked around, as if trying to find a good enough threat out of thin air.
“We broke something!” Jim said, breaking up the stalemate between the two of them.
Crowley let out a fake sigh, as if their big secret had been found. “Yeah,” he admitted. “A lamp.”
“No,” Jim said, with full and complete sincerity. “The bed.” Crowley’s eyes widened and he turned his head with slow, calculated malice. “What?”
“How…how did you break the bed?” Aziraphale asked. Thankfully the angel was still too pure of mind to jump to the natural conclusion that most normal people would.
Crowley continued to stare Jim down, shaking his head. “Uhm, Crowley can explain it better,” Jim said. Great. Crowley hadn't been thrown under the bus like that in a long time.
Crowley turned to look at Aziraphale, who had his high-and-mighty face back in place. “Well?” Aziraphale said. “I’m waiting.”
“We were jumping on it,” Crowley said. It wasn’t the best excuse, but he was confident that if he said it with enough conviction, Aziraphale would believe it.
“Yes,” Jim agreed, too eagerly. Maybe he was foolishly trying to make up for his earlier slip. “It was very fun and enjoyable. The jumping.”
Crowley stifled a groan. He was losing hope that the two of them would be able to keep this up. And he figured that as soon as Aziraphale got Jim alone, it wouldn’t end well.
“What possibly inspired you to jump on the bed?” Aziraphale asked.
“Because it sounded fun,” Crowley said with a shrug. He finally stepped down all the way and walked over to Aziraphale. “So, find out anything else?”
“Nothing new,” Aziraphale announced. He kept glancing between the two. He was certainly not buying the ‘jumping on the bed’ story. But he didn’t seem to be on the trail of the truth.
“Keys.” Crowley held his hand out. Aziraphale squinted at him, but handed the keys over. “Thank you.” Crowley grabbed a box of his plants and quickly removed himself from the situation. Maybe it would be best if he just stayed away for a while.
-
It had been weird, when Gabriel was in control of things. Jim was, on some level, aware of the fact that they were the same person. But Gabriel clearly knew and did things that Jim didn’t understand. Like all the sex stuff. And the holding Crowley’s hand thing. Both of which had been nice, even if Jim didn’t initiate it. Because while he wasn’t fully in control of his movements, he could still feel them. And everything he had done with Crowley felt amazing.
Which is why he didn’t understand why it was a secret. He figured something as wonderful as that should be shared, especially with the people you cared about. And Jim cared about Aziraphale.
“You know you can talk to me about anything that happened,” Aziraphale said.
He had spent the rest of the morning hovering around Jim, overseeing his progress as he continued with his quest to organize all the books in the store. And Jim swore the count doubled recently.
“You already said that,” Jim pointed out. Because he liked to be helpful, and Aziraphale seemed to forget things like what he had done or said, continuing to repeat himself regularly.
“Even if Crowley said to not talk about it,” Aziraphale added. “I hope you know that I am exempt from such secrecy. Being his friend and all.”
Jim put down his stack of books and thought about that line of reasoning. It sounded like the kind of thing that would make sense. But Crowley had said ‘especially not Aziraphale’, which probably canceled that out. Right?
“Crowley said I shouldn’t tell you,” Jim said. That should clear things up.
“And what happens if you do?” Aziraphale asked. He stepped a little closer, his eyes burning with both concern and anger. “Because if he threatened you-”
“No, no,” Jim said quickly. Threats, he had come to understand, were very much not appreciated in the bookshop. “He just…didn’t want to worry you?” Jim offered. He still wasn’t sure why Crowley had said to not tell Aziraphale. But he figured that was a good enough excuse to hide something as wonderful as sex.
“About the bed?” Aziraphale asked.
“Yes, the bed.” Jim smiled. “Which Crowley fixed, by the way.” At least, he was pretty sure Crowley fixed it. They had been too busy with the sex to do it in the moment, but Crowley had mentioned he would do it. So he probably did.
Aziraphale hummed, squinting softly at Jim as he slowly backed away. He turned around the corner of the shelf, but then quickly peeked back around. Jim kept smiling at him. Aziraphale eventually nodded and left for real. Jim just shrugged and got back to work.
-
Jim found it a little weird, using a phone. It was odd to not have the person to look at while you were talking to them. And he wasn’t sure what he should be looking at instead. So he just closed his eyes as the other line rang.
“You can’t borrow the car again,” Crowley said immediately upon answering. “It’s been acting up ever since.”
“Hello,” Jim greeted. Since that was what you were supposed to do on a phone.
“Oh. Jim. Hi.”
Jim smiled. “How are you?” Another common greeting. He was doing really good at this phone thing, not knowing where to look aside.
“Fine. Where’s Aziraphale?”
“He stepped out to get something,” Jim said.
“Okay.” There was a long few seconds of silence. “Uh, why are you calling me?”
“I was just wondering how long you were going to be gone,” Jim explained. It had been a full day since Crowley had left. And while it was nice and enjoyable to be with Aziraphale, Jim was missing Crowley. And a strange feeling in his spine told him that Gabriel was as well.
“Why?”
“Well, I wanted to do the sex again. You said we could do it a lot.”
Crowley laughed. And it was one of the most beautiful sounds Jim ever heard. He liked it when Crowley laughed, even if it was just his little huff. And every laugh brought forth an image in his mind of Crowley smiling. Some of the time Crowley looked like he did now. But most of the time he looked different. And Jim had come to understand these were Gabriel’s memories of Crowley smiling. But no matter what he looked like, his smile was still beautiful. He was beautiful. And if Jim couldn’t see him again soon, he didn’t think he’d survive it.
“Yeah, well, I said we could do it if you didn’t tell Aziraphale,” Crowley said.
“But I didn’t!” At least, he thought he didn’t. Jim had been very good about keeping his conversations with Aziraphale related to his job. But Aziraphale did have a way of talking around in circles that always confused him. Maybe he had told him?
“You told him we broke the bed,” Crowley said.
“I didn’t want to lie!” Jim told him. Crowley had said they needed to keep it secret. But he hadn’t said anything about lying over it. And Jim did not like lying to Aziraphale. It made his stomach knot up and hurt.
Crowley sighed, deep and heavy. He sounded a little disgruntled, like he was maybe still thinking about not coming over for the lots of sex.
“Gabriel wants you to come over, too,” Jim added. Afterall, it had been Gabriel’s muscles that Crowley wanted.
Crowley’s sigh turned into a bit of a growl. “How long is Aziraphale going to be out?”
“He said it would just be a few minutes.”
“Alright, fine. Wait until he gets back and then tell him you’re tired. I’ll meet you in the bedroom.”
Crowley hung up, without saying goodbye, and Jim opened his eyes again. Aziraphale was standing before him. He must have only gotten back a few seconds ago. And he was studying him with a very puzzled expression.
“Who was that?” Aziraphale asked. “And why does ‘Gabriel’ want them to come over?”
Jim really didn’t want to lie to Aziraphale. But he also didn’t want to risk telling him anything and having to stop the sex thing with Crowley. “I…don’t know,” Jim ventured. “It was Gabriel.” He pointed to the phone. “He made the call.”
Aziraphale sighed softly. “You do realize that you are Gabriel right? You just don’t remember it.”
Jim laughed softly. “Yes, obviously I know that. But it’s the muscle memory thing.”
“Muscle memory?”
Right. He hadn’t told Aziraphale about that yet! He was so involved with everything going on with Crowley that he had let it slip his mind.
“My muscles remember things, even if I don’t,” Jim explained.
“Your muscles remember?” Azirapahle asked. He stepped closer and grabbed Jim’s hand, holding it up to the light and examining it. Jim giggled a little as Aziraphale poked and prodded, sending some light shivers through his body. “What kinds of things do they remember?”
“All sorts of stuff!” Jim said. But most of those things were related to the sex. Which he wasn’t supposed to talk about. So he just left it at that.
“What kinds of stuff?” Aziraphale asked.
“Just…a bunch of them,” Jim said.
Aziraphale hummed and then brightened up with a little jump in his step. “Yet another avenue to explore!” he declared. He turned to the other shelf and started pulling out a few books, ones Jim had already organized. “I shall have to do some research on this, of course. But it could lead to developing your full memories!”
“Yes!” Jim agreed. He had been excited about that initially. As had Crowley. This was a good thing, he was certain. “And I’m going to take a nap!”
“Mhm,” Azirpahale said, already wandering off. “Have fun.”
“I will! Thanks!” Jim smiled, happy with Aziraphale’s happiness. Then he left his books and went up stairs to wait for Crowley. Only Crowley was already there, waiting for him. “How did you get in here?” Jim asked. He looked back at the door he just closed. “I didn’t see you come in.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Crowley grabbed Jim’s shirt and pulled him forward, already getting into a kiss.
“I did a really good job at not telling Aziraphale,” Jim said, his mouth moving weirdly against Crowley’s kisses, muffling his words a bit.
“I’m sure you did.” Crowley turned them around and pushed Jim up against the wall. His hands started making quick work of Jim’s clothes.
“I even lied to him,” Jim added. Because he was really proud of himself. And he wanted Crowley to be proud of him, too.
“Congratulations.” Crowley got Jim’s shirt off and then started working on his pants. Then Gabriel woke up. And his arms started returning the favor, fingers grabbing at the hem of Crowley’s shirt and pulling it up.
“He came back while we were still on the phone,” Jim continued, watching with growing interest as Gabriel revealed every inch of Crowley’s chest much more slowly than Jim would like. “And I told him that it had been Gabriel who made the call, not me.”
“Amazing,” Crowley said. He pushed Jim’s pants down and then lifted his arms, letting Gabriel pull his shirt all the way off. Gabriel tossed it to the side and then started undoing Crowley’s pants as Crowley started placing open kisses to Jim’s chest.
“And he totally bought it, too,” Jim added.
Crowley pulled back a bit and finally looked at Jim properly. “I’m sure he did.”
Gabriel had finished with the belt, button, and zipper, and was working on peeling Crowley’s pants down. The tightness made him look really good, but it was certainly an issue in getting them off.
“Uhm, Crowley,” Jim said, watching as Crowley stepped back, pushing Gabriel’s hands away and taking over the process. “You look different.”
“Hm?”
Jim looked down at Crowley’s crotch. Gabriel had provided some keywords during their last session. “Where did your vagina go?”
Crowley kicked away his pants and looked down. He shrugged. “Just didn’t feel like having one today. Problem with that?”
Jim shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He didn’t really understand how the whole sex thing worked, just that it had felt amazing and Gabriel seemed to know what to do. But Jim had been kind of looking forward to testing out what he had learned last time. But he didn’t know what to do with a penis.
“Look, sometimes I have a vagina, and sometimes I have a penis, okay? And sometimes I got nothing. It just depends on the day.”
Jim nodded, but he was still a little worried. He had been practicing in his mind all morning, and now he was sure he was going to mess it up. And if he didn’t make it good for Crowley, he might stop wanting to do this.
“Hey.” Crowley stepped back up, his expression softening. “Don’t worry.” He wrapped his arms around Jim’s neck and pressed against him, pushing his back to the wall. “You’ll know what to do.”
Gabriel’s hands grabbed Crowley’s waist, running over the sharp curve of his hips. Then one hand remained, gripping tight, while the other moved to wrap around where their two penises met. And it felt so much better than when Gabriel had just been touching the one alone.
“See?” Crowley said. He pressed a gentle kiss to Jim’s lips. “Don’t overthink it, remember?”
“Right.” Jim nodded, feeling a bit ashamed that he had forgotten so fast. “You said that last time.”
Crowley smiled at him, and Jim wanted to look at the smile forever and ever. “Just relax. You’re really good at sex.”
“I am?” Jim felt his heart lift a little.
Crowley nodded, a delicious look in his eyes. “Very, extremely good.” And then he melted forward, kissing Jim deeply as Gabriel’s hand worked.
But the elation of the moment dissolved quickly as Jim thought about that. He wasn’t good at sex. Gabriel was. But Jim wanted to be the one that made Crowley moan against his lips like that. He had gotten used to those sounds. And he loved them almost as much as Crowley’s laugh. So, if he wanted to be the source of those noises, he needed to pay attention.
“Excuse me,” Jim said, pulling his head to the side to break the kiss. He looked intently at where Gabriel’s hand worked, rubbing up and down with a gentle twist, smearing sweat and precum between them. It created a sensual slide that was quickly bringing up that hot feeling in his gut.
Crowley scoffed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking notes,” Jim said. He may have lost Gabriel’s memories, but he was committed to creating his own that he could use in future encounters.
Crowley laughed again, and the image of his bright, smiling face lit up by the purple glow of a potential star design flashed across Jim’s vision. It was enough to pull that heat forward, spreading a warmth through his whole body as his nerves bounced with delightful energy. He hadn’t really learned much in that meeting, but he was too overwhelmed with how wonderful he felt to even care.
“Good?” Crowley asked.
“Yes,” Jim said. But Gabriel’s hand was still moving, again. Jim squinted and watched with a slightly growing unease. The sensations that had once been fantastic, were now starting to hurt a little. “We aren’t done yet,” he observed.
“Guess not,” Crowley said.
Jim noted the lack of excess moisture on Crowley’s body. “You didn’t do the thing.”
“Nope.”
And then it was happening again. Just like last time. Jim steeled himself against the rush, the pressure in his head, the fullness in his gut. Gabriel spun the two of them around, pinning Crowley to the wall this time. He moved his hand off his own dick and redoubled his efforts on Crowley. His other hand moved below, playing gently with Crowley’s balls in the way he knew he liked.
Crowley was doing so much to try and help him, even though he had caused both him and Aziraphale so much hurt. And Gabriel would be damned himself if he didn’t make it stick this time.
“Crowley,” Gabriel said, a desperate plea of his own as he could feel the energy draining from him. The longer he forced himself in, the more it hurt.
“Fuck!” Crowley whispered. And his body shook and spasmed as he came.
The rush fell away and Jim took a few deep, steadying breaths as he regained control over his muscles. He shook his head softly. Crowley’s furniture had been right there, just for a moment. And now he had lost it again.
“Are you crying?” Crowley asked.
“I don’t think so,” Jim said.
Crowley reached a hand up and wiped a thumb over Jim’s cheek. He pulled it back, showing the tears he had cleaned away.
“Oh, I guess I am.” There was a deep sadness somewhere within him, but he couldn’t place the source. “I don’t think it’s me, actually.”
Crowley grabbed Jim’s face and forced him to look into Crowley’s eyes. Crowley himself looked like maybe he would cry, like there was a similar deep pain in his own soul.
“Hot chocolate?” Jim suggested.
Crowley looked like he was going to argue, but then he just sighed and deflated against the wall. “Yeah, alright. You go downstairs, and I’ll meet you at the door.”
Jim didn’t really understand why Crowley didn’t just come down with him, but it just seemed like one of those things he should go with. So he nodded and headed for the door.
“Hey, Jim,” Crowley said.
“Yes?” Jim looked over at Crowley, whose head was currently face down in one of his hands. He gestured to the pile of clothes next to him. “Oh! Right!” Jim smiled and got dressed. “No nakedness,” he both remembered and reminded himself before he left.
He heard Crowley laughing softly after he closed the door. And he smiled.