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The emotional toll that the whole thing had taken was so awful, that even up in the sterile head offices of Heaven it would suddenly overwhelm him. He would stop mid-step in a corridor of white space, or his pen would trail off hopelessly mid-letter in a stack of reports. In those moments, Aziraphale hurt so acutely that he felt that nothing would ever be alright again and it couldn't possibly go on. It: Heaven, Hell, the world, the blasted Second Coming.
Of course it could, and it did as it always had. Oh, but Crowley was such a— !!
How could he? How could he go on about them being a team, a– a group, and then have abandoned Aziraphale in exactly his hour of need? Quietly, Aziraphale fostered a small, guttering flame of hope. For example, he spent stretches of time in between corporate meetings choreographing elaborate apology dances that would have Crowley grovelling and peacocking across the ceiling. Really demeaning stuff.
Then, in his mind's eye, Aziraphale would demand an apology, head held high. Crowley would bend in repentant curtsey and his face would tilt, the yellow eyes (here, the scene began to falter) would meet Aziraphale's, and Crowley’s lip would curl in that silly, infuriating way of his. And then, relent. Of course. Of course. He would come back. They would be together. As Aziraphale had said. And Crowley would see. And then—
But Crowley remained stubbornly on Earth.
Now, (Heaven held no tangible qualities of space or time, but a linguistic habit was a habit) Aziraphale set the pen down and thought of Crowley's mouth.
Immediately some feeling barrelled through him, as hot and rowdy as a steam train. Aziraphale clutched at the edge of his desk.
He glanced briefly around. There was no one. Still, he schooled his expression. He fixed his gaze on the middle distance. The taste of Crowley's spit. There was a moment under the force of it that Crowley's tongue had touched his and there was a shyness, and a wetness. Crowley could be gentle, he could do it with his tone, or sweetly, with a case full of treasured books on a bombsite and now Aziraphale knew, with his mouth.
Oh, oh. Aziraphale adjusted the stiff cuff of his shirt with two fingers and felt the heat of his own skin under the fabric.
It was an utterly useless train of thought to consider. More and more often, alone up here (as Crowley had left him!) he couldn’t help but consider it. His friend had kissed with such ferocious passion; how long had he wanted to do… that? Had they been sitting together in restaurants and bars, brushed shoulders in theatres, walked together in the dark and the light and all the shades of grey between for centuries, and all that time?
Aziraphale wasn’t an idiot. He knew it wasn’t– or that there was– that Crowley, well that the two of them held a sort of– of—
And yet Crowley was such an impulsive creature and only a serviceable liar. If he had truly wanted to, surely he would have found some opportunity to—
For **** sake, tempting was Crowley’s purpose!
Aziraphale let out a long, shuddering breath. For a moment he touched his lips and then he pulled himself together and picked up his pen.
In any case, there was absolutely no point. No point at all in pursuing that train of thought when it had ended exactly as it had. No point at all in wondering if kissing was all that Crowley wanted, if indeed it was nothing but Crowley making some misguided and desperate point (if so, what!), or if together meant that he wanted to do with Aziraphale all the things that lovers did.
Kissing, and, and… other things besides.
Crowley’s mouth was lovely, it was. So expressive. When he laughed, his throat tipped back and in Aziraphale’s most fanciful moments it seemed that all the shadows in a room seemed to gather, as if they wanted to be worn by him, be close to him, adorn his skin. There were no shadows in Heaven; just one, temperate plane of white light. Not much laughter, either.
Crowley’s voice echoed from the past. Just celestial harmonies.
“Oh you bloody bastard,” Aziraphale said, and covered his eyes in despair.
It wasn’t as if, in all their time together, Aziraphale had never considered being… close. Touching Crowley. In the graveyard in Edinburgh, 1827, Aziraphale had held his waist to steady him and felt his body twist and stumble. Crowley had been wildly high on laudanum and was radiating heat like a furnace. Occasionally, over the centuries, their fingers had brushed passing a bottle of wine. In 1941, there was the briefcase—
In the pub, just days before Aziraphale had accepted the Metatron’s job offer, he had touched Crowley’s chest. Laid his palm against it and felt the wonderful softness of Crowley’s jumper, the way the fabric moved almost imperceptibly as Crowley turned his head. Under his touch, Crowley was solid, real. Crowley hadn’t flinched, or moved away, and Aziraphale had felt a sort of terror.
It was an old feeling, forged from millennia of toeing the line, and therefore nearly as constant and familiar as Crowley himself. In fact, the two things were so closely intertwined that for Aziraphale it was almost impossible to encounter one without the other.
He felt it now.
It ached.
It was untenable.
It was true that Angels didn’t typically make an Effort, so to speak, but Aziraphale had done so quite early on, and it had stuck. He liked Earthly things. And he liked it in the same way that he liked his reading glasses or going to his barber every other month. It felt rather fashionable, and correct, and it rarely made a nuisance of itself. Now when he pulled open the button flies of his trousers with trembling fingers and reached inside he found that it was warm, and silk-soft like the inside of a cheek.
“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed. He put a hand over his mouth.
He touched it carefully. The slick tuft of pale hair, the fat split of himself, wet. When he touched the apex, his clit, he shivered and made a small, shocked noise.
Oh, this was insanity. And utterly Crowley’s fault.
Some hot tide swept through him at just the thought of his friend’s name.
Helpless, Aziraphale’s fingers slipped gently up and down on either side of his swollen clit, and he thought again and again of Crowley crowded against him, the almost painful pressure of his mouth, the heat of his forced exhale. He rubbed his clit, fat, between his knuckles. He whimpered. The split-second of softness of Crowley’s tongue, would it feel— would Crowley— ?
They kiss. They kiss and Aziraphale lets him, parts his lips in a gasp and their teeth clack, and then like some dam breaking, like the back of a spoon shattering the sharp sugar top of a crème brulée (oh, Earth and all its delights…). It would be deep, and warm.
In the armchair — Crowley would press him down into it, close, close, Aziraphale would finally touch his stubbled jaw. Oh he was terribly rugged, terribly rakish. Aziraphale wanted desperately to feel Crowley’s skull move, the makeup of his occult body, the hinge of it, the softness of his mouth around words. Angel.
He was soaked. It was artless. He was still unpracticed. He teased the hood of his clit up and touched the thing directly. His eyes shut tight and his mouth opened.
Crowley would, he would, of course he would, and he would look so lovely on his knees, his head bowed. What are you doing? Aziraphale said, even as Crowley pushed his thighs open, exposed him completely, even as Crowley saw how Aziraphale ached for him, the mess Crowley had made.
I knew you liked it, Crowley said, his yellow eyes unwavering. His upset mouth. Aziraphale clenched. He dripped. With one thumb Crowley spread him open and looked. Can’t hide from me, angel.
Crowley kissed his clit. Tenderly. Hot. Soft. Aziraphale could see the sweep of his hair and the freckles and lines on his face. Then he would touch Aziraphale inside. Oh, what a mess. He was making small, aching noises into the palm of his hand. When his fingers slid out they were glossy wet, and when they sunk back in there was more, forcing him open. You love this, angel, you can never hide it, I can always tell, I always know. The fingers inside him pressed and moved like they could reach his guts. Aziraphale rocked his hips against them and felt himself gush, helplessly, liquid pooling. How , Aziraphale cried, how could you, how could you? Crowley bent to suck sloppily at him, drinking him down, taking all of him, hurting him sweetly, making Aziraphale clutch around him.
When he came it soaked his trousers and made an awful mess.
His clothes were still the material objects that he had worn into the elevator, but Heaven had a way of bending things to perfect divinity. His trousers could not stay wet for long. In fact, by the time Aziraphale caught his breath they had recovered completely. He re-buttoned them with fingers that barely, imperceptibly still shook.
However, when the slim corporate phone on his desk rang it scared him so thoroughly that he almost wet his trousers again. He moved his hand towards it with the feeling that it might discorporate him.
In the vacant moment before holding the phone to his ear he did have the fluttering, panicked thought that he might find Crowley on the other side. It had happened in France, during the revolution, and a blissful handful of times since. That he’d wanted his friend, and his friend had appeared. In this fit of lust-induced delirium, by the time Aziraphale held the handset at his mouth, he had fairly convinced himself that he would hear his friend’s voice and therefore almost said his name aloud.
Of course, it was another angel.