Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Angel? Angel! It’s alright, I’m here, it’s all ok.”

“Crowley?”

Aziraphale looked up, hands dropping from his head, where he’d been cowering beneath his arms. He was crouched in a corner, balled up as tightly as his limbs would allow, trying to make himself small enough not to be perceived, holding his breath against the chance it would be heard, willing the traitorous heart of his corporation to stop, stop! lest it attract their attention.

“Crowley, what are you doing here?” Aziraphale hissed, eyes darting wildly, “They’ll get you, they’ll get you too—”

“Woah, hang on angel—” Crowley shuffled closer. He too was crouching there in the gloom beneath the eaves, in the garret of this drafty tenement. “No one’s coming to get you. Just me. You called out for me and I came, right?”

“I did?” Aziraphale stared. He remembered racing wildly through the corridors, up the stair with the voice and shapes and windy, whispering hands clutching at him; he’d felt like screaming, terror gripping every part of him. In his panic and fear he must have cried out, with his mind or with his voice— or maybe both, he thought, gulping and feeling the rawness in this throat. “I suppose I must have.” Crowley’s eyes gleamed gold in the breath of moonlight that filtered through a nearby window, and Aziraphale realised he wasn’t wearing his glasses. “But Crowley, they—”

“Who?” Aziraphale gulped again, and a third time, before he managed to croak in shaking tones,

“Ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” Crowley straightened up sharply, tilting his head up as if he could scent something on the air. After a moment’s silence, he gave a small nod. “Ah, them.”

“Them?”

“Ghosts,” Crowley confirmed, “It’s alright, angel. They don’t mean you any harm.”

“How do you know? They chased and hounded me and I’m sure they would’ve—”

“Demons are closer to these kinds of things than angels. Let’s get you out of here, can you stand?” Crowley unfolded himself and rose, but Aziraphale trembled, unwilling to move from his corner of seeming security. Crowley’s lips twitched upward. “It’ll be okay, Aziraphale. Just take my hand.”

Aziraphale looked at the hand, proffered toward him at just the right height, then at Crowley’s face, where even in the dimness he could see kindness circling. He took Crowley’s hand. With a heave Aziraphale was on his feet, but Crowley did not let go.

“Listen,” the demon said quietly, holding up his free hand, “Just listen.” Aziraphale tried to listen, over the beating of his heart and the shortness of his breath. Both quietened, and as he concentrated, suddenly Aziraphale could hear—

“Children?”

“Children.” Crowley confirmed.

“But I thought—”

“Ghosts. Children.”

“Oh.”

They stood in silence, listening together to the faint, shivery voices, piping as if from behind a sheet of water, and the sound of footsteps with no weight behind them running up the stairs. A curl of wind swept around them, and a distant peal of laughter.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale gasped, and suddenly his chest was tight again, but this time with the weight of the water behind his eyes, “Children!” Crowley’s hand squeezed his.

“I know, angel. Why did you come here in the first place?”

“I was passing, and I thought I heard someone calling out for help, so I came in. I could tell the place was abandoned, you know, likely to be dangerous— but then they started throwing things and grabbing and chasing me and I lost my wits completely, I can’t think why—”

“I told you, angel. Demons are closer to this sort of thing than you. I can’t explain, and you can’t explain, and no one I’ve ever talked to can properly explain, why this happens. But lost souls, or impressions of souls, caught between worlds? Sounds like a fairly demonic existence to me. And these— they’re just kids.” Crowley shook his head. “Who knows whether they were angry you came into their house, or whether they were just messing with you, or whether they smelled an angel and revolted against whatever religion their parents told them would take care of them.”

“I wonder—”

“Best not to ask. Not just now, anyway. Come along, angel.” Crowley pulled gently at Aziraphale, and hand in hand they left the room, winding slowly down the spiral of the central stair. Voices and footsteps and what felt like small bodies brushing past accompanied them, while seeming to pay them no attention. Crowley was smiling, looking about almost as if he could see the beings behind the sounds, and Aziraphale stared in wonderment. When they reached the ground floor and started down the narrow corridor that led to the main door and the street, the patter of small footsteps began to retreat up the stairs. Abruptly Aziraphale turned, a cry bursting from him,

“Goodbye!”

“Goodbye!” a piping voice replied. Then it, and the footsteps, were gone.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale was spying on Adam and Eve from the bushes.

Well, not spying, exactly; more watching. Watching over, with care; guarding, one might say, a natural extension of his position here in Eden. However you chose to quantify what he was doing, Aziraphale was crouching slightly to conceal himself behind a tall bush that hadn’t been named yet, peering through a gap in the foliage at the two humans who this had all been made for. He considered his own corporation as he watched them, and how very like (and yet unlike) theirs it was. Especially Eve’s.

Impulsively, Aziraphale pulled of the long white robe that was the current fashion among angels, hanging it neatly on a nearby branch. His flesh prickled for a moment in the air, then relaxed again, and he looked down at his body. His hands moved over it slowly. Yes, his chest was quite different from Eve’s, though very like Adam’s, if a little less defined. He seemed to have more hair on his body than either of them, and as his hands drifted lower, one of them arrived at that place just above the juncture where his legs met. Oh yes, that bit was very different than Eve’s.

Adam had one, though, and oh goodness, what was he doing with it? Aziraphale felt his cheeks heat up, though he wasn’t quite sure why, as he watched the humans pressing their bodies together. They seemed to be enjoying it. Eve’s body in particular looked soft and flushed and happy, and she was making happy little sorts of noises. Aziraphale made a decision. With a brief flick of the fingers, his corporation shifted. Suddenly it had all sorts of interesting curves, and his chest swelled into what he was certain, despite the small sample size, were generously sized breasts. The bit between his legs vanished, replaced by something different; a strange sort of vacancy within, and a soft warmth between, with a pale and curly thatch of hair to shelter it.

“This is new.”

Aziraphale shrieked and jerked around, hands flailing over his body with moderate uselessness. Crawly stood there, the wily and apparently silent serpent, leaning against a tree. As usual, he was swathed in black, but his golden eyes were dancing with amusement as they took in Aziraphale’s shape.

“You— how dare you!”

“What? It is new! You’re experimenting! Just like them.” The demon pointed to where, beyond the bush, Adam and Eve had moved their activities to a mossy patch of ground. “Well. Maybe not just like them.” Abandoning his attempts at covering himself, and seeming to have forgotten about his robe entirely, Aziraphale huffed, putting his hands on his hips. It was much more satisfying when they were this shape, he had to admit.

“Alright, fine, you caught me.”

“What, is it a crime? Not been struck by lightning yet, have you?” Aziraphale looked up nervously, but after a moment, shook his head.

“I suppose not. Well, then,” he said, taking a deep breath and mustering up a far more blasé tone than he felt, “what do you think?”

“Mm. Job’s a good ‘un,” Crawly nodded, “Give us a twirl, then.”

Aziraphale spun slowly on the spot, tossing the hair he’d only just realised now fell about his shoulders.

“Very nice,” Crawly said appreciatively, “very nice indeed.”

Chapter Text

Aziraphale woke to the sound of a repeating pattern of bass, the strident clashing of a high hat, and the strains of a distinctively feminine voice. He blinked and listen more closely: yes, that was true, but rising up reedily to join it was, unmistakeably, Crowley’s voice. Utterly bemused, Aziraphale rolled over and threw his legs off the bed and into their fuzzy slippers. His hearing sharpened as he came fully awake, and his brow creased.

What fresh be-bop is this? He wondered, and pushed open the bedroom door. Descending the stairs, the music grew louder, and he recognised the voice— but he scarcely recognised Crowley, who came into view as Aziraphale reached the bottom of the stairs. The demon was prancing about the kitchen in his swivel-hipped fashion, singing along with full-throated enthusiasm.

“Oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, oh my Lord, never made no one like you before, you had to make your own sunshine, but now the sky is opalite! Oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!” On each oh Crowley conducted the music with his spatula, pointing at the glorious dawn beyond the kitchen window, painting the morning clouds over the Downs a riot of pastel perfection.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasped, entirely without meaning to. Crowley jerked around, spatula flailing, Kiss the Cook apron swishing in surprise, voice shutting off abruptly.

“Angel!”

“What are you doing?” Aziraphale asked, sure there was some mischief behind Crowley’s sudden enthusiasm for a certain musical megastar.

“What? I don’t need a reason. Why shouldn’t I.” Crowley gabbled, and his neck flushed. Aziraphale’s eyes widened, his own cheeks pinking as he took in the demon’s embarrassment, to the background of the ongoing upbeat song.

“Oh, well. I’m certain Ms. Swift would be flattered to know you’re a fan.”

“I’m not a fan.”

“Crowley, you’re dancing around the kitchen singing along to a song that has just been released.”

“Well— ok, fine. It’s catchy!”

“It certainly is.” Aziraphale chuckled, crossing the kitchen with a squeeze to Crowley’s arm in passing, and leant over to look with interest at the track list of the new album on the demon’s phone, where it lay on the counter beside the sizzling pan of bacon and eggs. “Oh, this all looks very interesting! She must know you’re a fan, look, here’s a song about plants.” Crowley followed behind, leaning to see what Aziraphale was pointing at. It was his turn to chuckle, as he poked a finger out to tap on the track entitled Wood.

“In a manner of speaking, angel.”

Chapter Text

“Can you hold me?”

“What?”

“Can you hold me, Crowley?”

The demon lurched up the steps to the bookshop’s gallery with a perilous speed, at any point half a step from splatting onto his face as he hurried to answer his angel’s call. Hold him? Was Aziraphale asking what he thought he was? It seemed so sudden, so abrupt, but Crowley wasn’t about to question it. He had reached the top of the stairs and trotted in the direction Aziraphale’s voice had come from, past a large shelf, and into view came a window, with a round angelic bottom sticking out of it.

“Angel!” Crowley hurried forward, reluctantly averting his eyes as the polished boots at the end of Aziraphale legs scrabbled against the floor. “What are you doing?”

“Ah, Crowley!” Aziraphale half-straightened, panting, turning as he leant his arms onto the windowsill. He was astonishingly dressed down: jacket removed, and waistcoat, braces visible over his crisp shirt with its sleeves rolled up to just under the elbows. Crowley thought he might faint. “I’m trying to put this little fellow back in his nest,” Aziraphale held up one hand with a rather woebegone looking half-fledged bird in it, “which his irresponsible parents have decided to build in my gutter for some reason, but I can’t quite reach. Can you hold me so I don’t take a tumble and become inconveniently discorporated?” With his other hand, Aziraphale pointed at his braces.

“Wha— yeah, sure, angel.” Crowley slouched forward. He curled his fingers until the sturdy braces, feeling the warmth of Aziraphale against his knuckles.

“Excellent, thank you!”

Aziraphale dove forward again, practically hanging out the window, and Crowley flung out a leg to brace himself, taking the weight of the angel into the braces in his hands, and gulping as the round bottom now bumped up against his thighs. He stared determinedly at the ceiling, counting swirls in the plaster.

Chapter Text

At the edge of the swirling abyss, the angel with the scarlet hair turned to look desperately up at Lucifer. The golden angel, lightbringer, star of the morning, was staring grimly back at the advancing heavenly host, lip curled in a defiant snarl.

“But you promised!” the angel whispered, “Lucifer, you promised! You said this would— you said they would listen, She would listen. You said it would all be better if we—”

“Silence,” Lucifer cut him off, “Don’t let them hear you beg. Don’t show them your weakness. Don’t give them that satisfaction.”

Angelic swords and spearpoints grew closer, and the other rebels clustered ever closer together, trying to edge away from the gaping nothingness, even as their heels were pushed towards it. The angel with the scarlet hair swept the heavenly host with frantic dark eyes, catching only for the briefest instant on a pair that were sad and blue behind a flaming sword. He turned back to Lucifer.

“You promised,” he pleaded, and his heart was broken. Something wet and hot and burning ran down his face and he knew only that it did not hurt as much as the indifference that rolled off the Morningstar in waves. Then suddenly his head was being jerked back; Lucifer’s fingers wound in his scarlet hair, bending back his neck and pressing close to his body at once.

“Oh, sweet starmaker,” Lucifer murmured, swiping a thumb across his cheek, “angels don’t cry.” He put his thumb into his mouth and sucked away the angel’s tears. Fear and desire and confusion and agony and questions swirled inside the angel, but it was too late for questions.

The host had come so close now that they could no longer be avoided, and even as Gabriel’s mouth opened to give the final command, Lucifer’s arm clamped around the angel’s waist. In a final defiance he stepped backward out of heaven before he could be forced, and together Morningstar and Starmaker plummeted into the endless dark, a flash of gold and scarlet in the void, forging the way for those who would be demons to follow.

Chapter Text

Crowley had been having such a pleasant dream.

Now and again he dreamed that he was once more the Serpent of Eden, slithering about under orders only to cause some trouble, which were easily thwarted when there wasn’t much of anything to cause trouble about. The garden had been a lovely place, all warm and nice-smelling and full of interesting plants. Back then, before the whole thing with the apple, he’d enjoyed sliding slowly about the place, feeling the different textures of the earth beneath his scales, tasting many fruits on the air, and idly observing the humans as they figured out who they were and what their bodies were for.

Crowley had always been a vivid dreamer— it was one of the reasons he enjoyed sleeping so much. And films. Whoever had been responsible for the invention of what was basically a giant dream you could share with other people deserved a medal. In any case, unless he chose to shut them out deliberately, Crowley’s dreams were always vivid, as if he was right there. This did, however, lead to occasional unintended side effects.

Such as waking up in a flowerbed in St. James’s Park, suddenly covered in mulch and damp and a nonzero amount of swan poo when the dream wore off and the giant serpent that had sleep-slithered his way out of doors in search of plant life reverted to one’s ordinary corporation. Crowley made a prolonged eugh sort of noise as he clambered to his feet, muttering,

“Well, this is annoying.”

Chapter Text

“You’ll have to try harder than this.”

Aziraphale looks up, defiance all that his eyes speak. The manacles that keep his miraculous powers in check clink against the chain that joins them. Demons surround him, their laughter rippling, first scathingly, then with unease, as the angel refuses to lower his gaze. He bares his teeth in something between a grin and a threat, and sweat trickles down his brow. The fires of hell are hot, but nothing so hot as Aziraphale’s determination to free Crowley from his torment.

“I haven’t yet begun to try.”

Chapter Text

“Surely not.”

“I know it sounds impossible, angel, but I swear.”

“There’s simply no way! You would explode, actually explode.”

“Do you think I’d lie to you about something like this? Really?”

“Not lie, no, but perhaps exaggerate…”

Which is how it came to pass that Aziraphale and Crowley found themselves skulking in a farmyard under cover of darkness late one night, having fortunately happened upon a recently deceased cow, whereupon Crowley transformed into the Serpent of Eden and unhinged his jaw, ready to prove an intestinally perilous point.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale peered out the window of the bookshop, craning his neck to get a better view of the street.

“You could open the door, angel.”

“Oh I could, could I?” Aziraphale simpered back at Crowley, who looked askance at him over the intricate three-dimensional puzzle he’d spent all evening assembling. The angel opened the door, stepping onto the stoop to look up and down the road. Whickber Street tended to go all out for Halloween, and children from far afield knew where to come for a good night and exceptional trick or treating. The street was now deserted, but for the lights and decorations of his neighbours. But when Aziraphale looked down to see what damage they had wrought upon his generously appointed basket of sweets with its cheerful Boo!! Help yourself! sign, his beaming face dropping into a frown.

“They didn’t even touch it!”

“Oh, no!” Crowley had appeared at Aziraphale’s shoulder, “Aw angel, that’s too bad.” With a flick of the fingers and a faint tingle, Crowley lifted the miracle that had made the basket appear empty to all passers-by. “Ah well, more for us.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale admonished, planting his fists on his hips as he followed the demon back inside, “How could you! It’s Halloween, those poor children—”

“Perfect day to get a few tricks in, right?” Crowley called up another miracle and chortled around the chocolate he was stuffing into his mouth, as Aziraphale attempted to pull the new, extremely determined, plastic devil horns from his curls, “Trickertreat, ‘ngel!”

Chapter Text

The bookshop may technically have been an angelic outpost, but when it came to neutral meeting points between Heaven and Hell, it was as close as one could get— without unduly disturbing the humans, of course. Supreme Archangel Aziraphale stood before the full-length mirror in the flat above the shop, where he had so rarely slept when this place had been his home. It had been more for show than anything else, then, but now felt like a refuge, and a small corner of him wished he could simply hide away there and not face what was coming. He fidgeted with the high collar of his pristine white suit, always a little too tight, and equally white bow tie, always just a little askew. The skin between his brows creased with anxious displeasure as he fretted over them, avoiding looking into his own violet eyes. Aziraphale hated them most of all.

Would it be worth it? Would it all be worth it in the end? Would every moment since he’d stepped into that lift with the Metatron and watched its doors close upon his old life, finally be worth it? Aziraphale swallowed hard. The negotiations with Hell had been long and tense, but it seemed that they were finally on the brink of something that could resolve it all, if only he could bring the deal home. A cohort of angels waited downstairs, preparing for the arrival of the demonic delegation. As if on cue when his thoughts drifted to them, Aziraphale felt the faint thrum in his bones that meant a demon had crossed the threshold of the shop. He could delay no longer. With a final despairing glance at his tie, he turned from the mirror.

“Ah, welcome!” Aziraphale declared as he made his way down the stairs, and the uniformly black-clad cluster of demons came into view. “Thank you so much for attending. I think we can all leave here with a plan that will benefit all, and keep harmony here on earth in the process. If we’re all willing to put our selfish interests aside, this war can come to an end today.”

At the head of the group, the figure with the sharp shoulders and shining scarf and impossibly coiffed scarlet hair upon whose back Aziraphale’s eyes had been fixed since he gained the bookshop floor turned, to reveal the golden red-fire rimmed eyes of Crowley, Grand Duke of Hell.

“I’m here, am I not?”

Chapter Text

“No, I can’t.”

“Come on, Aziraphale!”

“I can’t. I couldn’t. I daren’t.”

“Angel, stupider people than us have done this.”

Aziraphale stood in front of the ticket machine, bank card in hand, sweating, seemingly oblivious to the queue stacking up behind him. Crowley was at his shoulder, looking at him expectantly— and a bit nervously, thinking he might be asked to step in. Somehow both of them had gotten into a spot of trouble with their head offices at the same time, leading to restrictions on miracles, when they were inconveniently very far indeed from London with no way of getting home. A wave of French impatience rose around them as Aziraphale turned anxiously to Crowley.

“Are you sure?”

Chapter Text

“Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t let him hear you using his name like that.”

Crowley lay panting, having just flopped back onto his side of the bed, naked and sweating and still buzzing with the warm satisfaction of having the living daylights fucked out of and back into him by an extremely attentive, skillful angel.

“Aren’t angels supposed to be all pure and chaste and suchlike? You know, pure and virginal and beyond reproach? Celestial harmonies and never an impure thought to be found? Have the rules been relaxed recently? How the fuck—”

Aziraphale cut off Crowley’s blissed out ramblings with a kiss, leaning across him to retrieve the squat glass of amber liquor Crowley’d abandoned on his nightstand when things had… escalated. Settling himself back against the pillows, looking at cool and collected as ever with not a hair out of place, Aziraphale tossed back the whisky in a self-satisfied fashion.

“It’s a balance”

Chapter Text

“Er, Crowley.”

Crowley looked up, forked tongue flicking out to taste the air as his beady eyes fixed on Aziraphale, leaning over his basket. It was quite a substantial basket, a broad wicker thing, filled with soft pillows and scraps of fleece and a rather large black and red snake. All around the inside edge of it ran an electric blanket, set to high, and the basket itself sat before the roaring fire near Aziraphale’s desk in the bookshop. Outside the window, in the amber light of a streetlamp, snow fell heavily, blanketing Whickber Street in its aesthetically pleasing but decidedly chilly whiteness.

“Does this help you?”

Crowley nodded, bobbing his wedge-shaped nose up and down with a small hiss of affirmation.

“Very well then, my dear. Sleep well.”

Aziraphale replaced the edge of blanket he had lifted to look in on Crowley, tucking it in securely around his coils. Crowley snuggled down cosily into his nest and closed his beady eyes.

Chapter Text

“Right.” Aziraphale swallowed hard. “Do we have a plan?”

“Do we ever have a plan, angel?” Crowley stood beside Aziraphale, a mirror image of his posture, both tense and straining, chins tilted upward to contemplate the rising wall of water that barreled down upon them.

“I suppose not.”

“So much for the ineffable plan,” Crowley muttered.

“Will you let that go?”

“Absolutely not. Not when Her plan is— this!”

“Crowley—” Aziraphale turned towards the demon at his side, but the moment had come: Crowley seized him by the hand and dragged him into the air with a great thrust of black wings, still soft as angel’s down. Aziraphale’s own wings sprang out by reflex and together they beat upwards, toes just brushing the surface of the foaming water as the wave crashed where they had been.

Above the water there was turmoil and uproar, and also no sound and nothing at all. There was only air, a few spiraling leaves that had been blown above the water by its percussive force, and stray tips of mountains. Still handclasped, the angel and the demon flew together until they could alight on one of these, Crowley leading the way. They gazed out over the inundation in both disbelief and resignation, until at last Crowley kicked viciously at a rock, sending it down into the water with scarcely a plop.

“Some plan.”

Chapter Text

“So, angel, er… how did you end up in this situation?”

Aziraphale sighed.

“It’s rather complicated.”

“I’ve got time.”

“I haven’t!” Aziraphale glared venomously at Crowley, but when the demon simply continued to snigger, he gave an explosive exhalation and rolled his eyes. That was pretty much all he could do, being tied by all four limbs to the large altar upon which he had been spread, quite conspicuously naked, covered in honey and blossoms, and plied with herbs that were causing him to, well… make quite an Effort, which was fairly straining towards the ceiling. The chanting that filled the temple grew wilder and more frenzied, the fawn-clad women wailing the ecstasy of their dance, drawing ever closer.

“Let’s just say that when the maenads invited me to join their celebration, they were not entirely forthcoming about the role I would be playing. Now will you please do something?!”

Chapter Text

The sun had fallen, long before. The crowds had dispersed, leaving the carpenter on his cross in the darkness, a night with no moon, black but for the speckling of stars. The crowds had dispersed; all but one. Crowley stood at the foot of the cross, one hand pressed against it, leaning into the wood as he listened to the ever-more irregular breathing above. The two crosses flanking this one had already gone silent.

“I will never forget this.” The whisper slipped from Crowley without conscious thought. “Never. The cruelty. The vanity. How could She?” Standing on his toes, Crowley reached up, and at the farthest extension his fingertips just brushed the toes there, crusted with blood. “I’m sorry,” Crowley croaked, “I’m sorry you had to do this.”

“She forgives you, you know,” the voice was faint. Crowley craned his neck back, and he could just make out the glimmer of eyes, the darkness of the thorn-pierced brow, and a faint gleam of teeth. “She loves you.”

“She’s got some way of showing it.” Crowley retorted, never mind that the carpenter was clearly expending unnecessary effort on this conversation. “I don’t forgive Her.”

“That’s alright,” Crowley could see the smile now. The first pale hint of dawn was creeping up the horizon. “She’s not really expecting you to.” Pain raked the carpenter’s face. Crowley frowned.

“I wish I could help.”

“Just stay,” the carpenter gasped, “More will come, but I wish you would stay. And your angel. If you two would watch over me, even from a distance…”

“I’ll get him.”

“He’d blend in a bit more if he appeared as a woman too, you know.”

Crowley chortled in spite of himself.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’ll stay with me, then? Until they put me in the ground?” Crowley nodded solemnly, and the carpenter smiled.

“Be well, Crowley.”

Chapter Text

Aziraphale hovered on the trailing edge of whiteness that separated Heaven from the Void, all speckled with stars and swirling gaseous clouds and sparkling dust and now the cometous hail that was angels falling, Falling towards he knew not what. The sword in his hand had gone out, and now hung lank and cold from his fingers. Something odd was happening to his eyes, his face. Something… wet.

“Quite the sight, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale jerked, taken entirely by surprise by the appearance of Gabriel beside him. The archangel was looking out at the fading hail of slow-falling lights as well, something hard and inscrutable in his face. Aziraphale dashed his sleeve across his face, not quite sure why.

“Yes,” he murmured. Gabriel glanced at him.

“It’s a tough one, I know,” he said, and Aziraphale stared. “I had friends among them too. But it had to be done.” Aziraphale tore his gaze away, looking outward again. The streaking points of light were almost lost to sight now. Did it?he wanted to say, but he only nodded in silence.

“You’re not alone.” For a second time, Aziraphale stared. “We’ve all got to stick together now, Aziraphale. Heaven needs us. God needs us.” Gabriel’s face and voice were almost… kind. Aziraphale bit his lip, and nodded.

Chapter Text

“I think I see it. Angel, I think I see it!”

“Mrschplnf.”

“What was that?”

“I said,” Aziraphale replied on a deep inhale, Crowley’s cock sliding from his mouth to splat against the demon’s belly, “not good enough.” The angel resumed his former position, twisted across the front of seat of Bentley, engulfing Crowley’s cock down to the root.

“Angel!” Crowley whined, hips straining upward, only to yelp as he was pinched sharply in the thigh. He had committed the unpardonable sin of getting them lost on the way to a new brunch location, to which Aziraphale’s response had been to punish him with road head until he found the way there. This hadn’t sounded like a punishment to Crowley at first, but he hadn’t taken into account just how exquisitely talented Aziraphale was in this department, and how well he could read Crowley’s responses, and therefore keep him right on the brink of orgasm as long as he bally well pleased. The temptation to drive in circles had fled Crowley after the third time Aziraphale had backed off at the critical moment and looked up at him with innocent eyes, asking if he’d made any progress.

“Angel, angel, ah—! I see it, I do see it now! Please—” Crowley keened and beat the heel of his hand on the steering wheel as Aziraphale sat up again, the only sign of his activities lips that were slightly plumper than usual and a singular curl out of place. He too caught sight of the place, and nodded approvingly.

“Well done, my dear. Now find us the car park.”

Crowley gulped. Aziraphale licked his lips, grinning wickedly.

Chapter Text

Crowley’s fingers combed through Aziraphale’s soft feathers, methodically bringing them back into order.

“Better, angel?”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale sighed, “Yes, I missed this.”

Crowley’s me, too hung unsaid on the air. He knelt behind Aziraphale on the edge of the bed, shirt hanging open in the warmth of the room, holding his face back from burying itself in those down-soft, musk-sweet feathers. It was strange that Aziraphale’s wings should become so disrupted in heaven, of all places. But, Crowley supposed, the repression that forced each angel into a suit that was just a little too tight did not hold with the spreading and preening of wings.

“Crowley.”

He looked up. Crowley’s eyes flicked to the mirror across the way, where they met with Aziraphale’s, and the pinch in his face matched the quiver in his voice. Crowley’s hands stilled, resting restlessly at the roots of the wings, as slitted-gold met foreign violet.

“Don’t go back,” he whispered, as he always did, “Don’t go. Stay with me.”

“I can’t.”

Crowley’s fingers combed through Aziraphale’s soft feathers, methodically bringing them back into order.