Chapter Text
Two weeks later
The note read: “Will you favour me with your company at dinner on Saturday? Let us partake in a splendid dinner to be held at the Ritz Hotel at nine o’clock sharp. I kindly request your presence complete with well-fitted coat, crisp shirt, and a tie of choice. Yours sincerely, A”.
He’d sealed it with green wax and sent it through the post, humming to himself. The reply showed up a day later, on the screen of the mobile telephone Crowley had insisted he carry with him while they were apart.
He’d pursed his lips and fired back, typing on the tiny illuminated keypad with his pointer finger:
Honestly, the demon was going to wreck Aziraphale’s precisely, painstakingly planned evening with his aggressive… sauntering. Cheek. Oh!
Crowley’s reply was immediate.
Aziraphale stared at the screen for a minute, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. Then he set the phone down and picked up a book. He had time for a little more research before he saw Crowley again.
Spending the last two weeks alone had been Aziraphale’s idea, but Crowley agreed once he explained.
After seeing Uriel, they’d walked back to Crowley’s flat, mostly silent, holding tight to each other’s hands like Hansel and Gretel in the woods. Aziraphale’s thoughts swirled, buffeting him, refusing to be pinned down, until he was on the verge of panic. What was wrong with him? Uriel had given them a gift, and he was floundering.
The minute they were through the door Crowley stripped off his shirt, corset, and vest, movements quick and almost frantic. They both stared at his unmarked stomach.
Aziraphale’s chest ached like he’d been struck by a sledgehammer. They’d paid a heavy price to live functionally as humans, it’d nearly destroyed them, and for what? Seemed there’d been a solution all along. Oh, but could they really pick and choose their corporations’ functions without worrying about their healing capabilities? Biology à la carte? Was the only condition really a restraining order that neither of them needed?
When had anything, ever, been so simple? There must be a catch.
“Angel, breathe.” Crowley took him by the shoulders.
“I don’t believe it. I can’t.” Aziraphale tried to fill his lungs. They felt like two bags of sand.
“Yeah. Seems a little too easy,” Crowley muttered. “But… proof of the pudding’s in the eating.” He poked himself experimentally, just above the navel.
“God wouldn’t… I mean, She would…” Aziraphale rubbed his temples. “Oh, I suppose this is the sort of thing She might find amusing, actually.”
“Her style, innit? Give ‘em freedom, see what they do with it? Maybe She never wanted us to be changeless in the first place. Supposed to grow with them.” Crowley made a vague gesture towards the city below. “Evolve.”
Dr. Gale, the one in his dream. He hadn’t told Crowley. “She was always very hands on,” Aziraphale said slowly. “Disappear for weeks with a new project, and later you’d find out She’d been off rolling balls of dung as a scarab beetle or something. She’s different from them… different from us, too… but She didn’t let that stop her.”
“We’re never going to see the whole picture. All we can do is work with what we’ve got.” Crowley’s gaze was steady, raised eyebrows furrowing his forehead. “It’ll be alright. We tried to influence the wrong boy for a decade, and it saved the world, remember?”
“It sounds like a demon is telling me to have faith.” Aziraphale laid both palms on Crowley’s chest, warm and whole.
“Don’t you dare spread that around. I’ll deny it.” Crowley pulled him into his arms, and they stayed that way for a long time.
Later, as they lunched on cold chicken and slices of baguette spread with soft cheese, Aziraphale told Crowley he was going back to the bookshop– “alone”.
“What?” Crowley’s expression turned wary.
Aziraphale picked up one of his hands, toying with the tips of his slender fingers. The feeling of cool, rough skin against his own was grounding. “I want us both to think about this. If what Uriel said is true, and we can decide what systems to run– indefinitely and without regard for consequence– then we each ought to make that decision separately.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re not rational around each other,” Aziraphale told him, touching his cheek. “It’s normal when two people are in love, but I don’t want you to turn something on just because I do.”
Crowley leaned his chair back against the counter, crossing his long legs at the ankle. “Ev’rything up for grabs,” he said thoughtfully. “Do I want to keep my kidneys working?”
“I calmed the immune oversensitivity so I could go home without sneezing,” Aziraphale said. “But apart from that, I’m just not sure yet.”
“What if I turn my intestines off again?” Crowley asked. He looked accusingly down at his torso. “Caused enough trouble, you have,” he said, under his breath.
“Then you’ll go back to watching me eat, I suppose.”
“Guess you’re already resolved on that one.”
“Guilty.” Aziraphale smiled.
Crowley was worrying at his bottom lip; Aziraphale caught an enticing flash of white canine. “What if you decide to leave the sexual rewards system in place… and I don’t?”
“Then we won’t have sex.”
The demon gave him such a nakedly anxious look that Aziraphale laughed and kissed his forehead. It was an awkward angle, so he scooted his chair closer and spoke with his lips against Crowley’s temple. “I suppose it would be insensitive of me to tell you not to worry. I’ve given you plenty of cause. I’d expected a long rehabilitation of body and soul… Uriel’s interference has thrown me, rather.”
Crowley leaned in with an easy vulnerability that made the angel’s eyes prick with tears. “I told Anathema I felt sliced open and sewn shut,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard.
“And so you have been. I can’t mend it. I hope it will heal with time.”
“Bollocks you can’t mend it. Don’t leave again, angel.” Crowley looked up, caught his gaze, held it.
“You have my word, love.” Aziraphale took his hands. “Nothing you decide to turn on or off will change how I feel, but I don’t want to influence you. Make your choices, and I’ll meet you on the other side.”
Crowley visibly thought this over. “Probably won’t get rid of the sex drive, in the end,” he said.
Aziraphale grinned and kissed him hard.
Hardly counted as influencing, really.
Aziraphale spotted Crowley first, and spent a few seconds soaking him in. He stood midway between the fireplace and the curving, plush-carpeted staircase, hands in his pockets, elbows at his side and one hip cocked (if he’d repaired that particular joint, he’d clearly done so in a way that wouldn’t affect its aesthetics). He was wearing a starched white shirt, scarlet tie, and a perfectly devastating jacket with a twinkle of gold cuff links at the sleeves.
He looked delicious, and the familiar thump of longing in Aziraphale’s stomach was accompanied by a flutter of butterfly’s wings– because tonight he could do more than look.
Theoretically, at least. There was a chance Crowley might not… but then Crowley turned, saw Aziraphale, and lowered his glasses to stare at him over the tops of the lenses. His lips parted.
That seemed promising.
During Crowley’s brief stint as a patient, he’d often leaned on Aziraphale’s arm. Aziraphale held it out as he approached now, and Crowley took it. “Sight for sore eyes, you are." He was wearing that tiny smile that lit his whole face up with joy. “Hope the suit’s alright. Sweating bullets.”
Aziraphale laughed. He couldn’t help it, he was a tea kettle boiling over with happiness, and it had to come out somehow. “You look beautiful.”
Crowley ran two fingers over the knot of Aziraphale’s blue-and-gold tartan ascot. Aziraphale had a new suit: modern, in textured linen that complemented the criss-cross bands of the cravat. (Tracy had helped him pick it. She’d also folded his pocket square, earlier in the evening, and dabbed his neck with magnolia cologne from Cartier. “There we are,” she’d declared, stepping back. “Pretty as a present, and I daresay Mr. Crowley will enjoy unwrapping you.” Aziraphale had blushed and flapped a hand at her.)
“Tell me if something’s turned off I oughta know about, ‘cause otherwise I’m going to kiss you now,” Crowley said, low in Aziraphale’s ear.
“Well. Go on then,” answered Aziraphale, contentedly. Then he remembered his plan and lurched back, just before their lips met. “Wait!”
Crowley blinked behind his glasses. “What?”
“There’s an order to the events tonight. A certain sequence we’ll do things in. If– if you’re amenable,” Aziraphale trailed off, suddenly feeling very silly. Here he was, trying to tempt the original tempter.
“What’re you up to, angel?” Crowley asked, one dimple showing as he looked Aziraphale up and down.
“Never you mind. Come on.” Aziraphale put his hand over Crowley’s, and they walked through the double doors of the restaurant.
The day before, Aziraphale had done a little reading, then retired to his recently redecorated flat on the first floor for some practical work. If Crowley decided to remain his lover, Aziraphale wanted to be in a position to be generous. He’d been on the receiving end of Crowley’s skills, and yes, he’d offered some clumsy reciprocation, but it had all been in the heat of the moment. Aziraphale was meticulous by nature. He wouldn’t feel satisfied with what he was bringing to the table (or the bed; probably there wouldn't be any actual tables involved) until he’d done his homework.
He’d told Tracy he was finished with instructional manuals, but curiosity had gotten the better of him after a few days of solo experimentation. “A reference,” he’d muttered, turning the pages of The Joy of Gay Sex. Like the now-defunct (or at least, Aziraphale decided firmly, defunct in his particular case) Sensual Loving, it had illustrations.
Aziraphale read it, cover to cover. He made notes. Then he opened Ultimate Gay Sex, which had colour photographs– even better.
He hadn’t come downstairs again for a full twenty-four hours. And he’d revised his assumption about tables.
The waiter poured champagne. He read the specials, but Aziraphale barely heard him. He was gazing at Crowley, chin in one hand, smiling a little. Serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine, he thought. How wonderful.
“Angel? Hello?” Crowley waved a hand in front of his face. “He said they have the squid ink risotto you like.”
“Oh! I’m very sorry.” Aziraphale ordered two starters, a main, and a side of honey marinated aubergine. “Are you eating?”
It sounded like a casual question. It wasn’t.
Crowley met his eyes, looking mischievous through the dark lenses. “Thought I might.”
Over scallops and creamy oyster potatoes, Aziraphale put out feelers. It was fun. This is flirting, he thought, surprised. And then, We’ve been doing it for years. Because of course they had. Teasing, asking leading questions whose answers sounded straightforward but could mean something else entirely. Trading gentle barbs like amuse-bouche. “Another glass of champagne? It’s quite good.”
“Hadn’t better, if I’m driving home.”
“Ah, very wise. I was hoping to prevail upon you for a ride.”
“Be late when we get back.”
“I imagine.”
“Plans for the evening?” Crowley asked.
“Sleep… eventually.”
Crowley took a deliberate bite of bread. “Still sleeping, then?” He chewed. Swallowed.
Aziraphale remembered a black-robed demon eating the root of a Devil’s Thorn on the bank of a stream, long ago. “It’s become a habit. Quite enjoyable; you were right about that.” You were right about so many things. “What will you do with your meal?”
Crowley put a modest hand on his stomach. “I made a few updates,” he said. “It’s very efficient in there now.”
“I might have known that someone with an appetite for tinkering with motor vehicles would rearrange his own insides, if given the chance.”
“And I might have known that someone with a hedonistic streak a mile wide wasn’t about to give up his reward pathways. Not without a fight.” Crowley’s voice was so laid back it was practically flat on the ground, but there was a question in it.
“I didn’t give any of it up,” Aziraphale said. He paused. The pianist was playing Mozart’s piano concerto Number 17, a piece that had always evoked feelings of sincerity. Over the years, he’d found sometimes that music unlocked him when nothing else could.
He squared his shoulders and continued. “I even kept the allergies, though I did stop them from bothering me at the bookshop. A touch of miracle’s as good as a Clarityn, I’ve found.”
Sometimes the movements of Crowley’s head were almost birdlike. A tiny, quick tilt: inquisitive. Go on.
“Do you remember when I told you that preventing my corporation from catching biology was like damming a river?” Aziraphale asked him. “I was thinking about how that felt… because I turned everything off again, you know, after I went to Heaven… well, of course you know…” he stumbled.
Crowley reached across the table and tangled their fingers. “It’s okay.”
“It hurts, a bit. Like wearing shoes too tight for your feet. I’d gotten so used to the sensation over the years that I hardly noticed it anymore, but when I went back to it after a week of freedom, I felt… I felt… hmm. Have you ever seen a bug trapped in amber?”
“Sure. Like in Jurassic Park.”
Aziraphale gave him a blank look, but decided to push on. “It was as if I were that bug, but alive. Paralysed. Nothing getting in or out. I wanted to run to you and tell you everything when I saw you on the escalator, and it all got stopped up. Then you were sick, and they took you, and I didn’t know if you were even going to wake up, a-and…” he paused to swipe at his eyes. Heaven’s sake, but he cried at the drop of a hat now. Making up for lost time, he supposed. “I couldn’t weep. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even breathe.”
Crowley squeezed his hand.
“Gentlemen?” said a quiet voice near Aziraphale’s elbow.
The world flowed back in around him. He nodded to the waiter. “Ah. The soup course. Thank you.”
While the bowls and spoons were set down, Crowley sat very still, watching him carefully. “That doesn’t tell me why you decided to keep the allergies,” he said at last. The words were playful, but his voice was very gentle.
“It’s better for me to feel things. Even sensations I’d rather not have. In a way, it’s become my guide.” He stroked Crowley’s knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Do you see?”
Crowley shook his head.
“It’s difficult to put properly into words. I told you the chemicals have nothing to do with my love for you, and I meant it. But I got extremely good at not letting myself know that I loved you. Like when you turned your pain signals off. I tried not to admit it was happening.” Aziraphale sighed. “But pain is just… well, it’s information, isn’t it? Helps you figure out what’s hurting you, and how to stop it.” It was probably time to tell him, but Aziraphale hesitated. He didn’t want to spoil Crowley’s mood. “I thought I needed Heaven’s manual to understand how things worked, but of course that’s nonsense. If I don’t try to keep everything I feel behind glass, my body and brain will give me all the direction I could ever ask for. I welcome it.” He smiled. “Even the allergies. And that itch you sometimes get in the middle of your back, right where you can’t reach. And the occasional wind.”
Crowley burst out laughing.
Aziraphale popped the question over Anjou pigeon with sweetcorn purée (he’d thought fondly, when he ordered, of the quail pie from Ninevah). He tried to make it sound like the answer didn’t matter… because truly, it didn’t. “What did you decide, then?” he asked.
Crowley didn’t reply immediately. “Got some new anatomy books,” he said instead. “Those tomes you had were thirty years out of date.”
“Yes, and of course the human body updates as often as you change mobile telephones. It’s vital to stay current.”
“Human knowledge updates all the time. There could have been an important discovery about the pancreas, or something.”
“Was there?”
“Anyway,” Crowley went on, ignoring this, “Like I said, I did some re-configuring. Human organs when I’m human, and snake organs when I’m a snake. Took a little practice, but I’m gettin’ the hang of it.”
“Not your eyes,” Aziraphale said, too quickly.
Crowley swept his glasses off and grinned at him. “I didn’t touch the outside. Very bad form to modify the appearance of a classic car, you know. Sends the resale value through the floor.”
“You could if you liked,” Aziraphale insisted loyally. “I’m quite happy with my, er, classic car– however it looks– and as I don’t ever plan to part with it, the so-called ‘resale value’ is immaterial.”
“I’m attached to this corporation, strangely enough,” Crowley said, shrugging. “I just fixed the things that were causing problems: the wonky hip sockets and snake digestion and mismatched lungs. Hospital was good for that, at least. All those clever pictures of my insides. They gave me a disc.”
Aziraphale wondered, briefly, what a circular plate had to do with anything. He looked down at his own plate. “And the rest?” he asked, softly.
Crowley began to fold his napkin into narrow rectangles. “Eugh, thought I’d keep it,” he muttered. “Get into habits, like y’said.”
“Oh.” Aziraphale didn’t look up, but he breathed out, and the corners of his mouth lifted. Through his lashes, he saw Crowley put his chin on his fist and scowl at the wall.
They ate in silence for a while. The waiter brought tea and coffee. Aziraphale waited. Eventually, as he’d known he would, Crowley put his cup down and said, “Fine. I liked how we were going along. Thought we could… y’know. Pick up where we left off. If you wanted.”
“I liked it too, Crowley. That’s a bit of an understatement, actually. But…”
“What’s wrong? Something is, isn’t it? You wouldn’t let me kiss you.”
“Nothing’s wrong! I just–”
At that moment, the lights dimmed.
Aziraphale had seen the band getting ready out of the corner of his eye, but he hadn’t mentioned it. At the back of the big dining area, tables had been cleared and people were starting to get up from their chairs and drift over. Now the pianist switched smoothly from Chopin to Gershwin, someone blew a trombone, and a bass guitarist picked out a rhythm. A woman in a spangled boa, her glossy black hair in pin curls, stepped up to a microphone. “Embrace me…” she crooned, bell-like. “...my sweet embraceable you.”
Crowley swung his head back around to pin Aziraphale with a suddenly knowing look. He raised an eyebrow. “I’m being wooed, aren’t I?” he said.
“We rather did things back to front. I’d like to start over, if you’ll let me.” Aziraphale rose from his seat, and held out his hand.
Crowley smiled.
As a rule, angels didn’t dance. And the last time Crowley had danced was at Cleopatra’s, a club in the Second Circle, in 1973.
As they stepped out onto the floor– the light was blue, dust motes floated in the spotlight’s beams, and all the tables around them blazed with candles– Crowley hesitated. There were human couples swaying together, some so seamlessly that it almost looked like lovemaking. He didn’t know the steps.
“Like this.” Aziraphale folded his hand around Crowley’s, bent his elbow, then put his other arm around Crowley’s waist and drew him close.
The beat was soothing. Ella Fitzgerald had performed this one, back in 1984. Crowley remembered sitting in the audience at Royal Albert Hall, aching with loneliness, feeling hollowed out inside. He’d never expected anything to change.
Now Aziraphale was warm in his arms. Crowley hadn’t put his glasses back on. His hands were shaking a little. The angel he loved was here, he was staying, he’d promised.
They swayed. Aziraphale laid his head on Crowley’s chest. I don’t know the steps, he thought again, terrified. He didn’t know how to love like this. He wasn’t used to love that didn’t feel like a fist squeezing your heart.
“I’ve got you,” the angel murmured. The hand on the small of Crowley’s back was firm and sure. “Don’t worry. We’ve always been dancing.”
“I love all the many charms about you. Above all I want my arms about you…”
We’ve always been dancing.
(“Just cancelling each other out.”
“We’ve done it before. Dozens of times, by now.”
“We have a lot in common, you know.”
“That was very kind of you.”
“Don’t go unscrewing the cap.”)
Crowley nuzzled (extremely undemonic, nuzzling, he hoped nobody saw) Aziraphale’s hair. Tea tree shampoo and scalp oils.
(“I worked it all out.”)
You did, didn’t you, angel, Crowley thought. Somehow you always do. In the end.
The music quickened and couples scattered to keep pace with it, laughing. Crowley spoke against Aziraphale’s ear. “Take you home?”
“Yes, please.”
(Image credit: Anotherwellkeptsecret)
When they got to the car, he held Aziraphale’s door for him, and the angel kissed him– softly at first, layering their lips and tangling his fingers in Crowley’s hair. He drew back, blinking up at Crowley like someone waking from a dream, and whispered, “Oh. I’ve missed you.” Then they crashed back together, mouths open, taking shaky breaths through their noses as they kissed because of course they had to breathe.
All their previous physical encounters had felt so urgent, and Crowley suddenly realised it was because somewhere, deep down inside, he'd believed each one to be their last. He was the original tempter, after all. You were supposed to want him, but only once. After tasting what he had on offer, and realising what it truly meant, people ran.
He’s not leaving, Crowley reminded himself again. You have time. The kisses turned slow, flowing like honey into one another, and the pulsing thump of heaviness below Crowley’s belt felt far away. He pulled back, easing the sting by kissing each of Aziraphale’s cheeks, both delicate eyelids, the centre of his forehead where the worry lines were.
Aziraphale chuckled ruefully. “Lost myself for a moment. Come on, then. I have something to show you.”
The bookshop was… different. Neater. Crowley couldn’t tell if the piles of papers and scrolls and stacks of books on every surface had been put away, or just relocated to some storeroom out of sight where unbalanced towers, even now, were getting ready to collapse on the heads of the unsuspecting.
Aziraphale snapped his fingers and lit the candles in the back room, where a tartan blanket was spread on the floor. On it were bottles of champagne in crushed ice, miniature chocolate ganache cakes with fresh strawberries, slices of cream tart, a basket of chocolates, crème brûlées in white ramekins, and a steaming pot each of tea and coffee; as well as napkins, saucers, spoons, forks, glasses, ceramic teacups and fluffy-looking over-sized pillows. A bowl of crimson roses sat on Aziraphale’s writing desk, and the floor was scattered with petals.
Crowley stood frozen, staring. A part of his mind wondered if Aziraphale was expecting someone else. This couldn’t be for him.
Arms circled his waist from behind. “I would have put it away if you weren’t eating,” Aziraphale said. “But I did hope. I’d promised you, after all.”
“‘Perhaps someday’, Crowley said, and his voice was cracking. “That’s what you said.”
“Then I promised myself.”
While he poured drinks and filled plates, Aziraphale told him about going out shopping the morning after they made love at the Ritz. “I was in the middle of Marks and Spencer when she grabbed me,” he complained. “She could have just sent a note. But of course I was completely wound up when I got to Heaven, which is what they wanted.” For the first time, he went through the whole story from start to finish: how the other archangels had threatened and bullied him, while Uriel pretended to be his friend. How she’d shown him the manual, and his dismay at learning how fickle neurochemistry could be. “I’ve never done this before, and it turned out she had,” he said. “Her story fit the pattern I was reading about. I was so confused. It seemed to me that love and lust and affection were all woven together, and they couldn’t be separated… because of course that’s how I feel about you. I’ve never known anything different.” He touched Crowley’s face, and Crowley’s wonderful endorphins (course he’d kept those, there’d never really been any doubt) sent a surge of joy through his body. “I got scared. It was all so new between us, and you said you loved me, but how could you be sure it was real…”
Crowley gave him a tired look.
“I know. It was unfair, and I’m sorry. I don’t blame anyone but myself, but…” Aziraphale’s hands knotted together, knuckles white. “I’ve since learned that they lied to me.”
“No.” Crowley popped a truffle in his mouth and affected an expression of astonishment.
“About something else, you fiend. This showed up at the bookshop a few days ago.” Aziraphale hesitated a moment. Then he got up, took something off his desk, and handed it to Crowley, snatching his hand away the moment Crowley had it. As if it had burned him.
“Angel?”
“I-it came with a note. ‘The essence of repression lies simply in turning something away, and keeping it at a distance, from the conscious. Unfortunately, repressed emotions do not die. They are silenced. But they continue to affect the person’. Sigmund Freud.”
Crowley turned the object over in his hands. Small tablet, button press to turn on. Celestial tech.
“It’s The Human Corporation: Operations Manual. I know this sounds crazy, but I think Michael sent it.”
“So what? You’ve seen it already.”
“Not precisely. It appears to contain information that was withheld from me. Uriel presented a carefully edited slice of what God told them about falling in love… designed to erode my trust in you, and in myself.”
Crowley hesitated with his finger on the button. “‘Appears’? Haven’t you already been through this cover to cover?”
“I didn’t read it.” Aziraphale was blinking, looking everywhere but at him. The candlelight turned his eyelashes to molten gold.
“What? Why not?” The tablet clattered to the floor. “Is it hexed?”
“No, no! Nothing like that. Crowley…” Aziraphale met his eyes, shy. He looked convinced he’d done the wrong thing.
The air squeezed out of Crowley’s lungs. He’d seen that expression on the wall of Eden. Was that when he’d started to fall in love? Had one look been enough to start his parched heart beating again?
“...I don’t want to know what it says.”
Silence. A car passed by on the street. Rain began to patter on the oculus.
“I’ve always lacked a firm sense of what I ought to do. Not right and wrong, I felt I knew that much… though you taught me things aren’t always what they seem in that regard, either.” Aziraphale took a gulp of champagne, closed his eyes briefly, and then went on. “That’s why I love books. You can’t argue with a book. Remember the airbase? All that talk about ‘It Is Written’? I believed that. I always thought I’d know what to do if I could just find the place it was written down for me. The thing that was Correct.” Crowley heard the unspoken capital letter. “Humans make all kinds of mistakes, of course, but there had to be an answer. Somewhere.”
“You’re the one who always went on about ineffability!”
“Yes. Terribly hypocritical of me, wasn’t it? When we incorporated fully, I didn’t trust myself. What’s worse, I didn’t trust you. I read the wrong things, and trusted them, and it almost cost me everything.”
Crowley slid over and took Aziraphale’s hand. He kissed the slightly chocolaty fingertips, and the angel sighed. “I didn’t trust you either,” Crowley said quietly. It was shameful, but he had to dig it out now or it would keep eating at him. “I tempted you into turning the hormones on. I thought that was the only chance I’d ever get. It sounds stupid, and mean…”
“Crowley–”
“No, it does. I shouldn’t have…” Crowley shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t think you loved me, but I’m more sorry I didn’t think you could. Course you can. You did. I was an idiot for not seeing it.”
Aziraphale smiled at him, soft and hesitant. Crowley smiled back, and he could swear he heard violins swelling. Love was ridiculous.
“Do you want to read it?” Aziraphale asked, picking the tablet up again. “I should have told you earlier. Before you did all that internal rearranging.”
A Heavenly manual documenting the proper structure and stimuli; response pathways and neural circuits all neatly laid out for him. He’d feel like a bug under glass. “Not a chance, angel.”
“Oh! Oh good. I thought you might… of course it would be perfectly alright if you did–”
“Relax. We’re doing fine without it.”
Crowley took the tablet from Aziraphale’s hand and made a complicated gesture. The tablet vanished, reappeared outside the window, and burst briefly into flames. A thin stream of white ash drifted down, steaming, to the wet pavement.
“Crowley!”
“What? I’m sure they have backups.”
“I don’t condone burning books,” Aziraphale said, clearly trying not to laugh.
“Mmm, you don’t know about spyware. They could’ve loaded that thing up with all kinds of surveillance equipment. And I don’t want anyone seein’ what I’m about to do.” Crowley got one hand onto the back of Aziraphale’s neck and tugged the cravat with the other. Aziraphale came to him easily; he was laughing then, they were both laughing, and then they were kissing, and Crowley forgot how to form thoughts until he put his elbow into a crème brûlée and Aziraphale fussed at him and wiped his jacket with a napkin and led him firmly upstairs.
“Said there was…” Crowley gasped, sometime later. “Said there was an order, to, to– ah. To events.”
Aziraphale spoke with lips against Crowley’s shaft, and Crowley twitched helplessly, pulsing another gout of warm fluid. He couldn’t bear this. “Indeed. Not that we need it. But generally human relationships proceed thusly.” His tongue tip traced Crowley’s slit, then down to the base and around his balls. Crowley gritted his teeth and moaned through it, fuck, he was so close. “Attraction. Spending time together. Sometimes the one comes first, sometimes the other, but when there’s mutual agreement on the attraction front, then… a discussion of intentions. Often over dinner.” He swallowed Crowley down again, mouth hot, pulling off when the demon was cursing and sweating, leaving his cock shiny with spit. “Then kissing.” He moved up the bed and kissed Crowley open-mouthed, tongue pressing insistently. He tasted of chocolate ganache and strawberries and the ocean and Crowley wanted to fucking bottle it; he didn’t care if he tasted anything else for the rest of his days.
Aziraphale was breathing as hard as Crowley was when they parted. “Ah… if all of that goes well… humans generally proceed to–”
“Never mind, shut up. Touch me. No, fuck, don’t. Going to come,” Crowley babbled. His head was spinning. Something about Aziraphale’s measured, deliberate speech combined with a deliciously filthy mouth between his legs was making every pulse of blood hammer in his temples and stomach and especially his cock; he was harder than he’d ever been in his life.
“Why shouldn’t you come?” Aziraphale said with that almost-smile he wore when he thought he was being just a little bit improper. He danced his fingers up Crowley’s shaft, only teasing, and it was still almost over; Crowley gasped, grabbing his wrist.
“I don’t want…” Crowley kissed him again. He couldn’t seem to stop kissing him. “Don’t want to come yet.”
“Why not?” Aziraphale murmured. “We have all night.”
“But I can’t… not right away…”
“I think you can. I think you will.” Aziraphale pushed away on his palms, sliding down the bed– Crowley caught a glimpse of that magnificent arse lifting as he moved– and took Crowley back into his mouth, and this time there was no stopping it, Crowley arched and cried out and clutched handfuls of the angel’s hair, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, and Aziraphale sucked him through his climax and swallowed and then spread his thighs with warm hands as Crowley shuddered in the aftermath.
“Fuck… fuck…angel…”
“Mmm.” Aziraphale looked down at him– limbs askew, chest heaving, legs spread– and smiled, eyes flicking down to Crowley’s spent cock for a moment. “Hands and knees, I think, for this next part.”
“Where did you… since when…” What were words, how did you make sentences?
“Well…” Aziraphale helped him turn over. His arms trembled when he tried to hold himself up and he went down to his elbows, wanton, arse in the air. “I didn’t read the Operations Manual. And I returned Sensual Loving, of course, it really wasn’t my cup of tea at all. Far too reductive. But I haven’t completely changed my ways. Some of the books Tracy bought for me were very… enlightening.” Two thumb pads pressed into Crowley’s cheeks, he was being spread, then Aziraphale was licking into him, and Crowley shoved his fist into his mouth because this was too much, his angel shouldn’t… God…
“Oh God,” he moaned out loud after an exquisite, excruciating few minutes. “I– I– are you sure?”
Aziraphale’s clever, wicked tongue flicked against his entrance, tracing his folds. When he raised his head to answer he replaced the tongue with a finger, slowly circling, dipping in shallowly where Crowley was wet and dripping with his spit. “I want to make love with you in every way there is to make love. Slowly. Fast and frantic, kicking over lamps and knocking books off the shelves. With our clothes on. With toys. With my eyes, my mouth, my hands, my… my–” his voice was starting to shake.
Crowley bit the pillow, turning his wails to muffled ‘Mmm!’s and ‘Ohhh!’s. Aziraphale had neighbours, after all. He was a respected Soho figure, and didn’t need to deal with an after-hours visit from an officer for disturbing the peace.
Then Aziraphale pressed the pad of his finger forward and down and Crowley forgot to try to be quiet. He’d have been hard pressed to remember his name.
The angel was panting, he was hard, Crowley could feel it in brushes and wet smears against his thighs as Aziraphale shifted around. “Do you want to come like this?” he whispered, sounding awestruck. “Can I make you come on my fingers? Just my fingers? Can you do it?”
“Ah-hah…” Crowley reached back to grab at a thick thigh; frantic, desperate. “No, I–” but Aziraphale was rubbing his finger lightly over that hard swell of tissue inside him and it was tantalising and not enough but still he wouldn’t stop, it went on and on and before Crowley knew what was happening he was tipping over, shivering through another orgasm, moaning weakly. “Angel,” he kept saying, low, like a prayer. “Angel. Angel.”
He collapsed to his stomach. Aziraphale lay down next to him and gathered him close, pressing his warm, soft stomach to Crowley’s sweat-soaked back. Whatever Crowley’s hormones were doing currently, he was a fan: he felt warm and cradled and safe. “Oxytocin…” he slurred.
The angel smiled against his nape. “Indeed.”
Their thighs shifted, skin brushing heated skin. Crowley’s legs were spread wide, and Aziraphale was between them.
(“Is this alright? You said you turned the tables sometimes.”
“Fuck, yeah, but…” Aziraphale’s first two fingers– slippery with lubricant he’d gotten from the new-looking bedside table that sat next to the equally new-looking bed– were moving slowly in and out of him, gentle but relentless despite Crowley’s shudders and sobs. It was more than alright, it was fucking perfect, but how did he explain that he was the one who ought to… “You said you liked it when I– oh…”
“So I did, and so I will again. Often, I’m sure. But I want to take care of you this way tonight. Will you let me?”
The tiny lift at the end of the sentence was the only hint of Aziraphale’s nerves. Crowley twisted around (the spine was still snaky enough) and found his mouth– kissing him messily, too aroused to do anything but crush their lips together and share breath while Aziraphale pushed impatiently inside him with tongue and fingers both. The angel was trembling, gasping raggedly, so hard against Crowley’s thigh he must be hurting with it.
“I do suspect I’ll enjoy this, too,” he said after a moment, voice thick with lust. Crowley smiled and rolled to his front, bending one leg up in a wordless answer.)
Now he was on spread knees again, chest against the sheets, hands grasping at nothing as Aziraphale filled him; slowly, hesitantly, stopping every few breaths to ask if it was alright until Crowley finally rolled his eyes and rocked back and took him to the hilt. They both groaned like the air had been punched out of them.
“I–” Aziraphale sounded lost, his fingers scrabbling over the skin of Crowley’s back and hips. “I, oh, oh God–”
Crowley braced himself on his hands. He was too shaken to find a rhythm yet, but he writhed and ground his hips on Aziraphale’s cock, whining, needy, he shouldn’t be this needy, he ought to be in control. He didn’t know what to do with a feeling he couldn't hide from. Something inside him was splintering open.
“L-love. Oh, my love.” He couldn’t see the angel’s face, but it sounded like he might be crying. He flailed for Crowley’s hand and laced their fingers, pinning Crowley’s wrist against the mattress.
How was he supposed to get through this? Panic (it had a name now) suddenly rose up in his throat. He couldn’t be this needy, not with his endocrine system working full blast, not trapped in a body that was sending his brain such overwhelming pleasure signals he was sure he’d short circuit. What if he opened his stupid mouth and told Aziraphale how desperate he was for him; how he was terrified he wouldn’t be enough; that he worried his heart would crack and all his ugly, messy, shameful desires would spill out, staining the angel’s perfect skin?
He made a pathetic noise in his throat. Tension wound itself through his body. He clenched around Aziraphale and they both shuddered.
Aziraphale stroked his sides with soothing hands. He mouthed at the back of Crowley’s neck and whispered in his ear. “I’ve got you,” he said again. “Don’t worry.”
Then (fuck, he wouldn’t survive this, he wouldn’t) Aziraphale began to move… slowly at first, pace measured and deliberate.
Like they were dancing.
Suddenly Crowley could breathe again. His tight muscles eased; he dropped his head onto the mattress and gazed at their linked hands, floating, while the angel rocked inside him. Someone was moaning on every gentle thrust, every slow slide out, and he thought it was probably him.
God had done a bang-up job when it came to sensory nerves. Nothing like them. Every brush of Aziraphale’s skin against his sent a jolt straight to his cock, already heavy and dripping, harder than it had any physiologic right to be after two orgasms. As the pace quickened he pushed back, matching Aziraphale stroke for stroke, aching, crying out as the angel grew bolder, fucked him deeper.
“Look at that,” Aziraphale gasped. “Look at you.” He leaned back a little, shifting Crowley’s hips as he did, moving him how he liked (he’d sat Crowley down on the sofa that first night, when Crowley was shaking out of his skin. He’d carried Crowley to his bedroom when he came home drunk and miserable. Arranged Crowley’s limbs for him when he hurt too much to even lie down in bed) so he could watch himself slide in and out. “I wanted you. I wanted this. Even when I didn’t know what it felt like, I–”
“Yesss,” hissed Crowley. “Wanted you, oh, just you.” Aziraphale was inside him and also, somehow, all around him; he was caught and held.
The angel went down on both hands again, warm against Crowley’s back, nipping at his earlobe and nape. The headboard began to thump the wall when Crowley braced himself there, mouth falling open, stomach tightening and pleasure curling his spine.
“I love you,” Aziraphale breathed shakily, sounding like he was on the verge of flying apart. “I love you, and I want you, oh, Crowley, please, please, please, you can…”
He couldn’t, not again. Not a chance. But then… then Aziraphale went to one hip, pulled Crowley onto his side, adjusted his angle with an oh-so-angelic wiggle of his hips… and got a still-slick hand on Crowley’s cock.
Crowley’s head snapped back on a moan that felt pulled out of him. His hips bucked wildly; Aziraphale was stroking him, fucking him hard enough to shake the bed, and all the while he just kept talking: “Oh, you lovely– ah, I can’t, please love, come with me, I want, please–”
His voice dissolved into broken cries. Crowley felt the last desperate push of hips, felt the pulses of warmth inside him, but it wasn’t that, it was the please, it was the come with me, that undid him. He unravelled all at once, one hand over his face and the other gripping Aziraphale’s wrist hard enough to bruise, muscles locking, awash in wave after wave of pleasure so intense he almost struggled against it, sure it would hurt him, sure there was no coming back from this.
Slowly, though, they did.
When he could move his legs again, Crowley turned over and hugged Aziraphale to him, kissing his eyelids and tasting salt.
Aziraphale’s answering smile was slow and beautiful as the rising sun. “Hello.”
“Hey.”
This is what I should’ve done the first time, Crowley thought, making idle circles on the angel’s back with his fingertips. That very first morning. Didn’t have to cock it all up. Could’ve just told him then. He sighed.
Aziraphale nestled against his shoulder, and it wasn’t fair that Crowley’s heart was here, outside his body, but what could he do?
A low chuckle. “You’re quite sticky.”
“Love’s messy. Told you so.” Crowley kissed his sweaty curls. “God created orgasms to make us forget about that.”
“Actually, that’s not inaccurate. During the plateau and climax phase of the sexual encounter, activity in the amygdala decreases, resulting in diminished capacity for processing memories–”
Crowley groaned, loudly and theatrically. “Shut up. You’re on notice. No talking about physiology books, Heavenly manuals or instructional guides to gay sex for the next…” he winked. “The next twelve hours.”
“How ironic of you. What happens if I disobey?” Aziraphale pouted up at him, eyes twinkling.
“Should never have left you alone for two weeks with your hormones on. Gone round the bend, you have.”
“I do feel a bit mad. Love’s fault again, I’m afraid.” Aziraphale’s eyes were deep black pools ringed with luminous grey. Stormclouds and sunbeams, Crowley thought.
“Crowley?”
“Mmm?”
“What do you think it really is?”
“What– orgasm?”
“Love.”
“Askin’ a demon?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Not sure it is anything, angel.” Crowley stroked his cheek. “You’ve got better words than me. Ineffable. Ethereal. It all just means we can’t know about it. There’s no–” he waved a hand vaguely– “no molecules of love floating around out there.”
“I felt like I was chasing it. All those books.”
“I thought it was like making a fire. Couldn’t light it ‘til you had all the supplies– kindling, matches, er…” Crowley hadn’t, actually, ever had to make a fire by hand, but he had attended a fair number of barbeques during his years as Warlock’s nanny. “...sacks of charcoal?”
“We both got it wrong, in our own way.”
“Suppose,” Crowley said.
“Silly of us, really. Not seeing what was right in front of our faces.”
When had it started? Where had it gone, all those years they hid it from themselves? How long would it last?
There was no more Garden on Earth (Crowley’d heard rumours that it had been relocated to Heaven and was being used for cubicle space). Babylon and ancient Rome were in ruins. Most of the humans Crowley had ever blessed or tempted were dead (along with most of the ones he’d taken credit for, which made up a far larger number). Whether or not something was worth hanging onto, it went away in the end.
Then again… even the particles of matter that had made up the Ark were still around somewhere. If you looked at the world from very, very far away, nothing changed at all. Closed system. The ultimate equations didn’t involve gain or loss, addition or subtraction; when you got right down to it, everything was about… “Transformation,” he mused, out loud.
“What was that?”
“Things become other things. Like… water into steam, lava into rock. And back again. You know?”
This time Aziraphale was the one to shake his head, smiling a little.
“That’s the reason we couldn’t see it. Um. The love. It was there– just looked like something else.” Crowley gave Aziraphale a pleading look. The angel would do a much better job explaining this.
Shifting closer, putting his head back on Crowley’s shoulder, Aziraphale smiled. “You mean it was disguised?”
Wrong turn. The angel loved disguises, and was disturbingly literal about certain things. (Part of Crowley wondered if his future held any dressing up of the sort you saw in certain films. He wouldn’t put it past Aziraphale, especially with all the reading he seemed to have been doing.) “No! Yes. Sort of. It looked like… like oysters. Er…”
“Crêpes?”
“Yes! You get it.”
“A box of chocolates.”
Crowley snapped his fingers. “A thermos, like y’said. Couldn’t see what was inside.”
“A note that said ‘holy water’. That too.” Aziraphale’s expression turned stricken.
“We both spent so much time being afraid. It’s not your fault.”
“I was even afraid of this.” Aziraphale kissed the tip of Crowley’s nose, but his eyes were serious. “What if I wasn’t enough? What if we lost what we had?”
Crowley shook his head. “That’s what I’m saying. We can’t lose it. Maybe it’ll be different someday. Maybe we’ll be different. But love can’t be destroyed.”
“Conservation of energy. Perhaps the same principle applies.” Aziraphale appeared to be thinking this over. Then he yawned.
“Enough. Bedtime for you. With all the picnic planning and dinner arrangements and furious wanking you seem to have been up to lately, I bet you haven’t gotten enough sleep.”
“Practising,” Aziraphale corrected, unbothered. “But you may have a point.”
They curled up like two spoons, and there was a pang of that hurt again, just below Crowley’s breastbone– that feeling of ‘I can’t, it’s too much’. This happiness is too big for me, he thought. I’ll drown.
Then Aziraphale sighed, and shifted a little in his arms. Crowley moved with him, and it was like when they'd swayed together at the Ritz. Dancing, Crowley thought again. Music. Sound into motion into heat… things become other things, but they’re never really gone.
We’ve always been dancing.
Crowley would have to live with happiness, whether he liked it or not. Aziraphale wanted him alive and safe, and he loved Aziraphale, and would do anything for him.
“Love you.”
“Love you too.” Aziraphale wiggled again, then laughed softly. “Crowley?”
“Hmm?”
“I have to use the W.C.”
Berkeley Square Medical Center, 2019 CE
On the street outside the surgery, the morning sun paints the leaf tips gold. Luciente Gale sits in a beam of light, tapping on her laptop, content as a housecat. Her desk is a mess of papers and books and journals; there’s a stethoscope lurking in there somewhere and probably the rest of yesterday’s lunch.
The glance Mary Hodges gives her as she bustles in is tiredly fond. “You’re 8:30 is roomed, Dr. Gale.”
“Look at this. They’re so determined to solve the mystery of consciousness. It’s rather adorable, really.” She holds up an article from Computational Neuroscience. “Using functional MRI to explore temporal structures in cognition. The authors are saying there’s rhythm, theme and refrain in the signals the brain uses to make calculations over time.”
Mary is looking over a list of the day’s patients. “Thinking is musical, then?” she asks, distractedly.
“Everything repeats. Certain patterns are woven into the fabric of existence. The world is full of cycles: growth and death and renewal. It’s like a dance.”
“I can never make head or tail of those studies,” Mary says. “Let’s run the schedule.”
“Highlights, if you don’t mind.” Dr. Gale leans back in her chair, taking out a notebook and a pen.
“Connie’s creatinine went up again.”
“Oh dear. It’s looking more and more like she’ll need to choose between the lithium and dialysis.”
“Mm. John Livermore is having trouble with his breathing again; I double booked him over your eleven o’clock because Leslie probably won’t show. Tuyet Le has a GI bug, so gown up for that one. Antoun doesn’t like the insulin you just started. Wants to talk about going back on Actos.”
“He didn’t like the Actos either.”
“I don’t think he likes anything or anyone besides that horrible little dog of his. I told him it’s not to come into the surgery this time. And…” Mary hesitates.
“Yes?”
“Your 10:30 is Anthony Crowley.”
Dr. Gale smiles. “Now how did he get there?”
“I don’t know; he wasn’t in the slot last night. There’s no chief complaint listed. Shall I have front desk phone and cancel?”
“Best not. I don't think that would stop him showing up, anyway.”
Straightening, Dr. Gale unearths her stethoscope. While she hunts for her badge, Mary glances at the framed photo that sits on her desk in a tiny island of clear space. Two women beam at the camera. In front of them, a girl of about five is sticking out her tongue. A younger boy seems to be making a determined bid for freedom, he’s kept in the frame– barely– by the grip one of his mothers has on his arm. “How are the children, then?”
“Chaotic.”
“And research for the book?”
“It’s coming along.” Dr. Gale, triumphant, locates her badge underneath a plate of stale Hobnob biscuits. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. I may take a sabbatical next month.”
“Ah, you’re finally going to start writing? That’s wonderful. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“I’m not sure. There are some things back home that need attending to, as well… I just got wind there’s going to be a family reunion.”
“That’ll be lovely.” Mary looks like she’s going to say more, but a clerk puts a folder in the bin outside the office door. “Nine a.m. needs vitals,” he says.
“Coming.” Mary snags the folder as she leaves.
Luciente Gale turns back to her desk. There’s a brown envelope there from the Cobra Holdings Insurance Company, and she reminds herself to drop it in Mary’s purse. She’ll be sad to lose her as a nurse, of course, but knows Mary will be delighted to know the repairs to Tadfield Manor are funded.
She sits down in front of the computer. Types a note: ‘The fMRI analyses here point to the pervasive presence of repetition, rhythm, and especially harmony. Among human artefacts, only music approaches this density and structure of repetition. In sharp contrast, these properties are at best weakly present in language, which has often been proposed as the model for cognition and ultimately brain function’.
Harmony.
Luciente Gale isn’t a planner by nature. She gets ideas by the score; that’s the problem, really: the minute she starts a project, another inspiration inevitably hits that feels hotter and more compelling, and she’ll have no choice but to follow it. Her past is littered with the beautiful fragments of unfinished things.
She’s trying to be better about that. See things through. Reconnect with the family she hasn’t seen in years. Because it’s not just her anymore.
Harmony. The melody is fine on its own, but a chord is so much richer.
She knows Anthony Crowley will have questions. If anything, she has fewer answers than she did when she was younger. Maybe the book will help, when it’s written… though she’s not sure he’ll read it. He’s free not to.
Her patient is waiting. Luciente Gale pauses, touches the photograph on her desk, then types a single sentence into a new document on her laptop:
The Human Mind: Anatomy and Physiology of Consciousness
(Working Title: Harmonices Mundi)
“There,” says Dr. Gale. She hangs her stethoscope over her neck and picks up her notebook and pen. “Let’s begin.”