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The first time they had fucked, Aziraphale had tried to kiss him.
Them meeting again had been a mistake, really – though, hadn’t it all been? It had been who-the-fuck-knows-how-long since that day (you know the one), and the angel – the Supreme Archangel, more like, Crowley reminded himself, very bitterly and very vitriolically – had been in his bookshop (which was still called A.Z. Fell and Co., despite there being no A.Z. Fell to speak of, not anymore, until now, apparently), speaking briefly with Muriel in a relaying of plans about the future of the Second Coming. Crowley had stumbled in, half-drunk and swaying, because of course he had; he could sense the fucking stupid angel from fucking light-years away, of course he had felt him the moment his well-manicured hands had pressed the button down to earth and he had stepped from the elevator and back onto the streets of SoHo.
Crowley had laid eyes on Aziraphale – Aziraphale, with his stupid, well-kept beard, and his stupider pristine white suit that just screamed of the sterility of Heaven, and his stupidest purple eyes that flickered blue with emotion when he saw the demon – and had frozen up for about two seconds before snarling at Muriel to get out (he had apologized to them later over a cuppatea, of course), sobering up the best he could, grabbing Aziraphale by the lapels (pristine and white and sterile and so not-Aziraphale), and slamming him against a bookshelf. It had rattled loudly, books trembling both from the force of the blow and from the roiling emotion that poured from Crowley.
He had held him there for almost a full minute, breathing heavily into the hair’s-breadth of space that separated their lips from brushing, and then Aziraphale had straightened up slightly, the best he could with Crowley’s arms braced against his chest and Crowley’s hands seizing at his collar.
“Nuh-uh, ngk, no, no, you – you don’t get to fucking come back, Aziraphale,” Crowley had growled before the angel could speak. He had dug his knee into the plush of Aziraphale’s thigh, a snarl rumbling in the back of his throat. “You don’t get to do that to me and then come back like it was fucking nothing.”
“That was never my intention,” Aziraphale had responded in a voice that was barely the edge of a whisper, his words simply begging Crowley to challenge him, to fight him, to resist him, “and I – I am not here for you.”
“How very dare you,” Crowley had leered, trembling a little as he bared himself against Aziraphale, his knee pressing hard into the angel, enough that it must’ve begun to hurt. “As if I ever leave your mind, Supreme Archangel.”
“As if I ever leave yours,” Aziraphale had countered, and, fuck, Crowley had practically been drooling. Maybe it was the booze that hadn’t fully left his system, or maybe it was the way the angel’s voice was steadily deepening (or perhaps it was the hardness pressing up against the curve of Crowley’s knee), but the demon had found himself leaning forward, allowing a possessive, wanting growl to spill over his lips and bathe his tongue in pain, and grief, and a wanting, desperate, need. Crowley had tightened his hold, his nails digging into Aziraphale’s neck, and the angel had gone silent. His eyes, the blues of them (not the purples, they were never purple when it was Crowley who was looking into them), had been nearly swallowed up by widening black pupils.
“Unhand me, feind,” was what Aziraphale had breathed out when he finally spoke. His lips were trembling, his eyes fixated on Crowley’s mouth, his voice thick and near- sultry. Lust rolled from him in such strong waves that Crowley swore he could taste it on his serpentine tongue, and the same feeling oozed from the demon, whose Effort was stirring with heat as his thighs pressed against Aziraphale’s. His heartbeat had been roaring in his ears, everything muffled and buzzing except for the angel before him, and fuck – Crowley needed him.
“Make me,” Crowley had growled, low and rumbling and carrying a threat that he knew he would never make true. And then Aziraphale’s eyes had glinted something dangerous, and he had shoved Crowley down to his knees in a fluid motion of strength and angelic prowess, and, Jesus fucking Christ, if that wasn’t the hottest fucking thing that had ever happened to Crowley, he didn’t know what was.
“You have accosted an archangel of the Lord,” Aziraphale had purred out, uncharacteristically cocksure, his voice deep and echoing from above Crowley where the demon had found himself kneeling. “You must atone, don’t you think?”
(Aziraphale would be more like the angel Crowley knew later. For now, though, in this first moment that they were sharing – not sharing intimacy, per se, but sharing a need – he needed to be in control. Just as Crowley needed someone to control him. The roles would switch very quickly, and they would continue to switch as time went on. But as it were, Aziraphale felt rather helpless and frustratedly powerless in Heaven. He needed this. Crowley was happy to provide, or rather, as happy as he could be, given the circumstances.)
“Yes.” Crowley had nearly choked on the word, his voice shuddering with need and rage and want and desperate, fiery love that he would not fucking allow, thank you very much. He had waited for Aziraphale’s needy little jerk of his hips before immediately diving forward and scrabbling at the waistline of Aziraphale’s neat white trousers; he had yanked them down messily and furiously, tearing them with sharpened nails, because fuck that fucking suit and the fucking white sterility of it all that screamed of Heaven and damn fool questions and institutional problems and everything being fucking awful and painful and -
- and Crowley dove down hungrily, swallowing down the angel’s Effort as if he had been starving for it for all of his sorry existence.
(Because, you see – just as Aziraphale needed this, Crowley did, too. They both were fully aware that nothing would come from them talking about it right now – it being The Kiss, it being the ‘I forgive you’ and the ‘you’re the bad guys’ and the ‘angels again’, it being Crowley leaving and Aziraphale turning around and doing the same in the other direction – and they knew that what they needed right now was not to talk about it, but to do this. They had each known what the other wanted, what the other needed, and they had done it; simple as that.
It was to fulfill a need. That was it. They needed this. Aziraphale needed to feel in control when he was in reality so powerless, and he also needed something besides the sterile, stifling, understimulating atmosphere of Heaven; Crowley needed the relief of being controlled and letting himself be controlled, as well as the comfort and familiarity that the angel’s hands tugging on his hair as he serviced him provided.
What Crowley very, very much did not need, however, was his name on Aziraphale’s lips – or his mouth on them.)
“Oh, Crowley,” was what Aziraphale had sighed out with bliss when he had reached his climax in Crowley’s mouth. His voice was filled with such ecstasy that it had physically hurt to hear, and Crowley had noted the way Aziraphale took another breath to speak again, but before the angel could, he had surged upward, shoving his nose in Aziraphale’s face, his lips still swollen and painted with the lingering taste of his angel.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale tried, his voice beseeching and pleading even as he swayed a little, his knees wobbling, his head half-leaning on the bookshelf that he was pressed against for support. He lifted a hand, brushing quivering fingers against the demon’s cheek. All of the cockiness was drained from him, replaced with a tired, pleading desperation that even the euphoria of his orgasm couldn’t flush out. “Crowley, I –,"
“Shut it,” Crowley had sneered, swatting Aziraphale’s hand away, even though it had hurt. Oh, God, it hurt – it hurt because he wanted to smash his lips to Aziraphale’s, not in the mockery of a kiss that had been the first one that they had shared, but in a real, genuine kiss, but he was so fucking terrified because what if Aziraphale had come to wreck him, Crowley wouldn’t be able to handle it if he kissed him again and he left and left and forgave him, he had to be angry, he had to be cruel, it was the only way – but he did none of those things, remained as cold and blank as he could even with the overwhelming emotion that he was sure Aziraphale could feel, stifling as it was, trapping them against each other in this endless loop of them.
“Shut the fuck up, ang – Aziraphale,” Crowley had snarled on, voice raw and wrecked, throat burning – he said these things, even as he pawed at his own trousers, at the tent there, even as his leg jumped a little at the feeling of Aziraphale’s own Effort rising once more, and, fuck it, they might as well, nothing could make this fucking worse. “I don’t – I don’t wanna hear it. I don’t.” I can’t.
And Aziraphale had looked at him (oh, God, those fucking eyes, he looked so wounded, so hurt, so falsely in love that it fucking hurt it hurt it hurt), still half-groggy and disoriented from the blissful orgasm that Crowley had given him, and he had tried to kiss him.
Crowley had shoved him away.
“Do not do that,” he had snarled, his voice snapping in two along with his heart (how was it possible that it could break furthur, he wondered?), because fuck fuck fucking fuck, Aziraphale had looked so hurt, and it made him ache.
“But,” the angel had breathed out woundedly, wringing his hands together in the familiar anxious way that Crowley knew so well, “but – making love, we –,"
“That is not what we’re doing,” Crowley had ground out, gnashing his teeth so hard that it hurt, his fangs digging into the soft inside of his mouth until the metallic taste of blood sprang onto his tongue. His hands shook as he peeled off his jacket, and then undid the zipper of his tight jeans – because his and Aziraphale’s respective stupid shitty emotional bullshit was certainly doing a poor fucking job at hiding their lust for one another that weighed hot and heavy over them, and because they both still needed this.
“We’re not doing anything like that. We are fucking. That’s it. And I – I –,"
(I need you I need you I need you I need -)
“- just don’t fucking kiss me.”
(Don’t kiss me, because you’ll leave again. Don’t kiss me, because it’ll hurt, and I can’t handle more hurt, because I know I’m poised to break. Don’t kiss me, because I’ll do nothing but disappoint you, nothing but make you wish you hadn’t. Don’t kiss me, because I’m a rotten, disgusting creature who could never deserve even half of what you have to give me. Don’t kiss me, because I can’t fucking handle it. Don’t kiss me, because I’ll break, and my pieces will hurt you, and I won’t let you put me back together again. Not anymore.
Don’t kiss me, because I can’t handle watching you leave again.)
Aziraphale had looked at him so helplessly, so brokenly, but he had nodded, pursing his trembling lips together and then parting them again as he sank to his knees before Crowley just as the demon had done for him, both entirely out of their own violation and desires and wants and needs – and that was that.
(There is something so delectably awful, Crowley had thought once, about giving into desire, but denying yourself the one part of it that you want the most, now isn’t there?
Don’t kiss me, he said, he repeated over and over and over not as a reminder for Aziraphale but for himself – because if he didn’t, he would not be able to find comfort in the feeling of Aziraphale’s touch, and he needed that, just as much as the angel needed his.)
Aziraphale had tried to apologize. In the midst of their shared ecstasy, he had tried and tried and tried. But each and every time, Crowley had kept his mouth too busy for him to finish, and then they were both finishing, and Crowley was gone as quickly as he had come. He always left, right after. He had to. He had given the angel what he needed, and gotten his own in return. He needed nothing else. Or at least, that was what he told himself. He wasn’t sure why he lied to himself so often, except perhaps to protect what remained of his shattered heart – that is, if it had ever been there to begin with, or if Aziraphale had run off with it, that day in Eden.
Crowley had lost count of how many times they had done it since then, since that first day when he had happened to stumble into the bookshop at just the right time, since Aziraphale had shoved him to his knees and then the two of them had wound up fucking raw over a collapsed bookshelf that had been immediately righted before Crowley had left, because he was nothing if not tidy, and it was more trouble than it was worth to just leave it lying there.
They used all sorts of culminations of Efforts, explored parts of each others’ corporations that they had never really considered before (save for anything of true affection or intimacy) – it was everywhere and everything all at once, at least physically. The only things that they never did was kiss, talk about what had happened on that day (again – you know the one), or, Someone fucking forbid, talk about what they were doing now. They were just fucking, and it was a shared need, and it was fine. Crowley was fine.
(He wasn’t fine. He wanted Aziraphale to kiss him. He wanted to kiss Aziraphale. He wanted to leave love bites along the angel’s jaw and neck and shoulders, wanted to suckle kisses into the soft plush of his skin until it left bruises, wanted to do more than simply serve; he wanted to love. But Aziraphale could never feel the same way, and even if he did, Crowley refused to allow him to say it.
Unforgivable, that’s what I am, he had said to Aziraphale once. And if Aziraphale asked now, Crowley would be the first to confess it – unlovable, that’s what I am.)
They didn’t kiss, they didn’t talk, and they were also never soft, even though God knew Aziraphale tried. No, they were never soft, never intimately sweet or anything of the sort. Crowley needed the pain of it; he needed it to be savage and rough and awful, so that it did not feel real, because he knew how badly his angel (not his not his not anymore not ever) wanted to be gentle with him. Wanted to treat him like some cherished, precious thing. As if he could ever be. He despised it almost as much as he loved it.
Harder, Crowley would always demand, voice rough and ragged and strained with mingled pain and euphoric bliss. Harder. Faster. More, more, more. Hurt me, wreck me, ruin me. Make me yours. Prove me right, that you’ll only ever hurt me. I need this pain, I need it. Please, angel, understand. I need it. I need you.
“Harder,” Crowley hissed, when he felt the angel begin to slow, drawing out his motions. Neither of them knew the day, the time, even the bloody fucking year, nothing of the sort. Right now, they knew only each other; they knew only lust, and desire, and a frantic, desperate need for this. For each other. “Go harder, Aziraphale.”
(There was another thing. There was no angel anymore from Crowley, and no dear boy from Aziraphale.)
“I don’t want to hurt you,” the angel gasped, sounding close to tears. He usually sounded that way, and almost countered Crowley’s desperate need to be hurt, even if he was willing to do it, in the end. He needed this as much as Crowley, because it hurt him as much as it hurt Crowley, and because it healed him as much as it healed Crowley, even if it hurt them more in the process – not that either of them would ever admit that, because they needed this.
“Fuckin’ do it,” Crowley half-wailed, half-snarled, thrusting himself back, and Aziraphale moaned with crazed grief and pleasure as he drove himself into the demon, over and over and over, thrusting hard and fast, the feeling overwhelming and wonderful and so much pain and anger and lust and want and need that it was perfect.
“Yessss,” the demon hissed, his eyes rolling back, his toes curling and his back arching. “Yes, yesss –," He cried out as Aziraphale hit a particularly sensitive spot, and the angel froze, but Crowley kept moving his hips desperately, snarling unintelligibly, and eventually, Aziraphale got the message, and picked right back up, apologies that Crowley hated spilling unbidden from his lips.
(Crowley had to be cruel. He had to be. If he wasn’t, then Aziraphale would have what he wanted. He would have his atonement. It was the same reason why he would never let the angel kiss him. Aziraphale would have all the cards in his hands, then. Crowley would be helpless. And Aziraphale would have no more reason for him.)
As Crowley felt a moan that felt like it would spill Aziraphale’s name from his mouth rise to his lips, he clenched down hard around the angel’s heavy cock and bit down on his tongue, sobbing and crying out with pleasure silently and swallowing down cries of ecstasy. Aziraphale noticed – he noticed everything, everything, always, knew Crowley better than he fucking knew himself, because of course he fucking did, of course he was so fucking perfect – and he groaned with disapproval and frustration.
“Oh, please, please,” Aziraphale managed even as he continued to thrust upward, over and over and over, jostling their joined bodies on whatever miscellaneous surface of the bookshop they were lying on – they had no fear of being caught, as during their little rendezvous, Crowley was sure to stop time with a snap of his fingers the moment Aziraphale stepped over the threshold; it would simply not do to have the Metatron walk in on . . . all this, after all, and it would be rather difficult to explain to him that really, this was all for his Supreme Archangel’s own good, his own needs that Heaven again and again failed to provide. Because didn’t it always?
“Please, please, Crowley, let me hear you, let me – just this once, please, I –,"
“No,” Crowley hissed savagely, and then he bit down hard on the angel’s shoulder as Aziraphale pounded into him, carving a home for his cock inside of the demon as Crowley’s fangs sank deep into his skin. Aziraphale moaned, and Crowley clamped a hand over the angel’s mouth before his name could spill from those soft lips. Aziraphale (because he was a fucking bastard, wasn’t he?) sucked Crowley’s fingers into his warm mouth, and Crowley cried with pleasure and grief into Aziraphale’s plush skin, biting down so hard that he tasted blood, and it was wonderful and perfect and everything he needed . . . almost.
The demon rode Aziraphale to Hell and to Heaven and back down to Earth again, and by the time they both climaxed (Crowley pouring over both Aziraphale’s belly and his own while Aziraphale released deep inside of Crowley, the feeling warm and hot and everything wonderful), they were both moaning freely, Crowley having been jostled all the way to his chattering teeth as he all but bounced on the angel’s cock.
They both lay panting and wrung-out for a few moments, entangled limbs and warm breaths on cheeks, and Crowley had the uncomfortable realization that he was collapsed on top of Aziraphale, and that they were sharing the same air, and that if he were even to flinch, his lips – his lips would -
And then he was gone, snapping his fingers and cleaning everything away only to leave the angel behind as he strode out, banging the door behind him and restarting time as he did, storming out so quickly that Aziraphale still had that clouded haze of ecstasy from his orgasm fogging his gaze.
(“Come back,” croaked the angel sadly, reaching out a hand, but Crowley was already gone.)
Sometimes, Crowley made Aziraphale leave. He hated himself so fucking badly for those times, but he had to, he had to. When they reached their climaxes together, and passed out beside one another, and Aziraphale turned to look at him with that expression on his face that glowed with such happiness and love that was false because it had to be, and – and he looked so beautiful, and his lips were close enough that they could touch, and Crowley scrambled away and curled up and snarled at him to get out get out get out –
(Don’t, his heart cried, each and every time, his stupid, stupid heart – don’t please don’t, please stay, I need you, I need you, I -)
Each time, Aziraphale would look so wounded, so hurt, the happy glow fading from his face as quickly as it had come, dulling into nothingness. Crowley would wrench his gaze away and squeeze his eyes shut and cry silently, shaking and furious with himself and his grief, barely noticing when the angel silently cleaned up their mess (their sin, Crowley was sure that that was how Aziraphale thought of it, right?), and quietly pulled a threadbare blanket over Crowley’s quivering body, and then disappeared.
(The spot beside him was always left cold in his absence.)
He tried not to do that. It was easier for Crowley, for him to be the one to leave. There was less grief with it. For him, at least.
(But it wasn’t like he knew about how, after he left and slammed the door of the bookshop behind him and restarted the ticking grandfather clock, Aziraphale would sit frozen, and hunch over himself, and cry into his hands, craving more, needing more. And, oh, Crowley needed more, too. He knew he did. They both knew what they really needed. But he refused to admit it to himself, and he refused to allow Aziraphale to voice what they were both really thinking.)
The next time they were together, or perhaps it was two, or three, or four times later (whenever he wasn’t with Aziraphale, he was drunk off his ass and forgetting because that was better than needing, and avoiding Nina and Maggie and Muriel’s weird prying about the Metatron or something like that, and scaring off petty, low-class demons that Shax sent to make his life even more shitty, if that was even possible at this point), Crowley was the one driving into Aziraphale, so hard and fast that it had to hurt but still not as hard or as fast as he begged the angel to use with him. He was using Aziraphale’s mouth rather than his arse; it was pain and pleasure and ecstasy incarnate (everything he needed, and somehow, not enough at all), and Aziraphale was moaning and drooling around Crowley’s cock, looking so utterly debauched that Crowley wanted to tip his head back and howl with the thrill of it.
Instead of such a melodramatic show, Crowley chose to dig his slender fingers through the angel’s hair, tugging hard and groaning as Aziraphale swallowed around him, bobbing up and down expertly. Aziraphale shivered at Crowley’s chaste touch, something so rare from him nowadays, and the demon nearly pulled away – but Aziraphale whined with protest, and so he didn’t, choosing instead to stroke through the soft, blonde curls, keeping himself grounded, in this moment, in this moment of need. Allowing himself a moment of comfort, and giving some to Aziraphale in return. Touching him gently. For once.
Small mercies, right?
(What Crowley really, truly wanted was to sink down beside Aziraphale; to pull him as close as he could and whisper what a good job he was doing in his ear, to praise him, to tell him how much he loved him, to kiss him so passionately that he tasted himself on the angel's tongue. To worship him in all the intricate little ways that he deserved. To allow himself to be given the same, should Aziraphale seek that out.
But he would not do any of those things, would not and could not. Because then, Aziraphale would have no use for him, would he not? He would toss him aside, disregard him. He was an angel, after all, and Crowley was nothing but a demon; one of the bad guys, wasn't he?
Once they kissed, he was sure – once he allowed the angel to touch him gently, to handle him softly, to meet their lips together in a kiss that was not desperate or angry or frantic, but rather caressing and chaste and loving – then Aziraphale would have everything he wanted, wouldn't he? That was the only reason he kept coming back, surely. And once he had everything that he wanted, he wouldn't come back anymore. They would be done. Aziraphale wouldn't need him anymore. Or perhaps he never had, and this was all a farce. A temptation.
I am an angel, you are a demon; we're hereditary enemies!
Perhaps, Crowley thought more often than not, these days – perhaps, Aziraphale had never loved him at all. Because that was what he was, wasn't it? Unlovable. And every time Crowley repeated that mantra to himself, over and over and over again, it sounded more like the truth and less like a lie he told himself to make himself feel better, and – and, Someone help him, he'd rather have scraps of touch, brief brushes of skin-on-skin, than nothing at all.
Crowley was rough, and he was cruel, and he did not give in to what it was that he really, truly needed, because he was sure, above any and all else, that if he were to allow himself to show that same vulnerability that he had shown on that day, then Aziraphale would turn around and leave him just as he had done already, and Crowley would be alone again.)
Half-lost in his dazed, miserable thoughts, Crowley had begun to stroke his fingers through Aziraphale's curly blonde hair, and didn't realize what he was doing until the angel snapped him back out of his mind by hollowing his cheeks and sucking hard. Crowley gasped, his legs trembling as he slid further down in the wingchair he was sitting in while the angel serviced him, and he thrust upwards unconsciously, his hands sliding down and scrabbling at Aziraphale's hair. Aziraphale took it all in stride, moving himself in time with the demon's wild, near-animalistic thrusts, swallowing and moaning wantonly, and – and, oh, he looked up at Crowley through beautiful golden lashes, and smiled around him, and -
- and Crowley came hard, screaming out a long, unbridled, uncontrolled moan that he couldn't bear to muffle with a fist to his mouth as he spilled into Aziraphale, watching dazedly with ringing ears as the angel swallowed obediently and licked along his softening length until it was clean, and then looked up at him with such hope in his eyes that Crowley could barely stand to look at him.
Love me, those eyes begged. Those blue eyes, always blue for Crowley. Love me. Let me love you, and love me in return. Please, tell me I did good. Please, kiss me again and again and again. Do it again. Please, do it again.
Crowley tried to turn away, he did, he really, really tried. He tried so hard. He couldn't give into this desire, this temptation, this need – he couldn't, because he would ruin everything, ruin this thing that he did have, and he wouldn't be able to handle it if he had nothing again – he couldn't give in, he couldn't, he couldn't -
He did.
Gently, ever-so-gently in a way that neither of them were used to in this new strained relationship of theirs (if it even qualified as such a thing, what with their "We're fucking, not lovemaking, Aziraphale"), Crowley cupped the angel's face in his trembling hands, cradling him in an embrace meant for a lover. He stroked his thumbs over Aziraphale's round cheeks, wiping away drool and spend and tears, his heart seizing painfully in his chest as he touched his angel softly for the first time in a long time.
"I'm sor –," Aziraphale tried, his voice a cracked, broken whisper, but Crowley shook his head silently, his fully yellow, teary eyes wide and unblinking behind his shaded glasses. He never took those off, either, even when Aziraphale was fucking his mouth, because he could not allow the angel to see the desperate, keening, frantic love in his gaze that he knew was wrought with grief. It would hurt him just as much as it did to see the same emotion reflected in Aziraphale's eyes.
(All a farce. It must be. Unlovable, that’s what he was.)
"You're – you're so –," Crowley croaked out, but he couldn't voice whatever it is that clawed at his chest, longing to spill from his lips and into Aziraphale's mouth as he pressed them together. But he didn't, and instead snapped his jaw shut, turning his face away as a growl rippled in the back of his throat. The angel's well-kept, fuzzy beard was so soft against his palms, and Crowley wanted to hold him forever and never let him go, not again. The demon choked, attempting to speak again and failing rather miserably.
"Aziraphale . . .”
"Yes?" And oh, Aziraphale's voice was so hopeful, ringing with such trembling yearning, quivering longing, and God fucking damn it that hurt it hurt it hurt -
Crowley trembled, and he shook, and then his hands dropped from Aziraphale's face, and he was gone not a moment later, nothing but the angel crouching on his knees on the floor and the slamming of the bookshop's door to say that he had ever been there at all.
(That, and the hollow, empty feeling he had left in Aziraphale's chest. But if you told Crowley such a thing, he would have called you a liar.)
They didn't talk about it, the next time. They had gotten quite good at that, the not talking. It was an unspoken rule, to not , and it was an easy one; they didn't need to talk about what they were doing, because that would make it too real, and because they knew what the other wanted without even having to speak of it. The only talking that they ever really did was Aziraphale oftentimes stiffly relaying the next time he would be able to drop by (while strictly dodging around words like 'Heaven' and 'Supreme Archangel' and 'God', because that would mean talking about it, and neither of them wanted to do that, especially what with how this was not just a need for Aziraphale, but also an escape for him, from those things), and then they were ripping off one another's clothes without another word and giving or taking and sharing, gifting one another with everything (or, at least, the most that they could, the most that they allowed, that Crowley allowed) that they needed, the things that they needed so badly that it had begun to physically ache when they were apart.
(Well, all things considered, it hurt when they were together, too. But in a way that at least gave respite from the emotional wreckage of it all, and with a much more pleasurable finish to it – until Crowley forced himself to leave, or forced Aziraphale to do so, and made himself walk out as if his heart wasn't howling with grief in his chest, longing and yearning to give in to the temptation of snuggling up into the angel's side and basking in the afterglow of something far more intimate, of pressing a kiss to his soft jaw and listening to his praises and murmuring warmth of his own -
But that was that.)
Crowley had admittedly gotten a lot worse over time at keeping Aziraphale silent while they were fucking in their little stolen moments over the weeks that spilled into months that spilled into time that didn't matter anymore because the only moments when it did matter, Crowley had stopped it, to be with Aziraphale – though, he was not truly with him. It was beginning, though. A trickle, at first, and then a stream, and then a flood that would rival that of the Almighty's.
He had gotten worse at keeping him quiet. He had gotten worse at not touching him in places that weren't just his Effort (slender hands stroking over broad shoulders, fingers brushing over flushed cheeks, moving downward and near-worshipping Aziraphale's soft, angelic skin, his body, his light, squeezing fistfuls of his arse in the way Crowley knew the angel liked, everything becoming less about what Crowley needed, but what he wanted to give). He had gotten worse at making it just about the sex, just about the fucking, just about the need.
He had gotten worse at not giving in to what it was that he really, truly, so desperately yearned for.
(Crowley was a demon, after all, was he not? Was he not the original tempter, the original sinner? Desires, lusts, temptations, those were his thing, and it should be him – not the Supreme fucking Archangel of all Heaven – doing the tempting.
And yet. Here was Aziraphale.
Every time, it became a little harder to believe the mantra that Crowley had been telling himself ever since he had sunk to his knees underneath Aziraphale that day in the bookshop. Ever since he had heard his name so sweetly moaned from those perfect soft lips. Ever since he had slapped the angel's hand away, and shoved him back, and snarled, "Don't fucking kiss me."
Don't kiss me, because I'm scared. Don't kiss me, because I can't lose you again. Don't kiss me, because I love you, and it hurts so badly, but I can't stop.
But maybe, he was finding that he didn't want to stop, anymore.
There were only so many times he could muffle the words I love you on Aziraphale's lips before he finally allowed them to paint the air with their magnificent, terrifying glory.)
Whatever amount of time later, Crowley found himself facedown on the bed upstairs in the bookshop's flat (which was an almost amusedly rare occurrence, as they usually wound up against a bookshelf or something, much to Aziraphale's unspoken charign), grinding his cock against the warm mattress of Aziraphale's uninhabited bed (it was almost starting to smell like him again), groaning muffledly into the pillow that he was clutching against his chest as Aziraphale slammed into him from behind. They were both steadily approaching their respective climaxes as the clock didn't tick on the rattling bedside table, and Crowley was, not for the first time in their past few rendezvous, allowing Aziraphale (who, on this particular event between the two of them, had needed to be in charge, in control, and Crowley had been as happy as he could be in such a situation to oblige) to speak to him.
(Giving in to the temptation of it all, one may say.)
"Such a shame you cannot see yourself, as you are for me," Aziraphale was murmuring into his ear, still moving hard and fast, the slap of their bodies wet and obscene and so fucking wonderful. "So beautiful, my darling demon, laid out for me like this."
His voice was soft and gentle, such a painful contrast of how harshly he was using Crowley (oh, how Crowley adored being used), and it hurt, but God, Crowley fucking loved it, and he hated himself for loving it.
"Shut -- up –," he panted out, but, as he made no move to shut him up (one of the most particularly memorable moments when such an incident had occured was when Aziraphale had been mid-confessional and Crowley had miracled a serpent’s tail, shoving it deep into his throat while he pounded into the angel from behind – the feel of Aziraphale’s perfect tongue on his dark scales was something that the demon swore he would never forget), Aziraphale did not. Instead, the angel continued to croon and murmur praises and gentle words that Crowley simultaneously dreaded and craved, hated and loved, all the way until they were both driven to orgasm – and then Aziraphale clung to the vestiges of Crowley’s vulnerability, whispering to him quietly, and, oh, it didn’t feel like a farce or a temptation or a desperate, craving needneedneed, it just felt like stupid fucking love, and Crowley couldn’t handle it -
“Oh, so good,” Aziraphale cooed to him, in that voice that Crowley was getting worse at silencing, because he didn’t want to. “Always so, so good, aren’t you? Well done, my darling.” Aziraphale’s breath traced the outline of Crowley’s jaw as the demon half-rolled over, so close that Crowley could practically feel the phantom brush of the angel’s lips on his skin, and then he began to cry.
Now, Crowley had cried during sex with Aziraphale before. Or rather, he had sobbed, and it was angry and hurt and thick with grief that he was giving into his desires, except for what he really, truly wanted, truly needed. Each time it had happened (which was, humiliatingly, a lot more than Crowley was willing to admit), Aziraphale had tried to comfort him, and Crowley had snarled at him to either keep fucking going or get the fuck out before he could allow his emotions to truly get the better of him. Each time it had happened, he wound up feeling a fuck-ton worse after Aziraphale did eventually end up leaving, because either crying was a turn-off for the angel . . . or he was just too torn to stay and continue, and not comfort the demon who was sobbing underneath him.
But this time, it was different. This was quiet, withdrawn, piercingly and viscerally ensnared with grief that he knew Aziraphale could feel rolling off of him in waves. This was Crowley’s heart pouring from his chest as Aziraphale drove the dagger that was his kindness and his gentleness and his love into it. This was Crowley tearing that dagger out, tearing that love away, and cradling it in his hands, and bathing it in his tears.
(This was a recognition of something real.)
Aziraphale gasped quietly and immediately tried to move closer (six thousand years’ worth of instincts, after all), but stopped himself before he could, hesitating and wavering for a long moment before beginning to withdraw, one hand poised to snap, to right it all, to wipe away every last remnant of them, and Crowley -
- Crowley couldn’t take it anymore.
He couldn’t keep lying to himself, couldn’t keep telling himself that he had everything he needed, because he didn’t. He needed more. He needed back what he had given that day, when he had seized Aziraphale by the lapels in a last desperate bid for him to stay, when he had smashed their lips together in a terrible, awful mockery of a kiss – he needed it so badly and it hurt hurt hurt and he couldn’t keep holding back because he needed, he needed, he needed -
“Angel, please,” Crowley gasped out, so brokenly and pathetically that it made him want to curl up in a tiny ball and never emerge. He rolled over fully in the bed that smelt of Aziraphale and sex and warmth, reaching out an imploring hand. An olive branch of sorts. Noah’s dove of Genesis. Aziraphale’s eyes widened, his eyes shimmering with tears.
“Yes?” He prompted, and he sounded so hopeful, and Crowley needed -
“Please,” the demon whimpered again, squeezing his eyes shut and curling in on himself, grief splitting him in two. “Please – please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, Aziraphale, angel, please – stay.”
(The words terrified him. But he said them anyway, because he needed to.)
And Aziraphale? He stayed.
(For now, Crowley’s mind hissed nastily. But that voice was quieter, now. And Crowley always had been an optimist.)
By all accounts, Aziraphale had every right to leave. Whatever it was that he and Crowley had had before everything had gone to shit, Crowley had made it very clear that that relationship was gone, that all they were doing was fucking, full stop, that was it. But it was so apparent to the both of them what a goddamn lie that was. It was so apparent to the both of them that they loved each other.
Full stop. That was it.
And Aziraphale was Aziraphale, and he was perfect, and kind, and holy, and – and he had seen Crowley for who he truly was, was seeing him now, seeing what a fucking trash fire he was, seeing what a mess he was, seeing how far he had fallen – so why would he still care for him, why would he still love -?
“Oh, Crowley, my dearest heart,” Aziraphale whispered, interrupting Crowley’s spiraling thoughts. He settled back beside the demon and reached out a hand, stroking Crowley’s hair from his sweaty brow, his thumb trembling slightly as it passed underneath the hollow of his eye beneath his sunglasses that still remained, wiping away his tears. “Crowley, my sweet, darling Crowley . . .”
Don’t say it, part of Crowley begged, but the louder part of him cried and screamed please, please say it, please, because oh, he wanted to hear what he had been silencing for so long, what he had been listening for for six thousand years, he wanted it, he needed it, and anything he needed, Aziraphale would always provide, his perfect angel –
“I love you, Crowley,” Aziraphale breathed out, lifting his hands up to cup Crowley’s face in his palms, cradling him as if he were a thing to be cherished, to be treated with gentleness, to be loved. “I will stay for as long as you need me. You can leave, you can tell me to leave – but as long as you need me, I will stay. I am not going to leave you, not ever, ever again, because I love you.”
“You don’t get to say that to me,” Crowley choked out, his voice hitching on a sob, and then he couldn’t take it anymore, and he surged upward, hooked his hands around the back of the angel’s neck, and kissed him.
(They kissed, and it was the feeling of a nebulae bursting to life. They kissed, and universes spanned into light years of ineffable love. They kissed, and it was as if Heaven and Hell crashed together with the force of their passion. They kissed, and it was everything.)
Aziraphale melted into him as if this was all he had ever wanted, and Crowley felt that all-too-familiar fear for a moment – the fear that the angel would leave, that he had gotten what he wanted, that Crowley’s own insistence against this would be proven right – but then Aziraphale was surging back against him, and his hands hooked around the small of Crowley’s back as he pulled him into his lap, and he gasped out oh, Crowley, my love, and Crowley sobbed, his sunglasses falling away with the force of their passion, his yellow serpentine eyes squeezed tightly shut as he kissed Aziraphale, and Aziraphale kissed back.
Their breaths and tears mingled, their hearts pouring into one another’s, their souls intertwining in the shared heat between them. Crowley was terrified, and angry, and filled with grief, and so in love that it hurt.
And through it all, he stayed. And he allowed Aziraphale to do the same.
For the first time since this second arrangement of theirs had begun what felt like so long ago, the allowed themselves to have an afterglow. They touched each other gently, softly, with purposeful intimacy that felt so personal and familiar and loving. They cried and stumbled over words and kissed and kissed and kissed, holding each other close, tearing down every veil that Crowley had hung around himself ever since he had first replaced his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose and strode out of the bookshop that day – tearing down every wall, with Crowley at the forefront, sending cracks through the cornerstones.
Lovemaking, Aziraphale had called it, back before they had even first truly began. Crowley had been scared, far too scared to ever call it such a thing, but now – now, as Aziraphale worshiped him with his touch and his lips, gentle fingers trailing down the curve of Crowley’s clavicle, his chest, his belly, soft lips pressing the most loving of kisses on his brow, the bridge of his nose, his lips, soft and chaste, the barest tickle of his beard making the demon shiver –
“I love you,” Crowley breathed against Aziraphale’s lips, and he was still angry, still grieving, still in pain and feeling wrecked from the inside out – he still knew that Aziraphale would have to return to Heaven because he always did, that it would get worse again, because it always did – he still knew of the Second Coming, of the Metatron, of the foretold End – but right now, he really and truly could not have cared less, because they were in love and allowed to say it, and they were kissing and touching and holding and kissing, and Aziraphale was staying.
“I love you,” he repeated, because, fuck, he could fucking say it now, and his lips weren’t the barest hair’s-breadth away from Aziraphale’s anymore, but rather, crashed up against them, and it was perfect and wonderful and everything he had ever wanted – everything he needed. “Fuck, I – I’m –,"
I’m sorry, Crowley wanted to say. I’m sorry for treating you like a stolen secret even while you swore you’d keep me like an oath. I was scared, and I hated myself (still am, still do), and I love you, and it’s terrifying, and I don’t understand it, and why aren’t you leaving me, when I’m such a broken thing?
“Oh, my darling,” Aziraphale whispered to him, his voice breaking alongside Crowley’s heart, which should not have been able to break more than it already had. The angel drew Crowley’s body as close to him as he could, holding him so gently, as if he were something precious. He moved one hand up and cupped the demon’s cheek, so cautious and tentative, and Crowley allowed him to, allowed him to brush away the tears there, to kiss over his nose and his eyelids and his forehead. “Thank you.”
“Stupid angel,” Crowley mumbled, and buried his face in Aziraphale’s neck, trembling. Beside them, the clock had started up again, though the lamp’s bulb had popped with the intensity of their passion. “Don’t thank me.”
Aziraphale wrapped him up in his arms, pressing a long kiss into his hair. His heart was beating wildly and sporadically against Crowley’s, their pulses matching tune with their shared terror and joy. Both were waiting for the other to do something to shatter this moment – but neither of them did, because they were done with destroying their own happiness.
(They deserved to be happy, and that was a hard thing to realize, sometimes. But they did. You do, too. We all deserve to be happy. Aziraphale and Crowley realized that, and found themselves able to accept it – not all at once, but eventually. And that was enough, for them.)
“I will anyway,” the angel whispered to the demon in his arms. “I love you, I love you, I love you, and I will thank you for the rest of my existence for allowing me to.”
“Ngk,” said Crowley, and he surged upward and kissed him again, and again, and again – because no one was there to stop them, and Crowley was not trying to anymore. It was beauty, and love, and passion incarnate; it was a visceral want, a need, for each other and for this, a need that was finally being fulfilled after being ignored and unspoken for ever so long. It was as if the broken pieces of the both of them had found, after forever apart, that they fit together perfectly.
It was love, and it was love that was embraced, now that there was no one left denying it.
If you had been worrying about Crowley’s own grief over Aziraphale’s apparent inevitable return to Heaven, I have quite good news. All of his earlier worries turned out to be irrelevant, besides the confessional bit, because apparently, while they had been (quite literally) fucking around, even with all the pauses in time, somehow the two human women and the not-the-brightest angel had solved the entire bloody issue of the second Armageddon by praying (a rather ridiculous amount of it, given how many had ended with Nina cussing Her out) because, fucking shocker, apparently that did do shit. Who knew?
God had not only replaced the Metatron, but had also, She had informed them, when they had stumbled down to the bookshop from Aziraphale’s flat above half-groggy and half-dressed only to be confronted with Her Light, given Aziraphale his old job as Principality of Earth back – with the benefits of, 1) not having to do anything, really, besides “Stop being an idiot” (Her words! What the fuck was going on!), and 2) a very nice little cabin in South Downs, created for two.
Their second kiss (if the first one, as awful and rushed and desperate as it was, even counted as their ‘first’) had also apparently been enough to black out London for two whole days. Their third made it nationwide, and that lasted for almost an hour. And then, when they had finally had sex that wasn’t hurried or angry or desperate need, but rather soft and gentle and loving and wonderfully, peacefully intimate, the sun had blinked out for a moment.
(God had righted the issues that that had caused with a roll of Her eyes, but She had been smiling.)
And somewhere in South Downs, an angel and a demon slept on in each other’s arms, caught up in the afterglow of intimacy so beautiful and personal that it cannot possibly be described in words, Aziraphale’s lips still pressed against Crowley’s forehead in a lingering kiss that the demon had allowed himself to receive, fully in love and fully embracing that love, finally allowing himself to be happy as Aziraphale did the same. It was beautiful, and it was wonderful, and it was ineffable love incarnate.