Work Text:
Why did God create desire, Crowley ponders, a glass of whiskey held loosely in his fingers, if not to cause misery?
He slouches, slightly drunk, against a column in Aziraphale’s bookshop, slotting his shoulder blades into the curve of the honey-coloured pillar. It feels good, the hard surface propping him up, and he allows himself to imagine that the firm pressure is a familiar broad chest, a safe, intimate place where he can relax and release all this spiky, skittery tension that plagues him.
He watches Aziraphale stand at his desk as he sorts receipts and letters, sifting through bills and packing slips for rare editions shipped from far away places. Crowley catches faint traces of the scents embedded in the fibres of the papers –- expensive colognes and perfumes, intriguing spices, strong cigarettes. But nothing can block out the scent of the angel, a heady fragrance he’s come to know over 6,000 years and can taste on the tip of his sensitive tongue.
Crowley parts his lips and inhales, letting the angelic molecules dance along the edges of his tongue like a fine wine before settling. He swallows them, imagining tiny golden particles filling his mouth and throat, spreading to his stomach, circulating through his limbs, and finally reaching his hell-scarred heart where they lend a faint glow, warming his cold blood.
His appetite is now whet, a hunger for a deeper taste aching in his empty gut, starvation eating into his bones. He wants to quench this need, fill his mouth with warm and pulsing skin, savour the salt and tang of desire, consume the gasps of newly discovered pleasure, wrap his hands around pliant, willing flesh… He wants with the weight of ages.
The ice in Crowley’s drink shifts with a muted clink, breaking his hazy reverie and reminding him to take another long sip. As he swallows, his eyes roam over the wisps of Aziraphale’s pale hair to the vulnerable skin of his neck just above his collar. Crowley’s gaze, no longer covered by dark lenses in the haven of the bookshop, travel down Aziraphale’s satin-backed waistcoat to his rolled up shirtsleeves, the hairs on his arm gilded in the golden lamplight.
Aziraphale slowly stops his fluttery sorting motions and raises his chin as if he can feel Crowley’s eyes boring into his spine. Before Crowley can avert his gaze, Aziraphale turns and looks directly at him, an uncertain smile playing on his lips.
“Is everything alright, dear?” Aziraphale’s voice is pitched low and is laced with a gentle, inquisitive lilt.
Crowley tries to speak but centuries of longing stick in his throat, choking him. He takes another drink to burn the layers away. “M’fine. Just… thinking.”
Aziraphale holds his gaze, the ticking of the grandfather clock seeming to fade. Crowley’s mouth goes dry, terrified his face is an open book where every thought can be read:
Go to him. Wrap your arms around his waist, pull him against your chest, breathe his name against his cheek. Kiss the soft, warm skin behind his ear and when he closes his eyes, whisper the truth. Tell him. Tell him how much you want him, desire him, need him. Let him clutch your hands and curve into you as you trail your lips along his nape, let him tilt his head so that you can kiss his throat and jaw, let him whimper, breath quickening, until he turns in your arms and waits for you to claim his mouth with yours, fumbling and hot and desperate.
They stare at each other, the air heavy.
“I…” Crowley remains pinned against the column, unable to move.
“Crowley…” Aziraphale turns to face him, his expression shifting from alarm to dismay to regret.
“I should go.” Crowley tears himself away, grabbing his sunglasses and stumbling into the night. His chest heaves as he curses his battered, miserable heart for desiring what it can never have.
He never sees Aziraphale lingering at the door, his eyes full of longing.