Chapter Text
Police Officer Crowley's nightly patrol was more mind-numbingly dull than usual, as a recent rain had driven most of the town's citizens indoors, and he was counting down the minutes until he could go home, have a few drinks, and unwind.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the bars were quiet, apart from a couple of brightly dressed women hurrying to get in the back of a car, calling loud, cheerful good-byes to a few other women standing in the doorway of a restaurant. Probably a bachelorette party.
He recognized one of them, namely Anathema Device, one of a group of teachers from the town's liberal arts college, who appeared to have nothing better to do than whip up dissent about whatever war was currently being waged on the other side of the globe, at a protest on the steps of city hall the previous spring. He winced at the memory. The woman was ruthless with a bullhorn. He didn't remember what they'd been protesting, but he felt like his ears were only just recovered from getting blasted at close range by Device's chant.
Inevitably, the memory also brought to mind one of the other protesters, Professor Fell. Another perennial troublemaker, always protesting this and that. Honestly, when did he actually do any teaching? Probably English lit or something else equally useless.
He snorted. Maybe that's why Fell was so often at these protests, to gain a sense of importance.
He huffed out a breath, knowing that he was being a little unfair. It wasn't as if Crowley didn't find himself silently agreeing most of the time with whatever the protesters were going on about, but he just didn't see that it ever did any good.
What was the point? Humans kept on committing atrocities. Same shit, different day. It was always something. End the wars, support our libraries, support abortion rights, demand an expansion of the local humane society. Next thing you know they'd be holding demonstrations to demand funding for little cottages for poor homeless squirrels. Whatever the worthy cause, Fell was often on the front lines, cheerily linking elbows with his fellow discontents and singing songs or chanting slogans on the steps of the capitol building downtown.
Crowley hadn't really had a proper conversation with the man, not as such, other than getting the necessary information recorded for the arrest reports, but Crowley had garnered enough to gather that Fell was something of a sarcastic bastard, but was also genuinely friendly, cheerful, and, well, he had a nice smile.
A guy could get used to a smile like that.
He scoffed at himself. It wasn't as if he really knew the man. Still, having a generalized knowledge of the professor's activities and morals, it was all the more jarring to spot the man crouching next to a bicycle rack, trying to pick the lock on a bike chain.
What the actual hell?
Crowley brought his squad car to the curb, frowning. He'd seen Fell riding around town on his bike, an ancient black model of British make, and that fat-tired mountain bike was not the professor's.
Maybe he'd gotten a new bike? But no, Fell was definitely picking the lock, it wasn't a key, Crowley could see the bit of metal he was using, and the man's tongue was stuck in the corner of his mouth as he concentrated.
There was a shout from across the street, and a man came running out of the all-night pharmacy, stopping at the bike rack. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.
The actual owner of the bicycle, presumably.
Intrigued and vaguely curious as to why Fell had been trying to steal a bike, Crowley stood and sauntered over to where the argument had reached an 'I did not,' 'you did too!' impasse.
“What seems to be the problem, gentleman?” Crowley said loudly, cutting across the quarreling voices.
Fell did a double take. His cheeks were flushed and he stumbled a little as he turned, probably from drink, which must have been why he so blatantly ran his gaze up and down Crowley's frame.
And, all right, maybe Crowley had stood a little straighter and stuck out his chest a little, angling for a reaction. So sue him. It had been much too long since anyone had looked at him with such open appreciation, and he'd caught Fell glancing at him before. Usually the other man was much more discrete about his glances, on the occasions when their paths crossed.
The other man grabbed a hold of one of the handlebars. “Officer, this is my bike, and he's stealing it,” he said emphatically.
Fell protested, “I was merely borrowing it, my dear fellow. As I have already explained,” he added loftily, as if he'd been more than patient but it wasn't his fault if this fellow was too dense to grasp the concept.
“Borrowing it? Borrowing? You've got a lot of nerve!” the man shouted.
Crowley raised a placating hand to stop the tirade, and turned to Fell. “Why don't you use your own bike, professor?”
Fell sniffed and adjusted his coat, swaying slightly. “I don't remember where I left it. I really was simply going to borrow it, and if this man would just tell me his address, I'll return it on the morrow.”
The bike owner opened his mouth again, swelling with renewed wrath, and Crowley intervened quickly. “Look, the bike wasn't actually stolen, and the lock is intact. How about I give him a ride home to sleep it off? Otherwise you'd have to come to the station to file a report.”
Which wasn't entirely true, as no crime had actually taken place, but framed in this way, it gave the appearance of being more convenient for the owner, as if Crowley were doing him a favor.
The fact that it was raining a little more heavily also helped move things along.
The bike owner, while still miffed, reluctantly agreed, and, after leveling a final sour look Fell, he hopped on his bike and rode away.
Crowley took Fell's arm and led him to the squad car.
“This is outrageous,” Fell grumbled, words slurring and feet dragging, though without any real resistance. “You can't arrest me, I'm---”
“Not arresting you, professor,” Crowley said. “Just giving you a ride home.”
“But, my bike,” Fell whined.
The last thing Crowley wanted to do was drive around half the night looking for wherever Fell had left his damned bicycle. “You're too drunk to ride a bike,” he said. “That's illegal.”
Fell's eyes widened comically. “It is?”
“Yes, it is. So, you were drowning your sorrows, or...?”
“I was attending a little party for my friend Anathema, if you must know. She's getting married.”
Crowley managed to hold back a snort, along with his sympathy for whatever poor sap she'd gotten her hooks into. Wasn't any of his business, anyway.
Crowley pulled up to the two-story residence. A picturesque little house painted bright yellow with green trim. A round-topped front door reminded Crowley very much of one of those little people's houses from Lord of the Rings. The ones with the hairy feet.
Fell shot him an indignant look. “How on earth did you know where I live?”
He sounded so ridiculously outraged that Crowley almost laughed. “Your numerous arrests have burned the place into my memory.”
And once he'd happened to be driving by Fell's place after investigating a neighborhood complaint about rowdy teens (the boys had just been playing football in a vacant lot, good grief, it had been a lot of fuss about nothing) and he'd seen Fell puttering about his yard in a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, grimy pants with dirt-stained knees, and an enormous floppy sun hat, digging around the flower beds by the front door, and, well, maybe that incident had helped sear the location into his memory.
Fell was kneeling by the flowerbed, his back to the street and his bottom in the air, and Crowley had never been so grateful at his habit of wearing sunglasses as at that moment. He wasn't so crass as to turn his head, or at least not much, and all it took was a brief glance to see how nicely Fell filled up those silly trousers as the patrol car moved down the street.
He felt a twinge of guilt at this unsanctioned ogling, but he couldn't help noticing, could he?And it wasn't like he was planning on peeping in Fell's windows or something, he wasn't a fucking creep.
Fell allowed Crowley to escort him to the door, and they went in. Crowley had to steady the other man as he stumbled over the threshold, and partly because of that, and partly out of morbid curiosity, he escorted Fell down the hallway.
He felt that he was perhaps overstepping boundaries just a bit, and had firmly decided to get Fell settled safely on the couch and get out of there, when he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the painting propped against the coffee table.
Could hardly miss it, as it was a good five feet in height, nearly life sized. Of Professor Fell in the nude. A side view, sitting with legs crooked so that the naughty bits were tastefully hidden, gazing over his shoulder with a cheerful, slightly coy smile and bright eyes.
“Do you like it?” Fell chirped, coming to stand beside him.
“Uh...” Crowley said.
He swallowed. “Quite nice,” he managed.
Fell beamed. “From my university days, of course. Ah, sweet youth. I posed for art students a number of times, it's how I met my lover at the time, he was quite talented.”
Transfixed, Crowley's eyes traveled over the pink and peach display before him, the plump arms and thighs, the rosy nipple that peeked out from the slight bulge of the chest, the side view of the luscious butt cheek.
It wasn't just the lovely expanse of flesh. The artist - - - Fell's lover- - - had managed to capture the cheeriness of his eyes and the playfulness of his smile. A little coy, and brimming with happiness. Taken as a whole, the painting captured something he couldn't quite name, but overall the effect was somehow both adorable and sexy, which were two words that Crowley had never thought would go together.
“I'm so glad you like it, dear boy,” Fell said. He wrinkled his nose and his smile faded. “Gabriel certainly didn't. He thought I ought to get rid of it, said it was too racy. 'Where the hell would you put the thing, anyway, sunshine?' What if my mother sees it!'” Aziraphale said in a mocking, deeper voice.
“So this Gabriel didn't paint it, I take it,” Crowley said.
“Goodness no. He doesn't have an artistic bone in his body. I hated it when he called me 'sunshine,'” Fell muttered. “Always so condescending.” He sniffed, straightening his waistcoat with a determined tug. “Oh well, he's gone and my painting's still here, so there.”
Fell hiccuped and turned around, bumping into his arm, and it gave Crowley something to do other than ogle a painting. As he helped Fell over to the sofa, he even managed to come up with a different topic of conversation. “So where did you learn to pick locks? You don't seem the sort.”
Fell made a grand, sweeping gesture with his hands and gave a little bow. “I'm a magician. Oh! Let me show you a trick.” He dug at his pockets, first the one in his trousers, stretching out his leg and wiggling around in a most distracting way. “Have you a coin, by any chance?”
“No. No need,” he said quickly, his brain finally getting back into gear. Magic tricks were on his list of pet peeves, right up there with clowns and tiny little yapping dogs that looked like rats. A magician? Well, no one was perfect.
“Please, call me Aziraphale.”
Crowley knew his name, as he'd seen it on the rap sheets. And there was no denying the flirtatious tone of Fell's...Aziraphale's... voice, nor the exaggerated batting of the man's eyelashes.
The flirting wasn't any kind of surprise, since the man was a regular supporter and attendee of the town's Pride festivities. Still, given their past encounters in which the professor had expressed nothing but huffy disapproval for Crowley's job, manner, and unwillingness to allow Fell and his merry band of protesters to invade city council meetings, Crowley was pretty sure this flirting was driven entirely by drink.
Aziraphale slumped for a moment, giving up the search for loose coins, then wriggled around on the couch some more, so his elbow rested on the back and propped his head in his hand. He patted the cushion next to him with the other. “Oh, well, enough of that. Let's talk about us.” He giggled and batted his eyes again.
And goddammit, he looked so fucking pretty, with his cheeks flushed from drink, rounded with that cherubic smile, and his legs crossed, the plumpness of his thigh straining against the material of his trousers, and the foot of his crossed leg bouncing playfully in the air.
Jesus fucking Christ. It had been too long. And Aziraphale was way too charming.
Crowley most definitely did not look over at the painting again. It was an image of Fell in his youth, but Crowley found that he wanted to see what the man looked like now, with those stuffy layers removed. He was betting that Aziraphale had only improved with age.
Pressure was growing low in his belly, a clamoring need for touch, for connection, that had been denied too long. Crowley strongly considered giving in. It would have been so easy to slide onto the couch next to Aziraphale, to sit too close and flirt a little more, maybe run his fingers over that leg, make some poorly-veiled suggestion about getting a tour of the house, specifically the bedroom.
He tightened his hands on his belt, and kept them there, to stop himself from reaching out, a fragile wall against the tidal wave of attraction threatening to pull him under.
He swallowed, because he was practically drooling, damn it all. “Uh, no, I gotta go. I'm on duty.”
Aziraphale pouted. “Then you must let me at least see you to the door.”
Crowley strode down the hall. He stepped out into the cool night air, breathing a little sigh of relief, then turned around to find Aziraphale was right there, rising up on tiptoes to plant a kiss right smack on Crowley's mouth.
Crowley froze, too surprised to push him away. His traitorous cock twitched, and he wanted to draw him in closer, wanted to feel the fullness of Aziraphale in his arms.
A plump hand dragged down his chest, which nearly did Crowley in, he could feel his nipples hardening under that palm.
Then Aziraphale stepped back with a bright smile. “Good night, officer,” he chirped, and slammed the door.
Crowley nearly ran his nose into the sudden obstacle of solid oak, and flung a hand out to brace against the doorframe, having swayed forward as if caught in the gravitational pull of planet Aziraphale.
Well. That was fucking embarrassing. The upside was that the good professor was so drunk he probably wouldn't remember any of this in the morning.
- - - - - - -
All the drive home, Crowley kept reminding himself that he'd done the right thing He never could have lived with himself if he'd taken up Aziraphale's incredibly drunken offer.
Because of course he could never. Not under those circumstances. It would've been taking advantage, no, hell, he might as well be honest, it would have been a gross abuse of authority.
Still, he couldn't help feeling a tad regretful. If the situation had been different...
Well, it was what it was. He spent a few fruitful minutes running through various scenarios in which he might be able to run into Aziraphale again, preferably when he was sober.
If the man would even deign to accept his company. It was all too easy for him to imagine Fell looking down his nose at him and sniffily declaring that he'd rather eat broken glass than fraternize with a police officer, a tool of the government.
Would it help if Crowley admitted he was strongly considering a career change? Had been ever since the cops at his last precinct had turned on him after he reported the outrageous crimes committed by his fellow officers?
They'd nearly gotten him killed. During a pursuit of a dangerous suspect, his fellow cops had abruptly abandoned him, and the suspect pulled a gun. Crowley had narrowly escaped getting shot. If he hadn't dodged at the last second...
Ha! Aziraphale would probably suspect him of making shit up just to get laid.
He realized he was fingering the bullet scar on his temple, a thin line of white, and yanked his hand down, gritting his teeth. Five years since he'd transferred out of that corrupt precinct and he didn't think he'd ever get over the betrayal. No, he'd rather eat broken glass than tell that sorry tale.
Growling, he shoved down the old hurt. When he got home he'd knock back a couple of whiskey and sodas, indulge in some fantasizing of how the night might have gone if he'd stuck around Aziraphale's place a little longer, jerk off, and go to sleep.
As he reached up to start taking off his button-down shirt, he realized something was missing.
He paused, frozen in disbelief, before patting over his chest as if he might have somehow attached it in the wrong place (though he knew he hadn't), and scanned the floor, retracing his steps across the living room and even out to search the squad car before finally accepting the truth.
The sweet kiss, that plump hand lightly running over his chest, the slight tug at his shirt that he should have noticed but had been too stupidly distracted by Fell's soft lips to clock it.
His badge, which should have been neatly pinned over his left pec, was gone. Aziraphale had stolen it.
The little bastard.