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Aziraphale followed the extravagant swarm of perfumed aristocrats through the candlelit hallways into the main hall, the muffled clamour of jaunty music swelling to full mass as he crossed the threshold. The room was humid, buzzing with excited chatter. Plumes of laughter rose from the feathered and festooned gentry in bursts. It was quite the spectacle.
The angel swept his glance from one end of the room to the other as he took in the array of guests, staff, performers, and… what seemed to be professional ladies and gentlemen of the evening. Which hinted at the sort of party this would turn out to be. These events were becoming vastly more popular in England, a chance for stuffy social expectations to be suspended for a few hours. What resulted was a chaotic evening of anonymous fun and joviality that attendees would gossip about for weeks.
Aziraphale, unfortunately, was not here for a night of lighthearted frivolity. He was attending as an envoy of Heaven, official Gabriel-mandated duties… He fought the urge to roll his eyes, though he allowed himself a quiet huff of annoyance at the disruption to his planned evening. A shipment had just arrived from Athens, holding some of his most treasured ancient scrolls, and he was rather keen to catalogue and ensure they were safely stored to protect and preserve them.
Hopefully he would take care of the appointed blessing quickly, perhaps sample the culinary offerings and be on his way home in good time. The savoury smell of roast meat and spiced pastries floated above the writhing mass of guests, and Aziraphale felt his stomach take immediate notice. Taking heed of the organ, he started to look for his intended blessing recipient and move through the heat of bodies in excited chatter.
It was no easy task, considering the face and name in his mind, bestowed there by Heavenly arrangement, would be garbed in a mask and costume.
Having received his orders to attend the masquerade ball mere hours ago, Aziraphale’s costume was rather lacking in imagination. Not one to miracle his garments, he had perused his collection of elegantly crafted outfits from across the millennia and cobbled together something loosely resembling an angel, according to modern interpretation in any case.
Aziraphale had selected a simple white robe with exquisite golden embroidery at the cuffs and collar, and a matching belt pulled the abundance of flowing material in at the waist to give it some shape. He had somehow managed to accumulate some stage props and accessories from over the years, too; so a magnificent pair of swan feather wings (borrowed from The Tempest’s Ariel) adorned his shoulders. They were not quite as impressive as his true wings, but they would do. To complete the basic look, his old Arthurian insignia of knighthood stood in for his halo in the form of a golden, sapphire-studded circlet at his brow. The only part of his costume that had left him scratching his head due to a shortage of time and options and then reluctantly casting a miracle was the eponymous mask. After much hemming and hawing, Aziraphale had settled on a silken white half mask, embellished with numerous blue, ever-staring eyes. It was an unsettling version of a Heavenly being but it would be recognisable at least.
He was rather proud of the deft way he had reclaimed his clothing, but as he looked around at the vast manifestation of wealth that surrounded him, Aziraphale realised he was probably the only attendee who had not shelled out a small fortune for one paltry evening. The hoards glittered in heavy jewellery, elaborate fabrics and decoration. The angel could not help but think of the workhouses within walking distance of this grand townhouse: the destitute, homeless and sick who were starving in their rags. With a pang of sympathy, Aziraphale pushed out a gentle wave of Divine encouragement, so that those whom he passed by would find themselves much more charitable when they left the ball later that evening.
With a sigh of self-satisfaction, Aziraphale felt renewed in his task and reached out with all his senses, both human and angelic, and continued his search.
***
Dusting off his hands with a smile, Aziraphale took his leave of his freshly-blessed target with the sterile shimmer of ethereal magic still chiming in the air. The angel meandered a few paces away, already considering which crate to sort through when he made it back to the shop, when a chorus of shouted gasps pulled his attention back into the room.
A crowd had gathered a few feet away to his left and the revellers were all in absolute raptures over a tall figure in the centre.
Aziraphale found himself moving to join the audience without thought, shuffling himself amongst bejewelled gowns and impeccably tailored coats and tails until he was front and centre.
He found himself confronted by the source of everyone’s helpless captivation: lean, towering and dressed in a palette of darkest black and the richest reds. Devastatingly bewitching.
A truly devilish smirk crept over the uncovered portion of the gentleman’s face when his gaze landed on Aziraphale.
“Oh, an angel in our midst.” The velvet voice lilted whilst yellow eyes flashed in the shadow of the shining black snakeskin mask.
Or was it truly snakeskin?
Aziraphale’s breath stuck in his throat, wedged behind a spluttering of angry questions, hasty denials, and cold reprimands.
“Serpent,” he spat dismissively, instinctively hostile when confronted with his immortal enemy in public. Aziraphale heard how frosty his tone sounded, as regret and guilt crept their corrosive fingers from his frantic heart like poison. He hated having to be the cautious one, always holding the demon at arm’s length to protect them both.
The crowd around the pair began to share inquisitive looks and gossiping whispers at the latest development. Aziraphale felt his hackles rise; it would not be wise to cause a public scandal.
Crowley was incredibly dear to Aziraphale but it was dangerous for them to be seen together, let alone be on outwardly friendly terms. And he could hardly deny knowing the damned fiend now, could he? So he could at least act like the enmity was authentic.
Guilt aside, the situation seemed to be much worse, given that Crowley seemed to be out of his mind.
The suicidal fool of a demon stood before Aziraphale, draped in sinfully fitted head-to-toe leather and was unceremoniously displaying his Hellish form in plain view of the humans! Wings so black they seemed to pull in the light from around the room beat restlessly from his carved shoulder blades. His gilded eyes shone for all to see, surrounded by the iridescent sheen of scales in the shape of a mask. Behind the demon, a thin, black serpent tail hypnotised the mortal group as it flicked in and out of view like that of a bad-tempered cat.
The humans seemed mesmerised by Crowley’s appendages, likely trying to comprehend how such a ‘costume’ had been crafted to move autonomously. Some muttered about black magic, others about the wonders of modern invention, and a few whispered about what they would do with the devil or what they wanted the devil to do to them. It made the angel’s stomach clutch uncomfortably.
For some reason, that hunger for touch was like a deluge of icy water over the angel. The way they talked of Crowley’s body -- would the demon like that? Would Crowley want to touch these strangers that way?
It shouldn’t matter – it didn’t matter – the angel tried to convince himself. He should only care for the souls that Crowley might corrupt with the temptation of his infernal flesh.
Aziraphale had never seen Crowley look so… profane. The heart this corporation had come with was thrashing with agitation like never before; he suddenly felt like a prey animal sensing the presence of a predator out in the darkest of night.
Crowley did look like a predator, Aziraphale mused as he appraised the creature before him; nestled between the waterfall of the demon’s volcanic curls was a crown of lethal horns that would be at home on any dangerous beast. The horns were a warped mirror of Aziraphale’s halo-inspired crown, a dark inverse that represented sin incarnate. The dichotomous thought tempered Aziraphale’s liquid spine and reminded him that Crowley was a predator -- of souls -- but Aziraphale was The Almighty’s Guardian. Entrusted to thwart evil and to guide Her most beloved humans.
Crowley seemed inordinately pleased with how the angel assessed him, his aloof expression cracked into a wide-toothed smile which revealed the existence of razor-edged canine teeth, and the pit in Aziraphale’s abdomen twisted with irritated heat at the arrogant display. There was a fire smouldering through his veins as he waded into the flash flood of crackling tension which had formed around them. The heat of it felt both vexing and magnetic; they emulsified into something dangerous and pushed him further into Crowley’s intangible grasp.
“Angel, how may I help you?” Crowley purred, holding Aziraphale’s eye with an insouciant stare.
The guests turned to watch for Aziraphale’s reaction, their attention briefly torn away from Crowley’s wings and tail, breath collectively bated for the angel’s reply as if it were the crux of the latest play. If only they knew the cosmic scale of Aziraphale and Crowley’s interactions. The debates, drunken ramblings, the unfortunate disagreements. Conversations that could not be imagined by the greatest writers had been had over tea, ox ribs, and champagne alike.
“A word, sir. Alone.” He beckoned Crowley toward a side door close by, his tone tight and unwielding to potential argument.
With a parting glare, he turned and stalked away, knowing he had a demon trailing in his wake and a marooned audience of confused humans gossiping amongst themselves.
The door led them into an unlit and silent sitting room, which was as palatial as the rest of the house that Aziraphale had seen so far. The furnishings were impressively luxurious even hidden by shadows as they were. There was even a throne in the centre of the seating area that spoke of the owner’s grandiose tastes.
“What are you up to? You’re up to something, I can smell it,” Aziraphale immediately accused as the door swung shut, spinning on the demon while ripping off his mask to reveal the true face of Holy fury. Crowley was lounging against the wall as if gravity meant nothing to him, a half-cocked grin teasing at his lips.
Aziraphale could not fathom why Crowley would risk himself and the human witnesses by exposing his Hell form so brazenly. Luckily they still believed it to be a parlour trick, and Aziraphale would have to ensure it stayed that way. The clamour of the ball was muffled behind the door, the buzz of humanity that Aziraphale loved so much that he had recently made permanent roots in the metropolitan hot spot of London.
“You’re smelling the Battenberg cake, angel, ” Crowley deadpanned. He was making quite a show of nonchalantly examining the contents of his newly manifested glass of whisky; the amber liquid was as luminous as Crowley’s eyes in the dim room. They were a beacon in an unfamiliar ocean, the promise of a hearth in the night.
Despite the nostalgia for his millennia-old companion, Aziraphale’s anger flashed again like a disorienting fork of lightning. He was decidedly not convinced by Crowley’s detached attitude but it did cause his nostrils to flare in red-hot ire.
“What are you doing here?” Crowley parried; his tone was suggestive, needling at Aziraphale as the swaggering demon pushed off the wall and stepped closer into his space. Close enough to smell. The leather of Crowley’s clothing was rich and smoky, interwoven with something warm and spiced like cloves. Oud or similar came to mind.
Hunger (or was it anger?) clawed at Aziraphale’s chest, something deep and primal in his soul yawning itself awake. A craving that made him ache. Was this Holy? Something like Divine righteousness rousing in him, finally? Would he find it in himself to do his duty and smite Crowley?
Bile swirled and rushed at the thought, pure revulsion made manifest. How could he possibly think of harming Crowley? Even the hypothetical made his throat squeeze around an aborted sob.
Why was he so angry?
Aziraphale averted his eyes and looked at his sandalled feet instead. He swallowed and breathed through the raging tattoo beating in his chest, trying to ground himself as bizarre and conflicting emotions battled for supremacy over his corporation.
He had not even been this angry after Crowley had tempted the first humans into the Original Sin. At the time, Aziraphale had rationalised that the demon was just doing his job, the same as he was; it was just that Crowley had succeeded where Aziraphale failed.
Poor Adam and Eve…
Remembering that beautiful couple and all the bad luck that befell them once they departed the Garden made Aziraphale’s lungs constrict with guilt and sorrow.
“I’m working,” Aziraphale replied disparagingly. “I can only assume that you are, too. Going by your appearance.” He glanced back up then, critical defiance written plainly on his face.
“Oh, this?” Crowley smirked like only a devil could and swept a gesturing hand from his imposing crown of horns down to his sacrilegiously form-fitting boots. “It’s good to stretch one’s wings every now and again.” Crowley’s wings fluttered gently and Aziraphale felt his hair blow in the gust it created. The demon’s eyes caught the movement, the honeyed yellow of them seemed to blaze more vividly as his wolfish glance travelled over Aziraphale’s costume.
”You’re not here tempting then?” Aziraphale stressed the two syllables in ‘tempting’ separately as if the word throttled his windpipe.
A slight ripple of confusion crossed Crowley’s scaled face before it evaporated as quickly as it appeared. “Whatever do you mean, angel?”
“Well all of this,” he gestured broadly at the demon’s serpentine form, “must be for a temptation.”
“Find it tempting, do you?” Crowley’s lips curled into something aggravating and alluring all at once, and Aziraphale’s stomach tugged with inflamed annoyance at the insinuation.
“Well, they certainly do.” Aziraphale motioned at the door and the lascivious party guests beyond it, the throb of annoyance like glass between his teeth as he spat, “They were not shy about their desires for you.”
The back and forth snipes felt like a sparring match, but not in their usual manner, with wine and laughter colouring their cheeks. This was something almost combative, primal.
“Is that right? And what did they desire of me, angel?” Crowley was impossibly close, the pair were closer than they had ever been. Could the demon sense the riotous tempo of cardiac drumming within Aziraphale? The angel knew he should put some distance between the two of them but was helpless to the gravitational pull of those lamp-fire eyes.
“Well, I am quite certain it would not be appropriate for me to repeat,” Aziraphale said haughtily as he felt his face burn at the thought of saying such things. About Crowley, no less. It was mortifying to consider detailing lewd acts with his… his enemy.
“Then how could I possibly take responsibility if I don’t know what I am being accused of, angel?” Aziraphale felt the irritation twined through the words, though Crowley appeared completely unruffled. The angel was sure he was chafed by the allegation regardless.
Crowley’s eyes bore into his own with an expectant edge to them, drilling for a reaction, an explanation, something to release the overwrought tension that bound them.
“There was mention of — groping.” Aziraphale’s throat was dry and his voice strangled around a suitable way of phrasing the licentious conversation he had overheard.
“And were they groping me, or was I the one doing the groping?” The silken weave of Crowley’s voice snagged, loaded with the weight of subtext. The demon’s slender arm came up to cage Aziraphale against the wall, leaning in until their noses were almost brushing.
Jeers and cackles erupted from the other room but it slipped past Aziraphale’s notice as he grappled with the realisation that Crowley was seducing him! — Trying to, in any case. There was no reason why the demon would succeed, after all.
It didn’t matter that Aziraphale’s tongue suddenly felt desperately dry or that his gut twisted with heat at the sensation of Crowley’s breath ghosting against his skin. It was of absolutely no consequence that Aziraphale’s robe was suddenly a lot more constricted in the nether region.
Holding the demon’s stare suddenly felt a lot more dangerous than it ever had before. Aziraphale’s eyes darted away momentarily as his nerves wrapped their thorns around his airway, only to find a devious grin twisting Crowley’s face into something otherworldly when they returned. The thorns retreated, yet his throat still felt squeezed.
“I suppose it was mutual,” Aziraphale whispered, finding his lungs strained under the pressure of his frantic heart. His hands itched to reach out to sample the texture of those obsidian scales yet his mind overruled the urge.
“I was hoping you would ssssay that,” Crowley stooped to murmur into Aziraphale’s ear, the demon’s lips grazing the sensitive skin of his earlobe. The whistling air shivered down his spine, his cock swelling to full mast in response.
The moment dragged out, long and torturous with Crowley’s loaded gaze slipping into the cracks of Aziraphale’s tenuous angelic discipline and unabashedly widening them until the demon was able to stare right into the core of Aziraphale’s desire.
Is this what the demon wanted? Was it mutual?
Crowley’s hand slowly dropped from the wall and landed on Aziraphale’s jaw; the pressure was light, almost a phantom sensation, but intense in the way it set waves of arousal galloping through the angel’s veins. He felt his eyes close and his ravenous gasp was stolen by lips he had studied for aeons.
Aziraphale didn’t dare open his eyes but he could not help but open his mouth, to feel that inhuman tongue fork and the two ends toy with his own. He was amazed how the sharp press of fangs could inflame him so much that his hips began to mindlessly grind against the demon once he had closed that ancient gap. Aziraphale was held firm against the wall, Crowley’s lithe body blanketed him from halo to sandal. And oh, words fled Aziraphale’s brain, replaced by the ceaseless torrent of pleasure spiking every nerve-ending.
At the sensation of cool air hitting his legs, Aziraphale broke away in confusion. The demon’s whipcord tail had wrapped itself around Aziraphale’s thigh, pushing his robe up and baring his skin up to the middle of his back. His robeless form was exposed to the covetous grip of demon claws sinking into the flesh of his arse.
It was intoxicating to be held by Crowley.
It was terrifying.
Reality crashed into Aziraphale like wrathful floodwaters. He was an angel consorting sexually with a demon.
Something on his face must have betrayed his sudden terror because Crowley extracted himself from Aziraphale without a word. The demon’s cocky gait deflated.
Lead balloon indeed.
“We can’t,” Aziraphale breathed, wishing he could find it in himself to walk away and make this easy on both of them.
“We can’t or you don’t want to?” Crowley asked softly, fragile anxiety cut through his lust-blown golden eyes. Where they had been radiant and bright during their flirtation, they had dulled to a sad brass now.
“We can’t,”’Aziraphale repeated as a cold mass settled uncomfortably in his stomach.
He wanted Crowley. Desperately. Carnally. But how could they cross that fatal line?
Crowley drew in a breath and seemed to recover his confidence with a slanted smirk that easily punctured Aziraphale’s gossamer-thin resolve. It was only a matter of time before he would crack and land right in the clutches of the beast trying to ensnare him.
Crowley was a thing of impossible beauty. Claws, fangs and all. Aziraphale had always appreciated the demon’s attractiveness in an objective sense, but stood before him in the haze of hormones they had conjured, the angel was certain he could never look at Crowley the same way again. The evocative red hair, the elegant physique of a ballet dancer obscenely draped in dark fabrics, he was magnetic and charming. Aziraphale could not walk away though everything inside him screamed – begged him to do so.
“We are safe here, angel. Just a couple of anonymous humans — having a bit of fun.” Crowley shrugged, moving himself back towards the angel at a glacial pace as though he were stalking a deer and any sudden movements would spook him away.
Aziraphale rolled the insinuated proposal around in his mind, considering each dangerously barbed side for its pros and cons.
They had escaped the notice of their superiors for centuries at that point, each performing blessings or curses for the other. They had been companions in drink and food for longer than that.
Surely an evening of pleasures of the flesh was just an extension of trespasses already committed? Another small step over a line they had long crossed over?
Aziraphale was notorious in Heaven for his enthusiastic ‘immersion’ into all things human. The other angels shuddered with revulsion at the thought of touching corporeal matter, let alone consuming it. So what was another oddity to them but the dusty old Principality engaging in strange earthly customs?
Long, devilishly dextrous fingers snaked around his wrist as Aziraphale mulled it all over. Crowley’s thumb began to rub over the angel’s pulse in slow circles, and like a striking flint, the gesture immolated Aziraphale’s misgivings to dust, ash scattered amongst their feet where a burning phoenix of arousal would rise to consume them. How far past sane had Aziraphale travelled if he was happy to stand in that column of fire and smoulder with Crowley?
Decision forged in newly minted steel, Aziraphale tipped his chin up to recapture the feverish eye contact that had pulled him under a tidal wave of endorphins. He willed it to take him again.
Crowley held the stare for a moment – assessing, making certain – before rushing to claim the angel’s lips once more, nipping and licking with skillful abandon. Aziraphale scrabbled desperately at the leathered body trapping him against the wall, inhaling the smokiness of the fabric, tasting the spice of whisky on the demon’s tongue.
Something nameless and shapeless began to build up in the angel’s abdomen, quickly making his cock throb and twitch with need. His fingers traced over patches of raised scale at the nape of Crowley’s neck, and he was thrilled by the tactile stimulation that he felt from the tips of his fingers which fed the lurching heat in his stomach. Crowley’s horns were rough and ridged, tipped with lethal points. How could something so barbaric be so beautiful?
Crowley’s human corporation was stunning, yes, but his demon form? There was something so captivating in the dark animalism of it, how he knew this was forbidden fruit but carried on grasping and caressing anyway. Had Eve stopped when the juice dripped on her tongue? No, she carved a world-changing bite with eager teeth. Aziraphale felt depraved and more alive than he ever had before.
With adrenaline pumping through him, Aziraphale yanked the demon’s head back with a fist full of ruby curls, painting a wet stripe up Crowley’s stretched neck, feeling it convulse and tense under his tongue as the demon moaned obscenely into the cavernous room.
“Fuck, angel,” Crowley swore, eyes screwed shut and mouth gaping in a prolonged lustful groan. He was such a pretty thing and Aziraphale needed to hear ‘angel’ in that devastatingly wrecked tone again and again and again.
The demon blindly thrust his hand up Aziraphale’s robe and began to greedily massage his aching cock as Aziraphale searched for the garment ties that separated his greedy hands from more of Crowley’s skin.
Oh. That was utterly transcendent, a sensation that Aziraphale could hardly wrap his very old and cosmically-clever head around. Crowley was like water, surrounding him, drowning him, seeping into all the little cracks and filling him up with pleasure so vast he did not think his corporation could possibly hold it all inside.
Aziraphale’s groan was guttural and deep, pulled from somewhere that had never seen light before. He was dizzy, drunk on flesh and intimacy the likes of which he had never dreamed of for himself. Aziraphale wanted in a way that was unholy and so, so beautifully human — he wanted to take Crowley in his arms and move through him. And yet he desperately wanted Crowley to take him, to pull the angel apart and leave him gasping, begging, quivering…
Crowley’s mouth latched onto the tender skin of his neck, sucking until Aziraphale felt tiny pricks of bruising pop under the demon’s brutal kiss. It was raw and exhilarating to be so vulnerable, though he was still craving to feel powerful in that tangle of sensory delights.
His cock throbbed in the tight tunnel of Crowley’s fingers, inflated with rushing blood and the roar of it seemed to echo in his ears like a river bursting its banks. In his mindless scramble, Aziraphale managed to undo the laces of Crowley’s leathers. It was almost dreamlike, watching the milky flesh, studded with jewel-like scales slowly reveal in the gloom that surrounded them — a mesmerising private burlesque show. Aziraphale’s breath stuttered as he slipped his hands into the opening, finally able to draw out the demon’s straining cock with his novice fingers.
Crowley let out a slow, strangled breath and arched his impossibly pliable body into Aziraphale's until their fists brushed together with each stroke. Their foreheads fell together, both watching in pleasured agony as their hands rapidly slipped up and down their shafts. The sounds of the party seemed to grow distant, replaced with the puff of laboured breath and the warm friction of skin.
The tightening coil in Aziraphale’s stomach threatened to spring loose at any moment, and his eyes clamped shut against the onslaught. Crowley’s other hand, which had been gripping Aziraphale’s shoulder, eased its death grip and wrenched the costume wings from his back and started to tug the folds of angelic-white robes up. They separated quickly so that the angel could tear it off over his head and discard it in a haphazard heap somewhere in the dark. His studded circlet tangled within the pleats of fabric and was torn off too, Aziraphale heard it clatter to the floor. Crowley followed suit with a crisp snap of his clawed fingers, standing before Aziraphale completely naked in a blink.
Crowley was a mirage of unparalleled desire, his sable wings spread wide, scales glinting like blackened chainmail in the low light and the shadow of movement behind him as his tail swayed hypnotically.
What did those lustful humans know of beauty? How could they ever understand? Aziraphale had watched the birth of the stars, lived in the very first garden unspoiled by man or time; he had seen the great masters of art lay their brush to canvas and birth their own worlds in timeless vignettes. Not one moment of it compared to Crowley like this… As his maker made him. It wasn’t the hewed body, the devastating smile, nor his molten eyes or otherworldly appendages — it was nothing that Aziraphale could name or quantify. Crowley was Aphrodite, Venus, Eros, Cupid, Hathor — Anteros. The very personification of the unmistakable, undeniable feeling that made Aziraphale cast away his self preservation just for a fleeting moment of bliss made tangible in these physical bodies.
Aziraphale felt himself slip like lava into an unholy circle of the demon’s arms, delirious as Crowley wrapped his slender limbs around him, holding the angel to his patchwork-scale chest and breathing heavily. Their skin sang, sensitive and electrified at every connection point and Aziraphale vaguely worried that their heightened senses could be interfering with the local weather – it was easily done when they let their emotions get away from them.
The thought scattered like dust motes, though, when Crowley trailed a scorching line of kisses up his throat and caught the angel’s earlobe between pincer-sharp teeth. Aziraphale gasped at the sudden prickle but melted into a moan when the demon sucked. The sound was filthy, decadent, and it wrecked what remained of Aziraphale’s frayed composure, torn apart like an abandoned spiderweb.
“Turn around,” Crowley rumbled against his ear, grabbing him by the waist and twisting him forcefully to face away. Aziraphale let himself be manoeuvred without complaint, pushing his arse back into the slim groove of Crowley’s pelvis and groaning as the demon’s cock nestled into the ample cleft.
”Shit, Aziraphale,” Crowley hissed behind him, grinding into the contact. The way he sounded so affected had Aziraphale unravelling. The way that burning hot organ slipped against his opening inflamed his stomach, making him wanton and he writhed against it, asking, asking — begging the demon to take him. He felt beautifully debased, drowning in the sensations he had only read about before. It was delicious how goosebumps erupted like a mountain range over his skin, no matter how warm his corporation was, dampened by perspiration and traces of saliva painted by kisses, licks, and bites. Oh, Aziraphale was lost in it.
A firm, clawed hand grasped one of his buttocks, squeezing like the demon was pulling himself back as he rubbed his long, skinny cock against Aziraphale’s most intimate flesh. The thought of it made a wreckage of Aziraphale, the drag of skin on skin burnt like comets making landfall.
Another arm closed around the angel’s clavicle, holding him steady while Crowley panted in pleasure against his temple. Aziraphale took hold of himself and swiped his thumb over the sensitive leaking head of his cock, shuddering at the intensity of it. He could easily allow the looming shadow of climax overwhelm him with just a few pulls.
Gluttonous angel he was, he wanted more.
“What are you waiting for, fiend?” he asked breathlessly, hoping to goad Crowley into ruining him further. It was the Serpent’s job after all. His cosmic function. Hunt, coax, devour.
Crowley laughed, shock and mirth mingling in the fogged arousal of his breath. “Hmm, you’re right, angel. Patience is a virtue, and I have none,” the demon said, roughly pushing him towards an ostentatious desk and pinning his chest down on it. “I’ll give you what you want, Aziraphale, since you so shamelessly commanded it of me.”
There was the unmistakable sound of preternatural wings beating behind him, blowing a gust through his wet curls. If this were anyone else, the gesture might seem like a threat display, but Aziraphale was not worried. How could he be?
This was mutually assured destruction.
The demon planted his hands on either side of Aziraphale’s arse, spreading him open to his greedy stare and Hellish wiles. The angel felt the flicker of infernal magic seep into his body, and he could taste the woodfire smoke in the back of his throat. The miracle was as impatient as the caster, swiftly easing him open and oiled, prepared hastily for Crowley to push himself inside and make them a whole.
“Do you know how intoxicating the scent of your lust is, angel?” Crowley whispered darkly. Aziraphale didn’t know what his lust did to the demon. But he knew what the potency of Crowley’s lust did to him. It made Aziraphale’s spine quiver and tense like a bow drawn too tight, made him starve like a dying man who cannot be sated by mere bread, and it made his very essence call out to the demon to satisfy it. He should feel guilt, shame, or even righteousness. Why didn’t he?
Where all those Heaven-mandated emotions should have sat, excitement plunged deep instead. It was immovable, growing taller, growing deeper, eating up the sky and the land. He would never be able to burn out the roots of it, now it had infiltrated. He wouldn’t want to.
The cool marble pressed against his chest and his cheek seemed to draw out the sticky heat in his skin, the unforgiving edge digging into his ribs was just on the wrong side of discomfort, a biting sting like the annoyance of a mosquito. It was all background noise to the symphony of sensation of Crowley rubbing his cock against the slippery rim, lighting up nerve-endings like fireflies in the deep dark of the first night.
Aziraphale gasped like his head had been submerged in suffocating water, a drowning man sucking in air to steel himself for the breach of another’s flesh. Behind him, Crowley took a heavy breath in too, like a countdown.
The demon pulled back, holding himself steady before pressing into the yield of Aziraphale, the blunt tip splitting him apart and punching out his coveted breath in one slow, spearing moment. It was unexpected – the sudden searing stretch that lingered somewhere between discomfort and pure rapture, but Aziraphale settled in it and waited for the blinding gratification. The tight throb of being filled and stretched subsided quickly, morphing into an urgency for more. Aziraphale found his usual penchant for hedonism flaring, he was suddenly desperate for Crowley to move.
Crowley stalled with a long, almost pained exhale, then drew back and Aziraphale’s body — which he had spent countless lifetimes in and had become quite accustomed to it being dependable and obedient — decided that it had a mind of its own and rather preferred the demon to stay put and thrust his arse back to keep his cock ensconced within Aziraphale. The room came alive with the sound of slapping skin and grunting pleasure, whipping up higher, faster, louder.
The wet friction of Crowley pushing in and gliding out of his body made Aziraphale wild; he didn’t even register his own arm bending behind him to grab at the demon and urge him on.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley murmured, curled over the angel’s spine like a shell — shielding, hiding, home. There was a broken, keening quality in the moan of his name, like he had never heard it said before. Like a prayer. Something that struck Aziraphale as dangerous in the quiet ruins of the demon’s voice.
They had let this get too intimate, too close to the heart.
Before the fear could gain a foothold, Aziraphale scrambled for something, anything to continue the game. He couldn’t stop now if he tried. As deep as they had mined, they could not strike further into the core of the mountain, lest they release a Pandora’s Box of consequences. Aziraphale refused to admit to himself that all rivers lead back to the sea, and he was being ripped by the currents into an unknown ocean.
He had to pull on his mask, ancient, tattered and battle-worn. The angel had hidden behind it during wars older than time itself, when the land was indistinguishable from the rivers and seas, all the times he could not afford to be himself. Because his true heart, his soul, his humanity would have torn Grace from his essence, made him immune to Hellfire and cold to suffering.
His mask helped him play the game. Allowed him to seek refuge in expectation.
“Is that all you have got, demon?” Aziraphale injected his sneer with ample venom, ensuring the lines would redraw themselves in permanent ink, that Crowley would not prod at the tentative, fraying cord binding them. Aziraphale was not strong enough.
Time stilled for a fleeting moment (or was it longer?) before Crowley growled, low in his throat, straightening out his curled posture and leveraging the angel’s arms so he could drive his hips mercilessly on, fucking the angel with intent, without softness.
The arousal between them calcified, growing hard and heavy around the soft core they could not allow into the light. It had to be buried, entombed in a lie of casual sex and rivalry.
Aziraphale felt himself bear down around Crowley, squeezing the shaft inside him and making them both draw ragged breaths as the cascade started to pull them toward orgasm. There had been a steady drip feed of craving hands, desire-twined tongues like vines, coiling so tight it would have to burst under the weight of impossible tension.
His cock had been left without stimulation for the entire time he had been pressed to the desk, trapped out of reach, bobbing along with the frantic rolling of Crowley’s hips, but Aziraphale could feel it twitch and pull, leaking copiously.
The tenacious demon seemed to realise how close Aziraphale was, pulling back the speed and reverting to long, slow, sliding thrusts that reached the angel’s very core, exploding unseen colours behind his flickering eyelids as his stomach dropped in weightless confusion.
With a devious chuckle that shouldn’t have been so arousing, Crowley’s flitting slender tail twisted itself between the angel’s parted legs and spiralled around his pleasure-engorged cock. It squeezed and tugged the velvet of his foreskin, dipping into the dewdrop slit, driving Aziraphale to utter euphoria. His head was thrown back in a cry of bliss, bewildered that he thought he had already been at the peak of the human body’s capability for pleasure before Crowley had cunningly pushed him even further into the bottomless abyss of white-hot lust.
The assault on his senses pulled the angel’s muscles taut and shivering, the feeling of adrenaline like a swan dive wrenching at his stomach. That exhilarating free fall before his wings would catch air currents and allow him to soar in the sun and the wind. And then with a flash of blinding ecstacy, Aziraphale was coming with a howl, baptising the desk and the floor in angelic white.
Amidst his own beautiful moment of frenzy, Aziraphale distantly registered the demon’s punched out grunt before the slender weight of his lover collapsed over his back. Hot as the heart of a star and twice as lovely. His raven-dark wings sagged over the pair in the demon’s exhaustion, blanketing them in cool feathers and the privacy of pitch darkness swallowed them.
The world seemed to still as they breathed together, piercing silence suspended between their joined bodies as the sweat on their skin cooled and the ragged pace of their hearts settled. Crowley trembled against him, the slight frame racked with shaking aftershocks after what seemed like a powerful orgasm.
After a while, the void of black feathers lifted once more and the noise of the crowd infiltrated their peace. Crowley began to shift stiffly, lifting his chest and gingerly pulling himself out of Aziraphale. There was the ringing sound of a demonic miracle and Aziraphale felt the wave of magic clean his skin of any traces of their affair.
Aziraphale frowned, eventually straightening himself to stand and turn back to Crowley, who had hastily reinstated his clothing. Feeling awkward in his state of undress, Aziraphale retrieved his rumbled robe and pulled it back over his head. The atmosphere between them had grown cold without a word or a look.
What had happened?
One moment Crowley was grasping at him in his euphoria and the next he was out of reach and closed off… A book closed and burnt to ash. As if nothing had happened. As if it meant nothing.
Crowley stared at the floor, deathly still and quiet. It was unnerving to see, the demon was usually always in motion; he fidgeted, paced, gestured — even in sleep he seemed to shift constantly.
The demon had faded, the blazing fire of passion they had shared had been eclipsed by something malicious, silent, and painful. Aziraphale could not bear to see Crowley shrink so small.
He didn’t know how to reach back out, the distance seemed too great when Crowley was not reaching back. Like a Rubicon crossed.
With a heart too heavy to carry, Aziraphale could only retreat.
“I suppose I should get back to my carriage,” he offered, hoping Crowley would rally; perhaps he could try and persuade him to stay around for another drink or start some sort of debate. Anything to keep Aziraphale there just a while longer, like he usually would.
But Crowley nodded, still giving the tiled floor the majority of his attention.
“Will I see you around soon?” Aziraphale tried, wrestling his way past the nausea climbing up his throat. It felt wrong. Conversation with Crowley was never stilted like this, Aziraphale never had to battle for eye contact.
“I’m not the kind of whore who keeps appointments, angel,” Crowley muttered, his voice strangely empty of all emotion, though the words carried the brute force of his bitterness.
“Pardon?” Aziraphale spluttered; he could feel his eyes straining under his shock. Was Crowley implying that this had been a soulless, hollow transaction?
The clogging, oily sickness in his stomach surged, tearing through him to destroy any residue of the hormonal high that he had felt only moments ago. Aziraphale felt stained by the tsunami of corrosive pain that raged over him.
“I don’t understand,” he said meekly, tugging at the folds in his robe to dispel the nervous energy that begged him to step closer to Crowley, to drag him back into their bubble of thoughtless joy.
“That’s what you thought this was, right? You stepped in to thwart me? That I was offering myself up to the humans out there? A cheap fuck in the dark with a demon.” Crowley spoke quietly, something dangerous and wounded in the quivering sound of it. A cornered animal striking out in hopes of evading harm to itself. As Aziraphale watched Crowley’s display of agony in horror, the demon’s agitated tail whipped back and forth in a defensive manner.
Aziraphale wilted. Sadness swamped him, swallowing him up in a great fanged maw of despair. Was this how Crowley saw himself? Did he imagine Aziraphale was so uncaring? That the angel could be cold and unfeeling towards his longest and only companion? His friend.
His…
No. He could not admit to that. Not even in the solace of his private thoughts.
“No, Crowley. That’s not—” Aziraphale choked. What could he say? The truth was far too dangerous to breathe into life, the fantasy they had acted out had shattered under the weight of it, leaving broken and jagged shards of the angel and demon behind. There was nothing he could say to make this right. Not now, not ever.
“It was your idea, Crowley. Just a bit of anonymous fun. Right?” Aziraphale murmured, paraphrasing Crowley’s convincing argument to the angel earlier that evening. It felt wrong, but anything more than pretending would be suicide.
“And you jumped at the opportunity. How convenient,” Crowley snarled, he seemed to be curling in on himself, stewing in his pain and anger. “Well congratulations, Aziraphale. You can tick it off your list, job complete.”
“You are twisting my words, Crowley! I didn’t know you were here tonight. Besides, I was here to bless a young man crossing over to the Continent next month,” Aziraphale implored Crowley to understand, to bloodlet the poison before it became fatal.
The angry ruffling of Crowley’s feathers ceased and they drooped mournfully. “Right,” the demon whispered, still giving the floor his undivided attention. The scene made Aziraphale sick to his stomach.
Had their tryst been worth it? To drop his mask in favour of another mask? One that didn’t fit him. Aziraphale was an angel, a being of love incarnate, and yet here he stood, breaking two hearts.
With a crisp snap of his shaking fingers, he retrieved his mask, his false white wings and circlet and began retreating to the door as he slid them in place. An angel costume for an angel who did not deserve the love of his Mother. But it was safer that he passed through the humans in some type of disguise, than someone recognising Mr. Fell from Soho leaving a darkened room where he had been in the company of a strangely costumed man.
He could cope with the hurt; he had his heart crumpled so many times… The Flood, The Crucifixion, Job’s children. Each time he had dusted himself off and slid back into his role: a dutiful angel who did as he was told.
Aziraphale just hoped that the demon with his thorny crown and barbed heart would recover as well.
***
Crowley waited for the door to click shut before he allowed himself to crumple to the ground. The room was dark, darker than it had been when the angel was in his arms – Aziraphale had taken all the light with him as he always did. After all, Crowley was a filthy thing, grotesque and broken. He deserved to lurk in the shadows with the rest of his kind. He existed in a lonely void until Aziraphale chose to share his light with him.
It would be a while until the angel would see fit to meet with him again after his little outburst…
Mercifully he was able to force himself to stay numb as he traced the angelic signal rush out of the house. He followed the ghost of Aziraphale’s essence until it was faint enough to be safe. The angel was part of him, Earth had tethered them together – an unbreakable bond that could stretch to the farthest reaches of the universe and never snap.
So when he had seen Aziraphale appear before him looking like an ethereal daydream, Crowley had considered it an omen, he had been helpless to pursue his undying wish. They both wore their true natures as costumes – it was fate, kismet.
Crowley had thought they could be together even for a little while, he had thought their connection could survive the weight of it. He had stupidly assumed that he could handle it, getting everything he had ever wanted and then letting it go. One night to touch, to hold, to lay kisses laced with things he could never say out loud. It was like handing a loaf of bread to a starving man and then snatching it back after he had taken a nibble.
They both knew it had gone too far, cut too deep. They had crossed a line and they had been making love until Aziraphale pulled them back from the brink and what had Crowley done? He had reacted like a scorned beast lashing out.
Fuck, it had hurt.
Now he knew how Aziraphale moulded to his body, the exact pitch of his voice when he thrashed in pleasure. It felt like cursed knowledge. But how could he regret knowing it?
Aziraphale would understand… hopefully.
Losing control of his feelings like that… It was as dangerous as standing in a blessed river. The orgasm was unimaginable, he had flown higher than he had ever thought possible but it was an immediate drop — he and Icarus had always had that in common.
How many times could his wings burn?