Chapter Text
It all began with chapstick.
Now neither Aziraphale or Crowley really needed chapstick, though surely they didn’t need a lot of things. Say, clothes for instance. Or the new cologne Aziraphale’s barber had suggested, or even the barber for that matter, seeing as both he and Crowley were afforded the ability to bend the shape and appearance of their own bodies within the bounds of reason.
Frivolity came with its benefits though, a refined sense of self, the appreciation of every passing moment, amusement. Though it also came with its downsides as well, given the rather inflated ego that Crowley sported. Aziraphale made no mention of that though, he found it endearing really, not that he’d ever openly admit that aloud of course.
Perhaps it didn’t actually begin with chapstick, in retrospect. Perhaps it began with the way that Crowley looked at him as they stood atop the walls that surrounded the Garden of Eden, the grin that played on his lips and the golden of his eyes. Lead balloon. Aziraphale had to wait until approximately 1824 to witness a balloon in flight for the first time, and yes, he could agree then that everything had in fact gone down much like a lead balloon might.
He allowed himself a small giggle at the thought. While he may have lost his sword and also “Apple Tree Duty,” he felt he’d gained so much more that day. Another thing he would never admit aloud.
Or perhaps it had begun from the very beginning, as the ineffable plan was woven into the intangible tapestry of time and space. An inevitable beginning that never began but instead just always was, a beginning in the making.
But for the sake of the moment, it began with cherry chapstick.
It was fair to say that both he and Crowley enjoyed the unnecessary. Especially the delightfully unnecessary. As they both stood aside the bridge that led over shallow streams of ducks and geese into a vast and glittering lake, Crowley fished a small tube from his pocket, applying the contents generously along his lips with as much casual grace as he’d always been blessed with.
At first, Aziraphale was content with making no mention of it. That was until he noticed the sheer sparkle against pale pink. Now he knew what Crowley’s lips looked like - not that he’d studied them before - but it was fair to say that he knew that they did not sparkle, nor were they a deeper shade of pale rose, rather they typically held a shade of pink blossom in deep spring.
So he looked up, and Crowley looked up to meet his gaze, and then he looked down, but no, he looked up again. Again he looked down. This exchange lasted roughly thirty seconds before Crowley stirred where he stood against the rail, “Spit it out angel.”
“What exactly is it that I’m spitting out?” A chuckle escaped him, awkward and weakly delivered, two hands gripping the bar and fingers tapping along antsily.
“Oh you know what it is, come now don’t play dumb with me, you’re far too clever for that.” Crowley shifted, elbow resting only inches from Aziraphale’s hands. He raised his brows expectantly, and through the shades, the angel could make out his pupils, darting along his own face.
“Well I couldn’t help but notice the new shade of maquillage, it’s quite flattering.”
Crowley didn’t have to take his glasses off for Aziraphale to know that he’d most certainly executed the eyeroll of the century.
“Maquillage Aziraphale? It’s chapstick, not parlor makeup. Can’t recall a person from this century that calls it-”
“Well nonetheless it certainly has that moxy doesn’t it?”
Crowley looked incredulous for a moment, running a hand over his face and shaking his head, “So that’s all you had to say then? Here I was thinking you might ask something important, or perhaps-”
“Well I was curious as to the flavor of the chap-stick,” he spoke, accentuating the painfully modern term.
“The flavor, oh for fuck’s sake - it’s cherry Aziraphale. What, would you like a taste as well you cotton ball dolt?”
“Well I do like cherry.” Aziraphale commented, perhaps a bit too casually. The pause that fell between them was pointed and the angel didn’t quite realize the implication of his words until Crowley had leaned forward almost too quickly. The usual grace of his actions was replaced by something furious, something demanding, a side of Crowley that he only caught glimpses of on rare occasions.
A side of Crowley he had no qualms with.
Then it was lips on lips at the center of the park where the ducks floated atop the water and listened (with the ears they most certainly had) to the songs of nightingales and sparrows. His eyes were wide at first, and just briefly the thought crossed his mind that the two of them might be in big trouble with the-...
The offices that both of them had thoroughly abandoned after the near apocalypse.
And only as Crowley tilted his head, pressed a hand to his hip to pull him closer, did he realize something crucial. Neither of them were bound by the nature of the good or the bad. Neither of them were restricted by expectations, or in fear of being punished for their disobedience.
They were free. Free to have lunch, free to fraternize, free to kiss - to do so much more in fact. He'd never felt as liberated as he had in this moment, basking in the infernal warmth of the fallen before him.
That freedom began with lip tint cherry chapstick on a warm July afternoon, away from prying eyes and nosy coworkers. All soft and chaste until it was not, until it was tongues playing along lower lips, wrestling and hungrier than ever before, neither moving to pull away seeing as breathing was more a luxury than a necessity. But this now, this long awaited friction, it was of utmost importance.
“We never did… pay a visit to my flat.” Crowley cooed, his lips ghosting over Aziraphale’s, taunting him with the almost-contact and could-bes, should-bes if you’d asked either of them in that moment.
“Yes I… suppose we never did. Shall we then?”