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Crowley was anxious. No… truth be told, that would be a bit of an understatement.
Crowley had watched Aziraphale and the Bentley—the two most important things in his life—dart and dodge their way down the busy street until they disappeared around the corner, and then he had immediately begun to pace. Prowling around the bookshop like an animal in a cage.
He was worried… Worried about someone other than him driving his car, worried about Aziraphale being out there on his own with Heaven and Hell sniffing at their heels, worried about being alone with Gabriel… Jim… whatever…
He couldn’t let himself worry too much about that last one though, because… frankly, it was its own whole other can of worms that he was trying desperately not to open. Besides, Jimbriel was safely tucked away, sleeping, or doing whatever inane bullshit his damaged brain found entertaining—out of sight, out of mind. For now.
But Aziraphale nagged at his mind in a way that was difficult to ignore.
Crowley wandered absently over to one of the shelves, automatically drawn back to the Jane Austen books. He plucked down the first of the collection and a nostalgic smile tugged at his lips. Good ol’ Jane was always a welcome distraction, so he figured a few chapters would be a fair way to kill some time. He chose a chair at random and plunked himself down.
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After about a dozen chapters, he decided that an appropriate amount of time had passed and that it would be perfectly reasonable to justify checking in. He took hold of the satin ribbon protruding from the spine and laid it deliberately down the page he was on before closing the book with a snap and placing the book purposely on the closest flat surface.
Now, the thing about being intrinsically linked to a material object is that, after a few decades, the connection is very much automatic. As soon as Crowley had stopped reading and let his mind wander back to the Bentley he became instantly aware of everything he needed to know. He sighed in irritation and pushed himself out of the chair.
He made a beeline for the backroom and locked the door behind him—he wasn’t about to explain to Jim why he was talking to himself.
“Angel?” Crowley began, hand still on the deadbolt. He sidled himself against the doorframe, leaning with his other arm and drumming his fingers against the wooden border, “What are you doing?”
He sensed Aziraphale lightly stiffen in the driver's seat, a minor shift in the light pressure that was encompassing the entire posterior or his body—from his shoulders, all the way down to behind the knees.
“Nothing.” came the overly nonchalant voice of Aziraphale in his mind, “We’re getting along terribly well together.”
Crowley felt something touch the top of his head and spun away from the door in temporary confusion. When he saw nothing that could have feasibly touched him he disregarded it and turned his mind back to the affronting angel.
“You realise, I can feel when you drive the Bentley under the speed limit.”
He smirked a little at the stunned silence that followed and he could almost feel the gears grinding uneasily in Aziraphale's brain before he responded incredulously, “Well, I’m sure you can’t.”
“I can,” he assured him snidely, “So put your foot d–” the sentence trailed off suddenly as Crowley froze in place. Something else was happening. He could feel a gentle… something… on the right side of his chest, a light friction that certainly wasn’t being caused by anything in the room with him.
“W–what are you doing now?” he cringed at the unchecked panic creeping into his voice. He was trying to come up with something else to say—preferably in a much more dignified manner—when the angel interrupted his thoughts, “Uh, what does it feel like I’m doing?”
Crowley hesitated a moment, tentatively allowing himself a moment to feel, then the sensation changed—from a swiping motion to something more circular—and whatever words had been on the tip of his tongue quickly hitched in his throat.
He managed to choke out “Aziraphale stop.” to his own great surprise. Of course he didn’t want to stop, he didn’t even know what there was to stop yet—the phantom digit rubbed gentle circles just above his heart—but this was feeling like dangerous territory.
“What do you feel, Crowley?”
The demon leant his back against the door, reflexively backing himself into a metaphorical corner as he struggled to comprehend the question being asked of him.
“It feels… good.” Crowley admitted through clenched teeth.
“Where?”
Crowley frowned, blinking slowly in stupefaction. “What?”
“Where do you feel it?” an eyebrow shot up as he slowly processed the question. This was bad. He took a shaky breath and answered anyway.
“Just beneath my collarbone, I guess.”
The spectral hand moved. Crowley felt the shadow of fingers wrap around his throat and he couldn’t restrain the guttural sound that tore out of him. Oh, this was really bad.
He pressed himself harder against the door, unsure of what else to do.
“Now?” the voice questioned purposefully. The demon swallowed hard between heavy breaths as his face flushed.
“Mm– uh… my neck.”
“Still feel good?” the grip tightened and Crowley’s knees nearly buckled.
“Ah– mhmm… yeah.” Good wasn’t the right word though. It felt… Well, it felt… Crowley couldn’t actually come up with a word strong enough for how it felt, and he no longer had the mental capacity to try. He could feel himself slowly starting to slip down the door.
Then he felt the other hand touch the nape of his neck—fingers splayed out, pushing up—and a jolt went through him, forcing him back upright.
He thought the fingers would catch in his hair, and found himself hoping to feel them tug his head back, but… oh this was weird.
“Hmhmhmhm...” he launched himself away from the door, pacing around the room suddenly unable to stay still.
“Use your words, Crowley dear.” the hand reached the top of his head and tapped it—Ahh, that's what I’d felt earlier, the demon realised—before starting its journey back down.
“Uh– uh-uh-um… my scalp? Like– but it’s weird. Like my hair isn’t actually there and you’re jus– ah– just touching skin.” he didn’t know how else to describe it. His own hand self-consciously went up and touched his hair lightly, making sure it was still there.
The ghostly fingers returned to the nape and felt the fingertips scrunch up, felt the light bite of fingernails. A whimper escaped his lips.
“Where are you, anyway?”
The hand on his neck was squeezing rhythmically, almost massaging his jugular in a way that was restricting a releasing his blood flow like a dam opening and closing. One delicate finger—presumably from the hand that was no longer on the back of his neck—tracked a path down his sternum.
“Hmnnn– where what?” was all the rattled demon could manage.
“Are you in the bookshop?” the voice prodded gently, and Crowley didn’t like the fact that it sounded like the exact same way that Aziraphale had prompted Muriel early that morning—supplying them with adequate pretence after they’d slipped up, like a teacher trying to guide a small child to the correct answer, “The back room, perhaps?”
“Oh right, uh, yeah. Backroom.”
“Customers?”
“Not so much as a knock on the door yet,” he huffed as a complacent smirk crept up his teeth, “figured there wasn’t much point in opening up unless there was.” he added in what he hoped was a laid-back tone, and suddenly he felt fingertips dragging down the lower portion of his spine—sending marvellous tingles shooting through all of his extremities.
“Very good.” Aziraphale purred over his dramatic gasp, “And Jim?”
Crowley’s wide eyes narrowed in sudden apprehension. WHY was Aziraphale asking these questions? WHAT exactly was he planning to do here? He knew the answers should have been obvious, but it was just too surreal—too absurd—to click.
“Still asleep, last I checked. Why?”
He could feel a threshold hurtling towards him, and he knew he was running out of opportunities to put a stop to this before he ran out of willpower.
“No reason.” the angel's voice vibrated in his brain, the feigned innocence in his cadence set him on edge like an animal sensing the charged atmosphere before an electrical storm.
“No reason at all.”
Silence followed the angel’s ominous words, then suddenly…
Crowley let out a yelp at the unexpected apparition of firm fingers wrapping slowly around a new—very new… brand-spanking new… startlingly new… definitely wasn’t there a minute before—part of his physique. Much lower than anything else he’d felt so far.
He jumped back reflexively, and before he could even wonder when exactly he’d made the effort, he stumbled and landed his rump roughly on Aziraphale's desk. He fell back, flat against the desk and felt a pile of books toppled over and scattered on the carpeted floor.
The sensations vanished.
“Crowley? Are you okay?”
“Fine! Fine… bless it.” grumbled the shamed demon, rubbing the back of his head where it must have bounced off the hard surface. “The desk was just a bit closer than I thought it was.”
“You’re sure you're okay?”
Yellow eyes fluttered shut as the doting concern filled his entire being with a different kind of warmth. A light pressure returned to the centre of his chest and he chuckled at the nervous rigidity he could feel in the ghostly fingers.
“Yeah, everything's okay.” he brought his other hand up and laid it softly on his chest, right where he could feel Aziraphale's gentle touch, surprised to feel an unnatural warmth—that was not entirely his own—there beneath his palm.
Then there was something on the demon's neck again. Not the firm, rough hands of an angel who handled books all day and night until his hands dried out—something supple and smooth and plump, he could feel the contours of it.
Lips.
He moaned.
“Aziraphale…”
The warmth of the angel's hand slipped out from under Crowley’s, inching it way back up and his neck was engulfed in bliss. The forceful pressure around the base of his throat in juxtaposition to the ludicrously soft mouth—somehow working in perfect harmony—reduced the demon to a simpering mess. Thought was completely lost to him at that moment.
And then the lightest graze against his newly materialised bulge.
Crowley whimpered, and in any other situation he would have been mortified by the whiney undertone that had crept its way into every little salacious sound he was making, but the continued conflict between his common sense and his domineering lust was limiting his ability to think about much of anything else.
The graze trailed down the length of him and loosely enveloped him at the base. Crowley braced himself for whatever was about to happen, one hand gripping against the edge of the desk, still cradling his head with the other.
He felt hot breath on his neck as Aziraphale asked, “Do you want me to stop?”
Yes… a small part of him whispered, but it was drowned out by the rest of his body and heart and soul screaming… NO! The sensation had stilled in place, and Crowley unwittingly squirmed under the sudden, agonising lack of stimulus.
“This is a bad idea, angel.” was all he could bring himself to say.
“Not what I asked.” Aziraphale scolded, and there was something about that tone that sent the blood from his heart rushing down, down, down.
“Do you want me to stop?” the demon groaned low in his throat and he felt his entire body shudder—quite involuntarily—with arousal.
“Want is not the issue here.”
Time stretched excruciating as the gravity of Crowley’s words weighed heavy in the air.
Want very much was the issue, right down to its root. It was an issue how much he wanted this. It was an issue how much he wanted to snap his fingers and be there in that car with Aziraphale, to pull the angel into the backseat—while his Bentley cruised gently down the motorway—and make Aziraphale kiss him for real. On the lips. With tongue. It was an issue how much he wanted to touch him in return.
Slowly, the scattered kisses returned to his neck, a hand ghosted delicately up and down his lower back, and the soft friction on his crotch resumed. Crowley’s breathing quickly became ragged between almost prayerful moans. “Ahh– a-angel…” the phantom hand took a firmer grasp and stroked meticulously slow, maddeningly slow. The friction spiralling its way all the way to the tip.
“Ffff– Satan’s sake.”
The voice tsked disapprovingly in his ear, “Really, my dear. Language.”
Crowley cut off, mid-groan and his articulation was lost to bewilderment.
“Language?” he scoffed between frazzled breaths, the lazy onslaught of sensation on his body was really disrupting his mental capacity. “Language? Angel–”
Flustered, Crowley stammered for several seconds before realising he wasn’t saying anything remotely coherent. Infuriated by his own ineptitude and all but growling under his breath, he forced a shaky breath and tried again.
“Ahh– you have n-no idea, Aziraphale… Mm– no idea w-what you’re doing to me, what I’m feeling–” the voice within his head was unnervingly quiet and the pace upon his body was achingly consistent. Crowley bucked his hips up, thoughtlessly—desperately seeking more friction but obviously not finding it—into the empty air, “–for hell’s sake, I d-didn’t even know this was possi–” nails dug into his back and ran between his shoulder blades down to the curve of his back, causing it to arch off the hardwood, “–no one’s even driven the Bentley beside me, let alone–” the invisible hand tightened its grip as it continued to stroke without faltering, choking off the rest of his rant as effectively—or, more effectively, if he was being honest—as if it had been the hand on his throat.
“Hhh– uhh– angel…” Crowley heard himself, “...angel please.”
A low rumble rattled around the demon's brain and it took him a moment to figure out that it was Aziraphale. Growling. Figuring out how much hearing that sound coming from his angel was arousing him, on the other hand, was a much easier job.
“Please what?” the necking paused while the angel spoke and awaited a response, both hands still working respectively on his throat and groin. Slowly, so slowly.
“P–please.” he whispered, again and again. Begging, pleading, praying
“Please what, Crowley?”
Crowley's hand dug into the edge of the flat surface, and if he was capable of focusing on anything other than Aziraphale’s dominating tone—and the effects it was having on his corporation—he might have been concerned about leaving dents.
“Ngk. Please… f–faster!” Crowley moaned the words desperately before he could stop himself—the irony was not lost on him and he hoped that Aziraphale wouldn’t think to tease him about it—and felt the blood rush up to his face, making him blush furiously before rushing back down to where the rhythm of sensations mercifully picked up, the mouth returned to his throat.
Crowley’s heart raced faster and his breathing raced with it. He was huffing and gasping and desperately choking down the lustful dissonance escaping from his lips, steadily growing as his restraint started to give out. And the faster he moaned, the faster the unseen hand stroked and tugged and teased.
A particularly unruly moan burst out of him and a surge of anxiety hit him like a brick. He was being too loud. He couldn’t be loud, not now, not like this. Not with everything that was—figuratively and literally—looming over his head. He may not have had the strength to say no to this, but that didn’t mean he had to scream yes, unfettered, until the whole blessed world knew of their transgressions.
His fingers bit deeper into the wooden ledge and his other hand clamped over his mouth, hard. Yes, he had strength enough for this. He cried comfortably into his palm for all of a few seconds before everything came to a jarring halt.
“No no no. Don’t do that. Don’t cover your mouth.”
The demon whimpered. Miserable, conflicted, and—thanks to a combination of Aziraphale’s forceful demand and the hot wrothful breath of his neck—helplessly horny. The shadow of lips brushed against his neck, “I want to hear you.”
Oh, fuck! Crowley couldn’t stop the sob from tumbling from his mouth. He draped his arm over his eyes, he knew Aziraphale couldn’t see him but he still felt the intense urge to hide his shame. He really wanted to obey, to just give over entirely and scream his angel’s name until God herself came down and scourged him from the earth… but how could he?
“W–what if Jim hears?” he asked, finally putting his fears into concrete thoughts, “What if– What if Muriel comes back? How the heaven would I explain this?” he took a shaky breath as he waited fretfully, watching stars burst forth in the void of his compressed eyelids.
“The door to the backroom,” the firm pressure returned to his throat, fingers squeezing firmly until Crowley could not even swallow the tentative moan that was extracted from him when the stroking also slowly resumed, “is it locked?”
“Mm, yeah. Uh-huh,” Crowley managed to focus long enough to say, “locked up g–good ‘n tight.” the angel's pace quickly reached its previous tempo—the soft press of lips rejoining the hand on his clavicle—and the demon was once again at Aziraphale’s mercy.
“Well then, my dear,” the angel purred in his ear, “there’s nothing for you to fear. You see, locked doors within the bookshop have their own little level of protection. Nothing too impressive, mind you, just a little extra something…” Crowley’s jaw dropped as understanding washed over him, he ignored all impulse to suppress the groans that followed. There was no way, “...mostly just a bit of magical soundproofing.”
The demon barked humorously as he slid his arm back under his head, “You’re joking!”
“I would never joke about something like this.” the voice murmured meaningfully, Phantom fingernails clawed their way down Crowley's lower back and his torso lifted, catlike, from the cold surface, then he felt a soft palm smooth back up the same path—it felt nice, calming even—and then those same claws savaged their way back down. A cold nose nuzzled into his throat and worked slowly down his chest at the same time the hand soothed all the way up to the base of his neck and cradled him there.
“Oh hell, that feels– mhmhm...” any possible word he could have potentially come with died on his tongue as Aziraphale’s wicked finger played with him, changing the rhythm suddenly. Quickly up, slowly down, quickly up, slowly down, again and again and again.
“Ah– don’t stop! P–please don’t stop again!”
Crowley thought he heard the angel cuss under his breath, but was too preoccupied to care. Who was he to tease anyone else when he was in the state that he was in, after all? He was panting, and gasping and moaning at the new relentless pace being set upon him, and then he felt the thumb.
At the crest of a stroke, he felt the rough thumb strike out, firmly swiping over the tip before rubbing back down hard, causing Crowley to cry out euphorically.
“Angel! Ah– d–do that again. Please.”
The motion repeated—just as gratifying as the first—and repeated, over and over until Crowley was practically hyperventilating through his desire. The light sprinkling of kisses all over his torso grounded him with tenderness in the otherwise entirely too erotic scene he found himself playing out on that desk. Panting. Writhing. Sweating. Not quite able to catch his breath between mewls of the angel's name.
“Listen to you,” the words vibrated along his throat, spreading through his chest and down his limbs until every molecule in his body shook with it, “you’re a mess.”
“Angel! Hgn–” waves of heat travelled down his body in waves, crashing and settling in the pit of his stomach. Muscles Crowley had never used before were clenching and relaxing in time with Azirapahle’s relentless pistoning.
“Holy sh– I– I think I’m– uh…” his breathing quickened, the spasms quickened, the pounding pace of the angel's tight fist quickened—wild, erratic, frantic—and when one increased, the others were fast to follow.
The hand still cupping the nape of his neck was doing little much to steady him and he found himself reaching up his hands to brace himself as the undulating pleasure began to hit with frighteningly increasing speed.
“Ah– Aziraphale! Oh G–”
The desk rattled with the force of the demon wantonly bucking his hips mindless as he shouted and moaned through his release—knocking around a great deal harder than it honestly reasonably should have been—and the air crackled with the pent-up energy of 6000 years.
Crowley continued to convulse and twitch long after all the other sensations had faded and his breathing began to level out. He dragged both of his hands over his face and left them, like a mask over his eyes.
“Oh– oh, angel– Aziraphale, that was–” Crowley peered out from behind his fingers. Something had changed. “Aziraphale?” he sat up, realising that he could no longer feel the angel inside the Bentley. More startling, he realised he could no longer feel the Bentley.
The connection was severed.
The demon looked down at himself. He was sweaty and uncomfortably sticky in some very unpleasant places. He snapped his fingers. Nothing happened.
“Interesting…” he murmured. He’d heard that orgasms could do some pretty wild things to humans, physically and mentally—stuff ranging from not being able to walk for hours after, to full-blown amnesia in some cases—but he’d never imagined it would drain him of his miracles.
He wondered how long it would last. He wondered if he could build up his endurance with enough practice, like humans can. He wondered if Aziraphale would experience the same phenomenon.
Awkwardly, he pushed himself off of the desk and stood unsteadily, supporting his own weight with a shaky sigh. He made his way over to the door and unlocked it slowly, quietly, stealthily cracking the door open just enough to peer out and listen through. Once satisfied that the rest of the shop was still silent, he snuck out and headed for the stairs, trying to remember if there was a washcloth in the bathroom that he could use to clean himself up with.