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Christmas on Earth is like nothing else.
Very few angels have the opportunity to experience it. For whatever reason — perhaps the intended nature of the season, a hopeful angel can dream — the holidays tend to bring about the best in humanity, leaving very little work for the angels. There are, of course, opportunities for miracles — Christmas miracles, as the mortals like to call them. But for the majority of angelkind, Christmastime is practically a month-long hiatus — time off to bum around Heaven dutiless. Aziraphale has the good fortune of being stationed on Earth regardless of the season, so he’s enjoyed many, many, many Christmases here.
Christmas has evolved over the centuries. It’s not just the traditions themselves that have changed; the act of gift-giving around the holidays has been around roughly since the fourth century; it began as a pagan ritual that was adopted by Christians as a humble homage to the gifts bestowed upon Jesus by the Magi at the miracle of his birth. The legacy of Saint Nicholas was soon to follow, as the gruffly-bearded bishop took to gift-giving like a duck to water. His philanthropic spirit was an inspiration to all, helping the tradition to persist in the centuries to come.
No, it isn’t the traditions themselves that have changed; but humanity’s relationship to it has certainly evolved over time. Aziraphale is equal parts happy to report and regretful to recognize that the miraculous role he played in inspiring Queen Victoria to popularize the importance of gift-giving quickly took on a life of its own. While it did lead to the crippling commercialisation of what was always meant to be a spiritual celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, it also sowed good will for decades to come.
Aziraphale can’t help but enjoy himself around the holidays. The emphasis on materialism is certainly a disappointment, but it is a small price to pay for the cheer and goodwill that comes along with it — the rampant altruism that connects humanity to one another.
Not to mention he’s a total sucker for the general aesthetic of the holiday against the backdrop of a wintery London — the way a fresh snowfall decorates the barren tree branches and covers the spires of historic buildings; the colorful strings of lights that hang from shops, high up on traffic lights across streets, around lamp posts; the holiday feasts full of humanity’s finest cuisine; the delightful array of costumed characters that parade in the streets. He loves it all.
Especially the costumed characters. Those are quite fun. In fact, that may be Aziraphale’s favorite part. And this year, he’s decided to partake of the festivities.
Truth be told, even without miraculous intervention, it was very easy to get a job as a shopping centre Santa. Aziraphale already possesses most of the desired features — the white hair, the jolly face, the twinkling eyes, and a little rounder than some of his human counterparts. He still needs a fair amount of stuffing in his red velvet suit to properly fill out the quintessential Santa silhouette, but the insulation is very welcome in the chilly winter atmosphere.
Aziraphale’s “Santa’s Workshop” is about the size of a tool shed, conveniently placed at the beginning of a charming outdoor mall, and he has taken great pride in fully outfitting it with all the best trimmings. Outside, a cinemaesque dusting of faux snow on the sand-stricken ground, enormous candy-cane pillars with metallic tinsel scarves stationed at the front doors that swing into the workshop; and inside, woodworking tables with impressive-looking (but perfectly safe, non-functioning) machinery, coat racks with the freshly pressed wardrobe of the worker elves tucked into the far corners of the room, even a collage of family photos of Santa and Mrs. Claus — which may or may not have been pilfered from Saint Nicholas’s actual abode, years after his death, but which Aziraphale insists, to anyone who asks, are simply very realistic fabrications designed by the world’s most talented concept artists.
The line of excited children flanked by their exhausted but momentarily reprieved parents is not terribly long. It tends to ebb and flow throughout the day, as most of the families are busy rushing about from storefront to storefront, looking for the best deals and hidden gems before the eleventh hour. Currently, the line has perhaps a half dozen prospective customers ready to confide in Santa their heart’s desires.
Aziraphale has just finished advising a young girl in pigtails that Santa’s inventory on Nintendo Switch 2s might be a little tight this year (based on the frantic shaking of her frazzled-looking mother’s head) but assuring her that Santa will do his best to come up with something equally satisfying, when suddenly a commotion begins somewhere at the back of the crowd. Panic ripples to the front of the line in a wave of yelps and shrieks as parents start scooping up their children and hurrying along in every conceivable direction. The little girl currently perched on his knee is whisked away, leaving him quite curious as to the cause of the excitement.
And then, through the clearing of the patrons, Aziraphale spots it — an enormous black snake, slithering its way straight for him. Aziraphale’s eyes roll so hard they nearly fall right out of his skull.
“Don’t be afraid, ladies and gentlemen!” he calls uselessly, although most of the parents have already absconded with their children. “Just give Santa a few minutes to sort this snake out, and all will be well!” He reaches behind the doorframe of the workshop and pulls out a sign (from seemingly nowhere) that reads “BACK IN 5 MINUTES!” He hurriedly, and surreptitiously, ushers the snake into the workshop, hangs the sign on the doorknob by a hemp-wrought rope, and snaps the doors shut behind him.
When he turns around, he finds himself facing a fully human-shaped Crowley.
“Did you see their faces?” he snickers, beaming with pride. “Couple of ‘em looked like they were about to wet themselves. Blimey, I love Christmas.”
“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale hisses, rounding on him and jabbing a pointer finger into his chest. “You’re ruining Christmas!”
“Wwelll, I’m a demon,” Crowley points out. “‘S what I do, innit?”
“You’re ruining my Christmas,” he clarifies with a rosy-lipped pout. “Not to mention my livelihood. Do you know I’m paid by the customer?”
“You don’t need a livelihood,” Crowley drawls with an eye-roll to rival Aziraphale’s. “You own a bookshop for Christsake.”
“Please, Crowley, do temper your blasphemy, it’s Christmas —”
“Not to mention,” Crowley continues, ignoring Aziraphale’s interruption, “you can miracle up a bit of cash whenever you please!” Crowley prods Aziraphale right back in the chest with an index finger of his own.
“You know what I mean,” Aziraphale argues. “Why have you come to my workshop to cause your mischief? Isn’t there another Santa in another mall you could be bothering?”
“Course there is,” Crowley says dully, “but I wanted to see you.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, some of the venom leaving his voice. “Well, you didn’t have to scare away all my customers just to see me.”
“Sure I did,” Crowley says, stepping an inch closer. “How else was I going to get you alone?”
Blood rushes to Aziraphale’s cheeks, warming him from the inside out, making his costume’s insulation quite moot. “Alone,” he repeats. It was meant to be a question, but the inquisition scatters from his voice like dust in the wind.
“Yeah,” Crowley says as he takes Aziraphale’s hand, leading him over to Santa’s throne at the front of the shop.
“And whyever would you want to do that?”
Crowley positions Aziraphale in front of the seat, places his hands on his shoulders, and pushes him down into it. “Something about this season just makes me wanna rip the trousers off the first angel I see.” He whirls in a circle to stand behind the chair, placing his hands on the muscles between Aziraphale’s neck and shoulders. He pinches slowly, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “Fortunately, you’re the only angelic company I tend to keep.”
“I see,” Aziraphale says, in place of anything more clever. “Come to embarrass me, then, have you?”
“You know perfectly well that’s not what I mean,” Crowley says in a low tone. He draws back up to his full height, dragging his fingers up Aziraphale’s neck as he goes. He tucks his pointer fingers behind Aziraphale’s ears, unhooking the fishing wire that holds the fake Santa beard in place. “D’you remember that Christmas?” he asks, tossing the beard unceremoniously onto the workshop floor somewhere behind them. “In Paris? 1904?”
Aziraphale swallows. Yes. He remembers it quite well. “That was a long time ago,” is all he says.
“Yes, it was,” Crowley agrees, running a hand over the rough stubble of Aziraphale’s exposed jaw, like a barber preparing to tend to his client. It’s been a few days since Aziraphale has bothered to shave; what good does it do when you’re only going to throw a long, fake beard over it, anyway? “A very long time ago,” Crowley continues, his long fingers extending back down Aziraphale’s neck. “Too long.”
“Too long for what?” Aziraphale asks, although he already knows — and Crowley knows he knows — what the answer is.
“I work in bloody Temptations, for Chr— crying out loud,” Crowley mutters, catching his own blasphemy at the tip of his tongue. “You can’t be out here showing me up.”
“What are you saying, Crowley?”
“I’m saying,” he growls, “if Hell knew how good you were at temptation, I’d be out of a job.” He rakes a hand through Aziraphale’s hair from the back of his head to the front, closes a fist around a handful of wispy blonde forehead curls, and then yanks back. Aziraphale gasps, blinking up at him, upside down and turned around, as Crowley lowers his own head down enough to get in whispering distance. “And you’d be out of a halo.”
Crowley releases his grip on Aziraphale’s hair with slight force, sending his head careening back forward. His fingers return to Aziraphale’s neck where he slides them down beneath the white cotton collar, palm pressed flat against his clavicle, causing Aziraphale’s eyes to roll back in his head for an entirely different reason this time.
“So?” Crowley asks.
Aziraphale’s brain fails to start. “So what?” he asks, loopy on the high of his bothersome endorphins.
“Christmas,” Crowley repeats, “Paris. 1904. Shall I refresh your memory?” One hand steadies on Aziraphale’s chest while the other snakes around to the front of his waist. “Marie Curie had just given birth to a healthy baby girl,” Crowley says, finding the buckle around Aziraphale’s waist and deftly liberating it with one hand. “The motor show was in town...” He yanks the belt from its loops and tosses it into the ether to join the fake beard. The lapels of the red velvet suit fall away, helped by Crowley’s hands, sending the padding to the floor and a shock of cold winter air to Aziraphale’s chest. “And you,” Crowley continues, his mouth so deep in Aziraphale’s ear that he practically swallows it, “had your pretty little mouth wrapped around my —”
“Lord, have mercy,” Aziraphale groans.
“Don’t bother asking for Her mercy,” Crowley smirks. “She can’t help you now.”
Crowley rounds the chair to stand before a heaving Aziraphale, out of breath like he’s just climbed Mount Everest, which is about the size of his arousal right about now. Crowley takes in the sight of him, his skin already glistening with a fevered sweat, yet still trembling in the cold. He puts his hands on the arms of the chair and leans over. “I’ve thought about it every night ever since,” he murmurs. “Do you ever think about it, Angel?”
Yes. He thinks about it constantly. At the most inconvenient times. Vivid visions of Crowley laid out on the bed like the body of Christ broken only for him. He remembers how hastily he swallowed Crowley down, consumed him greedily like a man starving, driven by an ancient need just as much as by Crowley’s hand tangled in his hair. He remembers the taste of salt and sin and sanctity, remembers the sound it dragged out of Crowley’s thrumming body. He remembers how Crowley fit in his mouth, like one was made for the other, remembers Crowley shaking apart at the press and slide of his tongue, back arched, head thrown back in ecstasy, crying Aziraphale’s name like a forbidden prayer. He remembers how he considered putting a miracle seal on Crowley’s body to keep the marks he left along his inner thighs from healing, to brand his skin with a permanent reminder of his sacrament. He remembers deciding against it, hoping to one day be given the opportunity to make them anew.
He knows that every time he’s thought about it since, he’s taken himself apart. Thought about how he might do it differently if given another chance. Would he still swallow Crowley whole before he knew what hit him, blinding them both with liturgical rapture? Or would he take his time, make the demon beg for it?
Not that he would ever admit any of this to Crowley. So instead he says, most casually —
“On occasion.”
Crowley grins, the grin of a man who has gotten his wicked way, a man who could flick his tongue at the air and smell the secrets hidden behind Aziraphale’s careless understatement. “Mm,” he hums. “So you’re on the naughty list, then. Does Mrs. Claus know?”
“Very funny,” Aziraphale grumbles.
“Listen,” Crowley croons, a taunting sympathy dripping off every syllable, “it’s Christmastime. And although I would likely be... well, whatever Hell’s version of smited is, if anyone found out I was celebrating the birth of Christ, I’m not completely without a little holiday whimsy.”
“Dare I ask what you mean by that?”
“I come bearing gifts,” Crowley says simply, and as innocently as is feasible with his very tempting tone. “So, Santa, what would you say to a snake in your lap?” Without waiting for a response, he straddles Aziraphale’s thighs and sits down, causing Aziraphale to whimper and squirm beneath him. “Oh, look at that,” he says. “You’ve already got one of your own. How thoughtful.”
“I swear to the Lord,” Aziraphale curses, “if I ever get my hands on the wretched creature who created puns —”
Crowley snakes his fingers under the red Santa suit jacket, pushing it off Aziraphale’s shoulders to drape neatly over the back of the armchair. “Well, you’re looking at him,” he murmurs before taking each of Aziraphale’s hands and placing them onto his own thighs. “So what will you do, then?” he asks huskily. “Now that you’ve got your hands on me, as solemnly sworn?”
Aziraphale sucks in a sharp breath, a feeble attempt to summon some sort of witty response, but frustratingly, none comes to him. “I’m afraid it seems I’m capable of very little at the moment,” he finally admits, defeat crippling his voice.
“‘S all right,” Crowley says. “I plan to do most of the work, anyway.”
In demonstration, he leans down and presses his lips into the side of Aziraphale’s neck, drawing an absolutely illicit sound from the poor angel. In between kisses (which feel much more like vacuum suction), Crowley bears his teeth, still slightly longer in the cuspids from his snake transformation. He grazes them along Aziraphale’s skin, raising gooseflesh that he definitely cannot blame on the winter air.
“Well?” Crowley murmurs expectantly along Aziraphale’s skin.
“Well?” Aziraphale gasps. “What?”
“I’m in your lap, Santa,” Crowley points out, quite helpfully. “Aren’t you meant to ask if I’ve been naughty or nice?”
Aziraphale’s fingers involuntarily clench around Crowley’s hips. “I think we both know the answer to that,” he deadpans.
“Yeahhhh,” Crowley agrees, “but I still wanna hear you say it.”
Aziraphale clears his throat, which does absolutely nothing to lubricate it. “Have you been naughty —”
“Yes,” Crowley interrupts, moving his head up Aziraphale’s neck, setting his lips in a trailblaze along Aziraphale’s jaw. “Very, very naughty.”
“I see,” is all Aziraphale can manage as his fingers twitch, hands sliding up Crowley’s back of their own accord.
“Now you gotta ask if there’s something I want for Christmas,” Crowley reminds him, dragging his lips and teeth along to Aziraphale’s forehead, breathing desperate, humid need over his brow.
“I think I’m quite clear on what you want, actually.”
“Aren’t you listening?” Crowley tuts. “You gotta ask anyway. It’s your job, why do I have to keep telling you?”
Aziraphale grunts in frustration at his stubbornness, which honestly comes out a lot more like a groan of something else. “What do you want for Christmas?”
“I want...” He pauses, dragging his lips along the hairline above Aziraphale’s brow. “Confession,” he says, rolling his hips in Aziraphale’s lap and soliciting the most wonderful moan from the angel. “I want blasphemy,” he adds, running a hand down Aziraphale’s bare chest toward the hem of his trousers. “More than anything,” he says, running his hand across the sizeable want between Aziraphale’s legs, “I want this.”
“Fuck,” Aziraphale whines in the tiniest voice.
“That’s more or less the idea, yeah,” Crowley says. With his free hand, he sends a quick snap to the sign hanging out front, changing the text from ‘BACK IN 5 MINUTES!’ to ‘BACK IN 1 HOUR.’
“What do you think, Angel? Is an hour enough?” Crowley grins, and a flash of amber behind the shield of his dark glasses sets Aziraphale’s already thundering heart on a marathon sprint.
He isn’t sure how to respond; he never thought this would happen once, let alone a second time, although he could never hold himself back from hoping. He certainly didn’t expect it in a shopping mall, surrounded by a suffocating amount of humans within earshot, and certainly not dressed as Santa, of all things. Well, half-dressed at this point. The situation is quite ludicrous; but oh, if he isn’t painfully turned on by it already.
“That depends on what you had in mind, serpent.” He was going for a teasing tone, but his voice deflates enough that he sounds almost meek, and that just won’t do. If they are going to play this game, Aziraphale needs to find a way to get the upper hand, and quickly. Crowley may have had the element of surprise, but he’s the one who came here looking for trouble, clearly thirsty for something unholy. Aziraphale is the one in a position of power — the power to give, the power to take — and he has a naughty snake in his lap...
He coughs as if to clear his throat and holds Crowley’s stare pointedly, signalling his assent to continue. The demon‘s smile spreads across his sculpted cheeks wickedly; it’s truly unfair how it sends fatal volts of lightning through the angel’s nervous system.
“Well, if you’re leaving it up to me... I have been dreaming of your cock since Paris, wondering how you taste.“ Crowley licks his lips, and it is somehow equal parts silly and absolutely pornographic, and Aziraphale’s cock is desperately bulging beneath the stimulation of Crowley’s groin, still rolling in calculated circles. “How well you might fit in my throat.”
Aziraphale’s chest swells with a violent breath of arousal. Crowley’s predatory eyes track every little movement as he unconsciously swallows, his throat suddenly tight, and he has a feeling that he just whimpered quite pathetically at the vision of Crowley tucked between his quaking thighs.
“You had better get to work, then,” he says gruffly. The thick suit trousers are suddenly stifling enough that he feels a sheen of sweat prickling his forehead and at the nape of his neck. He remembers this too, from Paris — the way flames had crackled from within the hollows of his body, fighting their way out to the surface, thawing him out. How every brush of their bodies had him shivering, aching, longing.
It isn’t just desire he can feel spiking his blood pressure and stiffening in his groin; it’s magnetism. Opposite ends of a spectrum, destined for each other and yet endlessly forced apart. But they always find each other, snapping together until the jagged and torn edges smooth into one whole.
Aziraphale liberates the shaky breath held hostage in his lungs as Crowley slips out of his lap, mesmerisingly fluid, parting the angel’s legs as he sinks to the floor between them. There is a look of greedy satisfaction as the demon slips off his sunglasses and tosses them haphazardly behind him, clattering into some snow-dusted prop or other. Aziraphale ought to be irritated by the lack of care shown to his carefully crafted grotto, but such things fade to nothing with the weight of Crowley’s candid gaze of devotion holding him captive.
Crowley’s eyes recall dark wizards and big bad wolves of legend and literature, reminiscent of the many years that Aziraphale’s nose was firmly ensconced in a book, doing his best to conjure that unique shade in his mind’s eye. But they also connote traffic lights — slow down, you’re going too fast (Aziraphale ignores his own caution) — and sherbert lemons — sweet and acerbic. Butter and rich honey on toast — the simple taste of home.
The elegant harpist fingers that Aziraphale has always adored search for the clasp holding his trousers closed. Crowley deftly unpins them, holding Aziraphale’s tunnelled vision all the while. There is something in those citrine eyes that locks onto the angel, something more erotic than the keen hands seeking out his sensitive cock. Aziraphale can see every year of longing in them, and he wants nothing more than to even out the glass-shard ache in them.
His cock is pushing lewdly against his cotton shorts now, explicit in its yearning to be freed into Crowley’s generous grasp; and mercifully, uncharacteristically, Crowley does not make him wait. It is obvious how much the demon wants this, too; wordless but infinite, omnipresent.
Crowley pulls the concealing fabric down with one hand and pulls Aziraphale’s pulsing cock out with the other. The angel’s gaze flicks between his cock in his lover’s fist and the way Crowley’s obsidian-slitted pupils almost swallow the wheat-field gold bands of iris like a great sinkhole of lust. There are no words in any of the universal languages that they both speak to describe the way Crowley’s eyes betray his heart. Maybe something in French, but Aziraphale is too distracted to recall his lessons.
Aziraphale cannot look away for fear of missing even a moment when Crowley wraps his fingers reverently around his pinkened shaft, skin pulled so tight, the rivers and estuaries of blue veins stand out starkly against the hard, flushing landscape. Crowley has a solid grip around him, like he’s wielding a precious artefact. A holy weapon. Maybe he is.
Aziraphale’s flaming sword always looked better in someone else’s hand, anyway.
There are fingers sinking into the plush red velvet of his trousers, something for the demon to cling to lest he lose himself, a buoying grip. Aziraphale wants Crowley to let go, to free-fall into the event horizon. He will catch the demon this time or burn up with him.
Like the precise strumming of a devoted musician, Crowley lets the coil of his fingers slip up and down the liquid flesh of Aziraphale’s foreskin, pushing it over the hair-trigger red tip and down again, distributing the viscous shine of fluid as it moves. There’s a rasping noise escaping the angel as his self-control starts to disintegrate.
Crowley’s efforts are hypnotic as the repetitive movement has Aziraphale enchanted, the way one loses themselves in the flames of a hearth or the ripples in a river. His chest swells and falls with the delicious pressure building in his abdomen — how much sensation can this fragile, human body hold before it bursts?
His idle curiosity is answered almost immediately — pleasure is limitless when entrusted to the demon, Crowley makes sure of it, as he rises on his knees, bending over the peak of the angel’s erection and pressing his lips to the head of it. Aziraphale’s fingertips dig into the wood of the armrest, gouging deep ravines into the polished oak.
The heat of his mouth is almost excruciating, and yet it builds still as Crowley sucks in more of his flesh. Aziraphale closes his eyes, overwhelmed by the wet probing tongue over his leaking slit that makes him hiss and groan. One breath in, one breath out, his body rolling into Crowley’s possession like a plea.
Crowley works the length of him with curled fingers, lavishing the head with decadent kisses and strokes of a devilish tongue. Aziraphale watches intently as the red flesh slips in and out of the demon’s clever mouth, and Crowley seems as enraptured as Aziraphale ever is over a gourmet treat, his buttercup eyes sealed shut, entirely focused on his object of sacred feasting.
Aziraphale shuts his eyes, too; he tries to quiet his mind so the only thing in existence is this perfect, stolen moment where their appetites can be sated. But, even behind the veil of his eyelids, he cannot help but read poetry in the creases of Crowley’s face, the eroticism of how his lips stretch wide around the angel’s girth. He admires the robin-breast red of his fashionably cropped hair, tousled by his bobbing head as he pleasures his enraptured angel. His hair is red for passion, red for rushing blood, red for apples sinfully sampled. Aziraphale moans and rakes his fingers through the tantalising silk of it, settling his broad digits at the roots and tugging gently. He just couldn’t resist the feeling of the strands nestling between his fingers, the illusion of power in a gesture such as this.
Yes, just like that.
The suction ceases for a dizzying moment as Crowley growls approval around his mouthful. The sound of it instantly stokes the furnace within Aziraphale’s core. His blood boils with the memory of crêpes on his palate; he flexes his grip and yanks the threads of claret until the demon’s neck arches, jaw dropping like a nutcracker. His cock slips from Crowley’s mouth, glassy with spit and bright as his suit as it remains in the flexing curl of the demon’s fist.
“Angel,” Crowley pants, and it is the most devastating and delicious sound that Aziraphale has ever heard. The demon sounds like he is the one sinking into a mindless chasm of indulgence. Aziraphale wonders if Crowley is remembering the angel’s lips wrapping around him, holding him inside his epicurean mouth until the taste of Crowley permanently stains his tongue. The thought makes him tense his thighs, the animal instincts of his human body driving him to grind into the demon’s hands for stimulation.
“Get back up here,” Aziraphale breathes past the consuming groan boiling in his throat.
He knows what Crowley wants from him, knows what he needs.
The demon rushes to comply, scrambling into Aziraphale’s lap eagerly. The angel’s cock stands exposed between their unevenly semi-clothed bodies; it feels breathtakingly erotic, and he cannot help but seize Crowley’s jaw in his manicured hands. His angelic signet ring pales in brilliance under the glare of the demon’s gemstone irises; there is a glimmer of shock in the facets of them, but it soon morphs into exhilaration when Aziraphale pulls him closer. They share a breath charged with urgency before they move in harmony, lips knotting and loosening in a sensual ballet. The way Crowley’s breath whispers over his cheeks makes his own breath come and go faster. He can taste his own skin mingling with Crowley’s — salt and iron, dust of the cosmos, pulling together to form light and life.
Look at you, you’re gorgeous.
That red-haired angel hadn’t been looking his way back then; but right now Aziraphale knows there is nothing that could divert Crowley’s attention. He feels the power of it writhing in his hands, lightning crackling in the electrons they pass back and forth. Aziraphale is burning, he is quenched. His body is a collection of contradictions as the rasp of stubble on Crowley’s cheeks passes over his.
He has never felt so abstract. Aziraphale knows this body and has felt at home in it for as long as human bodies have been a thing. It helps a great deal that he has been able to customise it somewhat, turning off the rather more uncomfortable aspects of biology, but he enjoys the core things such as his long companionship with his heart and the melodious timbre it produces. Being with Crowley like this makes his synapses pop and fizzle like firecrackers. He has always lived at a sedate pace; but here in this bubble of fevered flesh, he finds himself frantic.
Aziraphale breaks the deadlock of their lips, shivering as Crowley immediately latches on to his jaw.
“Clothes. Off,” he murmurs against Crowley’s temple, planting a kiss in the damp hairline plastered against the demon’s skin. It is dark as blood when wet, a thought he had in Eden when fat drops of virginal rain landed in the river of his glossy curls. The thought had dissipated like smoke as Crowley stepped under the shelter of his offered wing. The notion is just as short-lived now, flitting away with the force of Crowley’s huffed breath. With an impish smirk, he leans in again and presses his teeth against the angel’s carotid. Just a hint of pressure, just enough to imprint the possessive mark of a snake’s bite.
“Don’t want to unwrap me yourself?” Crowley purrs against the rapid thrum of his pulse.
“Oh, I am quite happy to observe,” Aziraphale smirks as he feels the bounding rush of blood under the divots made by the demon’s teeth.
Crowley glides out of their embrace once again. There’s a subtle brush of sakura pink to his skin that Aziraphale tracks from his graven cheekbones to his collar; he can’t help but hope that it travels lower. With quick movements that betray his impatience, Crowley begins to tear his buttons apart, splitting the zips and seams in his hurry. The demon shows the same lack of care he had shown his glasses before, uninterested in how his ether-summoned garments lay in a tattered and torn heap in the wake of the storm of his desire.
Will Crowley be as wild when he handles Aziraphale? Will he leave more marks of passion — plum purple bruises on his collarbones and shepherd’s-warning red scratches down his back? The angel wants it all — to look in his dressing table mirror tomorrow morning with a secret smile as he surveys the evidence of Crowley’s furious devotion. He swipes his thumb over the wetness gathered in his slit at the thought of it, pulling in a quick breath through his nose to ground himself.
It’s curious when he considers the way that Crowley cares for things. The demon loves his Bentley, enough to subconsciously imbue her with a sentient personality and she would care for Crowley when it was too dangerous for Aziraphale to. And while he may curse and yell at the poor things, he loves his plant collection; it shines through in the time, the care, the dedication to ensure they have the perfect soil, light, humidity.
But the way he cares for Aziraphale is like nothing else. The dashing rescue of his head from the guillotine (the angel had wanted to demonstrate what his head was worth in Paris centuries before their tryst in the same city), his books from a whistling bomb, the world from Armageddon, because they both adore humanity and it was important to the demon that Aziraphale could continue to enjoy his books and his sushi. Not to mention the eternity of gifts, miracles, trips away, and nights out. Crowley has always ensured Aziraphale has exactly what he needs.
So it’s high time that the angel return that gesture of love and attention. He vows to ensure that Crowley has the Christmas gift he came for — the gift he deserves.
It doesn’t take long for Crowley to peel each of his black layers away, leaving only porcelain skin, mottled by a tantalising rosy hue. Crowley is temptation incarnate, the very definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Aziraphale admires the blaze of chest hair centred between his pectorals, the barely-there dusky nipples, the ridged ladder of ribs and the jut of his cock, curving up towards his stomach with a neatly-trimmed halo of crimson curls at the base of it. Crowley’s spare chest is billowing furiously, hardly able to contain the magnitude of his arousal.
Aziraphale slowly unravels himself, shivers racking his body as he strokes the hypersensitive skin of his cock, still damp from Crowley’s mouth. He knows Crowley is watching with keen eyes, savouring the vision of his angel slowly fucking his own hand and commiting it to memory. It makes him feel powerful, emboldens him, quieting the restlessness of Crowley’s kinetic frenzy.
Crowley loses his last stitch and has evidently also lost his limited patience as he immediately hops back into the seat he has made of Aziraphale’s thighs, pressing them chest to chest. Needy lips sweep over the broad, dew-drenched hills of his shoulder, branding Aziraphale with thousands of years of secrets, prayers, and well-kept hopes. The reverent touch flares in Aziraphale’s abdomen, ramps up his need, makes him ache.
Aziraphale pulls Crowley back, guiding the wiry demon to straddle the soft swell of his thighs. It feels so salacious, half-dressed with a fire-haired Adonis curling his slithering limbs around him.
Crowley’s legs hang over the armrests of the chair, his arms draped over the filigree carvings of the headrest, idly toying with the angel’s untamed curls.
“So, Ssssanta,” the demon snarls as his usually disciplined sibilants break free in his raring distraction, “coal in my stocking or can I look forward to a big package?”
Aziraphale can’t help the snorting laughter that bursts from his lips, laughing harder when Crowley joins in. Their foreheads drop together in their giddiness, giggling at the ridiculousness of it all.
“I must not be doing a good enough job if you are still capable of making awful puns, fiend,” Aziraphale gasps when he recovers enough breath to speak.
“How do you plan on shutting me up, angel?” There’s a lascivious flavour to Crowley’s question, loaded with seductive intention.
When the mirth dissipates, all that is left is a heavy fog of anticipation. Their cocks are hard and hot to touch, pressed together in the limited space afforded by the chair.
“Be a dear and lift up, darling,” Aziraphale says as he presses an adoring kiss to Crowley’s parted lips.
With a snap and a devious smile, Aziraphale conjures his preferred bottle of lubricant. He might have abstained from the lure of another’s flesh since his and Crowley’s last dalliance, but the saturation of sex shops in Soho has ensured that the angel has plenty of sexual aids to sustain him on lonely nights. Sometimes the imagined echo of strangled cries of pleasure haunt him, the memory of weight on his tongue, the moans of ‘angel’... it all gets a bit much, you see.
Crowley’s body is deceptively strong, capable of holding an awkward pose for as long as required. And if they weren’t racing against a clock, Aziraphale would absolutely take his time to examine every inch of his freckled body. But as lovely as Crowley looks with his thighs spread and raised, the angel is really impatient to give Crowley everything.
As requested, Crowley deftly hoists himself up to bear weight on the (likely miraculously reinforced) armrests, using the supernatural strength of his honed calves to allow Aziraphale access between his taut thighs. Crowley’s arms are braced over the headrest, draping himself over the angel, so that Aziraphale is eye-level with the demon’s puckered nipples. Crowley shamelessly tilts up the small, delightful curve of his arse with an inviting little wiggle. Oh, it breaks the angel out into a sweat, suddenly delirious in his need to take the presented temptation and shatter them both into the pleasures of oblivion.
He reaches between Crowley’s legs and smears the delicate whorl of Crowley’s rim with a generous amount of glossy lube until his fingers glide effortlessly. The bundled flesh quivers at the contact, and Crowley sucks in a rippling breath of relief. Making use of the positioning, he leans slightly forward to kiss and flick his tongue over Crowley’s left nipple while his fingers tease the rim with circular motions, the dual stimulation makes the demon’s breath evacuate with a whistle. Aziraphale presses his finger against the taut opening, testing its give while watching Crowley’s face for any sign of discomfort, only breaching the surface when the wily creature rolls his hips into the suggestion of pressure and impales himself with a moan that cuts Aziraphale to the marrow.
Aziraphale is winded by the sensation, the obscenity of the sound. Crowley tenses around him, hot, tight and mind-numbing as his head tilts to the ceiling, panting like every one of Aziraphale’s countless fantasies.
His finger pushes deeper, twisting and coaxing the demon’s body to open for him. They could have taken advantage of their magic, snapped their fingers and eased the way instantly but then they would have missed this. This blindingly beautiful, human experience of slowly, carefully preparing his lover so that when Aziraphale enters him, he is a desperate mess of sweat and twitching desire.
One finger soon becomes two, well drenched in slippery lube, easily moving inside Crowley while Aziraphale watches the beauty of his ecstasy with heavy-lidded focus. His own cock leaks, steadily pressed against his thigh with the teasing weight of Crowley balanced over it.
When he can fit three of his thick fingers comfortably, Crowley’s groan is loud and full of dulcet craving as he roughly forces himself down on them.
“Fuck me, angel,” he gasps, sitting his full weight on Aziraphale’s corkscrewing fingers. He pulls up slowly, dragging out the heady feeling of being filled. Aziraphale holds his breath, anticipation sparking at his tastebuds.
”Yes, yes, yes,” Aziraphale chants, breaking free of the spell he had been under while bringing Crowley to the edge of madness. It is so easy to drift, leave his corporeality and focus entirely on the demon’s pleasure.
Crowley positions himself higher while Aziraphale maneuvers to line his straining cock with the wet shine of Crowley’s entrance.
There is a quiet buzz of shoppers outside the workshop, but neither the angel nor the demon can hear anything but the frantic pounding of their hearts when Aziraphale guides Crowley down, their eyes locked as they connect.
“Oh, fffffuck,” Crowley hisses on a shivering exhale, mouth dropped open to free the shaking breaths rattling up his throat. Aziraphale is unable to voice anything as he tries to rein in the wildhorse pace of his lungs.
Crowley surges against Aziraphale, crashing their lips together as his hips cant up and down in a slow, thorough rhythm. It’s overwhelming how much touch there is to take in all at once. He can feel Crowley’s weight bouncing on the pillow of his balls, the sharp scratch of nails at the nape of his neck — more than he can heed, so he gives himself over to the demon. The kiss is messy, biting and airy as their lungs start to protest for more oxygen, given that their hearts are thumping enough to power a jet engine.
Aziraphale feels a tangle of something take form in his abdomen, squirming and aching deliciously as he moves instinctually with his lover. It’s like a dance they somehow know all the steps to, a pirouetting jump of the stomach here, the fifth positional arch into a cry of pleasure there.
“Oh, Crowley...”
His voice is shambolic, a feral outpouring of sensuality wrapped around a throttled wail. He feels the need to be vocal, to exorcise this world-bending rupture burning inside him, molten lust that is filling him up and tumbling over the edge. It feels so incredible but it’s far too much and yet he wants more.
Crowley’s lips collide with his again, nipping at them mischievously while his clever fingers trail the angel’s snowy chest hair and pinch a firm nipple. The sharp sensations make visible islands in the silty sea they swim in, another spike in the ever-building ascent to their mutual euphoria.
Their cries weave together until one is indecipherable from the other, a tapestry of tumbling tongues and grasping hands.
They could have fallen into a vacuum of space, for all Aziraphale is aware of is the squeeze of Crowley’s arse around him, the way the demon’s nimble fingers claw at his shoulders, digging into the flexing meat of the blades, his long arms encircling them both. The wooden headrest cracks and splinters like a spitting cat under Crowley’s grip, another victim of their tumultuous lovemaking.
Aziraphale opens his eyes to shackle this tableau to his long memory, updating the coveted cache of visuals he has of Crowley’s slack jaw, the way it is impossibly softened by his hard breathing. The way the tendons in his neck contract as his throat works to accommodate his hoarse cries. Wine-stain locks damply clinging to skin. His strong quadriceps rearing up as he meets Aziraphale’s upward thrusts with his own gravitational surrender.
He wraps his hand around Crowley’s bouncing cock; his hair-dusted knuckles look so perfect there, fumbling for the right pressure. Will Crowley need it tender and slow, or hard and fast?
“Fuck, angel, yes,” Crowley‘s voice is hoarse, “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me — fuckkk.”
The insurmountable distance between their corporations closes again as they meld into a mind-shattering, toe-curling kiss.
Aziraphale feels the ambient temperature rocket around them, between them, inside them. There’s a tingling pressure at the base of his spine, twining through his muscles, making them twitch and jolt. He vaguely hears his voice caressing Crowley’s name, calling him love, darling, mine, mine, mine.
Then... the precipice.
They topple blindly, wind rushing to meet their suspended forms. Are they in their bodies or did they cast them aside when it became too much? He must be corporeal, Aziraphale thinks vaguely... there’s the shaking thighs, the resonation of rhapsody, his stomach jerking as unbearable pleasure flows through and out.
It’s a long way back to the surface of himself, but Aziraphale eventually registers the stickiness in his lap, on his chest, dripping down his chin. The twinging aftershocks rumble and rip through him as his lungs struggle to regulate, his mind ringing with white-hot static, and all while there’s still pulsing pressure around his cock as Crowley’s chest heaves through his own orgasm. It’s a blinding sensation to come down, to release all that burning tension in one fell swoop.
Crowley slumps like a rag-doll missing its stuffing, sucking in air against the angel’s sweat-slick chest. Aziraphale presses a gentle kiss onto his crown, rustling the ruby tresses with the force of his exhale.
This interlude has a bittersweet intimacy to it. Aziraphale knows they are both sobering, regaining their wits, wondering which one of them will be the first to take a peek out of the turret window and work out the exit strategy. Who will be the one to give them back their names, their roles as hereditary enemies?
The quiet reprieve doesn’t last long; Crowley begins to fidget out of their nest of flesh, gingerly extracting himself limb-by-limb from Aziraphale with a slow nose-flaring inhale, pushing out the lungful quickly when they part.
Déjà vu binds them once more, Paris lingering large in the shadows as the threat of walking away starts to become real. Wordlessly, they fall into one last, urgent embrace, lips twisting, tongues questing. Never satisfied, always reluctant to let go of this destiny-eclipsing push and pull.
Crowley parts them, breathing heavily as he strokes Aziraphale’s face, “Y’should grow this out, it’d suit you.” Aziraphale feels the pads of his lover’s fingers grazing through his pale stubble, and he leans into the gentle touch, his eyes closing as he feels tears prickling at the corners. He wants to smile, momentarily buoyed by the mirage of lovers enjoying their afterglow with innocent banter. But instead, he can only hum sadly, lost in thoughts of lonely nights in the bookshop waiting, waiting, eternally waiting...
Aziraphale feels his bottom lip wobble as Crowley slides to the ground, pushing fingers through his chaotic hair until it lays perfectly coiffed, dry and clean, entirely erased of Aziraphale’s influence there. Aziraphale unfolds himself, standing unsteadily and eyeing the heap of red and black garments on the floor, the last remaining evidence of their tryst. Once their bodies are clothed, their hair groomed, and their hearts put back in their cages, it will be over. Crowley will saunter away, maybe set up some hoaxed bargains to irritate the flustered shoppers and cover his tracks with Hell — and then it will be as if this never happened.
Crowley pauses, his demeanour distant and almost fragile. “Maybe we’ll do this again in another hundred years?” the demon suggests carefully. He speaks haltingly, something pensive in his eyes as if he has exposed something from deep down, his words embellished with feeble hope. But it doesn’t feel like hope to Aziraphale — it feels like crucifixion.
Crowley lets the quiet stretch its wings as Aziraphale collects his scattered costume, starting to make himself presentable while he watches Crowley do the same. “I’ll be the one to dress up next time,” Crowley adds, a transparent attempt to mask the crippling vulnerability. “Not Santa, though... Krampus, maybe, if humanity is still doing the winter stuff.”
Despite the levity his words appear to offer, the demon’s spine carries the burden of heartbreak. It’s identical to the one Aziraphale feels in keeping up the charade, the burden of having to stuff all this back inside after the freedom of letting it all out, of being honest for once. So if neither of them want to pretend... why should they? If they can dine out, feed the ducks, attend the theatre relatively confident of their anonymity in public — well, why can’t they make love in private?
It is Christmas — joy to the world, as the old song says. And Aziraphale can give Crowley (and himself, for that matter) the greatest joy there is...
Feeling uncommonly confident, and perhaps more than a little inspired by Crowley’s tentative first step, Aziraphale makes a brave decision and hopes it may be well-received.
“I’m not sure that I can wait another hundred years, dearest,” he says, his tone low and playful. Crowley’s curled-up posture uncoils as he slowly grasps the subtext. “My shift finishes at six,” Aziraphale continues, “and you can play dress up then, if you like.” He smirks as Crowley’s jaw drops, gesturing towards the displayed elf costumes, and the demon’s bewilderment morphs into something dark and incomprehensibly alluring.
”Oh, yeah?” Crowley’s eyebrows are impossibly high above his reinstated glasses. “Is that what you want for Christmas, then, Angel?”
”Oh, yes, darling,” Aziraphale smirks, fixing him with a slow, insistent kiss. “You are top of my Christmas list.”