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Chapter Text

The South Downs are really unmatched. 

Their new home is perfect, not a crack in all the outward stone masonry. Not a splotch of weathered wood in the accents of the windows. 

Aziraphale knows he couldn't have picked a better place for the beginning of their lives than this cottage that sits between rolling hills. 

He had devoted a lot of thought to the details. Slate walls to pair with dark herringwood floors and the delicate bannister of a staircase. A fitting colour, Aziraphale thinks, the best of both worlds that allows dashes of cream and strokes of black to fancy. A world of grey in between, in gradients, keeping the tartan only for their bedroom. He'd even included a conservatory attached to the cottage with a large piece of loam at the center and side lines of built in tables, that were now full of calatheas and spider plants, a row of monsteras and fiddle-leaf figs. A mosaic of colourful blooms. 

The whole space is a bridge into trust again, to mend their relationship where Aziraphale might have ripped it apart when he left. 

Ever since things got settled one year ago, Aziraphale's been trying to be better. Scrubbing the pain of each careless word and thoughtless action from Crowley's heart. Showing him there was finally a spot in which they could both land softly, give themselves time to twist and fit into each other without the worry of anyone intruding. 

There's not a single hour that passes when Aziraphale doesn't secretly breathe a sigh of slow, glittering relief at the depth of Crowley's forgiveness.  

It's been a slow, gentle path into being together. A brushing of lips here, followed by hands folding in, one over another. Ramping up their closeness to smouldering presses of chests and thighs and mouths that have never gone beyond breathless kisses. Not because Aziraphale doesn't want it– god, he's desperate for it. But the few times they've skirted around the moment, Crowley has always stopped them with a shaky sigh. 

And that's perfectly fine. 

It is. 

Aziraphale sips his wine. Breathes in the beautiful sight of Crowley next to him, sprawled against the dove grey Chesterfield, all wonderful warmth and spare curves. 

After so long on Earth, they've finally reached home. 

A gust of air teases Crowley's hair where it now curls round the angles of his shoulders. Aziraphale wishes he could push fingers in, dive into that spill of red, but they haven't tackled the barrier of placing hands on each other without any prompting and he knows Crowley has always been terribly stingy about touching. Not with Aziraphale, certainly, but Aziraphale doesn't want to rush things. Definitely not after seeing Crowley coil away when they've let themselves go a bit further. 

It'd surprised him at first, perhaps becasue he was expecting Crowley to feel the same searing need that Aziraphale’d harbored for eras. Aziraphale had pictured it with a ludicrous amount of details during their time dancing around restrictions. Saw his own fingers spreading lean thighs open to wedge between them, his own mouth tingling while it rubbed down along the sweat-dewed line of Crowley's thin torso. Breathing in over the nub of a nipple, watching it harden. Wanting so badly to trace the shade of ribs and thumb at the dent of his navel– experience the wonderful, gorgeous flesh of the body Crowley had made his since the beginning. 

They might be more than reality, a string of light and bundles of darkness, thrums of energy that spin in other planes. But Aziraphale desires his demon in every form, in each iteration. Craves the nearness of the angled lines of Crowley slipping under his fingers with an intensity that threatens to consume him. 

Whatever thing Crowley needs to come to terms with, Aziraphale will wait patiently. But if it turns out sex is out of the window, that Crowley's way of loving doesn't include the physical pleasure of twined bodies, then so be it. Happiness for Aziraphale is only having Crowley in his arms. 

"Gotta admit this wine might be the best one we've had in ten… twenty years? Makes me almost miss that old Chateau Latour we had at… where was it?" Crowley's smiling bright, moving a fine hand as he speaks. "That time with the- the thing and the horse and the snowstorm."

He's wearing something of what used to be his usual get up. A grey shirt paired with soft-worn black pyjama bottoms, because the night is lazy with a boozy sort of heat that should be unheard of for the middle of November. 

Crowley's doing, Aziraphale supposes. 

"It was Florence, during an unseasonably cold winter and I don't think the horse had much of a say in throwing you off its back. You know they've never been fond of you," Aziraphale says gently. "This wine, though… I might have been saving this to share it with you. For one special occasion."

There's a hum coming from Crowley. A smokey, raspy sound that flows deliciously close to Aziraphale's ear. It makes his belly twitch and his breath quicken watching the lines of Crowley's long legs, relaxed, bare feet curling against the parquet.

Infuriatingly tempting thing that Aziraphale can't stop wanting, unangelic as it might be. 

Crowley twists to face Aziraphale, bends in a liquid flex to push against him, leaving his glass on the coffee table. His mouth is a curved up red line when he says, "And what's special about this evening? Not that I don't think it's always special when you're involved."

Aziraphale leans in and rests his own glass on the table. "Well, I'll have you know it's been a month since we brought in your last monstera. We're officially in the month mark of having moved in, darling."

Crowley's eyes widen. 

There's a second, imperceptible almost, before Crowley slips sideways, long thighs shoved wide open to sit on Aziraphale's lap. "Are we, now?"

Aziraphale grasps Crowley by those sharp hips with a rush of warmth that fans across his spine. He waits, surprised at the sudden weighted heat of Crowley's body so close. 

Aziraphale has been yearning for this brand of intimacy since long before he knew exactly what it meant to want it. Since he realised his desire for Crowley could be paired with his lust for the delights Earth could offer. Off axis and strange in an angel, but something that laced across Aziraphale like ribbons. Part of himself as nothing else had never been. 

He'd imagined the slip of his palms across Crowley's belly, the lock of fingers around his waist. Undressed him in his mind's eye, traced the curvature of his hips and the junction of his thighs with his buttocks. Spent days rubbing a thumb over the tense shift of his own thighs to not veer higher, while the desire smoked out every other part of himself. That this is real now, while Crowley's fingers set on Aziraphale's shoulders, is already satisfying beyond measure. New enough, though, to have Aziraphale's cheeks blooming with heat, skin prickling as if razed with needles. 

Oh, how he wants. How he wishes Crowley'd allowed them a bit more. 

But Aziraphale is careful, measured. He's been reining himself in for millenia. 

His nails whisper over soft cotton when Crowley sways to adjust the enticing spread of his legs. Aziraphale tips his face up to find Crowley's eyes, steady, with the shine of a longing that, after six thousand years, still seems to soak him full. "Yes, we are. First official milestone if you want to call it that."

"Would you like to call it that?"

Crowley's eyes are so very yellow. 

Aziraphale's own heart wants to give way, blood blazing where it pumps madly in his ears. 

His thighs tense under the slight pressure of Crowley, the heat of him. How he keeps swaying gently back and forth, rubbing the swell of his arse against the growing pressure at the front of Aziraphale's trousers. Where the cock he's sported for millennia is warm and filling. 

After many botched kisses, it feels like a gift. As if Crowley's ready to give himself away. He must notice, must feel the growing pressure underneath him, how he's driving Aziraphale to madness with each sink and grind of his firm arse. Must hear the little clipped groans Aziraphale keeps trying to muffle by biting his own lip. 

Crowley doesn't stop. 

Aziraphale's hand slides up the long bend of Crowley's spine over the cotton, slow, to see if Crowley will accept it. But it seems to please the demon if the way he gasps and moans threadily is anything to go by. 

"Of course I want– want to call it our milestone," Aziraphale says. He takes advantage of the closeness to rub a slip of mouth along Crowley's soft neck, feeling the shiver that wracks him. He fears he's seconds away from becoming insatiable. "I was the one who instigated this plan, wasn't I?"

Crowley whines, and pushes fingers into the absolute mess of Aziraphale's hair, propriety. Nails scraping Aziraphale’s scalp, tugging him in. As if he wanted him closer, wanted more of the damp weight of Aziraphale's lips moving on him. "And how do you think it's doing? Any feedback?"

Crowley's grinding down now, the plump fill of his own cock noticeable when his body hitches forward. His thighs are warm, and he smells of teak and ashes, the scent of him sticking to the inside of Aziraphale's mouth, so very known. 

Lord, Aziraphale is already hard, jerking in his trousers, sweating with every gossamer breath. "Why don't you tell me."

Crowley draws back enough so Aziraphale can see him grin, can see the damp shine on his reddened neck, and then he's tipping their mouths together. 

Kissing Crowley will always be a revelation. 

Aziraphale holds Crowley's hip with fingers that bite in five sinking points, splays his whole right palm on his back, tucks him against the solidity of his own body. 

"Perfect score, all aces, not a single complaint," Crowley moans, shivery. 

It's always a wet, heated push of mouths, far too heady to think they both haven't thought about the physical aspect of it. Crowley whimpers when Aziraphale nicks his bottom lip, the heels of his pale feet digging where they're angled against Aziraphale's thighs. The snag of Crowley's arm hair prickles lovely where he's pushed his forearms to rest on the sides of Aziraphale's face. Each touch and press of skin on skin feels like an electric jolt through Aziraphale. The lines of thin fingers, the poke of a chin, the fan of long, beautiful lashes when Crowley's lids weigh down. 

Aziraphale's gasping, moving a hand beneath that soft shirt to open fingers along the gorgeous naked stretch of Crowley's back. Finding that dip of spine he hasn't seen yet, with the tip of a finger. 

"Angel." Crowley arches, seeks him with his mouth. With a slip of tongue. Sets those knees firmer on the cushions to rock down his hips. 

Everything narrows to their buzzing lips, to the bundle of heat in Aziraphale's belly. To Crowley's taste in his mouth, blooming in. To the feel of his soft skin, the tautening of muscles of his shoulders, the shine of his eyes when Crowley blinks.

Another moan. Another groan. A kiss that lingers. 

A buck of hips and a roll down of an arse that Aziraphale has spent far too long admiring. That rubs on him, making him squeeze Crowley until the demon whines. 

Until Aziraphale can feel a sudden shift in the skin of Crowley's back. A quick rasp of texture that wasn't there before, waving down from spine to waistband. 

Glossy smooth and cool. 

"Oh."

The next second, Crowley's throwing himself up and away. Falling back on his feet, standing with appallingly shocked eyes and a deep frown. 

Aziraphale's heart thrashes. "Darling?"

"Fuck." There's a second of slitted pupils thinning to daggers and a mouth pulling taut, before Crowley groans. Rubs a hand across his face, up to his hair and smiles. Beams. "Sorry, angel. Absolutely forgot I left dinner in the oven! Wouldn't want to eat charred lasagna for our first month celebration, right?"

Crowley darts to the kitchen while Aziraphale's hands stir with his absence. He's sure there's no lasagna to speak of, and that Crowley's just miracled it inside their oven right this moment. 

He hears a ding. 

His own body rings hot while he tries to not be swallowed by the cushions when he deflates. Thinking that just before Crowley jumped back from his grasp, he'd been able to pin down the sensation of the patch of skin running across his fingertips. 

They had felt a lot like scales. 

It's not unusual, Aziraphale thinks later. Wouldn't be unusual. After all, neither of them are these vessels they use. It would be logical for Crowley to melt away into his serpentine traits if he feels comfortable. If his grasp on control loosens, lines blurring between this plane and where they keep most of the large mass of themselves hidden. Scales and wings and rotating discs of gold with a myriad eyes. Monstrous enough to jar human minds if they happen to take a peek. 

But Aziraphale already knows it wouldn't alter a speck of what he feels for Crowley. It'd be ridiculous to think so.

It'd be as if expecting the planets to change path because of a pebble, the tides to be reined by rope. 

Aziraphale's first memories of Crowley as he is, are filled with heavy coils of  shimmering black and luscious red, with the elegant whirl of a snake body that even back at the garden, had looked striking. Catching light in each scale, and reflecting it gleaming. Drawing the need to trail warm fingers along the twisting bend of that coiling stretch. 

Even then, Aziraphale had felt that golden thrill furling tight in his joints watching Crowley slither along grass, between bracken. 

The feeling has never vanished. It  has taken roots, sunk fingers into Aziraphale's vertebrae and spinning wheels. Spliced up with his Grace, to the point he now knows, trying to get rid of it would be as hard as rewriting his own existence. He loves each aspect and mark on Crowley, from the very human band of freckles across his cheeks, to the glossy scales, the encompassing whole universe of him.

Aziraphale puffs out a sigh. 

Could it be? That Crowley thought Aziraphale would reject him if he saw him in that form now that they're together? 

Aziraphale already knows it would be an uphill battle trying to convince Crowley otherwise if that's the case. The demon is the most closed off entity he's ever known when it pertains to his own soft spots. Never allowing anyone to poke and prod, less if it's to heal raw edges. 

But Aziraphale is determined to try. 

Through the week, Crowley keeps himself almost the same, though their kisses are now chaste. No more arms stacked on shoulders, nor angled legs parting for the breadth of wide hips. 

Two weeks later, though, Aziraphale finds Crowley slithering over a soft patch of loam in the vivarium. There's a heat lamp lit over the wide spot of ground he'd included in case Crowley wanted to cultivate on mere soil instead of pots. And just on it, is Crowley. He's a large collection of loops that shake and squeeze while he coils up in movement as if chasing the harsh wet sensation of the ground across his belly. 

Deep charcoal and lush red, he's stunningly beautiful. Aziraphale pauses and considers, knowing it could be a good moment to gauge an answer from Crowley's reactions. 

He makes enough noise to alert Crowley of his presence before rapping on the glass pane. 

An angled, narrow head lifts and Aziraphale sees the flick of a forked tongue hissing. Crowley remains in his snake form, though, calm and sedated. 

"May I come in?" Aziraphale asks, gently pushing the glass door inwards. 

"Sssure." Crowley's head bobs, and he spreads his coils wider on the soil. "Just keep the door closed. It's warm here."

Aziraphale treds closer, dropping to his haunches next to Crowley's large body. "What are you doing here, darling?"

There's an itch in his fingers to reach and skim over the working rolls of scales, but Aziraphale tamps it down. 

" It'sss the warmest place of the house," Crowley answers. His head bobs as if searching for Aziraphale's scent to locate him, understandable when Aziraphale knows his snake eyes are less attuned to sighting things. "Couldn't help to change back. It's easier to keep warm as a snake on hot loam than like a naked human. Felt incredibly fucking cold because the bloody weather doesn't want to be persuaded to change to a suitable temperature."

He sounds terribly bedraggled and a burst of fondness spills in Aziraphale's chest at his ridiculous demon. "Crowley darling, it's December. You can't expect the English weather to keep being what it was in July."

Another hissing, snapping noise. "Bollocks to that, I say. 'M cold . "

Aziraphale chuckles, and holds his hand aloft, showing Crowley his palm, "May I?"

It's evident what he's asking, when his eyes flick down to where Crowley's body is still slowly furling on itself. Aziraphale is ready to back down, away, if he feels he's crossed a boundary, breath wavering, but Crowley's infinitely long tail and middle body uncoil in controlled movements. 

He darts bright gold eyes up to Aziraphale's face, head giving a sort of swaying tilt. "Yeah, sssure . Not as if you haven't seen me already like this, have you?"

There's not a filament of nervousness or apprehension in his voice when Aziraphale finally rests a palm along the fluid flex of his spine, coasts along the scales. "But it's the first time I can touch you like this," he says, trying to show off the gleam of adoration he's always harbored for all of Crowley's facets. "You're so lovely. So smooth and cool under my fingers."

"That's December for you," Crowley bites back with a hint of laughter under the hissing snap. 

Maybe like this, Aziraphale can convince Crowley to be less on edge about shifting when they're together. Even if Aziraphale's starting to think the problem might not reside in Crowley's reluctance to show Aziraphale his snake form, the black scales and tubbing, twisting body. It doesn't seem to, at least, with how comfortable Crowley seems sliding back and forth on the loam while Aziraphale keeps rubbing fingers across the bulking mass of his loops. 

No, apparently that's not the problem. 

Aziraphale tsks, while Crowley seems to wind tighter as if searching for warmth. "Why don't you come with me to the living room? I can light the fire and read you a book."

"Read yourself a book, you mean," Crowley adds, playfully. "You know I've never been a fan of Wuthering Heights and that's all you've been carrying around for the last two days."

"Alright. Read myself a book. Not as if you don't always fall asleep the moment I start," Aziraphale corrects, smiling. 

"That was just one time. And you know I find Wilde awfully boring." 

Aziraphale tuts. "Fiend. You can coil around me to keep warm if you like. Wouldn't that be lovely?"

He's half expecting a denial, but Crowley rushes out a " Sssure. Sounds like a plan." 

They spend a few days with Crowley in his serpent form, dozing off draped over Aziraphale's lap and shoulders while the weather turns harsher beyond their windows. Crowley sleeps for most of the forty eight hours that follow, just to wake up on the evening of the second day, and switch back into his human form. 

He Instantly pulls the afghan over himself. 

Bare, warm limbs covered by the throw blanket kept on the back of the Chesterfield. All of him deliciously rumpled where his curls are mussed, eyes mutely honeyed. 

"Oh," Aziraphale gasps. He can't help sounding a tad disappointed. But he quickly masks it. "Did you get enough rest, my dear?"

"Yeah. Top grade mattress," he grins. Content and sleepy-soft with comfort. "Feels as if I've slept for a decade."

Aziraphale longs to find the cut of that slim waist with his fingers, tug Crowley  to his chest. A harsh pang rattles in Aziraphale's belly when he thinks of the hidden geography of Crowley underneath the warp and weft of the light blue throw blanket. 

All living in ideas. 

Crowley doesn't seem in the mood to give Aziraphale anything else than pecking kisses, feather-light. Before swinging hips back to their bedroom, where Aziraphale rarely sleeps, but he does. 

Aziraphale watches him saunter away with his own chest squeezing. With the low simmering scratch of coals in his veins. 

No, it seems Crowley doesn't have any hang ups in showing himself as a snake. Or having Aziraphale touching him while he is one. He'd spent hours quite relaxed through the two days, barely moving, static. And perhaps… perhaps Crowley's truly averse to sex in a human manner, not desiring the sort of physical pleasure that Aziraphale has learned to chase in meals and the comfort of well tailored clothes, in the pages of books. Maybe this is the path where he and Crowley just veer off track. 

Aziraphale bites the inside of his cheek and sets his book aside. 

Well, then. 

Through the following weeks, Aziraphale folds the thought down and shelves it in one of the many cabinets of his mind. It doesn't make any difference, really, shouldn't make any difference at all.  

After all, he has Crowley's kisses and proximity. Has the steadiness of a home that cradles them together. Above all, Aziraphale has them joined, on the same page, already writing the rest of their story. 

It doesn't really matter if Crowley isn't built like he is. If he doesn't enjoy the human, fleshy headiness of sex as much as Aziraphale does. 

It doesn't matter that Aziraphale has been secretly yearning to touch Crowley just where his thighs crease, that he's been keeping images of how Crowley might toss his head back onto a fluffed pillow while a keen slices up his throat. 

Aziraphale's an angel. Depriving himself is a cog in his essence. No matter evenings eat up time off their days, feeling so long, while they sit close enough that Aziraphale can take in the outline of Crowley's body beneath his clothes. Sharp hips, flat belly, taut calves, and those thighs he wagers would be warm under their ruffle of red hair. 

There's no reason to linger. 

Aziraphale leaves for London one morning to check on the bookshop and take his mind off things. Because he misses the musty smell of old pages and the sight of maroon rows of spines, glinting golden when the sunlight strikes just so on the titles. Because being away for hours brings perspective into why it isn't the end of the world that this avenue won't be for them to trek together. 

He leaves Crowley a note that he will probably see when he wakes up at noon, after mussing up the bed with all his twisting. 

My darling fiend,

I went to check on the bookshop and will be back at 7:00 p.m. Decide where we could go for dinner. I'm in the mood for some hamachi, perhaps? I'll take our car. 

As it happens though, four p.m finds Aziraphale missing Crowley terribly. The shining curve of his hair and the outline of his mouth when Aziraphale allows himself to follow the curlicue of it with a dragging thumb. Hot and damp when Crowley leaves his breath on the whorl of the pad.

Small indulgences. 

It's why he returns to the cottage three hours before schedule. 

"Crowley?" He tosses his keys away on the Stockholm silver key bowl left of the entrance. 

The first floor is vacant of demonic energy. There's a record being played in the living room with a tune Aziraphale knows comes from Crowley's collection. Far too loud to let anyone focus on anything else than saucy lyrics and strumming chords. 

Aziraphale shuffles upstairs, oxfords brushing on the parquet. 

He catches the soft drizzle of water from the shower of the main room, Crowley's favourite. The bathroom Aziraphale had commissioned a deep tub and a separate shower for, all in sleek black marble. 

He makes his way to their bedroom, toeing away the scattered pieces of black clothes tossed over the taupe rug. He's about to call again when he can hear the faint, drawn out pull of a moan.  

Aziraphale's whole body stiffens. 

He's familiar enough with sex to recognise its byproducts. And the noise that rings through the room is deliciously sexual, in a way that has Aziraphale bursting with heat. Has him mottled flushed down to his chest. 

Because it's Crowley, it must be Crowley. Aziraphale's brain keeps crashing on stops and starts when he tries to reconcile wishes and reality. Crowley's never sounded like that before, not under his hands, nor his mouth. 

The moan tickles Aziraphale's skin, the back of his mind and he can't help but place a palm on the ajar door, just to take a peek. There's a swoosh of white vapour and the scent of teak soap before Aziraphale sets just outside the door, the moment a reedy groan explodes in the air. Tapering to a whine, amplified in intention by what Aziraphale can finally see in front of him. 

Fuck. 

He can hardly breathe, heart going volcanic, throat absolutely jammed with breaths that he can't push out. 

It is Crowley. 

Soaked, and flushed and gleaming, facing away from Aziraphale. 

"Oh, shitshitshit, please, please." Crowley tilts his head back, groaning. 

His red hair has flattened lovely across his scalp and shoulders, mouth temptingly tipped up to get a mouthful of water. He is standing beneath the stream, whining, and Aziraphale feels his knees buckle once his brain catches on the details he's ignored until this moment. 

Because just behind Crowley, affixed to the glass wall, he's set a thick, silicon red dildo that is currently halfway buried into the tight clutch of his pert arse. Crowley slides back with an ease that speaks of practice, of something done often enough to catch on preferences. A hand spreading his buttocks just to sit back all the way, to not leave anything out. A long, deep rut of hips that leaves Crowley shaking from fullness. 

A slow-motion shift of the body. Waist, and thighs and beautiful, beautiful tipped toes. 

Aziraphale sways on his soles as if pulled in by an impossible tide. Arousal twisted offset by that aimless longing for an experience he gets to savour only in the margins. His hands prickle, whole skin yearning for the slip-glide of Crowley's muscles across his own. 

Seeing Crowley like this knocks Aziraphale down in the sternum, while his own heartbeats drum loudly with the backbeat of the running water. 

Aziraphale already knows he won't be able to scrape out the image of Crowley in this vulnerable form. Back arched, both hands flat on the front wall now, spine flecked with water that runs down between the dimples at the base of his spine that have been a mystery. Aziraphale's own cock is a thick, long pulse of desire, raging hard beneath his trousers. He's unable to pull away. 

" Jusssst, jussst like that– oh, fuck, please."

Aziraphale has always loved Crowley's noises, but now, rambly and husky in his vocals, they're an entirely different shade. He wants more of them, be what causes them. He wants to catalog each and pair it with a stroke of palms on Crowley's skin, lift the veil of this whole reality that he gets to watch only by trespassing. 

Aziraphale's belly clenches in a wave of arousal that hits him from oxfords to forehead hearing Crowley so gone. Full of a desire that sets searing around his heart, around his joints, as if pinning him in place. 

There's an iridescent ripple of scales shimmering up Crowley's legs, feet gone fully black just as his hands and neck. Where there were nails before, now Aziraphale spots claws in place that click and tack against the marble each time Crowley bounces his buttocks back until they smush against the glass. Until he's whining softly and rutting down on the press of the fake cock he has lodged deep inside him. 

On its own accord, Aziraphale's right hand drops to the front of his trousers to adjust the thickening of his rude erection. To grope and squeeze it, while he shreds his lip to not pipe out a sound. 

The distance is short enough to see with obscene detail, the stretch of Crowley's hole around the dildo when he moves. How the silicone tugs the flushed, wet edges of his rim, how the toy is splitting him so wide open that Crowley's buttocks are completely spread apart when the dildo bottoms out inside him. 

Can one be jealous of an object?

"I want it, I want it, I want it," Crowley chants, rolling his waist and pushing down until he's fully impaled. 

Aziraphale is entranced watching him. Following the line of his smooth spine where clusters of scales have appeared, to the curve of his arse down to the beautiful transition to those lovely scaly thighs that shake and quiver when Crowley moans, tipping his hips back. His body keeps shifting as his pleasure crests, gorgeous, the snake being brought to the fore. 

There's a tip sideways of a narrow face, enough for Aziraphale to see the glint of a fang, the heavier set of a jaw expanding to accommodate a lot more teeth. A flash of striking yellow eyes going fully serpent. Shining profile of a work of art. 

It's Crowley as Aziraphale has never seen him and the sight is exquisite. 

Lord, the intoxicating cocktail of lust and guilt makes Aziraphale's heart beat in a ruin of flutters. Crowley isn't– shouldn't be anyone's peep show. But drawing away is unthinkable. Aziraphale can't rip eyes from every flick of muscle. From the lift of Crowley's hand off the wall, to the drag of it down Crowley's belly and the slip between his thighs. The angle robs Aziraphale from half the experience, from the frames of Crowley's fingers pleasuring himself. 

They've lived a hundred lives over and yet Aziraphale finds himself still surprised at the vicious bite of desire Crowley has made flame in his bones. At the things he's discovering, the ones still to reveal with each second together. 

Lust disperses to each point in his body that seems to tempt him forward to set behind Crowley. To knock down that offensive tube of silicone and replace it with the aching stiffness of his cock that jerks and leaks neglected under another harsh squeeze. Let himself finger his way up that slim waist to feel the expansion of it under Crowley's breathing, chase the flow of air out with palms over Crowley's neck. Lick the droplets of water off the ripples of Crowley's back, dipping between those tight arsecheeks. 

This is his demon in high pleasure. Moans snagged from that long throat, and Aziraphale can do nothing but breathe in shivers and tremble with the each jolting jump of Crowley on the dildo. It's impossible not to think how deep the silicone must be hitting, the satisfaction it must give Crowley and yet–

And yet.

It's not Aziraphale there, giving him this. 

Crowley doesn't want this from him. 

And underneath the brutal lust, hurt laces like a stowaway. 

"Please give it to me, please, fuck– just like that." 

Who is he calling to? 

There's too much blazing pressure in Aziraphale's hips, cock throbbing, to think much of anything right now. But oh, how he wishes it were him, that Crowley would ask this from him, so Aziraphale wouldn't be battling down that sour fizz of jealousy for whatever– whoever is nudging Crowley to orgasm. 

Crowley's hips grind down and stay there, soft arsecheeks pushed on the glass while he keens reedily. He ruts and ruts on the pressure of the toy while his cries tear broken, all of him growing desperate. There's an urgency that is clear in the quick, fluttering tremble of his sides while he breathes and the jolt of his inner thighs. 

Aziraphale tugs at his cock over fabric, ineffectively but perfect. Want trampled by clothes, that does nothing to shuck off the idea of sinking to the root into that slick heat and stop. Just stop while he's buried deep. Savour the clench and tightness of Crowley's arse, what he imagines must be his impossible heat and the jerk of his body when Aziraphale wouldn't wait– driving himself pounding, thrusting into the demon he's desired and loved for longer than Earth has spun round the Sun. 

His heart seizes which is poetic and just so very wrong, because his hand is still working his erection with tugs and rubs, physical pleasure as Aziraphale has never allowed himself to feel. It's base and illicit when he hasn't been invited to watch but his feet are fused with the carpet at the edge of their bedroom. 

The angle of Crowley's arm quickens in its movements and Aziraphale can almost taste how close he is, how his orgasm is a thread Crowley's already caught at the start. His own pleasure needs only a light grope to be done with, but he doesn't rush, holds himself there watching the last, shaking twitches of Crowley's hips when he fucks himself open once, twice, thrice…

… Sinks onto the dildo with a whine that splinters in hisses. 

Aziraphale can't help but spill with a violent squeeze on his own cock watching how Crowley shakes with pleasure. 

The floor spins while the haze of orgasm keeps buffeting him over in lesser and lesser waves. Aziraphale swallows while the mess at his front makes itself hefty with all the pounds of stored guilt. 

God, he should say something. Half of him hates knowing indulgence has driven him so far off. Taking without asking. Without a second thought. But there's another half that can't help but glow, seeing Crowley so blissful: sleek line of a mouth pulled up and eyes shining. 

Aziraphale knows this was a very private moment he's intruded into, that he should explain even if he doesn't know how. 

With a ragged breath, he miracles himself to rights.  

But it's only a second after that he sees the outline of Crowley's body flickering while the fine trembles of his peak ebb: legs melting in a black coil from thighs down, before the mirage vanishes and those scaled feet set onto the floor once more. Pale skin now replaces all the gorgeous patches of black shimmer Crowley sported a second ago. 

Gone in a sigh.

Crowley lifts himself from the wet silicone with a shaking swing of his hips that stirs heat in Aziraphale's belly. 

This is the moment. 

Aziraphale makes noise. Takes steps back on the carpet and thuds on the bed as if he had bumped into it by accident. 

"Crowley?" He sounds strained but hopes the music flowing from below, covers it. "I'm home, darling."

A second of silence and then, "in here, angel!"

Aziraphale walks inside the bathroom finding Crowley smiling, wrapped in a black robe, hair still dripping. 

No dildo, and no mess to speak of. 

Obviously something he wants to keep for himself, then. 

There's hands thrown around Aziraphale's neck and a kiss to his mouth, when Crowley tucks himself in. 

When Aziraphale wraps fingers around Crowley's waist, he tries not to tremble too badly. "Hello, darling. How was your day?"

Crowley wrinkles his nose. "Boring. Absolutely awful. Just woke up, really."

"Nothing worth mentioning?"

Without a second's delay or hesitation, Crowley shakes his head. "Nah. Just stirred shit on Twitter. Watched a couple of tik toks about politics they know nothing of – pathetic stuff, tbh. And… made people fight me over the cover of an antivaxx book on Instagram, that get this, used AI. Turns out they don't like to be told they're generic drivel. Productive day all in all."

Aziraphale chuckles, though his belly sinks. "Sounds quite malicious."

"Aw, angel." Crowley presses his mouth just below Aziraphale's ear. "You say the sweetest things."

Pulling back an inch, Aziraphale can set his gaze on the wealth of sweetness that are Crowley's eyes. Uncovered like the gift they are. Another concession Crowley has relented. 

Aziraphale feels terrible at trying to unravel one more, in a way that feels forceful, but the venom of doubt trickles in, pushes him to ask, "So, you really did nothing?"

Crowley shrugs. "Had a shower, though I don't think that counts as something."

Below his eyelids, Aziraphale catches a flash of glossy blackness. The sliver of a moan. 

He bites it all back, nods. "Right, right."

When Crowley smirks, the glint of canine that Aziraphale has always thought so fetching, cuts into his belly like a barb. "You know me, laziness is my favourite sin."

Does Aziraphale know him, though? Millenia runs through his fingers when he tips a hand up and pushes it into Crowley's hair. Everyone holds secrets. Even himself. There's a whole row of risqué novels behind a panel in the bookshop that have seen much more traffic than others, pages oil-soft from his fingers. 

But this. This willing severance of Aziraphale's closeness regarding Crowley's needs, the burning desire of lust that he's more than capable of feeling… but not with Aziraphale. 

He doesn't know what to make of it. 

Aziraphale feels his mouth flattening with the heft of something curdled that nestles below the hard line of his breastbone. He knows he should confess, but judging by Crowley's actions to hide the moment, Aziraphale isn't sure it's a good idea. 

Crowley's brows dip. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, yes, of course." Aziraphale blinks twice and tries to curve up his mouth despite the lump in his throat. "It's only— the traffic in the city is dreadful, you know that. I'm quite tired."

"Told you before. Far easier just to miracle your way back instead of driving." Crowley tuts with that striking, pink mouth. "How about we get dressed for that dinner?" 

Aziraphale nods. 

Eating is the last thought in his mind. 

Chapter Text

As the hours go by, some of Aziraphale's doubts melt away. With a clearer head, it's far easier to remember that Crowley's entitled to his own pleasure. That their bond isn't any less without a physical connection. It would be ridiculous to think so. 

It's the unsaid things that chafe, though. Whatever it is that Crowley seems to want to hide from him, as if Aziraphale would ever fault him for being who he is, or not want what he doesn't want. Sex, no sex, that isn't the problem, but the gap that still seems to sit between them.  

That night after dinner, Aziraphale lets himself be coaxed into bed by Crowley. The few times he's done so, he's carried a book with him to give his corporation the rest it doesn't need while having something to entertain himself with. Because it is nice to indulge in the warm plushness of stacked pillows, and the sprawl of Crowley's body is always a gorgeous picture twisted in the sheets.  

This time, there's no book. 

Aziraphale sinks into every kiss and press of palms with intention. Enjoys the way their toes clench in the sheets, all the messy bunches of bed linens that form like craggy geography beneath them while they push their mouths together. Aziraphale flicks a hand to give himself a white shirt and pale blue pyjama bottoms, to get rid of the layers that dampen his closeness to Crowley, already in nothing but a pair of boxers and an old black shirt with blocky letters. 

He traces the shape of Crowley's sharp shoulder, the length of his arm, just to set a curled hand on the jut of a hip, thumb rubbing over cotton, where the valley of the bone dips the skin. 

A treasure he isn't worthy of unwrapping.

There's glass cutting in Aziraphale's throat that is threatening to bleed him out. 

He pulls back a hairbreadth. "Have I told you how beautiful you are? How lovely?" Aziraphale's breath flows rough and then clicks silent. It feels important to say it, as much as he receives it from Crowley. Bodies flush, Aziraphale stares into the glint of Crowley's yellow eyes around the line-thin pupils, and the flushed band across his nose, wanting to destroy that final barrier and not knowing how, or if it's permitted. "I only want you to know you're what I've always dreamed of, even before I knew what it was to dream. Each and every part of you, darling."

There, an offering that squeezes his heart to aching when Crowley blinks once, only to laugh, brassy. 

"You're just saying that because you forgot to water the plants today, right?" He doesn't give Aziraphale time to budge in a word. A fine hand set on Aziraphale's shirt, he drags Aziraphale into another kiss, tilts his head up and lets his lips fall open. Enough for Aziraphale to tongue the wet space of his mouth and forget about the world when Crowley shivers with a shaky whine. 

So similar to the ones in the shower. 

Aziraphale groans, stiffens his calves so he won't buck his hips, won't seek what's not given, but trails a hand from Crowley's lovely hip over his boxers, to the pinched cut of his waist. Fisting a fold of black, soft shirt in a brutal hold. 

A sacrificial proxy of his own want. 

Crowley pulls back then, lips rubbed red and swollen. Wet from Aziraphale's mouth. His hair is a riot, and his worn shirt is askew, pulled aside by Aziraphale's tugs. Enough to show the hint of a collarbone and the pale skin of his chest, the softness of his body. 

It feels like a fist to the stomach, the way Aziraphale wants.  

"I feel a bit worn out today," Crowley says, already bridging them with a hand on the curve of Aziraphale's belly. Not pushing, just holding there, a stop to the moment. "You mind if I sleep for a bit?"

"No, no, of course not." Aziraphale shakes his head but his voice is almost clipped. 

It nudges Crowley to frown. "You barely ate tonight, are you alright? That place was the best sushi bar I've known outside of London and you barely picked at your unagi and completely ignored the hamachi."

Aziraphale forces his hand to slip off Crowley's waist and his smile to stay. "Oh. Yes, everything is alright. I suppose… I suppose I wasn't in the mood for hamachi as strongly as I believed."

A flurry of seconds unfurl while Crowley stares at him before nodding. "Alright, if you say so. Are you staying?"

Aziraphale really should go. It's torture to stay with the doubts and questions sharpened in the whetstone of Crowley's nearness. Thinking too hard about the curve of his own hands and the bend of his legs and where to place them, if his own closeness is even wanted. 

But Aziraphale can't draw back. Can't hunch away from the bed, make his legs shuffle and twist to set feet on the parquet. Wishing to be allowed at least this tiny shard of intimacy, the contentment of watching Crowley sleep, tuning their breaths together. 

"Yes, I believe I am," he says, desperately trying to read anything in Crowley's relaxed expression. In the way his mouth softens and his eyes droop. "I could go, though, if you prefer–"

Crowley gives him a peck on the cheek, silencing him, before he rolls over on his side. Speaks over his shoulder. "No, no. Nah, angel. Stay, everything is always better when you're close."

Aziraphale really wants to believe Crowley means it. 

Picking out the hour is difficult with no clock in the bedroom, but Aziraphale supposes it mustn't be far later than when he fell asleep. Hearing Crowley inhale and exhale, watching the lissom line of his side, from thigh to hip to chest, had tugged Aziraphale under: one breath in, and release, the slow unknotting of muscles that Aziraphale doesn't use most of the time. 

The whole peace of sleep breaks when Aziraphale's eyes shift open. There's not a single pocket of space between their bodies. Crowley has scooted backwards, as if seeking Aziraphale's warmth, the comfort of the rolls in his belly and the sturdiness of his chest. 

His own hand is gently splayed on Crowley's stomach. At first, he doesn't quite catch what's changed, what drove him to wakefulness. But it becomes evident in the span of a second when Crowley gives a slow, lax grind back, effectively working the swell of his arse against the rapidly hardening line of Aziraphale's cock. It's a shock of sensation that tears a groan from Aziraphale's chest, barely broken in half by an emergency lip bite. Crowley's warm and softly spread, and when Aziraphale leans up barely on an elbow to watch him, he can see the closed dark lines of his lashes and the relaxed curve of his mouth, a faint pink wash across cheeks and nose. 

Crowley's fast asleep.

The room feels airless.

Aziraphale remains very still, though he feels like a spark has caught in his insides. This is probably a reflex of some kind. An inadvertent adjustment from Crowley's body to find a better position to keep resting. But whatever certainty lies in Aziraphale's mind about the matter, it scatters the next moment when Crowley rolls his buttocks again on Aziraphale's erection. 

And whines thready while doing so. 

Blood that Aziraphale doesn't need, pistons in his veins while the daze of starlight scatters. 

This is really happening. 

He wants to pull back the arm he'd tossed over Crowley's waist but the second he flexes the muscle to move it, Crowley finds his wrist, his hand. Threads their fingers together. 

The same sort of unfettered flutters from where he'd watched Crowley shower poke alive in Aziraphale's belly. 

Unrestrained, even if it's the only part of himself Aziraphale will allow to run amok. 

Crowley's legs fold as if wanting to fit against the curves of Aziraphale's own. He doesn't stop squeezing back. Doesn't pull away when the very evident hot pressure of Aziraphale's cock keeps rubbing along the crease of his soft arsecheeks. Voice untroubled and muscles unlocked, Crowley moans airy, guiding the weight of Aziraphale's hand to the band of his boxers, and below. Where his own erection throbs in need under cotton. 

Aziraphale is sure he keens. 

There's now a clear sexual development to what had started as comforting intimacy. A moment Aziraphale is again stealing, allowing Crowley to seek pleasure while asleep. 

He tries once more to draw back, but Crowley's nails dig into the skin of his hand. The roll of those narrow hips quickens, up and down pushes that feel exquisite where Aziraphale is jerking wet, his own thighs quivering. 

Aziraphale knows he should wake Crowley up. But instead, he's helpless to tuck his face into the long red strands of hair at Crowley's nape. Breathing in the sandalwood-smoke of him. The hints of sweat. 

He doesn't let his body indulge, though. No more than what he's already receiving. Nothing of his own accord. Instead, Aziraphale lets Crowley take. Allows Crowley to pull his hand against the warm thickness of his cock. To keep rutting back on him. 

It's wrong, he knows it is. To be experiencing newness in a way that's transgressive. To store the sensations Crowley manages to light up, as something he'll have to hide or ignore later. Aziraphale can't help to wonder what Crowley's dream is, if perhaps there's a clear idea in his mind. If even asleep he's wishing for the same fill of hot pressure he'd experienced while showering, the thickness of an erection to stretch him until his lean thighs are shaking and his voice goes skidding up. 

Biting his own cheek, chest squeezing, Aziraphale tries to ban the thoughts away. 

It's difficult not to desire, not to want, not to be aroused. When Crowley's all Aziraphale has ever wanted. He's craved familiarity through millenia. A place to call his, the nooks and crannies of a space that would become somewhere to rest and belong. 

But everything else pales in comparison to Crowley's presence. Because there's familiarity in the way his hair shines under the slanting glow of the streetlight. In the smell of his skin and the warmth of his body. In how their hands brush and in the shimmer of sulphur-yellow eyes. 

Familiarity, for Aziraphale, has always lived in Crowley's closeness. 

It's impossible not to react to his ragged noises and blood-hot body. To all the gorgeous angles of him that are so easy to get lost into. 

Mouth now on Crowley's neck, Aziraphale shuts his eyes to not see the valley between their bodies. Where Crowley's shirt has creased and pooled up, leaving the curve of his arse evident, coaxing Aziraphale harder, making him leak at each push. Where Aziraphale's erection is tenting his own boxers, to the point it's uncomfortable not to move, cockhead butting into the cleft of Crowley's buttocks. Through it all, Aziraphale tries to not register how plump Crowley's cock is through the cloth beneath his palm, while Crowley keeps using him. 

Aziraphale doesn't realise fully what happens the next second. 

There's a firm squirm of legs that bump against his, a noise of cloth tearing, and then a slippery rasp along Aziraphale's thigh that feels nothing at all like skin. The cock beneath his hand shifts, a layer of clothing wrinkled and falling where there was a tautness to it before. Under his fingers he can now feel the shape of two shorter, stiff lengths, and a blazing dampness that soaks the ripped boxers. 

Crowley wiggles and writhes and squirms. 

Aziraphale's eyes fly open. 

There's a huge tail on the sheets. Coiling and pulling in quivery delight, slippery when Aziraphale presses his calf in on the rush of scales. Oh, he's lovely . The whole of Crowley's body below the waist is now a long winding whip of blackness with a red streak in the middle, so large that the tip falls down the edge of the mattress. 

Where Aziraphale's forearm brushes on Crowley's waist, he can feel the speckled, cool dots of more scales. Just a tilt of head shows him that Crowley's face has gone a little less human, more sharp.

There are now claws scratching Aziraphale's hand. 

This is not a form Crowley has taken before during all the years they've known each other. The shirt remains in place, but judging by what he feels brushing his fingers, Crowley's boxers have ripped open entirely to allow the whole bulk of that lush tail to manifest. 

Oh, but he is incredible.

"Oh, Crowley." It escapes him in a burst of hot air against Crowley's ear. "Oh, my darling."

There's a seize of muscles where it becomes evident Crowley's quite clearly awake. Rigid from shoulders to waist to tail. The stillness doesn't last. Crowley makes a noise, wounded and inhuman. It chills Aziraphale's blood, before the tail morphs back to lean, pale legs and Crowley's jumping to stand with a quick snap to give himself some black loose sweatpants. 

The face he fixes on Aziraphale is a knot of complicated lines that still scream loudly one word over all others hidden in the skin.  

Absolute, terrified horror. 

His eyes are very, very big, pupils almost rounded, mouth falling open lax. As if he had just seen something horrible. But there's a teeming froth under the surface that looks a lot like hurt. 

Aziraphale's heart thrashes until he thinks his ribs will snap open, that he'll collapse inwards under the weight of it. 

He sits up in a second. 

When he flicks eyes down to his own pelvis, he can see the incriminating bulge of the erection that still hasn't flagged beneath his white boxers. The evidence of how much he's enjoyed Crowley's dreamy indulgence, when it's been quite clear from the start that Crowley has never wanted this. Has never wanted him. 

Crowley must have felt it. Must have realised how Aziraphale had been awake long before. The advantage he had taken…

How terrible an angel can he be? Blinded by a covetous yearning that he'd thought he could keep in check. 

What a lie. 

Crowley's name winds around his tongue but Aziraphale can't speak, can't make himself talk. Guilt laces tightening around his lungs. 

Crowley shakes his head wildly, swallows down a few times in convulsive rolls of throat. "No, no, no, not like this– " He clicks out a noise of hurt that spears Aziraphale through. "It wasn't supposed to go like this!"

A second later he's tossing himself through the open doors and down the stairs. Running away. 

Aziraphale is already up, hurling himself off the bedroom. Ignoring the boiling thump of his blood that rushes all over, deafening him to everything else. 

God. Lord. Please. Someone. 

What has he done?

Aziraphale rushes around the cottage following the noises Crowley leaves behind while he thumps against furniture. Clumsy, as Aziraphale has never seen him. 

His feet tap loudly over the parquet, and he doesn't even consider his modesty, running around only in a white tee and boxers.

Sprinting out of the house after that ribbon of red and black. 

"Wait! Wait, Crowley, please!"

It doesn't matter if Crowley wants to tell him off, Aziraphale would gladly accept it. Any punishment Crowley would think fit for breaking his trust. 

He has to be honest, though. Apologise and grovel if it's necessary, put himself at Crowley's mercy entirely. 

Aziraphale doesn't realise his feet are padding over the hard, rough gravel of the path that connects their home with the conservatory. The pointy rocks don't even sting. The cold doesn't even bite. 

He half expects to find the glass pane door locked and warded to stop him from entering, but the entrance is fully open. 

Greenery in all its varieties shine and shimmer under the soft recessed lighting. 

This has always been Crowley's sanctuary, and it chafes to think Aziraphale is disrespecting it in any way. 

The air is humid, warm where it buffets on the slashes of bare skin he's left uncovered, and he knows there's a distinctive musky scent that brushes his nostrils.  

Heart hammering, Aziraphale guides himself inside on trembling footsteps, sinking soles on the wet loam between rows of plants that seem accusing. He skirts a huge bracken, to finally see Crowley standing on the center of the patch of soil, back turned. 

All the words in the world crash and burn at their proximity. But Aziraphale has gone through Hell and Heaven, through fire and blood to be back, and he isn't going to allow his own shortcomings to wedge between him and Crowley. 

He shuffles closer, sees the light clench of Crowley's hand where it's hanging down, and the twitch of fingers feels as if it's grasping round his trachea. 

Aziraphale breathes, tenses his back, and rasps softly, "Crowley. Please, look at me, darling."

Waiting is unbearable. 

There's no air filtering in, all the windows are closed to keep the heat Crowley has always preferred. It presses down on Aziraphale, stifles his senses. 

Slowly, at glacier speed, he finally sees Crowley turning round. 

His eyes are bruised red, as if he has viciously rubbed them with his knuckles, and the line of his jaw is a furiously tightened clench, drawing up his mouth to a thin curve, all of him skin-thin. 

Gorgeous in blazing anger. 

God, after all of this, Aziraphale still doesn't deserve him. He's shored up here finally, and he owes it to Crowley to use his words, to speak. Long gone are the days where any problem could be swept under a rug that wouldn't be moved for another three decades. 

And it stings in its own horrible way to feel after all this time that they still could be like strangers to each other. That all the time and words unsaid that rattled in the spaces between them could weigh more than the desire for honesty. 

Aziraphale swallows the grit in his throat and forces words shake loose, "Crowley, please, darling– I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't think–"

He's abruptly cut off by one of those trademark noises Crowley seems to store in spades within his throat. This time, though, it comes out stilted and harsh, almost violent. 

He gives half a step forward as if his long body had been released from a fisting grasp. 

Crowley's face twists in desperate confusion. "What? What are you sorry for? I should be the one apologising!"

It gives Aziraphale pause. Makes him blink and inhale air he doesn't need. "What?" It's instinctive to tip forward, move closer while his head moves from side to side. "No, certainly not. I was the one who broke your trust! I was awake while you dreamed of… of whatever or whoever it was that brought you pleasure." He hopes Crowley can't catch the black soot of jealousy that coats his voice, so he follows, "And I was so selfish that when you didn't wake up after the first time I tried to shake you, I didn't persist. Because I loved having you in my arms. Seeking me… even if you didn't mean to."

There, it's all out, and he can't take it back. 

Warmth pools in Aziraphale's cheeks while his fingers dig rings into his palms.. He can't look at Crowley. He can't stop looking at him. The slow unwinding of his shoulders, and then a breath, long and loud.

He braces for Crowley's anger. 

But Crowley frowns. "What do you mean, 'if I didn't mean to?'"

"It's… I know you might not be entirely comfortable with the idea of having sex with me–" Crowley makes a confused noise, but Aziraphale rushes in, "and that's perfectly fine, absolutely fine! I would never fault you for wanting some things or not wanting others, it wouldn't make a dent in how happy I am with you or in how much I love you. But I need you to tell me, to be honest with me about your boundaries, about your wishes. So, I can be better at giving you what you need, whether it's space for your own enjoyment or anything else."

Crowley's face goes through a roulette of several emotions, 

"It was you," Crowley says, instead, squeezing eyes closed to then pull them open. The blades of his cheekbones are red, same as the slashes that paint his throat and the tip of his ears. "It has always been you. I was dreaming of you, same as every night. The same dirty, filthy dream in which you fuck me until my voice goes hoarse from asking for it. I… I always want you, Aziraphale."  

Aziraphale's knees wobble with the strength of the admission. 

Crowley looks agonised by the confession, as if pulling it out had dragged out his innards, had ripped him in half.

"But you kept pushing me away!" It bursts out of Aziraphale like an explosion. The contrast of his own wishes and all the time spent at arm's length with no explanation wars and vies to spill out. "Every time I kissed you– Each time I placed my hands on you – I thought– I don't understand."

Crowley's sharp shoulders sag. There's still a few feet between them and Aziraphale dares to sway in, to swing closer until he can see the worry lines around Crowley's eyes, the red raised line on his lip from how much he's bitten it. Until Aziraphale can smell the teak of his cologne. 

"Because I didn't want to make you face the fact that I'm not… I'm not entirely what you're used to," he says, teeth clicking when he pauses. His face is pulled down in a grimace that slowly shifts into a hurt scrunch of mouth and eyes. "I'm a snake demon, after all. When I'm… worked up, I can't help but slip into it, and I don't think that's what you wanted in a partner or what you expected to suddenly find at your side, on your bed."

His yellow-sharp eyes are fixed on the ground. There's too much to parse and make sense of in what he just said. Aziraphale can't believe that after all this time, Crowley might still think Aziraphale would resent any part of him, ethereal or made from earthly-flesh. 

It's all too ridiculous, too outlandish. That Crowley would doubt Aziraphale could accept and cherish all his facets. 

Though, perhaps that's his own making, his own sin to atone for. 

Aziraphale shifts impossibly closer. He wants to lift a hand and cup Crowley's cheek, but the yellow in his eyes has consumed the white entirely, and in his oversized, rumpled clothes he looks fragile enough, Aziraphale fears he might break him with a wrong touch. "Crowley, I knew you were a snake. For Heaven– Earth's sake, I've seen you in your snake form hundreds of times!"

"Yes, well." Another despondent, sad stare. "Doesn't mean you've wanted to fuck one, does it?"

The obscene way of putting it fists Aziraphale in the jaw. 

"Wha-"

"I can't control it!" Crowley dives shaking hands into his own hair, pulling the strands out of the already wrecked bun. They fall long, blood-red, and messy, and Aziraphale wishes he could thread fingers through them. "When we're like that. When you touch me and I kiss you and we –" Crowley grimaces again, hands falling down after leaving his hair loose and wavy. "I can't control it. And I don't think you've signed up to fuck something drawn out from people's nightmares, to share your bed with someone who looks like a bloody snake. To be reminded time and again that I'm a bloody demon!"

Shards of the past weeks slot into place in the flick of a second. Crowley's reluctance to any sort of human intimacy, the caution of restraining himself just at the verge of it. How he had sought pleasure by himself, never avoiding to it, but perhaps wary, unsure of the limit of Aziraphale's affection. 

As if Aziraphale's love could be quantified or measured, found to have borders that shifted if they bumped into any change. And oh, how the realisation aches inside him . 

With slow, gentle tenderness, Aziraphale finds Crowley's right hand. Sees those impossibly gorgeous eyes open when Aziraphale nudges the fingers to lift and splay and press where Aziraphale's heart beats. "Dearest, look at me. Look at me, my darling." Crowley's eyes find his, huge and luminous even blurred by the haze of doubts. Breath by breath, Aziraphale manages to forge through. "I haven't signed up to… to fuck a snake as you so crassly put it." Aziraphale drags a finger along the knuckles of Crowley's left hand, lets himself trace the pointy bones and the soft skin. Wants so  desperately to stay like this, unmoving, and holding Crowley through hours. "I'm here because there's no part of you I don't love. I've signed up to live my life at your side, because I can't imagine changing a speck of who you are, or continuing going without you. You, Crowley. With everything you are. Not despite, but because of it. There's not a single trace of you I don't adore."

His own voice wavers while his heart threatens to tear through his chest. 

Crowley has gone red about the face, and just as Aziraphale expects, still manages a last ditch attempt to kick that dream in the knees. "Yeah, sure, so sexy to think about sticking your dick in ten feet of coiled scales, while I go all beast mode with the fangs and the claws and the– the–"

Silly, stubborn demon. 

Swiftly, Aziraphale laces a hand around Crowley's trim waist, brings him closer until their chests press together. There's a gasp muffled in Crowley's mouth, a twitching grab of fingers that fold round Aziraphale's bíceps, that tickle the bare skin. 

They're close as they always should've been. Unbroken and easy, so easy their bodies set looser when they touch. "Hush, now. I won't let you talk about my beloved in such a horrible manner."

Crowley smiles, faint, unsure, but his voice is less strained when he says, "Are you saying…"

Honesty has brought them this far, so Aziraphale supposes he should follow the trail he's already started. "I… I saw you, showering today. Saw you change while you pleasured yourself. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, darling, I should've said something."

This is a transgression Aziraphale isn't sure Crowley will forgive. But he owes him the truth, even if it shows he's nothing but a lustful, desperate angel that has been dying to touch him. 

Crowley's spine goes rigid, the wash of pink going crimson again, but he hums, almost pensive, "And you… you didn't find it weird?

Aziraphale wants to laugh, to scream, but he thinks Crowley might not understand him. 

"Darling," he says, folding over until he has his forehead pressed to Crowley's. "It was the most erotic experience of my life. You're always beautiful, you know you are. Oh, but dear, while lost in your pleasure? You are exquisite. I was so terribly aroused watching you, I just… couldn't help myself."

Crowley bites his lip. His breaths are now quick while he lets out a low little groan. "You came while you were watching me?"

"Yes, dressed still, like an artless human. I felt I was going mad with… with the need to have you."

Oh, this is such a confession to make. Aziraphale's thighs tremble, heart aching while the memories swamp him and drive heat to rush across him while a sound clips out of Crowley's mouth, desperate. 

"So, are you telling me – telling me–"

Aziraphale can't stop himself from groaning when the line of their thighs squeezes close, watching Crowley sweeping a tongue over that tempting mouth. 

This is it. 

Aziraphale tightens his hold on Crowley's waist, making Crowley sigh a moan. "That I want you. In every form and every way– half-snake, full snake, with legs or whatever it is that you want to manifest for yourself. Darling, I'm dying to have you, if you let me . Just you. "

It must be the right thing to say, because Crowley falls on him, tips their mouths in a crushing, open kiss that seems to smoulder Aziraphale from the bones out. A kiss that takes, and tastes of need. Bright with a soft bite, warm and damp when Aziraphale dares to slip his tongue past Crowley's lips. 

"I've been wanting to coil around you, wanting you to want me, to have me, to fuck me and fill me, to lock us together while you're inside me." Crowley whines, hands trailing up to Aziraphale's hair. Scratching his scalp while he tugs. "Take me, angel, please. Have me."

Aziraphale's whole body ripples in hot desire, cock plump and jerking where it hangs trapped in his boxers. "I want that. God, yes, I want that so very badly."

The weeks and hours before collapse on Aziraphale when he flattens palms up beneath Crowley's shirt to feel the smooth expanse of his back. Up to the wings of his shoulderblades and the strong tautness of his spine. He kisses Crowley until the push of their mouths turns filthy, with the wild punch of hot breaths and keen whines coming from Crowley when Aziraphale worries his bottom lip. When he slides down to suck at the line of his long, gorgeous neck with a bruising intensity. 

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I want you so very much," Aziraphale says, at one of Crowley's more agonised whimpers. "I'll try to be more gentle."

But Crowley growls, tips his throat up and yanks Aziraphale to get him closer. "Don't you fucking dare."

There's no wall or table or sofa close enough to find a steady support but stability is the last thing to worry about. Aziraphale holds Crowley's waist while Crowley's fine hands splay over his shoulders, fisting at white fabric, stretching and ruining the shirt to pull Aziraphale for another rub of lips over his neck, to nip at Aziraphale's collarbones. 

The fold of legs and bodies is almost instinctive. The thumping need to have more of Crowley to taste and lick and kiss and enjoy. Aziraphale finds himself leaning over Crowley, pressing him down against the dark, damp loam, thighs spread trapping the span of those narrow hips. 

Between his legs, Aziraphale's cock is a warm throb of desire, hard to the point it aches with each rub of boxers. 

Aziraphale can't believe he's actually allowed to indulge, to take and savour. The greed in his blood outpaces each other feeling, his stomach heavy with arousal. 

It's terrible. It's glorious. Wrecked lust turned physical for the touch of Crowley who squirms and pants underneath him, over the luscious, rich soil that leaves dots of dirt across Crowley's skin. 

"Aziraphale, I'm– I can't –" 

Aziraphale finds Crowley staring up at him through stray lines of red hair that have gone messy. Eyes golden and jaw sharper than usual. The change is subtle but it's there, a dash of black already along the sides of Crowley's neck, and a catching raspness to the nails that now feel more like claws on Aziraphale's back. He seems to make a decision, snapping his fingers to doff each item of clothing.

He's now bare and slick with sweat, skin pale and freckled, and Aziraphale feels his body shaking in arousal where he's gathering his weight on one elbow, a hand catching the naked twist of Crowley's waist. 

Crowley's thin chest is long and smooth with a faint scatter of red hair over a flat belly and dusky, small nipples. Aziraphale thumbs at where the curve of a stark rib shows, tracing it, down and up, as if entranced. He doesn't focus on anything but Crowley's wide eyes which still seem to hold some sort of shocked apprehension. 

Aziraphale's desperate to know Crowley entirely. Pressing wet breaths to the well of Crowley's throat, he sighs, "Yes, darling, give in. Show me, my love, you're beautiful."

With a quiet gasp, Crowley's body swells from the waist down, between Aziraphale's legs. It's a wonder to watch the way his hips change into slashes of black, the gorgeous transition from skin to glossy scales, how all the bulk of that magnificent tail unloops, digging its shape on the wet ground. Aziraphale looks down, and marvels at Crowley's colours, at the red and black that shines under the moist air. Crowley's hands have gone heavier where they're now tipped with claws similar to those of a great lizard, dangerous-looking. His chest and waist are speckled with scales, and the lovely shape of his mouth grows to fit sharper, meaner teeth. 

And just a palm below the line of his hips, at the centre, there's the slick line of a slit that is beginning to open, with the heads of hemipenes barely visible. 

Aziraphale's mouth runs dry. 

"Here I am, then," Crowley says finally, a bit thin, squeezing Aziraphale's arms. "What's the verdict?"

Pinned down on the ground, Aziraphale knows Crowley's let himself be vulnerable for this moment. Not that Aziraphale would take advantage in a way Crowley wouldn't ask or like, but the thought still warms Aziraphale through. 

He has no difficulty in finding Crowley appealing. With his pretty face and that exquisite body that stirs a furious desire in Aziraphale's spine. At the slippery softness of his scales and that twisting tail that thrashes as if helpless to do anything else. 

Aziraphale's knees sink into the wet soil that chafes his skin slightly, but he doesn't pay it any mind. He only has eyes for the gorgeous display his demon has made of himself. Has only attention to focus on the nude, raw slash of his torso and the place where his own bulging boxers keep butting into two smaller hemipenes, that now jut out from the slick, warm tightness of what Aziraphale supposes is Crowley's open vent. The sight is visceral enough to have Aziraphale's insides twisting with heat.

It would be so easy to paw his own waistband down, let his own lust take over and spear into Crowley's cloaca while his mouth sucks bruises on his nipples, that he could renew later if he wanted to. But he won't, not right now, not without a word. 

He doesn't want to hurt Crowley in any manner. 

Aziraphale clenches his jaw, draws air in and exhales in a deep groan. 

He finds Crowley's wrists and circles them, lifting them to press them at the sides of Crowley's head. "My verdict is that you really need to tell me where to touch you," Aziraphale forces out. It's painful to not move, to still himself to not do anything he isn't supposed to. He's furiously hard, so much so that he's soaking the front of his boxers, thighs straining to not thrust furiously into any part of Crowley's body. "Show me how to please you. Because I don't know– don't know how much more I can take."

Crowley blinks as if surprised, but nods, carefully shifts a clawed hand until Aziraphale releases his wrists. He sees Crowley guide fingers down to the poke of his hard, flushed hemipenes and to the delicate pink slit that glistens in faint wetness. 

He hisses a gasp. "Touch me here. This is my cloaca. You can put your fingers inside me if you want –"

Aziraphale can't help a buck of hips that butts their erections, makes them groan. "My penis?" God, he's shameless. Face flushed and voice deep, he can't do anything but be direct while they still can. "Can I push myself inside you? Would that be something you'd enjoy?"

Crowley's long, serpentine body twists and thrashes. "Fuck, fuck. Yes, you can. Fucking want that, I've dreamed of you fucking me like this. Of you stretching me to all I can give."

Aziraphale moans. Sees the helpless twitch of Crowley's hemipenes that he now wants to taste. "And my mouth? Can I put my mouth on you? Would you like that?"

"Fuck, Aziraphale." Eyes huge and mouth slack, Crowley moans. His cloaca drips liquid that shines over the surrounding scales while Aziraphale's desire grows so heated it burns. "Yes, yes, I'd fucking like that."

Aziraphale tips down for another kiss first, squeezing and groping all of Crowley he can manage to set fingers on. Waist, tail, nipples, hair. He can feel Crowley's tongue is different now, and it does nothing but make his lust swell to scorching when it flicks, forked and long, across his mouth. Kissing Crowley back until it's a bruising rub of lips that stings when Crowley's fangs catch on flesh. 

Aziraphale's already trembling. 

With a careful squirm, Aziraphale slides down the long stretch of Crowley's body, kissing it as he goes. Over his hard sternum, onto the dip of his navel, just there on the irregular line where skin turns scales. 

Crowley moves, shifts, sinks claws into Aziraphale's shoulders while he goes down. "What are you doing?"

"I told you I wanted to put my mouth on you," Aziraphale breathes, flaring hot over Crowley's scales. "And that's what I'm going to do."

He doesn't give Crowley time for another word, before giving a cupping suck to one of the flushed, dripping hemipenis, circling the other with a tight grasp. 

"Ah, Satan. Fuck, fuck."

Crowley bucks, moans, twists over the soil while his hemipenes twitch and jerk. They feel hot and pulsing in Aziraphale's mouth, in his hand, while he bobs his head lightly, switches to sweep his tongue in wet strokes, root to tip. Aziraphale wants to experience all of Crowley, discover what makes him whine, what drives him wild, no matter his own erection is a throbbing, long pulse of ache that he's trying to ignore. 

Crowley's cloacal scales shift entirely open when his hemipenes draw out hard and shiny with fluid, and Aziraphale can see the delicate pink interior of his vent, wet and inviting. 

"I need to taste you inside, please–" Lord, when did he ever get so demanding? Aziraphale is boiling up, dizzy with need. "Please, Crowley, can I?"

Crowley whines, rolls his tail up practically rubbing his beautifully spread vent on Aziraphale's lips. "Fuck, yes, yes."

The moment Aziraphale's tongue slides into that tight, warm space, Crowley's body jolts. Aziraphale has to set hands round the lush fullness of that gorgeous tail to try to keep Crowley from thrashing too badly. It's a hard task, but Aziraphale is an angel. There's more strength in the sinews and muscles of his body than in a regular human. 

"You're so tight," Aziraphale says, angling his face up for a second to watch the burst open gold of Crowley's eyes, how sensual he looks spread out for Aziraphale to enjoy him. "Crowley, tell me if I hurt you, because you feel so terribly small."

Crowley punches out a whine. "It's fine, you're fine. I stretch more than that, angel, keep going."

Aziraphale makes a tremendous effort to not think in Crowley's words, in not imagining this tight space spread obscenely for him. Crowley's so hot inside, Aziraphale hums a moan, slips his tongue in and traces the opening where the squeeze is so brutal, he can't think there will be a way to fit his cock inside Crowley, despite what he says. There's a continued slashing sound, and the burning drag of what he supposes are Crowley's claws along his shoulders – Aziraphale hopes there will be marks later, raised and red on him. 

He keeps pushing in, feeling the spill of liquid down his chin, the throbbing tightness of Crowley's hemipenes where he keeps tugging at them. Crowley's exquisite, tastes of musk and earth and salt, while his airy, loud whimpers rattle through the whole glass of the conservatory. 

Aziraphale fucks Crowley on his tongue until the slick-wet interior of his cloaca begins to squeeze, to seize around him. He knows he's practically mounting and grinding on the lower part of his tail that keeps coiling, keeps pulling, the far end creeping to grasp and twine around his calf. 

"Aziraphale– angel, please–" Crowley writhes like a living wire, whining in broken bursts. "Feels so good, so good."

Hearing him makes Aziraphale's belly quiver, his mouth closing on the small stretch of cloaca to suck the soft entrance, fisting tightly the rise of a hemipenis, while his tongue spears Crowley open as deep as he can.

Crowley stiffens, rolls up the bulk of his tail into the pressing weight of Aziraphale's body, eager, crying hoarse while his hemipenes spill on the scales, on Aziraphale's fist. His cloaca spasms wet too, and the vicious squeeze is enough to push Aziraphale too close to an orgasm he doesn't want to surrender yet. 

He forces his hips to stop working his cock into Crowley's tail and focus on the wrecked delight that's Crowley in the throes of pleasure. Heavy mouth open, eyes shining while that slash of chest heaves with breaths. Crowley's dappled pink over his nipples, over the softness of his belly, his tail still rippling, scales up there streaked come-white. 

There's a whole array of set-deep lines on his face brought to starkness in the moment, gorgeous with satisfaction. Aziraphale knows he won't stop until he's memorised until the last one, made them his own. Until it becomes a regular fixture. 

"C'mon angel, I need you," Crowley says, wrung out and still needy. Tipping a clawed hand up, beckoning. Face pinched, body quivering in lust. "Just take me now."

Even now, Aziraphale has doubts. He looks far too big next to Crowley's hemipenes and his small vent. "I… Will it fit?"

If Crowley had legs, Aziraphale knows he would be kneeing him closer, judging by the snapping hiss and the scrunch of mouth. As it is, he pulls Aziraphale by the hem of his shirt. "We fit together, you and I, angel. I'll make it happen."

How can Aziraphale not love him?

Aziraphale rises knowing he must look a mess. Cheeks shiny with Crowley's arousal, curls tousled by his claws, shirt gone half shredded. But still he rises, goes to Crowley, feeling the heaviness of his cock straining his boxers. "Don't – don't you need my fingers?" 

"No, no." Crowley shakes his head. "Believe me. I've spent this whole month stuffing myself full of dildos wishing it were you." He laughs, manic, while digging into the soft flesh of Aziraphale's sides, tugging him on top to kiss him again. All hot breath and wet slides of tongue. "Stretching is the last thing I need, though a bit of lube would be good."

Crowley's words bundle up at the bottom of his spine, tear hot through his belly. Aziraphale is only half aware of the uncoordinated, messy pulls he gives to his boxers to leave it strained at his thighs. Uncovering the wet length of his cock, relishing the hissing whine Crowley throws into the air when he sees it, how he whimpers, unwinding his tail as if trying to angle himself to receive Aziraphale. So greedy. 

"You say these things, as if you didn't know what they do to me," Aziraphale says, low and slow, close enough to give Crowley another biting kiss. Nipping at Crowley's lip, sucking the flesh of it. Rubbing his fat cockhead against the deep pink opening of Crowley's cloaca where he's made him ready, made him pliant for much, much more. Aziraphale thinks he might faint, miracling too much lube to spread it with his fingers, seeing it dip into the clenching tightness of Crowley's slit. "How much I desire you… Fiend, it's as if you want to see me break."

Without losing another second, Aziraphale presses there, grasping the long, thick heft of his cock, slippery from his own arousal and the remnants of lube. There's a bit of resistance where Crowley's body is not meant to be taken like this, for something so big or so heavy, the head of Aziraphale's prick catching on the wet, open entrance. Aziraphale is dazed by the sight of it, watching the impossible, beautiful stretch of Crowley's body, hearing the panted moan that rattles out of his mouth. 

He is tight, a vise-like squeeze that has Aziraphale digging feet into the dirt for purchase, to not lose control and sink brutally into that maddening clutching heat. 

"Oh, god." He sounds nothing like himself, all ragged, groaned. "Oh, lord, Crowley."

Crowley bites his lip, claws sinking like razors into the ground. "Fuck. Yes, yes, angel, it's fine– keep going, you can go deeper."

There's nothing Aziraphale can say that will come out coherent. There's only a drive to sink inside that perfect, wet heat, to move his hips to slide forward. Until he's buried all the way into the tight clench of Crowley's cloaca, pressed together. Until he's failing to keep his composure and falls into Crowley, pushing fingers through his hair and dragging him up for a kiss. Aziraphale's cock is compressed and searing hot in the tight pinch of Crowley's vent. It pulses and throbs between breaths, and he can't help to give rolling little sways that jostle the swell below Crowley's scales, tugs at the rim and makes Crowley's hemipenes harden and shake. 

Crowley's lips part and he lets out a high, frayed noise that immediately makes Aziraphale tense. 

"Did I hurt you?"

Crowley's tail undulates, causing Aziraphale to slip deeper into him with a groan. 

"Not at all. It's good, I feel so full," Crowley whines. "Keep going like that, show me you want me, angel."

He sounds so hopeful. 

God, it's permission. It's easy to erase the restraint that's been tailing him for weeks, and push in, roll his hips back, twist into the hot grip of Crowley's body. Aziraphale curves down to mouth at Crowley's neck where the scales are raspy-warm beneath his tongue. His calves and thighs flex next to each curl of Crowley's tail when he coils and tangles as if seeking to envelop him. His grasp on Crowley's waist keeps slipping by the sweat, not that it matters, with how inescapable their closeness is. Each thrust and press inside Crowley lights up Aziraphale's spine in bright pleasure, all of him oblivious to the faint pain of those claws that are now anchored on his waist. Torn pieces of his shirt dot the dark soil, background of their hunger. Like snowflakes they fall, one and then another.

The air smells of peat and sweetness, of that familiar musk of Crowley in his serpent form. It sticks to Aziraphale's palate, and he swallows a few times as if he could savour it. 

"You're beautiful, darling," Aziraphale says, rough around the edges. It's impossible not to say it, while Crowley's lithe form spreads and stretches for him, jostling with each one of Aziraphale's hard thrusts. "How could you ever believe I wouldn't want you? That I would brush you aside?"

Crowley shivers, but closes his eyes, evasive to praise and craving it as always. "Aziraphale – angel, angel–"

Aziraphale is not a stranger to sex but he can admit that he's never felt more aroused. Surrounded by heat and tightness and delicious damp squeezes that throw him into a few frantic pushes. He sees Crowley's hemipenes twitch and bead wet, sees the whole body he's despaired over, shaking with his pounding, and moans when he fucks back in, says, "I'm not going to last. Not at all. You feel wonderful, darling– look at what you do to me."

It's as if the words fuel Crowley to twist and make himself more pliant, curling a clawed hand round Aziraphale's neck to crush their mouths together, that long tongue flicking over Aziraphale's lips. Crowley works that gorgeous tail up an inch, tightens and rocks until Aziraphale feels himself fitting so deep inside him that the ache of his balls presses tight on cool scales. It's all slippery, smooth tightness while he throbs, thighs rippling with quivering flexes, coaxed into the edge of pleasure. He's gone all rhythmless and quick, moaning around the shape of Crowley's name, but the sound doesn't come out right. 

Oh, he's there. 

"Ah –" Aziraphale holds Crowley at the waist, his other arm bent and fingers deep into Crowley's mussed, damp curls. "I'm going to come inside you, I can't – can't–" He leaves the words pressed into the long arch of Crowley's neck, with red strands sticking to his lips. 

Crowley answers him with a biting, raw noise of delight. "Fuck, yes, want it all– don't stop, angel." 

The pressure inside Aziraphale grows and seems to fizz out through every sinew, every nerve. Aziraphale moans, infinitely grateful that this is now theirs, that Crowley has trusted him enough to show himself as he is, demand what he needs, that Crowley has allowed Aziraphale to have him and fill him, to find pleasure in his body over this messy surface that somehow feels incredibly fitting for everything they are. 

A story starting and ending in a garden. 

Aziraphale bucks his hips down, grinds deep into that wet heat, and effectively pins Crowley down with his weight while spilling in a warm rush inside him. He doesn't stop moving, keeps thrusting in with lax hunger, pushing out his spend in a dripping mess all over Crowley's over-stretched rim, until Aziraphale finally stills, shivering all over. 

But when he looks down, Crowley's hemipenes are still hard and angry-red, wet and jerking. Aziraphale moves a hand to them, but Crowley whines, shakes his head no. 

It's a sob that comes out of him, while he writhes over the soil in a way that tells Aziraphale that if he had legs, he would be rubbing them together. "More, please more." Claws sink into his shoulder. "Wanna come with you."

Aziraphale gasps, held aloft on his palms. "More? Darling, I just came inside you."

At that, Crowley's face washes crimson. A flash of a spark in his yellow eyes. "I'm a snake. Usually… usually there's two." That long tongue snaps in flickering, nervous licks, before he squeezes eyes closed just to open them, pleading. "I want more. Want it again. Please, give it to me again."

Aziraphale didn't think Crowley could sound more enticing, but he's proved wrong in an instant. He's hardening and thickening already where he's still held in the breach of that soft cloaca, breath coming out in a rush of air that sounds like a whine. He's going to give Crowley what he wants, because there's no universe in which he won't, in which he can deny him. 

"Perhaps next time I could have two," he says, already cramming himself tight, moving his thighs, mouth pressed to that space below his ear, leaving the words catch into the curls that are plastered there. 

"Oh, fuck." Crowley whimpers, eyes glassy, now flat on his back, letting himself be mounted and speared open. Throwing arms around Aziraphale to keep him close while they rock and squeeze and tear. "Would you?"

It's a question that echoes like a wish, like something Crowley's desired very much but hasn't voiced out of fear or shyness. Aziraphale has no intentions of setting back up walls between them again. To let any of Crowley's wishes go unaddressed if there's something he could do. And perhaps too because the idea is so exquisitely hot, his own knees wobble where they're set on the ground. 

"Yes, I would," he grates out. "I would use one first to push inside you, to stretch you well, and when I'm spent, I would use the other. Would never leave you empty."

Little shivers run along Crowley's warm skin. "Fuck, Aziraphale. Yes, yes, yes. Nghh, Satan, yes, keep me full!"

"Eager, serpent. I'd never tire of having you, of being inside you." And what does that say of him? Of his relentless hunger and unabashed lust for Crowley? Not that it matters. There's no other opinion that matters when it pertains to the both of them. Aziraphale grunts in a thrust, pounds and shakes with the rapidly building pleasure. "I'd never tire of taking you over and over on our bed. Until you're dripping. Until there's no doubt about how much I desire you– oh, I desire you so."

Crowley trembles and Aziraphale feels the surge of liquid on his belly, smearing over his skin. There's a sob, a chopped out whimper that sounds very much like Aziraphale's name but it's short and ragged, while Crowley tangles around him and squeezes. 

Aziraphale works himself hard, presses deep into the fucked open space of that hot slit, until he's spilling for the second time in thrilling, wet pulses of come that seem to go on forever. This time Aziraphale doesn't soften, answering the angling cries from Crowley, remains inside him hot and hard and ready. They do it again, and again, and once more, because Crowley asks for it, asks for him – because Crowley asks, and Aziraphale knows that's reason enough. 

At some point, Aziraphale falls exhausted over Crowley, while long, gentle claws card through his hair. He doesn't move, doesn't pull out from Crowley, shivering still with the softening bliss of too many orgasms. It feels right to let the sensory memory of scales soak into him for a little longer, being buried into the demon he loves letting everything else be snuffed out by Crowley's tightness and taste and noises. Because it turns out this joining is another type of communication, one in which the movements can't be misinterpreted, where Crowley can't twist a turn of phrase to believe Aziraphale might mean something different.

Aziraphale tips his head just to find Crowley's mouth, to revel in the sharp teeth and heavy jaw, hearing Crowley groan around a chuckle. 

Still, Aziraphale has to ask, "Satisfied, are you?" 

Crowley's answer is smooth as silk, voice a little gritty after all the whining. "Yeah, you could say so. You really pulled out all the stops."

When they finally separate, Aziraphale knows it's been hours. The moon has waxed and waned outside, dawn creeping in slowly like a sigh, grey-pink as Aziraphale has never seen it. A new day, a new moment, and all for themselves. He slips out from Crowley's well-used vent, watching his spend drip down the puffy, swollen sides of his cloaca. There's so much of it, the sight leaves him gasping a breath, clacking his teeth, heart hammering. 

It escapes Aziraphale, unbridled, "I love you so very much, please never doubt it."

This is what lies at the root of it, after all. An angel begging for a faith he still isn't sure he deserves from a non believer. 

But Crowley does. Aziraphale knows he does. That he's one of the few things in the entire world Crowley still believes in. 

Crowley's mouth unwinds in a gentle smile. "I know, angel."

"I hope there's no doubt now in that darling head of yours, about me wanting you in whatever form you choose to present," Aziraphale follows, to add words to actions. "That there's no part or fragment of you I'd ever reject."

Body still trapped below Aziraphale's, Crowley blinks oddly a few times, as if he wanted to dispel something from his eyes, before his face relaxes. "Point well fucking made."

The conservatory illuminates with slashes of brightness, and even though their cottage is quite secluded, Aziraphale can't help feeling someone might see them. At the moment he's feeling quite protective of Crowley as he is. 

"What if we move this to the cottage?" he offers, rolling to his side and miracling his torn clothes to a perfect state. "This place is lovely, but I feel like someone might happen upon us and see us all bare bottomed writhing on the dirt." He chuckles at hearing Crowley snorting. 

"Fuck. Alright, yeah, you're right, let me change back–"

"I could carry you," he says, kneeling at Crowley's side. When Crowley nods, he lifts him from the ground, tail looped around his middle. "And perhaps…"

"What?"

"Perhaps we can make use of the bed for more than sleeping."

Crowley's laugh is silvery bright. "You truly are insatiable, aren't you?"

There's no point in denying it, Aziraphale won't ever again deny it. Having this at all is already much, much more than he could ever imagine could deserve. He'd buried a dream just like this for so many centuries, and here, finally, he's seeing the shoots push through the soil and bloom, not annuals, but everlasting instead, despite all odds. 

He kisses Crowley's cheek. "Only for you, darling."