Archive of Our Own ^beta

Crowley kicks off his heels and melts into the couch, allowing the cushions to claim him. He's here straight from the Swan, but he's painfully sober, and the memory of a miracle lingers beneath his fingertips. He flexes his hand, trying to shake out the sting.

"Tell me again," Aziraphale says, switching on a lamp as he enters the room, "what exactly was your assignment?"

He's holding two glasses in one hand, and half a bottle of Merlot in the other. He passes a glass to Crowley.

"Temptation," Crowley says. "Nothing special. Pleasant sins they'll feel good about tomorrow."

"And you're finished by half ten? Hell must be so impressed with your efficiency."

"I'm good," Crowley agrees, and holds out his glass for Aziraphale to fill.

The bottle clinks as it touches the rim of the glass. Dark liquid spills into it.

"Your makeup smudged," Aziraphale says.

Crowley lifts a hand to his lips. He flashes back to the dance floor, to the press of bodies and heat. They'd been laughing and flirting; the suspenders she wore matched his miniskirt perfectly. She'd tangled fingers in his hair, and waited for his lips to part before she dragged him in.

"No. Here," Aziraphale says, and reaches out.

He stops a heartbeat away from Crowley's temple. Carefully, he traces a line in the air, following the curve of Crowley's cheekbone.

Crowley holds absolutely still and tries to remember to breathe.

"Oh," he says.

There are charcoal traces on Crowley's left hand, the kind left behind by flares of the occult, and he remembers in sudden vivid detail taking his sunglasses off as he entered the bookshop, and the way his thumb slid across his cheek.

"Cheap eyeliner," he says. "It never stays."

Aziraphale watches him a moment longer, and then softens.

"You wear it well."

He draws back to the table, filling his own glass and taking a seat.

"Well, I dare say you're having more success than I am lately. At least Heaven's finally taking an interest in the pit closures. There's even talk of intervening."

Crowley snorts. "In whose favour?"

"Ah," Aziraphale says. "Yes. Well. That hasn't… quite been decided yet. Gabriel has to appoint someone to do the assessment."

"If it helps, Thatcher's one of ours."

"Is that so?"

"That's what the latest reports say," Crowley says. Or they will, once Crowley drafts them.

Aziraphale is quiet, and Crowley remembers the last conversation they'd had on the subject. He might have said something about how Thatcher was too evil to bargain with, and if Satan had any sense, he'd lock the gate to her lest she put him out of a job.

"Angel. Listen," Crowley says, softly. "She's building coal reserves to last months. If it comes to a strike, I reckon the miners could use a bit of divine intervention."

Aziraphale studies his wine glass, and then meets Crowley's gaze.

"I'll pass it on. I don't know if they'll listen, but I'll try."

Crowley grins at him, and Aziraphale returns it weakly.

"You were right the first time, you know," Crowley says. "I've been having a shit time of it."

"Really?" Aziraphale says, with a tone of surprise that's completely insincere, and a smile that isn't.

"Do you want to hear about my latest 'temptation'?" He makes the finger quotes around the last word, sloshing wine around in his glass as he does. Aziraphale nods.

He'd been leaning on the bar when the guy approached. Only halfway through his first cocktail, but between the music and the heels, he swayed a little when the man greeted him, and asked what he was drinking.

Crowley looked at the orange drink in his hand and laughed. Sex on the Beach, he said.

The man laughed too. Can I get you a Screaming Orgasm to follow it?

Then he stuck his hand up Crowley's skirt.

"He did what?"

Aziraphale's outrage is gratifying, actually, but the way the angel is looking at him is the whole reason Crowley hadn't meant to tell this story.

"No, hey, it was - look, if I say it was nothing I'm worried you'll evaporate in distress, but I swear I'm okay. Which is more than I can say for him."

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow, and Crowley smirks.

"I told him I preferred my drinks with a little more bite."

“You bit him?"

"Oh, that would have been a good one," Crowley says. "No, I just set his hand on fire."

"Just that," Aziraphale says, without a trace of disapproval. He bites his lip. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, angel. Promise."

Aziraphale doesn't look any happier, though, and Crowley sighs.

"Was it bullshit? Yes, and I hope his hand scars so badly he can't touch anyone ever again. But, I mean, at least it was me."

"Crowley."

"No, don't, only because spontaneous combustion is easier for me to incite than the average human. And also, I..." He laughs, and it comes out dark. "Never mind. If I try to explain you'll just go on about how it wasn't - he still shouldn't have - and I know that, trust me, so it's better if I don't."

He expects Aziraphale to protest, and try to coax him into opening up. He expects him to say anything, really. But Aziraphale is silent, watching him from across the room. He'd try to understand, Crowley thinks. He wouldn't be able to, but he'd try.

"Fine, so it's like this. Pretend, for a moment, that I'm not a demon. Or pretend I can't use my powers. Maybe there's someone else, someone more powerful than me."

Aziraphale nods, cautious, waiting to see where this goes.

"This isn't really about what happened at the bar. That's real, and this is… something else. But the - the something else, the things I've thought about, maybe it's okay if that helps."

He can't bring himself to look at Aziraphale.

"A demon who couldn't use their powers would be just as vulnerable as a human. Maybe more, being used to the safety of magical protection."

"Vulnerable to what?" Aziraphale asks. He's watching Crowley with an odd intensity.

Crowley closes his eyes and swallows.

"So maybe instead of a crowded bar, it's a hotel lounge. Classy. Quiet. The lights are dim, and I'm sitting by myself. Maybe I'm working on a presentation due in the morning."

"You never prepare before a presentation."

Crowley smiles.

"You're right." The notepad he's imagining vanishes. Instead, he's leaning back in his chair, and the drink that was on the table beside him is now in his hand. "So maybe I'm just drinking, and thinking about tomorrow instead. How I'm going to celebrate when I ace my presentation and my boss awards me a promotion on the spot."

"Does Hell really award promotions like that?" Aziraphale asks.

Crowley cracks an eye open. "Allow me a little artistic license," he says, with a grin. “Anyway, it's late, and the bar is closing soon. Last call, so I order another drink. And as I go to pay, someone else hands over the cash. He slides into the seat next to me, smiles, waves off my protests and then my thanks."

"Who?"

"Just... someone. It doesn't matter."

"The man from the bar?"

Crowley pulls a face and shakes his head. "Not him. Someone else."

Aziraphale looks thoughtful for a moment. "Tell me something about him."

Crowley closes his eyes again and thinks.

"He's blonde," he says. When he opens his eyes, Aziraphale has his drink pressed to his lips. Crowley blushes. "And - and tall."

Aziraphale smiles. "So he pays for your drink and sits beside you."

"And he asks me if I'm lonely."

"Are you?" Aziraphale asks. "Lonely?"

His voice is low, and sweet like honey. Crowley nods, words stolen from him in the dark.

"You shouldn't have to be lonely," Aziraphale says.

"Yes," Crowley says. "That's what he says."

Not someone as pretty as you, the stranger in his mind says, and brushes hair out of his face.

"So I finish my drink, and we talk. He makes me laugh, and he touches me, but not - not like in the bar. A hand on my arm as we joke. Or our fingers brushing as we press our glasses together in a toast. I tell him about myself, more than I mean to. He talks a lot without ever really saying anything. He talks about love and freedom and adventure." Crowley watches the fire flicker. "He speaks so warmly that I don't notice he hasn't even told me his name."

Aziraphale isn't interrupting any more. He's watching Crowley, silent and enthralled.

"And then our drinks are empty, and the bar is closed. I'm getting ready to say goodnight, but -"

Come upstairs, we'll have one more.

"He has a bottle of wine in his room. He offers to share it with me if I come back with him. He's charming and beautiful, and I know what he's really asking. But it's not what I want. So I make my excuses. I've got that presentation tomorrow, remember?"

Aziraphale nods.

"But he says - oh, it doesn't matter. Something sweet and guileless. Just one drink, that's all he wants. Or he'll give me the bottle, I just have to come to his door to pick it up."

"So you go with him," Aziraphale murmurs. "Back to his room."

Crowley tips his head back, sips at his wine and watches the light playing across the ceiling. Desire thrums within him, wild and dangerous. He has to stop this. Soon.

"He stands too close in the elevator, but I'm drunk enough not to care. If he presses against me as he leans in to push the button, well, he was drinking too. Maybe it's an accident."

Aziraphale's eyes are wide now, and he must know where this is going. Must have always known, really.

"We walk the hallway together, long and winding, and every door looks exactly like the other. Finally we reach his, and he fits the key into the lock. Only he doesn't open it. Not right away. Instead, he looks over at me. He's smiling, he's still smiling, and it's such a lovely smile that I lean in."

He can back out, Crowley realises. He can let this be a story of seduction and want; safe, sanitised, with just a hint of scandal. The temptation of a tempter.

"Our lips meet. He pulls me in, a hand on my waist, the other still on the key. And when we break apart, I say -"

He's crossed enough lines tonight, he thinks, watching Aziraphale's lips part. He should leave this last one alone.

"No," Crowley says. "I say, no."

And that's it, that's everything, the fantasy laid bare. He pours the rest of his glass down his throat and miracles it full again without pause. He'll get drunk enough to pretend he doesn't remember this tomorrow and maybe in a hundred years or so he'll actually be able to forget.

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, carefully, "is any of this... Did someone do that, or something like it?"

"What? No, I told you. It's just something I think about. Have thought about, that is. Not - I don't think about it regularly." He's either too drunk or not drunk enough for this. "Trust me, angel, if someone really tried that, I'd set more than their hand on fire."

Aziraphale seems to accept that. He's quiet for a moment more, staring into his almost empty wine glass.

"Unless you couldn't," he says.

"Unless - huh?"

"At the lounge, when he paid for your drink," Aziraphale says, slowly, "perhaps he put something in it. It wouldn't have to cloud your thoughts. It could just block your powers, like you said."

He looks up at Crowley.

"Is that what you mean?"

Crowley's heart races, breath coming out unsteady and quick. He nods.

"Maybe you wouldn’t notice at first." Aziraphale's eyes turn soft and unfocused as he strings the story together. "Maybe you wouldn’t notice until outside his hotel room, when he pulls you in for a kiss. Maybe not even until you tell him to stop."

Heat twists inside Crowley, and he can't find a response.

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, somehow gentle, somehow urgent. "Does he stop?"

And Crowley shudders as the dam crashes down around him.

"No."

"He kisses you harder. Pulls you closer. And that's when you finally realise that your powers are gone, and there's nothing you can do. That you're caught. That you're helpless."

Crowley muffles a sound that's nowhere near human.

"Sure," he says, weakly. "It could happen like that."

"I do have a question."

"I might have an answer," Crowley says, guarded.

"Before he kissed you," Aziraphale says, "why didn't he open the door?"

Because the doorway is a threshold I'm trying not to cross, Crowley thinks. Because I don't know what it will do to you. Because I don't know what it will do to me.

"Because he wants to drag me in and trap me up against it," Crowley says. "He wants to feel me pressed against him as he kisses me."

"Even after you tell him no?"

There's a fragility to the question, and for one weightless moment, Crowley wonders if he misread this.

"No," Aziraphale says, and he draws the word out with strange fondness. "Especially after you tell him no."

Crowley nods. "He wants to feel me struggle."

"Do you struggle?"

"I'm pretty drunk. I'd been in the lounge a long while before he showed up."

"I imagine it's why he picked you," Aziraphale says, and it's smooth, but there's something troubled behind it. Crowley understands it, he thinks - the tension between fantasy and ugly reality. Even if it didn't happen this way, it still happens. Not to Crowley, but to someone, somewhere. There are still assholes in bars shoving their hands up people's skirts, and Crowley can spin it into a story, and make it so the sharp edges feel good when they cut, but he can't stop the bleeding, not really.

"I like to think he just found me irresistibly dashing."

Aziraphale laughs, a band-aid on a break, and it's enough.

"I'm pretty drunk," Crowley says. "And I don't understand why I can't sober up. When I tell him to stop, he shoves me against the door. I'm dizzy and confused. But I know - I know that I don't want this. So yes, I struggle."

Aziraphale's pupils dilate, in a way that has nothing at all to do with the darkness. So quietly Crowley can't be sure he didn't imagine it, he says, "Tell me."

"His arm's not around my waist any more, it's on -" Crowley thinks. His hips, his wrist, his hair?

"Your throat," Aziraphale suggests, and Crowley's breath hitches.

"My throat," he agrees. "His fingers wrap around it, but he's just holding me, not choking."

"He's threatening you."

"Yes." Powerless like this, would he suffocate without access to air? He can't be sure. "But I'm not coherent enough to understand that. All I'm thinking about is the door against my back and his mouth on mine, and the weight of his body holding me there. I try to pull back, but there's nowhere to go. I try to push him off me, but he's too strong, and he laughs against my lips. I'm terrified, and I twist helplessly in his arms, and that's even worse because -"

Some part of Crowley is aware of what he's doing. What they're both doing. But between the wine and the soft light, and Aziraphale's eyes on him, dark and wanting, he can't bring himself to stop.

"When I twist to get away, he moans, and grinds against me."

Aziraphale's glass is empty now, and he sets it down on the table. The room is too small for him to feel so far away.

"The next time he kisses me, I bite. He swears and pulls back, and I throw my weight to one side, trying to break away." Crowley smirks. "He's not laughing now. But his grip on my throat tightens. Panicked, I grab his hand. My nails dig into his skin, and I can't breathe, and his bruising grip just tightens and tightens. And then he hits me, the back of his hand colliding with my face, and I'm still reeling when he slams me back against the door." Crowley breathes in. "I'm still reeling when he works my pants open. And then - "

He falters. He doesn't know what comes next. In his mind, it's all a blur of touch and fear and treacherous pleasure.

"He slides his hand between your legs," Aziraphale says. "He strokes his fingers over -" Aziraphale pauses, tilts his head; a question.

"My cunt," Crowley says.

Aziraphale hums in acknowledgement. "His grip on your neck is still hard and biting, but the touch between your legs is almost sweet. His fingers drag over your clitoris, sending sparks up your spine."

Crowley cannot believe this is happening. He's way beyond trying to stop it, though. He's no longer sure it's his to control.

"Would you try to hide how good it feels?" Aziraphale asks, but he doesn't wait for an answer. "I think you would. You won't moan or arch into his hand. But if he knew you, he might see it in the tension of your body. He might see it in the hitch of your breath."

"But he doesn't know me," Crowley says.

Aziraphale nods.

"So you can hide it, for now. But your body might betray you in other ways."

"I'm not wet," he lies.

"Not yet. But the glide of his fingers is relentless, and achingly good. You're quite helpless against it."

Crowley bites his lip against a whimper.

"I can't fight any more. Everything's hazy and I'm exhausted. Maybe it would be easier to just give in and let it happen."

"It would," Aziraphale says. "But you don't."

"The last time I tried to get away I got hit in the face and strangled. I'm not such a masochist that I'd risk making things worse."

"How much of a masochist are you?" Aziraphale asks.

There's no safe answer to that, so Crowley doesn't give one.

"You can't escape, and you're too tired to try," Aziraphale says. "He wants you to surrender. He scrapes his teeth along your neck and tells you to relax. It'll be over soon. He's going to make you feel so good. And he's right about the way it feels, but that just has you panicking more."

"So what do I do?"

"You beg," Aziraphale says.

Crowley's breath hitches. "Please."

"Yes. Beg him to stop. Beg him to let you go."

"Please. I don't want this. Stop, please, don't do this. I'll give you anything you want, just let me go."

"'Anything' is a dangerous thing to promise someone who holds your fate in their hands. Are you so sure this is the very worst thing he could do to you?"

As though Crowley isn't feeling exposed enough.

"It's not," Crowley says. "But I'm too scared to think about the things that would be worse."

Quiet settles over the room. Crowley tops up both their glasses with a wave of his hand, giving Aziraphale space to think. Aziraphale picks the glass up without looking at it, and Crowley realises with a jolt he's not thinking. He's waiting. He looks composed, unyielding, like - well, like a stranger in a hotel corridor. Crowley isn't sure exactly what he's waiting for, and he thinks perhaps that's the point.

"You're lucky," Aziraphale says, at last. "He doesn't care about finding the perfect way to torture you. He just wants this."

"Lucky," Crowley echoes. He's really too breathless to be attempting sarcasm, and it comes out soft and grateful. Aziraphale smiles over his wine glass, clearly pleased with himself.

That might bother Crowley more if he weren't barely restraining himself from melting onto his knees at Aziraphale's feet and begging to be used.

"Are you wet, now?"

Crowley flushes. "I -"

"I think you must be. And if you're not, I think he's past caring about that too."

"Please," Crowley whispers. "Please, don't."

"The fingers that have been teasing you so ruthlessly slide a little lower. You know what they're seeking, but there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"No. Please, please stop, no, no, please."

The protests reverberate inside him, scraping up against heat and desire. As he says it, the fantasy shifts. His back is still to the door, but it's Aziraphale trapping him there, Aziraphale's fingers pushing inside him, and when he buries his face in Aziraphale's neck, he's begging, yes, yes, yes.

"He thrusts inside you," Aziraphale says. "His fingers pierce you, filling you up, deep and inescapable. The visage of tenderness falls away. Close your eyes. Imagine how it feels."

Crowley's eyelids drop. The instruction is an anchor, and it feels pathetically good to give up thought and obey.

"It's too much," Crowley murmurs.

"He got you so close. You must be sensitive."

"Yes."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

"How does it make you feel?"

Crowley draws a long, shuddering breath. "Owned."

He's not sure what Aziraphale expected him to say, but this earns him a soft gasp. The sound sinks into Crowley's bones. Aziraphale hasn't told him he can open his eyes, so he doesn't, even though he knows he's straying dangerously close to ceding something Aziraphale hasn't agreed to accept. He'll open them again in a moment. He'll take it all back, the surrender and the desire. He just needs a moment.

"Do you know, I think this alone would be enough to take you to the edge," Aziraphale says.

Crowley knows he means the fingers cruelly fucking his cunt, but here, on this couch, untouched by anything but Aziraphale's voice, he says, "Yes."

"He could drag orgasm after orgasm from you, until you're sobbing, until you're wrecked."

A muffled keen escapes Crowley's lips.

"He could take you right here, in the hallway, where anyone could see you. But I think he'd rather go slow. He doesn't want only your pleasure, any more than he only wants pain. He wants you, in every way he can get."

"Please," Crowley says.

"He pulls out of you, leaving you shaking and empty. His hand slips away from your neck. Before you can understand what's happening, he turns the key to his hotel room."

And Crowley falls.

He feels his back hit the ground, hears the door slam closed like shattering glass, and it's so visceral and disorienting it takes Crowley a moment to realise he's actually lying on the floor.

"Crowley?"

Crowley blinks, and Aziraphale's face swims into focus above him.

"Are you okay?" Aziraphale asks. He's kneeling beside him, and for the first time all night, he's close enough to touch.

Crowley laughs. He can't help it.

"I'm transcendent, angel," he says, and tips his head back, exposing the tender curve of his throat.

“You are,” Aziraphale murmurs. "And transcendentally drunk. I think - well, I think perhaps I'd better get you home."

Crowley looks at him through the haze of his half-closed lashes. He thinks, one more threshold couldn't hurt.

"But here I am at your mercy. Aren’t you going to finish me off?"

It should break things, naming the truth behind the talk. One way or the other, it should break. But Aziraphale just smiles, fond in a way that steals the breath from Crowley's lungs and leaves him helpless.

"This isn't about what you want," Aziraphale says, and holds out a hand.

Crowley takes it. He lets himself be pulled to his feet, and doesn't catch Aziraphale's arm for balance even when he finds himself swaying. His wine glass is in pieces on the floor, he realises, and he should do something about that but he can't quite figure out what.

"Leave it," Aziraphale says. "I'll take care of it."

Crowley nods.

"You can't drive like this," Aziraphale mutters, more to himself than to Crowley.

"I'll sober up," Crowley says.

"That's not what I mean."

They stare at each other.

"I have... a bed," Aziraphale says, slowly. "Upstairs."

"I didn't know you slept, angel." Apparently there's a lot he didn't know about Aziraphale.

"I don't, really. But I appreciate comfort. It's a nice place to read."

Crowley sways again, and a wave of warmth spreads through him when Aziraphale catches his elbow.

"Would you read to me," Crowley asks, "if you had me in your bed?"

It's hard to look up at someone through your lashes when you're taller than them, but Crowley gives it a shot.

"If you liked," Aziraphale says, his voice thick like he's talking through a laugh.

Crowley shakes his head. "You're right. I should go home."

"Crowley..."

"Will you call me a taxi?"

Aziraphale's face softens.

"Of course," he says.

Before Aziraphale took his arm, the room was warm enough. But a chill creeps in as he steps away. Crowley wraps an arm around himself, fingertips digging into his own bicep. He should really do as he’d promised and will the alcohol out of his bloodstream. But he’s done it once already tonight and this buzz is one he badly wants to keep.

On the phone, Aziraphale speaks in low, clipped sentences. Crowley can’t quite piece them together. He toes at the shoes he’d abandoned on the floor, wondering if he can still navigate their slanted height. The telephone receiver clicks, but Crowley only half-hears it. He taps the accent table where he usually sets his glasses down.

“Here,” Aziraphale says, appearing at his side.

He presses the sleek frames into Crowley’s hand, and while Crowley is still staring at them, drapes a coat over his shoulders. It’s warm, and by Aziraphale’s standards, practically chic. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Aziraphale wear it.

“I know the driver they’re sending,” Aziraphale says. “Leon. He’ll get you home safely.”

He stoops down at Crowley’s feet, careful of the broken glass. Pale curls hide his face as he gathers Crowley’s shoes. Crowley can’t tell what he’s thinking, but the unreality of the night is so thick that for a moment, he’s sure Aziraphale is about to guide them onto his feet.

Maybe he means to. But Crowley rocks at just the thought, and Aziraphale straightens up.

“Perhaps you’d better carry these.”

Crowley takes them.

“Mind the glass,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley finds himself being escorted out of the back room and out through disordered shelves. It’s nice, not having to think about anything except where to put his feet. Aziraphale’s hand hovers at his lower back, close and sure.

“You’re so much more sober than me,” Crowley mumbles.

“I wanted to be,” Aziraphale says. “Is the jacket warm enough? I have others, but you look so stylish.”

They stop just inside the bookshop’s threshold. The street outside is empty, and a sheet of water casts a mirror over the road. Crowley didn’t hear the rain coming down, but it’s over now, leaving the world slick and gleaming.

“You’re fretting,” he says, and clicks his fingers. A tiny flame bursts to life in his hand, bathing Aziraphale’s face in a golden glow. “No one’s stolen my miracles, angel.”

“A relief for you, I’m sure,” Aziraphale says. The hint of laughter behind his words is back.

“I’m saying I can look after myself.”

“I know what you’re saying.” Aziraphale leans forward, a hand on Crowley's chest to keep the steady space between them. He keeps going until Crowley's shoulders hit the door. “I’m saying you don’t have to.”

Headlights flash through the window, briefly drowning them in light. The sound of an engine lingers. Crowley closes his hand, and the fire between them winks out.

“I suppose this is goodnight,” Aziraphale says.

Before Crowley can respond, he presses closer. His breath curls against Crowley's ear.

”Tell me no.“

Crowley’s heart ricochettes against his ribcage.

”No,” he breathes.

Aziraphale presses his lips to Crowley’s temple, a kiss so tender it should ruin them both.

”Goodnight, Crowley.“

Crowley steps backwards. The door at his back gives way, but Aziraphale’s hands are still there, holding him steady. The pavement is damp against the soles of his feet. Their hands brush as Aziraphale lets him go.