(An unfinished ficlet about 6,000 year old idiots learning how to kiss.)
Crowley drained his glass. “Have you?” he asked, punctuating his query with a blithe, “Ever?”
Aziraphale knew exactly what. And Crowley knew he knew exactly what, going by the way his eyebrows were slowly inching up his forehead like twin, fuzzy caterpillars whose souls had shuffled off this mortal coil and were beginning their ascent into the afterlife.
Aziraphale snapped his book shut as fussily as possible, which was pretty damn fussy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You do,” Crowley rebutted.
Aziraphale spun on his heel. He busied himself with tucking Moby Dick back where it belonged on his desk with the other Melvilles. He could feel Crowley’s gaze bore into his thoracic vertebrae while he stalled, trying and failing to soothe the heart pounding in his chest for no good reason. He flattened his palms against his lapel; a little pat-pat to make sure they were lying neatly.
“No,” Aziraphale finally admitted. Followed by a defensive, “Have you?”
Well, that was a surprise.
Azirapahle glanced at Crowley over his shoulder, assessing. Both of Crowley’s arms were akimbo on the back of the sofa, legs sprawled artfully and–dare Aziraphale think it–invitingly. His ankles crossed and the gleam of his snakeskin boots lambent in the dim light of Azirapahle’s shop.
“I thought that sort of thing was…” Aziraphale twiddled his fingers in an approximation of something or nothing at all. “…a part of your lot’s milieu.”
“I don’t have a lot. Neither do you.”
Crowley smirked. “I rather thought kissssing was more of a heavenly affair.” He tilted his head to one side. “Love…” he drawled with a curl of his lip, like the very word was in itself divine, and perhaps it was. “…’n all.”
“Ah.” He had a point. But…
“You don’t have to kiss someone to have sex with them, angel.”
Aziraphale could feel himself turning red. The avatar of his body was betraying him altogether. “I-I know that!” (He hadn’t.) “Sex isn’t always governed by lust, you know.”
“Mmm, was never really my thing.”
“Lust,” Crowley specified.
Aziraphale blinked again.
“Icky.” Crowley smacked his lips, frowning. “Humans. They leave gobs of themselves everywhere. All those fluids and hair and skin!”
“You’re a snake,” Aziraphale reminded him, exasperated.
“Well, yeah. But that’s…” Crowley shrugged. “…snakey, innit?”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes.
Crowley sprang to his feet. He jabbed a finger at Aziraphale, a devilish lilt to his voice when he crooned, “You’re curious.”
“I am not!” Aziraphale lied. Badly. He scampered away, collecting a stack of books from one organized mess and sorted them into another organized mess on the other side of the room.
Crowley trailed along behind him with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Or as stuffed as they could be in his tight, leather trousers. He followed Aziraphale from one shelf to the next, twisting and turning around a pillar here, a marble bust there, more and more amused by Aziraphale’s bluster and fluster. “You are!” he sing-songed. “I saw you making goo-goo eyes at the lovebirds in the park.”
Aziraphale blanched. He tripped over a step ladder he never really used anyway. Stupid. Why did he even own such a thing? It wasn’t like he needed it. “I was making eyes, as you so eloquently put it, at the love they were emanating, not–” He tripped again. This time into an entire bookcase, which was something he needed. So focused was he on preventing the impending avalanche, Crowley effectively trapped him against the shelves by the cunning use of what Aziraphale knew to be called leaning.
Crowley watched him avert his eyes to the ceiling, the floor, and back again. He waited until Aziraphale deigned to look at him. Approximately one minute and ten seconds, which wasn’t that long in the great scheme of things, but a rather ridiculous amount of time not to look at the person standing in front of you. “Do you trust me?” Crowley asked when their eyes finally met.
Aziraphale was offended. Did he trust Crowley? Of course he trusted him! A thousand times–six thousand times–yes! Aziraphale meant to say as much, but ended up squawking instead. And that was rather embarrassing. So he nodded. But he wasn’t happy about it.
“Say it.” A flash of teeth. Equal parts commanding and pleading, which must have inadvertently spirited all the oxygen out of the room because it was suddenly difficult to breathe. And necessary, besides.
Aziraphale swallowed thickly. “Yes.”
Crowley edged closer. Invading his personal space. Not that he’d never done that before. Personal space was all very relative to beings who can will themselves as small as a microbe at any given moment. But still. Right then and there, the air between them hot and humid, it was quite invasive.
“Alright?” Aziraphale asked, tentative.
“Yeah–no–” Crowley stammered. He cleared his throat. “I’m fine. Fine. Are you…um…?”
“You started it,” Aziraphale mumbled.
“I–no–nyrk–look! You wanna do this or not?”
Aziraphale pursed his lips. “I suppose. If it’s you.”
“Right. Okay, then.” Crowley bullied himself flush against Aziraphale’s chest.
They were nose to nose. Still familiar territory. They regarded each other, a little cross-eyed, and Crowley pivoted ever so slightly to his left so their noses not only touched at their tips, but slotted side by side. Which was very much new. And nice. Soft and warm and they could feel each other’s pulses hammering away uselessly, but somehow unavoidably.
Aziraphale shut his eyes. He wanted to see, but Crowley’s features had gone all blurry. He wasn’t sure he could will his vision to adjust because are those Crowley’s hands on his waist? He licked his lips, nervous, and made the most outrageous yelp when the tip of his tongue met flesh and sweet Jesus and his barefoot apostles.
Aziraphale had sampled the most exorbitant wine, the most delectable foods the Earth has to offer. No fruit, fermented or otherwise, compared to the brief taste of Crowley’s lip. Whichever one it had been. Sweet and firm and delicious.
“Sorry,” Azirapahle gasped. It had been an accident even though he liked it.
“No, it’s…” Crowley’s hands kneaded fretfully against his waistcoat. “…do it again.”
“Okay.” Aziraphale stuck out his tongue. A bit shy. A bit overwhelmed. A bit what-the-Hell. And so he probed, just there, and licked with unrestrained indulgence.
Crowley’s spine went ramrod straight. “Aziraphale,” he spoke the angel’s name like a benediction. And then, “Aziraphale!” Scandalized. Delighted.
Aziraphale squinted open one of his eyes. Then the other. “Did I do it right?”
Crowley had the most annoying and sinfully crooked smile on his face. “You made an Effort!”
“Oh.” Aziraphale sighed irritably. “I had to!”
Crowley was looking at him the exact same way he did when Aziraphale told him he’d given his flaming sword away six thousand years ago.
“The fit of my trousers just wouldn’t do without the Effort, dear.”
Crowley blatantly stared at Aziraphale’s crotch. “Is it functional?”
“It’s simply for aesthetics, mind you. Would you rather I didn’t…?”
“What? I–no–of course! It’s–it’s fine, yes.”
Aziraphale was pretty sure he was Falling because his veins felt like they were on fire.
“Would you rather I didn’t?”
“Good. Shall we?” Crowley swooped in close without waiting for a response. Their noses knocked and their mouths pressed firmly together over their teeth, but Aziraphale’s tongue was back where it belonged and Crowley positively melted into the sensation. Sighing, sinking firmly into the spit-plush of Aziraphale’s mouth (before remembering himself), and standing back up to his full height. And, oh. That was rather delicious, that friction, their clothes rucking up and up and yes. Crowley managed to restrain himself, allowing space between their lips once again, and he reveled in the sensation of Aziraphale tonguing right where he used to have a soul patch in the 1590s. Nothing until this moment had made him want to revisit that particular facial hair trend.
“Hath ith?” Azirapahle asked.
Regrettably, Aziraphale’s tongue retreated back into his mouth. “How’s this?”
“Great,” Crowley all but sobbed. “Keep going.”
Aziraphale didn’t have to be told twice. Not when it mattered. And his natural curiosity got the better of him. After probing the same spot with his tongue five or six or twenty times (He lost count.), he pursed his lips for just a little sip. He privately thought that Crowley never truly learned how to use his human legs, his hips the fulcrum of his languid and snaking gait. But, standing? Crowley had that down to a science. Contrapposto, mostly, a holdover from the Renaissance, his body striking an S-curve that would put The David to shame. It was an art form, really, so it came as a shock when Crowley’s knees betrayed him altogether.
Aziraphale caught him around the middle. “Are you alright?”
The question was barely posed before Crowley regained his footing and pinned him up against the bookcase hard enough to send a few volumes toppling to the floor, saved in the nick of time by a quick snap of Crowley’s fingers.
“Do that again,” he demanded, almost frantic.
If Azirapahle thought there had been no space between them before, he was sadly mistaken. Crowley nuzzled their mouths together, curtailing a desperate whine with an explosive sigh the moment Aziraphale sandwiched Crowley’s philtrum between his lips and suckled just so.
“Oooh.” Crowley almost sounded in pain. “Fuck me.”
Aziraphale pulled off Crowley’s lip with a wet pop that seriously did things to Crowley in places he didn’t even know he had. “W–really?”
“No! I mean, yes! But no. Later. Kissing now.” Crowley bit down on Aziraphale’s bottom lip and tugged. Not quite sipping, but just as good. If not better. And there was Crowley’s forked tongue drawing him in and further in. His teeth sharp in the best possible way, followed by a massive slurp that had Aziraphale’s eyes rolling back in his head before Crowley released him.
Aziraphale boggled, wide-eyed and panting. He was surely going to discorporate. “Oh, my God!”
“Don’t bring Her into this.”
Both of them glanced overhead.
No, best not to call upon the Almighty in flagrante.
“So that’s what all the fuss is about.”
Aziraphale was on him in a flash, drinking greedily at his lips, one after the other, and Crowley absolutely refused to wait his turn nicely. Because he wasn’t. Nice, that is. Not even a little bit. That was the good thing about being a snake, he thought, unhinging his jaw just enough to devour Azirapahle’s mouth and they both moaned in unison at the feel of hot, wet heat and breath and slick and fuckfuckfuck!
A sudden gust of wind, a loud FWHUMP. The sound of a lamp smashing to the floor, maybe.
Crowley’s wings were fanned out behind him. He was gasping for breath like it was something he needed to live, fingers wound tight in Aziraphale’s coat. “Fuck,” he said.
Crowley snarled, “Any slower and I swear I’m going to literally explode.”