Ex Libris

The bus did go to London. It didn’t know why, but it stopped right in front of Crowley’s flat. Crowley slipped the driver a tip while Aziraphale wasn’t watching.

Aziraphale had been to the flat before, of course. Purely on business: Crowley had pointed out that keeping up with the evolution of demons’ lairs surely was permissible, and had even refrained from interfering while the angel got some thwarting in, furtively whispering kindnesses to a brood of terrified houseplants.

This was different, though. This was Aziraphale’s whispered “alright, then,” as the bus pulled up, and the way his hand twisted on his knee as they sat in otherwise companionable silence until something seemed to snap inside of him, and he reached over and laced his fingers with Crowley’s. He let go as they stood to exit the bus, but as soon as the door was locked Crowley was seized with the urge to take it again.

Ludicrous: his heart was pounding in his chest like he was being chased by demons brandishing his own holy water spray bottle, just to hold an angel’s hand. But then, not just any angel.

Crowley owned a large, luxurious bed, and he spent a lot of time there. He glanced at Aziraphale as they approached it, and saw wide green eyes nervously darting a glance back at him.

“Angel,” he said quietly, “Would it be a bad start to this-- whatever this is-- if we… went to sleep? It’s been a long day.”

Aziraphale held up the crumpled slip of prophecy between two fingers. “And it’s not over.”

Crowley felt something in his chest unclench. “I know you’re not so big on sleeping,” he said, pulling off his jacket and trousers and leaving them on the floor, “But it feels good, I promise.” Crowley lay back on the covers and watched Aziraphale, dithering.

“And if you get bored, you can go be nice to my plants,” he offered, and Aziraphale smiled, tiny and fragile and sad. His outer clothes joined Crowley’s on the floor, and he climbed into the bed, smelling of spring flowers and new cologne and just a hint of fiery righteousness.

Crowley wondered for a split second whether this was a terrible idea, if he had just roped his best friend into some sort of nearly-literally-hellish night of awkwardly lying stiff as a board next to a snoring demon. (Actually, Crowley wasn’t sure if he snored. Perhaps he could ask, in the morning.)

But then Aziraphale slid beneath the covers, and he and immediately wrapped his arms around Crowley’s middle and nestled his face into Crowley’s shoulder, and his skin was so soft and warm and alive, a certain humanness that was absolutely irresistible, and this was okay. It was allowed for Crowley to hold him, to gently stroke down his back and ruck up his undershirt to run fingers up the soft curve of his spine. It was okay.

Crowley dropped off easily. He might have half-woken once, in the middle of the night, to a soothing voice from the next room, murmuring “...but you know he says those things because he cares, it’s only because he loves you and doesn’t know how to express it, he’s really quite…”

He smiled and drifted back to sleep.

***

Aziraphale stormed into the bedroom in the morning like an avenging angel, which was more or less the case. “We can’t leave the flat as ourselves,” he said, throwing open the curtains to the morning sun. “Crowley, I need you to go check on the bookshop for me.”

Crowley sat up and indulged in a rare and much-needed blink. “Angel…” he muttered, hoping he wasn’t going to have to remind Aziraphale again that his life’s work was a pile of ashes.

But Aziraphale was gesturing significantly out the window, and when Crowley staggered over to look out of it, he actually had to blink again, just to make sure his eyes were working correctly.

There, parked on the street where it had already received a ticket, was the Bentley. Or at least, it looked like the Bentley; Crowley’s fingers suddenly itched to run his fingers over the leather, check the sunglasses compartment, and personally ensure there was no petrol in the thing. As he stared, Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and the ticket vanished in a puff of smoke. Crowley turned to stare at him instead.

Aziraphale was fully dressed, his hair was slightly damp from a recent shower. He was standing composed and ready in that way he had which reminded Crowley, only very infrequently, that all angels are soldiers at their core, warriors of the Host. He was holding the slip of prophecy, the one meant for him, in his hand.

When alle is fayed and all is done, ye must choofe your faces wisely, for soon enouff ye will be playing with fyre.

Fyre for Aziraphale; holy water for Crowley. It only made sense.

A muscle around the Aziraphale’s eye twitched. He glanced down at the Bentley. “Please,” he said quietly. “I want to know that the bookshop is restored.”

Crowley wanted to gather him back up in his arms, wanted to see if he would let him kiss the stern set of his face away. But he was suddenly acutely aware that his corporeal form was filthy-- still smelling of burning rubber and sweaty willpower from his drive to the air base-- and it doesn’t do to have the place a mess when you’re going to be having company.

“Alright,” he said instead. “I’m going to go-- get it ready for you, angel.” He flicked his tongue out over his lips, oh yes, fancied he could actually smell Aziraphale’s moment of distraction, his wide green eyes flickering down to stare at the demon’s mouth.

Crowley chuckled. “A quick temptation for the road,” he said, then turned around and closed the door to the toilet.

There was plenty of mirror in there-- vanity being the vice most appropriate to be practiced in a toilet, Crowley made sure there were ample opportunities. So he could see every inch of the skin that would be revealed to Aziraphale; first to wear, and then to-- well. They’d see about that when they came to it.

Crowley dropped the last of his clothes to the floor, looking down at his exposed flesh. The only thing even slightly out of the ordinary-- in this form-- was the phrase “Property of A. J. Crowley” tattooed on the outside his left thigh, just beneath the hip. Like the snake tattoo, it was real-- from the hand of a human, not miracled on. Unlike the snake tattoo, it had been purely a practical decision: after a discorporation in the sixteenth century that resulted in some botched paperwork and very nearly the wrong body issued back to him, he’d figured it would be safer to put a label on the thing. Many demons didn’t have any particular attachment to bodies, and the inventory department hadn’t quite understood the urgency with which Crowley had returned the shapely blonde thing he’d been accidentally dumped in. So, better safe than sorry.

He scrubbed himself as clean as demon skin can get, then rifled through the closet until he found an undershirt-- not his usual fashion-- and a pair of matching black boxers. The thought of dozens of pairs of demon eyes raking Aziraphale up and down made his skin itch. Not because Crowley himself was opposed to the idea of demons seeing his body; he would happily splash around naked in a bath of holy water in front of Satan himself. But the thought of Aziraphale, no matter what body he wore, perhaps blushing a tiny bit but with nobody there to appreciate it properly, undressing in front of-- well. Perhaps better not to think on it at all.

The angel was sitting in the greenhouse when Crowley was done, leaning against the wall while a large green leaf reached over from the pot next to him to stroke down his cheek lovingly.

“Disgusting,” Crowley said to the plant. “You wouldn’t want me to think that you like him better than me, hmm?” It withdrew, trembling.

“Oh, now really, my dear,” muttered Aziraphale as he clambered to his feet, but his heart wasn’t in it. They stood facing each other, and Aziraphale reached out his hand first as if for a handshake.

Crowley’s hand was suddenly very sweaty, which was embarrassing, but would shortly not be his problem any more. He reached out and touched Aziraphale’s palm, lightly. They didn’t need to be touching, technically: inhabiting their own bodies instead of each other’s was merely a habit. It seemed somehow polite, though. Spend enough time on Earth and the idea of invading someone else’s bipedal collection of meat and bones and organs and skin without so much as a ritual gesture started to seem somewhat barbaric. So instead they rushed into each other through their palms, putting on the new form like a coat.

The first thing Crowley was aware of was that he needn’t have been embarrassed over his sweaty hands, as Aziraphale was far worse off in that department. The second was how very dry his eyes were; and the third was a curious tugging sensation as he drew back his hand that seemed to shoot from his chest straight to his groin.

He blinked. He looked down, and however many shirts one has to wear to look as posh as Aziraphale does shifted slightly against his skin, and--

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, “Oh-- right.” Under ordinary circumstances Crowley would be entirely distracted by the ridiculous sight of his own face looking timid and horrified, but these were not ordinary circumstances, and he was already entirely too distracted by the fact that every movement seemed to send electric shock through his nipples, and it was giving him a hard-on with a cock that wasn’t even his.

“I. Erm,” said Aziraphale, “Forgot… you see, I’m rather used to them by now, and it didn’t occur to me that…”

Satan bless it, thought Crowley faintly, he is never going to stop surprising me. He managed to hold up a hand and force out, “Okay. This. We are not talking about this now. Right now I am going to your bookshop, and if I haven’t been kidnapped by then, we are going to meet in the park. Then we will be ritually tried and unsuccessfully eliminated, and than, angel, I’m going to give you back this body just so that I can unwrap it like a Christmas-- well, like some sort of present, at which point there will be a pause in the action for some very thorough explanations on your part.”

Aziraphale smiled, entirely too pure for Crowley’s face. “That sounds very nice,” he admitted.

They stood for a moment. Aziraphale was still clutching the slip of prophecy in his new fingers, as if keeping it close to him would make sure they were interpreting it correctly.

Crowley was not going to say goodbye. “Get me some ice cream if you get there first,” he said instead. He waggled his tongue, short and moist and irritatingly unperceptive. “Whatever tastes good with this.”

***

After the ice cream, after the fyre and holy water, after the rubber duck and towel and the terrified look on the Archangel Gabriel’s face, and after the Ritz-- they went to the bookshop.

Crowley wasn’t protesting, hadn’t for a single moment imagined that Aziraphale would allow the sun to go down on this Sunday without checking on his precious books with his own eyes (or rather, while actually looking out of his own eyes.) So it was in response to absolutely nothing that Crowley had said when the angel patted his arm absently as they entered the shop and said, “I haven’t forgotten about the… Christmas present thing, my dear boy, don’t worry.”

Demons are, or should be, incapable of being shocked at the presence of sin. Really, sin is ever-present, carried around in the very essence of the hole where a demon’s soul should be. That doesn’t mean that specific demons can’t be at least surprised, occasionally. Such as the surprise one might feel at the realization of just how quickly Lust takes root upon hearing, well, that.

Aziraphale was standing next to the writing-desk, having noted and then apparently accepted and dismissed the fact that some valuable tomes had been transformed into some other, equally valuable tomes. His hand rested lightly on the back of the chair, still looking around, but more in quiet joy than in scrutiny.

Crowley glided up to him and pushed the jacket off of his shoulders, which got Aziraphale’s attention quite nicely. Crowley draped it over the back of the chair, and a smile tugged at the corners of Aziraphale’s eyes. “Do you…” he said. “I do actually have a bed. Not a well-used one.”

The curtains dropped closed with a flick of Crowley’s fingers, and even the flick was just for style. Aziraphale chuckled, all hesitation gone. He held out his arms slightly, inviting Crowley’s fingers on the buttons of his vest and untying his bow tie. The shop was quiet as he pulled them off; the lively quiet of places that are stuffed to bursting with love and life. Aziraphale’s breathing sounded like music in that silence.

Finally, the angel was in shirtsleeves-- relative nakedness for him. Crowley reached forward and placed his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders before trailing them down, over the soft swell of his collarbones, the small bulge of pectoral muscles, the soft curve of his chest below-- and then, there.

Crowley rubbed his fingers softly, curiously, over the distinct feel of the barbells through Aziraphale’s nipples. “So,” he said.

“I-- it was just--” Aziraphale’s eyes were closed, and he was sagging forward slightly into the pressure of Crowley’s fingers. “They were ever so popular towards the end of the nineteenth century… and you remember Lady Eva and her companions… the bookish sort, but adventurous… and, well, it just…”

“Angel,” said Crowley gleefully, plucking at the edges of the barbell gently, “You let yourself be press-ganged into a nipple piercing by a gaggle of Victorian debutantes?” Aziraphale didn’t answer, just arched slightly and produced a bitten-off sound suspiciously close to a moan.

Crowley started to feel positively weak in the knees at the idea of making Aziaphale make more sounds like that. He managed to leave off playing with the piercings for long enough to divest both himself and Aziraphale of their shirts, and couldn’t help but bury his face in the smooth skin and soft blonde hair of Aziraphale’s chest; warm and welcoming and unspeakably erotic. Aziraphale wrapped his arms around the Crowley’s waist and managed to slip his fingertips into the demon’s trousers, giving him the chance to protest and then simply miracling away both of their trousers and pants.

“Oh,” gasped Crowley, who hadn’t been expecting things to move quite that quickly but was nevertheless very, very okay with the development. “Okay. Floor.”

“Floor,” Aziraphale confirmed, somehow still just the tiniest bit prim while lowering himself onto his back, and promptly losing every bit of that composure as soon as Crowley brought his mouth to flick his tongue over his nipples.

“So you let a jeweler do something terribly unsanitary to these,” he hissed, “and then discovered…?”

“They’re not… unpleasant…” forced out Aziraphale, trying for casual and failing utterly.

Crowley snaked his hand down and brushed against the Aziraphale’s cock, hot and hard and entirely earthly, and lay down on his side to be able to squeeze his own aching erection against Aziraphale’s flank. “Not unpleasant,” he mocked. “That’s all?”

“Well, nobody’s ever done that to them-- oh!-- before… so yes….”

Aziraphale, as it turned out, had obscenely talented hands even when being thoroughly distracted from his task by an unnaturally long tongue flicking out onto all of his most sensitive places. The angel spent first, hot and thick over Crowley’s hands, and despite Crowley being pretty much inured to the physical presence of the Divine by now, somehow the stuff still itched slightly on his hands, as if Azirapale’s body knew that it was participating in something both sacred and profane.

Crowley convulsed, watching almost from a trance as his own semen landed mostly on Aziraphale’s thigh and partly on the carpet. He miracled the mess away and then rolled over, pulling himself as far towards Aziraphale as he could get as they panted in the dim light and swirling dust of the miraculously restored bookshop.

“You know, a part of me still can’t believe this,” said Crowley after a very long while.

“Well now. I’m not the only one who did something slightly silly to his body, am I.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Not your blessed nipples. I mean-- that it all worked out.” Still, he lazily raised his leg in the air to acknowledge the point, twisting to see the spot where the tattoo said--

--there was a tattoo on his leg, all right. It just no longer read Property of A.J. Crowley.

Aziraphale was looking at him with that tiny smile that made it look like he was a hair’s breadth away from positively bursting at the seams with glee. Crowley growled and pounced, rolling over on top of him, kissing and biting and laughing. “You’re incorrigible, angel.”

“You can change it back, if you don’t like it.”

“Nope,” said Crowley. “Too late now. You’re stuck with me.”

Ex Libris A. Z. Fell. At least if he ever lost track of the body again, they’d still know where to return it.