Of course it had to be Gabriel. Gabriel was quickly carving out a niche for himself in delivering bad news. Well, bad news to the recipient; he seemed to take a particular delight in it. He was fresh from the—in Aziraphale’s opinion—rather distasteful task of filling in Adam and Eve on how to deliver the first human baby. Aziraphale had been filled in on only the vague outlines of the procedure, and the whole thing had seemed to him rather more gory than strictly necessary. He chalked it up as ineffability in action and tried to put it out of his mind.
“Ah-zir-ah-phale,” Gabriel simpered. The archangel had taken on a body that was almost, but not quite, human for this trip to Earth; too squat, too hairy, too many appendages. Evidently noticing that Aziraphale was taller than him and not liking it, he added a few feet to the thing as he approached, as well as another arm on the back. It was the kind of body that screamed “I just put this old thing on for convenience, I won’t be here long.”
“Gabriel,” Aziraphale said. He gestured invitingly to the empty air beside him in the wall, as if it were a chair. Gabriel didn’t need a chair. He didn’t actually need the wall, either; he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of a bipedal form, and was simply hovering slightly above the brick in lieu of sorting out corporeal locomotion.
Aziraphale subtly levitated off the brick. It didn’t do for only one participant in a conversation to be floating.
“You can put your filthy human feet back on the ground,” said Gabriel amiably. “Might as well get used to it.”
Aziraphale did so. He still didn’t have shoes, so it wasn’t exactly his fault that his feet were dirty.
“We’re not exactly impressed by that trick with the sword,” Gabriel said, and Aziraphale flinched. Technically, Aziraphale as a Cherub outranked Gabriel. But Gabriel was a dedicated social climber, and Aziraphale was now a Cherub who had misplaced a key piece of inventory.
“You’re being demoted,” continued Gabriel, with barely-concealed glee. “Since you like this whole Earth, humanity idea so much, you get to spend all your time with them. Congratulations, you’re a Principality now. Go forth and guide them. Or whatever.”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale. He tried to disguise the sudden wave of relief that coursed through him. He wasn’t being sent back to Heaven after all. “Oh, dear,” he stammered. “That is really very—erm. I am. Er.”
“Yeah, save me the histrionics,” said Gabriel. “Get off the wall. Your replacement will be here soon.”
“Alright,” said Aziraphale. Then a thought struck him. “Do you mind if I take a quick walk through the garden first? Say goodbye, and all that?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. He had a lot of eyes to roll. “Whatever.”
***
It turned out that it was hot, outside the Garden. Especially when you insisted on lounging around in the gangly pinkish thing that Hell seems to have issued as some sort of joke, considering how ill-suited it is to the terrain, and not the slithering cold-blooded form that would have undoubtedly been more comfortable.
Still; there was something about the human body that appealed to Crawly. A certain vulnerability that was suggestive of vice. The very slight transgression of a demon inhabiting a form made in the image of God. It felt like returning home, in a somewhat tingly, uncomfortable way. But he’d get used to it.
What he wouldn’t get used to was the heat. He hoped that there would be enough humanity for them to expand to somewhere cooler sooner rather than later. In the meantime, Crawly had time to kill, and bumming around on the banks of the Euphrates river would have to do.
Which is what he was doing, naked and slightly sticky with sand and sweat, when a now-familiar prickle of Grace swept over him, and he felt the presence of the kind, fussy, peculiar Angel of the Eastern Gate sink down into the sand next to him. Crawly tensed, remembering leaving the poor thing horny, confused and thoroughly Tempted on the last occasion they’d met. He was half-expecting to be Smitten where he lay.
Well. He was, the snake was beginning to suspect against his better judgment, already Smitten. The question was more whether he was going to be Smote.
“Brought this for you,” said the angel lightly. Crawly turned, and gaped.
The angel was sitting casually, the white of his robes already stained by slightly damp sand. He had procured some extremely ugly wooden sandals, and was rubbing with one hand at the blisters that the new shoes had produced on his feet while walking from the garden to Crawly’s spot beside the river. Crawly would have pointed out that a supernatural being could probably find a more efficient way of dispensing with flesh wounds than that, but—
—the angel’s other hand was holding out an apple.
“It’s Aziraphale, by the way,” Aziraphale said amiably. “And you were—erm, sorry—was it Crowley?”
The demon tore his eyes away from the apple for a moment to consider this question for a moment. “Yes,” he answered finally. “Crowley.” He nodded to the apple. “Is this…?”
“Yes, well.” Aziraphale’s eyes flicked down towards the ground, slightly embarrassed but still holding out the fruit. “I mean, I figured… we are actually supposed to know the difference between Good and Evil, so it can’t hurt.”
Aziraphale bit the inside of his lip, almost imperceptibly, clearly worried. Crowley found himself wanting to bite Aziraphale’s lip too. He couldn’t figure out if that was a selfish desire or not, though, which… really just proved the angel’s point, about the apple.
“Could help,” Crowley agreed. “So we don’t get it wrong again. Not that we definitely got it wrong the first time, but…”
“Better safe than sorry,” Aziraphale finished. “Yes, that’s what I thought.” He seemed relieved to have gotten some confirmation on that, and instead of continuing to offer the apple to Crowley, he raised it to his full lips and took a bite himself. The crack of the apple’s skin breaking seemed very loud, and his pink tongue trailed over the indentation made by his teeth, licking up the juice from the newly exposed flesh of the fruit.
Crowley watched him chew. Aziraphale tilted his head back, eyes closed, utterly lost in the pleasure of the sweetness and crunch. Finally he swallowed and turned to Crowley, offering him the apple again, now with a large bite taken out of it, white and vulnerable on the red background.
Crowley had never eaten anything before. Hadn’t seen the point, really; the mice in the Garden had all been scrawny and unappealing, and getting food outside of it was more trouble than it was worth unless you really needed it. But Aziraphale’s eyes were shining like he’d just had a holy revelation, and there was a slight trickle of sticky juice at the corner of his mouth, and Crowley did want to see more of that. He rolled over onto his belly, half-hard cock now pressing into the ground, and murmured “Was that your first food?” as he accepted the apple.
“Oh, yes,” said Aziraphale, “And it was scrumptious.”
Crowley raised the thing to his mouth and took a bite. Then he deliberately trailed the tip of his tongue over the spot where Aziraphale’s had just been.
He swallowed the bite of apple, only remembering after it was done that you’re supposed to chew when eating in human bodies. No matter; he wasn’t interested in the apple any more. What he was interested in was that the spot on his tongue where he’d touched the angel’s saliva was burning with a stinging-sweet, intoxicating heat. He pushed his tongue out of his mouth, angling the too-long muscle upwards so he could inspect it. There was nothing physically amiss, but it still stung like anything.
“Ooh,” said Aziraphale. Casually, he licked the tip of his finger, that small pink tongue darting out again enticingly, and pressed the wetness to Crowley’s cheek, just under where the demon had manifested a small depiction of his snake form on his temple. It sizzled slightly, and Crowley’s flinch was due as much to the surprise of being touched so easily as it was to pain, but it wouldn’t do to admit that. “That’s interesting,” the angel said. “Your body fluids didn’t hurt me.” He seemed, rather un-cherubically, pleased with this discovery.
“Erm,” said Crowley, “About that.” This felt like perhaps the place where an apology should go, but I can’t stop thinking about the sounds you made, the righteous anger in your eyes when I left you wanting, I can claim that all this self-abuse I’ve been doing is just research for human Temptation but let’s be honest, angel, even though I’m not really supposed to be honest, it’s really just that you’re the only thing in this whole Creation business that’s really worth thinking about so far isn’t much of an apology.
“Oh, I was thinking about how to punish you for that,” said Aziraphale. “I thought at first perhaps the best option would be simply to deprive you of my company.” Crowley faltered. The idea of being punished by the angel was… disconcertingly pleasant. Just so long as it wasn’t that specific punishment. But then, he was here, wasn’t he, and he had offered Crowley an apple and a new name and—
“So I came here to tell you so,” continued Aziraphale, “Because, well, it does only seem polite, you know, seeing as we’re the only two… erm, non-humans on Earth, and seeing as I’ve been demoted and all so I won’t be stuck on that wall all the time, so I thought you ought to know why I was avoiding you, if I was going to… but…” he shuffled a little closer to where Crowley was lying, staring with wide yellow eyes at this news, and then with no hesitation whatsoever bent his head and licked Crowley’s shoulder. “But then, perhaps this is a better punishment. I can’t imagine God would have furnished Her angels with this kind of an ability if She hadn’t meant for us to use it.”
Crowley yelped. The place on his shoulder where Aziraphale’s tongue had touched stung; the aftershock was worse than the initial contact, which had been gentle, almost soothing. Aziraphale’s lips twitched and he executed some sort of complex little wriggle of delight as he watched Crowley catch his breath. Finally, Crowley managed to gasp, “Yes, I’m sure this is what she intended,” and got a long, smarting brush of tongue to the back of his neck for it.
Crowley arched up, tossing his head back to try to soothe the spot with his shoulders and hair, trying to shake off the all-encompassing feeling of being exposed and defenceless for just long enough to circle back to one thing. “You—ah!—got demoted?
Aziraphale had two fingers in his mouth, and his mild, methodical expression was completely at odds with the absolutely obscene way that he was slobbering on them. He had to remove them to say, “Oh, well, yes. I think they may have caught wind of the, erm, sword thing, so I’m a Principality now, but I’m sure it’ll all settle down. They’ll have forgotten all about it in a few thousand years.”
Crowley tried to process that information, but it was difficult when most of his mind was occupied with the glistening wet digits slowly making their way to the top of his spine. Crowley had put a great deal of effort into designing his human spine, and it featured several snake-inspired improvements on God’s version. He was rather proud of it. Aziraphale’s fingers made contact lightly at his neck and swept down, trailing slick painful magnificent moisture down all the way to his tailbone and then withdrew, just as Crowley was wantonly lifting his hips off the ground, completely unable to prevent his body from inviting Aziraphale’s fingers to go lower, hurt him more.
“Well, you don’t feel any less holy,” he managed to choke out, and Aziraphale hummed around the fingers back in his mouth. Crowley knew he was pushing his luck, still wasn’t entirely sure that Aziraphale was even aware of what it was he was doing, but he pushed himself up on spread knees anyway, arse open and exposed and now-hard cock dangling obviously just above the sand.
“Hmm,” said Aziraphale with interest and absolutely no surprise whatsoever. “Just one, in this body?”
Oh, thank G—someone. Crowley moaned something that was trying and failing to be “one’s enough.” Aziraphale’s entire hand was wet now, and he was massaging at Crowley’s lower back, fingers spreading the moisture lower and lower, every touch an absolute agony that he couldn’t get enough of. He buried his face between his arms, smelling sand and grass and the apple still clutched in his palm, and tried to force himself to stay still, to just let teasing cherubic fingers—no, principalitic fingers—work their way slowly down the crack of his arse without jerking away at each touch that felt like a blow.
Still, he couldn’t prevent the shout of pain and surprise and arousal that escaped him when Aziraphale reached his hole and just slipped a wet finger right in, no teasing or preamble, the holy burn taking up residence inside of Crowley. Apparently he sounded distressed enough that Aziraphale actually paused, glancing around at Crowley’s face. Crowley didn’t think he could bear to look Holiness in the face, on top of it being all over and inside him, so instead he just pushed back against the fingers and moaned “Yes, yes.”
“Hush, then,” murmured Aziraphale, his voice stern but with a tiny tickle of amusement: “Take your punishment nicely, now.”
Crowley couldn’t figure out how to move anymore, had no idea if he wanted to press into or away from the touch. His mind had absented itself from the proceedings entirely, and all he could do was experience with a strange kind of detachment as the angel rubbed his insides and lapped at his back. It was exquisite. He wasn’t sure if he was whimpering only in his mind or if his body was doing it too; it didn’t matter. After all, he was being punished.
“You gonna fffuck me, angel?” he slurred eventually. He shivered, terrified, at the thought of how angelic semen would feel inside him, if this was what it was like just with a little saliva. Crowley didn’t think he could stand it. He prayed Aziraphale would say yes.
“Oh no,” came the gentle voice. “No, I do believe that would be a reward. And you haven’t earned that yet, my dear.”
My dear. The soft, vicious endearment and the fingers stretching him and the burning sensation of grace coating his body finally crested, crashed over him, and Crowley screamed and pressed down into the ground as he came. And Aziraphale was still behind him, easing his fingers out but leaving the painful slick in place. He trailed his tongue and spit-covered hands up Crowley’s sides as the demon trembled through aftershocks, as well as some plain old normal shock as he fully realized what had just happened.
It took a few moments before Crowley felt at all capable of movement, but eventually he managed to roll over onto his back. The apple, clutched in his hand ever since he’d taken a bite of it, was a mess of bruises and pulp. Crowley threw it into the river and sat up to watch it bob away, then held up his hand, sticky with juice.
Aziraphale was clearly hard under his robes, and his face was the tiniest bit sheer with sweat, but he looked otherwise unruffled, which would be infuriating if Crowley had the energy to be infuriated. Aziraphale took the offered hand, holding Crowley’s wrist and spreading his fingers wide and licking up the palm and in between each digit, eyes closed and humming with pleasure.
Crowley winced. It wasn’t quite as pleasant when he wasn’t hard as a rock—but then, the look on Aziraphale’s face as he tasted the last remnants of maybe-forbidden fruit made it worth it.
The angel let him go, and Crowley rubbed his stinging hand on the ground. He was exhausted and ached all over, but suddenly Creation was starting to seem like a much more pleasant idea than it had initially appeared.
“You’re really not going to let me see you come until I’ve earned it, are you, ssssweet thing?” He let the sibilant extend, hoping a peek of tongue would have the same effect on Aziraphale as it had on him.
Aziraphale just wriggled a little again, the one that meant he was pleased with himself, and cast his eyes demurely among the reeds at the edge of the river.
Crowley lay back, basking in the sun and heat and the vast expanse of time in front of them. “Well, the apple worked," he said, as caustically as he could muster. "I know the difference between Right and Wrong now. So, you just wait. I’ll think of something.”