Chapter Text
“Don’t look now but you’ve got a live one.”
Aziraphale frowns into his whiskey. He’s not sure exactly what that means and he looks at Gabe who raises his eyebrows meaningfully. Gabe Winger is an excellent classics professor and that is part of the reason Aziraphale is his friend. The other reason is that Gabe has, like a golden retriever, forced his friendship on him.
He nods his head in the direction of the bar. “The girl at the end of the bar.”
Aziraphale glances over. There’s a redhead leaning on the sticky wood surface and there’s a smirk on her red painted mouth as she meets his gaze. Her hair is down around her shoulders and the waves emphasize the shadows of her clavicles where they're artfully on display above the neckline of the tight black crop top and matching black skirt she's wearing. The outfit shows off the ladder of her ribs and she’s the sort of small stature that emphasizes her curves. Aziraphale would be interested if she didn’t look about two decades younger than him.
“Girl is right,” Aziraphale says with a dismissive scoff. “I might as well sleep with a student.”
“You could, you know. There’s no rules against it. I slept with my TA last semester,” Gabe says like he’s proud of it and like Aziraphale isn’t fully aware that said TA wasn’t completely responsible for that relationship. Which he believes to be still happening even if Gabe isn’t talking about it.
“There are morals against it, my morals,” Aziraphale says. “How old could she be? Twenty?”
“Live a little,” Gabe says before moving off to order another round, leaving Aziraphale alone and vulnerable.
He turns back to see if the girl is still there and she’s disappeared off into the crowd. Fair enough. It’s probably best not to be eyed up.
“Do you always dress like Steve Urkel or is that your going out vibe?”
Aziraphale startles and spits his whisky back into his cup. “Pardon?”
The girl from the bar slides into the booth beside him and drops an elbow onto the table. She cocks her head and rests her chin in her hand.
“Urkel. Bit of a nerd. Whole glasses and argyle thing. That you all the time or did you dress up special for the bar?”
Thrown offbalance and afraid that was entirely this girl's purpose, Aziraphale answers without thought, “I’m afraid I came straight from work so this is how I dress regularly.”
“Ah. I see,” she says as if that confirms everything.
“What on earth does that mean?”
“Means you’re a nerd," she says and it's very clear she's flirting, teasing him. The clear intent of it almost shocks him. It’s unbelievable that someone so young and so attractive would want to flirt with him at all.
“You hardly know me!” he protests.
“Picture's worth a thousand words,” she says, a little smirk on her painted mouth. She really is gorgeous. This close he can see that her eyes are a light honey color. She’s not wearing any other make up he can see besides the fiery lipstick and he wonders if it's because she has so many freckles that they would be difficult to cover. A wide, sparkling dust of them over her nose. He likes her nose. It's a strange nose. Perhaps the least traditionally beautiful part of her face. Large with a bump in the bridge and slightly tweaked but there’s a charm in that. Like if she had a different nose she'd be less attractive. Too perfect.
“What happened to you can’t judge a book by its cover ?" he asks. He's slipping. He finds her attractive and he’s slipping into flirtation. It’s so easy.
She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Are we going to have an argument in idioms?”
“You started it,” Aziraphale counters and the girl grins madly, so sharp that he shivers.
She takes a sip of her cocktail. It looks like whisky but it has a cherry in it and if Aziraphale knows his drinks, it’s probably a manhattan. “I’m Crowley by the way.”
Aziraphale hesitates but introduces himself after a short pause. “Aziraphale.”
“That’s a mouthful.” How she makes it sound like an innuendo makes him blush. She clearly notices and bails him out. “Family name or something? Nobody’s out there just naming their kids Aziraphale.”
“Well who name’s their daughter Crowley?”
“Technically, my name is Antoinette. But nobody calls me that. It’s AJ. Or Crowley.”
“And the J stands for?”
“Just a J really,” Crowley says, wrinkling her nose. An unbearably cute expression with the way it scrunches all her freckles. “Now answer my question.”
“I suppose you could say it is a family name. Only in that my family named all my siblings after angels.”
“Oh. It does sound like the name of an angel. Oh my god. And you look like an angel. Like one of those paintings with all the clouds and tits all out.”
Aziraphale harrumphs.
“Oh don’t make that noise. It’s a compliment. Who thinks that’s an insult. Being compared to a painting. Michelangelo and the lot." She rolls her eyes.
A blush pushes out his indignation. It is rather hard to feel insulted when someone compares him to a painting.
“So, angel,” Crowley says, leaning closer and swirling the ice in her drink. “What do you do for a living?”
He’s hesitant to confess entirely. This is a stranger. A young one in a town with a university. For all he knows, she could go to his school. Just because he hasnt seen her doesnt mean anything. Its a big place. So he hedges. “I teach.” Realizing that’s a bit too vague, and that it’s perhaps strange to be that vague, he adds, “English.”
“Ah, adding to the whole nerd thing,” Crowley says but it’s said fondly. “Favorite book?”
“Well, that’s a complex question.”
“Least favorite book,” Crowley amends.
“Now you’re just asking for trouble.”
“Alright, I’ll answer, I hate Hamlet. Think it’s a drip.”
“Are you joking?”
Crowley shakes her head and rolls her tongue behind her teeth in a lacivious teasing gesture. She’s definitely about to say something just to poke the metaphorical bear. “I always think while I’m watching it: C’mon, old Hammy, my lad, shit or get off the pot.”
“That’s a bit reductive. And misses the point.”
“I thought that was the point.” Then, overenunciating, “Hamlet’s prevarication.”
Aziraphale sighs. He can tell he’d never win an argument with her. It’s as thrilling as it is exhausting. “I’m not even sure Hamlet qualifies as a book.”
“You can buy it as a book,” she points out before fishing the cherry out of her drink and popping it into her mouth. It’s a distracting sight, the way she rolls it between her teeth for a short moment before bursting it over her tongue and closing her lips over the stem, only to draw it slowly, seductively.
Aziraphale swallows and directs his attention back to the topic at hand. “I suppose that’s a, uh, fair point. If we must discuss plays, I can say The Importance of Being Earnest is dear to my heart.”
Crowley grimaces and chucks the stem of her cherry down on her drinks napkin as she winces. “Wilde’s a bit problematice these days.”
“Am I not allowed to like things?”
“You’re allowed to like whatever you want,” Crowley says with a lackadaisical wave of her hand. She sighs. “How disappointing. The sexy ones always have bad taste.”
Aziraphale glances around to find Gabe and sees him mouth get it before disappearing into the crowd. So he’s left alone with this girl, with Crowley and her sharklike grin.
The thing is, he keeps meaning to end the conversation, to say it’s getting late. And it is. It’s nearly eleven, and Aziraphale should go home. But Crowley is fun to talk to, flirty, and easy to laugh with. Aziraphale can’t deny it’s an ego boost to have such an attractive young woman interested him. Besides that, she’s smart and he enjoys the conversation more than he should.
“God, you would like Wuthering Heights,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Worst Bronte book.”
“That’s quite a statement,” Aziraphale says. He’s long finished his drink and hardly thinking of another. He’s enjoying himself too much to think about getting up and trying to brave the bar. “Have you read them all or are you just comparing to Jane Eyre?”
“Fine. You caught me. I’ve only read Jane and Tenant of Wildfell Hall and, yes, Wuthering Heights is a bore and overdramatic drivel comparatively.”
“You accuse me of bad taste and yet you sit there proudly proclaiming terrible opinions.”
Crowley gasps, faux offended. “How dare you?”
It’s more fun than Aziraphale thinks he’s had in years, this teasing back and forth. It’s running towards midnight and the bar is getting busier and paradoxically, their little corner starts to feel more private, more intimate.
“Let me tell you a secret,” Crowley says, leaning close to be heard over the din of the crowd, and she smirks again. Aziraphale’s starting to think it’s not a smirk. It’s just the way she smiles.
“I hesitate to ask,” he says, mouth dry, anticipating what is to come and yet still not sure he can handle it, not sure he wants to hear it.
“I live upstairs,” she says. “If that’s something that matters to you.”
“I-I’m not sure why it would,” he says. He’s trying to hold out. Really he is, but the corner of the bar is dark and Crowley is sitting so close. She presses her hand to his chest and it is warm and heavy and full of intent.
“I’m not asking for any promises, angel. Just a few kisses.” She looks down at her hand and then up at him through her lashes, those honey-gold eyes glittering. “Maybe one now to see if you like it.”
Then she kisses him and her mouth tastes like the sweet strawberry perfume of her lipstick as her hand slides up over his chest to grip his shoulder. He almost expects her to deepen the kiss. To make it filthy. But it stays chaste, just the gentle motion of lips moving over his. It’s been a long time since he’s kissed anyone and it buzzes through him, lights him up. His hand goes to her waist, touching the cool bare skin. She hums against his mouth and he knows then he’s lost.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” he says and he’s breathless. He hasn’t even opened his eyes again. It’s a useless protest. His self-control has been ripped to shreds by this single kiss.
“It doesn’t have to be a good idea. It’s just tonight.” She toys with the collar of his sweatervest, a tantalizing tease.
He sucks in a shaky breath. "How old are you?"
"Twenty," she says like it doesnt matter at all that it's nearly half his age. He must look devastated because she leans in, presses against him and whispers in his ear, "Don't worry. I won't call you daddy unless you ask me to."
A simple statement that sends a flash of shame and arousal through him. Before he can think too hard on it, she takes his hand and leads him out of the booth. She really does live upstairs apparently, leading him out and up a flight of stairs beside the building into a small hallway. Desire is building in his gut at the touch of her hand in his, the cool slide of it. He wants to fuck her with the sort of desperate intensity reserved for different things; for the end of good dates; for relationships and long term things. Maybe he likes her. Maybe he’d like to see her again. Absolutely preposterous. She’s twenty. A relationship makes no sense. It’s like she said. A fuck. No strings.
She slides the door open with a jingle of keys and he doesn’t want to wait, doesn’t want to overthink himself out of this. He kisses her again and she moans. This kiss isn’t chaste. She opens to him, kissing him with a fervor he hadn’t realized he wanted downstairs, sliding her tongue into his mouth and licking along his teeth. He meets her desperation and she nips at his lips, a sensation that makes him heat from the inside out.
Aziraphale presses her up against the door and kisses her neck as she sinks her hands into his hair. She smells amazing. Like woodsmoke and strawberries.
He slides his hand to her hip and finds her skirt bunched up her thigh. Her skin is so soft and it so easy to press his fingers between her legs. He discovers she's not wearing panties. And she is dripping. Her pubic hair is soaked as he plays with it, teasing her. He wonderes what color it might be, if it’s as red as her hair or perhaps brighter, fiery. The way she drips over his fingers makes his breath gust hard over her neck and she shivers in his arms, dragging him back up to kiss her mouth.
Stroking his fingers over her, he can feel her reactions in the way her thighs tremble and when he presses his middle finger inside, she gasps out the most delicious sound into his mouth. She’s all liquid heat and tight around him as he strokes her, and he can’t help but imagine how she would feel around his cock. She’s leaking even more now, dripping on his palm. He presses his mouth to her throat, resisting the urge to slide to his knees and drag her onto his mouth, have her ride his chin, because he can feel how close she is. He’s so hard that he aches but he wants to get her off first. He can and he will.
She begins to shake and he presses the flat of his hand to her back as he fucks her open until she begs for another finger and when he presses a second inside, she trembles even more. Her orgasm is beautiful too, a shaking, gasping moment where she clutches at his shoulders and begs for him not to stop.
He doesn't.
When it’s over, she sucks in a breath and gives him a muzzy smile as he finally withdraws his hand. "Fuck, I haven't been fingerbanged in ages. I bet you’re amazing in bed.”
Aziraphale starts to pull away. Something feels off. Maybe the alcohol is leaving his system. No, he’s been sober for ages. Maybe…
She smirks. “I'm really reconsidering that daddy thing.”
His stomach drops. What has he done? He knows better than to sleep with women so much younger than him no matter how attractive, how seductive. He’d just been some kink she has. Some box that was ticked.
He grabs Crowley’s skirt and tugs it down, back into place, before moving her bodily out of the way of the door. She squeaks in distress as he begins to babble out excuses.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I-”
He pulls open the door and rushes through it. He’d let the blood go to his head. A terrible, terrible mistake.
**
The start of a new semester is always hectic. Revising syllabi, reviewing schedules. Aziraphale tries to streamline it but he’s never wanted to be one of those professors who just reuses the same content year after year without making updates. It’s a terrible habit to get into because once he starts, he knows he’ll never stop and then he’ll end up like Shadwell and get mocked behind his back. It also gives him time to prep for his new classes and he’s excited because he finally got his new elective approved. An entire semester on Paradise Lost. Two days a week. He’s been pushing for it for years but there’s never been interest. He finally got the required fifteen students.
Sixteen actually. He’s very proud.
So on the first Tuesday of the seminar, he sets up the classroom, ready to introduce everything, very much looking forward to the class. The students trickle in, a nice mix of sophomores, majors, a few freshmen who met the requirements of bypassing the writing seminar.
Then, she walks in.
She’s looking at her phone, wire rimmed sunglasses obscuring her brown eyes. Her legs look a mile long, bare in a black and white plaid miniskirt. He chokes at the sight of the fading bruise on her neck, exposed by the off the shoulder cut of her chunky knit jumper. That is a fading hickey he left not even a week ago. Like a teenager.
Crowley slides her phone in her bag before taking off her glasses. The smile that graces her face is one of knowing expectation and Aziraphale’s heart drops.
“Hi, Professor Fell, nice to see you again.”