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Captain Anthony Crowley was bored. Cosmically, transcendentally bored. So bored that even drinking his boredom away had become boring. And hazardous to his health.
He lay on his bunk, staring up at the canvas ceiling, boredom and guilt twisting and roiling in his stomach.
Boredom was good. Boredom meant there were no young men being torn apart for him to stitch back up, no villagers finding unexploded bombs in their fields in the worst possible way. It meant a temporary outbreak of peace in the area, and Crowley was all for peace.
He was just also going stir crazy. For days now he'd been bouncing around camp, channelling all his restless energy into being a general annoyance, but even that had worn thin.
The trouble was, Crowley was a puzzle solver. Give him a kid with his insides scrambled and stuck through with shrapnel and he wasn't happy, he wasn't that insane, but he was capable. He was a calm head in an emergency and an anxious bundle of nerves the rest of the time.
"Lazing around again, Snake-eyes? You should be taking this opportunity to get a little exercise! Come and do some callisthenics!"
Maybe the solution to the puzzle was to murder Major Archer. That would probably get him sent home. But also stuck in a military prison for a couple of decades, which was likely worse, boredom-wise.
"Fuck off, Gabriel," he muttered instead, not bothering to look in the man's direction.
"A jog—"
"No."
"Fine." There were a series of clunks from the direction of Gabriel's bunk, and then a rustle of canvas as he left.
Crowley stared at the ceiling. There was a slightly worn bit, over in the corner, and he spent a few seconds entertaining himself with the thought of it ripping in a rainstorm and dumping water over Gabriel's stupid, smug head. Ruining his hair. But Crowley had to live here, and he didn't fancy sleeping in a lake.
"Crowley? Are you coming to the mess tent?"
For this voice, at least, Crowley bothered to turn his head. His other tent-mate, Captain Newt Pulsifer, looked at him worriedly from the doorway.
"Nah." Crowley and food had a complicated relationship at the best of times. Surplus rations from the Second World War had not improved this relationship. Lunch could wait. "You go."
"Are you—" Newt was cut off by the crackle of static, followed by Eric's voice over the loudspeakers.
"Attention all personnel! Incoming wounded!"
Crowley jumped to his feet, energy suddenly coursing through him, and pulled on his boots. Lunch would have to wait for everybody.
"Scalpel."
The instrument was in Crowley's hand before he'd even finished saying the word. He spared a single glance for the nurse before his attention was pulled back to the bloody mess on the table.
Lieutenant Fell was new; he hadn't assisted Crowley in surgery before. In fact, Crowley was pretty sure this was only his second time in the OR, but he clearly knew what he was doing.
They'd never had a male nurse in the 4077th before. There'd been a bit of a flap when he'd arrived, but it had been quickly smoothed over. Crowley had only really caught glances of him over the last couple of excruciatingly quiet weeks. He seemed to prefer to keep to himself; or maybe he just didn't fit in with the other nurses,and didn't feel like he could socialise with the enlisted men or the doctors.
Crowley chanced another look. Most of Fell's face was obscured by a mask, of course, but his eyes were a bright blue-grey above the fabric, sharp and intelligent. Crowley had heard grumblings—from Gabriel, mostly—that Fell must have become a nurse because he couldn't get into medical school, but he seemed to know what Crowley was going to do before Crowley did.
"Been doing this long?" Crowley asked, dropping his gaze back to his work.
"About five years. I did several months in Seoul before being transferred here."
"What crime did you commit to deserve that?"
"I asked for it, actually."
This merited a longer look, the disbelief clearly obvious on Crowley's face even with his mask.
"You're here on purpose?"
"I wanted to help." Fell clamped an artery that Crowley had only just noticed needed clamping. "Is that not why we're all in this job?"
"Fell!" Major Michael's voice rang out from the next table, where she was assisting Newt. "This is surgery, not a social club. Stop chatting with the doctors and concentrate on your job."
"Don't listen to her," Crowley advised. "You seem perfectly capable of a little multitasking to me. Tell me about yourself. You're English?"
"Originally. My parents moved us to the States when I was a teenager. My younger sisters lost the accent, but I refused to. And you?"
"Married a Yank. Followed her over the pond before it all went wrong." Sometimes, Crowley could still hear the screaming. They'd turned having a row into an art form, he and Lily. They'd married too young, too quickly, and the pressures of medical school had only sped up their inevitable break-up. In the long years since, Crowley had learnt to keep things casual, to not let his heart get twisted up and torn apart again.
"I'm sorry," Fell said, genuinely sounding it.
"Don't be. The divorce was the best day of both of our lives."
"And you never went home?"
"Eh. I'd been through all the hassle of getting citizenship, seemed a shame to waste it." Crowley looked down at the table, at the mess of insides now restored to something like order. "Can you close for me?"
It hadn't been the longest stint in the OR by a long stretch, only a handful of hours; lunch was long past but dinner would still be on in the mess tent.
Everyone else was done and gone, while Crowley and Lt. Fell worked on one last patient. Newt had offered to stay and help, but Crowley had waved him away. Not that the room was empty—there were orderlies cleaning up, the anaesthetist monitoring their patient—but without the noise of a mass of people all crammed into a too-small space, the tent seemed eerily quiet.
They finished their task in near silence, broken only by the occasional request or question, the conversation long since worn thin. Finally, Crowley handed the patient over to Shadwell to take to post-op, and Fell followed him out of the OR to scrub out.
Crowley discarded his mask and gown and turned to say something, only to find Fell standing still, staring blankly at the wall.
"Hey. You all right?"
Fell blinked, coming back from wherever it was he'd gone. "Ah. Yes. Apologies, I just…" he trailed off, his brow furrowing above his mask.
The look was one Crowley had seen too many times to count. They were all trained medical professionals, not put off by a bit of blood or gore, but the way they did things here—the hot, messy chaos of it all—wasn't something everybody could stomach.
There was a reason Crowley kept an illegal still in his tent, a reason it saw more use than was sensible. You coped in the OR, because that was your job, and outside of it you coped in whatever way you could.
"It's a lot to take in, your first few times," he said, moving in front of Fell until the other man's eyes focused on him. "You get used to it."
"It gets better?" Aziraphale asked, finally moving to take off his own mask. Crowley hadn't really had a good look at his face before, and something hot twisted in his gut now, something he pushed straight back down. Aziraphale's scrub cap came off too, revealing a tangled mess of white-blond curls, rioting even cut close.
"No," he admitted. "It gets worse. You just find a way to numb it."
Satan only knew how many ways Crowley had tried, over the last year or so. The alcohol, mostly, letting the burn of it take over when it all got too much. The careful torture of Gabriel, pulling the kinds of pranks that most people left behind in school. Films and parties and acting the clown, hoping other people's smiles would somehow ease the pain.
And, yes, sex, when he could get it. Crowley had slept with a fair number of nurses, found a few minutes or hours of relief in the press and friction of bodies. Only ever sex; even if Crowley was remotely interested in more, this was not the place for it.
He knew how people in camp saw him, that they joked and smiled to his face and whispered behind his back. He had their respect, in the OR. He was the best damn surgeon in camp, but outside…
It would be worse, if they knew. The whispers would turn to anger, the smiles to sneers. He'd maybe even get discharged, with all due dishonour, which on the worst days didn't seem so bad but…these things followed you, wherever you went. Korea, the US, England…none of them had patience for men like Crowley sometimes was. Men like Crowley sometimes wanted.
"And how do you numb it?" Fell asked. He'd shed his gown while Crowley was musing, was standing there in just his scrubs, his biceps and forearms all on display. He'd been doing his callisthenics, clearly, even if he was the sort of softly rounded man that Crowley preferred.
That hot feeling rose again, and Crowley stamped it down twice as hard. Making passes at other men when you weren't absolutely sure could get you killed, and out here who would bother to ask questions?
"Extraordinary amounts of alcohol, mostly," he said instead, turning away from Fell to scrub his hands. He'd seen Macbeth as a kid, and sometimes in this job it was hard not to feel like Lady Macbeth, forever trying to clean away the stains nobody could see, even if Crowley had been trying to save people. The deaths weighed just as heavily.
Fell stood beside him, so close Crowley could feel the heat radiating from him, and washed his own hands. Crowley couldn't help looking, at the thick fingers, the carefully rounded nails. You learnt to look for the signs.
"Major Michael had some rather unpleasant things to say about you and your extraordinary amounts of alcohol," Fell said mildly.
"That's because if she tried to unwind, the stick would fall out of her arse, and then what would she do?"
Fell giggled, his body turning slightly towards Crowley, drawing Crowley around in turn so he could see Fell's face even as they kept washing.
"She does seem rather…driven," Fell admitted.
"You're not…put out, by having a woman as a superior officer?" Crowley asked curiously.
"Not at all. I know many people assume it must be emasculating, but to get where she is she must be good at her job, and I don't see that there's any fundamental difference between men and women."
"Yeah, no, I completely agree," said Crowley hoarsely. Fell didn't mean the same thing he did, obviously.
"She called you 'Snake-eyes'," Fell went on, turning more fully now as they finished scrubbing. "It seemed rather mean spirited, but they are rather unusual, aren't they?"
"Birth defect," Crowley explained, the words coming out roughly past his suddenly dry tongue. Fell was still looking at his eyes, staring into them like he was searching for something deep inside them. "My vision's still fine."
"Is it?" Fell asked, his voice a low rumble. "What do you see?"
Crowley let himself look properly, not sneaking quick glances and darting away again. Took in the way Fell's pupils were black and huge, the pink tinge to his cheeks.
"I…" I see you. I want you. Crowley was almost sure but he was still too much of a coward.
"What's your name?" Fell said suddenly. "Everybody calls you either Snake-eyes or Crowley, but presumably you have a first name."
"Anthony."
"Lovely. Mine's Aziraphale."
Usually a name like that would have made Crowley tease—good-naturedly if he liked somebody, sharper, more taunting if not—to poke and to prod at it. But now he could only roll the unusual sounds over his tongue like he was savouring them, like they were something delicious.
"Aziraphale."
And then there were no more words because they were kissing, although Crowley couldn't have told you if he'd moved or Aziraphale had, open-mouthed and hungry in seconds, tongues twisting and tasting. Aziraphale's hand came up to push through Crowley's hair, sweaty and flat from his scrub cap, and the strong, soft bulk of his body pushed Crowley back until his bony arse collided with the hard metal of the sink.
Revenge was in order, Crowley's still-damp hands slid down to grab Aziraphale's own, much more generous behind, drawing a decadent moan from him that Crowley swallowed greedily before registering just how loud it had been.
He didn't want to break apart, wanted to stay attached at the mouth with Aziraphale for as long as Aziraphale would let him, but he reluctantly broke the kiss anyway.
"Not here," he murmured. "Too public. Supply tent's usually quiet at this time…"
"Anthony…" Aziraphale smiled at him, brushing his fingertips down Crowley's jaw, traliing down to fiddle with the chain of his dog tags. "You are aware I have my own tent?"
"Oh." Right. A private tent was a privilege of rank; Michael had one, and Colonel Metatron, but even Major Archer had to share with Crowley and Newt, a fact he resented. But nobody had known where to put Aziraphale; clearly he couldn't sleep in what would have been his bunk in the nurse's tent, but he couldn't share with the surgeons either, or slum it with the enlisted men. So he'd been given his own tent, for lack of any better idea.
"I think I might skip dinner and head straight there," Aziraphale continued, taking a step back. "But if you, in the spirit of military camaraderie, wanted to bring over some of that supply of alcohol you mentioned, as a sort of housewarming gift…"
Crowley dashed back to his tent, resisting the urge to watch Aziraphale cross the compound in the other direction. Gabriel had already finished dinner and was sitting on his bunk, and he watched with disapproval as Crowley ducked behind his still to fetch a bottle.
"Drinking again, Snake-eyes? You know your body is a gift from God, you shouldn't sully it."
"Yeah, well, gift or not it's mine now." Crowley paused to look in the mirror, wondering if he should take the time to change out of his scrubs and fix his hair, but staying in the tent with Gabriel was not an option, with how badly-fitting the loose trousers had become. "Don't wait up."
Gabriel said something that was probably insulting, but Crowley was already gone.
Aziraphale was waiting at the entrance to his tent, blue eyes peeking through the gap in the canvas. He opened it hurriedly for Crowley to slip in, casting one final, anxious look around the compound before closing it.
"Here," Crowley said, offering up the bottle, just in case he'd absolutely misunderstood the kissing and the hard, hot shape he'd felt digging into his thigh, and Aziraphale really did just want a drink.
Aziraphale took it from him, their fingers brushing over the glass, the brief touch sending hot sparks down Crowley's spine to pool at his groin. He watched, disbelieving and incredibly aroused, as Aziraphale pried the cork out with his teeth and took a mouthful directly from the bottle.
"Oh, that is God-awful," Aziraphale complained, passing the bottle back over. Crowley took a swig, his lips finding the same place around the neck that Aziraphale's had, the alcohol burning its way down his throat.
"Hey!" he protested as he lowered it. "I spent ages making that!"
"You made this yourself?" Aziraphale asked, reaching for the bottle again, pulling a face as he took another drink. "That's highly illegal and incredibly dangerous. I could get so, incredibly drunk on this."
"That's the point." Crowley reached out again but Aziraphale shook his head, took one last drink before shoving the cork back in and putting the bottle aside.
"Perhaps later. I don't like fucking drunk."
So, definitely not a friendly invitation to come over for a drink then. Bereft of a bottle to hold, Aziraphale's hands occupied themselves with Crowley's hips instead, pulling them flush together, leaning in for another kiss.
This one was slower, less frantic, less anxious. There was no doubt now that they both wanted this, wanted what it led to, wanted to drown out the memory of the last few hours with hot, slippery friction. Aziraphale seemed to want to explore every last inch of Crowley's mouth with his tongue, mapping out the topography of his teeth with satisfied little hums. Crowley kissed him back with equal hunger, fingers carding through those pale curls, tasting the booze from Aziraphale's tongue.
It was Aziraphale who took things further, whose hands wandered under the loose folds of Crowley's scrubs, one sliding up his back while the other dipped down to grope his arse.
"I should have asked," Aziraphale said, his lips leaving Crowley's to forge a hot trail along his jaw, "what are you comfortable doing? You mentioned a wife, I don't know if you prefer to be the one giving? Or we can skip penetration entirely, if you'd rather?"
Crowley groaned and used his grip on Aziraphale's hair to pull him back to his mouth, tugging at Aziraphale's plush bottom lip with his teeth.
"I've not been fucked in ages," he said, his cock growing harder at the thought. He hadn't been with a man since he'd been shipped to Korea, and even back in the States it wasn't a frequent occurrence, but it was something he'd enjoyed on the rare times he'd done it. "But don't we need—"
"Ah. Well." Aziraphale slid his hand free from Crowley's scrub trousers and guided him towards the bed, where he reached under the pillow for a small jar. "I may have appropriated this from the hospital in Seoul. They weren't going to miss it, and I do enjoy a little…personal time with it, on occasion."
"Oh, God." The visual flashed clearly into Crowley's mind; Aziraphale, naked as the day he was born, his legs spread wide while he sank three fingers inside himself, head thrown back in ecstasy. "Fuck me, please."
"Is that an order, Captain Crowley?"
"If it needs to be, Lieutenant Fell." Crowley generally preferred to not be reminded of his rank, but the blazing look in Aziraphale's eyes was more than enough for him to want to play along with the game.
"Yes sir." Aziraphale tugged at Crowley's scrub top, yanking it up and over his head, and before Crowley could even think of reciprocating he had bent down to swipe his tongue over Crowley's nipple. Crowley bit back a shout as the sensation went right to his cock, pushing his chest against Aziraphale's mouth for more, receiving it in hot little laps that made him shiver and groan.
When he was satisfied with his work, Aziraphale switched to the other side, working the bud there to a hard, pebbled peak before he finally allowed Crowley to divest him of his own top.
Crowley could only stare for a moment, lust-addled, at the broad expanse of Aziraphale's chest, the soft swell of his belly, the pink nipples peeking out through their covering of pale chest hair. It made him want to bite something, and so he did, falling to his knees with a thud and sinking his teeth into the roll of fat below Aziraphale's navel, grinning around his mouthful as Aziraphale covered his mouth to muffle the resulting squeal.
The fact that this put him in range of the huge, hot shape in Aziraphale's trousers was just an added bonus. He ducked his head, letting it brush against his cheek, before looking back up at Aziraphale, sliding his hands up the other man's thighs to hook his fingers around the waistband.
"Can I?"
Aziraphale nodded, biting his lip, his eyes wide as Crowley slid his scrubs and his underwear down, revealing a lovely thick cock, straining upwards, liquid beading at the tip. Crowley lapped it up, savouring the musky, masculine taste, the salt-bitter tang of it, before fitting his lips around the crown and sucking gently.
"Oh. Oh, Anthony." Aziraphale's hands cradled his head, encouraging him to rock forwards, to take more of that delicious cock into his mouth. Crowley let him take control, let Aziraphale feed him cock until he gagged on it, pulling back with a splutter.
"I'm sorry!" Aziraphale gasped.
"It's fine. Just a bit out of practice." Crowley kissed the tip, looking up to find Aziraphale watching him with dark, hungry eyes. It made him feel hot all over, made his cock throb and twitch, a damp patch spreading across the front of his trousers. "Shall we move on?"
Aziraphale hauled him back to his feet with surprising—and arousing—strength, then kept manhandling him until he was on his hands and knees on the bunk, trousers in a heap with the rest of their scrubs.
Crowley was needy and impatient, now more than usual, but Aziraphale refused to be rushed. He was generous with the precious, stolen lubricant, coating his fingers liberally before pressing them gently against Crowley's anus, gradually increasing the pressure until the tight muscle gave way.
It burned, just a little, Aziraphale's thick fingers more of a stretch than Crowley had had in a long time, and he turned his face into Aziraphale's pillow to stifle a moan.
"Is it too much?" Aziraphale asked, concern evident in his voice as he stilled his fingers, his other hand rubbing soothingly on Crowley's hip.
"Too much…not enough…" Crowley pushed back onto Aziraphale's fingers with another groan. "Do it."
Aziraphale was careful and precise, opening him up, curling his fingers to press against Crowley's prostate, sending hot pulses to his cock and making him whimper. Aziraphale's other hand held him steady, hips lifted off the bed where he couldn't seek even the slightest relief against the mattress, could only rock back and forth, trying to take Aziraphale deeper.
"Greedy thing," Aziraphale said, sounding amused, rubbing again with devastating precision.
"Just fuck me already, Lieutenant. That's an order."
"Sir." Aziraphale's fingers withdrew, leaving Crowley empty and gasping, but after a moment there was another hot, blunt pressure against his rim. Crowley pushed his face into the pillow, breathing in Aziraphale's lingering scent and muffling the broken noise he made when Aziraphale pushed into him.
Thick fingers tightened around his hips, the slight pain of it only adding to his arousal, as Aziraphale began to rock in and out in little increments, the flared head of his cock dragging deliciously over all of Crowley's most sensitive parts.
"You have no idea how good you look like this," Aziraphale told him, keeping his voice to a low murmur. The evening noises of the camp were audible outside the canvas walls, not too close, but still close enough to be dangerous, close enough to be exciting. "How well you're taking me."
Crowley whined helplessly, hitching his hips back, desperate for more of that wonderful cock. Aziraphale obliged him with one final shove, his hips pressing up against Crowley's skinny arse as he ground slowly against him.
He hadn't realised how much he'd missed this; his flings with the nurses were nice, but there was something about giving up the power of the situation to somebody else, something that made Crowley hot and achy and desperate. He twisted his head to look at Aziraphale, flushed and lightly sheened with sweat as he began to fuck into Crowley, the dog tags hanging from his neck swaying with every movement.
"You're gorgeous," he mumbled, which earned him a smile and a very pointed thrust.
Aziraphale let go of one hip to slide his hand up Crowley's spine, pressing down gently between his scapulae as he began to pick up the pace, holding him down and making him take it. Crowley sank his teeth into his bottom lip and surrendered to the pleasure of being taken, rocking back against each heavy thrust, biting back a wail each time Aziraphale's cock dragged against his prostate.
"You're so lovely, so tight," Aziraphale murmured, fucking him harder, bollocks slapping against Crowley's perineum and making him gasp, making his toes curl against the thin mattress. "I'm not going to last. Touch yourself for me, gorgeous."
Crowley was meant to be the one giving the orders around here, but Crowley was also the one face down on the bed while Aziraphale took his pleasure from him. He snaked a hand beneath him and wrapped it around his aching, neglected cock, spreading the pre-ejaculate that had leaked from it down the shaft and using it to smooth the way as he stroked himself in quick, jerky pulls.
The heat that had been slowly gathering in his groin rose to a boil, like a pressure cooker left too long, pushing at his skin, desperate for release. The shout that fell from his mouth as he finally tipped over the edge was too loud, but he couldn't stifle it. Above him, inside him, around him, Aziraphale shuddered, breath coming in quick pants as he spent in hot rushes before collapsing in slow motion across Crowley's back.
"That was…astounding," he murmured, mouthing messily over Crowley's neck and shoulder.
"Yeah. Pretty good. Would recommend."
Crowley winced as Aziraphale pulled out, but he squirmed around so that their mouths could meet again, leisurely and unhurried now. He knew he couldn't stay, would have to go back to his cold bed in his shared tent, to suffer through Gabriel's snores and Newt's sleep-talking until morning brought either more boredom or more horror. But for now, for just this tiny little slice of time, he let himself relax in Aziraphale's arms, safe and content and wanted.