Archive of Our Own

There is a mystery afoot, and Aziraphale intends to solve it.

Crowley has been behaving most curiously as of late. It’s not that unusual for Aziraphale to find an edible gift package on his doorstep with no name for a sender — although he always knows who it’s from anyway (who else could it be?). He doesn’t exactly have a full roster of friends, or even acquaintances, who would bother, and besides — when it comes to temptation, there’s one very obvious culprit.

But lately, the deliveries have been more frequent, and when Aziraphale calls him on the phone to reprimand (and thank) him, Crowley seems to be most... affected. But why?

Well, Aziraphale has his suspicions. But that’s exactly what he needs to get to the bottom of.

Crowley and Aziraphale have been sharing meals together for millennia. Aziraphale only ever tried food in the first place because of Crowley, after all, and that first taste opened the door to a world of delicious exploration. But when Aziraphale thinks back on it, Crowley hasn’t always participated in the eating as much as Aziraphale has. When he invited Crowley to try oysters for the first time in Rome, the demon only had one or two of his own before passing his plate to Aziraphale to polish them off. Their first time dining at the Ritz was similar; Crowley tried an appetizer or two, but his meal consisted mostly of coffee with an alcoholic digestif. Aziraphale has called him out on it on a handful of occasions, but to be honest, he’s usually too absorbed in his own experience of the food to really notice it. But something he has noticed, when he takes into account their history as a whole, is that Crowley is always watching him.

Despite the mystery, the pieces of the puzzle are starting to assemble into something. Just a few days ago, Crowley sent a box of chocolates to Aziraphale, and when they spoke on the phone about it... well, there were a lot of moments that stuck out to Aziraphale as odd. For starters, there were a few things Crowley said that didn’t quite add up, some reactions that felt unusual. Not to mention at the end of the call, he went dead silent for far too long to be normal for such an otherwise vociferous demon. Aziraphale thought perhaps the call had disconnected, but then Crowley came back and he sounded... out of breath? Crowley said it was because he had gone up to “the attic” and temporarily lost service, which would also explain his being out-of-breath... except that Aziraphale is sure Crowley doesn’t have an attic.

More than anything, the biggest indication that Something’s Up is Crowley’s choices of words. His language was awfully suggestive. That’s just something Aziraphale has come to expect from him; as Crowley’s work focus has been Temptation since the dawn of time, it only makes sense. Aziraphale didn’t think too much of it at the time, but he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

What exactly is Crowley after? Is it truly the fun and games of the Temptation? Is he perhaps encouraging the Gluttony, chalking it up as a win for achieving two Sins in one go, and on an angel no less? Is this all just some work assignment (which Aziraphale isn’t even sure he’s getting credit for anymore)? Or is there an entirely different cardinal Sin at play...

So when Aziraphale returns from his daily restock of Empress Grey to find a box on the front step with a big blue bow, he smirks. The first Clue.

He looks up and down the street for a conspicuous black Bentley — but Crowley has never been so bold. Aziraphale takes up the box and lets himself into the shop, keeping the sign “closed” for now.

After locking up, Aziraphale takes the box over to his desk. Usually, he’s already calling Crowley, chastising him for the temptation, before he can even sneak a peek inside the box. But today is a different day — a day for the scientific method. Investigation requires gathering proof-positive intel, and Aziraphale knows he’ll conduct his best research by performing a little preliminary sleuthing. He unknots the silk bow and pulls it from the white box, setting it aside. As he lifts the corner of the lid, the smell of fresh bread immediately overwhelms him. He breathes in deeply, parsing out notes of cinnamon, fruits and cheeses, swirling alongside a prevailing scent of confectioner’s sugar. He sighs happily, removing the lid fully and tucking it underneath the base of the box.

He does a quick assessment of the spoils. There are a dozen different pastries, no two alike, ranging from sweet to savory. But Aziraphale has always had a sweet tooth, and more often than not, that’s what he’ll reach for first when given the option.

The pastries are not labeled, of course, but his discerning eye and nose can identify a few of them right off the bat. On the dessert side — a cinnamon apple Danish, raspberry strudel with icing, a slice of cream pie, a pastry with a small lemon rind garnish at the top, a salted caramel puff pastry, and a Chelsea bun. On the savory side — a cheese Danish, a ham-and-cheese croissant, and what appears to be a ricotta-and-herb scone with stuffed spinach. A handful more of them look scrumptious but as-yet unidentifiable.

Aziraphale evaluates his options. Without an audience, he would probably try one or two and save the rest for later. But knowing that Crowley is somewhere — in his flat, presumably — waiting for a call, Aziraphale has much bigger plans in mind. He scurries off to the couch to retrieve a couple of small throw pillows before returning to his armchair at the desk.

Normally, he would make the call from his rotary phone — as a general rule, he prefers the analog and the simple — but the hands-free flexibility of his mobile phone will make it far easier to conduct his experiment without limitation. He fishes it out from his desk drawer — idling at a 71% battery, having seen no use since its last full charge — lays it on the desk before him and dials.

His heart hammers in his chest — a rare occurrence for an angel, to be sure, but given the promise of a very real human experience before him, it’s not remotely a surprising one. The line rings only once before Crowley picks up.

“Angel,” he greets, almost lazily, from the other end. “What’s new?”

“You know perfectly well what’s new, you old fiend,” Aziraphale says in his stiff-but-affectionate tone. “Came home to a dozen pastries on my doorstep. Again.”

“Did you, now?”

“You know I did,” Aziraphale deadpans. “And I’ll thank you not to play innocent this time when we both know you’re anything but.”

“Guilty as charged,” Crowley returns calmly. So far, Aziraphale can’t find any concrete Clues in his tone — but there’s still plenty of time, and the fun has hardly begun yet.

“You’re making a habit of this,” Aziraphale points out. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were buttering me up.”

“Now, why would I do that?” Crowley says, though the innocence of the question is undermined by the devil in his voice.

Aziraphale considers the question, determining how he might respond in a way that would serve his objective. Surely a little baiting would be harmless? “You just like to make me squirm, don’t you?” Aziraphale asks. There’s a slight hitch in Crowley’s laugh. The next Clue — compelling data to support Aziraphale’s hypothesis.

“Maybe,” comes Crowley’s slightly affected voice. “Gotta practice my temptations somewhere.”

“And you love to use me,” Aziraphale guesses.

“I mean, you’re so easy to tempt,” Crowley says. “When it comes to food, you know.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale says. He bites his lip; anticipation brews in the cauldron of emotions in his stomach. The intoxicating smell of the pastries is tempting enough; Aziraphale hardly ever goes this long in front of an offering like this without diving in, taste-buds first. But so far the repartee with Crowley has been — on paper — vexingly innocuous, leaving him anxiously awaiting some sort of inflection point to tip the scales of evidence in one direction or another.

“I thought you were going to join me this time?” Aziraphale wonders.

“Nah, pastries don’t do it for me,” Crowley says. “But I know they do for you.”

“I would enjoy them much more with you here,” Aziraphale baits. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you?”

“I’m sure you could,” comes Crowley’s reply on the tails of a throaty laugh, and Aziraphale is quite sure now that the register of his voice has dropped. “But let’s save that for another day.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” Aziraphale warns with a cheeky grin that he’s both grateful and disappointed that Crowley can’t see.

“All right, Angel, on with it.”

“Eager today, are we?” Aziraphale teases. He waits for a snarky reply, but all he hears is Crowley breathing on the other end of the line — breath that comes in through the nose and goes out through the mouth, Aziraphale can detect. “Hmm, let’s see, what to choose first...”

He dallies for a few seconds to build the anticipation. He knows which one he’d like to have first — the Chelsea bun, which has always been one of Aziraphale’s favorites. A simple and elegant classic, but still bursting with delightful flavor. But the opportunities afforded to him by some of the other options are too good to pass up, particularly with the lemon pastry.

Despite having his mind made up, Aziraphale is devoted to his mission. “Ohhhh,” he sighs dramatically. “It’s so hard.”

If he weren’t looking for it, Aziraphale might have missed the slight delay before Crowley responds. “Hard is good,” he says. “Hard means you want it.”

Well, that’s certainly a promising response.

“Oh, I do, I want it all,” Aziraphale replies. “Badly.” The words sound strange coming out of his mouth, but he knows he could easily wave it off as innocent if ever confronted about it.

“How badly?” comes Crowley’s voice, and Aziraphale’s heart skips a beat in his chest — an unexpected reaction. Perhaps the rush of his own duplicity is getting the better of him.

Aziraphale invokes a slightly lower register as he says, “I can barely stand it another moment.”

And was that... a growl on the other end of the line? Surely not.

“Hurry up, then.”

Aziraphale can feel his pulse in his throat, and that’s definitely a new sensation. He clears it gently as his eyes scan over the offering again. “Let’s see here,” he says. “This one looks like maple. Then we have a salted caramel. This one possibly lemon filled. My, my, you certainly picked a lot of sticky options, didn’t you?”

“The restaurant picked them,” Crowley says, almost defensively. “They chose a random — I...”

“All right,” Aziraphale hums. “I think I’ll start with this lemon one, then,” he says, and he’s pretty sure that’s a sigh of relief he hears through the receiver. “You know I have a weak spot for citrus.”

“I do.”

Aziraphale rustles through the parchment paper to find and fish out his selection. “Hmm,” he says thoughtfully. “It hasn’t come with any utensils. I’ll have to... use my fingers.”

Which definitely doesn’t come out sounding nearly as provocative as it did in his head, most likely due to the fact that Aziraphale has very little, if any, experience in this sort of thing. But after another brief pause, Crowley replies, “Go on, then.”

So Aziraphale lifts the treat out of the box, brings it to his lips, and takes a bite.

For a moment, he forgets all about his scientific experiment as the flavors hit his tongue for the first time. The savory crust of the pastry combined with the sour-but-sweet lemon custard releases a current of serotonin in his brain. The slight salt of his skin as he pulls his lips back over his fingers tingles against the sweet sugar inundating his tastebuds. The whole experience draws a meek sound of pleasure from the back of his throat as he swallows the bite.

“What’s it taste like?”

Aziraphale startles, having nearly forgotten that Crowley was on the line. He considers the question. “Tart, sweet,” he says reflexively. Then he remembers his mission, refocusing his attention. “A bit like you.”

“Ha ha,” Crowley says flatly. “So you like it, then?”

“Very much,” Aziraphale confirms as he goes in for another bite.

“Good.”

The second bite is even better — closer now to the center of the treat, the custard-to-pastry ratio is much more heavily weighted in favor of the custard, which is always his favorite part. Aziraphale usually prefers to save the middle for last for this reason, but his priorities lie religiously with his clever ruse.

“Tell me what else you taste,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale notes the slight plea in his tone. “Really describe it to me. I need to know... for the catering thing.”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale hums. “You mentioned. Ah, well...” He turns the pastry in his hand, evaluating its visual presentation along with its taste. “The pastry is nice and flaky.” He pauses, unhappy with his choice of words. He quickly redirects. Think sexy. “Supple,” he adds, feeling far better about that choice. “With a rich, creamy finish.”

“Anything else?”

Aziraphale holds himself back from huffing in frustration. Crowley’s answers are still maddeningly impossible to read. Everything he says could be interpreted as very innocent, or very... not. Still, the data Aziraphale has collected so far could support his theory — but he needs to be sure.

Time to kick it up a notch.

Aziraphale is not the obtuse prude some might make him out to be. He’s been on earth for six thousand years, after all. Just because he’s an angel doesn’t mean he’s managed to avoid the subject of sex for his entire existence. He was in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve first discovered copulation, for crying out loud. And since the dawn of literary publishing, Aziraphale has read centuries worth of fiction, much of which can get rather racy. He calls upon his vast knowledge of the subject to aid him in his endeavor.

“You know, now that I think on it,” he says, “it would be more prudent to evaluate them when they’re hot and fresh.” He holds a beat to take in a deep breath, steadying the hammering heart in his chest. Now or never. “Crowley, you really should just take me.”

He can only imagine the face Crowley must be making, given the insane spluttering sound that comes down the line. “You what?”

“I said you should just take me to the restaurant,” Aziraphale says with so much innocence, he would put the virgin Mary to shame. “So we can get them when they’re fresh. That is, unless you don’t want to take me?”

“No,” Crowley says hastily. “God. I want to. I want to take you.”

Now that’s getting somewhere.

“Well, you’re being awfully coy about it,” Aziraphale says primly. “Leaving these temptations at my doorstep and then scurrying away. This would be far more enjoyable if we could do it together.”

There’s another hitch in Crowley’s breath, nearly inaudible, and Aziraphale is surprised he can even make it out over the phone.

“Are you quite all right?” he presses.

“Yeah,” Crowley returns, “it’s just... hot. So hot.”

“Hmm. It’s perfectly temperate in Soho...”

Aziraphale knows he’s being a flagrant bastard at this point, but he doesn’t feel remotely guilty about it. After all, Crowley is the one who started all this, isn’t he?

“All right, c’mon, what’s next?” Crowley urges.

Aziraphale pulls the pastry away from his lips, knowing that if he wants to make his way through a decent number of these, he’ll need to temper his appetite. As he sets it back down in the parchment paper, a dollop of the custard clings to his fingertips, giving him sudden, convenient inspiration.

“Hang on,” he says. “I got a bit of the cream on my finger. Let me just...” He leans over to the phone’s speaker to make sure it catches as much of his exaggerated noises as possible as he plunges the finger into his mouth. He sucks at the custard, allowing the rush of a gasp in for good measure. “Mmmm,” he hums loudly. “Oh, that tastes so good.”

It’s hard to tell without seeing his face, but Aziraphale is pretty sure that he can detect the restraint of a moan through the speaker. He abates his slurping long enough to be able to hear what sounds like Crowley cursing softly under his breath. But otherwise, the demon is silent.

And as Aziraphale licks off the last traces of the custard, it occurs to him — he approached this whole endeavor with the intention of, if Aziraphale found him to be doing what he suspected him of doing, calling Crowley out, decrying such lewd behavior. Perhaps Aziraphale naively assumed that the scientific framework of his experiment would lend to him keeping his cool long enough to do so. But a complication Aziraphale didn’t count on arises — he is, most inconveniently, getting very turned on by all of this.

Well, if Crowley is doing it... there’s no harm if Aziraphale just...

He slides his freshly-licked hand along his trousers, wiping off the traces of his saliva, and tucks it between his thighs. Forgetting for a moment that Crowley can hear him, he lets slip a small groan as he presses the heel of his palm into his growing erection. He quickly realizes his faux pas, but rather than feeling embarrassed by it — which he absolutely should — it just makes him harder, to know that Crowley may have heard it, may even be getting more riled up by it.

“I think, erm...” Aziraphale presses on bravely, “I’ll try this apple pie fritter next.”

“Sounds... sounds good.”

Aziraphale rummages around the paper with his left hand, which feels slightly awkward but not enough for him to stop palming himself through his trousers with his dominant hand. He pulls out the fritter and brings it to his lips, already filled to the brim with the spiced aroma cooked into the confectioner’s sugar icing. He runs his tongue slowly along the outside, and even though he knows that Crowley can’t see him, it makes Aziraphale smolder like hot coals to think what it would do to him if he could. He would have so much fun teasing Crowley like this, after centuries and centuries of Crowley teasing him. His arousal pulses under his palm and he digs his hand in deeper, lavishing the edge of friction it gives him.

He sinks his teeth into the pastry and pulls a small bite into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Mmmm, oh, that’s good,” he sighs.

“What is?” Crowley asks, that desperation back in his voice. “Be specific.”

Aziraphale turns the layers of the pastry over in his mouth, immersing his tastebuds in the endless sea of flavors. “The way it just... comes apart in my mouth,” he says, hoping Crowley can hear the implication in his words. “It doesn’t just taste good, it feels good.”

And he must have stupefied Crowley, because he doesn’t hear a reply for quite a while. “Keep going,” Crowley finally says.

“You know what would make this even better...” Aziraphale contemplates. “A decadent scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.”

And now Crowley is too quick to offer, “I could miracle up —”

“No. Don’t,” Aziraphale insists. “The craving, er... makes it better.”

The confession is just as much a surprise to himself as it must be to Crowley, who has fallen silent again. Aziraphale finds himself rather taken with the feeling, being caught in the space between wanting and having. It’s where he and Crowley sit now. It’s where they’ve always been, isn’t it?

Aziraphale takes another bite of the fritter, his moaning encouraged less and less by the food itself, more and more by the rhythm he’s kneading out between his legs. His mind goes fuzzy, and for a short period, he feels oblivious to all incoming sound, including whatever might be coming through the phone. He forces himself to tune back in, not wanting to miss a single moment.

Once he’s finished about half of the pastry, he sets it back down in the paper. The rustling must grab Crowley’s attention, because he asks, “What’s next on the menu?”

“I think I’ll go with... this one,” Aziraphale says. “Oh, I love a good cream pie.”

And the line is silent again. But it’s a new kind of silence — there’s no sound of Crowley’s breathing, no hum of white noise, no tone of the room. It takes a moment for Aziraphale to realize... has Crowley muted himself?

“Crowley?“ he asks, pausing halfway as he reaches for the pie. “Are you there?”

The response is slightly delayed. But a hint of background noise kicks back in. “Yeah, course,” Crowley says, and he sounds absolutely wrecked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

And there’s no question, he has definitely muted the phone again. Aziraphale lifts his hips, pushing against his hand, trying to imagine the sounds he’s missing out on. They must be really delicious, if Crowley has to mute to keep them under wraps.

Desperate to coax him back on the line, Aziraphale sighs loudly “Oh, I shouldn’t want this the way that I do...”

And to his absolute pleasure, it works, because Crowley unmutes to ask, “Why not?”

“Because...” Aziraphale pauses, enjoying an extended moment to roll his hips up. “It’s so bad for me.”

“I’m bad for you,” Crowley offers boldly, and his voice is hoarse. Aziraphale can’t imagine why Crowley thinks he’s getting away with this. Then again, he’s been letting Crowley get away with it for a while, hasn’t he? “You still want me, don’t you?” Crowley asks. Aziraphale bites his lip to keep from answering the way he wants to. “In your life,” Crowley adds, as if that could possibly erase the heavy suggestion that came before it.

“Yes, of course I want you,” Aziraphale groans, stretching and curling his fingers enough to reach his perineum, pushing and raking desperate fingertips across it through the fabric. He stifles a whine. “In my life,” he adds, for good measure.

“So be a little bad, then.”

Aziraphale drops the pie into the box and smothers his mouth with his hand before the whimper rocketing out of him can expose him. “Yes,” he says when he feels he can get the words out. “I — I think I will.”

“You will what?”

“Be a little bad.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale whines, and he knows he’s losing control of his voice, but there’s blood pounding in his ears and between his thighs and all he wants is to scream. “I want to be so bad for you, Crowley.”

He hears the words come out of his mouth with a delay, as though someone else in the room has said them. As though he’s waking from a dream, slow to take in the world around him.

“Angel,” he hears Crowley croak, and the sound nearly sends Aziraphale over the edge. “Is this...” Crowley audibly gulps. “Are you...”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, desperate to finally admit to it, to stop hiding, to put an end to centuries of pretending. “Yes, I am, and I know you are, too.”

“Fuck,” he hears Crowley say. But he says it not like he’s ashamed to have been caught; he says it like he’s coming alive. “How long have you known?”

Aziraphale slows the hand shut tight between his legs, desperate to pull himself back from the tipping point. “I suspected after our last call, but I didn’t know for sure,” he says. “This certainly confirmed it.”

Crowley huffs. “So you’ve been putting me on this whole time.”

“I had a theory,” Aziraphale says simply. “I had to test it.” He presses his fingers back in, giving himself slight relief before holding back again. “How long have you been —”

“Since the first time you ever tasted food,” Crowley answers so quickly that it knocks the breath from Aziraphale’s lungs. “God, I wanted you to devour me the way you did that ox rib.”

“You’ve been... doing this since Uz?” Aziraphale asks, a spiraling dizziness whipping up like a galestorm in his head, blurring his vision. “Since... since Job?”

“Not on the phone until recently, obviously, but yeah. Just every couple hundred years or so at first,” Crowley says. “But that first night... nnrrghh, you were... wild that night. Never seen you so... raw with hunger.”

“I’d have never known hunger if it weren’t for you,” Aziraphale says, reveling in the thrill of the truth.

“Only meant a little temptation. Never imagined it’d turn into...” Crowley groans. “A lifetime of temptation for me. I can’t... I live for the way you...” He huffs on the other end of the line, and the sound of it conjures up images of his chest heaving, flushed red and slick with sweat when Crowley says, “Just don’t stop.”

Both of Aziraphale’s hands scramble for the button at his waist. “Then don’t mute yourself this time,” he says.

“Fuck, yeah, okay.”

Aziraphale peels his trousers apart far enough to plunge a hand down beneath his boxers, grabbing himself in a greedy fist. Still reeling from Crowley’s confession, Aziraphale begins to recontextualize so many of their rendezvouses over the millennia. Aziraphale only started to suspect something like this was happening after their most recent phone call. But now that he knows Crowley has been doing this for dozens of centuries, his mind calls up memories of every meal they’ve ever shared together, spins through them like a rolodex, recalling the most memorable occasions.

“So... when I was in America in 1982,” he begins, “and you called to ask about my trip, but all we talked about was —”

“All the excessively-American food you were eating,” Crowley finishes. “Yeah. Especially then.”

A breath catches in Aziraphale’s chest as he strokes himself with a controlled hand, picking apart the memory. He can’t recall the specific words he used at the time — but he can vividly remember how all of the food tasted. The indulgent way American steaks are marinated and cooked in bacon grease, the sheer absurd amount of butter used in their oversized baked potatoes stuffed to the brim with cheese and sour cream and onions and flakes of bacon. The myriad of decadent desserts, triple-decker ice cream sundaes with hot fudge and candy toppings, vanilla bean milkshakes mixed with citrus and topped with whipped cream and orange peel zest. His mouth waters just remembering it all. But now he has the added luxury of imagining Crowley on the other end of the line, what mischief he was getting up to while Aziraphale spoke about it — most assuredly with inadvertently suggestive words. The blood pumps harder in the veins beneath his fingers, and he clenches his hand tightly.

“I wasn’t even... eating at the time,” he recalls, pushing his hips out to slide down the armchair, giving himself easier access.

“Didn’t matter,” Crowley says. “You still.... nnngggh recalled it with exquisite detail.”

“And,” Aziraphale presses cautiously, “what about you?”

“I just listened and... fucked my fist like it was your mouth,” he groans, and Aziraphale’s cock buzzes with electric shock. He has never heard Crowley talk like this before. He should find it absurd, should find this entire enterprise absurd; but all he can think about is Crowley laying in his bed, corded telephone laying by his head on the pillow, no mute button to his aid, thrusting into his fist while Aziraphale sat on the other end of the line, nearly four thousand miles away, completely unaware of the effect he was having on Crowley.

“Tell me,” Aziraphale asks, “what it is I do exactly... that makes you...” So hot and bothered is what he wants to say, but he can’t figure out how to get the words out of his mouth, so instead he says, “feel this way.” Because whatever it is, Aziraphale wants to do it even more.

“Everything,” Crowley begins — frustratingly unhelpful. But before Aziraphale can press him for details, he offers them up willingly, eagerly. “The moment you opened your mouth, I knew you could do great things with it,” he pants, and Aziraphale can practically feel his breath ghosting through the phone, hanging in the air around him like Crowley is beside him, or better yet — hovering over him. He unfurls and curls his fingers around his cock, getting a firmer grip, feeling Crowley’s words in the farthest reaches of himself. “The way your lips move when you take a bite,” Crowley continues, “the way your tongue laps up stray bits of pastry... the ecstasy in your eyes when... when you...” Crowley’s words trail off into a baritone whine. “Hrrngghh, I’d give anything for you to look at me that way.”

Aziraphale moans as he coats his hand in the warm slick of his own arousal. He has certainly thought of Crowley that way, more than he would ever admit out loud. But he always tried not to be obvious about it, kept his staring brief, only allowed himself to look when Crowley couldn’t catch him in the act. Kept his more indulgent thoughts to his private hours, when Crowley had gone and Aziraphale didn’t know when he would even see him again.

“What else?” he asks.

“There’s this... this sound you make when you swallow...”

“You like... how I sound when I swallow?”

“Yessss,” Crowley hisses, sibilants slipping on his serpent’s tongue. “Hard not to imagine you swallowing me instead. Wondered what I would taste like to you, if you would like it.”

Aziraphale tips his head back against the wooden frame of the armchair, eyes fluttering closed as he spins a fantasy from Crowley’s words. He can’t help but picture them back in Rome, discarded robes a pile on the floor of some dark hideaway that they keep to themselves. Crowley would be firm and supple in the same way as oyster flesh, but heavier in Aziraphale’s mouth. He imagines how he might slide his tongue along the bottom of Crowley’s shaft, kneading it against the inside of his cheek. How precome would gather like oyster pearls at the tip, pressed against the back of his tongue, the salt-stricken brine of Crowley’s madness slipping down Aziraphale’s throat as he swallowed him deeply.

“Never realized you could hear me swallowing over the phone,” he says, realizing only once it’s too late that his voice is dry and hoarse.

“Well, ‘s always better in person,” Crowley says with a paper-thin laugh. “But hearing you on the phone... meant I could do whatever I had to do without... drawing attention...”

Aziraphale twitches in the tunnel of his fist; he swipes his thumb over the head of his cock, wondering what it would be like if Crowley ever were to act on his impulses in public. He wonders if Crowley ever got hard under the table when they shared meals together, protected by the camouflage of bright linen tablecloths. Aziraphale imagines what he might have done if he caught wise to Crowley’s proclivities sooner. He could have slipped his hand underneath the table, gotten Crowley off right there in the middle of the restaurant. How delectable it would be to watch him squirm, gripping the edge of the tabletop, digging his heels into the floor, trying not to make a spectacle of himself. Aziraphale would relish the opportunity to take it as a challenge, continuing to moan and sigh as he eats with one hand and brings Crowley to the edge of despair with the other.

In fact, the sounds Crowley is making right now fit into the fantasy perfectly.

“Angel, does your... do you know how to do a video call?”

Aziraphale hesitates. As much as he wants to see the looks that go with the sounds Crowley is making, wants to see those forbidden parts of him, swollen with Crowley’s lust for him, there’s something about not knowing that makes the latent thrill buzzing through his body so much better. And more importantly — the first time that he gets to see Crowley come undone for him, Aziraphale wants it to be by his own hand.

He opens his eyes, sitting up in the chair to ensure his voice is heard in the phone’s receiver. “I think I'd rather keep it like this, actually,” he says. “Since you can’t be here in person.”

“I can be there in six minutes —”

“No,” Aziraphale says hastily. “I meant... that I’d like to have this... a little while longer.” He bites his lip, savoring the taste of the truth in the salt of his skin. “I like knowing how much you’re aching for it. For me.”

He hears Crowley suck in a breath on the other end of the line. “Such a naughty angel,” he says, and there’s a low-simmering heat in his tone like mulled wine that Aziraphale can practically taste.

“You bring it out in me,” he says. “You always have.”

Crowley whimpers. “Fuck, I wish I was there,” he groans, and the desperation in his voice is the exact flavor of torment that Aziraphale is after.

“What would you do,” Aziraphale asks, “if you were?” He’s desperate for every scrap of knowledge, any crumbs he can get his hands and teeth on, to know the precise details of Crowley’s desires to guide his own reverie. He readies his hand, aching to torture and tease himself the way Crowley has been doing.

“I would bring you fresh strawberries,” Crowley says, his answer too quick to be made up in the moment. “Slither into your lap and feed them to you...”

Aziraphale pictures everything exactly as Crowley describes. His imagination doesn’t waste any energy on superfluous things like background and setting; instead he focuses on the closeup details — the way Crowley would wrap his legs around Aziraphale’s hips, settling his weight over Aziraphale’s persistent erection. The hungry look in Crowley’s eyes as he tips Aziraphale’s head back, slides the fruit between his lips, inviting him to bite.

“Lick the juices as they drip down your chin,” Crowley continues, and Aziraphale’s fantasy gets more vivid. He can taste the sweet and sticky extract of the strawberry’s natural syrup, can hear the sound of his own lips as he sucks the bitten fruit, pulling its flesh into his mouth. “Kiss the corner of your lips where they pool up,” Crowley adds, “kiss the seeds right out of your mouth.”

Aziraphale fucks slowly into his fist, tethering his lust like a dog on a chain. His tongue swells in his mouth, craving the taste of berries and Crowley. “Maybe I would dip them in chocolate first, would you like that?” Crowley asks. Then without waiting for an answer, he says, “I would travel the world just to find you the finest chocolate.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale whines, “oh, yes, I would like that very much.”

He undulates in the chair, imagining the way Crowley would kiss and suck his lips, perhaps roll them between his teeth. He wonders what Crowley would taste like, too, so he asks, high on need and no inhibitions.

“Anything you like,” Crowley answers. “I’d eat whatever you want me to before I kiss you.”

Aziraphale wants to know what Crowley tastes like on his own. But there’s a gentle tease in the idea of getting to watch Crowley eat for once. Aziraphale never really bothered to notice how Crowley takes a bite of something. Would he be more likely to savor, or to inhale? What expressions would he make when he enjoys a flavor? Would his eyes close, would his head fall back, would he make a sound? Aziraphale whimpers softly with need, imagining the sight of Crowley’s mouth full, watching the muscles in his neck stretch and contract and relax as he swallows. Would he do it slowly enough to let Aziraphale watch, give him time to chase after his quivering throat, lick the long stretch of it before sliding his tongue between Crowley’s lips, savoring whatever is left? He moans and thrusts his hips, alive and ruined just thinking about it.

“Tell me what you’re doing right now,” Crowley pleads.

It takes Aziraphale a moment to come back from his fevered fantasy, to accept it as illusion. He tunes back into his senses, feeling the slow drag of his cock between his fingers, smelling sugar and wheat and sex, hearing the coming and going of breath without knowing who it belongs to. “I took myself in my hand,” he begins, not entirely sure how to describe it without sounding like another person entirely. “I’ve erm...” He swallows. “Wrapped my fingers underneath so I can pull while I... use my thumb to...”

“Fuck, tell me,” Crowley begs when Aziraphale pauses for too long.

“Just sort of tease,” Aziraphale says. “With erm... really slow movements.”

“Slow, huh?” Crowley rasps on the other end.

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale sighs, slowing his hand movements to a near stop just to make his point, as though Crowley could see him doing it. “I like it nice and slow.” He drags one finger at a time along the underside of his shaft. “Agonizing, even.”

“Shit,” Crowley says. “Yeah, six thousand years. I noticed.”

Aziraphale tries to laugh, but there’s not enough air in his lungs for it to make a sound. “You’re the one who’s been doing this since Job, remember.”

“What about your other hand?” Crowley asks, whether to avoid the allegation or because his thirst to know is simply that much stronger than his pride. “Tell me what you’re doing with it.”

“Nothing at the moment,” Aziraphale says honestly, the fingers of his left hand flexing reflexively in their idleness. “Still a bit sticky from the pastries.”

Crowley hums a sound that Aziraphale wishes he could swallow whole. “If I was there,” he rasps, “I’d lick it all off for you.”

“Well, whose fault is it that you’re not?” Aziraphale quips between strokes.

“Yours!” Crowley cries. “You won’t bloody let me —”

“Oh, you could have been here from the start,” Aziraphale chides.

“I didn’t know,” Crowley pants. “I... Satan, if I had known —”

“We’ll just have to keep using our imaginations,” Aziraphale says, hoping that Crowley will take the invitation and run with it.

“Well, then imagine,” Crowley says, a disappearing trace of snark in his tone, “that it’s me holding your wrist... taking your fingers into my mouth...”

Sharply aware of where this is going, Aziraphale hastily grapples for the maple pastry, scraping his fingertips through the frosting. The smell of sugarcane sap overwhelms him as he crams three fingers into his mouth at once, and then the flavors take over. His breathing picks up, forced to come and go through the nose while he laps up the frosting.

“...my tongue wrapping around your fingers,” Crowley is saying, and Aziraphale isn’t sure if he missed a piece or if Crowley has just lost his grasp on language. “Maybe I’d fork it for you. Would you like that?”

Aziraphale pulls out his fingers, a soft, wet sound on their way out. “God, yes.”

“Nnrggh, you have no idea what your blasphemy does to me, angel,” Crowley snarls, and as much as Aziraphale wishes he did, wishes he could know exactly what it does to Crowley, the state of unravel he’s in at this precise moment, he’s quite keen for the moment to simply imagine it.

“Tell me when you’re done,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale slips his fingers back into his mouth, curling his tongue around each in turn. He can’t fork his own tongue, but he does his best to imitate the sensation by moving it quickly between each of his fingers, imagining that Crowley could reach all three at once. He sucks the crystalized maple, savoring the lash of sweetness against his tastebuds before swallowing it down.

“Yes,” he says, kissing the tips of his fingers as he likes to imagine Crowley might do.

“I want you to keep stroking yourself with one hand,” Crowley instructs with surprising lucidity, “and take the other and run it through your hair.”

Aziraphale does as he is told, resuming his leisurely strokes while sliding his other hand up the back of his neck, letting his spit-slick fingers curl in the sweat-ladden curls.

“Now I want you to imagine it’s me,” Crowley says, “and pull.”

Aziraphale closes his hand into a fist and tugs. A sharp yelp rips from deep in the back of his throat at the sensation. He no longer pictures Crowley in his lap; instead, he imagines himself face-down on the floor, propped up on his arms and arched back like a sphinx and Crowley laying on top of him, his body fitted perfectly against Aziraphale’s, that serpentine figure twisting impossibly against the physics of their position.

“That’s it,” Crowley coaxes. “Again.”

Aziraphale tightens his grip and pulls again, imagining that it’s Crowley wrenching his head back, his mouth wide and ready to allow Crowley to slip a chocolate-covered strawberry inside. He imagines the sweet of the chocolate and the fruit against the salt of Crowley’s fingers and lets out a moan, pulling the most delicious sounds out of Crowley across the phone line in return. In his mind, Crowley grinds against him, pressing his cock into Aziraphale’s restless backside, their bodies kept apart by layers of clothing, too, too many layers of clothing, but the torment of it keeps Aziraphale at the peak of his pleasure. He fists his cock just as eagerly as he does his hair, imagining Crowley grinding harder against him, desperate to sink into his body, compounding the ecstasy of the flavors in the food with the physical ecstasy that he gets from Crowley.

“Would you have your wings out?” Aziraphale blurts out, and he doesn’t even know where the question comes from. He hadn’t been imagining them so far, but the idea of it sends a pulse of pleasure straight to his cock.

“If you wanted me to, yeah. I’d do anything you want.”

Aziraphale can feel his mouth going dry, dehydrated by flakes of pastry and the lust burning through his whole body. The Crowley in his fantasy swipes a forked tongue along the back of his ear and Aziraphale throbs, back arched against the armchair as he squeezes around the base of his cock, willing it to abate.

“I want you spread out on a banquet table,” Aziraphale says, conjuring the images as he speaks, “like a magnificent feast.”

“Fuck, yessss,” Crowley groans, and Aziraphale thinks he may have actually forked his tongue for this. “Which part of me would you go for first?”

He knows what Crowley wants him to say. But no, Aziraphale would save that for last. He would take his time, watch Crowley get harder and more desperate the longer he takes, savoring the sounds of Crowley coming undone as Aziraphale teases him from crown to toe.

“Let’s see...”

The image behind his fast-closed eyelids comes into sharper focus. Aziraphale would lay the banquet ahead of time, curating foods that remind him of Crowley. Peaches he could bruise with fingers and teeth, nectar he could drink. Creamy sundaes dripping with caramel, topped with forbidden fruit and sin. Decadent cakes and slices of pie, endlessly tempting Aziraphale to indulge, despite knowing how bad it is for him.

He thinks about what other flavors would compliment Crowley’s natural taste. If his scent is anything to go by, something that carries notes of coffee or a dark liqueur would be a fitting complement. A butter rum cake topped with whipped cream and raspberries, perhaps; espresso martinis on offer with irish cream and crushed coffee beans...

But with Crowley laid out before him, Aziraphale would save all of that for later — if he had any appetite left after he had his fill of Crowley.

Crowley would have already lost his jacket, undone half the buttons on his shirt, waiting for Aziraphale to appraise him, to decide his first move. Aziraphale would climb up on the table, crawling over Crowley and fixing him with eyes ready to devour, like a predator to its prey.

“I might dip a finger in honey,” Aziraphale says, following the scene as it unfolds in his mind. “Run it down the center of your chest.”

“Mmm go on,” Crowley says, needlessly, as Aziraphale has no intention of stopping there.

“Then maybe I would follow it up with the long, slow press of my tongue,” he suggests, pausing to get Crowley’s delicious reaction.

“Mrrmmph,” he huffs through what sounds like lips closed tight. “Yessss...”

“Take whatever is left on my fingers and feed it to you,” Aziraphale continues. “And instruct you to clean them up, just as you described earlier.”

Crowley lets out a series of strained sounds, his heaving breath coming and going through the nose underscoring it like a filthy metronome. “God, yes, pleasssse...”

Aziraphale shuffles further down in the chair, propping his feet up on the footstool and snatching the throw pillow from behind his back to stuff it underneath his hips instead. He slides his free hand down his chest, the drag of his nails just on the cutting edge of pain and pleasure. “Then I would take my time tasting every inch of you,” he says as his hand reaches the hem of his pants. With a quick flourish, he slicks his hand with oil before he shoves it underneath the fabric. He hoists his hips up, slipping his hand down his backside to circle the tip of a finger along his rim. He whines feebly, the pitch of his voice higher as he continues, “Bruise you with my... my tongue and my teeth, and... and... ah!” He cries out as he breaches himself, slow and torturous as he presses in, but quick and dirty where he fists his cock in the other hand.

“And?” Crowley begs, his voice pitched, too.

“And then...” Aziraphale shudders in a breath as he buries his finger fully inside himself, probing helplessly for his prostate. “Oh!”

Aziraphale’s mind fast-forwards, imagining that he’s tugged Crowley’s trousers halfway down his legs, how he would push Crowley’s knees apart and bury his head between his thighs. Maybe he would continue to take his time, savoring every inch of him. Maybe he would take Crowley into his mouth so fast it would make his head spin.

“And then I would... oh!... swallow you from root to tip.”

Crowley howls, and Aziraphale’s mind spins, flickering between the fantasy and his imagination of what Crowley is doing to himself right now. Is he lying on his back in bed, imagining instead that he’s laid out on a table for Aziraphale? Or is he flipped on his stomach, hips high in the air above him, fucking down into his hand and pretending it’s Aziraphale’s mouth as his mind brings Aziraphale’s words to life?

“Oh, fuckkk, angel,” he stutters. “Please, I want those angelic lips doing the most unholy things to me...”

Aziraphale crooks his finger, pressing feverishly against his prostate with unyielding rhythm. “I would work you over with my tongue,” he gasps, hardly recognizing his own voice anymore. “Tracing every vein, savoring the salt in every drop of you...”

Crowley’s cries become shorter and quicker. “Fuck, god, don’t stop, don’t stop,” he chants, sounding as delirious as Aziraphale feels. “Oh god, oh goddddd...”

Aziraphale imagines himself looking up, finding Crowley arching off the table with impossible curvature, his spine like a dome from the waist up. Aziraphale would hold one hip firmly against the wood while his other hand splays out across Crowley’s abdomen, feeling the muscles shuddering beneath his touch. Crowley would bury a hand in his hair, tugging just as he promised before.

“I would relish the different textures of you,” Aziraphale says while pressing a second finger inside of himself. He gasps sharply at the sensation but his body quickly adjusts, welcoming the extra stretch and force as he thrusts his fingers in and out. “Drink you down like a fine wine. Ohh,” he moans, thrusting up into his tight fist and then slamming back down onto his fingers. “Oh, god, yes...”

“More,” Crowley begs. “Give me more, Angel, please, I’m so close...”

“No,” Aziraphale commands, and the word momentarily sobers him, just long enough to slow his own movements. “Not yet. You have four thousand years on me, and I won’t have you finishing before I catch up.”

Crowley hyperventilates a series of moans, but Aziraphale can hear him make the effort to temper it. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll always wait for you.”

“Good boy,” Aziraphale breathes, picking up his pace to about half the speed as before. Knowing how close Crowley is makes Aziraphale delirious with the desire to keep them both from satisfaction even more.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Crowley says, and he sounds on the verge of hysteria. “I would lie perfectly still if you asked me to.”

Aziraphale doesn’t know if Crowley means in the fantasy or right now, but either way, he’s somehow even more aroused at the thought of Crowley restraining himself just because Aziraphale asked.

“And if I didn’t?” he wonders, as anxious for Crowley’s answer as he is to fuck himself into a new time zone as he escalates his pace, battering himself between his two hands.

“Then I would fuck your mouth until new stars were born.”

Aziraphale wails, fingers flying faster and harder, breath barely coming in before he’s wheezing it back out again. “Oh, dear God, yes!”

“Angel, I’m coming apart over here,” Crowley gasps. “Pleasssse...”

Aziraphale would drag it out more if he felt he could hang on any longer himself. But he’s throbbing around his fingers, his thighs shaking with the effort of keeping himself from letting go. “Do me a favor first,” he finds the strength to say.

“Yes, what, anything, fuck,” Crowley heaves.

Aziraphale writhes in the seat, holding the question on his tongue. He likes it when Crowley calls him angel. But in this moment, when they’re doing this, when Crowley’s voice is arid and his breath is thin, when his vowels and consonants are broken, what Aziraphale really wants Crowley to do is —

“Say my name.”

The request alone does something to Crowley, who starts to say his name, but all of the syllables come out as long, keening sounds. After a few attempts of babbling incoherencies, he manages to moan out, “Aziraphale... oh, fuck, Aziraphale...”

And it’s like some kind of filthy poetry coming out of his mouth like this, literature that would have been banned and burned centuries before. Each unique soundwave strings along a thousand more words hidden inside; Aziraphale wants to write it all down, print a copy of it, keep it by his bed, reread and relieve it until the end of time.

He thrashes between his two hands, squeezing and twisting around his throbbing cock while pistoning his prostate with enough vigor to jumpstart a new dimension. Even with his eyes shut fast, Aziraphale can see lights strobing, and he can’t tell if it’s a physiological hallucination or a manifestation of his powers affecting the room around him.

As a tidal wave of rapture rises and towers over him, there’s a resonance in the celestial plane unlike anything Aziraphale has ever felt before, a symmetry of vibration between light and dark. It rips through his feathers like an earthquake splitting the planet from one end to the other, connecting his body to Crowley’s through ethereal fissures and the liminal space between atoms. Together their voices raise a chorus of euphoria that reverberates back through time, lighting up centuries gone by with the crackling fuse of their immutable attraction as they barrel through a synchronous crescendo to their exaltation.

It’s a long time before the aftershocks subside enough for either of them to speak. Aziraphale isn’t sure if he should go first — and what he would even say. Whether his small laugh counts or Crowley’s question in response, he isn’t entirely sure.

“Something funny, angel?”

“I was just wondering,” Aziraphale says, all breathy laughs and hushed tones, “if this restaurant makes the cut.”

Crowley clearly doesn’t understand because it’s a few beats before he replies, “You what?”

“You were taste-testing catering options,” Aziraphale reminds him. “For a thing. Don’t you remember?”

Finally, Crowley joins in the laughter. “Yeah,” he sighs. “This one takes the cake.”

“Foul demon, invoking puns at a time like this?” Aziraphale quips.

“Shuttup,” Crowley grumbles, although his voice is devoid of any of its usual bite.

Aziraphale waits to see if Crowley has any more witty comebacks, but in the absence of any, he says, “Next time you get the urge to tempt me... you’ll be here.”

It isn’t a request.

And for once, in his entire existence, Crowley doesn’t object.