Chapter Text
“What dream?” snapped Aziraphale. “Of challenging one of my favourite humans to duel? Because I must say you have quite an unfair advantage there, unless Charlie can learn smartish to bend time and physics.”
Crowley attempted to regain his leer. “No, of being chained to the wall in– well, it doesn’t have to be a pirate ship.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you detest humans imprisoning you. When you were pilloried for cursing pigs, you complained for days about backache when you couldn’t really have been in there for more than twenty minutes. I sometimes wondered if I’d fallen without noticing and your whingeing was one of Dagon’s torments. Or if I should have left you there, demon binding circles and all.”
“It’s not just about the manacles, it’s about the company,” Crowley said, trying desperately to retain some kind of seductive atmosphere. “Although I usually imagine it the other way around.” He shivered at the familiar vision of his angel, plump chest heaving, round eyes pleading, distressed but with perfect faith and hope in his rescuer…
Aziraphale’s aggrieved expression deepened. “So you like to plot taking me prisoner and deliver me to Hell, you malevolent miscreant”
“Not at all!” Crowley protested, although he had an interesting and interested reaction to being called malevolent miscreant. He decided to file that away for future contemplation. “It’s more I dream upon happening upon you, captured by humans, helpless– and oh, in stockings like yours, or maybe skirts like these, that would be great, too.”
“I don’t know what my stockings have to do with the matter. And what were you intending to do when you found me helpless? Gloat? Apply for a commendation?”
Crowley tried, through his mixture of deep embarrassment, fervour and awareness that what he was saying was not very demonic, to express what he would do. It came out as a strangled hiss.
Fortunately, over the millennia, Aziraphale had become quite good at interpreting serpent demon. “Rescue me? Well, I’m touched,” he said, in a tetchy way that sounded anything but, “but why would that even be necessary?”
This conversation was not going quite the way Crowley had hoped. His ears were burning. “You might’ve lost your powers or, or something,” he muttered.
“Do you spend a lot of time imagining me powerless and at your mercy?”
Oh, fuck it all, in for a penny. Crowley squeezed his eyes tight. “…esss.”
“I thought we had reached some kind of understanding. I thought we were friend– I mean, friendly adversaries.” Aziraphale was pouting.
“No, no, no, that’s not it, I would always let you go, honest.”
“And then I’d owe you. I would owe a demon a favour. My soul would be in danger.”
“You owe me favours all the time and it doesn’t bother you!” Crowley protested. “You still haven’t paid me back for that business in Bohemia in 1533. Beelzebub was all over me wanting explanations, and you never even thanked me.” He’d had roseate visions of blushing cheeks and starry eyes and, when he really let his imagination get out of control, an angel rapturously flinging himself into his arms to express gratitude.
“A small taste of the apocalypse to warn people of the error of their ways, I said, Crowley. I meant a vision or two. Not four hundred dragons flying overhead.”
“It was a bloody good warning, you have to admit that.”
“It went on for days. The amount of memory erasing I had to do! At least their dung was good for the crops.”
Crowley’s mouth had formed into the sullen pout of the truly unappreciated who had gone above and beyond to impress their angel, who were chained to the wall on their behalf, and who were unjustly suspected of wanting to trick them when all they really wanted... All they wanted... His head and his libido abruptly dragged him away from the argument and back into his fantasies.
“The point isn’t bargaining, angel. You know I don’t get you involved in demonic contracts. The point is that you would be grateful.”
“And you’d take advantage of me?”
Aziraphale didn’t mean anything by that phrasing, Crowley knew. It was clear from the irritable set of Aziraphale’s mouth and the hands resting on those full hips that he wasn’t thinking of seduction. He was just thinking of their eternal pushing and pulling of power, their carefully maintained balance that couldn’t be allowed to tip too far one way or the other for fear of sending the whole seesaw toppling off its base.
Even knowing this, Crowley couldn’t help croaking: “Only if you wanted me to.”
“What?”
Crowley nearly lost speech altogether the expression on Aziraphale’s face. His cheeks were tinged with pink, true, but his mouth had parted gently, and a tip of a tongue was visible just for a second between his teeth as he took a step forward in those ridiculous shoes, as if he couldn’t help moving closer.
“Mm, mm, y’know,” he muttered. “If you wanted to. I’d imagine you might... might tip your face up and look at me at the way you do, sometimes... like a swooning maiden who wanted to be kissed.”
“I’ve never swooned in my existence.” Aziraphale stepped forward again.
“Yeah… but you’ve got the lashes for it. And– and you’re a maiden, right?” Crowley asked, uncertainly. Aziraphale had seemed dreadfully concerned about Charlie.
“You’re the one in the petticoats,” said Aziraphale, which was no answer at all, but sent Crowley’s heart to his throat, especially since Aziraphale was moving awfully close now.
“Yeah, point. But… I like it when you look at me like that, all soft and shining, as if you realise… as if you appreciate…”
“Appreciate what?” It was breathed very near to Crowley’s mouth.
“Devotion.” And it was his face that tilted up, and Aziraphale’s mouth that came down to close the gap, and it was terrible being manacled, terrible and wonderful, because Crowley wanted to wind a hand in soft curls, wanted to wrap around a soft padded waist and pull close, wanted to press his face forward and deepen the kiss. He just had to stand there, pulling uselessly against the chains with hands that needed to reach out, hips pushing forward and failing to make contact as he was kissed tantalisingly lightly, almost chastely.
The only point of contact was their lips. Aziraphale held just apart from any other touch. He was so close Crowley’s senses were filled with the mingled scent of earthly human corporation and tea and brandy and cake and clean celestial purity. So close Crowley was sure he could feel the steady deep pounding of Aziraphale’s heart, the rush of blood through his body, and surely it was pooling low and hot like it was in his own. So close Crowley was convinced he could feel the warmth of that plush chest and those expensively clad thighs but not breach the heated space between them. It was the most frustrating and the most arousing thing he had ever felt.
Their lips parted. “Devotion?”
“Devotion to my angel,” Crowley whispered in the tiny space between their lips. He had given voice to it at last, that secret conviction that he would serve as needed, the weight and unknown consequences of it pressing hard on his shoulder. Even that weight would be light, so light if only Aziraphale would acknowledge something of the same, would even kiss him again.
For a moment, Crowley’s heart pounded in his chest at the thought that, return his feelings or not, Aziraphale would at least accept them. Accept him and his love and desire, even if he wouldn’t allow Crowley to act on it.
Instead Aziraphale, damn him, stepped away as if nothing had happened. “You need to stay here for the meantime, I’m afraid, dear. There will be awkward questions asked. We can sort things out after the duel, and I warn you, if you kill or maim any members of my crew, there will be Heaven to pay.”
“A–A–Aziraphale?” Crowley was practically spluttering with confusion and outrage.
“Don’t worry, dear boy. Perhaps a little miracle on the manacles, to make them less hard on your back?”
A little smile, a little wave, and then the bastard was gone.
Perhaps the kiss actually had been chaste rather than almost chaste, Crowley reasoned. Angels were above all that stuff, weren’t they? Or at least they had been for the last few millennia, after a few notable disasters. Perhaps it had been fondness, or gratitude–simple pure gratitude, that he could rely on Crowley rescuing him, in ways that it was dangerous to speak aloud. The appreciation he had asked for.
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t exchanged chaste kisses before. They had tried to avoid that kind of thing, obviously. The spirit of keeping your enemies close could only be plausibly explained away so far. Still, there had been times and places in which speaking to someone without a hand-clasp or a nose-rub or a kiss would have drawn attention among the humans. Yes, maybe Crowley sometimes used the memories to stoke his passions when alone and frustrated, but in the main they had been mere politeness.
It had never felt until now that Aziraphale was kissing him with intent. They had never been alone, Crowley had never been held motionless after admitting his fantasies, and then declaring the Satan-damned devotion which was far more shocking in a demon than lust.
And then Crowley had tried to thrust his hips forward and deepen the kiss and oh Satan, he couldn’t remember but he might have moaned. Or hissed, which was potentially worse. That wasn’t playfully seductive teasing that could be laughed off as a game of temptation, that was humiliating neediness.
Surely even Aziraphale wasn’t enough of a bastard to notice he was like that, smile and leave him in that state. Surely. Not to smile.
There was a blaze of angelic light. “So there you… are…”
He looked into a face he hadn’t seen for a very long time. Not since the hilarious fracas at Bethlehem in which he and Aziraphale had ended up getting drunk together in an otherwise empty inn while the unfortunate lady they were waiting for had her baby in the stable. He’d vanished pretty quick, while Aziraphale was left explaining to two very pissed-off archangels that he had just finished valiantly fighting off a demon who was thwarting the plan. Gabriel had not found the situation particularly funny, and poor Aziraphale had been put on minor blessing duty in China for ten years.
Crowley, a little remorseful when he sobered up and stopped laughing, had gone to keep Aziraphale company and… There had been no one to stop the mess with all the murdered babies. Crowley wondered, sometimes, how much of the mess with the inn had been their fault, and how much had been Heaven finding a reason to get Aziraphale out of the way before he had any mutinous thoughts about the divine plan.
“Gabriel,” Crowley said, trying to cover his panic with stoniness.
“The demon Crowley,” smiled Gabriel. “Well, this is better results than I expected. The Serpent of Eden, no less.”
At Gabriel’s side, an angel as stocky and as round as Aziraphale, but without the softness, smiled widely and coldly. “Allow me to introduce Sandalphon,” Gabriel said pleasantly. “He wasn’t in Heaven when you were cast out. Oh, is that a painful topic?”
“Hey, Sandalphon, Archangel of Music, aren’t you? Haven’t seen you since, when was it, Cardigan Castle in the twelfth century? You awarded me a chair. Don’t know if it was for my poetry or my legs, though. You certainly seemed to appreciate my poetry more when you were admiring my calves.”
The lie was worth it, for the suspicious look Gabriel was directing at Sandalphon, edging slightly away. So Aziraphale’s drunken gossip about their closeness was true…
“I did no such thing!” snapped Sandalphon. “I would have smelled if there was a demon competing.”
Crowley shrugged. Aziraphale had warned Crowley in time that the rumored angelic presence at the bardic competition would not be as sympathetic to demons. Crowley had sent another bard to read his poetry in his place, with disappointing results. He had only entered in the first place because he assumed the angel attending would be his angel and it would be a chance to declaim love poetry at him, with plausible deniability. “How can I help you gentlemen?”
“Oh, discorporation and never returning to Earth would be nice. I must say I’m impressed. Considering how our agent’s last surprise performance review went, capturing a demon and taking over his pirate fleet is impressive work.”
Crowley could see an out when he saw one. He spat, making Gabriel jump to avoid having his beautiful shoe contaminated by demonic bodily fluids. “A fucking angel? Commanding my ship? I’ll have to decontaminate the entire thing. Bad enough to have you bloody wankers here.”
It wasn’t hard to feel aggrieved. Aziraphale had failed to warn him he was in the middle of a performance review. Crowley should have realised from the level of the angel’s anxiety; performance reviews often went hand in hand with reproaches for not smiting enough. Aziraphale really did not enjoy smiting. So tiresome and unpleasant. Aziraphale should have told Crowley.
Maybe Aziraphale would have, Crowley thought guiltily, if he hadn’t been distracted by tea, delicacies, duel challenges and seduction attempts.
“I wonder why our agent hasn’t discorporated him yet?” Sandalphon asked, his voice drawn out long and suspiciously.
“Now, now.” Gabriel cheerfully clapped his hands together. “I sure Az– I’m sure our agent," he corrected, with an attempt at secrecy, "has wonderful plans for this demon. We’ll check up and have a word with him next.”
Sandalphon sniffed. “Bit of a sloppy job on the manacles. Can barely smell a blessing on them at all. And no circle.”
“Let’s not be too critical. Still, a bit of a boost should help.”
Gabriel clapped his hands again, and Crowley winced with pain as blessing shot through the manacles, and a restraining circle glimmered into existence, bright and pure, around his feet. The bastards… He could feel his power draining slowly away.
“We’ll see you soon, demon. Or not.” And they shimmered away.
Crowley cursed Gabriel, Sandalphon, himself and Aziraphale up down, backwards and forwards.
“Such language.”
Crowley looked up into a grinning face full of teeth and sparkling scales.
“Surprise performance review!” crooned Dagon. “Well, well, looking around this room, I think it’s safe to say you’re failing. I’ll check back in tomorrow.” They made a mark on their clipboard, and vanished in a splash of seawater.