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Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips
We could just kiss like real people do
They had ended up in the park again. There was no real reason to be using it as a rendezvous anymore; it wasn’t like they could get in more trouble for fraternizing. Also, they’d not been out of each other’s sights for more than a few seconds since the airfield, so it was less of a meeting place and more of a picnic spot. It had been lunch time and Crowley had looked over the shop floor at Aziraphale and said “ice cream?,” and he wasn’t planning on opening the shop for another week and a half at least, so here they were. Bench, ducks, a 99 for the angel and a strawberry ice lolly for the demon. Aziraphale even had sprinkles.
Their bench, their ducks, their ice creams, and approximately 99,000 couples snogging as if the future depended on how far they could get their tongues down one another’s throats. Annoying, Aziraphale seemed unaware of the embodiment of the carnal sin of lust surrounding them, though that was probably because he was concentrating very hard on preventing ice cream running down his hand and ruining his cuffs. For a being that could perform miracles, he seemed very determined to solve this the old-fashioned way by licking the dessert in such a way Crowley had to avert his gaze. Hence the noticing of everyone around them. It really should be illegal for an angel to do that.
“Do you think it’s actually enjoyable?” he said, mostly to himself.
The angel looked up, glancing at him. “What’s that my dear?”
Crowley fought not to writhe under the endearment. He didn’t mean anything by it. He never did. Still didn’t mean that The Feeling in his chest didn’t poke it’s head up hopefully every time he heard it. He spent a lot of time quashing it down. It was something of a speciality.
He gesticulated with the lolly stick at the cavorting before them. “That.”
Aziraphale followed his gaze. “Oh,” he said, ruffling slightly. “Well I suppose it is. They certainly seem fond of it,” he joked with a sly smile that still somehow remained beatific. It was a strangely knowing smile. Something about the eyebrows.
“You suppose so?” Crowley said teasingly. “Bit carnal for your lot isn’t it?”
“It’s a display of love and affection Crowley and therefore perfectly acceptable. And it is nice. When it’s someone you like,” he said dreamily, continuing to eat.
Crowley frowned for a moment, before his mind caught up with the implication. It is nice. It is nice. It made his vision blur and his head spin and he’d never really understood the phrase seeing red before but he felt it now. Who? When? Why?
“You?!” was what he managed to splutter.
Aziraphale’s face, known for it’s ability to tell a thousand tales with just a few movement, went from dreaming to recognition to horror and mortification in about twelve fluid movements. “Only once!” he said, voice an octave higher than it normally was. Crowley continued stare at him, mouth agape, incapable of forming speech. He broke. “Alright! Maybe more than once. But nothing untoward. Don’t want a repeat of that Nephilim business. And it was entirely based in love I assure you!”
Crowley continued to blink at him, which was useless behind his glasses, before leaning back and blowing out a rush of air. It was too much to comprehend, his entire world view being called into question. Because this meant Aziraphale could want those things. It meant possibility. It meant there had been people and he hadn’t told him. You’d think you’d know someone better after 6000 years.
“Well,” he said to the sky.
“Oh, come on.” Crowley frowned at him. Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “As if you’ve never-” Aziraphale began, as if that was going to help his defence, before he spotted a shift in Crowley’s expression. “Oh!” he said, surprised. He politely avoided Crowley’s gaze but clearly couldn’t help himself from adding, “So you’ve never?”
Crowley glared disdainfully through his glasses at the nearest pair. Maybe, if he glared enough, they would disintegrate into ash. He could glare at all the couples in the entire park, turning them one by one into piles of nothingness which would have the advantage of distracting the angel but the disadvantage of being a mess to clean up.
Aziraphale coughed. “It’s just I thought you’d have some experience with…that. Being a demon. Tempting people. Rather in the job description.”
“Bit presumptuous,” he said, crossing his arms. He couldn’t really blame Aziraphale as he was the one that had started the discussion but now he really wished the angel would shut up and return to his flake. In fact, he was seriously considering storming off in an A-Grade Huff.
But Aziraphale was a nervous talker so he just kept going. “Apologies my dear fellow.” Aziraphale always went more Victorian when he was flustered. That seemed to be the end of it, apart from… “Would you like to experience it?”
He looked as startled to have said it as Crowley was to hear it. The sound of Crowley’s neck snapping to look at Aziraphale was almost audible.
Crowley attempted to reply but what happened was a load of consonants before any actual words came out. “Well, err, you know, not, not really my remit anymore is it but I guess maybe, it could be, err, yeah, I think, you know, it could be, I mean, yeah, yep, definitely something.”
The will it took to stop his stream of consciousness was immense. In fact it took all of his focus, which then quickly shifted to an internal monologue about what an idiot he was. An absolute blithering idiot who really should have gone to Alpha Centuri when he said he was going because then none of this would have happened and he’d still be blissfully ignorant that Aziraphale had kissed anyone and there was an image, a slightly dishevelled angel, maybe even his bowtie askew, and oh for all that was bad in Hell.
This screaming meant he wasn’t really concentrating on the outside.
So, he hadn’t noticed Aziraphale sliding closer.
And he hadn’t noticed Aziraphale leaning against his arm, just pressing his body weight against Crowley’s side.
And he hadn’t noticed the angel nervously shifting his weight around, wiggling with nerves.
He only really noticed how close they’d gotten when Aziraphale looked at him. Nervously at first. Then bolder. Crowley didn’t know what to do with that look. It was a look that was a mix of ‘fancy seeing you here’ and expectation. A half-invitation. An if-you-want-to. Some may even have called it tempting.
And Crowley really, honestly didn’t know what to do next. He looked in Aziraphale’s eyes. Beautiful, soulful eyes. He then looked at his lips. Eyes. Lips.
Eyes.
Lips.
Lips.
They were very lovely lips.
Rather stuck on the lips.
Rather interested in the lips.
Aziraphale, being a little oblivious but not entirely stupid, noticed this fixation, even behind the glasses.
Carefully, he brought his left hand up and cupped Crowley’s face. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he rubbed his thumb across his cheek bone. He could feel Crowley shiver at the contact and then stiffen. He had stopped breathing, stopped moving. And so Aziraphale didn’t move either, suddenly startled into awareness of what he was doing but so reluctant to move back, back behind the line, back to what was normal. They stayed like that with the unnamed thing suddenly humming between them until Crowley moved his hand so it rested over Aziraphale’s. A little nod.
“Angel,” he breathed and Aziraphale couldn’t help himself, he really, really couldn’t.
Although Crowley would no doubt roll his eyes, he had wanted it to be sweet. A pleasant experience, even if he decided ‘not for me thank you’ and never repeated the experience. He wanted it to be nice.
However.
When one is suddenly given permission to do something that they’ve been carefully avoiding thinking about for fear of being Overwhelmed…well, its very Overwhelming. Which is how a very chaste, very simple press of the lips to give someone the experience of kissing, turns quickly into a teeth-clashing, tongue-swiping, mind-melting make-out of a kiss that is indiscreet, impermissible, and incredibly good.
It was sunshine rising on the first new day, flowers blooming in spring, rain thundering down only to clear into a star-filled night. It was standing on the wall separating Eden from the rest of the world, watching the first rains together, and thinking Oh It’s You. It was oyster-tasting and saved books and defying Everything just because they needed each other. It was oh and yes and Finally.
And then a bird squawked overhead and Aziraphale remembered where they were and Goodness Gracious they were in a public place. The sound when they separated was obscene. They stayed close for a second, before both leaning back and resuming their earlier positions, Crowley sprawled out and Aziraphale sat straight.
For want of anything better to do, he returned to his ice cream. He was lucky it was only the cone left otherwise the coat would be irredeemable.
“I can see what you mean, Crowley said eventually.
Aziraphale tilted his head. “About what?”
Crowley cleared his throat. “That it’s nice. When it’s someone you like.” Crowley shifted as he spoke, scrunched his nose, and generally looked like he was about to vibrate out of his skin, fingers drumming over the bench.
Aziraphale thought about this for a second, fighting the beaming smile that was threatening to take over his entire face. “We can do it again if you like,” he said, trying not to sound too eager.
“Maybe somewhere a bit more private,” Crowley pointed out, finger brushing the back of Aziraphale’s collar.
“Unless you want to start a scandal than yes, I think that’s best,” Aziraphale said, looking round. They didn’t seem to have attracted any undue attention. Well, apart from the ducks. They would be apologising to them for weeks.
“Don’t tempt me angel,” Crowley growled, with a shake of his head, and Aziraphale looked at him out of the corner of his eye. On any other person, it would be called cheeky.
“Very much your job my dear,” he said. He finished the cone and licked his fingers. He pretended not to notice Crowley watching his every move. His lips were still tingling from where they had kissed. After he was done, he turned to Crowley and couldn’t help but smile. “Shall we?”
The demon smiled viciously and clicked his fingers.
Luckily, no one noticed their sudden disappearance from the park bench. Well, apart from the aforementioned ducks who were actually very discrete and promised not to tell anyone.
The fact that a riot of wildflowers appeared over the Gobi Desert, sunflowers bloomed across Europe in interconnected circles, and sprawling ivy appeared all over a bookshop in Soho would have been more difficult to explain. The mystery was over-shadowed on the news by the fact, after several months of drought, a rain shower had appeared over the Sussex Downs.
After all this time, people said, it was A Miracle.