Chapter Text
“Do you think we’re going to have sex?”
Aziraphale almost chops off a piece of his thumb along with slicing a carrot for their Sunday lunch. “Excuse me?”
“Nevermind.” Crowley plucks the petals off a flower he’s brought in from the garden, shifting a bit awkwardly where he’s perched on a stool at their kitchen island.
“No, no, I do mind… why are you asking that?” As a precaution, Aziraphale sets down the knife and wipes his hands on his apron.
Crowley shrugs. “I don’t know. I just… I had some time to think, didn’t I?”
“About sex?”
“No… yes… about… forget it. Forget I said anything.”
“You know I won’t.” Aziraphale takes a seat as well. He feels like this might be a sit-down conversation now. “Crowley, you just got back and we… I thought we agreed to take this slow. Figure it out first before we…”
“I know what we said. And I didn’t ask if you wanted to do it right now.”
“Well, we’re certainly not doing it in the kitchen,” Aziraphale replies haughtily. “There’s food on the table. And knives.”
“Could be fun!?” Crowley raises an eyebrow at him.
“Crowley, what… what brought this on? We haven’t even… we haven’t done anything else yet.” Something very frustrated stirs inside Aziraphale, something he has ignored for a long time now.
“I know that,” Crowley snaps and there’s a slight flush on his cheeks. “I… I guess what I’m getting at is… uhm…”
That’s when the penny drops. “You’ve never done it before.”
“Well….”
“Oh….”
“Don’t… don’t ‘oh’ me, alright? Don’t make it weird,” Crowley grimaces.
“I’m not. I… I’m just… surprised, I suppose. I mean you’re… you. You could…” Aziraphale has no idea what he’s trying to say but what he does say makes Crowley jump out of his seat.
“What? I could get it? Yeah, I could have gotten it. Left and right. Temptation’s my shtick, right? It’s what I do. Big old tempter, me...”
Aziraphale sighs. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“Well, is it… can’t you or… don’t you want to or….,” Aziraphale tries to sound as nonchalant as he can but his mind is reeling with this new revelation.
“Oh I can,” Crowley says defiantly, puffing out his chest a bit. “And I… I want… but I… it just never… I guess I never wanted it with… anyone else.” He looks anywhere but at Aziraphale. “Anyone but you… is what I’m saying.”
Aziraphale looks at him, opens his mouth but closes it again without saying something.
Crowley throws his hands up. “Forget I said anything. It’s just going to be weird now anyway so… best we forget about it and just… move on. You have lunch to make and I have… plants to plant.”
“Crowley…” Aziraphale reaches for him as he tries to brush past him.
“Look, I know you’ve done… things. I just thought you should know before…” Crowley pulls out of his grip and storms out, leaving Aziraphale seated and somewhat flabbergasted in the kitchen.
He sits like that for a couple of minutes, trying to wrap his thoughts around this.
Crowley being…
Crowley not having…
He has not expected this. Not that he’s given it a lot of thought before. Mostly because he had never expected it to be something he needed to think in depth about. But when he had thought about it - briefly, of course - he’d always just assumed that Crowley…
It has been some time since Aziraphale had last… it’s been almost a century, give or take a few months. It was one of the earthly pleasures he sought out every now and then, less so in recent years, but something he had always enjoyed and often indulged in.
And now thinking that Crowley hadn’t…
Aziraphale hops off the stool and follows Crowley outside.
“It’s going to be good,” he says resolutely. “When… if we do it… I’ll make sure it’ll be good.”
Crowley looks up from where he has busied himself plucking brown leaves off one of the potted flowers. “Yeah… alright.”
“You’ll love it…
“Angel…”
“And if not, that’s… that’s fine. That’s absolutely...”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley cuts him off.
“What?”
“I just wanted you to know that in case you had any… expectations.”
Aziraphale feels heat in his cheeks. “I didn’t. At least not until you said… what you said.”
“Oh… right.”
“Maybe we should start with… with kissing first.”