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The sleek, shining satin of the dress ripples like water, giving the illusion of fluidity even in its place wrapped around Crowley’s figure. The fabric cinches in at her waist, highlighting her thin, lanky silhouette, and cascades down her legs in an elegant swathe of pleats.
Giving a satisfied hum at her reflection, she readjusts a strand of hair hanging out of the elaborate hairdo she has piled atop her head before swishing away from the full-length mirror. The clock’s minute hand rests centimeters away from twelve and she wants to be right on time for tonight, even if the rendezvous point is a mere staircase away.
Slipping her feet into stilettos too tall and wobbly to be anything but a hellish creation, she struts down the stairs and onto the main floor of the bookshop. Her lips, painted carefully with a deep vermillion, twitch up at the corners as she takes in the scene. Her angel’s pulled out all the stops for tonight, really made a show of it: the bookshelves have moved themselves away towards the edges of the room, showcasing a space that’s really quite large when not set up as a cramped maze of towering columns of books.
Overkill, she thinks fondly, trailing her fingers along the gilded decorations that cover the walls as she admires the room. But isn’t that the definition of her angel, the hedonist that she is? A crystal chandelier hangs down from the high domed ceiling, the divine hand of God descending upon the Earth, hundreds of intricately cut pieces glittering like the stars Crowley remembers breathing life into thousands of years ago. The memory has always been bittersweet, the overture to her Fall but also the first time she’d locked eyes with Aziraphale, floating there in the beginning of it all. A sweet ache that lives just beneath her sternum.
Her ruminations are interrupted by the warm creak of the door to the back room swinging open, and her gaze flicks up, lips already parted to call out Aziraphale’s name and beckon her over.
As soon as she takes in the sight of the angel, all her inhibitions promptly go offline.
Aziraphale stands in the doorway decked out in a gown that brings Crowley back to the Victorian era, all lace and ruffles and ribbon and—is that a corset?
This is it, Crowley thinks wildly, I’m discorporating. Satan, filling out the paperwork is going to be embarrassing. Maybe she can put down ‘avenging angel’ under Cause of Death—it’s practically the truth.
In the time that she’s spent gaping at her angel, Aziraphale has picked her way up to Crowley (who is faintly impressed at the speed at which she’s able to move with the layers of fabric and pearly accessories hanging off of her), head tipped up slightly so their eyes are meeting. There’s glitter of some sort on her eyelids, she’s done makeup for this, and Crowley’s stupid human heart is beating so fast she wonders if she needs to be concerned.
“Crowley, dear?” says Aziraphale, brows furrowed, and Crowley realizes that she hasn’t uttered a single word since the angel appeared in her line of sight.
“Ngk.” Crowley manages pathetically. She’s still trying to process the sight in front of Aziraphale. An ornate necklace wraps loosely around her milky throat, the pearl-studded centerpiece laying right between the swell of her full breasts. The faintly-shining eyeshadow that’s brushed delicately onto her eyelids highlights the blue of her eyes, which are framed with long, dark, devastating lashes. “You’re…you look. Hngh.”
Aziraphale’s eyes crinkle up in the corners as she smiles. She’s known Crowley for too long, long enough that the angel can sense the words stuck in Crowley’s throat when she can’t get them out and can see past the paper-thin barbs Crowley dishes out on the daily, mostly out of habit. It’s awful. Crowley can’t get enough of it. “Why, thank you. I’d say the same to you, darling.” One hand reaches out and fingers the slippery fabric of Crowley’s dress. “I must say, green is your color.” Her hand moves and takes one of Crowley’s gloved ones, the warmth of her skin bleeding through the fabric. Crowley’s nerves drink it up greedily. Every cell in this human shape of hers hungers for Aziraphale the way the tide reaches for the moon, taking in every scrap of her that she can sink her teeth into in an attempt to fill that bottomless, burning want inside her.
“Angel,” Crowley murmurs, lacing their fingers together, back of her hand to Aziraphale’s warm palm, and bringing their intertwined hands up to cup Aziraphale’s cheek gently, reverently. “Shall we?”
Aziraphale’s beautiful smile grows impossibly brighter, and all Crowley can think is I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve you. I could repent a thousand times over and it would never be enough to purge the foul black poison from my being and keep it from staining your hands.
Then the angel is waving a hand to pull a miracle down from the heavens, light and practiced, gaze still fixed determinedly on Crowley. Soft music begins with no obvious source, a slow orchestral waltz that envelops them like warm water, forming a little pocket of time and space just for the two of them in this moment. “We shall,” she says, stepping back, and for a second Crowley is left bemused and bereft at the sudden loss, but then she holds out her hand, an invitation. Crowley’s smile returns with full force.
“Old-fashioned,” she teases even as she takes the offered hand and steps fluidly into position for a traditional waltz, muscle memory making it easy to assume proper form.
“Oh, but you do so love to indulge me,” Aziraphale shoots back without missing a beat. It’s true, and they both know it—Crowley derives just as much pleasure from watching Aziraphale enjoy a particularly scrumptious pastry as Aziraphale does from feeling the flavors melt together on her tongue—so she cedes and lets the space between them empty of words and fill up instead with the sweet, lilting cadence of a cello.
They move together for the next several minutes, one of Crowley’s hands placed on the sweet curve of Aziraphale’s hip and the other cupped over her shoulder. They’re pulled close together, millimeters away from stepping on each other’s toes and far too close for their motions to be called a proper waltz (Thomas Wilson would scoff at the sight of them), but Crowley couldn’t care less. Her angel’s forehead is resting against her collarbone and she can feel the breath that Aziraphale doesn’t need to take puffing against her bare skin, sending pleasant shivers down her spine. The seconds feel fragile like spun sugar, liable to dissolve if Crowley forgets herself, but even with the volatility, they fit into each other like they were made to exist like this. It’s in moments like these that Crowley thinks maybe, just maybe, things are okay. That she and Aziraphale’s murky, tangled pasts have finally begun to flow into some semblance of organized chaos.
“What are you thinking about?” murmurs Aziraphale, a hand moving up to brush a thumb over Crowley’s cheekbone. “I can feel you drifting.”
“Planning evil,” Crowley replies loftily. “Tempting priests, gluing coins to the sidewalk, the like. Wiles, you know.”
“Ah,” Aziraphale says in a voice that means she knows exactly what Crowley isn’t saying. “I see. Well. Save your wiles for later, won’t you?” She sweeps a hand knowingly down the line of Crowley’s throat—the bastard, she knows what that does to Crowley—and grins when she sees Crowley’s throat bob with a hard swallow. “I’d like you all to myself tonight.”
“Is that so?” Crowley tries at coyness, but her voice comes out too breathless and even a little wrecked. They’ve only been dancing. She’s pathetic.
“Mhm,” hums Aziraphale, twisting them in a graceful circle. Miraculously (in the figurative sense of the word), Crowley manages to keep her feet under herself. “Isn’t this piece just gorgeous?”
It takes Crowley a moment to realize that Aziraphale is talking about the music. “Er, yes,” she replies, although she hasn’t been paying attention to anything but Aziraphale up against her for the past ten minutes. “Beautiful. Great bloke, Chopin.”
“This is Tchaikovsky,” Aziraphale tuts. “Really, Crowley. It’s quite obvious.”
Not my fault you’re so blessedly distracting, Crowley thinks. “Yes,” she says aloud. “Silly me.” She can’t tear her eyes away from the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth, where the pinkish lipstick has smudged ever so slightly. How easy it would be, to lean down just a little and kiss that stain away, touch Aziraphale’s lips, feel them warm against her own. She’s hypnotized. “Can I,” her tongue darts out and she swallows, clearing her throat. “Angel. Can I…I want to kiss you.” The words come out hoarse.
“Then do it, my dear,” Aziraphale replies, and that’s all it takes for Crowley to curl both her hands around her angel’s warm waist and surge in towards her mouth, hungry and searing. Aziraphale’s lips are slightly open, soft and welcoming, and Crowley devours.
She’s kissed Aziraphale countless times, from quick pecks to long, slow nights spent exploring each other’s mouths (and sometimes a little more than that) before the fireplace, but every kiss feels just as invigorating as the first. A part of Crowley worries that she’ll never get enough of the way Aziraphale tastes, better than any human food that has passed her lips in her long, long life, but then a tongue licks into her mouth and she forgets what it’s like to feel anything else.
The kiss deepens and Aziraphale takes Crowley’s lower lip in between her teeth, nibbling in a way that has the demon wobbling on her four-inch pumps. She can’t tell where her gasps start and Aziraphale’s delicate sounds of pleasure end, and it’s intoxicating, being so close to her angel, but somehow not enough. Her body burns with a craving for more, more more, pulling itself towards Aziraphale like a magnet, her hand pawing at every inch of bare skin she can reach.
Aziraphale pulls away with a slick, almost obscene noise when Crowley’s fingertips graze the low neckline of her gown, eyes shining, chest heaving, lips swollen and bright with spit. Crowley whimpers at the loss, the sound slipping out before she can stop it. “Shh,” she murmurs, and although she seems to be faring better than Crowley, even she sounds out of breath. “I know, darling.” Then she leans back in and Crowley claims her mouth again eagerly, but this time there’s a hand on the small of her back, gentle yet firm, guiding her towards a plush velvet divan that Crowley is sure wasn’t there when the night first began. Her calves hit the edge of the cushions and she falls back, landing with Aziraphale over her, their heavy skirts splayed out and tangled together as they tumble down onto each other.
Aziraphale’s mouth moves from Crowley’s lips down to her jawline, then her throat, and keeps trailing steadily downward until the demon is writhing sweetly beneath her, gasping and shuddering and pleading nonsensically as Aziraphale draws her tight and holds her as she falls apart again and again.
Afterwards, when the sun is thinking about hauling itself up to peek over the horizon again and the night shift workers are locking up and heading home to their beds, Crowley and Aziraphale lay curled into each other, squished onto the divan that’s much too small to hold the both of them (at least the elimination of the heavy fabric of both their dresses had made some more space at some point during the night). Crowley’s corporation aches luxuriously, melting under the mindless patterns her angel is tracing lightly onto her skin, and Heaven and Hell seem very far away.
I love you, she thinks, and as if having heard her, Aziraphale’s fingertip pauses on the ridge of Crowley’s collarbone. Lips replace hands, and Crowley shivers gently at the delicate press of them. When she stills, Aziraphale’s mouth moves, warm against her skin, and shapes the words I love you too.
The last thing Crowley considers before drifting off is sending a thank-you card Upstairs. Something sparkly—glittery, for maximum inconvenience.
Dear God,
Thank you for the angel. This almost makes up for all the ways you’ve fucked me over.
Crowley xx