Work Text:
Six thousand years, and he says I go too fast, Crowley thinks in disbelief the first time that he makes the offer, and he doesn't feel so much rejected as baffled by Aziraphale's response.
The second time he's rejected, half a century later, the desolation is all too real. It's quite literally the end of the world, or should have been, and Aziraphale would rather face it alone than run away with him. His fall hadn't hurt half as much.
But, the world doesn't end, and at that point, what does it matter? Whatever line there was to cross had already been crossed. They'd been hopping back and forth over that line for millennia in thousands of small and not-so-small ways.
So, Crowley offers again.
And finally, finally, his angel agrees.
Only…
Well, it wasn't exactly what Crowley had been expecting.
They'd had a conversation about it once. It was sometime between when Crowley had delivered the Antichrist and when he'd tried to convince Aziraphale to run away to Alpha Centauri.
Those years in between had been some of the best of his long existence. The threat of its impending end had solidified their relationship in a way that The Arrangement never had. They spent more time together than apart over the course of those eleven years- as if desperate to get as much of each other as they could before their plans inevitably went awry and they were forced to truly be on opposite sides once more.
"I just really have never understood humanity's preoccupation with sex," Aziraphale commented one evening, as they lounged in the Dowling's garden with a bottle of vino.
"Well, it's pleasurable, isn't it? It isn't any different than enjoying a good meal, or a nice bottle of chateau lafite."
Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose you realize that the entire staff thinks that there's something going on between the gardener and the nanny?"
Crowley shifted, adjusting his skirts "Well, there is, just not what they think."
"I just can't understand why they should care."
"It's the teeth."
Aziraphale looked up sharply from his wine. "Pardon?"
"The teeth, angel." Crowley repeated. "They find it gossip worthy that an attractive young woman, such as myself, might be attracted to an old codger like you- whose parents were clearly first cousins." Crowley looked him over. "Didn't you think the teeth were a bit much?"
"It's a disguise."
Crowley nodded. "And who exactly were you disguising yourself from?"
"Well.." Aziraphale hedged. "The forces of darkness, of course."
"So, me then?" Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Fine job you're doing. Never would have suspected a thing."
Aziraphale let out a huff. "And I'm meant to somehow overlook you in a frock then?"
"I'm playing a part. No one in this house is hiring a male nanny. Anyway, I'm digging the Marry Poppins chic, and the skirts are quite comfortable- makes me nostalgic for the days when you could still be fashionable in a toga."
"Still, they could gossip about us without being so lewd about it. You should have heard what the butler said to me the other day."
"Oh, please," Crowley scoffed. "You don't need to play the innocent with me, angel. You own a bookshop in Soho."
"It isn't that type of bookshop." Aziraphale had the gall to sound offended.
"Oh, no? I've seen what you stock on the back shelves."
Aziraphale flushed. "A few Marquis De Sade first editions are not the same as sticky secondhand back issues of penthouse."
"One century's pornography is the next century's collectable antiquities. You've seen what the Americans have done with Marylin Monroe."
"I concede the point," Aziraphale agreed tersely. "Nevertheless, I won't be purchasing any playboy first issues any time soon."
Crowley took a deep breath and leaned back looking up into the sky. The haze of London's light pollution all but blotted out the stars, even to his eyes, but he could still pick out the pinpricks of distant suns amidst the curtain of night. It was enough to make even a demon feel small and insignificant.
"I'm not sure that there will be anyone to buy them in another decade."
"Selling books has never been much of a concern in any case, and that sort of thing has never been to my taste."
"What, Marylin?"
"Pornography." He said it as though it was a dirty word, which, Crowley supposed, it sort of was.
"Don't tell me that you've never made the effort."
"Well, out of curiosity, maybe," Aziraphale admitted, "but never for what you might call recreational purposes. I never saw what all the fuss was about, honestly. It's just a good way to ruin the line of your trousers."
Crowley couldn't help his snort of laughter. What a perfectly, endearingly Aziraphale thing to say. "Yes, well, perhaps if you had tried a bit of recreation, you might feel differently."
"Have you got one?" Aziraphale asked, looking curiously in the vicinity of Crowley's crotch.
"What, now? Hardly goes with the frock, does it?"
"Ah, yes, I suppose not. The other then?"
"Naw." Crowley had tried it a few times, both out of academic curiosity and for recreational purposes, but all the maintenance and upkeep seemed like a lot of trouble to go through for what you might call daily use. "I figure it's like an umbrella, you don't bother with carrying it about, unless you really think you're going to need it."
Crowley had found enough use for that particular bit of "rain gear" for most of the 1970s, but he'd mostly gotten out of the habit since.
"That seems sensible," Aziraphale said, "though, I suppose you do need it once in a while, being a demon- carnal temptation, and sins of the flesh, and all that."
"Course," Crowley agreed. "Didn't you ever go to one of Michelagelo's parties? I thought he was big with your lot? Hard to get out of there without ending up in someone's bed, or several someone's, as the case may be."
Aziraphale looked disapproving. "He was a closet atheist, you know."
"Who? Michelangelo? Never. You must be joking."
"Not a bit of it," Aziraphale said. "God's honest truth. Take a closer look at The Creation of Adam sometime. It's all brains and thought bubbles. Adam's creation of God, rather than God's creation of Adam."
Crowley quirked his mouth up at that. "You don't say? Surprising they haven't painted over it with a big fuck-off crucifixion scene then."
Aziraphale looked offended by the very idea. "It's a masterpiece of the renaissance. Heretical or not, you don't just go slapping on some shellac and starting over."
"Makes sense, though. Everything he got up to, I'd always wondered why my lot didn't have him. I just kind of figured that someone upstairs had a soft spot for vaguely homoerotic statuary- imagined him up there filling the celestial gardens with marble phalluses."
"I'm afraid not." Aziraphale raised his hand and flicked his fingers apart in a gesture of dispelling sparks. "Poof. Soul all gone into electrons, or protons, or ethereal particles or whatever. I never can keep up with what the humans believe about physics. Hawking and his Universe in a Nutshell. I mean. The cheek of it."
"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."
"Precisely."
Crowley had no idea what point he was supposed to have made, but quoting Hamlet was always a surefire way to earn himself into the angel's good graces.
"Still," Crowley said. "You should try it sometime. The sex, I mean. Full range of earthly experiences and all."
"Don't you go trying to tempt me, you old serpent," had been Aziraphale's only response after a long, thoughtful pause.
And, that had been it- their one and only conversation on the subject of human sexuality. If Aziraphale had ever acted on Crowley's advice with someone else, he'd never mentioned it. And, the Antichrist walked the earth, so if Aziraphale ever had any intention of doing more than make eyes at him, time was running out.
But, they hadn't, and they hadn't run away to Alpha Centauri, and, apparently, it had taken a near apocalypse for Aziraphale to believe what Crowley had been trying to tell him all along- that they were on their side, and all the forces of heaven and hell could just take their ideas about interoffice fraternization and shove them.
So, once they'd sorted out the respective fallout of preventing a world ending war between the forces of light and darkness, one angel and one former-angel had dined at The Ritz, and a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. Crowley paid the bill. Aziraphale tasted the wine. And, they drove back to Crowley's apartment in style in the newly-resurrected Bentley. It all did quite nicely.
It had been mutually understood that, after literally being in each other's skins, whatever physical boundaries had remained between them were a bit of a moot point.
And so, the moment that Crowley had him inside the door, he'd pushed the angel back up against it and done what he'd wanted to do for the last half a dozen millennia or so.
And, if Aziraphale kissed like the heroine from a certain type of film from the 1940's, well, Crowley wouldn't have expected anything else, and loved him for it all the more, so that was all right.
However, things had gone somewhat downhill from there.
When it got to the point of involving their respective naughty bits, it became apparent that, in the heat of the moment, they'd both been a bit too distracted to actually bother manifesting said naughty bits. It turned out that Aziraphale was a bit out of practice in that department, and, since the vast majority of his reference for such things came from the artwork of the renaissance period, he got the proportions a bit off. He seemed to find Crowley's suggestions in that regard less than helpful.
By the time they got all the plumbing up to specifications and in working order, they had lost the plot completely, and it took a while to get things moving in the right direction again.
Then, just when it started getting really interesting, they ended up arguing over who should be inserting tab A into slot B, and whether or not they both, in fact, needed a slot B- as neither of them had bothered with manifesting one of those either.
Needless to say, the whole thing went down like a lead balloon.
With determined perseverance they managed to muddle their way through, and afterward they lay in Crowley's large, soft bed- not so much in the afterglow as in the state-of-somewhat-bemused-disappointment.
"That was…" Aziraphale floundered for words, "not exactly what I was expecting. I thought you said that you have experience in this area."
"With mortals," Crowley said. "There usually isn't as much negotiation over who needs which body parts for the proceedings."
"Still," Aziraphale said. "One would think that once things were underway… Oh well, I suppose we needn't do it again."
"We just need a bit more practice," Crowley argued. "No one gets it right the first time."
"Do you really think so?" Aziraphale asked.
"Course. Do you want to try again now?"
"Oh no, not just now. Perhaps in a few years. We have all the time in the world, no need to rush."
Crowley gritted his teeth together, but remained silent.
"It is very messy, isn't it?" Aziraphale said, after a long silence, when Crowley had started to drift off to sleep.
"Just miracle it away."
"And how am I meant to explain that on my paperwork."
"Oh, Lord, cleanse this wet spot," Crowley intoned. "Don't see why you care what they think anymore. Thought we were done with all that."
"Yes, but unless He decides to revoke my privileges, all divine power still comes from Him. If I go around performing miracles, it's going to show up in Heaven's ledger books, whether I'm reporting in or not. And, I just don't see how it's any of their business."
Crowley sighed, and snapped his fingers. "There, now we're only water cooler gossip down in the pits, is that better?"
"I would have settled for a flannel," Aziraphale mumbled.
･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･
In the end, they decided to consult an expert.
When Crowley rang Madame Tracy's buzzer, it was Shadwell that opened the door.
"Good morning, Sergeant Shadwell," Aziraphale said brightly.
"'m retired," he grumbled, and slammed the door.
They exchanged a look, and Crowley pressed the buzzer again.
"Retired Sergeant Shadwell," Aziraphale tried, plastering the bright smile back onto his face. "We were hoping to have a word with Madame Tracy."
"There'll be none a tha' now. She's retired too. Whatcha call a reformed wumman. Betrothed. If ye be wantin' some form of harlotry or witchery ye needs ta be goin' somewhere else."
"No, no," Aziraphale said quickly. "None of that. We just wanted to consult her for her professional advice."
"Who is it, Shadwell, dear?" Madame Tracy called down the stairs.
"The pansy wud-be child-marderer, and the flash bastard!"
"Oh, how lovely, let them up, dear. I'll put the kettle on."
Crowley gave him a smug look over the tops of his sunglasses as they squeezed past the retired Witchfinder Sergeant and made their way up the stairs.
Once they were all seated around Madam Tracy's little round table, amidst a sea of half-packed moving boxes, with cups of tea, and Shadwell glaring suspiciously, Aziraphale attempted to broach the subject at hand.
"Well, you see, Madame Tracy, the problem is… well… you see… after the last six millennia or so we, that is Crowley and I, have sort of worked things out. Only, well, we seem to be missing something when it comes to, well… you know. Only Crowley seems to think it will all work itself out, but, after the last time, I just thought that it might be better to seek out some advice. Only, we don't really know that many people we could ask, and I thought… well, I just thought… if we were going to ask anyone, we should make sure that they know their business, and since it is rather uniquely your business, on both sides, or rather was, it only made sense, you see, to come to you. So, do you think you can help us?"
Madame Tracy peered at him for a moment before looking questioningly at Crowley.
"What he means to say, is that we're having some trouble in the bedroom, and he thought that a former prostitute witch might be the best person to ask about it." Crowley shot a glare at Shadwell, just daring him to say anything.
Oh, I see," Madame Tracy said, smiling kindly at the flustered angel. "Shadwell, why don't you be a dear and pop round the corner for some biscuits. I've run out, and I think they'd be just the thing."
"And leave ye in the comp'ny of these questionable characters."
"If I understand the situation correctly, I doubt that I have anything to worry about."
Shadwell glared at them, muttering about demons and nipples as he shuffled out.
"Congratulations on the engagement," Aziraphale said as the silence was punctuated by Shadwell thumping down the stairs.
"Thank you, we're very happy." Madame Tracy smiled, and for a wonder looked very happy. "Now, let's see what can be done about the two of you. What exactly seems to be the problem?"
"Well, you see, I've little enough experience in the area… but well… it just doesn't seem as though… You mortals make it look so easy, and…"
"Perhaps you could explain, Mr. Crowley," she said, cutting off Aziraphale's babble.
"That's just it. If I could explain it, I'd know what was wrong, and we wouldn't be here. I've never had this happen to me before."
Madame Tracy laid a consoling hand over Crowley's on the table. "Erectile dysfunction is nothing to be ashamed of."
"That isn't the problem," he growled.
"No need to get testy, Mr. Crowley." She laughed at her own little joke. "If everything is in working order, as it were, then what is the problem?"
"I just told you that I didn't know."
"Well, in what area is it that you start running into trouble?"
"You have to understand," Aziraphale said. "Angels, and by extension demons, are, technically speaking, sexless. If we make the effort, we can manifest all the appropriate bits and bobs. It took a bit of working out, but I think we have that part figured.." The angel was flushed a deep scarlet and staring down into his tea. "And the lead up to it goes all right. It's the act itself where things start to... fall apart." He paused. "It's just… well… the way you humans carry on, I was expecting… well...fireworks-like in that Grace Kelly film with Cary Grant."
"To Catch a Thief," Crowley supplies.
"Yes, that's the one," Aziraphale agrees. "Anyway, well… so far it just isn't anything to write home about. Mostly, we just make a bit of a mess of ourselves, and need to take a bath afterwards. So, I figure we must be going wrong somewhere. Crowley has had some experience with mortals, and he agrees, but we've tried it a few times now, and the results are always the same."
Madame Tracy nods thoughtfully and rises to her feet. She goes to one of the boxes stacked near the wall and digs through it a bit until she comes back with a battered, brown, canvas-covered book and sets it down in front of Aziraphale.
"Not having the required equipment myself, I can't be completely certain," she says, "but I think I know where you might be going wrong. Why don't you read this, and see if that helps at all?"
Etched across the book's cover in neat block print is Mistress Lascivious's Guide to the Joys of the Prostate: A Practical How-To for the Discerning Dominatrix.
Aziraphale gulps.
･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･
Not everything in the book turns out to be directly applicable, but it certainly clears up the question of where they were going wrong.
Had they been able to consult Further Nife and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter: Concerning the Worlde that Is To Com, they might have figured all of this out a great deal sooner- and with a good deal less uncomfortable fumbling in the dark.
Prophecy number 1069 reads as follows:
When Angel and Demon, inne lover's embrace are mette, yette no sparks be kindeled, a studdie of the anatamies of manne be an Angel's closest friend.
Some lube woulde be a good idea as welle, ye greate pillocks.
Unfortunately, as the only copy, to have surfaced, so far, had been burned in the misguided idea that a particular bull-headed prophetess would not have foreseen such actions and planned accordingly, Crowley and Aziraphale had to settle for the advice of one aging Jezebel and a book that had been written nearly half a century before with a slightly different audience in mind.
All the same, they made another go at things, and were much more satisfied by the results. There were indeed fireworks, literally.
Crowley's bedroom lit up like the 5th of November.
"I think I understand now," Aziraphale said in a breathless huff.
Crowley just hummed in satisfaction.
"Do you think we could do it again?" the angel asked, hopefully.
"Oh, no," Crowley said with a lazy smirk, "not now. Maybe in a few years. We have all the time in the world, after all."