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bthump · 2 years ago

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What are your thoughts or analyses on the phallic imagery in berserk? Less so the more obvious ones like seen in Casca’s nightmares which are obviously pointing to her sexual trauma, but like we see with the vagina-esque monsters and how Guts’ sword is alluded to being like a penis in some cases. Sorry if it’s a weird question lol

Sorry for the wait on this lol, I was on vacation for a while, and it's also a topic I wanted to spend some time on because I love it and I wanted to be relatively thorough. Thanks for the ask!

So yeah, disclaimers out of the way, Freudian analytical theory is very silly, very gender essentialist in ways that can often be transphobic and misogynist, and as far as I'm aware pretty much wholly unrelated to real psychology. Back in the 70s and 80s you had film theorists who took it seriously as a genuine glimpse into the subconsciousness of humanity or whatever, but now it's pretty much just a readily available source of sex and gender related symbolism that's easy to understand.

And in Berserk I do genuinely think it's a valid lens to view the story through because Miura is often quite heavy handed in utilizing it as symbolism. I mean, Guts literally gives someone an orgasm by stabbing her at one point. Some of this can definitely be a stretch, taking established symbols and running with them, but some of it is also almost certainly purposeful. I'll leave it to you to decide what you see as legit and what you see as stretching believability here.

This is very long lol

So yeah, it starts off strong in Berserk with Guts' oversized sword. Swords are dicks, ie sources of masculine power, especially in Berserk

and in the context of the story the dragonslayer is Guts overcompensating imo. And it's not compensating for a small dick lol, which would be more the purview of comedy, but for a loss of masculinity, ie Guts' childhood abuse from Gambino, and rape trauma. It's about his need to prove himself because he was made to feel like he had to, imo.

And it's not just the size of his sword, his obsession with it is also a major factor. He has a grandiose speech about how his sword is like a part of his body (hmm) and that it's been at his side through everything and he's always relied on it. The dream he lands on is to be the best and strongest sword fighter ever. He's currently having a breakdown over not being able to hit someone with his sword. He has a recurring tendency to break other guy's swords lol. At one point Casca screams at him that he essentially cares about his sword more than her. etc etc.

In the story dreams are at odds with emotionally healing human relationships, and dreams are represented by swords (Guts' sword obviously, Casca becoming Griffith's sword, Griffith calling the throne a sword while taunting the king in the dungeon as well as his vision of himself throwing him a sword and pointing to the castle in chapter 72).

So through a Freudian lens, Guts' sword can also be said to represent emotional isolation, positioning masculinity as emotionally isolating. Which, yk, fits with Griffith also equating dreams and masculinity in his Promrose Hall speech (a man must achieve a dream before he can have a family or lover) and, I suppose lol, Casca getting "softer" and more feminine as she falls for Guts, as femininity is therefore the opposite: emotional reliance on and support of others.

So if swords are dicks, then it follows that wounds are vaginas, ie yonic symbols. Also pretty obvious when you read some of the lines during the Guts and Casca sex scene lol. "I too want a wound I can say you gave me." These can represent weakness and victimization (I did warn for misogyny lol) and/or (often sexual) relationships and emotional openness.

So you have the relationships - "licking wounds" with Casca; Guts letting Casca stab him when he thinks about abandoning Griffith; the Beast of Darkness calling Casca the wound Griffith left so Guts can keep feeling the pain Griffith caused; Griffith scratching his own shoulder where Guts' sword pointedly didn't wound him; Griffith being out of reach of Guts' sword post-Eclipse; "let's give him a heap of raw iron;" and Farnese grinding on Guts' sword while possessed and Slan directly treating being stabbed as sexual penetration for the most obvious examples...

Also I'd argue that any time Guts gets his ass kicked in a fight it functions as an echo of his rape trauma symbolically and subconsciously to Guts. Both kinda obviously at times, like eg when Slan overpowers him and tears off his shirt while wounding his chest, and kisses him after the stabbing, causing Guts to feel a burst of fear

or when Rosine stabs Guts through the mouth as another enemy who flirts with Guts mid-fight. And of course the first duel with Griffith in which Guts unilaterally sets the stakes to sex slavery because he's projecting.

But also a little more subtlely, such as when Zodd is given the same position as Nightmare Donovan in Guts' concussion nightmare after he kills Adonis, or all this consistent imagery that rapists and apostles tend to get.

Or, interestingly, the way the Berserk armour functions as self-harm as Guts fights by penetrating Guts to "heal" him.

Something that solidifies its hold over Guts and makes him lose more and more of his positive humanity to his urge to kill.

So yeah, from a Freudian angle I'd suggest that Guts is driven to fight to reclaim the sense of masculine power he was stripped of when he was raped, and every fight can be said to be a repetition of his rape trauma in which he (usually) successfully fights back, but also continuously retraumatizes himself rather than healing.

I'm going to delve a little deeper into how phallic and yonic symbols intersect with the characters' relationships now that we've outlined some of the preliminary symbolism, starting from the Golden Age.

The first duel between Guts and Griffith is rife with Freudian symbolism, very overtly. Griffith stabs Guts and then Guts proceeds to have a nightmare about his rape trauma. Then he projects that trauma onto Griffith when he assumes Griffith wants to fuck him and adds sexual stakes to their duel. Then, yk, he takes Griffith's sword into his mouth lol.

Griffith winning by dislocating Guts' arm can be easily taken as a symbolic unmanning/castration, nicely introducing us into Guts' three years of growth towards prioritizing relationships instead of aimless sword-swinging to prove himself. It's also suggestive of penetration when you're primed to look for sexual symbolism (and if Guts offering Griffith his ass and then biting a sword doesn't prime you for it, what does?):

And the two of them losing their swords in the course of the fight and resorting to unarmed combat can also be taken as a telling symbol of the conflict between dreams and their relationship with each other. They lose the symbols of their dreams and contend only with each other, in a more positive contrast to the second duel that ends their relationship, in which they fight only with swords and never touch each other.

Wounds come into it when Griffith nearly gets killed rushing in against Zodd to save Guts, leading to the most impactful moment of their relationship, where Griffith admits he did it solely for Guts' sake and had no other reason. Griffith also points out how wounded Guts is after that fight, in what I'd call a nearly flirtatious way:

And if you follow these symbols completely strictly this scene suggests Guts retreating into his defensive masculinity in his sword exercises after being defeated/emasculated by Zodd and accused of not valuing his personal relationships by Casca, and finally finding a new, more constructive purpose for his sword after Griffith essentially confesses his devotion to him.

Dedicating his sword to Griffith in return for the wounds Griffith suffered for his sake, with, it has to be noted when the topic is freudian symbolism, his sword held at exactly crotch level.

In the second duel Guts destroys Griffith's sword before leaving, a symbolic castration which is most likely intended to represent and foreshadow Griffith's subsequent loss of power when he throws his life away and ends up tortured in a dungeon for a year. More interestingly imo, is Griffith tracing scratch-markes on his shoulder after sleeping with Charlotte and while crying over Guts - the same shoulder Guts' sword didn't quite hit when he won the duel, drawing attention to the lack of a wound by Guts' hand, a wound he created himself and traces in his devastation.

You have a nice... I don't know what the comic terminology is lol so I'm just going to call it a match-cut here, with Griffith and Casca both getting penetrated by the same number of arrows/skewers, to signify Griffith and the Hawks' fall from power, in contrast to Guts' growing phallic power as he pursues his sword swinging. Power which he demonstrates when he returns and saves the Hawks and Casca and Griffith by swinging his sword a lot and defeating a lot of powerful enemies and, if I'm gonna be crass, healing Casca's suicidal despair with his dick lol.

Interestingly though, before he does that he lets Casca stab him while experiencing the guilt of having driven Griffith into a torture chamber by leaving. It's a wound that highlights his emotional connection to Griffith and vulnerability to those emotions, even as he tries to deny them. He then manages to successfully deny them for a little while longer after having sex with Casca.

In this Freudian context, Guts and Casca's sex scene is an affirmation of a relationship, but one which is emotionally uneven, with Casca ready and willing to emotionally rely on and support Guts, but Guts still dedicated to his sword-swinging dream, inviting Casca with him but only as long as she doesn't get in the way of what he wants to do. This does fit with phallic symbols being associated with emotional distance and yonic symbols being associated with emotional closeness lol. (Also fittingly, the one way he does open up to her is about his rape trauma after a flashback.)

It's worth noting that in this disconnect Casca erroneously assumes Guts fought the hundred men and "bled" for her, making her want "a wound" from him in return. Guts fighting those hundred men is much more reminiscent of his fights against apostles, the fights that revolve around replaying his rape trauma to make himself feel better. Casca assumes they already have an emotional bond due to Guts' wounds, but she's wrong - Guts specifically thinks to himself during the hundred man fight that he's not doing it for Casca.

This is reflected in the Wyald fight when Guts insists on fighting Wyald, again as part of the whole reaffirmation of masculinity thing I outlined at the start of this, when Casca just wants him to run away. The Wyald fight is pretty overt about being about Guts' rape trauma imo, moreso than most fights in the story. Wyald's rapiness is made a point of from Guts' point of view when he sees him wielding the torso of a woman sexually impaled on a pike and gets extra angry, and when he literally cuts off Wyald's dick when he's about to rape Casca, and then has his pointed line about needing to "settle the score with him... with them... by his own sword."

SO ESSENTIALLY to sum up this subsection, I think you can argue that what prevents Guts and Casca from being an equal relationship is Guts stlil being hung up over needing to prove his masculine power through sword-swinging, rather than embracing his emasculation (which, remember, tends to signify positive relationships in this context) and coming to terms with it ("immersing himself in sorrow" as Godo says much later.)

Like, to return to Griffith, it's fitting that after Guts destroys his sword and he goes through a year of torture and is thoroughly emasculated, he's able to recognize his feelings for Guts and understand that Guts is more important to him than the dream, the "sword called the throne."

But he doesn't quite come to terms with his emasculation either. This symbolism is one explanation for the wagon scene where he propositions Casca - a desperate bid for some form of power. Not the strongest explanation imo, but since we're currently in the business of actively looking for this symbolism, it definitely fits. Casca's rejection and pity reinforce Griffith's emasculation, and overhearing her tell Guts to leave again is the final straw. Relationships are a bust, swords are now his only recourse, as we see when he has a vision of himself throwing him a sword and pointing to the castle.

You could take the nightmarish vision he has of a life with Casca as Griffith rejecting emasculation, but an alternate way of taking it is Griffith regaining a form of phallic power, and the emotional isolation that goes with it. After all, it's implied that he has a child with Casca, while totally withdrawn and emotionally isolated.

I once said in a different silly essay that Griffith choosing the dream is, in a way, Griffith choosing another version that nightmare, and that take also fits here.

And hey, it's another reason for Femto to rape Casca lol, if we want to ascribe meaning there, and of course we must in this kind of analysis. In the wagon Griffith essentially offers sex to Casca for the faint vestige of masculine power it could give him (emotional isolation and a child); in his nightmare he imagines that life and it drives him to suicide; and after becoming Femto he forces sex onto Casca and then continues on to embody emotional distance and masculine power.

This power is painfully demonstrated through the rape of Casca, but also subsequently through his pure untouchability (often in pointedly sexualized contexts); through his phony relationship with Charlotte and ascending to the ultimate patriarchal role of king/emperor and taking that sword called the throne; and I guess also through his actual sword lol which he still uses.

An example of sexualized untouchability - check out the positioning of that third thought bubble, in this scene where Griffith lords his invulnerability over Ganishka.

And look at all those pillars, I'm js.

And I'd be remiss not to point out the most recent confrontation with Guts where Guts tries many times to hit his naked body with his giant sword, completely fails, and then Griffith kidnaps Casca. More very on-point emasculation symbolism, it might as well be Guts trying to fuck him but unable to get hard lol. His breakdown afterwards doesn't do much to disabuse you of that notion either.

Anyway, back to post-Eclipse Guts. There's not much else to add that I didn't cover at the start, but in brief:

Guts has lost his arm during the Eclipse, which is an emasculation - he loses it while watching Femto rape ~his woman~ so it's like the most traditional symbolic castration there is lol. And of course he replaces it with a bigger, better, and more overt phallic symbol: a canon. And like the first thing we see him do with it is shove it into the mouth of a monster he's banging and blow her head off. So yk, there's that.

And there's Puck, who exists to help bridge Guts' emotional distance and essentially serves as the feminine counterpart to Guts' masculinity for a while. From his magical empathy, to his tiny size, to his lack of genitalia (note that in Freudian theory the lack of a penis is an indicator of femininity rather than specifically the presence of a vagina), to his connections with female characters Theresia and Jill, even arguably to his introduction where Guts saves him from a bunch of men throwing phallic knives at him by skewering them with his own (bigger) projectiles, this is consistent during the Black Swordsman/Conviction arc era.

Chestnut Puck is a lot more boyish, with his particular humour, his cameraderie with an annoying teenage boy, and now having his own feminine counterpart in Ivalera, but that's fine because his thematic job as a feminine influence on Guts is over after Guts starts collecting more friends.

And as far as the RPG group goes, there are a few notable instances of phallic symbolism for them too. Farnese and Serpico are an obvious example, with Farnese sexualizing the wounds Serpico voluntarily suffers for her, when she demands he duel for her honour a bunch of times.

Farnese brandishing the end of her whip at him doesn't hurt the freudian power dynamic symbolism either lol.

In the Conviction arc Farnese wielded a sword she was incapable of using, suggestive of her true femininity under a brash masculine surface, and when she softens in the Millenium Falcon arc she becomes a caretaker with only a small dagger for self-defense. That said, she does get that epic moment of stabbing a tiger in the eye with a long silver pole (candlestick) when she rejoins Guts' crew rather than becoming a housewife, so she still gets some badass phallic weapon imagery lol.

Serpico wields a thin rapier in the Conviction Arc, which Guts easily grabs in his hand, and in the Millenium Falcon arc he switches to a... limp feather duster lol. Serpico is very feminized compared to Guts and his weapons fit as part of that, but they're still effective weapons. You could maybe argue, within this Freudian lens, that this is indicative of Serpico's healthier relationship with masculinity. He's not compensating for anything, he's at peace with himself.

And god I gotta say something about Guts and Serpico's duels. In the first one you have Serpico delaying Guts while Farnese steals Casca from him, and part of that delay is to force Guts into a fight where he can't wield his sword, a parallel emasculation to Casca being kidnapped.

Then you have their confrontation after Farnese's no good very bad night, which is just incredibly suggestive lol.

You cannot tell me this isn't Guts getting blueballed when Serpico leaves after one quick exchange. Particularly coming in the same chapter featuring possessed Farnese grinding on Guts' sword (which Guts was much less interested in, incidentally). Also: wounds as sexual imagery again. Guts licking the blood off his cheek? Come on.

And finally you have their fight in Farnese's basement, in which Serpico attempts to hinder Guts by surrounding him with giant pillars, which Guts smashes through as he dodges around them. Another neat illustration of Guts' pure phallic power and Serpico's much more effeminate style.

One final note to address part of your ask, which didn't naturally fit into the rest of this lol: I would interpret vaginal imagery in monsters as mainly castration anxiety, yk, vagina dentata vibes, the fear of sticking your dick in a hole you can't see into. There's actually a lot of interesting stuff to consider in terms of the feminine as the unknowable other when it comes to Freudian theory, but that's like, not something I would expect Miura to lean into first of all, and also it would take another essay of explanation. If you're interested in that kind of Freudian analysis though I'd recommend the books Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Carol J. Clover and The Dread of Difference, edited by Barry Keith Grant. I took a course on women and horror films ages ago and read chunks of those, and it was very fun, and iirc both address Freudian imagery in horror.

Okay! So that's the rundown of like, all the examples of Freudian imagery that interest me at least lol. This isn't exhaustive ofc, Berserk is long and not stingy with this stuff, but this response is already so long and meandering lol, so I'm going to wrap it up here.

To sum up, phallic imagery often represents masculine power as well as masculine flaws (like emotional isolation) in Berserk, while yonic/vaginal imagery tends to represent feminine weakness as well as feminine virtues (like emotional connection and vulnerability). As a general rule, the more phallic imagery someone violently swings around, the more fucked up they are. Phallic violence is used to compensate for past trauma, but it only continues the cycle of violence. The way to break that violence is to accept one's wounds and focus on them, to heal, rather than trying to distract from them.

I don't think this is always the best way to interpret Berserk lol, but it adds another dimension that very often complements the surface meaning and thematic resonance of the story, sometimes purposefully, sometimes likely incidental. And either way it's a lot of fun to read into!

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doonarose · 2 years ago

Text

Precarious, But Worth It

Rating: Explicit, nsfw, no minors

Summary: Aziraphale returns to the bookshop, more cynical and in need of Crowley’s help after months of frustration and failure in heaven. They have the fight they need to have, shouting a lot of the stuff that they probably should have said quite pleasantly to each other several centuries ago. Crowley pries a love confession out of Aziraphale and then one thing leads to another and that thing is exactly what you think it is: finally getting off together against the desk.

(Un)rationale: I tried to write a quick little fight and fuck fic based on all the wonderful headcanons floating around about Aziraphale and Crowley really just needing to scream at each other for a bit and then make out like teenagers.

It grew into an 8000 word fight and fuck epic that still achieves exactly what I set out to do, it just took over my life for 48 hours. Which is fine, I haven't committed smut in almost a decade.

You can read and see the warnings at AO3 of just read the fic under the cut.

Aziraphale returns to the bookshop at three in the morning on an uncommonly warm summer night. He tries to barge straight in and upon finding the door incomprehensibly locked, expends more energy that appropriate yanking on the doorknobs until the planks of wood are shaking in their frames. Aziraphale assumes he can swan right back in, but he can’t. The door doesn’t even unlock in response to a particularly demanding miracle because Crowley is on the other side, sprawled in his armchair, urging the doors with every ounce of available willpower to remain impervious.

Crowley flicks his wrist and an old, dusty pair of sunglasses wriggles out from under some papers on the desk and fly into his hand. He slides them on with a sigh that’s just a little bit shaky.

Finally, Aziraphale relents, and it goes quiet for a moment. Then he starts pounding, fast, heavy, hard-fisted knocks against the wood. “Crowley, I know you’re in there! Let me in! This is my bookshop!”

Anger boils in Crowley’s blood, anger and shock, that Aziraphale could even think for a moment that he would just come back and walk in and start up whatever again. Because that’s why he’s here, he needs help, or he got bored, or he decided it was time to come back. Crowley allows the front door to swing open but maintains the invisible barrier that protects the entire space from anything outside that he doesn’t want coming in. He doesn’t bother getting up and is extremely careful not to even look in Aziraphale’s direction.

“Not your bookshop, not anymore,” Crowley says, voice snaking from low in his chest, quiet and oh so dangerous.

Aziraphale seethes, “Let me in.”

“Absolutely not.” Crowley tips his head back and sinks further into the armchair.

“How are you even keeping me out?”

Crowley stares at the ceiling to stop from looking at him, he wonders exactly what Aziraphale is looking at, he wonders how he can look and not implode. “Not your bookshop anymore, not a heavenly embassy, it’s mine,” is the only explanation he offers.

“Well, you still can’t keep me out.” And Aziraphale moves to step over the threshold in a flourish of his new angelic light grey overcoat which sparkles with its silver embellishment. Now Crowley watches, as fascinated and cruel as a schoolboy with a beetle under a magnifying glass, as Aziraphale’s body shifts into the door frame only to be bolted back with a flash of white lightning that burns hellish hot through him, making him yelp.

Crowley doesn’t move, remains expressionless behind the glasses, holding still even as Aziraphale cries out and recoils. But now he’s looking at him. Aziraphale’s not wearing anything Crowley’s ever seen him in: beneath the long grey overcoat is a crisp white shirt and a necktie and slacks of muted slate grey. Even his white hair has been brushed flat into carefully controlled waves. It’s sterile and exactly what Crowley imagined. Even the embroidered pattern on the overcoat looks meaningless.

Eyeing the threshold again, Aziraphale whines, “Crowley, you have to let me in.”

Crowley chuckles darkly. “Done that one too many times, I reckon. Fool me once and all that.”

“It’s an emergency.”

“Second coming, I’ve heard.” He’s had enough, Aziraphale is back because he needs help, which doesn’t matter because there was never any reason that would have make him coming back now okay. Not after months of being gone, not after he left in the first place. Crowley stretches like a cat waking up, teases the idea of getting up and then settles back into place. He watches as Aziraphale notices for the first time the state of the bookshop, the dust and the scattered books and the dozens of lush green plants sitting atop them.

“That’s heaven’s plan, isn’t it?” Crowley says. “God’s judgement for all, erased to non-existent oblivion if you’ve ever stolen some bread, or used Her name in vain or any sin, really.” He grips the arms of the chair to stop from propelling himself up and over to Aziraphale, form saying it an inch from his face so he might actually listen. Too late for listening. “Any moment of pride or laziness or gluttony and you’re done for. Seems fair,” he says with a sardonic hiss. “Seems right.”

“Crowley, invite me in, I need to talk to you.” Aziraphale’s pleading but Crowley isn’t falling for it, acutely aware it’s a ploy, a manipulation, just the trickster angel employing the needy tone of voice he’s used for millennia to get Crowley to do his bidding.

“Absolutely not. How dare you even deign to return.”

“If you weren’t waiting for me to come back, then what are you still doing here?”

That makes Crowley pause because he’s worked very hard not to think about that, not to ponder how many centuries he will mope around the bookshop before he flings himself into some far-off corner of space – definitely not Alpha Centauri. He lies: “I wanted to be here when you realized just how catastrophically you fucked everything up,” he bites every word out, letting them trip bitterly off his tongue.

Aziraphale doesn’t look even the slightest bit bothered and Crowley hates him for that. No shame or embarrassment or regret, chin in the air, defiant, which just makes Crowley’s blood boil in his veins.

“You’ve being juvenile about things.” How dare he use that singsong, playful tone with him now. After everything.

He can’t sit still anymore, propels himself up and stalks the half a dozen steps to the door to say it: “Oh, fuck you. You destroyed everything; I’m allowed to be furious about it.”

Aziraphale looks around pointedly, leaning in as close to the bookshop as he dares. “Everything looks quite fine here, although you could have taken a moment out of your wallowing to dust.” It’s cutting, how easily Aziraphale swipes at him.

Low and warning, Crowley just says it again because it’s easiest now to just stay angry. “Fuck. You.”

Except for just a moment, Aziraphale’s countenance fails, his hands fidget in front of him and Crowley sees past the shimmery white-grey outfit, the flattened white hair, and he clocks the fear and uncertainty in Aziraphale’s eyes. Crowley thinks he looks astoundingly anguished with his pursed lips and his deadened, defensive eyes, looks like he’s on the brink of collapse, and then that’s gone.

“If you don’t let me in both of our names are going to be scratched from the Book of Life, it could happen any moment now.”

That is a serious threat, but Crowley is still so angry. “Frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck.”

“Liar.”

They stand in stalemate, Aziraphale now leaning against the doorframe, waiting, until Crowley asks, “Why would they want to scratch you, Archangel Supreme, Effervescent Warrior-Chief of the Angels, from the Book of Life?” But he is a liar, he does give a flying fuck, perhaps not about himself, but even in his darkest, most wretched hour, he never wished Aziraphale never existed. Just the thought twists tight around his heart and chokes the breath out of him. Never seeing Aziraphale again was awful, but he had made his peace with it. Never having known him at all was unfathomable. Crowley knows immediately that he’s going to give in and help, he doesn’t have a choice.

He clicks his fingers returning the bookshop threshold to normalcy and turns to walk back into the room, trying to get his heart and his skin and his face back under control and hoping Aziraphale doesn’t notice. “Tell me what you’ve done?”

***

The anger simmers just below the surface as Aziraphale explains the second coming and heaven and why he’s back. Crowley sits with his arm across the back of the sofa, skin turned overly warm even though he’s in his thinnest jeans and just a woollen turtleneck. Aziraphale sits primly, still dwarfed by the grey overcoat that he chooses to keep on, in the armchair pulled back from what used to be his desk.

Crowley’s still angry at him for leaving and now also for coming back, he’s livid that he’s being drawn back into something worse than life and death, but that’s nothing compared to how furious he is to have to care about Aziraphale again. He keeps circling back to the idea of him never having existed, that Crowley would never have known him, wouldn’t even know to miss him.

Perhaps, most of all, he’s angry that it’s becoming abundantly clear, that Aziraphale gets it now. He’s returned from heaven cynical and candid, no longer speaking about that place, or the people in it, with any sort of adoration or wonderment, rather like it’s all gone sour on the back of his tongue. He only shows any sort of respect for God Herself, and even that is fleeting and wholly immaterial to their predicament.

At the end of all the exposition, all Crowley can offer is a drawn out, “Wellll…” and then “We’re fucked, basically.”

Aziraphale huffs and silence falls between them. Crowley should just kick him out; the situation is dire, but he has as much chance of fixing it on his own as he does with Aziraphale there. The minutes tick over, the grandfather clock’s second hand audible in the stillness of the room.

Aziraphale’s voice cuts through, quiet and careful, “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt sooner?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why did you wait until I had to leave to say what you said?”

Crowley fights the urge to throw a punch, or at the very least the hardest backhanded slap he can muster. He grips the back of the sofa with one hand and his own thigh with the other and stares Aziraphale down from behind the glasses. “You don’t get to ask me that.”

“Was it because you were scared?”

Crowley stares at him harder, eyes locked, Aziraphale unflinching even though he must be able to feel the crackle in the air, the threat of bodily harm if he continues.

“Was it because you knew that if we started something it would get back to our respective head offices and there would be consequences – ”

Crowley cuts him off with a sneer. “They would have discorporated both of us in an instant, and then hell knows what the punishments would have been. Eternal torture for me, I reckon. And perhaps something worse waiting for you in heaven.”

Aziraphale just nods and folds his hands in his lap. “And then after Adam, when we finally had our own side and no head offices, what about then?” He gives Crowley the chance to answer but he doesn’t. Then, “Were you still too scared?”

It’s like Aziraphale’s needling at him on purpose and if Crowley’s entire being wasn’t burning up he might stop to wonder why. He holds his voice remarkably level: “Fuck you Aziraphale, and I really, genuinely mean that. Was the point of this whole night to come back here and mess with me? World’s ending, book of life, blah blah blah, last chance to go and mock the snake? Has heaven turned you that cruel, that quickly?”

Aziraphale looks taken aback, as though that wasn’t what he was going for at all, but that’s certainly where he hit. “I’m simply asking why you chose to do what you did when I’d already told you I had to go to heaven – ”

“Because when else was I going to get the chance to say it? I wanted to speak first – not that it would have made a difference – because you’d already made up your stupid little mind, chosen heaven, and you were leaving.” Crowley clamps his mouth shut, presses his lips together and casts his eyes up; Aziraphale does not get to see him hurting.

“And I was wrong,” Aziraphale says softly. “And I – I apologise, I’m very, very sorry Crowley. But I’m back now.”

Crowley keeps staring at the ceiling, hating that he can feel his eyes growing wet. He’d sooner scratch them out than start to cry. He keeps the crack out of his voice, “Don’t suppose any of it matters now. We’ll both pop out of existence sometime soon and this entire conversation won’t have ever happened.”

That should be reassuring, in a way. The pain and misery and heartache are all going to have never existed; no point crying over something that never happened. Crowley levels his gaze back at Aziraphale and presses back harder into the softness of the couch.

Aziraphale looks upset, angry, even, as though he expected something else from Crowley. “I really hate that you left us the way you did,” he says.

And the anger wells up again at the cruelty of him. “If you hate me you can leave. Again. I’ve gotten used to it.”

“That is so unfair – ”

“What’s unfair is that you left me, I told you the truth, and you chose heaven over facing up to that. You chose that shithole and all those arseholes and their bullshit instead of choosing me, instead of staying with me!”

“Because I had to,” Aziraphale snaps. “It was the only way to protect you and I thought, I thought, it was a way we could finally be together. And yes, I was wrong, but staying here, I knew Michael would end up in charge and Michael hates me almost as much as she hates you. If I was up there, I thought maybe I could fix things.”

“You thought you could fix me!” That’s enough, Crowley’s face burns with the shame of it and it’s only made worse when Aziraphale’s face morphs into pity and he reaches for him, shifting forward in his chair and reaching out. Crowley jumps to his feet and stalks straight across the shop floor, between the shelves, hiding pathetically, at least long enough to rake his hands back through his hair and slide his fingers behind his glasses to swipe away the tears that keep welling up and threatening to fall.

Aziraphale follows him, around the back of a shelf and appearing in front of him just as Crowley presses his glasses back against his eyes. “What are you even talking about?”

Crowley wheels around again, turning away with his shoulders hunched up high as he fights the urge to throw himself into the fight of it all. He only takes a few steps forward, into the centre of the shop, poised between the stairs up to his right and the door out to his left, both options promising a billion miles of space to run in any which direction. Except Aziraphale needs to admit his part in this, so Crowley turns back to him, stumbling backwards when he’s right there, brow furrowed and mouth set in a frustrated frown. “You just wanted to make me an angel again, all this time and the first opportunity to make me into precisely what I’m not and you thought that was right.”

“What? I didn’t – ”

Crowley speaks over the top of him, “Oh you did, you said, I’d be restored. That for all you cared for me, needed me, you could get heaven to fix me, to forgive me my sins. That’s what you meant when you say you wanted to save me. You didn’t even want me to be me, and instead of… You just forgave me.” It’s too honest an admission, too much, a weight lifted but just more anger settling in its place. When Crowley blinks, he feels the tears spill, catching in his eyelashes and gathering moist behind the glasses.

“That is not…” Aziraphale takes another step towards him and Crowley stumbles on the edge of the rug as he steps back, now trapped in the alcove with the desk and the armchair and all of Aziraphale’s dusty books. “I didn’t say that.”

“That’s exactly what you said.”

“But I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted you with me to help me. I wanted you with me so we could be us, together… And I didn’t know what you wanted me to say, you were so angry, you just gave up and – ”

“I wanted you to say you accepted me as is,” He didn’t want to have to admit that bit out loud but how could Aziraphale still not know? “I wanted you to choose me, I wanted you to say you loved me. Not that you forgave me, I’m a demon.”

Finally, realisation flickers across Aziraphale’s face, albeit, once again quickly replaced by anger. “But you must know that I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t want you to come to heaven and turn into one of them – “

“Now that you know what they’re like,” Crowley sneers.

“Yes, I mean, no, even before, I wasn’t trying to change you. You knew how I felt about you, and… and honestly, Crowley, I don’t know how many times I can apologise when you are being so wilfully obtuse – ”

“Wilfully obtuse?! And you haven’t even apologised for that particular mistake!” Crowley shouts. “And what am I meant to think, angel? I put all my cards on the table, I’m ready to spend forever with you, but instead you offered to make me your second in command for the literal end of everything and when I said no – for extremely good reason – you fucked off to heaven, anyway. And now you’ve only come back because everything’s gone to shit.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” Crowley snarls. “You’re just back here because you want someone to talk to, someone to solve your problems. You hate that I was honest, that I kissed you, which is just fine because I hate you for leaving me.”

Aziraphale is practically shaking with barely contained rage, defiant in it but also seemingly about to stomp his feet and start screaming for the sake of it. “I do not hate that you were honest, or that you kissed me, and I do hate that I left you, but I am back now and I don’t know what else you bloody well want from me.”

Crowley laughs, miserable and half caught in his throat. “You still can’t even admit you love me!” he challenges, driving the knife into his own heart some more.

Aziraphale roars back: “Well, technically, neither can you!”

That stops everything in its tracks. It’s nonsensical to Crowley for a long moment – of course he loves Aziraphale, of course he does – and it’s unclear what Aziraphale is even getting at. It’s that delay in logical thought that lets Aziraphale say it, voice going soft, still angry, and fiercely honest, “I do, though, I do love you and I think it’s more than anyone has ever loved anything or anyone in over six thousand years. It’s… a lot.”

It punches the air right out of Crowley, square in the guts like a freight train; even though he knew it to be true, he’d given up on ever, ever hearing it. Eventually he takes in a shuddering breath. It doesn’t change anything, though. “I knew,’ he admits, as quiet as Aziraphale now. “I know.”

The anger remains, just beneath the surface, frustration at the world, at heaven and hell and God, pooling and mixing with the abject fear of non-existence and what comes next which provokes the tiniest, most pathetic glimmer of some sort of hope.

Aziraphale watches him, hands balled into fists at this sides. “Do you know, though, really?”

Crowley nods, “I do,” of course he knows but somehow Aziraphale doesn’t seem to believe him, his head shaking just slightly from side to side until it’s not, and he’s nodding to himself, like he’s made up his mind.

"You don’t.” And then Aziraphale’s on him and it’s too much, too fast, and it’s everything.

Aziraphale’s mouth, hot and wet and pressing so insistently at his, hard enough to feel the teeth through their lips and to know he’s stopped breathing. Aziraphale grabs him, rough scratching handfuls of the wool at his chest pulling Crowley into his body and then pushing him back against the desk, catching him there, and then not stopping, pressing up hard and close and Crowley’s forced to slide back, arse on the edge, wood digging into his thighs when Aziraphale step into the gap between them and is covering him completely.

Crowley’s hands searching blindly for purchase on the desk, three books and the plant perched on top of them tumble to the floor and then it takes a split second for Crowley’s body to give in completely and utterly. And then only a second beyond that for Crowley to consciously decide that if this is the moment they’re burned from existence, at least it’s at the very top of their game.

He kisses Aziraphale back, a hand into his stupidly coifed hair, intent on ruining it, and the other wrapping around the middle of his back, hand grabbing at the softer-than-it-looks velvet – he discovers – of the stupid angelic overcoat.

Aziraphale is licking at his lips, increasingly wet and demanding, and not very angelic at all. Crowley chases the touch and closeness, mouth falling open and he can’t help but moan at the feeling of Aziraphale licking inside, searching out the inner heat and slick of his top and then his bottom lip, back again and again and then inside, across Crowley’s teeth and then darting up behind. Aziraphale tastes and smells the way he’s meant to taste this close, the disinfected, bleached smell of heaven dissipating as it’s overwhelmed with earthy, sweet, Aziraphale.

They kiss raw and open and messy, without any finesse and there’s still a recess in Crowley’s mind that holds onto the anger, and another stuck cornered by fear. Any moment… any moment he won’t just lose this, it will never have happened.

The thought and Aziraphale’s teeth closing around his bottom lip, biting and sucking, pulls a pained whimper from him that he’s never heard himself make before and Aziraphale pulls back, eyes wild, a question there. Are we really doing this?

And Crowley drags him back down. More warm, flushed, heady kisses, too much spit and too many little sounds of surprise and surrender. Aziraphale’s hands eventually find there way up Crowley’s chest to his neck, dipping inside the turtleneck to skirt a thumb over his Adam’s apple, to scratch fingernails across the nape. Around his jaw and into his hair, angling him and guiding him until Aziraphale can pull his lips from Crowley’s mouth and kiss across his cheek, still too sticky-wet and remarkably tender as Aziraphale tilts his face to kiss and then nuzzle at his temple, sucking in the smell of his hair through his nose even as Crowley pants against his neck.

Aziraphale’s hands find Crowley’s glasses and tentatively, he slips them off to reveal Crowley’s amber irises, ignited, glaring, defiant and turned on, his lashes wet and clumped and the skin just beneath his eyes still tear-stained. A soft, gentle, “Oh,” escapes Aziraphale’s lips as he holds Crowley’s face in his hands. “Oh, I never, ever meant to hurt you. I’m so sorry I…” He presses his mouth to Crowley’s temple as Crowley’s eyes flutter closed. Azirapahle presses three small kisses, moving in towards the hollow of his eye socket and then down, ever so careful, kissing at the salt and his eyelashes. Aziraphale’s thumbs press and knead at Crowley’s temples and then he kisses up his nose, from the tip to the bridge to his forehead, and then across each closed eyelid. He traces that path again and again, soft and tender, until Crowley’s left clinging to him, a heavy, hunched weight in his arms, face upturned and revelling in the affection.

When Crowley smiles, easy and open, as his eyes glowing, Aziraphale takes it as his penance served, and returns to Crowley’s mouth. He kisses him deeply, pouring such heart into it that Crowley can almost feel his eyes welling up again. But then, Aziraphale tilts his head, and shifts to kiss from the other side of Crowley’s face, and very quickly, it all stops being tender and soft, and shifts to urgent and hot and desperate.

The unmistakable press and pull of Aziraphale’s tongue in and against Crowley’s, rhythmic and insisting, sets them on the course for more. It bolts straight down Crowley’s spine, out to his fingertips, and into his cock which was already half-hard, but now gives a twitch that he feels reverberate into his thighs. Even in his wildest dreams, he never imagined… Even twelve seconds ago, he thought he would take his chance to kiss Aziraphale until their lips were numb and the sun was high in the sky and then that would be it. That or they’d kiss until they stopped existing.

Aziraphale’s mouth has found his jaw again, no longer content just with wet, warm kisses, he’s biting, raking his teeth along the bone there and then stopping to suck until the blood vessels burst and blossom into marks. It’s pulling needy, downright embarrassing noises from Crowley but he doesn’t have the cognizance to care right now. Instead, he twists his neck to try to give Aziraphale the best access, choking on a moan as his eyes flicker open to catch Aziraphale throwing him a smirk before he latches back on to the spot just below Crowley’s ear and sucks.

Tugging the neck of the turtleneck down, Aziraphale murmurs something displeased, unable to get to enough of Crowley’s skin with the scratchy wool caught between his chin and the column of Crowley’s throat.

As Aziraphale bites another mark into Crowley’s jaw, he murmurs, “You don’t know how much time I thought about this in heaven,” and Crowley arches beneath him.

Crowley had been aware that he was fully hard in his jeans, straining against the denim and dribbling a wet spot into the cotton of his underpants, and now, with the forceful push of Aziraphale’s hips in to meet Crowley’s arch, inching him forward on the desk, he can feel the unmistakable pressure of Aziraphale’s own Effort. It’s equally hard, hot and over-whelming, and, still tripping over thoughts to respond to Aziraphale’s confession, it drags a plea from Crowley, “Fuck, Angel, really?”

Aziraphale kisses the underside of Crowley’s jaw. “I hated it there, almost as soon as I arrived. I missed you. And you’d just kissed me. And so I thought of this, of us.” He tries to kiss down beneath the turtleneck again and growls his frustration into Crowley’s ear when the wool gets in his way. “I wasn’t sure if they would know but I couldn’t help myself.”

Aziraphale’s hands race over Crowley’s shoulders, down his arms and his back, feather-light even through the wool, over his ribs and down to his waist. The material has already ridden up, escaped where Crowley’s jeans have slipped dangerously low around his hips, and there’s a strip of pale naked skin there. Aziraphale’s fingers find it before he pulls all the way back to watch as they caress across, from hipbone to the teasing line of flame-red hair just above the belt buckle. Crowley doesn’t breathe but somehow his belly still trembles, he wonders if Aziraphale can see that the hair grows thicker the further down he goes, that it’s ticklish and painful and burning hot all at once when Aziraphale scratches his nails through it, catching ever so slightly. Surely the unmistakable bulge in his trousers is obvious, too. And he just wills Aziraphale to touch him.

“I want more,” Aziraphale says, both hands petting back and forth across Crowley’s skin.

“Anything,” Crowley manages.

His hands slip instantly under the wool of the turtleneck, flat to Crowley’s stomach but not wasting any time. Aziraphale pushes them up, over Crowley’s chest and Crowley raises his arms obliging so that the garment can be slipped easily over his head.

Dropping it to the side, Aziraphale looks positively ravenous in the moment he takes to rake his eyes over Crowley’s chest – pale and flecked with red hair, dusky red nipples, and really nothing Aziraphale hasn’t seen before – and then press his whole face into Crowley’s neck.

Biting, licking, blowing cold air just to watch the stretch and tilt that Crowley reacts with, to listen to the sounds he can drag from him. He takes his time but works quickly, finding the spot where he can feel Crowley’s pulse against his tongue before he descends to mouth across one clavicle and then the other.

“My turn,” Crowley growls, only when it’s become a mantra in his head and he can’t stop himself. Aziraphale looks startled, like he was lost in the skin under his mouth. But Crowley doesn’t wait, both hands going to that dreadful, over-starched tie, ready to yank it free and drag it from Aziraphale’s neck –

“Hell, that’s a clip-on!” he’s utterly repulsed and Aziraphale laughs at him.

“I tried to get them to give me a bowtie, or even just a proper tie, but they said this was more practical.” Aziraphale pouts, his lips kissed red and slick, his hair increasingly back to the twisted curls and tufts that Crowley loves. “I think it’s ghastly.”

“Well fuck that then,” Crowley says and then yanks the offending item away, flinging it halfway across the shop. He then sets to work on the buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt which he instantly finds over-starched and the buttons, frustratingly, just a little too big for the buttonholes. Two buttons down though, and he can get a kiss to Aziraphale’s neck that draws a sigh of delight. More buttons and he can lean down his chest, burying his face in the white curls and breathing in before he bites across a pectoral muscle and closes his mouth around a pretty pink nipple.

“Jesus,” escapes Aziraphale, all high pitched and breathless as his hands thread into Crowley’s hair and twist.

That hitches Crowley’s breath and he rewards it with his teeth, gently nipping at the skin just beneath. “Blasphemy,” Crowley teases and then shifts to lick across to the nipple on the other side. In some dim corner of his mind, he really can’t believe he’s doing this, that Aziraphale is letting him do this.

Rather, Aziraphale is asking him to do it, because his hands are still racing tracks across the planes of Crowley’s naked back and his chest and his belly, rougher each time through the descending line of hair there, scratching lines across his belly button on the next pass, and then teasing at the belt with his thumb. And he’s babbling, still coherent and overly verbose, but clearly struggling: “Crowley… Crowley dearest, I… uh – I need you closer.” He pulls his face up to his and kisses him off-centre on the mouth. “I need – ” he keens as Crowley cuts him off with a bite to his lip. “I need all of you.”

“You have me,” Crowley admits, against his better judgement and all rational thought, and as Aziraphale’s hands drop to his belt with clear intent, Crowley’s own start to push back Aziraphale’s already hanging open shirt and the heavy velvet monstrosity of a jacket that lays on top of it.

Except he simply can’t get the garments off Aziraphale while Aziraphale still has his hands on him. Suddenly, the belt buckle springs open and the leather strap that encircles Crowley’s waist is being yanked all the way free and getting to Aziraphale’s shoulders stops being a priority. Crowley’s hands race to the clasp of Aziraphale’s trousers: another blaster button, then another and then a zip. It’s a race with only winners and a scramble of fingers and fabric and Aziraphale’s still trying to kiss him through it.

Then he gets his hands inside Aziraphale’s trousers, pushes his pants down his thighs, letting Aziraphale’s cock fall into his palm and it’s hot and hard and so very right. They should have been doing this for six thousand years. And then Aziraphale’s hand, hot and slick with spit or sweat – it doesn’t matter – has slipped under the waistband of Crowley’s pants and wrapped around his aching erection.

Aziraphale strokes maddeningly slowly from base to tip and Crowley groans out an, “Oh fuck,” as his own grip tightens around Aziraphale.

Aziraphale continues to stroke, too slow and not quite tight enough but still better than any feeling Crowley’s ever experienced. Crowley’s mouth hangs uselessly open in a permanent gasp and so Aziraphale gives up trying to coordinate kissing him and just rests his head against Crowley’s shoulder. Together, they stare down at the complete lack of space between them, trousers still caught, clinging to their hips, their cocks and hands shades of red and pink and pale cream, coarse curls of starkly contrasting hair scratching against each other. “I’ve got you,” Aziraphale murmurs, all wonderment and potent pleasure. “I’ve always got you.”

He lets his hand leave Crowley’s cock to twitch between them, catching against the backs of Crowley’s fingers where they’re still wrapped around Aziraphale. Aziraphale grips Crowley’s hips and pulls him forward, right to the edge of the desk and it instinctively makes Crowley’s hands loose from Aziraphale’s cock and hip, flung out to grab onto the wood so he can steady himself. His legs come up of their own volition to wrap tight around Aziraphale’s hips. His stupid jeans are still on though, the waistband across his ass cutting into the skin as it’s pulled tight and low, the cold sharpness of the undone zipper framing his dick, uncomfortably tight just below his balls and Crowley has to silently will more give into the material to let him stay like this, wrapped around Aziraphale.

Then their cocks catch between them, lined up perfectly, caught between bellies and scratchy hair and the heat of it all. Aziraphale gives an experimental rock of his hips and it’s glorious if entirely not enough and too dry and at an awkward angle.

And perhaps it’s all too much, too fast. Crowley had given up on ever seeing him again only half an hour ago, had despised him enough to want to never see him again even more recently. And now… now they’re this. Everything and raw and vulnerable and Aziraphale has him.

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you for leaving,” Crowley says and somehow he thinks maybe it will come off playful and teasing, but he still regrets it as soon as the words spill out. He’s baiting Aziraphale and for what?

Aziraphale pulls back but his hips remain tightly pressed into Crowley’s, holding him up on the desk. A flash of hurt crosses his vulnerable face and Crowley feels it prickle at his heart.

He wants to take it back, but he can’t, so he just tilts his hips down, rolls them and grinds and tries to get the leverage from his grip on the desk to make them both feel good in some sort of tactile, sybaritic apology.

Aziraphale chokes on a soft, mewling, desperate sound and then asks, “Do you love me, though?”

Crowley blinks, frozen, feels the heavy breaths being drawn deep into Aziraphale’s belly against him, the coolness of the sweat across his own chest, the thrum and thump of the blood in his veins, all the way down through his cock and right up against the heartbeat of Aziraphale.

He knows. He must know.

“Because you’ve not, technically, actually said,” Aziraphale says.

Oh. “Oh, yes. Yes, I – yes completely – ” He still hasn’t said it, and when he does it’s more matter-of-fact, less romantic than what Aziraphale probably wants. “I love you. I love you entirely, all-consumingly. I’ve loved you since… A long time. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.”

Aziraphale kisses his lips, simple presses, messy and hot with everything that’s come before. “We can work on the forgiveness stuff later then?” And Aziraphale breathes, reaching in between them, hand wrapping around them both and stroking again from root to tip.

“Yes,” Crowley hisses, head falling back for a moment, lax in his relief but his grip on the table and around Aziraphale’s waist still tight, straining. Aziraphale continues to stroke, both of them hard and in hand, haphazard and the pressure relegated more to one side because he can’t possibly make a proper fist around the weight and the heat of them but it doesn’t matter. “Yes, just like that,” Crowley encourages as he brings his mouth back to Aziraphale’s.

Another dirty kiss, sumptuous and slow, just tongues and heavy breathing, grunts and moans as Crowley tries to angle up just right, and Aziraphale tries for the right kind of friction. Unbidden, Aziraphale confesses into the corner of Crowley lips, “I really want to get my mouth on you.”

It draws a new, higher pitched keening cry from Crowley and he’s too close, that could be the end of it except he still wants more. “Next time,” he mumbles, “Next time, I promise,” and he wills that reality into existence.

Aziraphale grunts and his hand retreats, Crowley arches to maintain the friction, lets go of the desk for a moment but almost topples, and then whines to try to convince Aziraphale to touch him again. Aziraphale’s lips leave his and Crowley chases, eyes still closed as he tries to narrow in on the growing pleasure between them – that’s what he wants and he’s gluttonous for it, lusting after it, happily sinful if Aziraphale would just give it to him.

But instead it’s Aziraphale’s fingers on his lips, pushing inside, three of them, and Crowley’s eyes open with a start. “Suck,” Aziraphale says, low and rough in a way that makes Crowley’s balls tighten and his cock throb, a heavy drop of precome pulsing out onto their stomachs.

He sucks, diligently, wetly, refusing to swallow anything until the spit is dripping down his own chin and Aziraphale’s wrist and Crowley’s watching him look absolutely rabid with it. When Aziraphale wraps his hand around them again, it’s slick with precome and Crowley’s spit and from the drag of that first blissful stroke, Crowley wonders if Aziraphale’s miracled up even more slick than he could take from his mouth.

Lips against his, the squeeze and stroke of their cocks together is certainly too much now and Crowley can feel his spine turning to liquid. He can’t kiss, can only breathe and chase the touch with the tilt of his hips and the low, guttural groans escaping his lips.

Aziraphale remains strikingly coherent. “Tell me about next time, Crowley?” and he gives a devilish smile that Crowley can sense against his cheek. “What will we do?”

“Everything,” Crowley manages as Aziraphale’s hand catches just below the head of his cock and twists.

Aziraphale hums against his cheek, begging more.

“Anything you’ll let me,” Crowley confides, biting the inside of his cheek and then at Aziraphale’s neck to hold himself together.

“Tell me,” Aziraphale says and his thumb slicks across the wetness right at the tip of Crowley’s cock, pressing in on it and swirling it around and then grinning delightedly at the little, involuntary buck of Crowley’s hips.

Crowley breathes out, squeezes his legs around Aziraphale’s waist and he’s so close, he could come if Aziraphale would just let him. “Angel,” he warns.

“I’d let you do anything,” Aziraphale tells him and finally the crack in his voice gives away just how close he is as well. “I want you to take me apart.”

That would have been the end of him except Aziraphale grips the base of them both and then stills. As though he can feel just how close things are, and still wants to drag it out, he unwraps his hand and then and then dances his fingertips up along the damp line of hair to Crowley’s bellybutton. “Tell me about next time,” he demands.

Crowley leaves the mark he’s bitten into Aziraphale’s neck, knowing they can miracle it away afterwards but hoping desperately, that they won’t. He just wants and if Aziraphale wasn’t holding him up against the desk, Crowley’s sure he could have Aziraphale up against a wall or a bookshelf or on the floor. That’s next time, and his hips rock up at the thought. He grabs handfuls of Aziraphale’s arse, his grip under the overcoat but over the fabric of his trousers, and grinds hard against him.

“Next time, everything,” he says and Aziraphale scratches down his chest and grips their cocks together again. He doesn’t move though, stares at Crowley, eyes locked, waiting for the assurance, for a promise.

Crowley licks his lips. “Next time, you’ll let me fuck you, won’t you, angel?”

Aziraphale’s lips fall open and he nods. He starts to stroke again and immediately they’re both shuddering into it, half-aborted spasms of their hips as they both hold taut and try to make the moment stretch but now they really are too far gone, they’re going to come just like this, on a desk, in their bookshop, half dressed, and frantic and not quite forgiven.

Crowley wants to make him come first, though, wants to watch him fall apart, wants that small victory and he can see what his words are doing. Unfathomable reactions from his imperfect, beautiful angel, even as Aziraphale touches him like sin and presses him hard enough into the edge of the desk to leave bruises.

“Next time, you’ll let me open you up with my fingers, you’ll let me take my time, you’ll let me use my tongue.” Aziraphale moans and thrusts up into the fist of his hand, along the length of Crowley’s cock and it makes him stutter. “Or… or maybe you can do all that to me? Next time, or the time after – ”

Crowley doesn’t know how’s he’s still in one piece, the steady leak of liquid from his cock, from Aziraphale’s and now it’s almost too wet, too slick, too hot, too much, the sharp tug and drag of Aziraphale’s hand bordering on pain because he’s been holding himself back for too long, but he needs to take Aziraphale, need to see him fall apart, needs to know it’s just as bad for him.

Crowley arches back, forces his eyes open so he can see Aziraphale, sweating and breathing stop-starting and heavy, chest and cheeks flushed, and one hand working fast over both of them even as the other continues to hold on to Crowley by the back of his neck.

“Look at you, you’re gagging for it,” Crowley reveals before he can stop himself and Aziraphale’s eyes snap open and up and instead of being affronted, he just grins lascivious and shy in equal measure. “My angel and all you want in the world right now is to get those pretty little lips wrapped around my cock so you can swallow me whole and – ”

Aziraphale’s eyes fall shut and he clings to Crowley, hand tightening around them both as his cock spasms and he rocks hard into Crowley’s hips. He breathes out an almost silent ‘Fuck!’ as he starts to come.

And Crowley feels the throb of him, sees him spilling, pearly white, warm and viscous, between them with a look of such deep concentration and bliss painted across his upturned face, and that’s all it takes to push him off the precipice.

Precarious, but worth it, he lets go of the desk with one hand and wraps it over the top of Aziraphale’s, fingers sliding between his and grasping where they’re hard and blood-filled and intimate, tight and hot and sliding as everything inside him breaks like a wave crashing on rocks.

Crowley shudders and chases every last pulse of pleasure, every last twitch from either of them, the back and forth of friction and reaction dragging it out while Aziraphale breathes hot and hitched against his ear and Crowley finds skin to dig his teeth into. They hold there until their hands still, and then their bodies, and finally their breath. Then it’s just Crowley’s hand interlaced with Aziraphale’s around their softening, over-sensitive cocks, and an ungodly mess of spit and sweat and come.

They disentangle slowly, fingers refusing to leave each other’s and their linked hands settling clasped somewhere between their chests. Crowley’s legs unloop from Aziraphale’s back and his feet find gravity and support on the floor even as his jeans slip immediately down to his knees when Aziraphale takes a half a step backwards to give him just enough space to stand in. They lean forehead to forehead and Crowley debates what to do about his pants, about the mess, about the fact that he’s still thinking about Aziraphale’s mouth on him and that that feels like it’s making his blood change direction in his veins.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupts his train of thought which is probably for the best. “I’ll clean us up?”

He mumbles something, finding his tongue heavy and not quite correctly connected to his brain yet, but it must sound affirmative because with a flick of Aziraphale’s wrist, everything is clean and dry and, even though it’s disgusting, Crowley instantly misses it. His jeans have even inched their way back up his thighs, to the point where they can’t make any further headway because Aziraphale’s still pressed too close to him.

With an obvious look of reluctance, Aziraphale steps further back and Crowley catches his jeans and hikes them back up over his hips.

Aziraphale clears his throat. “I think… I hope…. Well, I think we should probably save the earth. And if not the earth, at least ourselves.”

The hanging dread of everything comes crashing back in, but something in Crowley is defiant in having at least experienced this before he’s wiped from existence. Some romantic, irrational part of him even begins to think that the enormity of his love would survive him never having existed. “Yes,” he says in answer to Aziraphale’s hopeful, beaming face, still flushed and his lips kissed red, a scattering of red marks across his neck and chest and two that are already purple. Aziraphale hadn’t cleaned any of that up and it makes Crowley feel ambitious. “But probably the earth as well. I know you like it here.”

“Yes, please,” Aziraphale says. “And then I think we should talk.”

“Of course.”

Aziraphale’s tucked himself back into his trousers and done up both buttons. His hands find Crowley’s again, clean and smooth, their fingers interlacing and tugging. “Just… I think we can figure this out. I think one day you’ll forgive me, and I promise I won’t ever try and forgive you again.”

Crowley huffs at that, but it’s a foregone conclusion. “I can do better as well,” he admits. “And we will work this out. This and the Book of Life bollocks.” He brings one of Aziraphale’s hands up to his mouth to kiss across the knuckles, immediately turned on again to find them still, ever so slightly smelling and tasting of them both together. Metallic and bitter and filthy and he knows Aziraphale left that there, either for Crowley or for himself and his eyes go wide with the unexpectedness of it. “Just please, please promise we can do this again…” He sucks on a knuckle and looks at Aziraphale through his lashes as he does it.

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathes out. “Yes, most definitely.” Crowley moves to suck at another knuckle but before he can be too drawn into it, Aziraphale’s pulling his hand back with a pout. “Book of life, my love.”

Crowley thrills at the new pet name and tries to keep from preening. “Stop the second coming, save the world, and then lunch at the Ritz?” he asks, shifting to focus on the enormity of the task ahead even as he tries to draw one more smile from Aziraphale.

Aziraphale gives him a look, a soft little grin and an arch of his eyebrows, a playful warning. “I believe you already know what I’ll be putting my mouth around once all this is taken care of and it is most certainly not lunch at the Ritz. Best get on with it!”

And even though in that moment Crowley’s balks, a choked laugh escaping him as Aziraphale grins, they do get on with it. All of it. Everything.

#good omens smut #good omens fic #good omens fanfic #doonas fic #flies into the sun #this took a lot more time and effort that i expected #but i very much enjoyed it #and i find the whole relationship and fandom and fic writing rather delicious

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