#i cant believe i actually wrote the words ‘holy saliva’

[aplusjaybirdie]

like real people do

read on ao3 here. @genderqueercrowley asked to see it so here you are! I’m done with it finally! Beta’d by @vowsatthewake

“Aziraphale, you bloody genius, I could kiss you!” Crowley exclaims, grin wide and free, and filled with a light that should be impossible for a demon. Life pauses for a moment, as he realizes the implications of what he’d said. Aziraphale pauses, wine-deep eyes lifting briefly up at Crowley, his soft lips barely parted, hair curling like a halo around him, catching the weak London sunlight filtering through the bookstore window and catching it alight with holy fire. Crowley opens his mouth too, though it would hurt like Falling had, did, to apologize, to reign himself back in, like he’s done so many times before, like both of them had done so many times before. Six thousand years of love and some of it had to spill out eventually, like wine out of a cup when the pourer is rather drunk, though usually only after the two of them had consumed a fair amount of alcohol. The two beings had gotten rather good at tactfully dancing around it, or reasoning around it, talking it over to convince the other (themeslves) that it had been nothing, a drunken slip of the tongue.

“Alright,” Aziraphale says, softly, barely a hint of vibration on the air, spoken like anything louder would bring down the wrath of Heaven and Hell.

And once, it might have, Crowley reflects, before the Armageddon’t.

Crowley does not need to breathe, but at this moment, this impossible, incredible, ineffable moment, it is the only thing he can do, mouth hanging open.

In. Out.

Aziraphale is pointedly not looking at Crowley’s eyes, staring determinedly at his chin instead. His back, however, is as firm as can be, and he is settled in his soft armchair like a king, hands lightly lying on the ends of the armrests, his fingers gently braced against the chair. He is assured in this; a general whose armies are merely waiting for the clarion call. There is no movement, no hesitation or regret, and in between breaths Crowley realizes three things.

In. Out.

First, that Aziraphale has finally caught up to Crowley, and in fact, Crowley realizes with a pleasant jolt to his stomach, like reaching the top of a roller coaster, teetering in the space-time between heartbeats before plunging down, knowing that you will survive and yet - that Aziraphale might be going rather faster.

In. Out .

Second, that were Crowley to release the moment like a firefly from a jar, Aziraphale would let him. The days would keep on turning, the earth would keep spinning on its axis, and the Ineffable Plan would keep being, well, ineffable.

In. Out.

Third, if Crowley was to replay the scene-though with the roles reversed- from so many years ago, where, in an old black Bentley that had survived for a century without even a scratch, he had been given something wholly Aziraphale, been trusted with something that could drag them apart forever, wrapped in a reminder, a soft, desperate tartan grasping, a Pandora’s Box that would plead for its life as a fool opened its lid, but with a Hope, a Maybe In the Future Invitation, trailing like smoke from dry ice from a thermos of the most blessed holy water. Where he had offered the closest thing he could give in return, a lift , and if he was to play out his part in the give and take and “temptation accomplished” and “hereditary enemies” and curl Aziraphale’s fingers back around the hope, the possibility in his extended palm and say “I can’t,” there might not be another chance for the rest of their lives.

In. Out.

Aziraphale is still staring resolutely at Crowley’s chin, and Crowley realizes that he had been sitting there long enough that it would be quite nerve-wracking for a being that has just put the friendship of his best friend, his only friend, now that Aziraphale has been forcibly separated from the Host(Crowley’s fault, a small voice in the back of his head whispers, perhaps Aziraphale would never have been pushed away from Heaven like a sticky child peeled off a leg). Though Aziraphale is sitting as steadfastly as ever, gaze still proud, still unflinching, Crowley’s eyes track the bob of Aziraphale’s Adam's Apple- what a ridiculous name- as he swallows almost imperceptibly.

Crowley has Made a Choice. If he is to Fall Again (but he has been Falling in Love for so many years, centuries, millennia), it will not be a vague saunter downwards. It will be a purposeful march to arms, to serve in the armies of Their Side, the only side that matters anymore. The rallying cry of “to Aziraphale!” has been shouted and Crowley would rather be damned- again- than leave him to fight whatever battles he must alone.

Aziraphale did not seem to have reacted to Crowley as he smoothly, though not necessarily without great difficulty, removed his sunglasses and thus pulling away the emotional wall that is always in place, unless he is drunk or alone or both, or on very rare occasions otherwise. He leans in, moving like he is in a dream, and his somewhat less plush chair finds itself a great deal closer to Aziraphale than it had been previously, allowing his palm, miraculously free of the sweat that had beaded there in just a few moments ago, a few wingbeats of soaring, falling, twisting thoughts, to rest on Aziraphale’s cheek. His fingers, long and thin and as bony as a skeleton’s(Aziraphale had once called them slender, beaming fondly as he held the tips of Crowley’s fingers in his own. Although both of them had been drunk at the time, Aziraphale had been rather more so, and Crowley had done his best to convince his heart that if it was going to beat so fast it might as well not beat at all) were allowed to tenderly wrap one golden-white curl around themselves, and somehow, miraculously, Crowley was allowed to purposefully (slowly, hesitantly, seeking permission the whole while, yes, but purposefully) march his lips on a pilgrimage to Aziraphale’s own holy pair.

At some point, Aziraphale’s eyes, thick with some undefinable emotion, had transferred from Crowley’s chin- no, not his chin, his lips - to Crowley’s eyes, and Crowley is reminded yet again that he is a Principality, a Nation Unto Himself, and thus is capable of moving with all the undeniable deliberateness of its ruler as he moves to meet Crowley in a kiss as soft as a rumble of thunder in the distance, followed- or, do they happen in the same moment? who can tell- by an arc of wondrous electricity, searing and sweet, along the places where Crowley’s atoms meet Aziraphale’s atoms and it feels like nothing has since Crowley spread stardust through the heavens, so many, many years ago.

Like any lightning bolt worth it’s stuff, the kiss is too short to really be comprehended, leaving behind only ghostly after images and a brief whirl of panic in which one's brain must catch up to the fact that it is still in fact in existence, and has not been blotted out for daring to be the tallest thing, the most favourable target around. Crowley’s brain, despite being of an altogether different and more powerful type than usual humans’, went through the same process, thudding about in a trembling, wild panic that brought to mind- well, a mind that was not struggling to catch up with six thousand years worth of love being wrestled and tugged and squashed down and suddenly freed in an instantaneous rush- the origin of the word “panic,” back to the Greeks and the half-goat immortal Pan, who actually happened to be a particularly wild demon who, unsurprisingly, as he was a demon, hated Crowley.

Aziraphale’s eyes had fluttered mostly closed, and one of his hands had settled on Crowley’s hand-the one resting on Aziraphale’s cheek- with the grace and warm regality the hand’s owner had used when on his chair, the other tangling and lacing and tangling again in Crowley’s other hand, his somewhat shorter and infinitely warmer fingers possessive with Crowley’s. He is mine, said his hands, and nothing could take him away from me.

Aziraphale had once pulled Crowley along with him to one of the original performances of Romeo and Juliet. It was exactly the sort of thing any proper demon would scorn and scoff at, and so perhaps that was why something of it had lodged itself in Crowley’s heart. He’d seen it dozens of times throughout the centuries, and had it read to him once otherwise, in secret, stolen moments, hiding away from everyone, those who might have ever cared most of all, and memorized it as quickly as he could, lining his soul with it’s gentle sighs.

(He still absolutely could not stand the other tragedies of Shakespeare, and overall thought the funny ones much more deserving of attention.)

Whatever the cause of Crowley’s shaking voice, the Bard Himself would have been moved to tears with the tenderness with which Crowley and Aziraphale held each other, the vulnerability of voices that shook themselves into stability. Their faces were inches apart, if that, and each murmured word puffed against the others’ face, caressing them and warming them with love.

“If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:” Crowley’s voice was hardly more than a whisper, the bursting of his heart prolonging the s’s into an adoring hiss. “My lips, two blushing pilgrims stand, to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”

Aziraphale was smiling, soft lips curving up like a beam of sunlight- or moonlight, who can tell the difference after all? Crowley is in love- and if Crowley’s voice was a half-remembered dream brought to life, then Aziraphale’s was a loving caress, sure and impossibly soft, a fire in a hearth, tamed only because he wanted it to be, wanted to warm Crowley and bring him joy, a scratch of loving laughter because here was his demon, reciting him love poetry because who were the original star crossed lovers if not they?

“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this. For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,” here he moved his hand, and Crowley’s too, so that their palms hung in the air against each other, fingers entwined, “and palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”

Crowley’s throat was dry.

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?” he croaks, heart beating fiercely , and he is glad that he does not technically need his heart to survive because he does not think it’s working correctly.

“Ay, pilgrim,” says Aziraphale, softly earnest and softly, fondly amused in one. “Lips that they must use in prayer.”

“O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.” Crowley is not sure when, if, his words and Romeo’s became one, a needing keen, desperate want lying like a snake waiting for the moment to bite Orpheus’s bride and send her down to the Underworld, to Crowley, to keep Aziraphale there with him forever- “They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”

They kiss, again, and it is just as much of a sweet shock as when Adam first came, as much as a gift as the first rain, as much as a wonder and a fierce delight as the first of anything, and all of the faith Crowley has lost is exalting in the streets of his own personal path from quiet despair.

It is rather longer than their first kiss.

Aziraphale is an excellent kisser, and Crowley is more than happy to let him take the lead. One hand stays, snaring Crowley’s hand, and the other moves from Aziraphale’s cheek down to Crowley’s side, skimming over his jacket and coming to rest on Crowley’s waist, pulling him as close as possible without toppling Crowley out of his chair. Then Aziraphale nips Crowley’s lips and Crowley involuntarily- though not unwillingly- gasps his mouth open and for a single starstruck moment, a fraction of the time it takes to blink- not that either of them were blinking, eyes closed into the kiss- they stand on a cliff edge and then Crowley’s mouth is burning with something with just a tinge of holiness, a brilliant spark that Crowley couldn’t imagine parting with, even if he were to dissolve into a demonic puddle, which he feels he is dangerously close to. Not because of Aziraphale’s holy saliva, but because, despite all his bluster and posing and brag, Crowley is ultimately a very sensitive being and being kissed so thoroughly is quite undoing him. Aziraphale does not have a snake tongue, though Crowley could have been fooled. It is light and nimble in Crowley’s mouth, darting around for surely not enough time, an eternity that feels like an instant, and Crowley misses its presence terribly in the second or so it takes Aziraphale to move his lips- which Crowley realizes taste of ozone and vanilla chapstick, a touch of wine(neither of them are drunk, and Crowley is glad) and something intensely older, something inherently Aziraphale, from Crowley’s lips to the corner of skin next to them, open-mouthed like he’s delivering a benediction(and being blessed had never been so wonderful, not for an angel and certainly not for a demon) and Aziraphale is pressing passionately precise kisses down Crowley’s face, onto his neck. He pauses for a moment at the hollow of Crowley’s throat, and it is the opposite of Falling. Perhaps, the small part of Crowley not currently occupied with the angel, his angel, kissing him like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, muses, all that is needed to turn a demon into an angel is love, true and angelic and specific love directed full force onto them, and then that small part of his brain joins the rest of it, exalting wholly in the moment. And then joins in protesting, like a wave crashing against the immovable bone-rocks of the beach, when Aziraphale stops. His thoughts had been mostly compressed into emotion, to allow for him to process the sheer amount of information and sensations flowing through his nerves. So it took some time- not a lot, mind you, but any amount of time is a lot during possibly the most important moment of your six thousand year life- for Crowley to start properly working again, and so as Aziraphale rose his head back to the level of Crowley’s, all he could manage was a sound that was most assuredly not a whimper, nor a whine(at least if you were to ask Crowley about it later), but more of a “ngk.”

Aziraphale’s cheek was warm and pink under Crowley’s hand, his breath was a little heavy, and his eyes shone like stars pulled from the undeserving heavens.

“Aziraphale, I-“ Crowley can hardly speak. He doesn’t want this moment to ever end, can’t bear to imagine what it would be like to exist without Aziraphale’s hand in his, without Aziraphale’s lips on his.

“My darling, my dearest,” murmurs Aziraphale. “My demon.” He is fond, and not long ago(no, not long at all) Crowley would have resented being called something so soppily un-demonic as “darling” but that was then and this is now. Crowley would endure a “sweetie tums” if it was Aziraphale speaking. Maybe. Well, maybe not that particular pet name; even if Hell no longer wants anything to do with him he is still a demon and he does have some self respect and Aziraphale is pulling Crowley out of his chair and onto Aziraphale’s, except the chair was not of a size that they could sit next to each other on it(funny, Crowley could have sworn that it was bigger, not that he was complaining) and so Crowley ends up kissing Aziraphale like it’s the end of the world from the angel’s lap, both of his arms around Aziraphale’s neck, fingers running through almost white curls and one of Aziraphale’s hands pressing warmly on his waist, and the other on his back, pushing Crowley in even closer to Aziraphale. Everywhere that Crowley’s skin touches Aziraphale’s there are intense tingles, like his entire body had fallen asleep and was only just now waking up. Crowley has recovered enough of his usual swagger to put his snake tongue to good use, and Aziraphale is matching him. Finally, they are going the same speed, and the wait is worth it. They are caught in a bubble of time that is purely their own, existing solely in the arms of the other. Like two halves of the same soul, bright and lasting and burning with infinite starfire. “I love you,” says Crowley. “I love you, I love you, I love you-“

“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,” replies Aziraphale, pulling from his beloved books to express what he alone cannot find the words to describe. “I would love you if I never saw you again, and I would love you if I saw you every Tuesday.” Aziraphale is pressing kisses to Crowley in between quotations. “I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. I love you, Crowley,” and all the while, Crowley melted into Aziraphale. Demons are not used to really any amount of love, and though Crowley was more used to it than most, as he had been living with a literal being of love for several millennia, he was being inundated with the type of love he didn’t think he’d ever felt in such focus, not in Hell, not on Earth, and his memories of Heaven were foggy enough if he had felt it he couldn’t remember and so it didn’t count, and Crowley was nearing the point where he might just turn into a snake(which would be rather embarrassing) and so Crowley shut up the angel as effectively as he could by kissing him even harder than he had before and using all of his devilish wiles available, though admittedly he didn’t have much experience with this sort of thing.

Aziraphale shut up.

Which of course meant that was the moment that the bookshop doorbell rang at that moment, and Aziraphale, hardly breaking stride, snapped the sign on the door from begrudgingly open to happily closed and called towards the entrance from among where they draped around each other somewhere among the stacks,

“We’re closed!” Without waiting for confirmation that’s whoever it is has left(or rather, found themselves roughly shoved outside the door, in accordance with the sign), he turns back to Crowley, deepening the kiss, grabbing lapels and twisting fabric, pulling both of them to their feet with reckless and purposeful abandon. Every line of them scorched in a most delightful way, tingling and roaring and crashing within and around them like a tempest. Lost in each other, bits of their true forms begin to leak into the physical realm. Wings sprout from their backs with a contented, aching gasp. A nimbus of eternal, ephemeral energy lances around Aziraphale, crackling pleasantly where his skin meets Crowley’s, whose hands have slipped under Aziraphale’s creamy soft, oversized knit sweater. His fingers are rubbing little circles, little pieces of golden forever, into Aziraphale’s skin, like watching an hourglass and tipping it over with just enough sand left in the top that it never ran out. Scales, black as an oil slick, dance along Crowley’s spine, and form constellations on his shoulders, hiding beneath a leather jacket and silky smooth shirt. The whites of Crowley’s eyes disappear- their owner has better things to think of- and under his eyelids they shine with an inner light, winging their way to the height of joy. There are no words for this moment, but if Aziraphale were to try to voice what could only be described as ineffable, every word would ring with a hundred holy chords, a hundred hallelujahs, their nuances and trembling songs inaudible to the mortal ear, overlapping in whispers and yells and gentle screams in languages that haven’t existed in millennia, that won’t exist for millennia, in tongues that would break minds and addle thoughts into a twisting, writhing mass, the bastard children of Babel and things far older. The two of them hold infinity in the palms of their hands, and an hour would hold eternity, if they asked.

They had started somewhere in the twisting, purposefully labyrinthine shelves of the book shop, lazily filling out crosswords from local papers and sharing smiles over hot chocolate with too many marshmallows. Evidence of the rest of the day could be found in the books, knocked from the shelves and hastily miracled back into place and then knocked again, Aziraphale’s beloved jacket, thrown over a chair, black and white feathers scattered- one here, one there, three a few feet away, and finally in an angel and a demon snuggled together on a couch in the back room of a bookstore that ran odd hours and always smelled vaguely molding, stealing kisses and giggling at each other as late-night television quietly mumbled on an old box set, complaining that no one was paying it attention.

“I didn’t realize you remembered that much about Romeo and Juliet,” said the angel, gently playing with the edge of the demon’s sleeve, dark black- except when it caught the light just right, revealing a glowing grey- and all sharp edges and hard lines- until you touched it, when it became soft as a lover’s sigh, soft as a lamb in Eden.

“Well,” said the demon, clearing his throat. “I may have seen it a few times over the centuries.”

“Enough times to have it memorized?” asked Aziraphale, with the kind of voice that could not be used without a raised eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t like the tragedies.”

“I don’t!” Crowley said hastily. “I just-” His voice softened. “It reminded me of us.”

“You old softie,” teased Aziraphale, kissing Crowley’s cheek.

“Oi, I’m a demon , I’m not soft,” groused Crowley, smiling. “Just very, very in love.” And he kissed Aziraphale back, this time on the lips.

Lovers have been feeding each other sweetly sickening coos since the beginning of time. Aziraphale and Crowley had watched, silently, as Adam and Eve whispered sweet nothings to each other, and both had grimaced slightly and turned away as nothings had progressed into rather loud and vigorous somethings.

However, nothings were more than enough to lull one particular demon into sleep, safe in the arms of his beloved like he was nowhere else, and Aziraphale was more than happy to play sentinel.

After all, he was a Principality, a Nation Unto Himself, and a good ruler will always take care of his own.