Fic: Ivory and Gold
Title: Ivory and Gold
Author: new_evolution
Pairing: Patrick/Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Ryan Ross and Oscar Wilde unknowingly conspire to bring a musician and an angel into extraordinary circumstances.
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine, story didn't happen.
Note: If you have not read Pratchett & Gaiman's Good Omens, READ THAT FIRST. No, seriously, go right now to your local library or bookstore or the home of your geeky friend who owns a lot of cool books. I'll wait here. *twiddles thumbs*
Aziraphale figured this was a safe time for his shop to be open. Nobody shopped for used books this late in the evening; they were busy drinking and dancing and so forth. Or so he thought, until the bell on the door jingled.
He looked up from his ledger, thinking perhaps it was Crowley dropping in on him, and saw a short, flustered-looking young man in a hat. “Can I help you?” he intoned in a voice that he had specially developed to convey utmost unhelpfulness.
“Yes!” the would-be customer exclaimed. “I mean, that is, I hope so.” Good grief, he had an American accent. “I'm trying to find a gift for a friend, and all I could really think to get him was a book--he likes books--and I have to give it to him in...about an hour, and this was the only bookstore I could find that's open this late. So, you know, thanks. For being open.” He cringed a little.
“Yes, well.” He couldn't send the lad somewhere else; might as well try to assist him. “What kind of books does this friend of yours like?”
“Um, I don't know exactly. Literary stuff.” He gestured inarticulately. “Wilde! He likes Wilde.” And then, as if on a mission to ruin Aziraphale's evening, his eyes fell upon a shelf full of the very books that Aziraphale had been hoping not to sell. “Oh, hey, speak of the devil.”
“Those are, er--” Not for sale, he wanted to say, but it would have looked suspicious. The books were, after all, displayed on the main floor. “First editions,” he finished lamely.
“Really? Awesome. He'll love this.” The boy pulled out a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and asked how much it was. Aziraphale, in one last attempt at defense, quoted an exorbitant sum. To his horror, the young man produced it.
Then, as he finished loading the money into his ancient cash register, Aziraphale finally got a good look at the boy's face.
Ridiculously clear skin. Absurdly blue eyes. Preposterously gorgeous mouth. The kind of face, in short, that you didn't normally see outside of the Pearly Gates.
Aziraphale gaped, then quickly collected himself and wrapped up the book. The boy took it and left, thanking him profusely. As soon as he was out the door, Aziraphale grabbed the phone with shaking hands and dialed Crowley's number.
---
Patrick knew he was terrible at choosing gifts, and therefore he usually tried to avoid doing it. He wouldn't have had to buy this one, except that Panic's tour schedule and that of his own band had coincided to place them both in London on, as luck would have it, Ryan Ross's birthday. The party wasn't going to be anything huge, just a hotel-room gathering, but Patrick knew he'd feel like a tool if he showed up without a present. At least, he thought, there was a solid chance of Ryan liking this one.
But when Ryan unwrapped the book, he just sort of stared at it deflatedly.
“What's wrong?” Patrick asked. “I thought you loved that book.”
“Yeah, no, I do. Totally. It's just, I already own a copy. Which I've read, like, fifty times.”
“That one's a first edition, though.”
“I don't actually care about that sort of thing. The book is just...a vessel, sort of. The story's what matters.”
“Okay, so...if you don't want it, I'm just gonna take it back to the store.” Because it cost me an assload of money, you ungrateful wretch, Patrick carefully did not say.
“You do that. I wasn't really expecting you to get me anything, anyway. But thanks,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Patrick wished him a happy birthday, grabbed a beer from on top of the dresser where they were stacked, and went off into the corner to sulk.
Spencer found him later and apologized for Ryan's behavior. “He doesn't mean to be a dick,” he said. “He just gets like this when he's inebriated. A little too honest. You know how it is.”
“I do now,” Patrick muttered darkly.
Pete overheard and, in his usual fashion, decided to butt in. “The kid's hard to please. I wouldn't take it personally, if I were you. ”
“Easy for you to say,” Patrick grumbled. “I bet he loved your gift.”
“Well, yeah.” Pete shrugged. “But it's different with me. We've got a rapport.”
“All right then. You two have fun rapport-ing it up. I'm gonna take this book back while the store's still open.”
---
“Let me just make sure I've got this straight,” said Crowley, who had answered the phone on the fifth ring and blearily mumbled that this had better be good. “Some guy wanders into your bookshop, and you think he's from Above? Just because he looked a bit cherubic about the face?”
“I'm almost sure of it,” Aziraphale replied. “It takes one to know one, after all. Call it a sixth sense.”
“Supposing that he is, was this a chance meeting, or...could he have sought you out for some reason?”
“Hard to say, at this point. It's entirely possible that he's a spy. Maybe they thought I needed looking after.”
“Well, you have been fraternizing with the enemy.”
“They don't know that. Or, at any rate, they're not supposed to.”
“Maybe we should cancel our lunch date.”
“I don't think there's that much of a risk. It could have been a coincidence. Or maybe he's just in need of some company and can't relate to mortals.” Aziraphale glanced out the window. “I'm afraid I'll have to let you go now. Someone's coming. I'll see you tomorrow.”
It was none other than the suspected fellow angel. “Back so soon?”
“Returning this,” he said, waving the copy of Dorian Gray.
“Oh? Your friend didn't want it?”
“Something about vessels,” he replied morosely.
“Some people would consider this an opportunity to keep it for themselves,” Aziraphale remarked. “It's quite valuable.”
“I'm not much of a reader, though. Might as well bring it back here and let it go to someone who'll appreciate it more.”
“Not much of a reader? You're not illiterate, surely?”
“It's hard to explain. My brain just processes it the wrong way.”
“Ah, so you're...what d'you call it, dyslexic?”
“Nope.” He smiled ruefully. “I'm a songwriter.”
Aziraphale's brow furrowed. “I don't follow you.”
“I'm used to taking someone else's words and making songs out of them,” he explained. “So whenever I read something--poetry, prose, whatever--I automatically try to fit it into a melodic structure. Makes it hard to concentrate on the story.”
Aziraphale stared in wonderment. “You mean you could make Dorian Gray into...into an opera?”
“Something like that, I guess.”
“That would be beautiful,” Aziraphale murmured. He suddenly became aware that his voice had taken on an odd, dreamy tone. He shook his head to clear it and busied himself with the cash register. “But I couldn't possibly ask you to go through with such an undertaking on my account. You've probably got all sorts of other things to work on. Here's your refund for the book.”
The songwriter regarded him thoughtfully. “I might actually enjoy that,” he said. “It would definitely be a change of pace.”
He took the money. Their hands touched, briefly.
“Tell you what,” said Aziraphale. “I'll let you borrow the book, at no charge. And in return, you'll turn it into music.”
“Deal.” He grinned. “Oh, I should probably ask your name.”
Aziraphale gave him his name, his real one. He thought of it as sort of a test. The boy showed no visible signs of surprise, and introduced himself as Patrick.
He left with the book tucked under his arm, humming to himself. Aziraphale retired to the back room for a cup of tea and a good long think.
---
Pete discovered Patrick sitting on a hotel bed with his acoustic guitar in his lap, GarageBand open on his laptop, and several scraps of paper laid out in front of him.
“What're you working on?” Pete peered at the notes. “Those don't look like any of mine.”
“That's because they're Oscar Wilde's. It's...sort of a personal project.”
“Dude, I think you've reached a new height of pretension.”
“It's not actually my idea. The guy in the bookshop asked me to do it.” Now that he said it out loud, it sounded kind of strange.
“Oh, I get it.” Pete leered. “You know, you don't actually have to write songs for people to get them into the sack. If this guy has half a brain, he'll say yes if you just ask.”
“I'm not doing it to get him into the sack.” Come to think of it, Patrick wasn't quite sure why he had agreed to this. It was something about the look on Aziraphale's face when he'd asked if he could turn the book into an opera.
Those blue eyes had looked so hopeful. Childlike, almost. You didn't see an expression like that every day.
“I just want to, that's all,” Patrick said. “Now go bother someone else.”
“Fine, be that way. I hope Bookshop Guy gives you crabs.” In the process of getting up to leave, Pete managed to knock most of Patrick's notes onto the floor.
---
“I never heard of any angel named Patrick,” Crowley mused over lunch the next day. “Saint Patrick, yes, but he was....”
“Not very musical?” Aziraphale offered.
“I was going to say 'a bastard,' but that works too.”
“It's probably a pseudonym,” Aziraphale said. “Still, I thought that since I'd given him my real name, he'd trust me enough to give me his.”
“There's always the possibility that it is his real name, and you're imagining the whole thing.”
“My intuition never lies, my dear.”
Crowley shrugged. “If you say so. Want a lift back to the shop?”
“Certainly, thank you.” Aziraphale signaled for the check.
When the Bentley pulled up in front of the shop, Patrick was leaning against the door. “There you are,” he said. “You keep really weird hours.”
“I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long. Patrick, I'd like you to meet a very old friend of mine--”
Crowley was doubled over with laughter. “Oh, Christ,” he wheezed. “He didn't tell me you were a bloody pop star.”
Patrick seemed to be blushing. Aziraphale looked from one to the other and wondered if he was missing something.
“Shouldn't surprise me, really; he probably didn't know,” Crowley continued, once he'd calmed down a bit. “He doesn't listen to anything more recent than Gershwin, and I'm quite sure he doesn't own a television.” He held out a hand. “Hi, I'm Crowley. We go way back.”
Patrick shook his hand, still looking thoroughly embarrassed. “I wouldn't call myself a pop star, really,” he said. “I just make music.”
“Right, right,” Crowley said amiably. “Well, I'd better be going. Nice meeting you, Patrick. See you around, angel. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”
Aziraphale herded Patrick into the shop before he could ask why Crowley had just called him “Angel.” Best not to take chances.
---
“This is sort of a rough draft,” Patrick said. “Given more time, I could probably do something better with it, but--well, I'll just let you hear it and tell me what you think.” He pressed Play.
What Patrick wanted, more than anything, was to go off somewhere and let Aziraphale listen by himself. There was something uncomfortable about standing there watching someone else listen to his music. Patrick hated being placed under scrutiny.
Then again, Aziraphale didn't seem to be doing a whole lot of scrutinizing. He was leaning against the counter with his eyes closed, letting the music wash over him.
“This is stunning,” he said. “It's incredible. It's--how did you manage to get an orchestra on such short notice?”
“What? Oh, no, that's not a real orchestra. I made this on my computer.”
“Computers can do things like this now? Perhaps I should get a new one. Did it do the singing, too?”
“No, the singing is mine.”
“You can really sing like that?” Aziraphale opened his eyes and looked at him, hard. Patrick looked at his shoes.
He looked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “You've got a lovely voice,” Aziraphale said softly.
He was standing so close. If Patrick leaned forward, just a few inches....
But Aziraphale was stepping back. “I'm going to show you something,” he said. “I think--I think it's time we laid all our cards on the table.” And a pair of enormous, white-feathered wings unfurled from his shoulders.
Patrick's mouth fell open. He closed it. Then he opened it again, took a deep breath, and said, “I have to go now.”
He fled from the shop, leaving Aziraphale all alone with the music.
---
“I told you,” Crowley said. “I told you not to jump to conclusions. But did you listen?” He poured more gin into Aziraphale's glass. “Here, you need this more than I do.”
“I don't understand,” Aziraphale moaned. “I was so sure.”
“And just why was that, anyway? Seems to me you had very little evidence.”
“It was just--just this feeling. When he looked at me, and especially when we touched. Like an electrical current running down my spine.”
Crowley stared incredulously at him. Then he snorted. “That's not a sixth sense, you celestial twit. That's attraction. Haven't you learned anything?”
Aziraphale sputtered. “But that's--I can't--”
“About bloody time, too.”
“Will you please start making sense?”
Crowley spoke very slowly. “I will make this as simple as I can. This mortal, this Patrick? You are attracted to him. You think he is pretty. You want to shag him.”
Aziraphale's expression shifted from baffled to affronted. “I don't shag.”
“Hold hands under the sodding moonlight, then, or whatever angels do.”
“But this isn't supposed to happen!”
“On the contrary. You've been living among humans for six thousand years. It was bound to happen sometime.”
“To you, maybe. Not to me.” Aziraphale stared mournfully into his drink.
“There's a first time for everything. Just find the guy, satisfy whatever urges you may have, and get on with your life. It doesn't have to be that difficult.”
“Quite aside from anything else, I have no idea where he is. And I--” He swallowed. “I don't know if he'll ever come back to see me again.”
---
Pete crept up behind Patrick and pulled the headphones off his ears. Patrick flinched, turned around, and glared.
Pete grinned at him. “How'd it go with Bookshop Guy?”
“I really, really don't want to talk about it.”
“Uh-oh. Did he insult your masterpiece?”
“No. He loved it.”
“So what's the problem?”
Patrick shook his head. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
“I don't know, man, I've seen some pretty weird shit in my day.”
Patrick chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “Have you ever seen an angel?”
“Huh? Oh man, did he turn out to be some kind of religious freak? Did he try to, like, convert you?”
“That's not what I--”
“Did he try to baptize you? I bet he did. I bet he forced your head underwater and commended your soul to the Almighty.”
“Will you shut up for two seconds? No. That's not what happened.”
“What was it then? Come on, I'm dying here.”
“He had wings, Pete. One minute there wasn't so much as a bulge in the back of his shirt, and the next--out of nowhere, huge fucking wings.”
Pete did not even question the veracity of this statement. Go figure. “So what did you do?”
“I did what any sane person would do. I ran.”
“What?! No way, Patrick, that's lame.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do? Ask if I could see his halo?”
“No, seriously, the guy trusts you enough to show you his wings, and you just run out on him?” Pete shook his head. “Not cool. So not cool.”
Patrick sighed. “Yeah, I kinda feel bad about it, in retrospect.”
“You should.”
“Should I go back there and talk to him?”
“Damn right. If he even wants to talk to you now, after you were such a dick.”
“I was trying not to think about that. Thank you very much.”
Pete smiled broadly. “Hey, no problem. It's what I do.”
---
Aziraphale barely noticed the tapping sound at first. He thought, vaguely, that it was starting to rain, or that it was just the furnace making noises again. But then it got a bit louder, and he looked up to see Patrick timidly rapping on the windowpane with just one knuckle.
He got up and unlocked the door. Patrick came in and stood there awkwardly, shuffling his feet and biting his lower lip. It was rather becoming, Aziraphale thought, in a shrinking-violet sort of way.
“Um,” said Patrick. “I think I owe you an apology.”
Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief. “No, no, dear boy, think nothing of it. I'm afraid I made some rather premature assumptions, and if I'd been more sensible, I'd have realized that, ahem, revealing myself was bound to frighten you.”
Patrick frowned. “Assumptions?”
“I'd thought that you and I were...from the same stock, if you take my meaning.”
“You thought I was an angel?”
“Yes, well, surely you've realized that you look a bit--”
“If you say 'cherubic,' I'm going to walk out of here and never come back.” Clearly, it was a sore point. But he sounded as if he was at least half joking.
“Other than that, it was just intuition. Or I thought it was, anyway. Crowley said I mistook attraction for recognition.”
“Oh.” Patrick didn't seem to know what to do with that. “Do you think he was right?”
“How would I know? It's never happened to me before.” Aziraphale gave a weak little laugh.
“With guys, or...?”
“With anyone.”
“Huh.” Patrick considered this. “And you've been on earth for how long?”
“Since...Genesis, you might say.”
Patrick laughed shakily. “Somehow I suspect you're not talking about video game consoles.”
“I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.”
“Never mind.” There was an awkward pause. “Well, supposing your friend was right....”
“Yes?”
Patrick stepped closer. When he spoke again, his voice was low, and a little rough. “I'd be lying if I said it wasn't mutual.”
And then his hand was resting lightly on Aziraphale's neck, the tip of his thumb brushing that sensitive spot behind his ear, and Aziraphale was leaning forward, and then, and then...
Patrick's mouth was incredibly soft and warm. Aziraphale was so taken with it that for a moment he forgot to close his eyes, or to do anything with his hands.
By the time he remembered, Patrick was pulling back to look at him. “Was that okay?”
“Yes. No. Er...perhaps we should go someplace a bit more private.”
Patrick took Aziraphale's hand. “Lead the way.”
---
The back room was cramped, dusty, and dim. Patrick wondered if this was really the right place for this encounter--his brain did, anyway. His cock didn't seem to mind much.
Aziraphale was making arcane gestures in the direction of the table. “There. It should hold our weight now. Might not be especially comfortable, but it's the best I can do at the moment.”
“Okay, um, how do you want to do this?”
“Lying down, I suppose. Isn't that usually how it's done?” The angel looked a little lost.
“Hey.” Patrick placed a hand on his shoulder. “We can do things however you want, okay? However you feel comfortable. If you want to go slowly, we can. If there's anything you want me to do, just ask. If, at any time, you want me to stop, I will. You call the shots here.”
“All right.” Aziraphale seemed to relax a bit. “Can we sit down?” They did. “And...can I kiss you again?”
Patrick smiled. “Please do.”
And, for the moment, that was all: the slow movement of their mouths against each other, the gentle intertwining of tongues. Patrick wrapped his arms around Aziraphale's waist, and the angel relaxed against him, his upright bearing finally sinking into languor.
Patrick leaned back, easing them both into a horizontal position. His hat fell off and landed somewhere on the floor; he couldn't bring himself to care. He had other things on his mind, like the weight of the angel's hips against his. He arched upward, and Aziraphale gasped. Patrick asked him if it was all right.
“Yes. Yes, do that again.”
They rubbed against each other until Aziraphale was whimpering, begging for something more, anything, he didn't know, he didn't care.
They rearranged themselves so that Aziraphale was lying down and Patrick was straddling his legs. Patrick unfastened the angel's pants, pulled his cock free, and took it into his mouth.
This, Patrick thought, was the fun part. Aziraphale was coming almost completely undone beneath him. His hands tangled in Patrick's hair, then moved to grip his shoulders, then scrabbled helplessly at the wooden surface of the table. His desperate writhing and frantic noises were too much; Patrick had to reach down and jerk himself off while his lips and tongue worked at the angel's cock.
As Aziraphale got closer to orgasm, his whines grew louder and higher, as if he were approaching something that scared him. It probably did, Patrick thought, especially if it had never happened to him before--and that thought was enough to send him over the edge, just as Aziraphale shuddered violently and came in Patrick's mouth.
Patrick sat up and looked him over. The angel was panting, his chest heaving, and a faint flush covered his cheeks and neck. He'd been staring dazedly at the ceiling, but now his eyes fell upon Patrick's crotch. “Bit of a mess there, eh? Here, let me--” and suddenly the stickiness disappeared from Patrick's hand, clothes, and cock.
Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Well, that makes things easier, anyway.” He zipped himself up and crawled over to lie beside Aziraphale.
“Yes, these abilities of mine do come in handy.” The angel put an arm around Patrick, who felt his eyelids drooping and his limbs growing heavier.
They stayed like that for a while, Patrick gradually falling asleep and Aziraphale...not, apparently, because eventually he stood up. Patrick opened one eye and mumbled something; the angel whispered “Shhh” and leaned over to plant a kiss on his forehead before turning out the light and heading for the door.
Just before Patrick drifted off, he felt a blanket drop onto him from out of nowhere.
---
When Crowley dropped in the next afternoon, he found Aziraphale prancing around with a feather duster.
“Angel? You haven't dusted this place in decades. What's going on?”
“Oh, nothing,” Aziraphale replied airily. “I just wanted the shop to look nice, that's all.”
“Well, someone's in a good mood today. I take it that boy of yours came back after all?”
“He just left this morning. And by the way, Crowley, you were right about everything, and may lightning strike me down if I ever question your judgement again.” Aziraphale hummed tunelessly to himself as he dusted another section of shelves.
Crowley, for whatever reason, did not seem particularly happy about this. Aziraphale barreled on, undeterred. “Honestly, if I'd known it would be like that, I would have done it years ago.”
Crowley took the bait. “Done what?”
“A gentleman,” Aziraphale primly declared, “never kisses and tells.”
“Oh, come on.”
Aziraphale glanced back and forth as though looking for potential eavesdroppers (mostly for show, considering his customarily deserted shop) and confided, “He did marvelous things with his tongue.”
Crowley didn't have anything to say to that. Aziraphale let the silence stretch on as his mind wandered into the kind of daydreams he'd been having all day prior to Crowley's arrival.
They'd rent a cozy little flat somewhere, he decided. He'd never felt the need for one before, but obviously a human would require the sort of creature comforts that the shop couldn't provide. It would be fun, he thought, picking out furniture and things. Maybe he'd learn to cook. Patrick could teach him about modern music, and he could teach Patrick about Handel and Brahms and Tchaikovsky. And Patrick would make songs out of all his favorite books, and they'd live together until--
“Angel!”
Aziraphale realized that Crowley had been trying to get his attention. “Oh. Er, sorry. What was that?”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight. There's a new sushi place that just opened up--”
“Love to, but I can't. Other plans. Terribly sorry.”
Crowley's jaw tightened visibly. “Fine.”
“Crowley? Is something wrong?”
The demon sighed. “You've never had other plans before.”
“Look, if it upsets you that much, we can do it tomorrow night.”
“Damn it, Aziraphale, this isn't about dinner.”
“Isn't it? Do enlighten me, then, because clearly this isn't the conversation I thought it was.”
“It's just--I spend years waiting for you to, you know, make the effort, and when you finally do, it's for some bloody American pop star.”
“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale snapped. “If I recall correctly, you're the one who told me to do it in the first place.”
“I told you to sleep with him, get it out of your system, and move on!” Crowley was almost shouting now. “And now you're all besotted over him, and you've known him for what, a week? Less? Whereas I, the one you've known for six thousand fucking years, am being casually thrown aside without so much as a--”
“Crowley, no one's throwing anyone aside,” Aziraphale pleaded. “If you'd just calm down--”
“No. Forget it, I'm leaving. Just--think about it, all right?”
“Think about...?”
“We saved the world together.” Crowley's voice was now deadly quiet. “I'll be damned if that doesn't count for something.” And he turned and left.
Then he turned around again and stuck his head in through the door. “And I don't care what he did with his tongue, I can do it ten times better!”
---
Patrick had been gloating in Pete's direction for most of the day. The underlying, yet completely unsubtle theme was: I Deflowered a Six-Thousand-Year-Old Virgin, and You Did Not.
Pete, understandably, was becoming annoyed.
“So what, you slept with an angel. I could sleep with an entire fucking angelic choir if I wanted to.”
“Bullshit. The closest you'd ever get would be, like, half a boy band.”
Pete changed tactics. “I thought angels didn't even have genitalia.”
“Life does not imitate Kevin Smith, Pete.”
“Yeah, your angel probably wishes he was as sexy as Alan Rickman.”
“Except for the part where he has real wings instead of cheesy special effects.”
“Well, enjoy it while you can, because we're flying home tomorrow morning.”
“What? You asshole--”
“Hey, hey, don't shoot the messenger. We were actually supposed to leave a few days ago, but I pulled some strings to get our stay here extended.”
“Why'd you do that?”
Pete shuffled around awkwardly. “Because, well, it looked like you had something going with that guy, and...you know.”
“No, I don't know. Use words, Pete.”
Pete looked up, his face open and guileless. “I wanted you to be happy.”
---
Aziraphale was still pacing around the shop, but not in the flighty way he'd been before. Now his mind was jumping through the ages, stopping here and there to examine an old memory through a new lens.
It went back to the Crusades, when Aziraphale had been close to banging his head against a wall in frustration over the idiocies that got carried out in Heaven's name, and Crowley had gone off to the Holy Land and returned with the news that almost every Christian native to the region had converted to Islam out of spite, and they'd both had a good laugh.
Then it zoomed forward to the early 1980s, when Aziraphale had been fretting over the AIDS epidemic, and Crowley had helped distribute prophylactics in no fewer than eighteen secondary schools. It counted as encouraging underage fornication, he'd said, so really it was all right.
Backward again, to the seventeenth century. Crowley, much to Aziraphale's chagrin, had climbed aboard the Mayflower and sailed away. He'd come back in short order, saying that America was a desolate wasteland and the Puritans were no fun whatsoever, and did Aziraphale fancy a drink?
Forward again, to 1945. The Allies had just won the war, only Aziraphale had spent a lot of time in Central Europe, and he knew that nobody had won. He'd seen everything, the yellow stars and the pink triangles, the tattooed numbers, the showers and the ovens. He'd arranged what small miracles he could--a hole in a fence here, a suddenly merciful guard there--but it wasn't enough. He'd still seen far more death than was good for him. And when he'd arrived back in London, bone-tired and sick with rage and looking for someone to blame--well, he'd known that it had been humanity's fault all the way, but Hell's earthly representative had made a convenient scapegoat.
And Crowley had just...taken it. He'd stood there and let Aziraphale shout at him, hadn't said a word as the blame for the entire genocide was heaped on his shoulders. And when Aziraphale had run out of steam, when his voice had cracked and his knees had gone weak, Crowley had caught him before he'd collapsed, and held him while he'd sobbed for hours.
When Aziraphale's mind finally returned to the present, he knew what he had to do.
He composed a lengthy and tragic speech, telling Patrick that, while he cared about him deeply, Aziraphale was immortal, and it would break his heart to spend a lifetime with Patrick only to watch him wither and die, so perhaps it was best if they parted ways now.
He was just putting the finishing touches on it when the boy himself walked in.
“I have to go back to the States tomorrow,” he said. “And, um. I've never been good with long-distance relationships.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale said, nonplussed. “So...that's it, then?”
“I guess so.” Patrick smiled wistfully. “For what it's worth, I had a really good time, and I'll come visit you if I'm ever back in town.”
“All right.” Aziraphale couldn't think of anything else to say. “Well...goodbye.”
“Bye.”
Not that Aziraphale minded, but it was all so very anticlimactic.
---
Pete walked into the hotel room that night as Patrick was packing his suitcase.
“Hey.” He flopped onto one of the beds. “Did you say goodbye to your angel?”
“Yeah.” Patrick did not elaborate, but continued folding shirts.
“You...don't seem too bothered about that.”
Patrick shrugged. “It had to happen eventually. Even if I'd been able to stick around, it wouldn't have lasted.”
“Because of the whole interspecies thing?”
“Partly.” He finished packing and went to sit on the bed next to Pete. “But also because he just...wasn't my type.”
“You have a type?”
“Oh, you know.” Patrick grinned. “Short, dark, and mouthy.”
Pete, for once, was speechless. All the better to kiss him, which Patrick did. Thoroughly.
---
Crowley came by the next morning in his usual unannounced fashion. “So, where's your songbird?”
“Winging his way across the Atlantic as we speak. Saves me the trouble of breaking it off with him, I suppose.”
“Were you planning to?”
“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale came out from behind the counter so that he could stand nearer. “I...thought about what you said. Quite a lot, in fact.”
Crowley's face was inscrutable behind his sunglasses. “Oh.”
“'Oh'? Is that all you've got to say?”
“Well, yes. The rest is really up to you.”
Aziraphale smiled. “In that case....” He stepped closer, took off the demon's sunglasses, and kissed him. Crowley responded with an enthusiastic moan, shoved the angel up against a bookshelf, and went for his neck with lips and teeth.
“Crowley--ouch, be gentle.”
“Shan't,” the demon snarled. “I've waited long enough.” He started unbuttoning Aziraphale's shirt, muttered, “Bugger this for a lark,” and the next moment, the shirt was on the floor.
Aziraphale protested, “Here? Really?” Crowley waved forcefully in the direction of the windows, and curtains closed over them that hadn't been there before. “Oh, all right. Carry on.”
Crowley grinned, and then the angel's trousers were gone too, as were all of Crowley's own clothes. Aziraphale shivered slightly; the demon looked phenomenal naked. His hands wandered over Aziraphale's body, from his shoulders to his chest, down his sides, moving around to squeeze his buttocks.
Crowley dropped to his knees and looked up with a devious glint in his eye. “I'd hold onto something, if I were you.”
Aziraphale gasped. He'd been right about the tongue.
---
Patrick had refused Pete's offer to join the Mile High Club on practical grounds. Those airplane bathrooms were barely large enough for one person to jack off in, and besides, there was always that paranoid fear that someone else was waiting to get in there. It tended to put a damper on things.
He was tempted, though. It was a very long flight, and Pete was sitting awfully close, and he kept whispering filthy things into Patrick's ear.
Patrick's heart began racing the moment they landed. Soon, he thought.
The airport was crowded, and his suitcase was heavy, and Chicago was full of wind and rain.
But Pete was holding his hand, and home was only a cab ride away.
---
On the other side of the ocean, Aziraphale rested his head on his demon's shoulder and breathed in the mingling smells of sex and old paper.
Final Notes:
1. The part about Patrick not reading books because his brain makes songs out of them? I didn't make that up.
2. The part about Arab Christians converting to Islam after the Crusades? I didn't make that up either.
3. The original version of this story that gestated in my head for a few years prior to this writing? It included a very cracked-out sex scene, and you're glad I didn't write it. No, really, you are.
Author: new_evolution
Pairing: Patrick/Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Ryan Ross and Oscar Wilde unknowingly conspire to bring a musician and an angel into extraordinary circumstances.
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine, story didn't happen.
Note: If you have not read Pratchett & Gaiman's Good Omens, READ THAT FIRST. No, seriously, go right now to your local library or bookstore or the home of your geeky friend who owns a lot of cool books. I'll wait here. *twiddles thumbs*
Aziraphale figured this was a safe time for his shop to be open. Nobody shopped for used books this late in the evening; they were busy drinking and dancing and so forth. Or so he thought, until the bell on the door jingled.
He looked up from his ledger, thinking perhaps it was Crowley dropping in on him, and saw a short, flustered-looking young man in a hat. “Can I help you?” he intoned in a voice that he had specially developed to convey utmost unhelpfulness.
“Yes!” the would-be customer exclaimed. “I mean, that is, I hope so.” Good grief, he had an American accent. “I'm trying to find a gift for a friend, and all I could really think to get him was a book--he likes books--and I have to give it to him in...about an hour, and this was the only bookstore I could find that's open this late. So, you know, thanks. For being open.” He cringed a little.
“Yes, well.” He couldn't send the lad somewhere else; might as well try to assist him. “What kind of books does this friend of yours like?”
“Um, I don't know exactly. Literary stuff.” He gestured inarticulately. “Wilde! He likes Wilde.” And then, as if on a mission to ruin Aziraphale's evening, his eyes fell upon a shelf full of the very books that Aziraphale had been hoping not to sell. “Oh, hey, speak of the devil.”
“Those are, er--” Not for sale, he wanted to say, but it would have looked suspicious. The books were, after all, displayed on the main floor. “First editions,” he finished lamely.
“Really? Awesome. He'll love this.” The boy pulled out a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray and asked how much it was. Aziraphale, in one last attempt at defense, quoted an exorbitant sum. To his horror, the young man produced it.
Then, as he finished loading the money into his ancient cash register, Aziraphale finally got a good look at the boy's face.
Ridiculously clear skin. Absurdly blue eyes. Preposterously gorgeous mouth. The kind of face, in short, that you didn't normally see outside of the Pearly Gates.
Aziraphale gaped, then quickly collected himself and wrapped up the book. The boy took it and left, thanking him profusely. As soon as he was out the door, Aziraphale grabbed the phone with shaking hands and dialed Crowley's number.
---
Patrick knew he was terrible at choosing gifts, and therefore he usually tried to avoid doing it. He wouldn't have had to buy this one, except that Panic's tour schedule and that of his own band had coincided to place them both in London on, as luck would have it, Ryan Ross's birthday. The party wasn't going to be anything huge, just a hotel-room gathering, but Patrick knew he'd feel like a tool if he showed up without a present. At least, he thought, there was a solid chance of Ryan liking this one.
But when Ryan unwrapped the book, he just sort of stared at it deflatedly.
“What's wrong?” Patrick asked. “I thought you loved that book.”
“Yeah, no, I do. Totally. It's just, I already own a copy. Which I've read, like, fifty times.”
“That one's a first edition, though.”
“I don't actually care about that sort of thing. The book is just...a vessel, sort of. The story's what matters.”
“Okay, so...if you don't want it, I'm just gonna take it back to the store.” Because it cost me an assload of money, you ungrateful wretch, Patrick carefully did not say.
“You do that. I wasn't really expecting you to get me anything, anyway. But thanks,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Patrick wished him a happy birthday, grabbed a beer from on top of the dresser where they were stacked, and went off into the corner to sulk.
Spencer found him later and apologized for Ryan's behavior. “He doesn't mean to be a dick,” he said. “He just gets like this when he's inebriated. A little too honest. You know how it is.”
“I do now,” Patrick muttered darkly.
Pete overheard and, in his usual fashion, decided to butt in. “The kid's hard to please. I wouldn't take it personally, if I were you. ”
“Easy for you to say,” Patrick grumbled. “I bet he loved your gift.”
“Well, yeah.” Pete shrugged. “But it's different with me. We've got a rapport.”
“All right then. You two have fun rapport-ing it up. I'm gonna take this book back while the store's still open.”
---
“Let me just make sure I've got this straight,” said Crowley, who had answered the phone on the fifth ring and blearily mumbled that this had better be good. “Some guy wanders into your bookshop, and you think he's from Above? Just because he looked a bit cherubic about the face?”
“I'm almost sure of it,” Aziraphale replied. “It takes one to know one, after all. Call it a sixth sense.”
“Supposing that he is, was this a chance meeting, or...could he have sought you out for some reason?”
“Hard to say, at this point. It's entirely possible that he's a spy. Maybe they thought I needed looking after.”
“Well, you have been fraternizing with the enemy.”
“They don't know that. Or, at any rate, they're not supposed to.”
“Maybe we should cancel our lunch date.”
“I don't think there's that much of a risk. It could have been a coincidence. Or maybe he's just in need of some company and can't relate to mortals.” Aziraphale glanced out the window. “I'm afraid I'll have to let you go now. Someone's coming. I'll see you tomorrow.”
It was none other than the suspected fellow angel. “Back so soon?”
“Returning this,” he said, waving the copy of Dorian Gray.
“Oh? Your friend didn't want it?”
“Something about vessels,” he replied morosely.
“Some people would consider this an opportunity to keep it for themselves,” Aziraphale remarked. “It's quite valuable.”
“I'm not much of a reader, though. Might as well bring it back here and let it go to someone who'll appreciate it more.”
“Not much of a reader? You're not illiterate, surely?”
“It's hard to explain. My brain just processes it the wrong way.”
“Ah, so you're...what d'you call it, dyslexic?”
“Nope.” He smiled ruefully. “I'm a songwriter.”
Aziraphale's brow furrowed. “I don't follow you.”
“I'm used to taking someone else's words and making songs out of them,” he explained. “So whenever I read something--poetry, prose, whatever--I automatically try to fit it into a melodic structure. Makes it hard to concentrate on the story.”
Aziraphale stared in wonderment. “You mean you could make Dorian Gray into...into an opera?”
“Something like that, I guess.”
“That would be beautiful,” Aziraphale murmured. He suddenly became aware that his voice had taken on an odd, dreamy tone. He shook his head to clear it and busied himself with the cash register. “But I couldn't possibly ask you to go through with such an undertaking on my account. You've probably got all sorts of other things to work on. Here's your refund for the book.”
The songwriter regarded him thoughtfully. “I might actually enjoy that,” he said. “It would definitely be a change of pace.”
He took the money. Their hands touched, briefly.
“Tell you what,” said Aziraphale. “I'll let you borrow the book, at no charge. And in return, you'll turn it into music.”
“Deal.” He grinned. “Oh, I should probably ask your name.”
Aziraphale gave him his name, his real one. He thought of it as sort of a test. The boy showed no visible signs of surprise, and introduced himself as Patrick.
He left with the book tucked under his arm, humming to himself. Aziraphale retired to the back room for a cup of tea and a good long think.
---
Pete discovered Patrick sitting on a hotel bed with his acoustic guitar in his lap, GarageBand open on his laptop, and several scraps of paper laid out in front of him.
“What're you working on?” Pete peered at the notes. “Those don't look like any of mine.”
“That's because they're Oscar Wilde's. It's...sort of a personal project.”
“Dude, I think you've reached a new height of pretension.”
“It's not actually my idea. The guy in the bookshop asked me to do it.” Now that he said it out loud, it sounded kind of strange.
“Oh, I get it.” Pete leered. “You know, you don't actually have to write songs for people to get them into the sack. If this guy has half a brain, he'll say yes if you just ask.”
“I'm not doing it to get him into the sack.” Come to think of it, Patrick wasn't quite sure why he had agreed to this. It was something about the look on Aziraphale's face when he'd asked if he could turn the book into an opera.
Those blue eyes had looked so hopeful. Childlike, almost. You didn't see an expression like that every day.
“I just want to, that's all,” Patrick said. “Now go bother someone else.”
“Fine, be that way. I hope Bookshop Guy gives you crabs.” In the process of getting up to leave, Pete managed to knock most of Patrick's notes onto the floor.
---
“I never heard of any angel named Patrick,” Crowley mused over lunch the next day. “Saint Patrick, yes, but he was....”
“Not very musical?” Aziraphale offered.
“I was going to say 'a bastard,' but that works too.”
“It's probably a pseudonym,” Aziraphale said. “Still, I thought that since I'd given him my real name, he'd trust me enough to give me his.”
“There's always the possibility that it is his real name, and you're imagining the whole thing.”
“My intuition never lies, my dear.”
Crowley shrugged. “If you say so. Want a lift back to the shop?”
“Certainly, thank you.” Aziraphale signaled for the check.
When the Bentley pulled up in front of the shop, Patrick was leaning against the door. “There you are,” he said. “You keep really weird hours.”
“I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long. Patrick, I'd like you to meet a very old friend of mine--”
Crowley was doubled over with laughter. “Oh, Christ,” he wheezed. “He didn't tell me you were a bloody pop star.”
Patrick seemed to be blushing. Aziraphale looked from one to the other and wondered if he was missing something.
“Shouldn't surprise me, really; he probably didn't know,” Crowley continued, once he'd calmed down a bit. “He doesn't listen to anything more recent than Gershwin, and I'm quite sure he doesn't own a television.” He held out a hand. “Hi, I'm Crowley. We go way back.”
Patrick shook his hand, still looking thoroughly embarrassed. “I wouldn't call myself a pop star, really,” he said. “I just make music.”
“Right, right,” Crowley said amiably. “Well, I'd better be going. Nice meeting you, Patrick. See you around, angel. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”
Aziraphale herded Patrick into the shop before he could ask why Crowley had just called him “Angel.” Best not to take chances.
---
“This is sort of a rough draft,” Patrick said. “Given more time, I could probably do something better with it, but--well, I'll just let you hear it and tell me what you think.” He pressed Play.
What Patrick wanted, more than anything, was to go off somewhere and let Aziraphale listen by himself. There was something uncomfortable about standing there watching someone else listen to his music. Patrick hated being placed under scrutiny.
Then again, Aziraphale didn't seem to be doing a whole lot of scrutinizing. He was leaning against the counter with his eyes closed, letting the music wash over him.
“This is stunning,” he said. “It's incredible. It's--how did you manage to get an orchestra on such short notice?”
“What? Oh, no, that's not a real orchestra. I made this on my computer.”
“Computers can do things like this now? Perhaps I should get a new one. Did it do the singing, too?”
“No, the singing is mine.”
“You can really sing like that?” Aziraphale opened his eyes and looked at him, hard. Patrick looked at his shoes.
He looked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “You've got a lovely voice,” Aziraphale said softly.
He was standing so close. If Patrick leaned forward, just a few inches....
But Aziraphale was stepping back. “I'm going to show you something,” he said. “I think--I think it's time we laid all our cards on the table.” And a pair of enormous, white-feathered wings unfurled from his shoulders.
Patrick's mouth fell open. He closed it. Then he opened it again, took a deep breath, and said, “I have to go now.”
He fled from the shop, leaving Aziraphale all alone with the music.
---
“I told you,” Crowley said. “I told you not to jump to conclusions. But did you listen?” He poured more gin into Aziraphale's glass. “Here, you need this more than I do.”
“I don't understand,” Aziraphale moaned. “I was so sure.”
“And just why was that, anyway? Seems to me you had very little evidence.”
“It was just--just this feeling. When he looked at me, and especially when we touched. Like an electrical current running down my spine.”
Crowley stared incredulously at him. Then he snorted. “That's not a sixth sense, you celestial twit. That's attraction. Haven't you learned anything?”
Aziraphale sputtered. “But that's--I can't--”
“About bloody time, too.”
“Will you please start making sense?”
Crowley spoke very slowly. “I will make this as simple as I can. This mortal, this Patrick? You are attracted to him. You think he is pretty. You want to shag him.”
Aziraphale's expression shifted from baffled to affronted. “I don't shag.”
“Hold hands under the sodding moonlight, then, or whatever angels do.”
“But this isn't supposed to happen!”
“On the contrary. You've been living among humans for six thousand years. It was bound to happen sometime.”
“To you, maybe. Not to me.” Aziraphale stared mournfully into his drink.
“There's a first time for everything. Just find the guy, satisfy whatever urges you may have, and get on with your life. It doesn't have to be that difficult.”
“Quite aside from anything else, I have no idea where he is. And I--” He swallowed. “I don't know if he'll ever come back to see me again.”
---
Pete crept up behind Patrick and pulled the headphones off his ears. Patrick flinched, turned around, and glared.
Pete grinned at him. “How'd it go with Bookshop Guy?”
“I really, really don't want to talk about it.”
“Uh-oh. Did he insult your masterpiece?”
“No. He loved it.”
“So what's the problem?”
Patrick shook his head. “You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
“I don't know, man, I've seen some pretty weird shit in my day.”
Patrick chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “Have you ever seen an angel?”
“Huh? Oh man, did he turn out to be some kind of religious freak? Did he try to, like, convert you?”
“That's not what I--”
“Did he try to baptize you? I bet he did. I bet he forced your head underwater and commended your soul to the Almighty.”
“Will you shut up for two seconds? No. That's not what happened.”
“What was it then? Come on, I'm dying here.”
“He had wings, Pete. One minute there wasn't so much as a bulge in the back of his shirt, and the next--out of nowhere, huge fucking wings.”
Pete did not even question the veracity of this statement. Go figure. “So what did you do?”
“I did what any sane person would do. I ran.”
“What?! No way, Patrick, that's lame.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do? Ask if I could see his halo?”
“No, seriously, the guy trusts you enough to show you his wings, and you just run out on him?” Pete shook his head. “Not cool. So not cool.”
Patrick sighed. “Yeah, I kinda feel bad about it, in retrospect.”
“You should.”
“Should I go back there and talk to him?”
“Damn right. If he even wants to talk to you now, after you were such a dick.”
“I was trying not to think about that. Thank you very much.”
Pete smiled broadly. “Hey, no problem. It's what I do.”
---
Aziraphale barely noticed the tapping sound at first. He thought, vaguely, that it was starting to rain, or that it was just the furnace making noises again. But then it got a bit louder, and he looked up to see Patrick timidly rapping on the windowpane with just one knuckle.
He got up and unlocked the door. Patrick came in and stood there awkwardly, shuffling his feet and biting his lower lip. It was rather becoming, Aziraphale thought, in a shrinking-violet sort of way.
“Um,” said Patrick. “I think I owe you an apology.”
Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief. “No, no, dear boy, think nothing of it. I'm afraid I made some rather premature assumptions, and if I'd been more sensible, I'd have realized that, ahem, revealing myself was bound to frighten you.”
Patrick frowned. “Assumptions?”
“I'd thought that you and I were...from the same stock, if you take my meaning.”
“You thought I was an angel?”
“Yes, well, surely you've realized that you look a bit--”
“If you say 'cherubic,' I'm going to walk out of here and never come back.” Clearly, it was a sore point. But he sounded as if he was at least half joking.
“Other than that, it was just intuition. Or I thought it was, anyway. Crowley said I mistook attraction for recognition.”
“Oh.” Patrick didn't seem to know what to do with that. “Do you think he was right?”
“How would I know? It's never happened to me before.” Aziraphale gave a weak little laugh.
“With guys, or...?”
“With anyone.”
“Huh.” Patrick considered this. “And you've been on earth for how long?”
“Since...Genesis, you might say.”
Patrick laughed shakily. “Somehow I suspect you're not talking about video game consoles.”
“I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.”
“Never mind.” There was an awkward pause. “Well, supposing your friend was right....”
“Yes?”
Patrick stepped closer. When he spoke again, his voice was low, and a little rough. “I'd be lying if I said it wasn't mutual.”
And then his hand was resting lightly on Aziraphale's neck, the tip of his thumb brushing that sensitive spot behind his ear, and Aziraphale was leaning forward, and then, and then...
Patrick's mouth was incredibly soft and warm. Aziraphale was so taken with it that for a moment he forgot to close his eyes, or to do anything with his hands.
By the time he remembered, Patrick was pulling back to look at him. “Was that okay?”
“Yes. No. Er...perhaps we should go someplace a bit more private.”
Patrick took Aziraphale's hand. “Lead the way.”
---
The back room was cramped, dusty, and dim. Patrick wondered if this was really the right place for this encounter--his brain did, anyway. His cock didn't seem to mind much.
Aziraphale was making arcane gestures in the direction of the table. “There. It should hold our weight now. Might not be especially comfortable, but it's the best I can do at the moment.”
“Okay, um, how do you want to do this?”
“Lying down, I suppose. Isn't that usually how it's done?” The angel looked a little lost.
“Hey.” Patrick placed a hand on his shoulder. “We can do things however you want, okay? However you feel comfortable. If you want to go slowly, we can. If there's anything you want me to do, just ask. If, at any time, you want me to stop, I will. You call the shots here.”
“All right.” Aziraphale seemed to relax a bit. “Can we sit down?” They did. “And...can I kiss you again?”
Patrick smiled. “Please do.”
And, for the moment, that was all: the slow movement of their mouths against each other, the gentle intertwining of tongues. Patrick wrapped his arms around Aziraphale's waist, and the angel relaxed against him, his upright bearing finally sinking into languor.
Patrick leaned back, easing them both into a horizontal position. His hat fell off and landed somewhere on the floor; he couldn't bring himself to care. He had other things on his mind, like the weight of the angel's hips against his. He arched upward, and Aziraphale gasped. Patrick asked him if it was all right.
“Yes. Yes, do that again.”
They rubbed against each other until Aziraphale was whimpering, begging for something more, anything, he didn't know, he didn't care.
They rearranged themselves so that Aziraphale was lying down and Patrick was straddling his legs. Patrick unfastened the angel's pants, pulled his cock free, and took it into his mouth.
This, Patrick thought, was the fun part. Aziraphale was coming almost completely undone beneath him. His hands tangled in Patrick's hair, then moved to grip his shoulders, then scrabbled helplessly at the wooden surface of the table. His desperate writhing and frantic noises were too much; Patrick had to reach down and jerk himself off while his lips and tongue worked at the angel's cock.
As Aziraphale got closer to orgasm, his whines grew louder and higher, as if he were approaching something that scared him. It probably did, Patrick thought, especially if it had never happened to him before--and that thought was enough to send him over the edge, just as Aziraphale shuddered violently and came in Patrick's mouth.
Patrick sat up and looked him over. The angel was panting, his chest heaving, and a faint flush covered his cheeks and neck. He'd been staring dazedly at the ceiling, but now his eyes fell upon Patrick's crotch. “Bit of a mess there, eh? Here, let me--” and suddenly the stickiness disappeared from Patrick's hand, clothes, and cock.
Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Well, that makes things easier, anyway.” He zipped himself up and crawled over to lie beside Aziraphale.
“Yes, these abilities of mine do come in handy.” The angel put an arm around Patrick, who felt his eyelids drooping and his limbs growing heavier.
They stayed like that for a while, Patrick gradually falling asleep and Aziraphale...not, apparently, because eventually he stood up. Patrick opened one eye and mumbled something; the angel whispered “Shhh” and leaned over to plant a kiss on his forehead before turning out the light and heading for the door.
Just before Patrick drifted off, he felt a blanket drop onto him from out of nowhere.
---
When Crowley dropped in the next afternoon, he found Aziraphale prancing around with a feather duster.
“Angel? You haven't dusted this place in decades. What's going on?”
“Oh, nothing,” Aziraphale replied airily. “I just wanted the shop to look nice, that's all.”
“Well, someone's in a good mood today. I take it that boy of yours came back after all?”
“He just left this morning. And by the way, Crowley, you were right about everything, and may lightning strike me down if I ever question your judgement again.” Aziraphale hummed tunelessly to himself as he dusted another section of shelves.
Crowley, for whatever reason, did not seem particularly happy about this. Aziraphale barreled on, undeterred. “Honestly, if I'd known it would be like that, I would have done it years ago.”
Crowley took the bait. “Done what?”
“A gentleman,” Aziraphale primly declared, “never kisses and tells.”
“Oh, come on.”
Aziraphale glanced back and forth as though looking for potential eavesdroppers (mostly for show, considering his customarily deserted shop) and confided, “He did marvelous things with his tongue.”
Crowley didn't have anything to say to that. Aziraphale let the silence stretch on as his mind wandered into the kind of daydreams he'd been having all day prior to Crowley's arrival.
They'd rent a cozy little flat somewhere, he decided. He'd never felt the need for one before, but obviously a human would require the sort of creature comforts that the shop couldn't provide. It would be fun, he thought, picking out furniture and things. Maybe he'd learn to cook. Patrick could teach him about modern music, and he could teach Patrick about Handel and Brahms and Tchaikovsky. And Patrick would make songs out of all his favorite books, and they'd live together until--
“Angel!”
Aziraphale realized that Crowley had been trying to get his attention. “Oh. Er, sorry. What was that?”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to have dinner tonight. There's a new sushi place that just opened up--”
“Love to, but I can't. Other plans. Terribly sorry.”
Crowley's jaw tightened visibly. “Fine.”
“Crowley? Is something wrong?”
The demon sighed. “You've never had other plans before.”
“Look, if it upsets you that much, we can do it tomorrow night.”
“Damn it, Aziraphale, this isn't about dinner.”
“Isn't it? Do enlighten me, then, because clearly this isn't the conversation I thought it was.”
“It's just--I spend years waiting for you to, you know, make the effort, and when you finally do, it's for some bloody American pop star.”
“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale snapped. “If I recall correctly, you're the one who told me to do it in the first place.”
“I told you to sleep with him, get it out of your system, and move on!” Crowley was almost shouting now. “And now you're all besotted over him, and you've known him for what, a week? Less? Whereas I, the one you've known for six thousand fucking years, am being casually thrown aside without so much as a--”
“Crowley, no one's throwing anyone aside,” Aziraphale pleaded. “If you'd just calm down--”
“No. Forget it, I'm leaving. Just--think about it, all right?”
“Think about...?”
“We saved the world together.” Crowley's voice was now deadly quiet. “I'll be damned if that doesn't count for something.” And he turned and left.
Then he turned around again and stuck his head in through the door. “And I don't care what he did with his tongue, I can do it ten times better!”
---
Patrick had been gloating in Pete's direction for most of the day. The underlying, yet completely unsubtle theme was: I Deflowered a Six-Thousand-Year-Old Virgin, and You Did Not.
Pete, understandably, was becoming annoyed.
“So what, you slept with an angel. I could sleep with an entire fucking angelic choir if I wanted to.”
“Bullshit. The closest you'd ever get would be, like, half a boy band.”
Pete changed tactics. “I thought angels didn't even have genitalia.”
“Life does not imitate Kevin Smith, Pete.”
“Yeah, your angel probably wishes he was as sexy as Alan Rickman.”
“Except for the part where he has real wings instead of cheesy special effects.”
“Well, enjoy it while you can, because we're flying home tomorrow morning.”
“What? You asshole--”
“Hey, hey, don't shoot the messenger. We were actually supposed to leave a few days ago, but I pulled some strings to get our stay here extended.”
“Why'd you do that?”
Pete shuffled around awkwardly. “Because, well, it looked like you had something going with that guy, and...you know.”
“No, I don't know. Use words, Pete.”
Pete looked up, his face open and guileless. “I wanted you to be happy.”
---
Aziraphale was still pacing around the shop, but not in the flighty way he'd been before. Now his mind was jumping through the ages, stopping here and there to examine an old memory through a new lens.
It went back to the Crusades, when Aziraphale had been close to banging his head against a wall in frustration over the idiocies that got carried out in Heaven's name, and Crowley had gone off to the Holy Land and returned with the news that almost every Christian native to the region had converted to Islam out of spite, and they'd both had a good laugh.
Then it zoomed forward to the early 1980s, when Aziraphale had been fretting over the AIDS epidemic, and Crowley had helped distribute prophylactics in no fewer than eighteen secondary schools. It counted as encouraging underage fornication, he'd said, so really it was all right.
Backward again, to the seventeenth century. Crowley, much to Aziraphale's chagrin, had climbed aboard the Mayflower and sailed away. He'd come back in short order, saying that America was a desolate wasteland and the Puritans were no fun whatsoever, and did Aziraphale fancy a drink?
Forward again, to 1945. The Allies had just won the war, only Aziraphale had spent a lot of time in Central Europe, and he knew that nobody had won. He'd seen everything, the yellow stars and the pink triangles, the tattooed numbers, the showers and the ovens. He'd arranged what small miracles he could--a hole in a fence here, a suddenly merciful guard there--but it wasn't enough. He'd still seen far more death than was good for him. And when he'd arrived back in London, bone-tired and sick with rage and looking for someone to blame--well, he'd known that it had been humanity's fault all the way, but Hell's earthly representative had made a convenient scapegoat.
And Crowley had just...taken it. He'd stood there and let Aziraphale shout at him, hadn't said a word as the blame for the entire genocide was heaped on his shoulders. And when Aziraphale had run out of steam, when his voice had cracked and his knees had gone weak, Crowley had caught him before he'd collapsed, and held him while he'd sobbed for hours.
When Aziraphale's mind finally returned to the present, he knew what he had to do.
He composed a lengthy and tragic speech, telling Patrick that, while he cared about him deeply, Aziraphale was immortal, and it would break his heart to spend a lifetime with Patrick only to watch him wither and die, so perhaps it was best if they parted ways now.
He was just putting the finishing touches on it when the boy himself walked in.
“I have to go back to the States tomorrow,” he said. “And, um. I've never been good with long-distance relationships.”
“Oh,” Aziraphale said, nonplussed. “So...that's it, then?”
“I guess so.” Patrick smiled wistfully. “For what it's worth, I had a really good time, and I'll come visit you if I'm ever back in town.”
“All right.” Aziraphale couldn't think of anything else to say. “Well...goodbye.”
“Bye.”
Not that Aziraphale minded, but it was all so very anticlimactic.
---
Pete walked into the hotel room that night as Patrick was packing his suitcase.
“Hey.” He flopped onto one of the beds. “Did you say goodbye to your angel?”
“Yeah.” Patrick did not elaborate, but continued folding shirts.
“You...don't seem too bothered about that.”
Patrick shrugged. “It had to happen eventually. Even if I'd been able to stick around, it wouldn't have lasted.”
“Because of the whole interspecies thing?”
“Partly.” He finished packing and went to sit on the bed next to Pete. “But also because he just...wasn't my type.”
“You have a type?”
“Oh, you know.” Patrick grinned. “Short, dark, and mouthy.”
Pete, for once, was speechless. All the better to kiss him, which Patrick did. Thoroughly.
---
Crowley came by the next morning in his usual unannounced fashion. “So, where's your songbird?”
“Winging his way across the Atlantic as we speak. Saves me the trouble of breaking it off with him, I suppose.”
“Were you planning to?”
“Oh, yes.” Aziraphale came out from behind the counter so that he could stand nearer. “I...thought about what you said. Quite a lot, in fact.”
Crowley's face was inscrutable behind his sunglasses. “Oh.”
“'Oh'? Is that all you've got to say?”
“Well, yes. The rest is really up to you.”
Aziraphale smiled. “In that case....” He stepped closer, took off the demon's sunglasses, and kissed him. Crowley responded with an enthusiastic moan, shoved the angel up against a bookshelf, and went for his neck with lips and teeth.
“Crowley--ouch, be gentle.”
“Shan't,” the demon snarled. “I've waited long enough.” He started unbuttoning Aziraphale's shirt, muttered, “Bugger this for a lark,” and the next moment, the shirt was on the floor.
Aziraphale protested, “Here? Really?” Crowley waved forcefully in the direction of the windows, and curtains closed over them that hadn't been there before. “Oh, all right. Carry on.”
Crowley grinned, and then the angel's trousers were gone too, as were all of Crowley's own clothes. Aziraphale shivered slightly; the demon looked phenomenal naked. His hands wandered over Aziraphale's body, from his shoulders to his chest, down his sides, moving around to squeeze his buttocks.
Crowley dropped to his knees and looked up with a devious glint in his eye. “I'd hold onto something, if I were you.”
Aziraphale gasped. He'd been right about the tongue.
---
Patrick had refused Pete's offer to join the Mile High Club on practical grounds. Those airplane bathrooms were barely large enough for one person to jack off in, and besides, there was always that paranoid fear that someone else was waiting to get in there. It tended to put a damper on things.
He was tempted, though. It was a very long flight, and Pete was sitting awfully close, and he kept whispering filthy things into Patrick's ear.
Patrick's heart began racing the moment they landed. Soon, he thought.
The airport was crowded, and his suitcase was heavy, and Chicago was full of wind and rain.
But Pete was holding his hand, and home was only a cab ride away.
---
On the other side of the ocean, Aziraphale rested his head on his demon's shoulder and breathed in the mingling smells of sex and old paper.
Final Notes:
1. The part about Patrick not reading books because his brain makes songs out of them? I didn't make that up.
2. The part about Arab Christians converting to Islam after the Crusades? I didn't make that up either.
3. The original version of this story that gestated in my head for a few years prior to this writing? It included a very cracked-out sex scene, and you're glad I didn't write it. No, really, you are.