Illustrated Fic, Part 1 of (I think) 3
To be posted in installments...
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
A Metaphysical Romance
Story by vulgarweed; Illustrations by quantum_witch
Rating: NC-17
Pairing Co-Supremes and Stars of Love: Aziraphale and Crowley
Supporting Players
JOHN DEE (A Polymath With More Specialties Than is Healthy for One Human)
GIORDANO BRUNO (A Philosopher. File Under: Heretics)
EDWARD KELLEY, A.K.A. TALBOT (A Conman By Choice; A Real Medium By Accident)
MADIMI[EL?] (A Spirit of Uncertain Provenance)
JANE DEE (A Long-Suffering Wife)
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (A Knight, Poet, Occult Dabbler, and Messenger. A Bit of a Historical Redshirt.)
WILL SHAKESPEARE (A Playwright and Poet)
DEATH (Death)
Summary: It’s the 16th century, Golden Age of intra-Christian religious warfare, Hermetic magic[k], English literature, and codpiece jokes. In which Crowley has a bad secret, a good sulk, and an ill-advised scheme; Aziraphale has a mortal admirer who’s getting too close (in a purely Neoplatonic way, of course); and the Need-to-Know Basis clause of the Arrangement is stretched to the breaking point.
Warnings: Angst; historical RPF; flagrant anachronisms; explicit slash; violence; heresy, codpiece jokes.
A/N: A sequel to "Amid the Sacred Wreck” and “Breathless Mouths May Summon.” It’s not necessary to have read those to understand this, although this is an established-relationship story (more or less) building on that past. I’d like to thank quantum_witch for hurling this poem at me as a plot bunny. Huge thanks to waxbean, for the fantastic beta-reading-and for being a good sport about reading Tarot for them, not me.
Disclaimer: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. And the real people in this story belong to themselves and the ages...and historians. And this tale has more random literary allusions than the usual (note poem by Shakespeare); all will be explained in final notes
Prologue 1: Florence, Italy, 1542 AD
The beautiful city was a tempter’s paradise in these days-at least for a tempter who still had a bit of passion remaining for his work. But one tempter in particular was bored out of his skull, leaning his head on his hand on the table and trying not to fall asleep as the circle of earnest young men around him carried on their vehement argument in hushed, nervous tones.
“But…Agrippa,” whispered one, “writes of the difference in conjurations; of course the black arts, invocations of demons and whatnot, but also there is the holy magic, the knowledge and conversation of angels…”
“Ah, that’s all Jewish word games and Moorish numbers,” muttered another. “The true power, now, that’s nothing to do with this Qabala, really, it’s in mastering of the elements, and those wicked spirits so feared by the sheep can be easily controlled by…” This one had the most irritating way of holding forth yet, a sort of supercilious superiority and a way of pretending everything he said was layered with veiled meanings, when in reality, he was saying less than he seemed to be.
Crowley, waking up a little next to him, pulled a scrap of parchment out of the lecturer’s ostentatious stack of it and held it up near the candle, careful that his hatbrim still shielded his eyes. “Hmmm, what’s this?” he said curiously, quite aloud to the entire table. “A sigil for the invocation and commanding of…ah, an incubus. As opposed to a succubus?”
The table erupted in nervous titters, but he could see real fear in at least a couple of pairs of eyes. And titillated curiosity. “That can get you burned twice, Philosopher.”
Too bloody easy, he thought as he looked round at them, unsure why he was even there. He got up and walked away in slightly unbalanced disgust.
A good auto-da-fe won more souls for Hell in an hour than a decade of this kind of whispering and gossip and sophistry plus all the Medicis put together and competition-level-speed-scheming. And he’d had nothing at all to do with that, nor wanted to - one Dominican could do the work of ten demons, and Downstairs didn’t even realise how badly they were being outclassed. There was no art to it anymore, just brutality and paperwork and politics.
Crowley thought he needed a vacation from his vacation, but that unearned commendation business over the Spanish Inquisition was starting to wear thin, and he figured that just hanging around this crowd long enough was bound to lead to some contact success.
He was still in Italy when it started there too. He’d dawdled too long, but the food was good.
Prologue 2: Trinity College, Cambridge, England, 1546 AD
So it was true, those whispers at that print shop in Antwerp. Aziraphale had rather thought the last thing the most reckless of the Tudors would concern himself with was his intellectual legacy. And just as it was said, in its warrens of shelves was what could be the beginning of the best collection of Greek mathematics and natural philosophy texts he’d ever seen in England. Not that it had much competition.
Someone here definitely had something on the ball. Over millennia, certain senses of Aziraphale’s had begun to manifest themselves in specifically human ways, and that sensation the poets spoke of--the hairs on the back of his neck tingling--was by now extremely familiar.
Aziraphale himself was the most supernatural thing in the library, as he usually was in any room on earth. But as he reached for what appeared to be a work long thought lost in the West on the influence of the Spheres upon earthly magnetism, he was pretty sure he was feeling the very small beginnings of the turn of a very large cog. It was easy to lose track of those if you kept being distracted by the big personalities and the obvious crises of the age-those eruptions and panics and fads and wars and rumours of wars among what were, when you thought about it, very short-lived creatures. But it was often the tiniest stirrings of something hard to pin down at the time that would prove more important over the long run.
The brittle paper came to his hand like a tame bird, and he identified it like a naturalist.
And as he identified it, he became aware of something else: that he was no longer alone.
There was nothing obviously uncanny about the man who smiled at him from the end of the row, except perhaps that he was in the robe of a Trinity fellow and seemed surprisingly young. But his eyes were uncommonly bright, and he had a way of peering into Aziraphale’s face as though he were looking for something he knew was there but couldn’t quite put his finger on. The angel felt some remorse for his wariness--there was no malice in the youth, only keen intelligence and utterly sleepless curiosity. Which could be reason enough, in its way.
“Ah, that’s a good choice,” the young scholar said. “But I prefer the Pythagoras. Leads to some wonderful possibilities.”
“Indeed,” Aziraphale sighed, looking back down at the book, hoping to keep the conversation simple. He really didn’t like being interrupted at reading, though he supposed it was the price one paid for delving in someone else’s library.
Instead of taking the hint, the young man-who was quite handsome in a rangy, distracted sort of way-leaned in closer. “Would the gentleman like to see a small wonder?” he asked conspiratorially as he rummaged about in his robes.
Well, it doesn’t get more straightforward and honest than that, Aziraphale sighed to himself. He considered delivering a stern lecture on the value of discretion but decided even that was more involved than he wanted to get, and was about to offer a kind but firm demurral when the young man drew out his closed fist and then dramatically released his fingers.
A larger-than-normal dung beetle flew from his palm and circled Aziraphale’s head once, deosil, before landing on his shoulder. When he looked at it closely, he blinked hard to make certain he’d seen correctly. It was made of wood.
Now he really needed to give the lecture, though not quite the one he’d first thought. “You should not…you’re…” But the words froze in Aziraphale’s mouth, because the truly uncanny thing about the wooden scarab with its many moving parts was that as much as it looked exactly like some kind of conjurer’s golem, there really wasn’t a single bit of sorcery in it. None that Aziraphale could sense, anyway, and he was certain he was good at sniffing traces. “You shouldn’t show that to…just anyone...” he finally finished, a little lamely.
“I wouldn’t…to just anyone,” the young man smiled. “It’s only a model. I’m building a much larger one for the theater.”
“You know these are dangerous times. Even though, of course, it’s all natural law at work here, it could be misunderstood-I do know you aren’t…”
“Indeed not!” said the fellow triumphantly. “I knew a man of learning such as yourself would understand. Fine Greek engineering principles…and a bit of sleight of hand. I call it thaumaturgy, the art of wonders to elevate and inspire. A wondrous world our Creator has given us, and I would seek to increase knowledge of it, and therefore its due awe and appreciation.”
Aziraphale suspected very strongly that just because the young man hadn’t employed any sorcery in this particular very clever toy, it didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it.
And after the angel had found an excuse to walk away, amid much promising of further conversation such as learned men have amid walls of books, he realised with a twinge he had not asked the lad’s name, and then with a second twinge that he suddenly knew it anyway. He’d found that only happened when it was a name he’d encounter again. Bit of a shame; he ought to rate more than two syllables, really.
London, January 1559 AD
For the most part it was over and done with, though the feast still went on, and the sky over the cathedral was deepening behind the steely grey clouds.
They’d celebrated with such enthusiasm, bless their hearts - it wasn’t all from the top down either. The hope was sincere; Aziraphale could feel it filling the streets and spilling up to the sky. And he knew that most of the people’s hopes were for things they didn’t want: no more hunger, no more fear, no more plague, no more of that horrible smell from the town squares. One could hardly blame them-where else should hope start?
Well, if you asked her, you might get a different answer, or none at all, as she deemed prudent-for she was nothing if not that.
The happy chaos was all a little much-it gave him a bit of a hangover without the pleasure of having been drunk, and he’d retreated to the sharp slope of Westminster’s roof to observe it all from a distance where it wouldn’t befuddle him so much. The cold rain at least had stopped. But for the rock doves he was alone here, for the most part, with the sound of the wind-well, at least until the wind brought him another sound, the beating of much larger wings, and he sighed. He didn’t even have to turn around, although the perfume was something new. He’d been in Italy. It figured.
“What kind of jackass,” said a familiar voice, quiet and laughing, “sets the date for a gigantic coronation in January?”
“Her astrologer, I believe,” Aziraphale said stiffly. It wasn’t that he approved; he most certainly did not. He was simply trying not to think of a wooden dung beetle.
Crowley snickered. “Good job.”
“Why are you always so-“
“Cynical, yes, I know. But she’ll be fine, I think. I mean, she could hardly do worse.”
“Be careful when you say that,” Aziraphale said wearily.
“Aziraphale-“
There was something in Crowley’s voice, or something out of the corner of his eye, that made Aziraphale turn around and look, really look at his counterpart for the first time in forty years. The velvet cap with its long jaunty red and gold feather. His handsome face, dark and smiling in the twilight, his ostentatious fur-lined cloak (which had had no lining until the demon had entered British airspace and re-encountered that familiar bone-chilling damp) and wine-red brocade doublet and snug hose outlining his legs and-dear God. Aziraphale immediately looked right back up at the sky, blushing.
“Tired of looking at me so quickly?”
The angel gave a weighted, put-upon sigh. “Is that the tackiest codpiece I’ve ever seen, or are you just glad to see me?”
“Both,” Crowley chuckled. “Frankly, it’s edgy for Italy but tame for Spain.”
“I suppose prevailing upon you for modesty is a lost cause.”
“It’s quite modest,” Crowley said. “No one can tell when I’m having an inappropriate response. Or an appropriate one. Besides, it distracts attention from my eyes.”
“I’m sure it must,” said Aziraphale, still looking at the sky. “Even I can’t look at your face right now.” The moon peered through a silvery crack in the clouds, though wet snow flurries were beginning to blow about. Aziraphale was waiting for the usual biting critique of his own outdated robes, but it never came. Crowley had fallen companionably silent.
But finally, as the snow picked up, he said, “You know, I’ve got some Italian wine. And even such, er, wingéd sprites as ourselves probably oughtn’t drink it on a roof so steep. Besides, it’s a church and it’s making me itch.”
“Not a word about the cold? I’m surprised.”
“Bracing,” Crowley lied. “Invigorating.” He held his hand out to the angel, and they flew from the roof, over the celebrating city lit with torches.
***
In the unassuming little room upstairs above the bookshop, Aziraphale couldn’t help noting that Crowley flinched for just a second when he lit the fireplace. “You live in a tinderbox, Aziraphale.”
The angel cocked his head sideways. “I think I can protect myself, my dear.”
Crowley shrugged and opened the first bottle. “Must be tiring, that same miracle every day.”
“I get by.”
“So,” Crowley said, manifesting two unnecessarily expensive cups. “To Her Majesty. May she be less than half as nutters as her predecessors.”
“Her father was quite a piece of work.”
“Her sister was worse, from what I heard.”
“Well, she was very devout.”
Crowley snorted.
A deep drink, and grey-blue eyes stared into yellow ones across the little table.
“So.” Crowley said at last. “Your people. Where the fuck are they in all of this? Because I’ll be blessed if I can tell where mine are. Aside from a few go this, do that bits of busywork, I’ve barely heard a peep in ten years. I’m feeling obsolete, old pal. Down in Italy, they’re not even giving Hell all the credit for War and Pestilence’s hard work anymore.”
Aziraphale reached for the bottle and refilled his cup hastily. He pressed his lips together and looked at a precarious stack of leatherbound Latin prayerbooks leaning on a sagging shelf. There wasn’t anything useful there, particularly.
“I wish I knew,” he finally said. “A lot of my favourite old churches were destroyed, you know.” Some of my favourite people too, he didn’t say.
Crowley laughed flatly. “Sorry,” he said. “You do know this whole island has a target painted on it so big it spills over to Ireland, right? If she doesn’t marry a Catholic soon, I give her six months.”
“She won’t marry at all if she can possibly avoid it,” Aziraphale said. “I have a hunch about this. Her father had her mother beheaded-would you?”
Crowley threw up his hands. “Sane ruling dynasty - that’s not possible, is it?”
Aziraphale sighed. “I suppose you’re questioning the divine right too. You might as well. Everyone else is these days.”
“I hate to be behind the times.”
Aziraphale decided to change the subject. “So how was Italy?”
“Oh, it’s fantastic as long as you stay away from Rome. I was in Venice. Florence. Nice art if you don’t mind all the half-naked pudgy angels in it. And it’s wonderful to meet courtesans who can read again.”
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. Two, in fact.
Crowley took this as encouragement. “Why, there’s talk of letting women on the stage, no less. How bloody scandalous. I don’t see the shock value, they might as well - the castrati sing better and the boys are prettier anyway, and more…”
“Compliant?”
“Very good at making a tempter feel obsolete,” said Crowley, smiling as though he just swallowed a goat whole and was about to take a nice week’s nap.
Aziraphale refilled his glass and half emptied it again. “You always have been so generous with your favours. Why, if one didn’t know better, one might almost accuse you of Charity.”
“I prefer to think of it as a form of Gluttony. In addition to the obvious, of course.”
Of course. It had to have been the wine-there must always be something to blame, and Crowley’s boss was hardly a good source in this case-but Aziraphale just smiled and said calmly, “I wonder what you’d call it if I took a mortal lover for a change.”
Crowley’s ungracious spray of red wine across the table followed by manic cackling wasn’t quite the effect Aziraphale was aiming for. “Do you have anyone special in mind, or just the next poor sod who walks into your shop?”
Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “Don’t be absurd. It was purely theoretical.”
Ah yes. Crowley did look relieved. And very intent. Aziraphale awkwardly got to his feet and turned to the window, where a wind was picking up. He could feel its damp cool through the tiny chinks in the panes. It wasn’t doing enough for the muzziness in his mind, though. “I do feel useless sometimes. When I’m not feeling that I should just go somewhere deserted until all the madness passes. Less populated. Simpler. I used to know what to do, I think.”
Crowley grunted something, and Aziraphale could hear him swallow. “If you’d learned anything useful in all the time we’ve been on this rock, you think it’d be that the madness never passes. Not for long.”
Aziraphale sighed and watched the skimpy snow making its heroic effort. “I just don’t see why…the sad thing is, I’ve got so many books in here that could get someone burned…”
Crowley’s cup hit the table with a clang. Aziraphale was about to turn around, but then he felt hands on his shoulders and dared not. Crowley’s grip was firm and warm, sliding up and down Aziraphale’s arms, and once again the subject was effectively changed, or so he thought.
“Don’t speak of that,” Crowley commanded. “Not now. I’m thoroughly sick of the subject. And the smell of it.”
“Hope,” Aziraphale said softly, “You’ve got that, too. Every time you see me, you always hope I’ll go to bed with you. Maybe by now you even have Faith that I will.”
“Not Faith, but Reason,” Crowley said, nuzzling Aziraphale’s cheek, sliding his tongue behind the angel’s ear. Aziraphale drew in breath sharply, surprised as always by the intensity of that surge of desire, the direct connection between those sensitive parts Crowley was tasting and those he was about to touch…it was Natural Law, wasn’t it? Curse him for knowing.
Crowley’s arms wrapped around him from behind, pulling him into a fierce embrace, and the demon was whispering something not completely coherent, and Aziraphale closed his eyes and shivered. This was different somehow. He didn’t know what it was he felt yet, but Crowley was definitely attempting to express something. One hand pulled his collar away and the front of his robe open, and Crowley was still whispering as he bit the crook of Aziraphale’s neck: “Fuck. Azzziraphale, I…please…” One hand sank down Aziraphale’s belly, drawing his hips back.
“Crowley…dearest…please…”
“What? Anything!”
“Stop prodding my arse with that thing.”
“Oh cripes.”
“Churl,” Aziraphale said warmly, caressing Crowley’s arms, leaning back against him and humming in surprise as the cold draught from the window and the warmth of the fireplace fought for attention on his-on their-suddenly very bare skin. “Yes, just get rid of it all…” He turned his head a little awkwardly, requesting Crowley’s mouth onto his as he reached his hands back and grasped slim hips.
“You like that better?” Crowley growled-still prodding, but with something Aziraphale did indeed like better, and he said so, panting a little.
“Crowley, you…”
“Hush. Just let me…”
“Ohh, touch me…”
“Mmm, you’re hard.”
“What you do to me…”
“What I want to do to you…”
Aziraphale’s head was spinning. Too much, too fast. Crowley spitting in his hand, doing that transmogrification thing of his-water into wine, spit into oil, not such a big leap in its blasphemous way. Aziraphale shivered and bit his lip, lifting one knee onto a chair, bracing his hands against the windowsill and feeling very wanton as he opened his eyes and found the sky looking back at them.
Crowley was gasping in his ear, pleading, “Please…let me into you…I want…”
“Yes…yes, please yes,” Aziraphale closed his eyes and sank down into that trance that took him when he was first stretching like that, taking that sweet and strange invasion.
“I need…” Crowley gave a small shove, and Aziraphale yelped a little. “Shit, did I hurt you?”
“No…a little…don’t stop.”
“Oh…Aziraphale,” Crowley groaned so softly, and then Aziraphale noticed for certain something was strange. For once he’d worked himself deep within, Crowley barely moved at all, simply wrapped his arms more tightly around the angel and held him, burying his face in Aziraphale’s hair and sniffing…trembling terribly. And Aziraphale leaned back against him, spreading his thighs a little wider and holding onto Crowley’s arms. Crowley seemed to need something he couldn’t ask for, and anything Aziraphale could give…well…there wasn’t much left he hadn’t given. The lean arms crossed over his chest, moist kisses explored his back, and all Crowley seemed to want was to touch him and taste him with a maddening slowness. But the demon’s little movements inside him, no harder than breathing, were giving him a slowly rising, diffuse sort of pleasure that threatened even this kind of blurry awareness.
“Oh, Crowley…dearest..my…mmmm,” he breathed, silenced by a hand.
Whatever composure Crowley had lost, he was taking his time to regain. Had the moon been visible, Aziraphale could have watched it move a considerable distance, at least as long as he could keep his eyes open. Crowley’s hands roamed him so slowly, as if reacquainting himself with the front of Aziraphale’s body, all its sensitive places and little rises and falls…
Aziraphale was entranced by the slower-than-slow pace set by Crowley’s unusual, slightly off-kilter style of need.
“You’re so hot…tight…oh!” Crowley exclaimed, at last seeming to remember that they were supposed to move, harder, deeper.
Aziraphale was completely stunned by how hard he came into Crowley’s hand, almost hitting his head on the windowsill before he recovered himself and leaned back into Crowley’s helpless thrusts.
They were both glad there was a bed there to receive them when they finally collapsed spent upon it, small and rickety as it was. It hadn’t been there before, after all.
“Don’t ask,” Crowley said preemptively. “Just please don’t.”
“I won’t,” Aziraphale said, tucking Crowley’s head under his chin, kissing the damp dark hair. He didn’t like promising that; he had certainly wanted to.
Far away across the city, a young woman felt a great swell of triumph and relief. She was constrained in stiff, awkward jeweled clothing but her pretty red hair was free and unbound, and she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was, indeed, strong enough for this-as surely as if one of God’s angels had appeared in a beam of light to tell her so.
***
When Crowley awoke, cold grey light filtered into the little room through the one small window. The fire was down to embers and the room was chill, and he had no incentive to get up at all. He reached out and found he was alone in the bed, which was most vexing. (He remembered that lovely whorehouse in Jerusalem so long ago; he remembered a fumbling, languid, half-awake encore performance with Aziraphale, who kept the sheets warm like anything…and had insisted on paying the madam for the room and tipping generously at that, though they’d not used the services of any of the staff. He could really have gone for some of that right now. The angel, that is, not the madam.)
But it was morning, and he was hungry for many things-breakfast at least, if that was the best he could get-and he heard voices below, so he crept reluctantly out of bed, manifesting himself a warm dressing gown, and listened at the trap door.
“Oh, dear chap, you really shouldn’t have.”
“I thought of you in Brussels-oh, don’t worry, it’s a copy of a copy, made in my own hand, as faithful as I could render it.”
“No, John, you really shouldn’t have…it is on the banned list, and…honestly, after what you went through, I should think…”
“I think the darkest days are behind us, my friend. God Save Her Majesty, she is a wise woman with no fear of knowledge.”
Crowley felt his eyes narrowing as he recognised the music of temptation playing so loudly downstairs, and he having no part in it. As quietly as he could, he opened the door a slight crack and peered down the stairs-little more than a glorified ladder really-until he could see Aziraphale and the tall, handsome man he spoke with. He recognised a fellow optimist. He didn’t like it.
“But…when you were…”
“I was in no danger. Or rather, not from the directions that it may have appeared.”
“Mm-hmm, I understand now.”
Crowley could see Aziraphale’s head nodding over the book. Probably only half listening to what the man was saying, missing half the surface words and not even realising the whole other conversation that ought to be going on underneath. He hated watching Aziraphale sometimes-it made him think about all the times he couldn’t be around. Someday that angel was going to walk right into real, serious trouble opening up under his feet because he had his nose stuck in a book. Being that clueless ought to hurt-just as a warning.
Crowley himself almost missed the sharp brown eyes that glanced up at him and saw him. He did his best to disappear, blessing under his breath. The man said nothing.
“What would you like from me today?” Aziraphale asked him cheerfully, and Crowley ground his teeth.
“I just came to bring you a gift, my friend. But…”
There always was one.
“Do keep your eyes open for works of the nature we discussed before. A little bird tells me to pay special attention to manifestations of the Word.”
“I shall do that, gladly,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley could hear exactly what sort of smile was in his voice, specifically.
He threw himself back into the little bed, with some vague intention of pretending to be asleep when Aziraphale came up the stairs with breakfast, but he was too tense to make it convincing at all. “Who was that?” he blurted.
“A friend, Crowley, it’s impossible to stay in the same place for any time without collecting a few, as hard as I may try.”
Crowley gave a theatrical sigh. “Well I know that.”
“Not your kind of friend.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Crowley insinuated, accepting a cup of hot cider most grudgingly. “There’s something snaky about that one.”
“Well, of course, he was a spy for Elizabeth when she was very out of fashion. Almost burned for heresy too, but I imagine the worst is over from his end of things. I didn’t expect to see him so early in the morning after the feast, that’s for certain. But he said he had strange dreams, and awoke feeling refreshed.”
Crowley blinked. Maybe Aziraphale wasn’t as hopeless as he’d thought. “Heresy, eh? What’s that book he gave you?”
“Did you eavesdrop on our entire conversation, or just the exciting parts?”
“The parts that woke me up.”
“A Qabalistic work salvaged from Spain and smuggled to Amsterdam and then Brussels, if you must know.”
Crowley rolled his eyes. “We live that drivel, why do you have to read about it?”
Aziraphale shrugged and smiled mildly. “Perhaps I’d like to know just how much they know.” He rummaged among the simple foodstuffs on the tray, started nibbling on a scone. “Hungry?”
“Yes,” Crowley said, and reached past the tray to Aziraphale, pulling the angel down on top of him. A second’s adjustment, and Aziraphale was right there with him. His mouth was full of crumbs and honey.
Crowley made a small protesting noise when Aziraphale broke away and rose up on his knees, straddling Crowley’s thighs. Aziraphale wrenched away the covers and pulled Crowley’s robe open and leaned over him, one hand on the wall, simply gazing down at him in the clear daylight. Crowley lay frozen on his back, mostly-naked and aroused and exposed, watching those eyes move up and down his body as if they owned it-like one of his books, studying it. Left to right (English, Latin); Right to left (Hebrew, Arabic) and he could feel the touch of that look: possessing, memorising. He wanted more, and he stretched out a little, one hand over his head grasping the bedpost, the other reaching out, wanting to take the angel’s hand and put it somewhere.
There were warm, smooth fingertips at his throat and his collarbone, moving out over his left shoulder.
“You had a scar here,” Aziraphale said quietly. “I think I might’ve given it to you.”
“Gone,” Crowley breathed.
“Good,” Aziraphale said, and bent low, kissing the spot where it had been. “but-“
“Little secret,” Crowley whispered, nails running down the angel’s back through the scratchy wool. “You like my body? Truth is-“
“I like it a lot,” Aziraphale purred. “I always have.”
“Not this one, you haven’t.”
“Hm?”
“It’s brand new.”
Aziraphale suddenly froze, staring straight into Crowley’s eyes. “What? What happened?”
Crowley deflected that one quick. Or rather, ignored it completely. “In fact…last night notwithstanding…”-here he licked his lips. “You could almost say that…technically…in a manner of speaking…I’m a bit of a virgin. If you like that sort of thing.”
Aziraphale blinked.
“Oh, I’m so nervous,” Crowley smirked, moving against Aziraphale pleadingly. “Take me. But be gentle.”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes, and Crowley wasn’t sure if it was at him or at himself for being very aroused by that, because the angel clearly was. And there was something almost cruel about the tender way Aziraphale made love to him, and Crowley wasn’t sure if he should enjoy it as much as he did, because it was clearly meant as a form of Mercy.
***
“So,” Aziraphale finally said that eve, coming back up the stairs for the last time when the sky’s blue deepened slowly to cobalt, wine in his hand, to find Crowley dressed and staring out on the street.
“How far out of their way do you think your people would go to help you if you got in serious trouble here?” Crowley asked.
“Not very, and I wouldn’t expect it,” Aziraphale said flatly.
Crowley just nodded. “I imagine you’re supposed to stay out of it.”
“I do, usually.”
“I know.” Crowley turned back to the window.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Aziraphale said to his back. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
“There’s a lot I’m not telling you, because it’s not going to do you a blessed bit of good to know.”
“We have a bargain.”
“Need-to-know basis, Aziraphale,” said Crowley, and his eyes were cold. “I’d think your spooky human friends would know all about that.”
“You know it isn’t just a business matter…” Aziraphale touched Crowley’s back gently, and the demon flinched at his touch for the first time in two hundred years.
“Alas,” Crowley agreed. Aziraphale looked hurt.
“I don’t suppose,” the angel finally ventured, “that if you got in a tight spot, your…side…would be of any help?”
Crowley just laughed, rather bitterly. “I’m on my own up here, but for when it suits their purposes to abuse me.”
Not entirely, Aziraphale thought but did not say; after all, the promises he’d wanted to make weren’t exactly true, were they? He’d give anything to be able to make one he knew for sure he could keep.
Crowley was in a mood, and it wasn’t helping his own.
Part 2
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
A Metaphysical Romance
Story by vulgarweed; Illustrations by quantum_witch
Rating: NC-17
Pairing Co-Supremes and Stars of Love: Aziraphale and Crowley
Supporting Players
JOHN DEE (A Polymath With More Specialties Than is Healthy for One Human)
GIORDANO BRUNO (A Philosopher. File Under: Heretics)
EDWARD KELLEY, A.K.A. TALBOT (A Conman By Choice; A Real Medium By Accident)
MADIMI[EL?] (A Spirit of Uncertain Provenance)
JANE DEE (A Long-Suffering Wife)
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (A Knight, Poet, Occult Dabbler, and Messenger. A Bit of a Historical Redshirt.)
WILL SHAKESPEARE (A Playwright and Poet)
DEATH (Death)
Summary: It’s the 16th century, Golden Age of intra-Christian religious warfare, Hermetic magic[k], English literature, and codpiece jokes. In which Crowley has a bad secret, a good sulk, and an ill-advised scheme; Aziraphale has a mortal admirer who’s getting too close (in a purely Neoplatonic way, of course); and the Need-to-Know Basis clause of the Arrangement is stretched to the breaking point.
Warnings: Angst; historical RPF; flagrant anachronisms; explicit slash; violence; heresy, codpiece jokes.
A/N: A sequel to "Amid the Sacred Wreck” and “Breathless Mouths May Summon.” It’s not necessary to have read those to understand this, although this is an established-relationship story (more or less) building on that past. I’d like to thank quantum_witch for hurling this poem at me as a plot bunny. Huge thanks to waxbean, for the fantastic beta-reading-and for being a good sport about reading Tarot for them, not me.
Disclaimer: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. And the real people in this story belong to themselves and the ages...and historians. And this tale has more random literary allusions than the usual (note poem by Shakespeare); all will be explained in final notes
Prologue 1: Florence, Italy, 1542 AD
The beautiful city was a tempter’s paradise in these days-at least for a tempter who still had a bit of passion remaining for his work. But one tempter in particular was bored out of his skull, leaning his head on his hand on the table and trying not to fall asleep as the circle of earnest young men around him carried on their vehement argument in hushed, nervous tones.
“But…Agrippa,” whispered one, “writes of the difference in conjurations; of course the black arts, invocations of demons and whatnot, but also there is the holy magic, the knowledge and conversation of angels…”
“Ah, that’s all Jewish word games and Moorish numbers,” muttered another. “The true power, now, that’s nothing to do with this Qabala, really, it’s in mastering of the elements, and those wicked spirits so feared by the sheep can be easily controlled by…” This one had the most irritating way of holding forth yet, a sort of supercilious superiority and a way of pretending everything he said was layered with veiled meanings, when in reality, he was saying less than he seemed to be.
Crowley, waking up a little next to him, pulled a scrap of parchment out of the lecturer’s ostentatious stack of it and held it up near the candle, careful that his hatbrim still shielded his eyes. “Hmmm, what’s this?” he said curiously, quite aloud to the entire table. “A sigil for the invocation and commanding of…ah, an incubus. As opposed to a succubus?”
The table erupted in nervous titters, but he could see real fear in at least a couple of pairs of eyes. And titillated curiosity. “That can get you burned twice, Philosopher.”
Too bloody easy, he thought as he looked round at them, unsure why he was even there. He got up and walked away in slightly unbalanced disgust.
A good auto-da-fe won more souls for Hell in an hour than a decade of this kind of whispering and gossip and sophistry plus all the Medicis put together and competition-level-speed-scheming. And he’d had nothing at all to do with that, nor wanted to - one Dominican could do the work of ten demons, and Downstairs didn’t even realise how badly they were being outclassed. There was no art to it anymore, just brutality and paperwork and politics.
Crowley thought he needed a vacation from his vacation, but that unearned commendation business over the Spanish Inquisition was starting to wear thin, and he figured that just hanging around this crowd long enough was bound to lead to some contact success.
He was still in Italy when it started there too. He’d dawdled too long, but the food was good.
Prologue 2: Trinity College, Cambridge, England, 1546 AD
So it was true, those whispers at that print shop in Antwerp. Aziraphale had rather thought the last thing the most reckless of the Tudors would concern himself with was his intellectual legacy. And just as it was said, in its warrens of shelves was what could be the beginning of the best collection of Greek mathematics and natural philosophy texts he’d ever seen in England. Not that it had much competition.
Someone here definitely had something on the ball. Over millennia, certain senses of Aziraphale’s had begun to manifest themselves in specifically human ways, and that sensation the poets spoke of--the hairs on the back of his neck tingling--was by now extremely familiar.
Aziraphale himself was the most supernatural thing in the library, as he usually was in any room on earth. But as he reached for what appeared to be a work long thought lost in the West on the influence of the Spheres upon earthly magnetism, he was pretty sure he was feeling the very small beginnings of the turn of a very large cog. It was easy to lose track of those if you kept being distracted by the big personalities and the obvious crises of the age-those eruptions and panics and fads and wars and rumours of wars among what were, when you thought about it, very short-lived creatures. But it was often the tiniest stirrings of something hard to pin down at the time that would prove more important over the long run.
The brittle paper came to his hand like a tame bird, and he identified it like a naturalist.
And as he identified it, he became aware of something else: that he was no longer alone.
There was nothing obviously uncanny about the man who smiled at him from the end of the row, except perhaps that he was in the robe of a Trinity fellow and seemed surprisingly young. But his eyes were uncommonly bright, and he had a way of peering into Aziraphale’s face as though he were looking for something he knew was there but couldn’t quite put his finger on. The angel felt some remorse for his wariness--there was no malice in the youth, only keen intelligence and utterly sleepless curiosity. Which could be reason enough, in its way.
“Ah, that’s a good choice,” the young scholar said. “But I prefer the Pythagoras. Leads to some wonderful possibilities.”
“Indeed,” Aziraphale sighed, looking back down at the book, hoping to keep the conversation simple. He really didn’t like being interrupted at reading, though he supposed it was the price one paid for delving in someone else’s library.
Instead of taking the hint, the young man-who was quite handsome in a rangy, distracted sort of way-leaned in closer. “Would the gentleman like to see a small wonder?” he asked conspiratorially as he rummaged about in his robes.
Well, it doesn’t get more straightforward and honest than that, Aziraphale sighed to himself. He considered delivering a stern lecture on the value of discretion but decided even that was more involved than he wanted to get, and was about to offer a kind but firm demurral when the young man drew out his closed fist and then dramatically released his fingers.
A larger-than-normal dung beetle flew from his palm and circled Aziraphale’s head once, deosil, before landing on his shoulder. When he looked at it closely, he blinked hard to make certain he’d seen correctly. It was made of wood.
Now he really needed to give the lecture, though not quite the one he’d first thought. “You should not…you’re…” But the words froze in Aziraphale’s mouth, because the truly uncanny thing about the wooden scarab with its many moving parts was that as much as it looked exactly like some kind of conjurer’s golem, there really wasn’t a single bit of sorcery in it. None that Aziraphale could sense, anyway, and he was certain he was good at sniffing traces. “You shouldn’t show that to…just anyone...” he finally finished, a little lamely.
“I wouldn’t…to just anyone,” the young man smiled. “It’s only a model. I’m building a much larger one for the theater.”
“You know these are dangerous times. Even though, of course, it’s all natural law at work here, it could be misunderstood-I do know you aren’t…”
“Indeed not!” said the fellow triumphantly. “I knew a man of learning such as yourself would understand. Fine Greek engineering principles…and a bit of sleight of hand. I call it thaumaturgy, the art of wonders to elevate and inspire. A wondrous world our Creator has given us, and I would seek to increase knowledge of it, and therefore its due awe and appreciation.”
Aziraphale suspected very strongly that just because the young man hadn’t employed any sorcery in this particular very clever toy, it didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it.
And after the angel had found an excuse to walk away, amid much promising of further conversation such as learned men have amid walls of books, he realised with a twinge he had not asked the lad’s name, and then with a second twinge that he suddenly knew it anyway. He’d found that only happened when it was a name he’d encounter again. Bit of a shame; he ought to rate more than two syllables, really.
London, January 1559 AD
For the most part it was over and done with, though the feast still went on, and the sky over the cathedral was deepening behind the steely grey clouds.
They’d celebrated with such enthusiasm, bless their hearts - it wasn’t all from the top down either. The hope was sincere; Aziraphale could feel it filling the streets and spilling up to the sky. And he knew that most of the people’s hopes were for things they didn’t want: no more hunger, no more fear, no more plague, no more of that horrible smell from the town squares. One could hardly blame them-where else should hope start?
Well, if you asked her, you might get a different answer, or none at all, as she deemed prudent-for she was nothing if not that.
The happy chaos was all a little much-it gave him a bit of a hangover without the pleasure of having been drunk, and he’d retreated to the sharp slope of Westminster’s roof to observe it all from a distance where it wouldn’t befuddle him so much. The cold rain at least had stopped. But for the rock doves he was alone here, for the most part, with the sound of the wind-well, at least until the wind brought him another sound, the beating of much larger wings, and he sighed. He didn’t even have to turn around, although the perfume was something new. He’d been in Italy. It figured.
“What kind of jackass,” said a familiar voice, quiet and laughing, “sets the date for a gigantic coronation in January?”
“Her astrologer, I believe,” Aziraphale said stiffly. It wasn’t that he approved; he most certainly did not. He was simply trying not to think of a wooden dung beetle.
Crowley snickered. “Good job.”
“Why are you always so-“
“Cynical, yes, I know. But she’ll be fine, I think. I mean, she could hardly do worse.”
“Be careful when you say that,” Aziraphale said wearily.
“Aziraphale-“
There was something in Crowley’s voice, or something out of the corner of his eye, that made Aziraphale turn around and look, really look at his counterpart for the first time in forty years. The velvet cap with its long jaunty red and gold feather. His handsome face, dark and smiling in the twilight, his ostentatious fur-lined cloak (which had had no lining until the demon had entered British airspace and re-encountered that familiar bone-chilling damp) and wine-red brocade doublet and snug hose outlining his legs and-dear God. Aziraphale immediately looked right back up at the sky, blushing.
“Tired of looking at me so quickly?”
The angel gave a weighted, put-upon sigh. “Is that the tackiest codpiece I’ve ever seen, or are you just glad to see me?”
“Both,” Crowley chuckled. “Frankly, it’s edgy for Italy but tame for Spain.”
“I suppose prevailing upon you for modesty is a lost cause.”
“It’s quite modest,” Crowley said. “No one can tell when I’m having an inappropriate response. Or an appropriate one. Besides, it distracts attention from my eyes.”
“I’m sure it must,” said Aziraphale, still looking at the sky. “Even I can’t look at your face right now.” The moon peered through a silvery crack in the clouds, though wet snow flurries were beginning to blow about. Aziraphale was waiting for the usual biting critique of his own outdated robes, but it never came. Crowley had fallen companionably silent.
But finally, as the snow picked up, he said, “You know, I’ve got some Italian wine. And even such, er, wingéd sprites as ourselves probably oughtn’t drink it on a roof so steep. Besides, it’s a church and it’s making me itch.”
“Not a word about the cold? I’m surprised.”
“Bracing,” Crowley lied. “Invigorating.” He held his hand out to the angel, and they flew from the roof, over the celebrating city lit with torches.
***
In the unassuming little room upstairs above the bookshop, Aziraphale couldn’t help noting that Crowley flinched for just a second when he lit the fireplace. “You live in a tinderbox, Aziraphale.”
The angel cocked his head sideways. “I think I can protect myself, my dear.”
Crowley shrugged and opened the first bottle. “Must be tiring, that same miracle every day.”
“I get by.”
“So,” Crowley said, manifesting two unnecessarily expensive cups. “To Her Majesty. May she be less than half as nutters as her predecessors.”
“Her father was quite a piece of work.”
“Her sister was worse, from what I heard.”
“Well, she was very devout.”
Crowley snorted.
A deep drink, and grey-blue eyes stared into yellow ones across the little table.
“So.” Crowley said at last. “Your people. Where the fuck are they in all of this? Because I’ll be blessed if I can tell where mine are. Aside from a few go this, do that bits of busywork, I’ve barely heard a peep in ten years. I’m feeling obsolete, old pal. Down in Italy, they’re not even giving Hell all the credit for War and Pestilence’s hard work anymore.”
Aziraphale reached for the bottle and refilled his cup hastily. He pressed his lips together and looked at a precarious stack of leatherbound Latin prayerbooks leaning on a sagging shelf. There wasn’t anything useful there, particularly.
“I wish I knew,” he finally said. “A lot of my favourite old churches were destroyed, you know.” Some of my favourite people too, he didn’t say.
Crowley laughed flatly. “Sorry,” he said. “You do know this whole island has a target painted on it so big it spills over to Ireland, right? If she doesn’t marry a Catholic soon, I give her six months.”
“She won’t marry at all if she can possibly avoid it,” Aziraphale said. “I have a hunch about this. Her father had her mother beheaded-would you?”
Crowley threw up his hands. “Sane ruling dynasty - that’s not possible, is it?”
Aziraphale sighed. “I suppose you’re questioning the divine right too. You might as well. Everyone else is these days.”
“I hate to be behind the times.”
Aziraphale decided to change the subject. “So how was Italy?”
“Oh, it’s fantastic as long as you stay away from Rome. I was in Venice. Florence. Nice art if you don’t mind all the half-naked pudgy angels in it. And it’s wonderful to meet courtesans who can read again.”
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. Two, in fact.
Crowley took this as encouragement. “Why, there’s talk of letting women on the stage, no less. How bloody scandalous. I don’t see the shock value, they might as well - the castrati sing better and the boys are prettier anyway, and more…”
“Compliant?”
“Very good at making a tempter feel obsolete,” said Crowley, smiling as though he just swallowed a goat whole and was about to take a nice week’s nap.
Aziraphale refilled his glass and half emptied it again. “You always have been so generous with your favours. Why, if one didn’t know better, one might almost accuse you of Charity.”
“I prefer to think of it as a form of Gluttony. In addition to the obvious, of course.”
Of course. It had to have been the wine-there must always be something to blame, and Crowley’s boss was hardly a good source in this case-but Aziraphale just smiled and said calmly, “I wonder what you’d call it if I took a mortal lover for a change.”
Crowley’s ungracious spray of red wine across the table followed by manic cackling wasn’t quite the effect Aziraphale was aiming for. “Do you have anyone special in mind, or just the next poor sod who walks into your shop?”
Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “Don’t be absurd. It was purely theoretical.”
Ah yes. Crowley did look relieved. And very intent. Aziraphale awkwardly got to his feet and turned to the window, where a wind was picking up. He could feel its damp cool through the tiny chinks in the panes. It wasn’t doing enough for the muzziness in his mind, though. “I do feel useless sometimes. When I’m not feeling that I should just go somewhere deserted until all the madness passes. Less populated. Simpler. I used to know what to do, I think.”
Crowley grunted something, and Aziraphale could hear him swallow. “If you’d learned anything useful in all the time we’ve been on this rock, you think it’d be that the madness never passes. Not for long.”
Aziraphale sighed and watched the skimpy snow making its heroic effort. “I just don’t see why…the sad thing is, I’ve got so many books in here that could get someone burned…”
Crowley’s cup hit the table with a clang. Aziraphale was about to turn around, but then he felt hands on his shoulders and dared not. Crowley’s grip was firm and warm, sliding up and down Aziraphale’s arms, and once again the subject was effectively changed, or so he thought.
“Don’t speak of that,” Crowley commanded. “Not now. I’m thoroughly sick of the subject. And the smell of it.”
“Hope,” Aziraphale said softly, “You’ve got that, too. Every time you see me, you always hope I’ll go to bed with you. Maybe by now you even have Faith that I will.”
“Not Faith, but Reason,” Crowley said, nuzzling Aziraphale’s cheek, sliding his tongue behind the angel’s ear. Aziraphale drew in breath sharply, surprised as always by the intensity of that surge of desire, the direct connection between those sensitive parts Crowley was tasting and those he was about to touch…it was Natural Law, wasn’t it? Curse him for knowing.
Crowley’s arms wrapped around him from behind, pulling him into a fierce embrace, and the demon was whispering something not completely coherent, and Aziraphale closed his eyes and shivered. This was different somehow. He didn’t know what it was he felt yet, but Crowley was definitely attempting to express something. One hand pulled his collar away and the front of his robe open, and Crowley was still whispering as he bit the crook of Aziraphale’s neck: “Fuck. Azzziraphale, I…please…” One hand sank down Aziraphale’s belly, drawing his hips back.
“Crowley…dearest…please…”
“What? Anything!”
“Stop prodding my arse with that thing.”
“Oh cripes.”
“Churl,” Aziraphale said warmly, caressing Crowley’s arms, leaning back against him and humming in surprise as the cold draught from the window and the warmth of the fireplace fought for attention on his-on their-suddenly very bare skin. “Yes, just get rid of it all…” He turned his head a little awkwardly, requesting Crowley’s mouth onto his as he reached his hands back and grasped slim hips.
“You like that better?” Crowley growled-still prodding, but with something Aziraphale did indeed like better, and he said so, panting a little.
“Crowley, you…”
“Hush. Just let me…”
“Ohh, touch me…”
“Mmm, you’re hard.”
“What you do to me…”
“What I want to do to you…”
Aziraphale’s head was spinning. Too much, too fast. Crowley spitting in his hand, doing that transmogrification thing of his-water into wine, spit into oil, not such a big leap in its blasphemous way. Aziraphale shivered and bit his lip, lifting one knee onto a chair, bracing his hands against the windowsill and feeling very wanton as he opened his eyes and found the sky looking back at them.
Crowley was gasping in his ear, pleading, “Please…let me into you…I want…”
“Yes…yes, please yes,” Aziraphale closed his eyes and sank down into that trance that took him when he was first stretching like that, taking that sweet and strange invasion.
“I need…” Crowley gave a small shove, and Aziraphale yelped a little. “Shit, did I hurt you?”
“No…a little…don’t stop.”
“Oh…Aziraphale,” Crowley groaned so softly, and then Aziraphale noticed for certain something was strange. For once he’d worked himself deep within, Crowley barely moved at all, simply wrapped his arms more tightly around the angel and held him, burying his face in Aziraphale’s hair and sniffing…trembling terribly. And Aziraphale leaned back against him, spreading his thighs a little wider and holding onto Crowley’s arms. Crowley seemed to need something he couldn’t ask for, and anything Aziraphale could give…well…there wasn’t much left he hadn’t given. The lean arms crossed over his chest, moist kisses explored his back, and all Crowley seemed to want was to touch him and taste him with a maddening slowness. But the demon’s little movements inside him, no harder than breathing, were giving him a slowly rising, diffuse sort of pleasure that threatened even this kind of blurry awareness.
“Oh, Crowley…dearest..my…mmmm,” he breathed, silenced by a hand.
Whatever composure Crowley had lost, he was taking his time to regain. Had the moon been visible, Aziraphale could have watched it move a considerable distance, at least as long as he could keep his eyes open. Crowley’s hands roamed him so slowly, as if reacquainting himself with the front of Aziraphale’s body, all its sensitive places and little rises and falls…
Aziraphale was entranced by the slower-than-slow pace set by Crowley’s unusual, slightly off-kilter style of need.
“You’re so hot…tight…oh!” Crowley exclaimed, at last seeming to remember that they were supposed to move, harder, deeper.
Aziraphale was completely stunned by how hard he came into Crowley’s hand, almost hitting his head on the windowsill before he recovered himself and leaned back into Crowley’s helpless thrusts.
They were both glad there was a bed there to receive them when they finally collapsed spent upon it, small and rickety as it was. It hadn’t been there before, after all.
“Don’t ask,” Crowley said preemptively. “Just please don’t.”
“I won’t,” Aziraphale said, tucking Crowley’s head under his chin, kissing the damp dark hair. He didn’t like promising that; he had certainly wanted to.
Far away across the city, a young woman felt a great swell of triumph and relief. She was constrained in stiff, awkward jeweled clothing but her pretty red hair was free and unbound, and she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was, indeed, strong enough for this-as surely as if one of God’s angels had appeared in a beam of light to tell her so.
***
When Crowley awoke, cold grey light filtered into the little room through the one small window. The fire was down to embers and the room was chill, and he had no incentive to get up at all. He reached out and found he was alone in the bed, which was most vexing. (He remembered that lovely whorehouse in Jerusalem so long ago; he remembered a fumbling, languid, half-awake encore performance with Aziraphale, who kept the sheets warm like anything…and had insisted on paying the madam for the room and tipping generously at that, though they’d not used the services of any of the staff. He could really have gone for some of that right now. The angel, that is, not the madam.)
But it was morning, and he was hungry for many things-breakfast at least, if that was the best he could get-and he heard voices below, so he crept reluctantly out of bed, manifesting himself a warm dressing gown, and listened at the trap door.
“Oh, dear chap, you really shouldn’t have.”
“I thought of you in Brussels-oh, don’t worry, it’s a copy of a copy, made in my own hand, as faithful as I could render it.”
“No, John, you really shouldn’t have…it is on the banned list, and…honestly, after what you went through, I should think…”
“I think the darkest days are behind us, my friend. God Save Her Majesty, she is a wise woman with no fear of knowledge.”
Crowley felt his eyes narrowing as he recognised the music of temptation playing so loudly downstairs, and he having no part in it. As quietly as he could, he opened the door a slight crack and peered down the stairs-little more than a glorified ladder really-until he could see Aziraphale and the tall, handsome man he spoke with. He recognised a fellow optimist. He didn’t like it.
“But…when you were…”
“I was in no danger. Or rather, not from the directions that it may have appeared.”
“Mm-hmm, I understand now.”
Crowley could see Aziraphale’s head nodding over the book. Probably only half listening to what the man was saying, missing half the surface words and not even realising the whole other conversation that ought to be going on underneath. He hated watching Aziraphale sometimes-it made him think about all the times he couldn’t be around. Someday that angel was going to walk right into real, serious trouble opening up under his feet because he had his nose stuck in a book. Being that clueless ought to hurt-just as a warning.
Crowley himself almost missed the sharp brown eyes that glanced up at him and saw him. He did his best to disappear, blessing under his breath. The man said nothing.
“What would you like from me today?” Aziraphale asked him cheerfully, and Crowley ground his teeth.
“I just came to bring you a gift, my friend. But…”
There always was one.
“Do keep your eyes open for works of the nature we discussed before. A little bird tells me to pay special attention to manifestations of the Word.”
“I shall do that, gladly,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley could hear exactly what sort of smile was in his voice, specifically.
He threw himself back into the little bed, with some vague intention of pretending to be asleep when Aziraphale came up the stairs with breakfast, but he was too tense to make it convincing at all. “Who was that?” he blurted.
“A friend, Crowley, it’s impossible to stay in the same place for any time without collecting a few, as hard as I may try.”
Crowley gave a theatrical sigh. “Well I know that.”
“Not your kind of friend.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Crowley insinuated, accepting a cup of hot cider most grudgingly. “There’s something snaky about that one.”
“Well, of course, he was a spy for Elizabeth when she was very out of fashion. Almost burned for heresy too, but I imagine the worst is over from his end of things. I didn’t expect to see him so early in the morning after the feast, that’s for certain. But he said he had strange dreams, and awoke feeling refreshed.”
Crowley blinked. Maybe Aziraphale wasn’t as hopeless as he’d thought. “Heresy, eh? What’s that book he gave you?”
“Did you eavesdrop on our entire conversation, or just the exciting parts?”
“The parts that woke me up.”
“A Qabalistic work salvaged from Spain and smuggled to Amsterdam and then Brussels, if you must know.”
Crowley rolled his eyes. “We live that drivel, why do you have to read about it?”
Aziraphale shrugged and smiled mildly. “Perhaps I’d like to know just how much they know.” He rummaged among the simple foodstuffs on the tray, started nibbling on a scone. “Hungry?”
“Yes,” Crowley said, and reached past the tray to Aziraphale, pulling the angel down on top of him. A second’s adjustment, and Aziraphale was right there with him. His mouth was full of crumbs and honey.
Crowley made a small protesting noise when Aziraphale broke away and rose up on his knees, straddling Crowley’s thighs. Aziraphale wrenched away the covers and pulled Crowley’s robe open and leaned over him, one hand on the wall, simply gazing down at him in the clear daylight. Crowley lay frozen on his back, mostly-naked and aroused and exposed, watching those eyes move up and down his body as if they owned it-like one of his books, studying it. Left to right (English, Latin); Right to left (Hebrew, Arabic) and he could feel the touch of that look: possessing, memorising. He wanted more, and he stretched out a little, one hand over his head grasping the bedpost, the other reaching out, wanting to take the angel’s hand and put it somewhere.
There were warm, smooth fingertips at his throat and his collarbone, moving out over his left shoulder.
“You had a scar here,” Aziraphale said quietly. “I think I might’ve given it to you.”
“Gone,” Crowley breathed.
“Good,” Aziraphale said, and bent low, kissing the spot where it had been. “but-“
“Little secret,” Crowley whispered, nails running down the angel’s back through the scratchy wool. “You like my body? Truth is-“
“I like it a lot,” Aziraphale purred. “I always have.”
“Not this one, you haven’t.”
“Hm?”
“It’s brand new.”
Aziraphale suddenly froze, staring straight into Crowley’s eyes. “What? What happened?”
Crowley deflected that one quick. Or rather, ignored it completely. “In fact…last night notwithstanding…”-here he licked his lips. “You could almost say that…technically…in a manner of speaking…I’m a bit of a virgin. If you like that sort of thing.”
Aziraphale blinked.
“Oh, I’m so nervous,” Crowley smirked, moving against Aziraphale pleadingly. “Take me. But be gentle.”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes, and Crowley wasn’t sure if it was at him or at himself for being very aroused by that, because the angel clearly was. And there was something almost cruel about the tender way Aziraphale made love to him, and Crowley wasn’t sure if he should enjoy it as much as he did, because it was clearly meant as a form of Mercy.
***
“So,” Aziraphale finally said that eve, coming back up the stairs for the last time when the sky’s blue deepened slowly to cobalt, wine in his hand, to find Crowley dressed and staring out on the street.
“How far out of their way do you think your people would go to help you if you got in serious trouble here?” Crowley asked.
“Not very, and I wouldn’t expect it,” Aziraphale said flatly.
Crowley just nodded. “I imagine you’re supposed to stay out of it.”
“I do, usually.”
“I know.” Crowley turned back to the window.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Aziraphale said to his back. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
“There’s a lot I’m not telling you, because it’s not going to do you a blessed bit of good to know.”
“We have a bargain.”
“Need-to-know basis, Aziraphale,” said Crowley, and his eyes were cold. “I’d think your spooky human friends would know all about that.”
“You know it isn’t just a business matter…” Aziraphale touched Crowley’s back gently, and the demon flinched at his touch for the first time in two hundred years.
“Alas,” Crowley agreed. Aziraphale looked hurt.
“I don’t suppose,” the angel finally ventured, “that if you got in a tight spot, your…side…would be of any help?”
Crowley just laughed, rather bitterly. “I’m on my own up here, but for when it suits their purposes to abuse me.”
Not entirely, Aziraphale thought but did not say; after all, the promises he’d wanted to make weren’t exactly true, were they? He’d give anything to be able to make one he knew for sure he could keep.
Crowley was in a mood, and it wasn’t helping his own.
Part 2