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It started, as these things tend to do, innocently enough.
“You know,” Aziraphale said as he pottered aimlessly around the bookshop. “There are so many things I missed, while I was...away. About life on Earth. The food, the people, the theatre. The books, obviously. So many things that I took for granted, before."
Crowley watched warily from where he was sprawled across the sofa. It had only been a few days since Aziraphale had come back, with another end of the world prevented, and he kept waiting for the angel to change his mind, to go back up to Heaven, to leave Crowley alone again.
They’d made up, they’d apologised , forgiveness given on both sides. Forgetting was harder though, but Crowley was trying, even if he couldn’t help keeping more distance between them than before, even though part of him ached to do the opposite, to pull the angel closer and never let go.
“Why don’t you make a list?” he suggested. “All the things you want to do, that you missed. Then you can do a couple of them each day, tick them off as you go.” Aziraphale positively beamed at him.
“Oh, Crowley, what a brilliant idea! Whatever would I... ahem." He looked away, flustered. “Would you help me?”
“Make a list? I suppose, although I’m not sure how much help I’ll be – you don’t want it in my handwriting, you’d never know what you’d meant to be doing.”
“No, my dear, not with making the list – though I’m sure I’d appreciate your input. I meant... if I wanted to go to the theatre or something... would you come with me? It’s not the same alone.”
Crowley made a show of considering this.
“Well...let me check my busy social calendar...hmm.” He got out his phone and looked at it, waiting until Aziraphale made a small impatient noise before he looked up, unable to hide his grin. “Looks like I may have some availability, best book me in now before I get busy.”
“I’m sure,” Aziraphale laughed. It was good, to see him laugh again. To be making him laugh again.
“I mean it, angel. I’m a very busy person, lots of demands on my time. I can’t hang around here all day, waiting for you to decide what to do.”
“Of course, dear. That’s why you’ve spent the last three hours lazing around on my sofa.”
“What can I say? It’s an important job, somebody has to do it.” Aziraphale laughed again and started rifling through his desk for a piece of paper. Crowley rearranged himself so he could better see what the angel was doing. “So, what’s first?”
“Well, we must certainly have afternoon tea at the Ritz. And possibly dinner, although on a different day, I suppose. And...”
It was, Crowley considered, going to become a list of every decent restaurant in London. Soon, Aziraphale had filled one and a half sides of paper, in his beautiful copperplate handwriting, and Crowley decided that possibly he ought to intervene.
“Angel, did you miss anything but eating? Not that I mind touring the eateries of London with you, but we’ll be eating five meals a day for a year at this rate.”
“Oh! Of course, I...” Aziraphale flushed. “Well, we must go to the Globe, I suppose. Although I’m terribly out of date with what’s showing at the moment.” Crowley got out his phone again, and together they added several different plays to the list, then a list of some of the places that Aziraphale had missed – many of them selling food, admittedly, although Crowley had to stop Aziraphale adding the British Library to the list multiple times.
After filling four sides of paper, Aziraphale finally ran out of ideas.
“Well, I’m sure that’s enough to be going on with. And it’s getting late, there’s probably only time to do one of these today. What would you say to dinner?”
Crowley, it turned out, would say yes. He’d missed watching Aziraphale eat, possibly even more than the angel had missed eating.
***
He had plenty of opportunity to watch, over the next few days. They limited themselves to only two restaurants per day, plus a show, and a trip to some other sight – the Library, the Natural History Museum (to laugh at the dinosaur skeletons), feeding the ducks at the park. These often also involved some sort of food, a cake in the café, an ice cream. Aziraphale ducked into several shops and came out with chocolates or pastries.
It was all getting a bit much, if Crowley was entirely honest. He’d missed Aziraphale, of course, and was glad beyond words that he was back, and didn’t seem to be showing any sign of leaving again. They fell back into their usual light bickering, if somewhat more awkward at times. But there was such a thing as too much of a good thing.
“Possibly we should slow things down a bit,” he suggested on the fifth day. “We don’t need to do everything on the list in the first week.” He had, of course, completely abandoned the pretence of having other things to do.
“Perhaps I have gone a bit overboard,” Aziraphale admitted. “Maybe we just do one or two things a day? There are several jobs that I’ve been neglecting at the bookshop.”
“Yeah, I didn’t spot ‘sell a book’ on the list,” Crowley teased. Aziraphale made an attempt at looking affronted, but only succeeded for two seconds before he laughed.
“You’re right, of course. Maybe I should make a list of jobs that need doing, rather than things I want to do.”
“No reason you can’t do both. Just make one each morning, then you have a balance.”
“Excellent idea.”
***
For the next few weeks, every morning that Crowley turned up at the bookshop (which was nearly all of them) Aziraphale had a list prepared. Crowley found himself, between outings, shadowing Aziraphale around the bookshop, helping him clean or do inventory. Of course, he got bored of these a lot quicker than Aziraphale, so he also spent quite a lot of time lounging on the sofa, making the occasional sarcastic remark.
He sauntered into the bookshop on Tuesday morning, about two months in. It was empty.
“Aziraphale? You here?” he called. A moment of panic set in, before a voice came from upstairs.
“Down in a minute!” Relieved, Crowley set his sunglasses down on the horse statue and wandered over to Aziraphale’s desk to look at today’s list. He didn’t normally bother, just let Aziraphale tell him what they were doing next, but he needed to do something .
It wasn’t there.
Before he could wonder what was going on, Aziraphale appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Crowley! I wasn’t expecting you this early!” A familiar looking piece of paper was in his hand.
“It’s the same time I show up every day, angel.”
“Is it? Oh, I must have lost track of time! I just... Well, anyway I...” Aziraphale was, Crowley decided, rather excited about something. His eyes were shining, his hands waving, and he practically bounced down the stairs.
It probably would have been endearing, if the last time Crowley had seen him like this hadn’t been just before he went off to Heaven. He fought the urge to run away, managed to say something normal, even if his tone betrayed him.
“What’s on today’ss lisssst?” he asked, unable to stop the hissing. Aziraphale stopped short, concerned, then seemed to realise the problem and looked guilty instead.
“I’m so sorry, my dear, I-”
“The lisst?” Crowley cut in.
“Yes, alright. Well, I thought we’d do afternoon tea today at Selfridges. And there’s As You Like It tonight, of course. And, well...” Aziraphale looked down at his hands and fidgeted nervously. Crowley, who was slowly realising that nothing terrible was going to happen and had calmed down slightly, waited.
“I thought... if you wanted to, I mean... but maybe it’s a silly idea...” Aziraphale was starting to turn a rather nice shade of pink.
“Spit it out, angel,” Crowley encouraged, sibilants thankfully under control again. Aziraphale took a deep breath and looked up, meeting Crowley’s eyes.
“I wondered if you might like to try kissing, again.” He looked down again before Crowley could react. “I know last time was... well. But I think if we tried again, without all of... everything, it would be better?”
He looked back up. Crowley had gone still, as if his brain had completely disengaged from his body.
“Crowley?” Right. Words. They were a thing, that he should use. Crowley did, after all, speak every language in the world perfectly, but the appropriate words for this situation seemed to have abandoned him.
“Is it on the list?” he managed eventually.
“Well, yes actually. Look.” Aziraphale handed him the paper, and Crowley somehow got his body working well enough to take it and look down. Sure enough, in between Dust upstairs and tea at Selfridges were the words experiment with kissing? in the angel’s perfect handwriting.
“Oh. Well, if it’s on the list...”
“You don’t need to-”
“Angel?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.” Crowley stepped closer to Aziraphale and licked his lips nervously. “How do we, er, go about it?”
“Well, you did it last time, and it’s the only time I’ve ever... I’ll bow to your experience.”
“I don’t have any experience!” Crowley protested.
“Really? All those temptations, and you never?”
“No! Anyway, you did your share of temptations, and you never did either!”
“How did you know what to do last time, then?” Aziraphale asked.
“I saw it in films! Humans just kind of, y’know, smoosh their mouths together and...”
“Vavoom?” Aziraphale suggested. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, then simultaneously burst out laughing.
When they got their breath back, Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand.
“Maybe we just try - smooshing I believe you said – and see how that goes.” Crowley nodded. He leaned down, went to press his lips against Aziraphale’s - and whacked his nose against the angel’s.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry!”
“Maybe if we tilt our heads a bit?”
“Alright.” This time, at least, they managed not to cause any injuries. But as their lips met, all Crowley could see was Aziraphale’s face, after their first kiss, and he quickly pulled away. He didn’t look at Aziraphale, didn’t want to know if there was disgust on his face, or pity.
“Crowley? Did you want to stop?” He heard only concern in Aziraphale’s voice, forced himself to look up again. Aziraphale looked worried, certainly, but there was no fear, no pity. Crowley was being ridiculous, this was all Aziraphale’s idea, why would he be disgusted?
“I think I might be overthinking things,” Crowley admitted, looking at the floor again. “It was...easier last time. I just did it.”
“I see.” They stood in silence for a minute, there in the middle of the bookshop. “Crowley?”
Crowley looked up, and there was Aziraphale, stepping closer, kissing him. There was no bumping of noses this time, no freezing up, just the feel of Aziraphale’s lips, soft and warm against his. Aziraphale’s hands found his back, his own hands rested on Aziraphale’s hips as they pulled each other closer. Without a thought – all higher brain functions having deserted him – Crowley opened his lips, teased Aziraphale’s open with his tongue. Aziraphale moaned as Crowley’s tongue began to explore his mouth, his hands fisting in Crowley’s jacket as he responded.
Eventually, they pulled apart to catch their breath, resting their foreheads together instead.
“Vavoom?” Aziraphale asked, smiling broadly.
“Vavoom,” Crowley confirmed, and kissed him again.
***
Apparently, it was enough of a success that it made it on to the list for the next several days.
Crowley was beginning to worry about that, actually. Not the kissing part, that he was quite happy with. But the lists. It was all starting to get a bit out of hand.
He considered that day’s list as Aziraphale made a cup of tea. Between the jobs that needed doing in the shop, and the day’s plans, and kiss Crowley were things like eat breakfast and open up the shop . The day before, Aziraphale had objected to a trip to St James Park to feed the ducks, because it wasn’t on the list.
Aziraphale, Crowley rather suspected, could do with several years of sessions with a highly experienced therapist.
Since that seemed somewhat unlikely, what he was actually going to get was Crowley, who had once got absolutely rat-arsed with Sigmund Freud at a hotel in Salzburg.
“Look, Angel,” he said when Aziraphale reappeared, cup of tea in hand. “I think we need to talk about these lists.”
“Is there something on there you don’t want to do?” Aziraphale asked.
“No. Yes. Look, maybe you should sit down.” Aziraphale sat in his desk chair, leaving Crowley to take the sofa. This seemed backwards, from what Crowley remembered of Freud, but he didn’t think it mattered. “It’s... okay, you have kiss Crowley on the list again.”
“Did... you not want it to be?” Aziraphale asked, voice very small.
“Angel, I will quite happily kiss you at any point of any day. I’ve been waiting for six thousand years after all. I just don’t think we need to schedule it. Also, I’ve met you, and I don’t think eat breakfast needs to be on there either. You might sometimes be so busy reading you don’t realise a different day has started, but when you do, I highly doubt you ever forget breakfast.”
“But the lists were your idea!” Aziraphale pointed out, still looking confused.
“I know they were! I just think you’ve taken it a bit far. You can’t schedule every bit of every day. There has to be some room for...spontaneity. I know after... after Heaven, you want to feel in control of things. And I know it’s hard, after everything that’s happened. But you can’t go on like this forever – or maybe you can but you probably shouldn’t - and so you should probably.... ease up a bit, on the lists? Just do the big things, not the ones you do every day?”
As therapists went, Crowley didn’t think he’d been much good, but Aziraphale seemed to understand what he was saying, and agreed to try.
***
Two afternoons later, Crowley was alone in the shop while Aziraphale went around to collect rent from his tenants. Crowley hadn’t been allowed to come along – apparently, he was ‘intimidating’ (Nina) and ‘made people uneasy’ (Maggie), and Aziraphale didn’t like being that kind of landlord.
Instead, he checked today’s to-do list. To his relief, Aziraphale seemed to have taken their earlier conversation to heart, and all the everyday things were absent, including kissing – and Crowley had most definitely been thoroughly kissed, both on his arrival at the bookshop and at Aziraphale’s departure. He could still feel the ghost of Aziraphale’s lips on his, in fact, which might explain why he then took out the master list they’d made that first day, flipped to the end, and carefully wrote Crowley on the next line.
He panicked slightly when Aziraphale got back and made some excuse to go back to his flat straight after dinner, dropping Aziraphale at the bookshop door without coming in for a drink as usual.
Back in his flat, he tried to sleep but spent several hours tossing and turning. He didn’t think that Aziraphale would be outraged at the suggestion – not after the amount of kissing they’d been doing over the last week or so. But he hadn’t even hinted at taking things any further, and somewhere in the back of Crowley’s mind, “You go too fast for me” was repeating itself.
He eventually fell into a restless sleep around 3am and slept right through until Aziraphale called at half past eleven to make sure he was alright.
Crowley pulled himself together in time to pick Aziraphale up for dinner, and they had a perfectly normal conversation, with a perfectly normal amount of watching Aziraphale eat. The angel probably hadn’t even looked at the master list, or he would have said something, surely.
***
Reassured by the previous evening, Crowley showed up at the bookshop at his usual time. The sign on the door proclaimed it to be closed, which was unusual at this time but not unheard of – Aziraphale kept whatever hours he felt like after all, the less predictable the better. And the sign didn’t apply to Crowley, anyway, so he breezed past it without much thought.
“Crowley? Is that you?” Aziraphale’s voice came from somewhere deeper inside the bookshop.
“No, just an opportunistic thief, here to steal some valuable first editions!” Crowley called back, dropping his sunglasses in their usual spot.
“Oh, dear. Well, could you spare a moment to come and hold this ladder for me?” Crowley followed the angel’s voice into the shop and turned a corner to find Aziraphale balanced precariously on a ladder, doing something at the top of one of the bookshelves.
Quite what he was doing, Crowley had no idea, as he was rather distracted by the fact that he’d suddenly found himself with his face only inches from Aziraphale’s crotch.
Any question Crowley may have had, about if Aziraphale had ever made an effort to appear more... male... was answered, and Crowley was trying to remember if this was usual for the angel, or if there was a particular reason for it today.
Aziraphale was talking, had possibly been talking for a while, and Crowley belatedly remembered that he was meant to be holding the ladder. He grabbed it and tried to concentrate.
“And I was looking down at the top of the shelves, and I thought, I wonder when I last polished these, and then I realised probably never, so...” Bookshelves. He was polishing the tops of bookshelves. This seemed to be the sort of thing that he could use a miracle for, if it really needed doing at all, but Crowley couldn’t bring himself to argue.
After a minute Aziraphale climbed down, much to Crowley’s relief – and disappointment.
“Thank you, dear. It was terribly dusty up there, I think I’ll do the rest another day. Would you be a dear and go and check what’s next on the list while I put the ladder away?”
Thankful for the chance to regain his composure, Crowley did as he was asked. He headed over to Aziraphale’s desk, found the list under a book, and looked at it.
Polish top of shelves, said the first line.
All the rest, all – Crowley counted – twenty-seven lines, all said the same thing.
Crowley.
Crowley.
Crowley.
Twenty-seven times. Some of them had hearts around them.
It seemed likely that Aziraphale had, in fact, seen his addition to the list.
“Crowley?” It took a moment to register that the words were out loud, and not just repeating in his head. Crowley turned to see Aziraphale standing behind him, a nervous smile on his face.
“Ngk.” Brilliance. He inspired Shakespeare once, for fuck’s sake.
“We don’t have to...” Aziraphale said, smile fading. He went to turn away. Some small part of Crowley’s brain must have re-engaged, because his hand shot out to stop him, to pull him closer.
“We don’t have to,” Aziraphale said again, reassuring this time rather than dejected. Crowley shook his head, hoping that Aziraphale understood that it wasn’t not a no , just an I can’t speak right now.
“ Here?” he managed, after what seems like an age. Aziraphale, the absolute bastard, looked at the sofa and then the floor, like he was seriously considering it.
“I think the bedroom might be more comfortable, don’t you?” he said brightly. Crowley could only nod and let himself be led up the stairs to Aziraphale’s bedroom.
Aziraphale’s bedroom. He’d never actually been in it before, hadn’t really been sure he had one, Aziraphale being rather less fond of sleeping than Crowley himself. But here it was, although Crowley didn’t really take in the décor, beyond the fact that it, like most of the other rooms, was yellow. And the bed, mustn't forget the very large bed, with a ridiculous number of pillows and – of course – a tartan blanket spread over the top. There were candles (battery operated, of course). The angel had been planning .
This was fine, this was dandy, this was just what Crowley had wanted , quite a lot for quite a while, actually.
It was also fucking terrifying.
“How do we... what do you...” Crowley continued with his verbal brilliance.
“You’re overthinking again,” Aziraphale chided gently. He hooked his fingers into Crowley’s belt loops and pulled him closer. “Stop it.” He leaned in and lay a line of kisses up the side of Crowley’s neck, before meeting his lips.
Crowley stopped overthinking. He stopped thinking at all, in fact, to the point where he forgot to breathe for a minute. Any surviving brain cells were focussed entirely on kissing Aziraphale back.
Aziraphale’s hand wondered along his belt, and he rubbed his thumb back and forth across the snake’s head buckle, knuckles gently brushing against Crowley’s stomach. Crowley moaned into the angel’s mouth and bit at his lip.
Then Aziraphale moved away, kissing up Crowley’s jawline to his ear.
“I think we might need to be wearing less clothing,” he whispered into Crowley’s ear. Crowley lifted a hand to miracle his away, like he always did, but Aziraphale caught it. “I want to do this properly.”
“Might be difficult,” Crowley said. “I have to miracle myself into these.”
Aziraphale pulled back and gave Crowley’s ridiculously tight leather trousers a long, appraising look, which seemed to Crowley like it raised the temperature in the room by several degrees, and licked his lips.
“Yes, I can see that,” he said – almost purred , actually. “Can you, ah, fit anything in there?”
“Find out for yourself.”
“Oh, I intend to, dear boy. In good time.” Instead, Aziraphale set to undoing Crowley’s waistcoat, then his shirt. Crowley, deciding turnabout was fair play, did what he’d been wanting to do since he’d first seen the angel in that ridiculous bowtie, and took it off him. Followed, between kisses, by the rest of his clothing - all four layers of it.
Soon, the only things left were Aziraphale’s boxers (Crowley was relieved to see that, unlike the rest of his attire, Aziraphale’s underwear did not date back two centuries, and were, he suspected, from M & S. Although they were, inevitably, tartan) and Crowley’s trousers.
“Is this a good time yet?” Crowley asked. Aziraphale didn’t answer, but moved his hands back to the buckle of Crowley’s belt and undid it.
“I think I may need to lie down to get these off,” Crowley admitted. Aziraphale’s eyes twinkled.
“What a marvellous idea.”
As it turned out, it was rather difficult to get them off, and by the time they managed it both of them were trying hard not to collapse into helpless laughter. Finally, Aziraphale dropped them on the floor and turned to look at Crowley, mirth falling away quickly to be replaced by pure lust.
“Oh!” He stared for rather a long time, until Crowley nudged him with his foot.
“Come on, Angel. I’ve shown you mine, now you show me yours.” Obligingly, Aziraphale dropped his boxers next to Crowley’s trousers and it was Crowley’s turn to stare as the angel climbed onto the bed between his legs.
“May I?” Aziraphale asked, nerves creeping into his voice for the first time.
“Ngk.” Aziraphale seemed to take this as assent, as he ran his hand up the inside of Crowley’s thigh and started rubbing at the wetness between his legs. Crowley whined and bucked his hips, and Aziraphale gave up on teasing and gently slid a finger in instead.
“Oh, Crowley, you’re perfect ,” he murmured.
“M’demon. M’not perfect,” Crowley mumbled, more out of reflex than anything.
“Fine,” Aziraphale replied, leaning down to kiss his stomach, finger still exploring inside him. “You’re a foul fiend.” He trailed kisses upwards. “A wily serpent.” His tongue found Crowley’s nipple at the same moment his thumb found his clit, and Crowley cried out wordlessly. “A dissolute tempter. I really should be thwarting you, right now.” Since Crowley was basically putty in the angel’s hands at this point, this seemed an empty threat, particularly since he couldn’t recall Aziraphale ever actually thwarting him, but he played along.
“Go on then. Thwart me.”
“Oh, I think it’s far too late for that.” Aziraphale removed his hand, earning himself another whine from Crowley. “I’ve already succumbed to temptation.”
Any smart remark Crowley may have said in response was chased from his brain as Aziraphale’s cock slid into him. Instead, he managed a strangled “Angel!” before coherent speech left him entirely. He descended into wordless moans and cries as Aziraphale thrust into him, slowly at first, the new sensations overwhelming both of them.
Crowley met Aziraphale’s eyes, the pupils blown wide, and he could have drowned in the depths of them. Something in his own eyes must have spurred the angel on, because he leaned down for one more searing kiss before increasing the pace.
All too soon, Crowley felt a pressure building up inside him, and he dug his fingernails into Aziraphale’s back as he came. The angel managed a few more thrusts, riding Crowley’s orgasm until the end, and the angel finally succumbed to his own climax, the demon’s name on his lips.
They lay side by side for a while, legs tangled together as Crowley took the opportunity to explore Aziraphale’s body with one hand, revelling in the angel’s soft skin as he roamed over hips, arse, thighs. Aziraphale made a contented noise and nuzzled into Crowley’s neck.
“Crowley?”
“Yes, Angel?”
“Why didn’t we do this centuries ago?”
“Not sure. Something about divine retribution, and infernal punishments?”
“Oh. Yes. Those. Probably for the best, then.” Aziraphale paused. “Crowley?”
“Aziraphale?”
“Do you remember Job?” As if Crowley could have possibly forgotten.
“Confused chap. Sensible wife. Insufferable son.”
“Well, yes. But I meant more specifically his basement. And his ox.” Crowley couldn’t see Aziraphale’s face, but he was fairly sure the angel was blushing. Given the last half hour, he was interested in seeing where this conversation was going.
“Only every time I’ve watched you eat for the last few millennia. Or if I’m lonely. Although sometimes I think of the Roman Empire. Or the Bastille.”
“Oh!” Aziraphale went silent, having obviously lost his train of thought. “ Every time? Even these last few weeks?”
“I’ve not been going back to my flat every night because I’m tired , angel.”
“Why did you never say anything?”
“Divine retribution, remember? And...” Crowley hesitated, but decided honesty was the best policy at this point – and Aziraphale wasn’t the only one who probably (definitely) needed therapy. “And you’d have left. I’d have pushed too far, gone too fast, and it would have been too much for you. I’d have taken the retribution, any punishment Hell could think of, if I thought we could end up here. But you weren’t ready, so I took what I could, rather than risking you leaving forever.” Why did honesty have to hurt ?
“I wouldn’t have-” Aziraphale began, lifting his head to meet Crowley’s eyes.
“If I’d said to you, ‘Hey, Aziraphale, watching you eat that cake is reminding me of the time you devoured half an ox because I offered it to you, I have to go home now and have a wank while I imagine you’d done the same to my cock’, you’d have got a stick up your arse, called me disgusting and stormed off, possibly for several centuries.”
“Well, if you’d used language like that!” Aziraphale huffed.
“Only proving my point there, Angel.”
“I was a coward, I know. But I was only ever worried about losing you.” This, Crowley decided, was turning into too much honesty.
“I know, Angel. What were you going to say, anyway?”
“Oh! Well, you mostly said it yourself, actually.”
“Said what now?”
“I’ve often though, over the years, about that night. And imagined... the same as you.” Somehow, Crowley was the one blushing now.
“Oh. And you... want to do that now?”
“That is was what I was getting at, yes.” Aziraphale said pointedly. Crowley hurriedly focussed on switching to the necessary parts, cock already hard as it appeared.
“Oh, and Crowley?” Aziraphale said as he moved between Crowley’s legs
“Ngk?”
“I had that outfit from the Bastille remade, afterwards. It’s still in the wardrobe. And I believe Marguerite's offer takeaway crepes.”
Aziraphale’s tongue licked at the head of his cock before he could respond to that, but the small part of his mind that wasn’t occupied with the feel of the angel’s mouth filed it away for later consideration.
***
As it turned out, twenty-seven times was too much for one day, even for beings who didn’t have such biological considerations as eating, peeing, and refraction periods (although they did indeed order crepes. And oysters). But clearly, you couldn’t start a new to-do list without finishing the previous one.