Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Angel, why on earth do we even have to go there? Honestly, who cares about Mr. Brown anyway?” Crowley groaned, though it was more complaint than outright protest, his voice sliding out like a reluctant sigh.

“It’s his birthday, my dear,” Aziraphale said, rather cheerily, as if that alone resolved the matter. He was half-bent over the oven, a waft of lemon and something delightfully buttery puffing into the air as he peered through the glass. “We were invited. It would be terribly rude not to attend, and besides, everyone loves birthdays. There’s going to be alcohol.”

“That’s not enough to bribe me,” Crowley muttered, though he was already stepping further into the kitchen. 

“At least Nina and Maggie will be there,” Aziraphale added brightly, turning to assess the cookies cooling on a rack beside the stovetop, each one a perfect golden brown and far too symmetrical for anything less than divinely guided baking.

Crowley curled his lip. “Yeah, great. Love a night of watching Mr Brown pretend not to ogle you like you're the last cronut in Soho.”

Aziraphale’s brows lifted, mildly amused. “Darling, really. You can’t be jealous of a few humans.”

“I’m not jealous,” Crowley replied a little too fast, his mouth tightening at the corners as he sat up straighter, folding his arms. “I’m a demon. We don’t do jealousy.”

“Mm. Isn’t jealousy one of the deadly sins, though?” Aziraphale asked, voice low and teasing, turning to face him fully now with a smug sort of quirk in the corner of his mouth. “Seems it ought to be right in your wheelhouse.”

Crowley squinted. “That’s envy. Totally different. Jealousy is when you think someone’s going to take what’s yours. Envy is wanting what you don’t have. And anyway,” he drawled, flicking his gaze deliberately down Aziraphale’s front, “why would I envy a human? They don’t get this sweet piece of ass every day.”

And with that, he slapped Aziraphale’s backside with a definitive smack that echoed off the copper pans hanging overhead.

“You flatter me terribly,” Aziraphale sniffed, cheeks going pink as he turned back to the counter, but there was no mistaking the way his shoulders had gone a little straighter, the faint wiggle that had appeared in his hips. “I say the same about you, you know. There’s no better—” he cleared his throat delicately, then leaned in slightly, voice dropping as he whispered the word with theatrical vulgarity, “—pussy in the world than yours.”

Crowley physically jolted, face going beet red, all the way to the tips of his ears. Something about the way Aziraphale had said it “pussy” was so innocently obscene, like he'd rolled the word in powdered sugar and then handed it to him on a silver dish. Crowley’s knees nearly buckled. 

Crowley, red-faced and suddenly very aware of every inch of his own skin, yanked his phone from his pocket just to do something with his hands. No messages. Of course not. Not that he’d been expecting one. But he swiped through them all anyway, desperate for distraction, for anything to keep from replaying Aziraphale’s voice in his head. That ridiculous, plummy tone wrapped around the word pussy.

He wasn’t jealous. Of course he wasn’t. He was a demon. Demons didn’t get jealous.

Still. It had been… noticeable.

Like, say, the other night when they were at the pub and that floppy-haired student had leaned over the table to ask if Crowley had a lighter, despite the obvious fact that Crowley didn’t smoke and had lingered for far too long after Crowley gave him a yes. Or the time that barista had drawn a little heart in the foam of Crowley’s cappuccino and winked at him when handing it over. Or that absolutely skin-crawling moment when the man at the book fair had complimented Crowley’s boots and then Aziraphale’s “lucky taste.”

Crowley hadn’t liked it. Not one bit. But Aziraphale? Not a flicker. No narrowed eyes, no annoyed glances, no possessive little touches or cutting remarks. Nothing.

And that shouldn’t matter, not really.

But.

He kept thinking about it, chewing the inside of his cheek as he stared blankly at the group chat where no one had posted in a week.

He just… thought it might be nice if Aziraphale were. A little. Enough to show that he noticed.

Crowley shifted his weight, leaning against the fridge now. His hand idly twisted the ring on his pinky. “Hey. Can I ask you something?” His tone was more guarded than before, less grumble, more uncertain curiosity.

“Mmm?” Aziraphale had a wooden spoon in his mouth now, absently tasting the lemon glaze he’d just whipped up.

Crowley watched his lips wrap around the spoon for a beat too long before tearing his eyes away. “Not that I get jealous or anything, but… why don’t you?”

“Don’t I what?”

“Get jealous. About me. I mean, not that I want you to, but… you don’t even flinch when someone tries chatting me up at the pub.”

Aziraphale set the spoon down, turning slowly to face him, expression unreadable but calm. “Do you want me to be jealous, my dear?”

“No! Obviously not. Jealousy’s a weakness.” Crowley crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. “Just… sometimes I think maybe I’d feel more…” He waved vaguely. “Protected. Or something. Not that I need it.”

Aziraphale came over to him then, hands still dusted with flour, and placed one of them gently on Crowley’s chest, right over his heart. “Let’s say I felt inclined to be jealous,” he said mildly. “But I don’t need to be. Because I know who gets to eat you out until you’re shaking. Who gets to trace little shapes on your hipbones with his tongue while you whimper.”

Crowley’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again with a small hiccup of breath. “Uh—”

“I know who gets to wake you up by sucking you off under the covers before breakfast,” Aziraphale continued, voice dipping sweet and low, “and who knows just how you like your coffee after. Who gets to hear those pretty little growls you make when you’re halfway in heat but still pretending you don’t want to be touched.”

Crowley’s eyes were very wide now.

Aziraphale went on, counting off on his fingers, “who reads the bad reviews aloud just to make you laugh, who warms your feet with his own when you won’t admit you're cold—”

“I’m never cold—”

“—and who gets to kiss you until you forget how words work. That’s me, Crowley. All of that. Every bit. So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel particularly threatened by a twenty-something trying to slide you their number on a coaster.”

Crowley swallowed audibly.

“And,” Aziraphale added after a beat, “I know who’s got the best pussy in the world. And whose cock I’ve worshipped on my knees more times than I can count.”

Crowley made a pained, unholy noise in the back of his throat.

Aziraphale smiled, stepping closer now, chest to chest, pressing him gently back against the fridge door. “So if it’s reassurance you want, I’m happy to offer it,” he murmured, nose brushing Crowley’s cheek. “But jealousy? My dear, I don’t need it. You’re mine. And I’m yours.”

Crowley, still red, leaned forward and buried his face in Aziraphale’s neck.

“Right,” he mumbled into the collar of the angel’s cardigan, “that’s… that’s fair. That’s good. You’re such a bloody show-off, angel.”

Aziraphale chuckled, breath warm by his ear. “Only with you, my love.”

And from the oven, behind them, the cookies chimed as the timer went off. Aziraphale hummed and moved immediately with soft hands and practiced grace he pulled the tray out. He set them on the rack like he was tucking in a sleeping child. “Assist me with the lemon glaze, won’t you, my love? I need to brush it on while they’re warm.”

Crowley blinked, still slightly stunned from the absolute verbal filth that had poured out of Aziraphale’s mouth minutes ago. He blinked again and stepped forward on autopilot. “Yeah. Sure. Absolutely.” He picked up the little porcelain bowl with the glaze and stared into its thick glossy surface like it might contain answers. Or divine intervention. Or maybe just a distraction from how absolutely soaking wet he’d gotten.

“How long ‘til cooldown?” Crowley asked, pretending very hard to focus on the glaze setup.

“Oh, maybe twenty, thirty minutes. I always let them rest fully before stacking them, you know that,” Aziraphale said, now laying cookies out with military precision. “Do you think I’ve made enough for the party? I’ve got a second batch portioned, I was considering trying them with cardamom and just a touch of rose, purely experimental of course, but I do find the floral undertones can elevate citrus…”

Crowley bit his lip, watching the angel as he moved from oven to rack, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, forearms dusted with flour and a smear of lemon zest stuck to his wrist. Sexy. Annoyingly so. He looked like the cover of a very filthy baking calendar.

“You think,” Crowley said, voice low, “you could do me in thirty minutes?”

Aziraphale paused mid-stir, the lemon glaze clinging to the spoon in a slow, teasing drip. He glanced up, then, mildly curious. “Right now?”

“Right now,” Crowley said, exasperated and aroused in equal measure. “Like, here. In the kitchen. While the cookies cool.”

Aziraphale pulled out his pocket watch and checked it. “Well… if we time it precisely, and assuming I don’t need to redo the glaze, we’ve got fifteen minutes before we must leave to arrive at precisely seven-thirty. So I suppose it’s not impossible—”

“Shh,” Crowley growled, stepping forward and gripping the counter behind the angel, effectively trapping him. “Just fuck me in the kitchen, angel. Jesus. You and your hot arse need to get something in your head other than cookies.”

Aziraphale blinked slowly, the watch still open in one hand. “Darling,” he chided gently, “let’s not bring Jesus into this. I’m quite sure He wouldn’t appreciate being included in your desperate need to get railed before a social engagement.”

“We could get there at eight,” Crowley muttered, grinding shamelessly against him now, hips already rolling in anticipation. “Nobody likes Mister Brown. Nobody will even notice.”

Aziraphale’s mouth twitched into a scandalized smile. “We are not going to be rude,” he said primly, but even as he said it, his hands came to rest on Crowley’s hips. “However…”

Crowley’s breath hitched.

“…if we were to begin now, I suppose I could still brush the glaze in time. You wouldn’t mind helping me ice the second batch after, would you?” He sounded far too composed.

Crowley narrowed his eyes. “Are you still thinking about the cookies?”

Aziraphale tilted his head. “Shouldn’t I be? They’re rather delicate, and I’ve worked hard on them.”

“You absolute bastard ,” Crowley hissed, voice cracking with need.

Aziraphale leaned in, lips brushing the shell of Crowley’s ear, voice a silken mockery of innocence. “Oh, dear. Are you getting flustered again? You seem rather sensitive today.”

Crowley groaned. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, pressing a hand down Crowley’s belly, sliding lower, fingertips grazing the waistband of his slacks, “if you must insist I stop talking about the cookies—”

“I do. Please. I beg. ”

“then I’ll simply have to occupy my mouth some other way.”

The moment the words left Aziraphale’s lips, he nudged Crowley backward with such surprising force that the demon let out a startled, breathless sound as he hit the edge of the counter, hands fumbling instinctively behind him for balance. Not hard enough to bruise, but enough to make him feel it. Aziraphale's hand was firm against his chest, warm through the fabric, and Crowley was already dizzy with how fast it was all happening. The cookies forgotten, the lemon glaze temporarily abandoned, the angel standing over him with that infuriatingly composed look on his face, as if he weren’t seconds away from committing several very mortal, very carnal acts right next to a tray of baked goods.

Crowley loved being manhandled. The angel almost never did it without layers of polite pretense, never without apologizing before or after. 

“You know,” Crowley panted as Aziraphale leaned in and pressed his lips to the side of his neck, soft, hot kisses at first, barely there, but each one growing bolder and hungrier “you don’t have to – fuck, right there – you don’t have to be such a bastard about it.”

“Mm?” Aziraphale murmured without lifting his mouth. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Crowley’s voice broke a little when the angel sucked just below his jaw, right on the sensitive part of his throat, the exact spot that made his knees twitch and his cunt clench. He was already throbbing, already wet enough to feel it cling between his legs, and it was ridiculous how quickly Aziraphale could do this to him. “Y-you’re acting like this is about the cookies.”

Aziraphale still hadn’t touched anywhere properly. He was trailing kisses down Crowley’s collarbone now, fingers deftly unfastening the buttons of his shirt one by one. “Isn’t it?”

He peeled the shirt back off Crowley’s shoulders and kissed the line where neck met shoulder. Crowley hissed in a breath and bucked against him.

Then the angel went to his knees, not all the way, just low enough to start unfastening the top button of those painted-on jeans, and Crowley instinctively stood up straighter, legs a little apart to help. They’d taken real effort to miracle into this morning, and now he was cursing himself for every tight seam and stubborn stitch. Aziraphale’s hands were maddeningly gentle, dragging down the zip, brushing the waistband of his briefs as if he had all the time in the world.

“Was this because I said the word pussy , darling?” Aziraphale asked, glancing up at him from under his lashes as if he didn’t know exactly what effect that question would have.

Crowley made a strangled sound and tilted his head back against the cabinet. “You know what you were doing,” he groaned. “You said it all smug and wholesome like you were talking about a garden cat, Jesus ”

“But you do have such a pretty one,” Aziraphale said, sweet as anything, voice dipping just slightly as his fingers finally slipped beneath the waistband and eased the fabric down, revealing skin, heat, slick already clinging to the insides of Crowley’s thighs. “It’s not my fault you blush when I use accurate language.”

Crowley growled low in his throat, a sound full of need and humiliation and delight. He hated how easily Aziraphale could do this, talk him into submission. Worse, act like he wasn’t even doing anything at all.

The jeans were halfway down now, and Crowley kicked them off with an impatient shuffle, standing there flushed and bare from the waist down, still pressed between counter and angel. He was slick enough to be shining, thighs trembling, breath short. Aziraphale leaned in again, pressing kisses across the hollow of his stomach.

Crowley gripped the edge of the counter behind him and hissed through his teeth. “If you mention the cookies again—”

Aziraphale looked up, positively angelic. “What, love? I was only going to say I think they’d be perfectly complemented by a touch of cinnamon next time.”

“You fucking menace ,” Crowley gasped, trembling. “You absolute monster. ”

“I’m a principality and ex-archangel, dear.”

“You are a cunt in tweed.”

Aziraphale finally kissed him between the legs then, slow and wet, tongue drawing a stripe up the entire mess of his pussy, tasting him without apology. Crowley bucked forward, gasping, and Aziraphale didn’t stop he licked again, then suckled at his folds like he’d never tasted anything sweeter.

“Mmm – Angel – oh yesss—” he whined, head tipping back against the cupboard door with a dull thunk , hips jerking helplessly forward. “Do you…do you like me better than your cookies?”

He didn’t really know why he said it. It slipped out without thought, dragged loose from somewhere between delirium and insecurity. Was he jealous of baked goods now? Had he fallen so far from grace well, further that he was competing with pastries ? He didn’t even like lemon. But Aziraphale’s tongue was sliding into his hole now, and it was so much, so perfect , it didn’t matter.

Aziraphale looked up at him without stopping, eyes warm, utterly unbothered by the question, as though he’d been expecting it. As though of course Crowley would get petty about something as absurd as shortbread while getting his pussy eaten on the kitchen counter. The bastard.

“Sweetness,” Aziraphale murmured, licking into him again with that same unhurried pressure that made Crowley keen, “you know I only bake the cookies.”

Then, as if to prove it, he pressed his mouth fully to Crowley’s cunt, tongue plunging deep and curling like a question mark against the soft, needy walls of him. Crowley made a strangled, high-pitched noise and grabbed at Aziraphale’s hair, which was soft and infuriating and full of flour-dust at the temples.

“Ahnnn…ah fuck, yes…oh fuck, your tongue…it’s like you…”

Aziraphale hummed against him like a satisfied wine critic. He really was taking his time nosing at Crowley’s folds, then licking across his clit with an obscene, deliberate flatness, like he was trying to smooth icing across a scone. Crowley whimpered, thighs trembling, muscles jumping under his skin. There was slick everywhere, sweet and hot and messy.

And then Aziraphale leaned back, just a little.

Crowley almost cried at the loss. “What the fuck —”

“I’ve been thinking,” Aziraphale said, conversational, like he was talking about bookbinding methods, not pulling his mouth off his lover’s soaking pussy mid-fuck. “You asked if I liked you better than the cookies.”

“You’re going to make fun of me now,” Crowley groaned.

“I would never make fun of you.” Aziraphale stood up slowly, brushing his thumb gently over the slick mess at Crowley’s entrance. “But you have got me curious now.”

Crowley blinked, chest still heaving, pupils blown wide. “Curious?”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, as he turned to the nearby bowl of lemon glaze, “if I’m to compare you properly to the cookies…”

“Don’t you fucking dare— ”

“…it would only be fair to test how your taste stands up to garnish,” Aziraphale finished, dipping the spoon again and raising it with care.

“You are not glazing my cunt.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Well, I certainly won’t be putting it in the oven.”

“You are a psychopath .”

He didn’t answer. Just knelt again, in that maddeningly calm, deliberate way of his. The spoon tipped, and the warm, syrupy sugar dripped from its edge in a glistening trail, thicker than honey, clinging like affection. It splattered softly across Crowley’s folds, thick and slow, sticking immediately to the wet heat already gathered there.

Crowley gasped then yelped , hips jerking violently forward, nearly slipping on the tile. “Holy shit !”

“Oh my,” Aziraphale said as if he’d just realized he’d spilled tea on a tablecloth. “Too warm?”

“Too everything , you…you madman —”

But Crowley was already shaking, already going hazy. Because Aziraphale had just set the spoon aside and was using his fingers now, two of them, glazed and sticky, moving in tight little circles, smearing sugar across his clit and lower lips like he was frosting a cake.

“You’re trembling,” Aziraphale observed. His tone was still too polite.

“Because you’re…you’re rubbing lemon glaze into my…f-fuck—”

Aziraphale’s fingers moved like he was smoothing something flat, pressing , making the glaze melt down into the heat of him, slipping and catching on Crowley’s swollen, slicked-up clit. It was wet in a way that went beyond just arousal now—it was sticky , obscene, gluey sweetness that made Crowley’s thighs shake every time Aziraphale rubbed just a bit faster, a bit harder.

“Aah—haaahhh, fuck , oh my god, angel—”

“You said it yourself,” Aziraphale murmured. “You wanted to know if I liked you better than the cookies.”

He leaned in now, didn't stop rubbing, didn’t even pause and mouthed wetly over the side of Crowley’s thigh while he worked his fingers, pressing deeper into the fold where thigh met groin, biting just a little, enough to bruise. Crowley jolted again, whining, mouth slack.

Then Aziraphale licked him again. And Crowley’s eyes rolled so hard back into his skull he nearly collapsed.

Because Aziraphale wasn’t being gentle anymore. His tongue was fast now, dragging across Crowley’s pussy with short, practiced laps, messy and hungry and ruinously efficient. He lapped directly over the mess he’d made over the glaze, the slick, the flushed skin beneath and it was too much . Too loud in sensation. Sugar and friction and wetness and Aziraphale’s fingers still circling fast over his clit, every swipe a hot shock that made Crowley sob.

“Fuckfuckfuck…d-don’t stop…ahhh, you…you’re rubbing it…Angel…your… tongue —”

Aziraphale sucked hard on him now, then moaned in approval like trying a fine preserve. Crowley squeaked . It was ridiculous. He was squeaking like a kettle. The noises pouring out of him didn’t sound like him at all, high, breathless, near-panicked.

And still Aziraphale didn’t stop. His tongue kept flicking in tight, fast movements, perfectly targeted, fast enough to sting. His fingers worked at the same pace rubbing hard and quick in circles over the slicked-up glaze-covered skin of Crowley’s clit until Crowley’s hips bucked so violently he slammed against the cupboard.

“F-fuck, I…I’m gonna…I’m gonna…Angel…Angel—”

“Go on, sweetheart,” Aziraphale said against him, lips brushing his cunt as he spoke. “Let me see if you melt properly.”

Crowley wailed .

His orgasm hit like a dropped plate. Sudden, shattering, ringing all the way up his spine. His legs went out from under him and he would’ve hit the floor if Aziraphale hadn’t been bracing his hips, holding him right there against the edge of the counter, tongue still licking softly now, like a cool-down lap, collecting every last drop.

It took Crowley longer than it should’ve to realize he was crying a little. 

Aziraphale looked up, pupils blown, mouth shiny. “You do pair quite well with lemon,” he said gently, licking one last stripe up the inside of Crowley’s thigh. “But I think next time, perhaps I’ll try a blackberry compote. Would you mind?”

Crowley didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Just lay back across the counter, legs open, gasping like he’d run a marathon, wondering if this was how the cookies felt when they came out of the oven.

His mouth opened and closed a few times like he might offer something, gratitude, a protest, a curse, something worth saying but all that came out was an embarrassingly soft exhale. The kind that sounded like defeat if defeat had been very thoroughly tongue-fucked out of him. His legs stayed sprawled open, thighs twitching faintly from aftershocks, back half-arched over the counter in a way that felt anatomically unreasonable. The sticky residue of lemon glaze had turned tacky on his inner thighs, and his cunt still pulsed faintly, as if it hadn’t quite realized the act was over.

Somewhere far away in his brain, he was aware that his foot had knocked over a wooden spoon. It clattered to the floor, bounced once, and then rolled to a stop under the cupboard.

And then, very calmly, very, very calmly, like nothing was unusual at all, Aziraphale straightened up, brushed a hand along his coat to neaten it (why it needed neatening after he'd just eaten Crowley out like a fucking dessert buffet was anyone’s guess), and said, “Do get dressed or take a shower, my love. We still have ten minutes before the cookies cool and I must choose a bowtie.”

Crowley stared at the ceiling.

“Ugh…fantastic,” he wheezed, one hand flopping up to wave toward the general direction of Away . “I’ll be ready in five. You won’t even notice me. I’ll slither under the door.”

“Excellent,” Aziraphale said. “Please don’t take the good towel.”

Crowley’s face was pressed to the cool kitchen tile now. His legs were still vaguely jelly. There was glaze on his thigh and his cunt was humming like it had a wireless signal. He sighed heavily into the floor.

A point to Aziraphale, he thought grimly, as he tried and failed to peel himself off the ground in any sort of dignified manner. Not that they were keeping score, but if they were and let’s face it, Crowley always was  then this was a clean, irrefutable win.

Because, truly, how could anyone compare to Aziraphale?

Not the twenty-somethings at the pub, not the barista with the septum piercing, not the guy who’d winked at him while adjusting a bicycle chain, not the elegant bastard in Soho who'd tried to hand Crowley his number folded inside a poetry book back in the 60s. None of them had ever put Crowley on his back and glazed him like a fucking tart and made it feel like worship. None of them had spent 6000 thousand years waiting for something like this to happen. 

Crowley finally managed to sit up, hair a total disaster, shirt somehow still bunched around one arm, trousers long gone, pussy probably still glistening. He wiped a hand down his face and muttered, “Jesus Christ on a cracker.”

“Oh do stop taking His name in vain,” Aziraphale called from the other room. “He will be very upset with you the next time we meet with him.”

The drive to Kensington was, in Crowley’s opinion, suspiciously pleasant. Suspicious because the sky was clear, the traffic was cooperative, and they hadn’t argued over the choice of music. 

Which was strange. Incongruous, even. Crowley had expected at most a cramped terrace in Soho or a half-renovated rental in Ealing. Possibly Streatham. But Kensington? No. That was territory reserved for high-earning orthodontists and old-money heiresses and actors who’d peaked in a BBC drama from 1998. Not carpet salesmen named Gerald Brown. 

“I mean really, Angel,” Crowley muttered, gesturing vaguely toward the passing Georgian facades. “Don’t you think it’s weird?”

Aziraphale adjusted the tupperware in his lap and frowned slightly. “What is love?”

“The house or the location,” Crowley said, shooting him a look over the top of his shades. “How much money does he earn that he can afford to own a house in Kensington? He sells carpets, Aziraphale. Carpet. Plural. Except not even plural lately. I heard from Ms. Sandwich that he hasn’t moved a single shag in three weeks.”

“I think you’re being rather unfair,” Aziraphale said, smoothing a bit of cling film unnecessarily. “It’s probably a family home. Or something similar. I believe Mr. Brown’s father was married to a countess. Or a marquess’s niece. Or perhaps I’m thinking of the cousin. The father came into the shop in the late ’80s several times, I’m nearly certain. Always smelled like furniture polish and gin.”

Crowley snorted. “So having a crush on you runs in the family then?”

Aziraphale’s cheeks pinked faintly, though his gaze stayed firmly ahead. “Now really.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” Crowley drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I saw how Brown looked at you when we bumped into him again in the Pub. Like he wanted to roll you up and take you home.”

“You are being very silly,” 

“And you’re being deliberately evasive,” Crowley said, glancing sidelong again. “Are you telling me there’s no reason at all to wonder how a man who can’t shift a single runner carpet is somehow living in a four-storey house with original cornices and a view of Hyde Park?”

“I’m saying,” Aziraphale said, holding the tupperware a little tighter as Crowley took a corner slightly faster than was strictly legal, “that it’s none of our business.”

“But doesn’t it bother you, Angel?” Crowley said, eyes still on the road but voice rising just a bit, sharpened by suspicion. “The math doesn’t add up. No one just has a Kensington townhouse unless they’ve either blackmailed a viscount, inherited oil money, or they’re a Bond villain.”

“Do try not to speculate so dramatically. There are plenty of reasons someone might end up with a home like that. Property values were different back then. Inheritance tax loopholes. Perhaps he made a very clever investment.”

“In what ?” Crowley asked. “Rugs? Was there a lucrative Oriental carpet boom in the 90s I missed?”

“He does dabble in antiques,” Aziraphale offered.

“He tried to sell me a pair of repainted candlesticks.”

“Well, perhaps not well ,” Aziraphale conceded.

There was a beat of silence as the car paused at a zebra crossing. A woman in yoga pants walked a Pomeranian across with the swagger of someone who paid a monthly retainer to have opinions about brie.

Crowley rolled the window up half an inch.

“Anyway,” he said, too casually, “I just think it’s interesting.”

“You mean suspicious.”

“I mean interesting .”

Aziraphale looked over at him, suspiciously fond. “Are you quite certain this isn’t just another manifestation of jealousy?”

“Again with that,” Crowley muttered. “No, I’m not jealous. I’ve said it three times now.”

“Mmhmm.”

“I don’t do jealousy. It’s a petty human emotion.”

Aziraphale smiled slightly. “And yet you’ve brought up Mr. Brown’s housing situation, financial records, business performance, and hypothetical generational romantic intentions toward me in the last ten minutes.”

“Coincidence,” Crowley said flatly.

“If you say so, dear,” Aziraphale replied, still smiling.

Crowley adjusted his sunglasses. “I’m just saying, Angel, if he tries anything at this party…”

“Yes?”

“…I will accidentally knock over a vase. One of the expensive ones. Just to be sure he knows what team you’re playing for.”

Aziraphale turned to the window, but not before Crowley caught the corner of his mouth twitching.

The demon grinned to himself and merged aggressively onto the roundabout. He was absolutely not jealous.

But if Mr Brown so much as hovered too long over Aziraphale, he’d be tasting carpet.

Crowley parked in what could only be described as a small miracle, a perfectly legal, perfectly sized spot on the same side of the street as number sixty-nine and honestly, he didn’t care how old he was or how many centuries of world-weary eternity he had under his belt, the number still made him laugh.

He let out a low chuckle as he turned the key in the ignition. “Hah. Number sixty-nine.”

Aziraphale, still fussing over the plastic container of cookies like it was the Ark of the Covenant, raised an eyebrow without looking up. “Do try not to be so juvenile, my darling boy. Really.”

Crowley grinned. “It’s funny because I bet he’s never gotten a—”

Before he could finish the thought, the front door of the house swung open, revealing the birthday boy himself in all his be-moustached, burgundy glory.

“Ohhh! Welcome, welcome, welcome! ” Mr. Brown beamed, opening his arms like he was greeting old friends at a train station.

Aziraphale stepped forward with polite briskness, container held out before him like a peace offering. “Thank you very much for inviting us, Mr. Brown, and a very happy birthday to you. I brought these lemon glazed, and best kept refrigerated for the time being.”

Mr. Brown accepted the container like he’d just been handed a winning lottery ticket. “Oh, thank you! That’s so kind. It’s not every year one turns fifty, eh?” He elbowed Aziraphale lightly, conspiratorial. “You know what I’m talking about!”

Aziraphale smiled in that gently startled way he always did when confronted with unnecessary physical contact. “Yes, quite. A… significant milestone.”

“I’ll show you to the kitchen…through here, it’s just past the study, mind the umbrella stand—”

Then, suddenly, Mr. Brown turned to Crowley with the delighted surprise of someone who’d forgotten they’d invited him.

“The rest are all in the Garden,” he said, voice a little too chipper, like he thought Crowley might be happier socializing elsewhere. “Help yourself to a drink, won’t you?”

Crowley, who had taken one step forward with full intention of following Aziraphale, paused and blinked. “Actually, I’ll just go to the—”

“Oh darling ,” Aziraphale cut in smoothly, already halfway down the corridor. He turned and leaned back just enough to kiss Crowley on the cheek, his tone airily persuasive in that irritatingly sweet way he used when he wanted something. “Would you be a dear and fetch us some drinks? Just something light, please.”

Crowley stared at him. Et tu , angel?

But Aziraphale was already vanishing toward the kitchen, cookies in hand, the subtle sway of his coat giving away exactly how pleased he was with himself.

Crowley sighed. Loudly. “Right,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “I’ll just… go mingle, then. Socialise.

He stepped inside, following the low murmur of conversation and the clink of ice in glasses toward the dining room, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his coat. The interior of the house was annoyingly nice. High ceilings, crown moulding, hardwood floors that had been recently waxed. It smelled faintly of bay leaves, red wine, and whatever the posh version of Febreze was.

As he crossed into the dining room and spotted a drinks table weighed down with crystal tumblers and artisanal mixers, Crowley tried to suppress the vague, creeping sense that he had just been strategically removed.

He poured a gin and tonic, emphasis on the gin, and knocked half of it back in one go.

“Are you going to finish that entire thing without offering your poor friend a sip?” came a voice from behind him, a little too close and far too smug.

Crowley startled hard enough to nearly spill the glass. “ Fuck me , Nina, would it kill you to announce yourself before you speak?”

She raised an unimpressed eyebrow, hands in the pockets of her jacket, and looked him up and down with the faint judgement of someone who had seen him in worse states, but not often. “Serve me one, would you? I’m only here to get coke for Maggie.”

Crowley obliged, pouring her a neat splash of gin with less care than he’d used for his own, the ice cubes clinking. “There,” he muttered, handing it over. “Rationed. So you don’t accuse me of selfishness.”

“Thanks.” She took it and leaned against the table, sipping. “So. How are you ?”

He made a vague hand gesture that could’ve meant fine, terrible, or I just got fucked by an angel in my kitchen half an hour ago and now I’m making polite small talk with a woman holding a gin and tonic. “Bit weird, don’t you think?” he said finally.

“About…?”

“This,” Crowley said, sweeping a hand toward the general opulence of the house around them the chandelier, the wide bay windows, the suspiciously tasteful crown moulding. “The party. The house . I mean, who would’ve thought he lives here?”

“Oh,” Nina said, brightening as though he’d asked a question she’d been waiting to answer. “Right. No. He doesn’t.”

Crowley turned his head slowly. “He doesn’t?”

“Nope,” Nina said, sipping again. “Okay, so. Don’t tell anyone this but Maggie heard from Mutt who heard it from Justine, who I think heard it from Mr. Brown himself that this is actually his stepbrother’s house.”

Crowley squinted. “You’re joking, he has a stepbrother?.”

“I never joke about gossip,” Nina said solemnly. “And apparently, the stepbrother is loaded. Family money, some kind of distribution empire. Gave Brown use of the house for the birthday thing.”

Crowley took another sip, absorbing that. “Right. So that’s why the walls don’t have carpet samples nailed to them.”

“Exactly.”

He tilted his head, then sighed. “Alright, that makes more sense.”

“Oh, and also,” Nina added with a conspiratorial look, “brace yourself. I thought this was going to be more of a shopkeepers’ association thing, you know, familiar faces, mild complaints about foot traffic, someone mentioning the Christmas light budget, but turns out it’s mostly his family.”

Crowley groaned.

“Like, big family. Old men, a terrifying number of cousins, nieces, nephews. All of them in their Sunday best. Maggie’s been whispering ‘get me out of here’ since the canapés came out.”

Crowley looked around at the sea of unfamiliar tweed and side-parts and tried not to visibly grimace. “Why did I come again?”

“Because Aziraphale wanted to?” Nina suggested innocently.

“Yes, yes,” he said, waving the glass vaguely. “I could have stayed at home. Could’ve had a perfectly uneventful evening lying in my own bed not being forced to pretend I enjoy the company of Gerald Brown’s extended in-laws.”

Nina raised an eyebrow. “But instead?”

“Instead,” he muttered, “I’m here. At a family reunion for someone I barely know. Because my angel brought cookies.”

“Where’s your girlfriend?” He asked after a pause, partly to change the subject, partly because he’d spotted neither blonde nor flannel in the room and was mildly worried Maggie had staged a quiet exit.

“Outside,” Nina said, nodding her head toward the garden. “With everyone else. Waiting for her coke. Come on.”

They passed through the patio doors and into the garden, which was larger than the bookshop. Manicured hedges, fairy lights wound around pergolas, one of those vaguely colonial-style outdoor bar setups. Someone had put on Queen at a perfectly reasonable volume, which was the first point in favour of the party all evening.

Maggie was seated on a low bench, legs crossed, looking like she was two seconds from sleeping just to pass the time. She lit up when she saw them.

Crowley took a deep breath and settled beside her with a sigh. The music was playing, children were shrieking in the garden, Aziraphale was inside possibly being cornered by a man in a cravat, and Crowley was trying very hard not to imagine Mr Brown pressing his palm just a bit too low on Aziraphale’s back.

Aziraphale had reappeared eventually, chatting amiably with someone who looked like a cousin or maybe a cousin’s spouse. Crowley couldn’t tell; the resemblance was vague but the conversation too warm. Occasionally Aziraphale would glance his way and gesture vaguely, and Crowley, ever the willing accessory, would wave back stiffly, like he was on parade.

Mr. Brown, meanwhile, was hovering. As predicted. He kept drifting a little too close to Aziraphale under the guise of refilling drinks or making jokes no one laughed at. And sure, Aziraphale didn’t seem to enjoy the proximity, he kept doing that thing where he inched sideways without making it obvious, but still. It stirred something in Crowley.

Not jealousy.

Not that.

Just… something.

He took another sip.

Crowley took a breath. Then another. The kind that didn’t quite settle. He shifted his weight, looked around at the crisply-dressed strangers and their too-straight smiles, and muttered, mostly to himself, “God, this is dreadful. I want to go home and get fucked.”

“What?” Maggie asked, looking as if she didnt hear anything at all.

Crowley blinked. “What what?”

“You said something,” Nina said. 

“I said I’m having a lovely time,” Crowley lied. “Which, frankly, should concern you more.”

Maggie giggled softly. “It’s not that bad. The music’s good. There’s cake, I think.”

“I just—” he started, then stopped.

Nina turned to him, eyebrow raised again. “You just…?”

Crowley took a long sip of his drink. “It’s not that I’m jealous,” he said finally.

“Oh god,” Nina muttered. “Don’t say you’re going to talk about your sex life.”

“No,” Crowley said, “not…well. Not exactly .”

Maggie, who was far too kind for her own good, smiled. “We don’t have to talk about it if—”

“No, no. I just—I’m not jealous,” Crowley said, with the emphasis of someone who had repeated the sentence to himself several times already today. “I know he loves me. That’s not in question. He does this thing where he pretends to be modest, but then he says things like, ‘no one else gets this pussy,’ while he’s halfway inside me—”

“Crowley!” Nina almost shouted, she definitely didn't want to hear about that.

“Okay, yes, sorry, but that’s my point,” Crowley said, not sorry. “He is possessive. Just not in public. It’s all behind closed doors and under kitchen counters. He knows I’m his. I know he’s mine. No confusion there. No room for jealousy.”

Maggie nodded slowly. “But?”

“But,” Crowley sighed, watching as Mr. Brown handed Aziraphale a glass of something sparkling and Aziraphale accepted it with a brittle smile, “Sometimes I wish he looked jealous. You know. Just once. When someone flirts with me. Not because I doubt him. Just—because it’d be nice.”

Nina tilted her head. “You want to be fought over?”

“No,” Crowley said quickly then winced. “I mean. No. He’s already fought for me, hasn’t he? Like, quite literally. The entire nearly-ending-the-world thing part II. That was… about us. About not losing me. About both of us refusing to lose each other. So it’s not that.”

He waved vaguely with his gin glass, like he could shoo away the suggestion before it nested too comfortably in the conversation.

“It’s not about… proving anything. He’s already proved it. A thousand times over. He does things…big things, mad things, apocalyptic things—for me. I know that.” Crowley paused. “It’s just…”

Nina leaned her shoulder against her chair, eyeing him like a bartender who’d heard this one before. Maggie was already sipping her drink with the kind of expression that said she was both emotionally present and preemptively ready to pretend she hadn’t heard a word.

“I want him to be,” Crowley said at last, voice lower, the words coming reluctantly like they’d had to push past some kind of internal firewall. “I dunno. Visible about it. Just sometimes. Like, in ways humans understand.”

Nina blinked. “You want him to piss a little circle around you.”

Crowley looked skyward. “Not literally, thank you. Although. Knowing him.”

Maggie snorted into her glass.

“It's just—” Crowley scratched at the back of his neck, sunglasses pushed high in his hair, and sighed like a man admitting to a fondness for boy bands or scented candles. “People flirt with me. Not loads, I’m not…well. I am hot, but it’s not the point. And when they do, he just… lets them.”

“You want him to get all growly and possessive,” Nina guessed. “So you can watch him scare them off and then maybe take you home and… whatever it is the two of you do.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “We make lemon glaze, Nina.”

She gave him a long-suffering look. “You literally told us earlier he says things like ‘no one else gets this pussy’ while inside you.”

Maggie made a small noise like a wounded animal.”Oh God”

Crowley ignored her entirely. “I just mean, I want him to act like I’m his in front of people who don’t already know. Just once. Not because I need it. Just for the… spectacle. You know?”

“I mean, he does look at you like he’s planning to unhinge his jaw and swallow you whole,” Nina said.

“That’s just his face,” Crowley said. “You should see him when he’s really in the mood.”

“I won’t,” Nina said firmly. “And neither will Maggie, thank you.”

“I just think,” Crowley continued, clearly past the point of stopping himself, “it’d be nice to have a moment where some guy makes a move on me like that guy at the bookshop last month, the one who said I had ‘a very slinky vibe’ and Aziraphale does something . I dunno. Puts an arm around me. Says, ‘I’m afraid this one’s taken.’ Maybe glowers a bit.”

“You do glower beautifully,” Maggie offered, trying to be supportive.

“Thank you, I practice,” Crowley said with a little flourish.

“So basically,” Nina said, “you don’t want to be fought over , you just want to see him throw a punch.”

“Metaphorically,” Crowley said. “Unless it’s Mr. Brown. Then I’m fine with actual bloodshed.”

Maggie tilted her head sympathetically. “I mean, anyone who sees you two together thinks that—”

“Thinks we’ve been married for fifty years and are already halfway through our third bottle of wine, yes,” Crowley said dryly. “I know. But it’s like, I know he’d burn the world down for me. I just sometimes wish he’d act like he’d torch a single person too. Preferably one within earshot.”

He took another sip. “Also. For the record. I hate getting flirted with. It's disgusting. Always makes me feel like I need a bath. Or like I’ve been mislabelled in a shop window.”

“Bit ironic for a demon,” Nina said.

“Demons can still have boundaries,” Crowley sniffed. “Just because I’m sexy doesn’t mean I’m public property. ”

Maggie nodded. “You want him to claim you. But not in a weird way?.”

“Exactly.”

Nina stared at him for a long second. “I still think you just want him to get jealous.”

Crowley let out a long-suffering groan. “Jealousy’s not our thing, Nina, it’s not…it’s just not. Look, I need another drink and also I’ve somehow managed to not deliver his drink yet so, excuse me, ladies, I’ll be right back with my dignity if I can find it.”

He turned on his heel, gin sloshing dangerously close to the rim of the glass as he weaved his way through the garden party throng. As he passed beneath the string lights flickering dimly in the late summer haze, he caught the tail end of Nina muttering, “God, what a disaster,” right before Maggie, in her ever-kind voice, whispered, “Nina, come on,”

Crowley chose to ignore it. Mostly because she wasn’t wrong. Also because he didn’t want to think about how much she wasn’t wrong.

Aziraphale was exactly where Crowley expected him, only now boxed in by Mr. Brown and a woman who appeared to be his cousin, if the identical nasal laugh was any clue. Aziraphale was gesturing animatedly with one hand, like he was presenting a prize at a village fête, eyes sparkling with politeness that was probably halfway real and halfway the kind of high-functioning social performance Crowley always forgot the angel was capable of.

Crowley didn’t hesitate. He slid up behind Aziraphale, hand curling confidently around his waist, leaned in, and deposited a gin and tonic into the angel’s free hand. “Hello,” he said, voice pitched low and cheeky, just for Aziraphale’s ears. “Here’s your drink, you sexy thing.”

The kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek that followed was brief but affectionate, firm enough to be noticed, light enough not to cause scandal among any deeply conservative cousins. Though if it did cause scandal, Crowley thought with a bit of a thrill, well, good.

Aziraphale flushed the way he always did when Crowley did that in public, delighted and slightly scandalized, as if he were still getting used to the idea of being handled affectionately by a six-foot demon in miracled black trousers. “Oh, darling,” he said, fingers closing around the glass. “Thank you ever so much. I was having this lovely conversation with Mr. Brown’s cousin, you see he owns three antique auction houses in Surrey, imagine that—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Crowley said, rolling his eyes but grinning. “You’re having a wonderful time. I’m just gonna get a refill.”

He made to step away, but Mr. Brown, who never seemed to miss a chance to insert himself into a conversation, turned to him and said cheerfully, “Oh, if you hear the doorbell ring, that’ll be my stepbrother, he’s always late. Would you mind getting the door, Mr. Crowley? He’s always late. Bit rude, don’t you think, Mr. Fell? But then again brothers are brothers. No one takes care of you better than family.”

Crowley resisted the urge to fake a catastrophic nosebleed.

Aziraphale, who was still holding Crowley’s hand even as he nodded diplomatically, answered, “Oh, I’m sure he’s only reasonably late, but yes, I do agree that arriving punctually is an ideal courtesy. And of course Crowley would be happy to open the door, wouldn’t you, my dear?”

Crowley made a vague noise that could have been a yes or a yawn.

Aziraphale blinked at him. Then asked again, pointedly “Wouldn’t you, dear?”

“Yes,” Crowley said at last, his voice thick with sarcasm. “It will be the pleasure of a lifetime to open the door for Mr. Brown’s precious stepbrother, may he arrive swiftly and be as utterly charming as expected.”

He left out the bit about how, if the man actually lived here, he presumably had his own keys, unless, of course, Mr. Brown had nicked them in one of his weirder shows of familial affection. Crowley wouldn’t put it past him. He shot a glance at Aziraphale that said, You owe me, and then pivoted away before he could be volunteered for anything else. 

He took the stairs two at a time, shoes thudding dully against the carpet runner, muttering to himself. “‘You want him to get jealous,’” he mimicked under his breath, adopting a nasal, vaguely voice that might’ve been Nina if one squinted. “Absolutely not. That’s not what this is. Not everything is about bloody insecurity. Sometimes a demon just wants to be…” he waved his hand vaguely as he reached the landing “...you know. Desired. Visibly. With evidence.”

Crowley reached the upstairs hallway and turned into what he’d designated as safe zone earlier, a mostly unused lounge with a sideboard full of decanters and a few tired-looking armchairs, quiet and free of familial politics.

He shut the door with his hip, set his glass down with more force than strictly necessary, and leaned forward over the bar to pour himself a refill, hands braced wide on the wood. The bottle of gin gave a friendly little slosh as it tipped. He took that as encouragement and poured generously watched the liquid rise with something close to reverence, and downed it. 

Then, of course, the doorbell rang.

Crowley grimaced, reached for the unopened bottle instead, too much effort to pour again, and took a mouthful straight from it. Proper glug. No glass. No time. The bell rang again, more insistently this time, and Crowley squinted in its direction as though he might stare it into submission.

“Bloody impatient,” he muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he headed for the foyer. “You’d think if it were your house you’d have your own damn keys. Unless, of course, someone’s playing a long con with the locks.”

He opened the door.

The man on the other side looked like someone had tried to assemble Aziraphale from memory after one too many spritzers. Same general shape, same colouring, even the same kind of eyes, but… off. Not badly. Just enough. Beard for one thing, which immediately threw Crowley. People who looked like Aziraphale weren’t supposed to have beards. It was disorienting. This one was shorter than expected, broad in the shoulders, and wearing a blazer so violently patterned that even Crowley’s sunglasses hesitated to register it. He had the kind of posture that suggested either military service or too many yoga classes.

They stared at each other.

Then the man smiled, warm and guileless and a little too interested. “Ah, you must be my brother’s friend.”

Crowley, who felt that ‘friend’ was a rather tragically insufficient term for someone who’d Crowley once miracled into a fugue state, raised an eyebrow. “If you could say friend,” he said dryly, lips twitching. “You could also say long-time adversary or local menace. Or just, you know, Crowley.”

“Right. Crowley.” The man extended a hand. “Julian. Technically Jerome, but don’t use it. Julian Brown. Sorry to be late…bloody trains. And the cake was a nightmare. I made it myself.”

“You made the cake,” Crowley repeated.

Julian nodded, quite proud of himself. “It’s gluten-free, nut-free, joy-free, all the usual things. But it looks spectacular. And it’s five layers, so. One for every decade.”

Crowley resisted the urge to offer his condolences. “How thoughtful.” Aziraphale was definitely not going to eat the cake. 

Julian stepped inside and took a moment to glance around the hallway like he was inspecting it for structural integrity. “Haven’t been here in ages. Bit weird seeing it full of people. Gerald usually throws these awkward things in Soho. Is it your first time at one of Gerald’s little soirées?”

Crowley tilted his head. “Define ‘little.’ It seems to involve half of greater London and a selection of his extended family, several of whom appear to have spawned like mushrooms on the back lawn.”

Julian chuckled. “That’ll be the Hampshire branch. They multiply when damp.”

“And you?” Crowley asked, eyebrow raised.

“Oh, I’m an only child,” Julian said breezily. “Mum married Gerald’s father late in life. Terribly awkward for everyone. We don’t talk about it much.”

“Sounds charming.”

Julian smiled again slow and unreadable. “So. You and Gerald close?”

Crowley made a face like he'd bitten a lemon. “God, no what an awful thing to say”

“So not close, then.”

He stepped further into the hallway, glancing up toward the ornate crown moulding as though confirming it hadn’t collapsed since his last visit. “Is Gerald still in Soho flogging carpets from our father’s old shop? I assume he must be, given the way he talks about ‘the business’ as though it’s a bloody Downton Abbey estate.”

Crowley sipped his drink and considered whether it was worth defending Mr. Brown's honour, such as it was. He decided it was not. He started to edge toward the sideboard again, not because he needed another drink, though he did, desperately,but because it gave him something to do with his hands that wasn’t folding them across his chest like a teenager. 

Julian stepped in closer, as though they were already sharing a joke no one else in the house was privy to. “May I join you for that drink, or is the corner shop gin strictly a solo pursuit?”

Crowley glanced at him sidelong. “Depends. Are you going to tell me more thrilling family anecdotes, or shall we toast to mutual confusion about why your brother thinks this qualifies as a party?”

“I’ll take mutual confusion,” Julian said, eyes sparkling. “But I warn you, I’ve been on a train for six hours and might be slightly unhinged.”

Crowley snorted and turned on his heel. “Perfect. You’ll fit right in.”

They stepped back into the lounge, where music still hummed faintly under the murmur of familial small talk and the clatter of what sounded like at least two children being forcibly removed from the kitchen. Crowley led the way to the drinks table.

“You know,” he said, “when Gerald mentioned some friends of his was coming, I wasn’t expecting anyone quite so—”

“Tall?” Crowley interrupted blandly.

“I was going to say interesting.”

“Interesting in what way?” Crowley asked, slightly baffled, halfway through pouring what might have been the most generous gin and tonic in recent recorded history. He passed the glass without looking and turned to reach for the lime wedge he didn’t really want, considering whether now was a good time to excuse himself and return to the party—and Aziraphale. He could probably use rescuing. Or maybe he’d just enjoy watching him squirm politely through Mr Brown’s attempts at conversation. Hard to say.

“You’ve got a look. Tall. Stylish. Bit rakish. Or maybe I’m thinking of someone else—you’ve got this air, you know? Sort of… Freddie Mercury adjacent. Are you a fan? Or am I way off?”

Crowley froze just slightly before smirking into his glass. “Yeah, big fan,” he said, like that was the end of it. Which it decidedly wasn’t, but Julian didn’t need to know he had a signed vinyl from Freddie himself tucked behind the Bentley’s rear seat or that they’d done tequila shots together in the back of a dive bar. Or that the lyrics to Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy had been written on a bar napkin after a night out with Freddie and crying about his love life. 

Julian brightened, his smile just this side of self-satisfied. “Well then, you’re going to love this,” he said, already walking toward the opposite wall. “Come, I’ve got some memorabilia in the corner cabinet. I used to collect it, you see, back when I was a child. Utterly obsessed.”

“Mm,” Crowley said, sipping slowly. “Sounds very wholesome.”

“It wasn’t,” Julian said, not missing a beat. “I just liked how unapologetic they were.

He was about to redirect, to suggest Julian bring the memorabilia down and subject Mr Brown to a nostalgic slideshow, when Julian turned abruptly and bumped straight into him, elbow jostling Crowley’s drink hard enough to send a splash of it over the rim and directly down his front.

“Oh God, shit sorry” Julian said, immediately reaching for a napkin and dabbing with a mortified urgency at Crowley’s already damp shirtfront.

Crowley stepped back half a pace, more surprised than annoyed, and raised a hand. “S’alright. I’ve had worse spilled on me.”

Julian winced. “That wasn’t how I was planning to leave a lasting impression.”

“Lucky for you,” Crowley said dryly, “I’m very forgiving of crimes committed with alcohol.”

Julian laughed and kept dabbing, though he was clearly trying to be delicate about it now, murmuring something about dry cleaning and shirt quality. His hand paused at Crowley’s collar, and he looked up—just as the door to the room opened and Gerald Brown bustled in, Aziraphale at his elbow, both of them peering around with exaggerated, mutual concern.

“There you are!” Mr Brown boomed. “I told you he’d gone and hidden himself. Julian, you bastard, you’ve already spilled something, haven’t you?”

Crowley straightened and stepped back again, subtly brushing at the damp patch himself. “Just a bit of gin. No casualties.”

Gerald pulled Julian into a one-armed hug that was somehow both aggressive and oddly fond. “He does this. Elbows like trebuchets. Come here, Mr Fell, meet my brother!”

Crowley blinked, and for the first time ever, found himself actually grateful for how Aziraphale insisted on phrasing things. Julian, glanced between them with a small, flickering calculation, then turned back to Aziraphale with a polite nod.

“Julian Brown or Everhart,” he said, extending a hand. “You must be the Mr. Fell in question.”

Aziraphale shook his hand and smiled, lips tight. “Indeed I am. Lovely to meet you. I didn’t realise Mr Bronw’s brother was such a… collector.”

Julian grinned. “One of many flaws. I’ve always been partial to the theatrical.”

Aziraphale’s gaze flicked, pointedly, toward Crowley’s now-damp shirt and back again. “Yes. I can see that.”

Crowley, who had by this point figured out that Aziraphale’s voice went ever-so-slightly more plummy when he was irritated, gave him a look. “Wasn’t his fault. Collision of limbs.”

Julian made a sheepish gesture. “Quite literally. I’ll make it up to you with another drink.”

“Oh, he’s quite taken care of in that department,” Aziraphale said, too mildly. “I make sure of it.”

“Of course,” Julian said, smiling again in that way that made Crowley feel like he was being politely appraised for resale. Crowley didn’t bother to react. He had a drink in hand, his shirt was mostly dry now, and his tolerance for social niceties had hit its upper limit about three cordial sentences ago.

But if Crowley had, in that moment, spared Aziraphale even a glance, if he’d turned his head a few degrees to the left instead of sipping distractedly at his glass, he would’ve noticed a few things.

He might’ve seen how the toe of Aziraphale’s shoe tapped once against the hardwood, subtle but firm, like a punctuation mark that didn’t belong in the sentence. Or how his right arm, otherwise calmly folded, gave a miniscule twitch. Or the particular way one of his eyes narrowed, fixed very intently on Julian. 

Crowley didn’t notice any of it.

“Thanks for the cake, Julian! Honestly, must’ve taken some doing with the train and all. You’re a saint. Come on, let’s take it downstairs.”

He turned to Aziraphale, still chipper. “You must try it, Mr. Fell. It’s quite a cake, gluten-free and vegan, you know. Jules is a vegan. My good old brother.”

Julian made a noise that sounded halfway between amusement and resignation. “You really must stop glorifying me, Gerald,” he said, turning to Crowley with a smooth pivot. “Can I get you anything to help clean up? I feel just dreadful.”

Aziraphale interrupted before Crowley could open his mouth. “Oh, no need to worry, dear,” he said with that same smile, polished, precise, and just a touch over-sweet. “I’ll take care of it.” He turned to Mr Brown. “If you please, Mr. Brown, where might I find the closest restroom?”

Mr Brown blinked at the formal tone, then gestured. “End of the hall, first door on the right. You’ll see the little sign.”

“Wonderful,” Aziraphale said, already reaching for Crowley’s arm. “Come along, darling. Let’s see if we can salvage what’s left of your shirt.”

Crowley blinked, then looked down at the very faint damp patch on his chest. “Bit excessive, don’t you think?”

Aziraphale’s grip tightened minutely. “Not at all.”

Julian, for his part, seemed perfectly content to let them go, offering another warm little smile and a gentle nod. “Enjoy the cake,” he said, and Crowley didn’t like the way the phrase sounded coming out of his mouth, like it had a second meaning tucked inside it somewhere. Still, he didn’t object. He let Aziraphale lead him down the hall. 

Once the bathroom door shut softly behind them, the quiet pressed in like a cushion. Muffled Queen still thudded faintly beneath their feet.

Aziraphale turned on the tap and wet the towel with a brisk precision that had no business being that dignified. He folded it in half, clean edges, and stepped in front of Crowley, who was leaning against the tiled sink counter.

“Angel, we could just miracle it away,” Crowley said, tilting his head lazily. “You know. Blink. Done. No fuss.”

“No, it’s fine, darling, I’ll do it,” Aziraphale replied without looking up, his voice too casual to be entirely casual. The towel dabbed gently at Crowley’s shirt, as if clearing a crime scene.

Crowley watched him for a moment, curious. “All right,” he said, with the long-suffering patience of someone who was pretty sure the act wasn’t about the shirt. “So. How was your lovely conversation with Mr Brown’s cousins? Enthralling? Life-changing? Will you be joining their book club?”

Aziraphale’s mouth pulled into a polite smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It was… adequate.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “That good, huh.”

“And how was your conversation,” Aziraphale said mildly, “with that man?”

“What, the brother?” Crowley blinked, genuinely having to think about it. “Oh, I don’t know. I think you’re going to hate him, angel. He hates trains.”

Aziraphale froze. The towel paused mid-dab. His entire posture seemed to stiffen, 

Crowley grinned. “See? I knew it. You’re already preparing a sermon, and how definitely you would have an affair with a train if you could.”

“I am not,” Aziraphale sniffed, adjusting the towel and continuing his work, now with slightly more force than necessary. “But I would certainly not have an affair with a train.”

Crowley laughed. “Well, not unless it was a particularly well-mannered one. Quiet, punctual, steeped in Victorian elegance—”

“Oh, hush.”

Crowley’s grin softened into something gentler. “I’m just saying, you do love them.”

“And you do enjoy making fun of the things I love,” Aziraphale muttered, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.

Crowley reached out, catching Aziraphale’s chin lightly between his fingers and turning his face up toward him. “Well, I do love you , angel. So maybe I should stop before you think I’m joking about that too.”

Aziraphale blinked at him. His lips parted slightly, as if to respond, but the words got lost somewhere in transit. He made a soft, breathy sound instead, one that went straight to Crowley’s spine. He leaned in, their foreheads almost touching. “But you are definitely going to hate the cake. It’s gluten-free. No sugar. No joy. Basically, it’s cake-shaped penance.”

Aziraphale looked truly appalled. “Oh, heaven preserve me.”

“Only thing sweet in this house is you,” Crowley said, almost thoughtlessly, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Aziraphale didn’t respond immediately. His hands, however, crept up to rest lightly on Crowley’s hips, as though anchoring him in place. The towel was abandoned on the counter. His eyes narrowed just a hair, fixed on Crowley’s with an expression that hovered somewhere between fond and territorial.

“You are not to eat that cake,” he said softly.

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “What, are you forbidding me now? you know I don't even eat.”

“Yes I know.”

There was a pause. Crowley tilted his head, studying him.

“Alright,” he said, slow and agreeable. “Noted. You’re very serious about the cake.”

“I’m serious about you ,” Aziraphale said, and that tone—it wasn’t joking anymore, not quite. He didn’t smile, just looked at him like he was saying something incredibly obvious and incredibly important, and maybe a little bit damning.

“Alright, alright. I’ll save myself for dessert later at home.”

Aziraphale made a small pleased noise and smoothed Crowley’s collar, fussing with it in the fussy way that made Crowley feel warm and weirdly adored. He tilted his chin obligingly, letting Aziraphale straighten it, and didn’t comment on the way those same fingers lingered just a second too long at his neck.

Then Crowley gave him a crooked grin. “The show must go on, eh?” he drawled. “Or do you wanna rain check and fuck me in here instead?”

Aziraphale’s expression didn’t so much change as sharpen eyes narrowing ever so slightly, corners of his mouth twitching with restrained amusement, fondness, something just this side of indulgent.

“Oh no, darling,” he said, voice dipping into its lower, silkier register. “I rather think your pussy is best kept at home.”

Crowley shuddered visibly, a tremor that began somewhere between his spine and hips and rippled all the way to his grin, which turned almost feral. He leaned in, slow as honey, and bit Aziraphale’s bottom lip. His voice, when it came, was ragged and low. “Mmm. Say ‘pussy’ again for me.”

“No, darling,” Aziraphale replied, infuriatingly composed. He reached up, brushed his fingers down Crowley’s jaw, and gave him a chaste peck on the mouth like a reward for good behavior. “As you said—” he gestured toward the door with a little flick of his wrist, “—the show must go on. And into the party we go.”

Crowley groaned and without shame. “Nooo, angel. Just one. Just one tiny, itsy, delicious little—”

Aziraphale stepped past him toward the door, not looking back, but his voice floated behind him with absolute promise. “Once we get home, you’ll hear oodles of your pussy.”

Crowley almost dropped to his knees in the bloody guest bathroom.

He caught his reflection in the mirror, running a hand down his face. “You are going to be the death of me,” he muttered, though he didn’t sound particularly upset about it. He adjusted his sunglasses even though they were already perfectly straight, as if they could shield him from the memory of that voice in his ear.

Oodles.

Hell.

Aziraphale was already halfway down the hall when Crowley emerged, still tucking the tail of his shirt in, and trying very hard to look like he hadn’t just been emotionally sucker-punched by the word oodles used in any sexual context. Which, he thought, might be its own sort of sin. He caught up with Aziraphale with a few long strides, and they walked hand in hand toward the soft thrum of the party again.

Mr. Brown materialised again. “Oh, Mr. Fell,” he said, beaming, arms now awkwardly full of something vaguely cake-shaped and precariously wrapped in foil, “do you think you could give me a hand with your cookies, please? I need to take the cake downstairs before the candles sink.”

Crowley made an audible noise of irritation, one of those long-suffering, internal-screaming type sighs through the nose, but to his credit, he didn’t say anything. Just tightened his grip around Aziraphale’s hand for a second longer than necessary and leaned in, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his mouth. It wasn’t the sort of kiss that drew attention. It was the kind that made Aziraphale look like he briefly forgot his own name.

“I’ll be waiting for you with Nina and Maggie,” Crowley murmured.

Aziraphale blinked at him, visibly reluctant. He looked like he wanted Crowley to throw him over his shoulder and leg it. But unfortunately, Aziraphale was Aziraphale, and thus tragically prone to being polite. He gave Mr. Brown a dazzling smile, one Crowley privately thought should be reserved for him and him alone and followed him toward the kitchen with an air of resigned dignity.

He found the girls exactly where he left them, curled up together and a bottle of prosecco between them and just one glasses half full. He dropped into the seat opposite with a dramatic flop.

Nina raised her brow. “What took you so long?”

Crowley exhaled and flicked imaginary dust off his sleeve. “Oh, nothing. Just opening the door to the actual owner of this house, getting a drink spilled on me by said owner, and then being personally cleaned up by my particularly handsome angel. How about you?”

“We’ve been mostly staring at the kids' puppet theatre,” Maggie said, gesturing vaguely toward the garden where two toddlers appeared to be sword-fighting with balloons.

“Riveting,” Crowley said.

“So,” Nina said, in that tone she used when she wanted to poke something with a stick and see if it flinched. “How’s your jealousy thing going?”

“It’s not a jealousy thing,” Crowley replied immediately, plucking the drink out of Nina’s hand and helping himself to a sip. “Aziraphale is far too overconfident to get jealous. That’s the problem. He just…he doesn’t think he needs to be.”

Maggie smiled behind her glass. “And you want him to?”

Crowley tilted his head, considering, eyes glinting with something wry. “Wouldn’t mind. Just once. Bit of a scene. Throw a drink in someone’s face on my behalf. Shove a man into a hedge. Nothing major.”

“That’s incredibly romantic,” Nina deadpanned.

Before Crowley could answer, someone cleared their throat nearby. They all turned.

The stepbrother.

Of course.

“Hi,” Julian said with a soft smile, eyes sweeping across the little group. “I hope I’m not intruding. I’m Julian. May I join you? Seems like most of these guests are strangers to me.”

Then, more quietly, he leaned in toward Nina, hand half-shielding his mouth as he stage-whispered, “It’s a secret, but I own this house.”

Nina, who hadn’t even blinked, replied flatly, “It’s not that good of a secret.”

Maggie patted the empty seat beside her. “Well, nice to meet you. I’m Maggie. This is Nina. And here’s Crowley.”

“We met, yes,” Julian said, glancing at Crowley, and then, not looking away immediately.

Crowley just raised his glass.

“I liked your sunglasses,” Julian added, with that same bland tone that made him feel like a man who collected cufflinks as a hobby.

“Cheers,” Crowley said, deadpan. “They liked you too.”

Julian chuckled. “So you three know the birthday boy well?”

“We run businesses in Soho,” Maggie said, pouring herself a glass of water. “Coffee shop, record shop. Co-bookshop owner."

Julian’s eyes lit up slightly. Not with interest, but with the hollow simulation of it. The kind of “intrigued” that lived in the same realm as “networking,” or a LinkedIn connection request sent at 11:47 PM. “Oh, you own a bookshop?”

His voice didn’t so much inflect as sigh its way upward. Crowley, who had been trying very hard not to let his brain detach and wander off into the wood grain of the sideboard, blinked slowly and said nothing.

He was about to clarify, only because he couldn’t help himself not because he needed Julian to know that no , in fact, he did not own the bookshop. He merely lived above it, within it, beside it, spiritually wedded to the man who did own it. He ran interference with suppliers and charmed postmen and rearranged the window display when the angel wasn’t looking. But he didn’t own the thing. That was Aziraphale’s kingdom. Crowley was, at most, its very handsome court jester.

Instead, he lifted his glass. “Do I look like a bookshop owner to you?”

Julian squinted, made a slow, almost appraising show of looking Crowley up and down. “Mm. I don’t know,” he said at length, leaning back in that very slight, calculating way. “I don’t think so. You’ve got the… look of someone more visual. I’ve always thought books were a bit boring, really. That’s what films are for, isn’t it?”

That did it.

Nina and Maggie exchanged a glance. The kind that lasted one second too long and said a great deal more than either of them would voice in company.

Crowley stared down into his glass like it might provide an escape route. Internally, he added yet another item to the list of reasons Aziraphale would immediately file this man under irretrievably damning . And he agreed, actually. Julian might’ve looked like the sort of blond, bearded alt-history version of Aziraphale who’d fallen out of a rowing team and into a hedge fund, but mentally? No books? Six hours on a train and still no appreciation for the romance of it? The man was practically a crime against literature.

He tried, just a little, to be generous. Maybe Julian was one of those war memoir types. Served in the military. Possibly owned a dog with a name like Barkley and a battered Aston Martin. Still. Boring.

“I think Aziraphale would faint if he heard you say that,” Crowley said finally, voice dry as bone.

Julian smiled. “Is he your partner?”

Crowley nodded.

“Lucky chap,” Julian said, far too lightly. “Does he make you read to him?”

“Only when he’s trying to punish me.” Crowley offered a smile that had a bit too much teeth to be charming.

Julian laughed again, that same amused hum, like the sound a blender might make. “I always thought books were better for stacking under wobbly tables.”

“Mm,” Crowley said, tilting his head just slightly, “I suppose one could say the same about medals, but I try not to be rude.”

That earned him a blink from Julian, who smoothed over it quickly with a tight smile. “Ah. How do you know I was in the service?”

“Your posture,” Crowley said. “Or it was the watch. Bit of a giveaway.”

Crowley leaned back into the sofa and crossed one long leg over the other, entirely unbothered, even as inside he catalogued every reason Aziraphale would hate this man. Military. Doesn’t read. Thinks movies are superior to books. He hadn’t known it was possible to fail the Aziraphale Compatibility Test that quickly.

Julian glanced down into his empty glass, apparently untroubled. “So… Gerald mentioned you two’ve been together for a while?”

Before Crowley could answer or more likely dodge Nina jumped in, casually but with that exact inflection that meant she was up to something. “They’re practically married, you know, they even set us up, me and Maggie”

Crowley turned his head toward her very slowly. His eyes narrowed, but not out of offense. More like confusion. As if trying to determine whether she was making a joke, or possibly instigating something he hadn’t agreed to. Nina didn’t even glance at him, just raised an eyebrow and sipped her drink. 

“Did they?” Julian asked, glancing between them. 

“Oh yeah,” Maggie chimed in, smiling. “It was a very lovely evening. They really went for the Jane Austen setup.”

Julian chuckled again, watching him. “So how long have you two been together, exactly?”

“A year and a half,” Crowley answered, with the tone of someone reciting a fact they’d checked more than once to be sure they weren’t rounding up.

Julian’s brows lifted again. “A year and a half? And already practically married?” He laughed. “That doesn’t quite add up. Has he given you a ring, then?” His tone was light, but there was something behind it. Testing, maybe. Or fishing. It wasn’t bold enough to call it intrusive, just irritatingly nosy.

“I was in a relationship before I joined the army,” Julian added, tapping the edge of his glass. “We lasted five years before we even thought about marriage. Still didn’t do it. It’s not for everyone, I suppose.”

Crowley gave him a flat look. “Well, imagine six thousand years of pining and repression and several near-destruction experiences. One year and a half starts to feel like a bloody honeymoon.”

Julian smiled, like he thought that was a joke. It wasn’t.

“I suppose that makes sense,” he said, glancing vaguely around the room before returning his gaze to Crowley. “You don’t look like a couple, though. And isn’t that what they say? Opposites attract?”

Crowley narrowed his eyes a little. “You think we don’t?”

Julian looked at him properly now, finally—like he’d only just realized that the man he was speaking to might actually have an opinion. “No, I mean… maybe. You’ve got the energy, definitely. But I don’t know. You’re more like opposite, I’d bet. Quietly intense, that sort of thing.”

“I’m not quiet,” Crowley said, offended.

“You’re intense though,” Maggie said into her glass.

“Unrelentingly,” Nina agreed.

Julian chuckled. “I guess I haven’t been out with anyone that… interesting, myself.”

That sounded like a flirt, maybe. Or it was just a bleak commentary on Julian’s romantic history. Crowley genuinely couldn’t tell. 

“Well,” Crowley said, “you’d probably hate dating Aziraphale. He’s very bookish. Doesn’t like films where things explode.”

“But he does like romance,” Maggie said suddenly, giving Crowley a nudge under the table with the tip of her shoe. “Hopeless, elaborate, ludicrous amounts of romance.”

“Oh yes,” Nina added, pretending to sip her drink. “Love letters. Candlelight. Musicals. Probably believes in destiny.”

Crowley tilted his head and gave them both a look. “You know I can hear you, right?”

Julian laughed again, a little too loudly. “Sounds like a man with high standards.”

“Mm. He’d have to be,” Crowley said, tone cool.

Julian’s smile faltered for half a second before reassembling itself. “Well, you’re very lucky. He sounds very thoughtful.”

Crowley’s lip twitched. “He also has opinions about cataloguing. You know. The full package.”

Julian let out a small laugh. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you have opinions? Or do you just… let him lead?”

It was said politely enough, with the even, bland cadence of someone reading out loud from a leaflet about dental hygiene, but it still lodged itself somewhere uncomfortable in Crowley’s brain. The tone was all wrong, too. Soft, slow, tepid, as if Julian were trying very hard to seem breezy while asking something that felt just vaguely barbed. Either that or Crowley desperately needed to get his ears checked, because no one who asked a question like that should’ve sounded that… boring.

He opened his mouth to answer, had half a retort already spooled up about how, actually, he had more opinions than sense and regularly weaponized them against poorly-designed signage, celestial bureaucracy, and anyone who suggested Richard Curtis made terrible cinema…but then the atmosphere shifted.

Crowley didn’t have to turn to know it. The moment Aziraphale re-entered the garden, something loosened in his spine.

“Ah, there you are, darling,” Aziraphale said, voice all warm fondness wrapped in a smile that might have been a little too fixed around the eyes. “What have you been talking about?”

“Oh, just that books are a bit overrated,” Julian said, tone blithe, as if he were announcing his preference for sparkling water over still. “I’m sorry to offend. Crowley mentioned you’re a bookshop owner.” He glanced at Aziraphale as if seeing him properly for the first time. “Perhaps I could visit someday. And Crowley could maybe assist me?”

Crowley, for the record, had said no such thing. He had said, “Aziraphale is the bookshop owner” , but apparently nuance had been kicked in the head during Julian’s military training.

Aziraphale’s expression didn’t change. Not really. But the curve of his smile turned just a touch sharper, the tilt of his head a shade more precise. If one didn’t know him intimately, one might think he was simply being his usual polished self. But Nina noticed. Crowley didn’t. He was still stuck on how dull Julian’s voice was.

“Oh, I think it’s best if I were to assist you,” Aziraphale said, smoothly. His tone was light, verging on jovial.

Julian, oblivious or at least pretending to be smiled mildly. “Of course. I’d like that.”

Crowley, meanwhile, was still several steps behind, trying to figure out what kind of man actively disliked books and also had the audacity to make small talk like it was his job. Not that Crowley was some literary expert he hadn’t read a full novel since 1976 and that had been Carrie , and only because Aziraphale had pressed it into his hands and said it would be good for him. But still. There were things one didn’t say in front of Aziraphale, and books are overrated was one of them. Right up there with tea is just wet leaves and Classical Music was overrated .

“I’m sure Crowley’s a wonderful assistant,” Julian added, too pleasantly. “You’re very lucky.”

Aziraphale’s expression didn’t shift at all, which was how Crowley knew he was annoyed.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, that same silk-wrapped smile. “I am.”

Nina watched this exchange with barely disguised delight. Maggie was biting the inside of her cheek. Crowley, meanwhile, remained mostly unaware that he was the human equivalent of a tug-of-war rope, because he was still thinking about the phrase do you just let him lead and whether that had been meant as a compliment or a thinly veiled judgment.

“Anyway,” Crowley said, stretching out his legs. “Books are fine. As long as they don’t come with homework.”

“Exactly,” Julian said, turning toward him like they were now co-conspirators in the war on literature. “I always say that. Why spend hours reading something you could just watch in two?”

“Because,” Aziraphale said sharply, “books require imagination. Engagement. They make demands of the reader, and in doing so they reward them. A film is lovely, of course, but  a book gives you everything—it doesn’t ask you to meet it halfway.”

Julian blinked. “Oh. Yes, I see what you mean.”

“Do you?” Aziraphale asked, and it came out so mild that Crowley nearly missed the fact he was watching Julian like he was mentally fitting him for a coffin.

Crowley snorted into his drink. “Angel. Don’t frighten the actual owner of the house.”

“I’m not,” Aziraphale said serenely. “Am I?”

Julian gave a sort of half-laugh, awkward now. “Not at all. I like a passionate man.”

Crowley glanced up from his drink, surprised. “You do?”

Julian shrugged. “Not that I’ve met many.”

There was another silence, brief but pointed, during which Aziraphale folded his hands over his midsection and gave Julian a smile that was so polite it hurt to look at.

Nina broke it. “Right, well. I’m going to grab another of those little pies before the kids get to them. Crowley, want to come with?”

“I don’t like pies , you know that,” Crowley said, not quite whining but certainly deploying the kind of long-suffering tone usually reserved for things like parking enforcement and Gregorian chants. He rolled his eyes behind his glasses like Nina had personally offended his entire digestive system. “You’ve seen me eat. Or not eat. I don’t eat.”

“Oh, just come with me, okay?” Nina said, barely looking over her shoulder as she bee-lined for the buffet table. “I need more hands.”

Crowley rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. “You need hands and yet you pick me . What about Maggie?”

“She’s talking to your boyfriend.”

Grumbling—though mostly out of habit—Crowley let himself be towed away from the increasingly sticky tension of Julian and Aziraphale occupying the same gravitational field. It wasn’t until they were halfway across the garden, weaving past a small child with a plastic sword and someone’s unattended glass of elderflower fizz, that Nina leaned in and hissed, “He’s flirting with you.”

Crowley made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and not quite a scoff either. “Who, Aziraphale? He's always like that. You’ve seen us flirt, Nina. That’s not news.”

She stopped walking and stared at him.

“No,” she said slowly, like she wasn’t sure if he was joking or just stupid. “ Julian , Crowley. Julian is flirting with you.”

Crowley blinked at her, visibly recoiling. “No, he isn’t. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“He absolutely is.”

“Nina, come on what, with that voice? That’s not flirting. That’s— That’s conversation on the verge of slipping into a coma. If he’s flirting then I’m a teacup.”

“You’re not a teacup. You’re an idiot.”

“I mean it. I’ve been alive a long time. I’ve seen people flirt by serenading each other from balconies. I’ve seen people flirt by arguing about Wittgenstein. I’ve even seen people flirt by sword fight, Nina. Sword fight. This? This is… vaguely polite weather chat with accidental eye contact.”

Nina handed him a plate. “He asked if you let Aziraphale lead.”

“So?”

“So that’s code.”

“For what ?” Crowley snapped. “Leadership dynamics? Is he trying to recruit me into a management seminar?”

Nina narrowed her eyes. “It’s flirting, Crowley. Boring, limp-wristed, boarding-school-raised, upper-class-flavoured flirting.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “That is disgusting.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Because a minute ago you were the one whining that Aziraphale never gets jealous.”

“That was—” Crowley paused, glancing over his shoulder toward the table where Julian was now chatting with Maggie in the same monotone that could sedate an elephant. Aziraphale stood nearby, arms crossed, jaw tight, very politely ignoring the conversation while radiating the sort of tension normally reserved for tea kettles just before they whistle.

“That was earlier ,” Crowley muttered. “And I didn’t mean like this. I meant, like, if someone interesting flirted with me. Not someone who thinks The Sound of Music is a bit too edgy.”

“You are so full of shit,” Nina said, piling pastries onto her plate. “This is exactly what you wanted. You said and I quote ‘Sometimes I wish he looked jealous.’ Remember that?”

“He’s so boring . He thinks books are useless and that movies are better because they’re faster. What sort of walking beige cardigan of a man says something like that to Aziraphale ?”

Nina grinned. “Someone trying to provoke him.”

Crowley groaned and leaned his head back against the wall. “He’s provoking me . With how uninteresting he is. I swear to hell, he could flirt with a lamp and the lamp would fall asleep.”

“And yet your angel’s still watching him like he’s going to sprout tentacles and try to seduce you with Latin conjugations.”

Crowley snorted a laugh despite himself. “That would be more interesting.”

“And,” Nina added, tapping the tray sharply, “if you’re so determined not to humor Julian, then stop acting like you’re above it. Do what Aziraphale does when Mr. Brown flirts with him. And what does Aziraphale do?”

Crowley thought about it. “…He ignores it. Or he answers politely and then turns back to me.”

“Exactly.” Nina jabbed the edge of the tray into his side for emphasis. “So go enjoy your man being territorial and stuff, or, you know, here's a radical idea actually talk to him about it. But every time I suggest something remotely adult, you do the opposite, so whatever. Do whatever you like. I don’t care.”

“Mghk—Nina, you’re a genius,” Crowley muttered. “But I don’t want him to flirt with me. It’s disgusting.”

The thing was, she had a point. Not about the talking—he always talked, even if it was muttering to himself but about the disaster bit. He could, technically, just… keep quiet. Let Julian’s damp tea towel of a personality slowly evaporate into the wallpaper. Let Aziraphale puff up like a rooster about it. Let the whole thing play out without lighting a single match.

He could.

But he was Crowley.

He was also, as he often liked to remind himself with deep internal groaning, a creature of curiosity. He wanted to know just how far Aziraphale would go. What happened when his angel actually felt that little thrum of possessiveness and didn’t bat it down with years of trained restraint. What would he do? What would he say ?

Would he blush and look away? Would he squeeze Crowley’s knee too hard under the table and whisper mine in that breathy half-growl he sometimes got when he was tipsy and smug?

Would he miracle the trousers off him in the Bentley later and make good on that earlier promise of oodles ?

Crowley swallowed, mouth dry. He really should go sit back down. Or lie down. Or ideally, go home and have that exact scenario happen. But no—no. That was the coward’s route. He wanted the performance.

He wanted to be claimed.

He wanted to see what Aziraphale did when someone else not even well, not even interestingly—tried to inch their way into the orbit of what was his.

And if it all Crowleyed up, if the whole thing bit him in the ass (and not in the good way)—well, he’d face that when it came.

He followed Nina back toward the table with a tray of pastry in one hand and one eyebrow raised dangerously behind his glasses, and if his hips swung a little more than usual, well, that was nobody’s business but Aziraphale’s.

Back at the table, Julian was explaining, in excruciating detail, how serving in the army had “taught him discipline, but also a love for quiet moments.” Crowley dropped into his seat like a man preparing to suffer. Aziraphale was across the way now, all polite tight-lipped nods and his pinky finger annoyingly, accusingly, crooked against his teacup. His posture was upright, crisp, eyes watching Crowley the way one might a glass precariously close to the edge of a table.

Julian smiled. “Ah, we were just discussing the benefits of silence.”

“Mmm. Fascinating,” he said, very uncomfortable now that he knew that he was being flirted on. 

“Well,” Aziraphale said lightly, gaze flicking from Julian to Crowley and then back again, “not as fascinating, darling, as this man’s opinion that the only value of silence is its… disciplinary properties .”

Julian, who either didn’t notice the barbed wire or was into it, nodded. “It’s just that—during my deployment one learns the importance of being alone with one’s thoughts. There’s a certain kind of intimacy in silence, don’t you think?”

Crowley made a noise that was half snort, half laugh, and all disbelief. “Oh yeah,” he said, dragging the syllables out like he was scrubbing a rust stain. “You ever tried being alone with my thoughts. Wouldn’t wish that on anyone .”

Aziraphale gave him a sharp look at the word “erotic,” but Crowley only arched a brow in return.

“I meant more in the meditative sense,” Julian said, voice so neutral it practically vanished into the background hum of party chatter. “Stillness. Stillness has… weight.”

Crowley side-eyed him. “That’s poetry, is it?”

Julian chuckled again, and it was somehow worse the second time. “Well, I like to think so.”

Maggie cleared her throat loudly. Nina sipped her drink, observing all of it with the look of someone about to make a spreadsheet on the sexual tension of the table.

“Anyway,” Julian went on, unbothered and as persistent as beige wallpaper, “I do try to make time for a quiet moment. You can learn a lot by watching people. The way they move. Who they prioritize.”

Crowley didn’t like that. Didn’t like the way it was said, or the way Julian’s eyes had lingered on Aziraphale for half a second too long.

But he was spared having to interpret it by Mr. Brown, who popped into view like a man summoned by cake-related prophecy. “Right!” he beamed. “Cake time, everyone inside.”

Crowley kept a respectful distance from Julian as they followed Mr. Brown and the suddenly energized swarm of cousins toward the long folding tables lined with paper plates and cake that probably came from a supermarket. The children, having tasted the electric freedom of unsupervised sugar, were still running in circles shrieking and slapping each other with paper hats. None of them gave the faintest damn that a man had survived fifty years on this planet and survived by selling carpets for a living. Frankly, Crowley didn't either.

Crowley followed, keeping just enough space between himself and Julian to make a point. He could feel Aziraphale’s proximity without looking; he always could. The angel moved like sunlight behind his shoulder. 

“So, Crowley,” Julian said, voice mild. “What’s your favourite dessert? Mine would be well, cookies, probably.” Crowley glanced sideways. The question was so aggressively inoffensive he couldn’t even be annoyed properly. 

Before he could answer, Maggie chimed in from behind them. “Oh! Aziraphale brought cookies, didn’t you, Mr. Fell?”

Aziraphale brightened immediately, puffing slightly with the compliment. “Yes, yes I did. Lemon, you see. I like baking.”

Julian turned, smiling with the kind of genteel blandness that Crowley was rapidly becoming allergic to. “Oh, lemon. Interesting choice. Personally, I try to avoid sugar.”

Crowley didn’t look at Aziraphale then, he didn’t need to. He felt the angel stiffen beside him like a man offended on a molecular level.

“Oh do you,” Aziraphale said, voice soft and sweet as a sharpened pastry cutter. “Well. That explains quite a bit.”

Julian blinked, confused, clearly missing the nuance. “I just prefer things a little cleaner. Sugar dulls the palate.”

“I find it enhances things, actually,” Aziraphale said, smiling primly, but with just enough glint in his eye that Crowley had to suppress a smirk. “And as I’m sure you know, lemon and sugar are natural complements.”

They made it to the cake table. The vegan monstrosity had already been unveiled: a five-tiered affair that looked like it had been constructed from oat milk. Mr. Brown beamed at it like it was the Sistine Chapel. Crowley shifted on his feet and bit the inside of his cheek. He didn’t want the cake. He didn’t want sugar-free cookies. He wanted Aziraphale to drag him home by the hair and say none of this mattered except for his mouth and the way he said “please.”

But instead, he stood there. Politely. Waiting for someone to cut a vegan cake and for Julian to say something else monumentally boring.

Julian leaned in slightly, too close again. “I’ve found you can make a decent frosting from soaked cashews.”

Crowley did not answer.

Because behind him, Aziraphale had turned fully now, no longer bothering to hide the expression on his face.

After the cake—and more of Julian’s excruciatingly polite conversation that tried to pass itself off as flirting, like a wet sponge pretending to be a rose Crowley had managed to “mm-hmm” his way through a series of comments about discipline, and leadership, and how meditation in Kandahar had changed his sense of purpose.

It was, to Crowley, extremely boring and disgusting.

But Aziraphale had laughed. Softly, yes, and with that stiff little laugh he used when he didn’t want to encourage someone but also didn’t want to be rude. Still. He laughed.

And Crowley had watched Aziraphale’s eyes how they’d gone dark and fake amused not paying attention to him , not at something clever he had said (and he had said at least three clever things), but at Mr. Julian bloody Brown, with his perfectly pressed shirt and his teeth like he’d brushed each one with individual military efficiency.

Crowley felt his stomach twist and not in any pleasant way.

“Angel…” he began, quietly.

But then Mr. Brown stood up and clapped his hands once. “Right, everyone! Shall we play a game?” Like they were in a bloody youth retreat. Or a cult.

There were mild protests from some of the older guests and overly enthusiastic nods from the couple who’d brought a ukulele. Crowley stayed exactly where he was, chair angled slightly away, gin glass held like a lifeline.

Julian leaned in a fraction toward Crowley. “You’re on my team, then?” he asked, with a little smile that was almost conspiratorial, and Crowley had the immediate and overwhelming urge to dissolve into mist.

But before Crowley could even reject the offer politely, tersely, or with a well-placed sneer—Aziraphale stepped forward.

“Oh, I think Crowley would be much better off with me ,” he said, sweetly, and with that particular kind of smile Aziraphale only got when he was planning to raze someone to the ground using charm alone.

Julian blinked. “Well, I mean—”

“Oh, but he already has.” Aziraphale’s voice did something then. Shifted registers. Became soft and light. “Haven’t you, darling?”

Crowley blinked at him, mouth slightly open. He nodded mostly because the only answer to that tone was yes, dear God, yes .

“Course,” he said, voice lower than usual, and probably more pathetic too.

Aziraphale gave him a bright smile. Then turned, politely, to Julian. “Thank you for the offer.”

There was a silence that stretched just a beat too long.

Julian gave a small shrug. “Oh, that right?”

Crowley blinked. That was flirtatious . Except it was Aziraphale. Except it was possessive. Except now Crowley wasn’t sure what was going on.

“Well, I don’t know playing against one partner,” Julian said, undeterred. “I think it’s healthy, a little friendly competition.”

“Do you,” Aziraphale said.

That was the moment Crowley really should have left the table.

Instead, he stayed. Which meant he got to watch his boyfriend suddenly become absolutely ruthless at charades.

Because the moment Julian stood up and pantomimed The Davinci Code badly Aziraphale was already guessing with uncanny precision and aggressively winning, to the increasing discomfort of the rest of the party and the increasing bewilderment of Crowley, who was watching the man he loved perform vengeful pettiness with the restrained flair of a seasoned assassin.

Aziraphale was competing.

With Julian.

Over him.

And it should have been satisfying, except it wasn’t. Not really. Not when it meant Aziraphale was too busy glaring at Mr Brown's brother to so much as look at Crowley.

Crowley stood awkwardly near the drinks cabinet, arms folded, mostly ignored. He didn’t like being ignored. Not by Aziraphale .

He had wanted his attention wanted the little fond glances across the table, the fingers brushing his knee under the linen cloth. He hadn’t expected this. The sulking. The territorial defense . He certainly hadn’t expected Aziraphale to go to war with an ex-military bore in pastel chinos.

And he had definitely not expected to be turned on by it.

He shifted, one hand running up the back of his neck. He was getting warm. Which was inconvenient.

Julian was now miming something involving running. Aziraphale guessed it immediately and, pointedly, did not smile when the man congratulated him.

Crowley muttered under his breath, “Be careful what you wish for, you idiot.”

He had wanted Aziraphale jealous.

He just hadn’t expected it to be like this—strategic, cutting, dismissive. Aziraphale was more subtle than this. Usually. But now he was clearly only restrained by the fact that murder was still technically illegal. And possibly by the crème brûlée course.

Julian turned again, catching Crowley’s eye. “You sure you don’t want to join in?”

Crowley didn’t even get a word out before Aziraphale replied, almost too smoothly: “He’s very expressive in private, aren’t you, dear?”

Crowley coughed.

Julian chuckled, oblivious. “I’ll bet.”

And that was the moment Crowley decided he might actually die of secondhand embarrassment. Or desire. Or both. Possibly at once.

He glanced at Aziraphale—who, for just a second, looked smug.

And Crowley had definitely Crowleyed himself.

Nina and Maggie long vanished, probably off for a snog and a sigh somewhere under the wisteria. Crowley, meanwhile, was stuck watching Aziraphale gamely engage in polite conversation with Julian, of all people. Except it wasn’t really conversation. It was Aziraphale defending Crowley’s honour in the most aggressively civil way imaginable.

Goddamn it. Why had he listened to anything Nina said? That was Mistake #1. Mistake #2 had been indulging the man at all, even after learning that he was flirting. Was it a generational thing? Some inherited kink? Crowley was beginning to suspect the Brown lineage had a thing for courting immortals.

Crowley looked towards the garden where the kids were running wild in pirate hats and foam swords. Maybe he needed fresh air. 

He slipped out quietly, heading toward the old wooden swing hanging off the massive oak. The night air was cooler now, thick with the smell of lavender and trampled grass. One of the kids was already half-asleep in a beanbag. 

Crowley sat on the swing, let it creak under him, and sighed like a tragic widow. He stared at the stars for a bit, considering his life choices.

“Hi!”

He turned. A girl had plopped onto the second swing. Face covered in sparkly stickers, arms full of a sticker book. Crowley blinked.

“Hey.”

She looked, if he squinted, like Lucy from Peanuts . All she was missing was a sign that said The Therapist is In.

“You’re frowning,” she informed him.

“Well, little girl—”

“I’m Alice,” she interrupted.

“Well, Alice, I might’ve flown too close to the sun.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“No…what? No. I mean it's a metaphor. My boyfriend, you see—”

“I want a boyfriend,” she announced, flipping her sticker book open with the proud flourish of a ribbon-cutting ceremony. “Jenna has a boyfriend and she said I don’t have one because I don’t know how to kiss. But I do know how to kiss.”

“Oh…uh…I mean…maybe you don’t need to worry about that just yet? You’re, what, eight?”

“Nine in December,” she said. “And Jenna said if I don’t practice I’ll never get one. But I kissed my hamster once. His name is Crouton.”

“I feel like Crouton didn’t have a say in it,” Crowley said, eventually.

“He’s dead now.”

Crowley exhaled. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be, he was kind of mean. He bit my cousin once and he didn’t even say sorry.”

Crowley nodded slowly. “Hamsters are bastards. Been saying it for years.”

“Is your boyfriend pretty?”

Crowley gave her a long look. “He’s so pretty.”

Alice nodded, like this made complete sense. “You’re a little bit pretty.”

Crowley pressed his lips together. “Thanks, I think.”

“You look like you listen to music I’m not allowed to hear yet.”

“Accurate.”

“I think you’re sad,” she announced next, flipping to a page of rainbow stickers and choosing one shaped like a jellybean. “Do you want a sticker? Stickers make me feel less sad.”

“Sure,” Crowley said, weirdly touched.

She frowned again. “Not the jellybean. That’s for me.”

“Of course.”

She handed him a glittery gold star, the same kind she’d worn earlier. “This one says YOU ARE A SUPERSTAR . That’s the best kind. It’s for when you try your best”

Crowley took it carefully. “That… might be the most accurate sticker application I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re welcome.” She turned back to her book, satisfied. “You’re my second favorite grown-up now.”

“Who’s your first?”

“My Aunt Mo. She lets me eat ice cream for dinner.”

“Hard to beat.”

Crowley leaned back again, the sticker Alice had given him warm on the chest of his jacket gold, glittery, just on the edge of ridiculous.

He watched the garden door swing open and Aziraphale step out, face soft and sheepish, like he was still halfway rehearsing an apology. Crowley grinned without thinking and gave a little wave. Aziraphale's expression crumpled in relief.

Alice, for her part, had already been summoned by a chorus of tiny pirates screaming that she was either coming aboard or walking the plank. Apparently, she wasn’t a wuss, because she sprinted off without a backward glance, her sticker book flapping at her side like a flag of war.

Aziraphale approached slowly, his hands folded as if he were arriving at a confessional rather than a swing set.

Crowley leaned in when he was close enough, tucking his head against the angel’s belly. 

“I’ve missed you, darling,” he said, reaching to brush back a bit of Crowley’s hair in a way that was so gentle it made Crowley’s stomach flip.“I’ve been a bit distracted tonight, haven’t I? I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I promise it wasn’t intentional.”

Crowley tilted into the touch without hesitation. “’S alright.”

Aziraphale eyed the swing beside him. “Is this seat taken?”

“Nope. Be my guest.”

The angel sat with a small creak of the chain and folded his hands primly in his lap. His coat looked too good for this setting. Crowley liked him better like this, fussed and fraying at the edges.

The angel sighed, eyes lowering. “I believe I should apologize for the way I behaved back there. It was abrupt, and frankly, uncharacteristic. I don’t really know what possessed me to act so... possessively.”

Crowley scoffed lightly. “Ah, no worries, angel. Nina told me he was flirting with me, so I should’ve stopped it the moment it started. I mean, honestly, I was half-disgusted the whole time. I know I’m hot and all, but even I have boundaries.”

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale looked forward, then tilted his head. “I suppose I may have been, subconsciously, a bit threatened.”

Crowley looked at him, amused. “Not jealous, though?”

“Of course not.” Aziraphale’s tone turned clipped, but a pinkness had crept up his neck. “We’ve established, haven’t we? We don’t do jealousy.”

“Right. Absolutely. We only do… unprovoked passive-aggressive riddles and social warfare over me.”

Aziraphale sniffed, then turned to him with an almost-smile. “He touched you, Crowley.”

“Yeah”

“No one touches you,” Aziraphale said, voice quieter now. “Not like that. Not when they know you’re mine.”

There was something so sincere in it, so certain , that Crowley felt his stomach do something traitorous. Flip inside out or drop into his boots or catch fire. One of those. “You said we don’t do possessiveness either.”

“I said I don’t need to be possessive. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to stake my claim every now and again.” Aziraphale’s smile was small. Almost self-deprecating. “Especially when the interloper has the charisma of dry toast and the audacity of a pickpocket.”

Crowley snorted. “He was painfully boring.”

“And yet somehow still managed to act like you were single and available .”

“Yeah. That was new. but you’re adorable when you’re wrathful.”

“I was defending your honour,” Aziraphale muttered, clearly mortified now.

Crowley stood and stepped toward him, bending slightly. “And I appreciate it. Really. That’s why I’m giving you this.”

He peeled the “YOU ARE A SUPERSTAR” sticker from his shirt and pressed it gently to Aziraphale’s forehead.

Aziraphale blinked. “What on earth...?”

“It’s from a kid. Apparently I’m also not a wuss.”

“You’re most certainly not.”

“Thanks.”

They were very close now, and neither of them made any attempt to move.

Aziraphale reached up and smoothed the lapel of Crowley’s jacket. “You know I trust you, don’t you?”

“Course I do.”

“And I don’t want to ruin anything by being possessive.”

“Angel, we’ve already done possession. It’s kind of our thing.”

Aziraphale smiled faintly, eyes crinkling. “Still. I don’t want you thinking I don’t trust you. I just—” He faltered, voice dropping. “I know exactly what it’s like to lose you. Even the idea of someone else having your attention, for a moment... it makes me feel ill.”

Crowley exhaled, slow and steady. “You’re not going to lose me again.”

“I know. But sometimes I just want to remind the world that you’re mine.”

Crowley leaned down and kissed his forehead, sticker and all.

“Remind away,” he whispered. “Just don’t deck anyone unless they really deserve it.”

Aziraphale looked smug again, just for a second. “He would deserved it.”

Crowley laughed and sat back down beside him, their swings bumping gently in the night air, a soft rhythmic creak matching the slow-burn hum just under his skin. The gold star sticker still glittered faintly on Aziraphale’s forehead,

“You know what’s funny, angel?” Crowley asked, turning his head lazily to the side. 

Aziraphale, perfectly composed beside him but still pink around the ears, looked over. “What is, dear?”

“That we’re both hot.”

Aziraphale blinked once, then raised one finely groomed brow in the slow, patient way that always said he wasn’t surprised, only waiting for the rest of the theory. 

Crowley laughed again, half-cackling now. “No, no, but really. You—" he jabbed a finger toward him, "—waltz in there with your fluffy curls and your waistcoats and your little ‘I bake in my spare time’ act, and I swear Mr Brown wanted to take his clothes off.”

Aziraphale had the gall to look bashful. “Oh, I don’t think—”

“And me,” Crowley barreled on, “with boring bloody paper towel, who kept trying to do that terrible flirting like maybe I’d be tempted to fuck him out of gratitude for his service—”

“Crowley!”

“and between us we somehow proved that this family has a generational fucking crush on us. All of them.” He leaned in. “It’s genetic, angel. We’re irresistible.”

“Mm.” Aziraphale made a sound that was far too pleased. “That is funny.”

“And tragic for them.”

“Quite.”

Crowley stood first, brushing nonexistent crumbs off his trousers, and offered his hand with mock-gentility. “Let’s go home, angel.”

“But…” he said as they stepped off the grass and onto the flagstones, “first, we have to make out outside this bloody house like horny teenagers.”

Aziraphale raised both brows. “Do we?”

“You promised me oodles,” Crowley said, tugging Aziraphale by the wrist toward the exit, “and while I will not specify what kind of oodles…there are still children somewhere in the vicinity…I think you know what I mean.”

Aziraphale coloured delicately. “I believe I do.”

They didn’t say goodbye to Mr. Brown.

Not out of cruelty though Crowley wouldn’t have minded but because it would have required turning around, making eye contact, possibly tolerating another full minute of Julian’s company, and neither of them had that kind of moral fortitude left. 

In fact, they barely said goodbye to anyone at all. Which might’ve been rude, technically, considering the man had just turned fifty and was the apparent host of this whole painful exhibition. But Crowley didn’t particularly care, and Aziraphale looked like he might actively combust if forced to sit through one more round of soft-spoken flirtation disguised as charades. So they slipped out quietly, swiftly, with all the grace of people who had done this before.

Crowley’s last glance back was at the brass number plate nailed beside the doorframe: 69. Still there, still ridiculous. He bit back another laugh.

“Come on, come on,” Aziraphale murmured beside him, the urgency in his voice disguised beneath that well-practiced polite tone, his hand already at the small of Crowley’s back as they exited through the gate.

The Bentley was parked precisely where Crowley had left it, glimmering faintly beneath the halo of a streetlamp like it knew full well it was about to be leaned against. Crowley took two steps toward it before Aziraphale caught his sleeve, turned him around, and then unceremoniously pressed him against the bonnet.

“Fuck…Angel,” Crowley hissed, breath catching in his throat.

“Shhh,” Aziraphale said, entirely without shame, hands sliding under the lapels of Crowley’s jacket like he had every right to them. “No one’s watching.”

That was objectively untrue. They were quite literally still within view of the front hedges, the blinds in the lounge were only mostly drawn, and a dog across the street was barking as if personally offended by the public display of affection.

But Crowley didn’t care. Not even a little bit. Because Aziraphale’s mouth was on his, open and hungry, his hands already everywhere waist, jaw, hip, one sliding down between his legs and back up again like he was mapping the territory. Crowley made a noise, undignified, thrilled and tilted his head back against the bonnet with a clunk.

“You can say it now, angel,” Crowley whispered, breathless against the edge of Aziraphale’s mouth. “Come on. Say it.”

“Mmm,” Aziraphale hummed into the corner of his mouth, kissing him again, this time deeper. “What do you want me to say, darling?”

“The word.”

“Oh no,” Aziraphale murmured, smiling now, pulling back just far enough to look at him properly. He was flushed, eyes sharp behind his crinkling expression. “You don’t get to get off easy, my dear. You wanted this. You wanted me to react this way.”

“I didn’t—”

“You wanted me possessive.”

“I just—”

“You wanted me to make a scene. To look at that what was he, a cereal box come to life? and declare, in front of all those perfectly polite relatives, that you were mine.”

Crowley opened his mouth, shut it, huffed. “Maybe.”

Aziraphale tsked softly. “Maybe,” he repeated, derisive in that affectionate way he had, fingers curling tighter around Crowley’s waist now. “I don’t think maybe cuts it, my dear. You stood there, swinging your hips like a hussy.”

Crowley gasped, shocked and more than half turned on. “I was not —”

“The posing. You’ve a posing problem, you know.”

“Don’t diagnose me, angel, I wasn't posing. You were the one throwing guessing daggers during charades like you were trying to hit an artery.”

“And what should I have done?” Aziraphale asked, indignant now. “Let that man look at you? As though he might’ve had a chance? As though you could ever possibly entertain someone who believes films are superior because they’re shorter—”

Crowley laughed, delighted. “Angel. You’re still mad?.”

“I’m not mad,” Aziraphale sniffed. “I’m competitive. Entirely different.”

“Say the word pleaseee.”

“Why?” Aziraphale asked against the side of his neck. “Because you like the sound of it in my mouth?”

Crowley shuddered violently. “You know I do.”

“Oh, I know.” Aziraphale dragged his teeth along the edge of Crowley’s jaw. “You want it filthy, don’t you. You want me to say it, here in the street, right outside someone’s tasteful flowerbeds.”

“Yes.”

“You want me to say I’m going to eat your pussy until you forget the alphabet.”

Crowley groaned just a sound, strangled and obscene.

“You want me to tell you I’m going to take you apart, right there on the bed, knees over my shoulders, your thighs shaking, dripping wet and begging.”

“Yes. Yes. Fuck , Aziraphale.”

“You want me to say that I’m going to fuck you so hard your eyes roll back. So hard you scream my name into the mattress and beg me not to stop.”

Crowley nearly dropped to the pavement.

“But I’m not going to say it,” Aziraphale murmured. “Not yet.”

Crowley made a noise of protest weak, traitorous, half-mad with wanting.

“You don’t get it yet , darling,” Aziraphale whispered, tongue flicking at the edge of his ear. “You get it when we get home. When you’ve been patient. When you’ve let me undress you slowly and told me what a good boy you’ve been.”

Crowley whimpered.

“You wanted to be claimed,” Aziraphale said, biting gently at his collarbone. “You’re about to be.”

And just like that, he let go.

Crowley stumbled slightly, panting, pupils blown wide behind his sunglasses.

Aziraphale stepped back, adjusted his lapels, and unlocked the Bentley with a snap of his fingers. “Get in the car, my dear.”

Crowley got in so fast it was almost embarrassing. A blur of limbs and coat and hissing leather as he practically launched himself into the Bentley’s passenger seat like a teenaged hooligan catching the last Tube after curfew. The moment the door shut, the world outside ceased to matter. No more Brown children, no more garden party detritus, no more Mr. Brown and his stepbrother with his feeble chin and pastel socks just Aziraphale.

He was flushed still, pink across his cheekbones and the tip of his nose, a few golden curls hanging out of place across his forehead. Crowley stared. Then he reached across the gear shift, took Aziraphale’s face in both hands, and kissed the centre of his forehead.

Directly on the sticker.

“You’re my superstar,” Crowley whispered against the sticker, completely sincere. “And I love your cookies.”

Aziraphale blinked at him. “You don’t even eat them.”

“I will start now, angel. I swear. Every biscuit you’ve ever made. Even the cinnamon ones with the weird seeds in.”

“They’re fennel.”

“I will eat fennel for you.”

Aziraphale sniffed, though the corners of his mouth curled up. “You say that now.”

Crowley nodded solemnly. “I will devour your entire dessert table. I will lick icing off every cooling rack. I will inhale your sticky buns.”

Aziraphale made a sound halfway between a choked laugh and a groan. “Crowley.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and let me drive.”