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Chapter Text

The following is confidential information presented by the entity known as Lord God Almighty, The Most High God, The Lord That Heals, The Alpha and the Omega, The First and the Last, The Beginning and the End, and The One Who Calls Herself I Am

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on Human Physiology and Function

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Note: If you are not the intended recipient of this information, you are prohibited from sharing, copying, or otherwise using or disclosing it. If you have received this information in error, please notify God immediately via the Metatron. Then permanently delete this information without reading, forwarding, or saving it. Thank you.

Introduction:

Hello, everyone. Can you hear me alright? The seraphim in the back? Yahoel, I’m sure you’re having a very interesting conversation with Batariel but perhaps it can wait until our lunch break. Eyes on me. All your eyes. Thank you.

I’ve brought you all here to talk about how the human body functions on a biological level. We have a lot of material to cover, and please pay attention because many of you will be helping the third sphere angels incorporate to forward our liaison efforts. Some of you may even be doing your own outreach, depending on the need for supervisory entities on site.

I’ve created the human organism to be dependent on its environment but independent of Heaven, which was no easy task. The Earth and its atmosphere are a closed system in three dimensions, relying on the sun for energy. (The sun is a surrogate for my Heavenly light, of course, and the Earth orbits around it. I’m confident they’ll appreciate the symbolism of that once they work out the physics.) In order to capture energy, plants will be enabled to perform a sunlight to glucose conversion, and humans will consume plants. Glucose is a sugar, and it allows energy to be stored in a chemical form for later use. Is everyone with me so far?

Humans need a constant supply of glucose. I’ve installed a number of internal systems that will synthesise, utilise and store it, as well as dispose of waste products. Yes, you heard me correctly. Waste products are integral to the design– they’re a feature, not a bug! (Transcriber note: there’s soft laughter from the assembled host at this.) The breakdown of waste will allow for cycling of organic material and facilitate new growth… but I digress. I’m here to talk to you about humans, not the nitrogen cycle. (Although it is one of my more brilliant ideas.)

The building block of a human body is called a cell. Cells are tiny– you can’t see them with the naked eye– and there are many different kinds, with all sorts of jobs. The important thing to remember is that cells need oxygen, sugar, water and salt to survive… which means every human needs access to those things.

That brings me to my first confession. Haha, that’s another idea I’ve had, by the way… owning up to mistakes when you make them. That way everything is out in the open and you can figure out how to move forward. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, even me! Do you think I planned for Lucifer and his little crew to storm off in a huff? Of course I didn’t. Words were said, and then things sort of escalated from there… but I’m getting off track again. Where was I? Ah, yes.

I made humans completely dependent on having a regular supply of cell food. They have various ways to store glucose, as I mentioned, but they need to eat and drink every day. They don’t know that, though. (This experiment is about seeing what the humans will do when left to their own devices; I’ve been very hands-on with all of you, and to be honest I’m not sure it was the right approach.) Since I’m not going to be telling them what they have to do to stay alive, I built mechanisms into their bodies that would tell them for me. I call them “drives”. Things like “hunger”, “thirst”, “avoidance of pain” and the desire to reproduce. (Just write those down for now, we’ll go over them later.)

My mistake, I think, was in not giving humans the ability to modulate these drives. I made them powerful because they had to be, but data from early trial runs indicate they’re powerful enough to completely override the organism’s better judgement. That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but the system is complicated enough that I can’t exactly go back in and fix it without overhauling the entire design.

Humans are very good at planning, thinking rationally, and making smart decisions– as long as these essential drives aren’t in play. Think of them as biological hot buttons. When they get pressed… well, there’s been some very unexpected behaviour observed, I can tell you that much.

Oh dear. I hope they’ll be alright.

The Guardian of the Eastern Gate sat cross legged by the stream, watching the male human. Puffs of dry, hot air pushed at the folds of his robe, and the lines in his face were dark with dust. It had been days of travelling hard during the cool of evening, of digging in the sand for moisture; but now there were reeds that bobbed their heads with the movement of the water, there were patches of green peeking through hard-packed earth. Twisted, stunted trees along the bank provided a little shade. An oasis.

Crawly moved faster in his snake form, so he’d caught them up despite having to avoid the full sun of the desert days and the frigid cold of the nights. The angel had been steadfastly ignoring him. He was probably suspicious, wondering why the demon was tracking them, guessing he was up to no good. In truth, Crawly was curious. Okay, yes, Downstairs had been pleased with the success of his initial assignment and had told him to stir up more trouble, but it wasn’t like he had a deadline. There was time to watch the humans and see how they’d behave, now that they were out of the cradle. He had a soft spot for creatures who could turn bad luck to their advantage; who could take a tumble and land on their feet, and it seemed that they had… at least for the moment. Eve was stretched out on her left side, resting her belly on a patch of soft-looking grass, trailing her fingers in the water. Adam was…

Crawly resumed his human shape, looming up suddenly behind the ramrod-straight angel, who jumped. “Crawly!” He placed a soft-looking hand on his chest, over his heart, and looked at the demon with wide eyes.

‘Soft-looking hand’? Crawly mentally shook his head. “Why’re you watchin’ him do that?”

Adam, about a hundred feet down the bank, was crouched down next to one of the spindly trees. There was an occasional soft grunt as he attended to his business, back turned to them, knees splayed.

“What is he doing?”

Crawly looked sharply at the angel. To his surprise, it seemed like an honest question. He was watching the human with frank curiosity and not a hint of shame, a tiny furrow between his eyebrows. The dappled light accentuated the curving shell of an ear, the bridge of his nose, a cheekbone; he was glowing in patches. His eyes were shade and sun too; a perfect balance between the grey of the sluggish water and the aching blue of the sky.

You’re staring. Crawly jerked his eyes away and rested them back on Adam. The human had finished up and was covering his leavings with sand. “You… uh. You weren’t briefed?”

“I’m given to understand that they make more humans by nesting a smaller model inside the female until it’s of sufficient size. Then it emerges from between the legs.” The angel nodded towards Eve. “But Adam is male. And that… wasn’t a human.”

Crawly threw back his head and laughed. The noise startled the humans, and their heads whipped around. Eve narrowed her eyes at him. Crawly gave her a little wave. “I bet your corporation’s mostly for show, isn’t it? What’ve you got inside there, linin’ the walls? Nectar? Ambrosia?”

The angel stiffened further, if that were even possible. “My corporation happens to be a perfect replica of what they’re using,” he said, nose in the air. “All the requisite parts are present and accounted for.”

Stuck up git, Crawly thought, but the words sounded affectionate inside his head.

What in the world? He didn’t even know his name, for Satan’s sake. “Standard issue, sure,” he replied. “Okay. But d’you have metabolism switched on? Digestion? Bet you don’t.”

“They gave us permission to try out the heart and lungs,” the angel said with a touch of pride, “if we liked. They said not to touch the rest of the settings for now. That they’d do another training later on, if it seemed like we might need them.”

“Yeah, that tracks.”

“Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Head Office’s only goin’ to tell you what they think you need to know. I’m guessing they lined some big white room with perfect bodies, let you pick one, and sent you off without letting you look under the hood. Gave you one or two big shiny buttons to play with so you’d think you had some control, and locked the rest away.”

The angel’s cheeks were pink. Belatedly, Crawly realised he’d said “perfect body”, and winced internally.

“I suppose you know all there is to know about them, then,” the angel muttered, picking at a cuticle. “You’re a demon, after all.”

“Me bein’ a demon’s not the point, but yeah, now that you mention it,” Crawly said. “We didn’t have access to the warehouse or the factory. Nothing got handed to us. We had to cook these corporations up from scratch, and make sure everything was working.”

The angel looked intrigued. “How did you get the specifications in the first place?”

“Eh, one of the blokes in the design department nicked a set of blueprints on his way down. Although we couldn’t make sense of some parts. You know there’s a little wobbly bit hanging off the large intestine that looks like a thumb? Does fuck all, as far as I can tell.”

The angel laughed. He had an extremely nice smile, all crinkled eyes and white teeth. “All right. Tell me, then. What was Adam doing?”

“Defecatin’.”

“What?”

Crawly twisted around. There wasn’t much that was edible even on the bank of the stream, but he managed to locate a patch of broad-leafed plants which he knew had tender, tuberous roots. He dug his fingers into the sandy soil and worried one free. “This was our first lesson Downstairs. Food, right? The humans have to consume it or they die.”

“They also seem to enjoy it. Even a certain forbidden apple.” The angel pursed his lips.

“Especially that apple, if I’m any judge.” Crawly grinned, and got a frown in return, but he didn’t think the angel’s heart was in it. “Now. What do you think happens to the things they eat, angel?”

“Aziraphale.” The corner of the angel’s… Aziraphale’s… mouth twitched. He nodded his head once.

It’s been three days, and he’s just now introducin’ himself, but I bet he’d never admit he was bein’ rude. Not in a thousand years, Crawly thought to himself. He smiled. “Okay… Aziraphale. They can’t just keep on eating and eating, right? They’d explode. The food has to go somewhere.”

“I thought it…” Aziraphale flapped his hands vaguely. “...turned into energy. Or something.”

“Broadly, yes, but not all of it.” Crawly had rinsed his root in the stream. He looked at Aziraphale as he took a bite of the tip, allowing the sharp flavour to spread over his palate, crunching the stringy bits between his back teeth. The angel stared at him, fascinated. Crawly stuck out his tongue, showing him the ball of masticated root mixed with saliva. Then he swallowed. “My corporation can use some of that for… fuel, like fuel for a fire, you know? But just like a fire, when the energy part is used up, there’s something left over.”

“Like ash, and those blackened bits of wood?”

“Same idea, yeah. The intestine takes what nutrients it can. The rest of it… the bits the body can’t use… well, it goes out the other end.”

“The other end? Why? Why not through the mouth, the way it came in?”

“You’d have to ask the design team. Above my pay grade; I mostly did scutwork for the nebula crew.” Crawly shrugged. “‘S a basic tube structure, all coiled up in there, and things go from top to bottom. Most of the animals seem to have a similar version.”

“And… will you do that? ‘Defecate’? After you consume that root?” Aziraphale was all wide eyes and parted lips. It was… cute. It made Crawly want to show him things, fascinating things, things that would cause him to make that face again. Or smile his wide, sunshine smile… that was even better.

What was he thinking? He couldn’t fraternise with an angel! The Prince would have his guts for garters, and that would certainly put a damper on his demonstration of the digestive system. Crawly swallowed again, this time from nerves. “Probably not. I don’t need to fuel my corporation that way, so I have it set to return the things I consume to the environment after they hit my stomach.” He blinked, and the root was whole again in his palm.

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose. “Then why eat at all?”

“‘S fun. Like you said.” Crawly took another bite. “Tasting things is brilliant.”

“For you, perhaps.” The angel was wearing his sanctimonious expression. “I’m sure I’ll need to be concentrating on more important things. The humans may need to eat, but it’s not something an angel would indulge in.”

“Perish the thought,” Crawly murmured. The shadows were getting long, and he needed to find a warm rock to shelter him for the night. “But if you change your mind… those roots aren’t bad. ‘Specially if you roast them over a fire. And I saw a date tree a ways downstream… their fruit is sweet; tastes the way flowers smell, but better.”

“Hmm.”

Crawly raised a hand and turned away. “‘Night, angel.”

A pause. He almost thought Aziraphale wasn’t going to respond. Then, faintly, on the edge of hearing at fifty paces…. “Goodnight, Crawly.”

He turned. The angel had dug up his own root, and was examining it curiously.

Crawly grinned. Adam had named that one “Devil’s thorn”. He’d never tell.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 1: Drive

To start with, I thought I’d talk about depolarization of cell membranes… what was that? (Transcriber note: indistinct murmuring.) No, I was going to cover “drives” later this afternoo– oh very well. Show of wings, who wants to skip ahead? …Fine. But don’t expect to understand everything without a firm grasp of the basics. The slides are in the order they are for a reason.

Ahem. Like I said, humans need to do certain things without being expressly told. The Earth isn’t a particularly friendly place for a creature with no claws or armoured plates (which reminds me… wait until I tell you about dinosaurs. Early prototype for a dominant species; I scrapped them in the end because the roaring was getting on my nerves).

The human corporation is a very good learner, because the faster it works out what it needs to survive, the more likely it’ll be to make it past the age of six months. You’ll notice I’m using the word “corporation” here, because I’m not talking about the conscious mind. All of this stuff happens at a much more basic level. “Hunger”, for example. A person doesn’t really know when their organs need to replenish their stores of glucose. They’re just aware of an uncomfortable sensation in the midsection, and they’ve learned that eating makes that discomfort go away. That’s negative reinforcement. There’s also a reward for eating– it releases chemicals that make the corporation feel good. Positive reinforcement. (Transcriber note: some shocked murmurs here.) No, no, just trust me on this. They’re going to like eating. I don’t care if you think it’s “gross”, Gabriel, they have to eat to survive, and that’s that. Let’s move on.

To understand drive, you have to understand the effect these chemicals– things like dopamine, oxytocin, norepinephrine and serotonin– have on the central nervous system. To put it bluntly, dopamine alone acts on the proverbial voice of reason like a wrecking ball on a house of cards. It’s a simile. …Never mind. What I mean is… well, I got carried away, is what I mean. The positive reinforcement cocktail is very powerful. Addictive, too. If you find something the brain likes enough to release a lot of these neurotransmitters, it’s a very difficult thing to quit… even if it’s dangerous.

Those who incorporate would do well to keep that in mind.

It was the sneeze that started it all. If Crowley hadn’t been hanging around the bookshop that day like a bad smell, he’d never have heard it and everything might have gone very, very differently.

He was there, though, of course he was, where else would he be? The more things changed the more they stayed the same, or however the saying went. He’d stopped getting Hellish assignments delivered by Rose Nylund and Freddie Mercury; he didn’t have to hang out in graveyards recounting the deeds of the day, but he still did what he always did with his free time. There was just more of it now.

And Aziraphale didn’t mind… at least, he didn’t seem to. Crowley sometimes felt like he was still catching the angel up, all these years later: sticking to the shadows, moving undercover, and waiting for the right moment to show himself. In the meantime… well, he lurked. Aziraphale puttered about the shop, reshelving books and balancing ledgers and occasionally shooing away a customer who got too persistent, surrounded by a bubble of warmth and contentment that was nearly palpable. Crowley, meanwhile, watched him and fidgeted and got as close as he dared, always worried that Aziraphale would turn to him with a sympathetic look: “Oh, I’m sorry old boy. I have some work I need to be getting on with. Don’t you think it’s time for you to head home?” His tone would be warm, and his eyes would be kind, but he’d shut the door firmly behind Crowley all the same. It wouldn’t feel like a punch in the chest, not to him.

But they were two weeks out from the failed apocalypse… then four… and the dismissal still hadn't come. Crowley found other things to do from time to time, so as not to be in the way, and also because he was a fucking demon who ought to have a social life outside of following an angel around like a lovesick puppy. So he went to the car show in Syon Park and preened at the attention lavished on the Bentley. He popped over to Washington, DC to check in on Warlock, which largely amounted to loitering at the edge of something called a “skate park” until the driver of a sleek black car began eyeing him while talking into the lapel of his jacket. He even visited Shadwell– or he tried to. The dingy flat was mostly boxes, but he ran into that computer person, Newton or whatever his name had been. He reported woefully that he’d been promoted to the rank of Witchfinder Sergeant, which was causing all sorts of trouble with his love life.

Crowley bought him a pint. He could relate.

Today, Crowley was working on the sort of pop-up ads that propagated themselves over the entire screen of a mobile phone (he was retired, not dead) when a noise from somewhere between the von Arnims and Brontes jerked him to his feet. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sound, but it was deeply unexpected, and as a result as chilling as a footfall outside your bedroom door at midnight (Crowley was in a position to know; sometimes Hastur made surprise house calls. He’d never liked the television interface and preferred to do things the “old fashioned way”).

The shop doors were locked. He and Aziraphale should have been the only ones there, and they didn’t sneeze.

Had someone broken in? The shop was warded, but either of their former sides could send a human. Humans could have holy water. They could have fire. Crowley rounded the shelves at a near run, grabbing a chubby bronze cupid statue on his way past (heavy enough to use as a blunt weapon, plus the tiny arrow-tip looked sharp), and found… Aziraphale.

Just Aziraphale, looking surprised but not particularly distressed, standing with a book in one hand and a feather duster in the other. He was surrounded by a haze of dust motes.

“Angel? Are you alright? I heard–”

Aziraphale looked at him and held up a finger. He sniffled and wrinkled his nose. The skin below his left eye twitched. Suddenly his face scrunched up and he sneezed, loudly, ruffling the duster’s feathers.

Crowley jumped. “Aziraphale, what on earth?”

Aziraphale blinked watery eyes and said, inexplicably: “Oh, drat. I must have missed that one” (although it came out “Oh, drad. I mutt hab midd dat wod”). He wrinkled his nose once more, then snapped his fingers and appeared to relax. He turned towards Crowley, putting the book back on its shelf but hanging onto the duster. “Did I startle you?”

Crowley hid the statue behind a stack of playbills and tried to slow his breathing. No one’s here, he told himself fiercely. And even if someone were here, we’re an angel and a demon who frightened off our superiors and went rogue. We could bloody well handle it. Calm down.

He waved a hand to indicate his extreme relaxation about the unexpected sneeze, the security of the bookshop, and the state of the world in general. Everything was just fine, it was hunky-dory, and his lizard brain could crawl back under a rock where it belonged. “Nuh… nah. I’ve just… I’ve never heard you do that before.”

He hoped he wasn’t sweating too noticeably. Aziraphale looked the same as he always did– serene, unruffled, unbothered by prickly physicality of any sort.

“I haven’t done it before, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. What a bother this has been.” Aziraphale cast his eyes dramatically skyward. “I thought I’d gotten everything back to normal, but some of the reactions are so complicated. And the wiring! If I didn’t know better I’d accuse Her of playing silly buggers with the circuits. Why should a faulty inner ear cause nausea? Does that make sense to you?”

“Whoa, whoa, back up.” Crowley pushed his glasses onto his forehead and squinted at him. Same old fussy angel, down to each meticulously fluffed curl. But he’d been… experimenting? Hold the phone. “Since when do you have any of that stuff switched on in the first place? Heart and lungs only, you told me once. I know you gave yourself a sense of taste at some point, too, but why’re you botherin’ with brainstem and vestibulars?”

“Unexpected side effect.” Aziraphale glanced away and then back at Crowley, looking a tad embarrassed. “I didn’t want to worry you. I’m sure Adam did his best.”

“But…?”

“But when he returned me to my corporation… it was just a human corporation. Entirely so.”

The sensation that swept over Crowley was deeper and more chilling than the instinctive panic he’d felt when he heard the sneeze. Just a human? No, no, that couldn’t be true, because he’d seen his wings, right? He’d seen Aziraphale work miracles. He’d walked that body into a pillar of Hellfire.

It couldn’t be. He gulped a breath.

“Oh goodness, not like that!” Aziraphale fluttered a hand towards him, almost like he wanted to take him by the shoulder– something that, five minutes ago, would have been as unexpected as Aziraphale suddenly having bodily functions. “I’m still an angel, as far as I can tell. But I’d had the settings on this body customised for ages, and I hadn’t planned on having them all wiped out by a factory reset. It would have been alright if Adam had just left everything off, but no.”

“He turned it all on?”

“Immune, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, pulmonary… the whole lot.”

“Really!” Crowley’s eyebrows climbed to brush against the bottoms of his glasses.

“Naturally I was able to deal with the larger things. It’s not hard to stop peristalsis, but hormones are a bit trickier. I kept finding feedback loops that were still active, bursts of neurotransmitters here and there, things that wanted to contract or expand or secrete… honestly, it’s been a nightmare.” Aziraphale abruptly dropped the duster onto the nearest shelf and clomped over to the drinks table, radiating irritation. “Do you know,” he said, pouring himself a glass of scotch, “how much mucus the human body makes if you don’t keep an eye on it?”

Crowley shrugged. He followed Aziraphale and slid into the nearest chair, legs extended and crossed at the ankle. “I saw The Exorcist. And The Blair Witch Project.”

“But don’t you have… personal experience?” Aziraphale paused after his first sip, drink hanging in the air. The way he said “experience” sent Crowley’s brain down a slippery path, the kind with unexpected slides of loose dirt and rocks at the bottom. Aziraphale was lit up from behind with golden light, voice soft, lips wet, and so bloody gorgeous it was downright unfair. He couldn’t talk about hormones and say things like that in his most suggestive voice and expect Crowley not to reach over and snog him silly, could he?

Except, of course he could. He did. The hormones were off; he’d said so. He wasn’t trying to imply anything. Crowley poured himself a drink and downed half of it to buy time. “Not with snot,” he finally said. “Like I told you, there’s certain things about biology that are enjoyable, but having a runny nose’s never been very high on my bucket list.”

“Those ‘certain things’ are very enjoyable, though,” Aziraphale said, brightening. Crowley’s mind slid a little further down the slope with a stomach-churning lurch. “Taste, and oh, smell, of course. Can hardly have one without the other. A basic sense of touch– I mostly use that for textile appreciation these days, but when I was living among human communities it was vital.”

“How’s that?” Crowley asked. He sounded cool; bored even. He wasn’t picturing the reasons why Aziraphale might have vitally needed a sense of touch around humans, and he certainly wasn’t clenching his jaw at the sorts of images his brain conjured up.

“Blending in, for the most part. Upstairs didn’t count on my needing it, and didn’t want to sign off on the paperwork, but I appealed. ‘How do you expect me to work closely with humans if I can’t tell the difference between hot and cold water? Or understand what makes touching a thorn different from touching a feather?’ I said. Plus, engaging the pain receptors kept me from damaging myself too badly, so Raphael eventually made that compulsory. He was getting tired of healing the same corporations over and over. There used to be a lot of angels down here, and they’d get hurt all the time because they couldn’t tell what to avoid.”

Crowley nodded. “Demons turn pain off, usually, but you have to when you live in Dis. Plus, a little corporeal damage is demon chic.”

“I noticed that when I was down there,” Aziraphale said. “So many boils and sores.” His cheeks pinked. “You’ve always kept your corporation so… well, I suppose ‘pure’ is the wrong word for a multitude of reasons, but… neat. Clean.”

“Just… that look’s not really me,” Crowley mumbled, looking at his hands.

“No. You’re lovely.”

Crowley’s eyes widened. He slowly lifted them to Aziraphale’s face, which was now nearly the same shade of red as the setting sun.

“Oh!” Aziraphale said breathily. “I’m very sorry. That wasn’t… I must have left something on. Let me check the pituitary.” His eyes glazed, and when he blinked and met Crowley’s again a moment later the blush had faded. “A dash of oxytocin had escaped. Don’t worry, I’ve sorted it.”

“What if you didn’t?” The words were out before Crowley had a chance to think them through.

“Pardon?”

“What if…” This is a bad idea, Crowley; these are the kinds of questions that get you thrown out of polite company. Crowley did his best to ignore the voice, but he pivoted all the same. “Look. Neither one of us has ever really lived like a human. For all the time we’ve been on Earth, we’ve never…” Crowley waved his arm, “...done the total immersion thing.”

“Why in the world would we?”

“Because… because…” Because I want to see what happens when you leave the oxytocin on. I want to see what you think of me under the influence of dopamine. I want to hear you say I’m lovely again. Crowley was self-aware enough to be appalled by those thoughts, but he realised that there was probably no stopping them. He was a demon. That didn’t mean anything in terms of his morals, but it did mean he’d been subject to a great many assumptions about the nature of demons, mostly drawn straight out of the human subconscious. He knew all about what people thought of as the voice of the devil, later rebranded by Freud as the id. It was a part of the brain that was entirely selfish, seeking immediate gratification, preoccupied with pleasure. It tended to speak in images, and right now the image in Crowley’s mind was one of Aziraphale, spread out on a bed, naked and pink and sweating. What sorts of things would he say in the grip of pleasure? What noises would he make?

Crowley shifted into a position where his lap was hidden by the edge of the table. Great, he was officially a creep. But he still thought maybe he had a point, and that it was a legitimate one. “Because we’re on their side now.”

Aziraphale considered this, sipping his second glass. “Go on.”

“This is our home. These people… like it or not… are our only community. I know it doesn’t feel that different now. But maybe we ought to start thinking about it. If we have problems, we can’t run back upstairs– or down– for a new body.”

“We’re on our own side, I thought. We’ll help each other.”

“But we can’t heal each other. Or ourselves.” It was true. To accommodate the immensity of an angelic or demonic spirit, the corporations they used had to get a little creative with physics. Crowley didn’t understand it completely, something about dimensions and “M theory” and squeezing a donut into a single point, but in essence it meant that he and Aziraphale existed on a slightly different plane than the rest of the earth did. This was what gave them the ability to do “miracles”: they could manipulate objects in three-dimensional space in ways that the beings who lived there couldn’t. They could heal the bodies of humans, but they couldn’t heal each others’ bodies: it was like the difference between reaching through water and reaching through a concrete wall.

“Humans can. If we break a bone… or get into an automobile accident. For example.” Aziraphale gave Crowley a pointed look.

“Yeah? And what are they going to say at A&E if we show up with a body that’s mostly non-functional? No urine or–” he didn’t know what else they generally checked, but it had something to do with blood– “uh, normal blood salts, and things. That’s not going to turn a few heads?”

“I suppose…”

“Plus,” said Crowley, who felt he was on a roll, “How’re we going to heal so much as a paper cut without an immune system? We always nipped back home to get the scrapes and dings fixed up, but we can’t do that anymore.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I see your point. But surely we could just, ah– ‘turn on’ the things we need? And not the ones we don’t?”

“Doesn’t work like that. You said it yourself– everything’s connected to everything else. There’s a reason it’s taken you a month to sort it out. Just take snot, for example.”

“I’d really rather not.”

Crowley grinned manically. “I know, me too, but why do they need it? Because it’s part of how the body fixes itself. If you want your corporation to be able to heal skinned knees, you’ve also got to let it make mucus when you get a noseful of pollen. I don’t know how to separate them, and I’m not even sure you can.”

“Hmm.” That was the noise of an angel who was about to fold. Crowley knew it as well as he knew his own face.

He played his trump card. “We’re meant to be looking after them. We’re the only protectors they’ve got, unless you count Adam, and I think he might have taken an early retirement. After all, he’s mostly human… but we’re mostly not. We’ve spent six thousand years manipulatin' them while we took advantage of the things we liked about the world. Isn’t it time we tried actually understanding them?”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “That’s… positively altruistic of you, my dear. I didn’t think demons were known for their empathy.”

We’re not. We’re known for being quick-witted, charismatic and deceptive. And tempting people into things they really want to do anyway.

And lust-crazed.

But underneath it all… Crowley thought he was right. He hadn’t given the issue much consideration until today, but obviously they’d need to make changes in order to survive without Heaven and Hell.

Getting the chance to see what happened when he and Aziraphale both had fully functional endocrine systems had nothing to do with it.

Keep telling yourself that, said the voice in his head.

Aziraphale abruptly declared it was dinnertime, and he had a hankering for Ghanaian food, so off they went for fufu and jerk chicken waakye. Crowley sipped soda from a can and watched the angel eat. This was how it went. He’d propose something and Aziraphale would decline out of pure, knee-jerk instinct. Then they’d talk it through, and Aziraphale would think about it over a meal…

“So.” Aziraphale dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “If we do this… I’ll actually be digesting this food.” His expression was a mix of curiosity and apprehension.

“Sure. Ever done that before?”

“Well… not all the way through, but I’ve made a start.” He leaned closer, with the eye twinkle and barely repressed grin he always wore when confessing some minor naughtiness. “I usually vanish food at the bottom of the oesophagus, but I’ve found filling the stomach from time to time rewards me with a lovely cocktail of postprandial hormones. Though one shouldn’t overindulge.”

“Dunno why not. The body does plenty of unpleasant stuff, why not have as much fun with it as you can?” Crowley allowed a hint of suggestion to creep into his voice.

Aziraphale made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a huff. “I can’t believe I’m actually considering this.”

His hand was lying on the indigo-and-gold tablecloth; it was right there, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to cover it with his own. Start their journey into physicality with some tangible reassurance. Show the angel that, hormones or no hormones, touching was nice…

Crowley began to tear little pieces from the edge of his napkin. Too fast. He made a noncommittal noise. “I dunno what you’re so worried about. You like feeling good. You love eating, and having a working GI tract makes the experience better. You love nice fabrics, and the opera, and–” (snuff boxes? No, the word “love” was too strong for how Aziraphale felt about snuff boxes. At least he thought it was. You never knew with the angel) “–and, uh, ‘80s Chateau Lafite. Why not see how much better those things can be with all your neurotransmitters up and running?”

“Do you really think so?”

“I know so. Remember, I’ve used most of these systems myself. If you want to tempt humans, you have to understand how compelling the promise of a reward is, and why.”

“I always got good results offering financial incentives. Seemed simple enough.”

Crowley tapped his fork on the edge of his empty plate. “There’re all different kinds of things that humans find rewarding. Money, pretty girls… or boys… a drug, a chance at political power. But when you get down to brass tacks, it’s all just about monoamines. That’s where pleasure comes from.”

Aziraphale took a bite of kelewele and chewed contemplatively. Then he swallowed, slapped both hands palm-down against the table, and grinned. “Right! Let’s do it!” There was a mischievous gleam in his eye.

“Wha– now?”

“Why not?”

Crowley glanced around and lowered his voice. “I don’t want to scare the wait staff. It might feel overwhelming at first. Remember, you’re leaving everything running this time, not immediately reaching for the ‘off’ button.”

“I can handle it, Crowley. I’m not an infant.”

“Never said you were, just… please? Let’s go back. We need to pick up a few things anyway.” Crowley was already making a mental shopping list. Bottled water; the pipes at the bookshop were ancient and probably lined with lead. Tissues. Paracetamol. Antacid tablets. Band-aids. Oh, and a loo roll.

They could sit together on the sofa and let their bodies work. Aziraphale could nibble a biscuit to help his stomach settle while Crowley poured them a nightcap; maybe something with ginger in. Ginger was good for digestion, right? He’d let Aziraphale put something stodgy and ancient on the gramophone, they’d light the candles, and then… they could just see where the night took them.

Maybe they’d find out what their bodies wanted. If they wanted the same thing, well, there was no harm in exploring it, was there? Like he’d said, Aziraphale liked to feel good.

Crowley could help with that.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 2: Attraction

I know what your next question’s going to be. Of course I do. I’m God. You’re wondering about those pleasurable, addictive chemicals– what sort of thing makes the brain release them, apart from food?

Here. I think it’ll help to have a diagram.

(Transcriber note: audible sigh.) Could someone please catch Michael? I think she’s going to– oh dear. She’s down. Thank you, Raphael. Just fan her a little with your wings, she’ll come around.

Sandalphon, you seem tense. Why don’t you take a walk. (Transcriber note: muffled protest.) A walk, Sandalphon. Now.

As I was saying… humans need to perform certain activities. Some things, like eating, they have to do to keep themselves going, and some things… like this… they have to do to keep the species going. Remember, Earth is a closed system. I’m not planning to go down there every year with a bunch of new models, so humans need to propagate.

I experimented with budding at first. It works in yeast, but your average yeast is about as complex as a doorknob. Trust me, this is better. All the mammals are doing it, and it’s really taken off. But it takes two to tango, as they say– as they will say, anyway. So here’s another job for those chemicals we’ve been talking about: make people experience attraction to one another. That’s the first step on the road to wanting to have sex. (Transcriber note: God gestures towards the displayed diagram with a laser pointer.)

The thing is. Alright. There’s something I ought to tell you about, because I don’t want it to confuse you later on. Let’s say you go down there on assignment and your prophet forgets all about the burning bush or pillar of cloud– or whatever you picked to demonstrate your divine nature– just because another human around their age walks by and smiles. If this happens, check on whether your man is experiencing attraction. Attraction has some dampening effects on the parts of the brain responsible for things like…oh, like ascetic religious practices, just to name an example off the top of my head. 

Why? Because it’s really important, that’s why! From a big picture, continuation-of-the-human-race perspective, sex is about the most important thing they get up to. In the future humans are going to have all kinds of academically diverting things to think about, like political science and music theory and astrophysics– not to mention stuff like TikTok, which is definitely a lecture for another day. If they couldn’t be distracted from all that long enough to notice each other, they’d be in trouble.

When they get interested in another person, the neural circuits that generate pleasure and reward kick into high gear. Meanwhile, rational decision-making, complex executive processes, and sensible caution go right out the window. It’s possible I overdid things a little. Basically, humans who are silly for each other are certifiably barking. They experience a whole roller-coaster range of emotions– euphoria, craving, obsession, compulsion, dependence, and distortion of reality– but the one thing they're not doing is thinking clearly. 

You should see Adam and Eve right now. They spend their days giggling over Adam’s frankly unimpressive animal-naming skills (he’s better with birds; I liked “Penduline Tit” quite a lot, but if there’s a more boring-sounding word than “horse” I haven’t heard it) or staring moonily into each other’s eyes. Meanwhile, there’s a demon slithering about in the Garden, and they haven’t a clue. 

Mad. But it had to be that way, you see. It’s all according to plan.

Aziraphale was giggling.

They’d done it. They’d stopped at Boots for the essentials (Aziraphale had frowned at the plastic-wrapped 4-pack of toilet paper as if he were suddenly re-thinking the whole thing), returned to the bookshop, opened a celebratory bottle of Armand de Brignac Rosé, and… done it.

Well, not that.

What they’d actually done was turn on all their biological systems– stem to stern– and leave them running.

For Crowley, it was like wandering through an old house, throwing switches. (There was probably a confusing patchwork of wiring in the walls dating back to the advent of electricity, and what went when you pressed the button for the kitchen lights was just as likely to be the garbage disposal, but you got there in the end). The silent chemical factory of his liver chugged to life, his stomach began to churn, and his kidneys protested their rude awakening with a resentful pinch.

Aziraphale, having an official God-issued corporation rather than a knock-off (although Adam had re-made him, so who knew?), was better organised. He shut his eyes, went very still for a few minutes, and then said “Alright, that’s done it!” in the tones of someone who’d just fixed a leaky faucet.

Crowley narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “That’s it?”

“It’s simply a matter of letting the systems do what they’ve always wanted to do in the first place. Preventing this corporation from being fully functional has been like damming a river.”

“I thought your higher-ups didn’t want you messing with the settings.”

“They didn’t. But it seems they want to be, ah, ‘messed with’ all the same. Recently I’ve learned that perhaps the angels in upper management weren’t entirely forthcoming about God’s actual intentions.”

“You mean they were a bunch of power-grubbing, scheming, hypocritical wankers.”

“Well…” Aziraphale made a rocking motion with his hand. “Six of one, half dozen, you know.”

Crowley burst out laughing.

Now here they were, sitting on the sofa with an empty, pink bottle between them, and Aziraphale was giggling. Crowley poked him in the side. “Wot’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking… my barber will be cross with me. He’s always said how easy my hair is to care for…” he was off again, shoulders shaking.

Crowley squinted at him. “Woss diff’rent? S’just hair.”

“Scalp oils, m’dear boy!” Aziraphale held up a declarative finger. “Never had any. Dunno how it’ll reshpon– respond to them. Anyone’s guess.” He looked briefly worried. “May have to get a different haircut.”

“Never!” Crowley rested his chin on his palm. “You haven’t changed y’r hair in six thousand years, you’re not starting now.”

“But what if it suddenly doesn’t curl?” Aziraphale’s eyes were large and round. “I’ve a cowlick in the back, you know.”

“You’re gonna be a fluffy dandelion jus’ like always. Relax. Getcha some shampoo.” Crowley leaned his head against the backrest of the sofa. The room was spinning gently, and he was vaguely aware that they weren’t supposed to sober up. Not that it was against the rules, exactly, but it wouldn’t be true to the spirit of the experiment.

“Oh. Thank you.” Aziraphale subsided with the little shoulder wiggle that said he was pleased. Crowley saw it out of the corner of his eye.

It was quiet for a moment. Aziraphale smelled good. He always smelled good, a combination of whatever cologne his barber was peddling at the moment (Crowley guessed he saw Aziraphale as a bit of a toff and simply sold him whatever was most expensive) and his typical angel-scent, delicate and hard to pin down, sort of like violets and new leaves. The smell of things that were fragile, precious and fleeting. It always left an ache in Crowley’s chest, that smell. Now it was stronger, probably because of the whole “oils” situation that was developing, and it made him want to do ridiculous things like bury his face in the side of his waistcoat and gulp mouthfuls of it. That blasted waistcoat always looked so soft.

This had been a very bad idea.

Aziraphale wiggled again… this time, from the hips. He bit his lip. A furrow appeared between his eyebrows.

“‘S wrong?”

“Um…”

Suddenly Crowley knew, mostly because he was starting to feel the same way himself. “You have to piss!” he crowed, grinning.

“Please don’t be so vulgar.” Aziraphale looked pained, though whether this was in response to Crowley’s words or his own full bladder was difficult to say.

“Sorry, sorry. Y’r right. This’s a time for strict formality, this is.” Crowley drew himself up and tried to enunciate. “Let’s acknowledge an’ celebrate your inaugural micturition wiv– with, um, decorum b’fitting the solemnity of the occasion.” Pretty good for being as drunk as a Carthaginian war elephant. Crowley finished by motioning grandly towards the toilet door, giving a little seated bow and wiggling his fingers for flourish.

“Ah.”

“What?”

“Couldjouhelpme?” The words came out all at once, like they were trying to climb on top of each other. “I’ve seen it done, of course, but it sheems– seems complicated. Squeeze one whole set o’ muscles and relax another, all in an area the size of a fist?” He gestured towards his crotch like it had personally offended him. “I think not. It’s poorly designed, if you ask me.”

Crowley hunched like he was trying to dig a hole in the sofa with his shoulder blades.

This had been a very bad idea.

“Angel, you’re overthinkin’. Babies do this. First thing, usually. Jusss go in there and… relax.”

“Do m’trousers come all the way off?” Aziraphale reached for his buttons.

“Nonono. No. Don’t…” Crowley covered his eyes with one hand, screamed internally for a second or two, then rallied. “Thass what the flies’s for. Unzip, take y’rself out… and aim.”

“Crowley… it’s starting to get, er. Uncomfortable.” Aziraphale put his hand on Crowley’s sleeve. Crowley’s arm simultaneously froze and began to burn. He could feel each individual finger pressing through the cloth. “Won’t you please come with me?”

“‘S private, angel,” Crowley said through gritted teeth. Someone help him, he’d fantasised for decades (conservative estimate) about getting to touch Aziraphale intimately, but… not like this. There were things like silk sheets and rose petals in his fantasies. Ancient, creaky loos didn’t feature at all.

“‘S not private!” Aziraphale made a dismissive noise by blowing air through pursed lips. “Not true. Humans’re always going to the toilet in pairs and groups. ‘Specially women, for some reason.” He looked briefly thoughtful, then his expression subsided back into a look known to most of humankind as “dying for a piss.”

“Never noticed.” Crowley sighed. “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you from this side of the door, how ‘bout that? You c’n work out what to do. Y’r smart angel.” He stood unsteadily. He wished he could sober up. Shit, shit, shit. What had he expected? He’d had Aziraphale turn on all his bodily functions and shared a bloody bottle of champagne with him; what did he think was going to happen? Of course he’d end up talking to the angel about his penis in the least sexy way possible.

He never thought ahead, that was his problem.

“Now what?”

Crowley braced his forearm against the wall and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. He was trying not to look at the shape of Aziraphale, wavy in the pebbled glass of the door panel, shifting around in the cramped little toilet. A faded sign proclaimed the space to be “for customer use only”, and until tonight that had been strictly true.

“‘Kay. I’m not proud of this analogy, but here goes.” Crowley paused. “You uh… got it out?”

“Yes.”

“Holdin’ it in y’r hand?” Oh sweet, tapdancing Christ.

“Yes.”

Crowley breathed out. “‘Member when you were waterin’ the Dowlings’ gardens?” he said, after forcing his voice down out of a register only dogs could hear.

Aziraphale began to giggle again. “Same idea, only this time I’m the garden hose? Is that what you mean?”

“Hah! And here I thought we weren’t being ‘vulgar’.”

“‘M not bein’ vulgar. But you’re bein’... prudish.” The words weren’t unkind. The angel seemed to find the whole situation wildly amusing. Bully for him.

It wasn’t fair. Crowley was always so careful. Don’t push too hard, don’t go too fast, only offer what he can accept. He wanted… oh, so badly. He waited. From time to time he’d try to break free; distract himself with booze or bad TV or an urgent, teeth-bared, anonymous shag… but it never helped for long; he’d catch another glimpse of Aziraphale and that would be that. The angel could be doing the smallest, insignificant task– tallying one of his ridiculous hand-written receipts, say; or adjusting the thermostat– it didn’t matter. Crowley fell, and his whole body did that freezy-burny thing, and it hurt, but it was bliss.

That was all fine, he wouldn’t have it any other way, really but… he was so careful. Every touch had to be planned in advance: considered from all angles, scrutinised for an acceptable risk/ benefit ratio, and in possession of enough plausible deniability to make it worth the risk. The idea of asking Aziraphale– casually, flippantly, even– to help him in the loo made his shoulders seize up. He couldn’t have done even if he’d wanted to; not feeling the way he felt. So that meant Aziraphale felt… well, that was just it, wasn’t it? Aziraphale didn’t.

Fuck. He was approaching the “morose” end of the pissed spectrum. He tried to focus. “Makin’ any progress in there?”

There was a shuffling sound, and then an irritated sigh. “It doesn’t seem to want to, well. Let down?”

“Thasss for breassstmilk,” Crowley hissed. “Look, what’re you doin’?”

“Just moving it up and down… pulling it a bit… hmm.” The angel’s last noise had an intrigued, curious uplift.

Crowley’s eyes widened in horror. Oh no. No deity could be this cruel. “Stop, Aziraphale, don’t stroke, for Hell’s sake! That won’t help.”

Aziraphale laughed. He appeared to be half-slumped against the glass. “Thaddeus… Thaddeus Dowling said… ‘Shake it more’n three times and you’re playin’ with it’! I never knew what he meant.”

“Arrrgh.”

“What’s that, darling?”

Darling?

Crowley dragged his hands down his cheeks. “Okay, try something else. Your pelvic floor is like… it’s like… s’like a bowl of fruit, right?”

“‘Fruits’ were another thing Thaddeus would go on about. What an absolute tit.”

“Anyway, you wanna picture… um… making the bowl deeper.” Crowley cupped his hands, pointlessly, in demonstration. He’d learned this from Harriet Dowling, who was cheerfully chatty about her physical therapy exercises (“Relaxation, contraction and tone! These are some of the most important muscles in your body; you shouldn’t neglect them. I’m up to the 48 gram kegel weight now!”). “Relax those muscles, push a little with your abdominals, and the bladder oughtta do the rest.”

A moment of silence, and then: “Crowley!” The angel sounded triumphant. There was the sound of liquid hitting the surface of the water below in a steady stream.

Crowley sank to the floor and put his head in his hands.

A minute later, Aziraphale emerged, wiping his hands on a tea towel and looking enormously pleased with himself. He was humming, until the sight of Crowley’s crumpled form brought him up short. He knelt, swayed, and steadied himself on Crowley’s shoulder. “M’dear. Are you quite alright?”

“Mppk.” Crowley smiled weakly and tried to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Jusss… little dizzy. ‘S all.” He was, too. Their faces were inches apart. Aziraphale was scanning him carefully (if somewhat blearily) while doing the whole “worried eyebrows” thing, and he still smelled amazing, and Crowley’s endocrine system had just been turned up to full volume.

Generally, he left his bodily functions on the biological equivalent of “simmer”. Some things he didn’t bother with at all; if you were going to sober up with a miracle there was no reason to have a working liver (plus, he guessed the poor thing would be entirely cirrhotic by now if he’d pressed it into service any earlier). But as he’d told Aziraphale, demons needed to understand what motivated humans; they had to tap into things like “drive” and “primal urge” in order to override a person’s better judgement. That meant having a few circulating hormones, just enough to let you know you were on the right track. You had to feel some simulacrum of what they felt, or you’d end up trying to tempt a priest away from the church with, for example, the offer of a lifetime supply of Lipitor. (Demons had had trouble with the concept of “daily medications” in modern society. Not even a hundred years ago, the entire available pharmacopoeia consisted of “things that got you high”, and as a result were more appealing than, say, a box of antacid tablets, but how were they to know? This had led to a great deal of confusion and an amusing failure to break into the world of illicit drug trading.)

Thing was… “simmer” was bad enough, when it came to having constant, elaborate and clothing-optional fantasies about Aziraphale. With a full complement of hormones and neurotransmitters on board, close proximity to the angel appeared to rob him of the ability to form sentences.

Aziraphale touched his forehead. Crowley made a mortifying squeaking noise. “Oh dear. You’re perspiring. Go lie there…” he pointed vaguely in the direction of the sofa, “…and I’ll fix you up some… ah, some…” he trailed off, looking puzzled. “Tea? Too hot. Ice? Bit messy,” he muttered, apparently to himself.

“Angel, I–“

“Iced tea!” Aziraphale proclaimed, grinning.

“I should go.”

Aziraphale’s hand was still on his face. It was cool, and the pressure invited him to lean into it. If he didn’t leave soon he’d be nuzzling. “I’ve got… things.” He made a sort of all-encompassing gesture with his arms, to indicate the importance of his imaginary itinerary. “Um. To do.” Brilliant excuse. Airtight.

“Oh. You have to go… now?” Azirapahle glanced around. It was 3am, and the streets were empty. A light rain was falling. What could a retired demon possibly have to do at this hour? Late-late movie? All night laundrette? Marathon of the Twilight Zone?

“Yeah.” Crowley shrugged, trying to project an air of regretful resignation. “Y’know how it is.”

Aziraphale looked doubtful.

“So I’ll just…” Crowley jingled his keys in his pocket, and made to stand up.

Aziraphale’s shook his head. “You can’t drive,” he said firmly. As Crowley rose, he took him by the shoulders and turned him towards the sofa.

Crowley stiffened, feeling his stomach drop into his boots at the same time a warm, throbbing ache started up somewhere at waist level. He let himself be handled because he simply had no alternative; he could no more have moved his body in protest than he could have recited, from memory, the entirety of Finnegan’s Wake. Aziraphale’s hands felt strong. Had he known that? He’d shaken those hands a time or two; the soft, dry touch of his skin was tattooed onto his memory, but he’d never noticed how strong…

Through the sensation of wind rushing in his ears, Crowley realised he’d been plopped unceremoniously down onto the sofa. Aziraphale smiled into his face– that warm, closed-lipped, crinkle-eyed smile that melted him like a snowflake in a crucible. Crowley stared. He was pretty sure his mouth was hanging open.

“Now. You rest here and sober up. You c’n go home in the morning.”

Aziraphale rocked back on his heels, and just like that, Crowley was no longer frozen. Instead, he discovered that his limbs had gone rogue. He stared, horrified but helpless to prevent it, as his hand shot out like a snake and grabbed the angel’s. Not only grabbed. Grabbing he could have explained– “Sorry angel, you were about to step on a beetle and I had to stop you”, or “Look over there! It’s a floating street performance of Pippin!”, or something else equally believable– but no. His body would never let him off that easily. Instead, his thumb pressed gently against the delicate skin of the underside of Aziraphale’s wrist, stroking just over his pulse point. His fingers crept between Aziraphale’s fingers and then curled themselves against the back of his hand, content.

Crowley looked up desperately, trying to convey without words (and through opaque lenses) that he wasn’t remotely responsible for any of this.

Aziraphale’s smile dropped away. He looked suddenly very, very serious as he searched Crowley’s face. Crowley licked his lips, which was pointless because all of the moisture had fled from his mouth some time ago, but when he did the angel’s eyes flicked downward, so quickly Crowley almost missed it.

Say something! Crowley’s mind screamed. Say something, do something… anything volitional would be fine. This was humiliating. He was a demon, not a wilting flower, and he was supposed to be showing Aziraphale the ropes when it came to physical affection. Not swooning like the heroines in certain books the angel pretended not to have.

Something was wrong with his breathing. Crowley gulped, tried to get air, and realised it wouldn’t come. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for him, but he’d just told several billion of his cells that they were dependent on oxygen now. Fuck. Maybe he needed space. He pulled away just as Aziraphale started to lean forward, and then several things happened at once.

Crowley pulled reflexively on their linked hands as he moved, gasping like a fish in a bucket. This seemed to unbalance the angel, who tumbled forward. Crowley, torn between the desire to catch him and a panicked urge to flee out the nearest window, seized up again. Aziraphale’s face collided unceremoniously with his chest. Crowley tried to scoot backward. His head hit the bookcase behind the sofa and a dozen of the more precariously balanced volumes succumbed to entropy, cascading down around and on top of their splayed bodies with a series of painful thuds.

For a moment, there was silence. A mushroom cloud of dust began to settle. Aziraphale raised his head and blinked owlishly.

Then he grinned. Crowley’s glasses had been knocked half off, and the angel nudged them up onto his forehead with his knuckle. “Hello,” he murmured.

“Hi,” Crowley replied breathlessly. He smiled up at Aziraphale; he probably looked like a complete idiot but he couldn’t help it.

Aziraphale chucked. “I fell,” he said, glancing theatrically upward.

Crowley’s arms chose that moment to unfreeze. He put them around Aziraphale’s shoulders, lighting-quick, before they could change their mind. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

As romantic overtures went, it wasn’t very impressive. But the angel didn’t seem to mind, because his eyes went heavy-lidded, and he lowered his face, and Crowley closed his eyes…

…and then Aziraphale flinched away.

Crowley dropped his arms like he’d been burned. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at the cushions.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Aziraphale shake his head. “No, no, I just have to–” he pushed away, sat up, and– with a massive, shuddering inhale– began to sneeze.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 3: Trial Run

I’d planned to cover the immune system next, but seeing as we’ve come this far we might as well press on. Before I start, Michael… have you fully recovered? (Transcriber note: the archangel Michael nods weakly as she gulps a fortifying ambrosia potion.) Splendid.

Now. Attraction is all well and good, but as I said, it’s only a first step. There’s not much point in humans being attracted to one another just so they can always have a tennis partner. Oh, I apologise. Tennis is a game they’ll come up with, needs a net and a racket, can’t be played alone. Actually, that’s a good segue…

The drives we’ve been discussing are simply behavioural motivators. In this case, attraction is meant to interest humans in sex with one another, but to be honest with you… at first they weren’t. Interested, I mean. Not sold on the idea in the slightest. I tried letting them know they’d really enjoy it once they got going, but they said the idea of joining their anatomies together that way was “weird”.

(Transcriber note: one of the assembled host calls out, “It is weird!”.)

Gabriel, that’s not helpful. Please be quiet if you don’t have anything positive to contribute.

I went over the feedback, and adjusted the design to allow them to have a sort of…hmm. Trial run, I suppose you could say. A long way in the future, there’ll be a concept called “going for a test drive”– but never mind that now. The latest model of human corporation can experience the sensations of sex without the need for a partner, and let me tell you… it’s worked out great.

Look, I'm the first to admit I’m not perfect, right? If I were to go back and do everything over again, there’re a lot of things I’d change; but in this particular case I hit the ball out of the park. These trial runs really sell humans on the concept of copulation. There’s the intense pleasure aspect, of course; but on top of that you have all those behaviour-reinforcing chemicals floating around, wreaking havoc on the organism’s better judgement. Testosterone, which is basically libido in molecule form, provides them with anticipation and physical gratification. There’s dopamine, of course, the great motivator, just waiting to flood the synapses with a powerful sense of reward (and ramp up desire to do the whole thing over again once they’ve finished). Then you have prolactin and oxytocin– not such big boys themselves, but they’re responsible for feelings of connection and satiation following orgasm, which I’m told are quite nice.

(Transcriber note: indistinct murmuring.) The satiation bit was what I was referring to, but of course orgasm is nice as well. It’s about the nicest thing a physical body can experience, actually. I did that on purpose.

(Transcriber note: indistinct murmuring.) What’s an orgasm? Oh dear. All right, everyone take a short break. I’ll explain it after lunch.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What in the world had he been thinking?

Aziraphale sat and held his head. The sky outside was the slate-grey of pre-dawn, and London was waking up. Buskers, shift workers, and people in business suits (most of them apparently talking to themselves, but Crowley said they were using a “blue tooth”– whatever that meant– and were on their phones really) were walking by the shop, headed for the Tottenham Court Road tube station. Aziraphale thought of thoroughfares, of arteries, of paths that led from point A to point B. It was an oversimplification, but working for Heaven had been like that. He’d been swept along, it was true, but he’d always known where he was going. Choice hadn’t really entered into it.

Ever since he’d been on his own, he’d felt lost.

The bell above the door dinged. “They had a whole aisle! You wouldn’t believe it. Here, budge up. One of these’s gotta work.” Crowley shook the paper bag he was holding. It rattled.

He wasn’t on his own. Of course he wasn’t. He had Crowley. The demon had hung around the bookshop these past few weeks, even though he probably had much more interesting things to do. He’d had the brilliant idea to tweak their corporations so they could heal themselves, without needing the resources of Heaven or Hell. Then he’d guided Aziraphale through the process and helped him work everything out– even the waste disposal bits, which he clearly found distasteful.

Crowley. On top of all his other good parts, he also had a wonderful smile: complex, a little sad, and so beautiful it made Aziraphale’s chest ache… tch. There he was getting off track again.

Crowley was his friend. Despite certain past declarations– which anyone in your position at the time might have made, he reminded himself hastily– the truth was that he treasured Crowley’s friendship. Treasured it more than misprint bibles and illuminated manuscripts; more than Dvorak’s 8th and the scent of lilacs and all the small, precious things he loved about the world. More than Heaven, which should go without saying (though he suspected he did need to say it. At some point. When he drummed up the courage).

And what had he done to show his appreciation?

Why, he’d only thrown himself on top of the poor fellow and tried to kiss him. Crowley had been frozen and wide-eyed with alarm, but Aziraphale had ignored his obvious signals and gone after his lips with all the subtlety of an amorous rhinoceros.

He’d never been so embarrassed in his life. (And that included the Noodle Miracle Incident of 1940, which hadn’t really been his fault; noodles were practically bread and bread miracles were perfectly acceptable, no matter what Gabriel thought.) Why had he behaved like that? He’d been a little tipsy, sure, but he’d been tipsy around Crowley plenty of times. He’d never made a complete fool of himself before.

Crowley sat down next to him, though Aziraphale noticed he was careful to leave a little space between their thighs. “I asked the chemist. He said it sounded like allergies.”

“Allergied?” Aziraphale peered at him through red-rimmed eyes. “I tought dat wad ad outdoor tig. You dow…” he waved his hand vaguely. “Flowerd. Ad, er…” he scoured his brain, which eventually threw up another card, “...beed.”

Crowley winced sympathetically. Aziraphale blew his nose again.

“You can be allergic to just about anything, it turns out. Cats, perfume, peanuts, shellfish…” Crowley paused, looking apologetic.

“What else?”

“Um… dust.”

Aziraphale looked around. Crowley studied the bag in his hands. Finally, Aziraphale said, “Oh.”

“It doesn’t take a lot of dust, apparently!” Crowley sounded like he was being defensive. Of a bookshop. Aziraphale tried not to smile. “It can be a problem anywhere there’s rugs, or, or soft toys, or–”

“Or a few hundred antique volumes crowded into a space where the proprietor has been actively encouraging cobwebs?” Aziraphale asked archly.

“I did see you adding a layer of dust to a brand new shipment once,” Crowley mumbled.

“It discourages customers.”

“Right! Right.”

“So…”

“So try some of these!” Crowley rummaged around in the bag. “We’ll sort it out. Let’s see… chlorphenamine… cetirizine… pseudophedrine…”

“They’ve come a long way since Dr. Pasteur,” Aziraphale murmured approvingly.

“...Optrex– I think that’s for eyes… here’s a saline nasal spray…”

Aziraphale began to sneeze again. Funny. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant, but he couldn’t control it, and that felt deeply unsettling. He was used to being able to control everything about his corporation, and…

Crowley said what Aziraphale was thinking. The demon had always been able to do that, particularly when some nebulous idea was making the angel uncomfortable. It was uncanny, like having an x-ray machine pointed at your head. “Do you want to change back?”

Crowley wasn’t looking at him. He was turned slightly away, jiggling his knee, flicking a fingernail absently against his thumb. Another wave of humiliation swept up Aziraphale’s spine and crashed into his chest. He felt completely wretched. But…

“Doh,” he said, then sniffed. “No. Let me use ode– one– of dose sprays. Then I need to show you sometig.”

Aziraphale pulled the light cord in the little washroom upstairs. He’d made a nest for himself among the bookshop’s second floor storage rooms, although it was nothing like Crowley’s sleek flat– just a threadbare armchair, hot plate, double wardrobe, and several dozen boxes of books he’d get round to sorting any day now. It was dusty. Dust had never been a problem before.

When the single fluorescent buzzed fitfully to life, Aziraphale leaned against the counter and undid his flies for the second time in as many hours. Crowley hesitated in the doorway, looking like he wanted to flee back down the stairs.

That smarted a little. Aziraphale had never been modest about his corporation; why would he be? It would be like a human getting embarrassed about a car– or no, maybe something like a wetsuit. He was wearing this body, but it wasn’t really him. Besides, the standards for acceptable nudity had changed so much over the years that he couldn’t be bothered to keep track anymore. But now here was Crowley, acting like he’d sooner shower in holy water than catch a glimpse of any skin below Aziraphale’s waist, and that made him feel… something. Something that made his skin prickle and his cheeks heat; something that made him grit his teeth and avoid the demon’s eyes.

He lowered one side of his trousers, making sure his genitals stayed covered since one of them had decided to come over all Puritan, not that he was naming names… and showed Crowley the crest of his hip.

He heard the faint gasp.

“I keep blood in my corporation, of course,” he said, speaking matter-of-factly. “I think most everyone does; otherwise the skin colour is off and people talk. I got careless a few days ago getting up from my chair…” that was one way of putting it. A slightly more accurate way would be to say that Crowley had been gone for a few days, visiting overseas, and the phone had rung. Aziraphale had sprung towards it with desperate, fumbling speed and knocked his hip hard against the corner of his desk.

“Angel.” Crowley was at his side in an instant, apparently forgetting whatever anti angel-nudity pledge he’d signed inside his head. He knelt, staring at the injury with an intensity that made Aziraphale’s toes curl. When he touched it with the tip of his index finger, the barely-there brush of sensation had the angel hissing a breath through his teeth.

“Ah… yes. At any rate, I broke some small blood vessels when I collided with a piece of furniture,” Aziraphale continued. His voice sounded strange. Probably all the extra fluid in his ears. “At first, I could hardly see the damage, but of course I wasn’t maintaining any clotting factors. By the time I checked again, it had spread– as you can see.”

Aziraphale’s entire hip was a mottled reddish purple. The discolouration extended down his thigh, across his buttocks, and up his torso halfway to his rib cage. He lifted the hem of his shirt, and Crowley’s lips tightened. Slowly, carefully, he began to trace the edge of the bruise with gentle fingers.

Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek. He was having some sort of unexpected reaction, probably because the injured area was so sensitive. His skin went hot and shivery everywhere Crowley touched. His nipples tightened, and he felt a little twist of aching pleasure whenever the fabric of his shirt moved against them.

“I…” I was frightened. I didn’t know what to do. He swallowed those words. “...I looked it up, you know? How to make bleeding stop. It’s quite complex.”

Crowley huffed a sigh. Probably he was rolling his eyes at the idea of Aziraphale thumbing through some old medical textbook for instructions… which to be fair was exactly what he’d done (Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, 10th edition, ©1983). “You need a working liver,” Aziraphale continued. “You need active bone marrow. You need these things called ‘enzymes’…” he ticked items off on his fingers.

Crowley pushed his glasses up to his forehead. Then he folded Aziraphale’s trousers back a little more, trying to get a better look. His breath puffed warm against the angel’s bare skin.

Aziraphale gripped the counter. What was his blasted corporation doing now? Crowley’s manipulation had pulled the cloth taut across the inside of his thigh, where his penis lay… or where his penis had been lying. All of a sudden, his penis had other plans.

Aziraphale blushed to the roots of his hair. “Well, ah– at any rate!” He did up his trousers with shaking fingers and yanked his cardigan tight around his front. “You see…” he tried not to be too obvious about getting his breath back, “...you were right. If we just pick and choose our biological functions like… like our favourite chocolates in the box…”

“Someone always has all the cherry cordials before they even let me look.” Crowley, without ever quite meeting Aziraphale’s eyes, pushed himself back to his feet. Had his legs always been so long? They were very long, particularly when he cocked his hips like that. The washroom got a little smaller and a little warmer.

Aziraphale was sure his heartbeat was audible halfway to Westminster. “You never said a thing about liking cherry cordials,” he replied, trying to keep his tone light. “Anyway, if we do that… our bodies can’t heal themselves when we get hurt.”

“Everyone likes cherry cordials. Angel–” Crowley looked like he was going to reach out to him, but at the last moment he pulled his hand back and ran it through his hair, “–why didn’t you tell me?”

Why hadn’t he told Crowley? “I was worried,” he confessed. “I know not talking about it wasn’t going to make it go away, but…” He straightened up, folding his hands together in front of his lap. Luckily, Crowley was used to him standing like this. He’d never suspect Aziraphale of trying to conceal an erection (when in fact, said erection was straining towards the demon like a blessed jousting lance). “It’s stopped, though. I’ve been checking it every twelve hours or so, and the bruising spread a little more every time I looked… until today. This morning, it’s actually a bit better.” He smiled tentatively. “It’s working.”

“Oh. Good.” Crowley nudged his glasses back down. “That’s… ah. That’s good.”

Aziraphale walked by him and headed for the stairs, trying to think about baseball. He’d heard somewhere that it helped in situations like this. Unfortunately, his knowledge of baseball extended to a vague notion that there was a “base” and a “ball” involved, possibly peanuts… and, he seemed to remember, redhot wieners.

Oh dear. He decided to think about cricket.

Two hours later, he was so miserable that even the wincingly-shameful memory of the attempted kiss had been forgotten. He peered at Crowley from under a damp towel. “Da steab iddt helpig.”

“Suppose aromatherapy’s out too, if you can’t breathe through your nose at all.” Crowley gestured at the steaming bowl of lemon-water he’d placed in front of Aziraphale. “Sorry, angel. That was Anathema’s last suggestion. Maybe we should take you to a doctor.”

Aziraphale sneezed. The novelty of that particular reflex had well and truly worn off. “I dott habe it id be to biracle da paperwork.” He lay back. His brain was fuzzy.

Crowley’s lips were forming syllables. “Miracle what paperwork?” he said eventually.

“Ed aitch ess.”

“NHS?”

Aziraphale nodded and blew his nose without bothering to sit up.

Crowley was peering at labels. “You’ve taken the Benadryl and the Clarityn. It says you can’t have another dose for four to six hours.”

“Dey bake be feel like I’ve got a head full of cottod addyway. Cotton.” Aziraphale inhaled some more saline spray. It helped for a few minutes. Everything helped for a few minutes, but then the symptoms came back, because–

Oh, for Heaven’s sake. They were unbelievable sometimes. A couple of towering immortal intellects, and they couldn’t see the solution right in front of their faces. Aziraphale laughed. “Could I stay at your place?”

“I don’t think I gave you a proper tour last time, haha, suppose we had a lot on our minds.” Crowley strode ahead of him into the flat, talking a mile a minute and practically vibrating with nervous agitation. Aziraphale wondered what the matter was. Did he think he’d left the stove on?

He hung up his coat while Crowley flicked the lights. He remembered the handsome da Vinci sketch from his last visit, but that was about all– it was true, there hadn’t been a tour. They'd gone straight to the little anteroom off Crowley’s office, which locked with a sturdy deadbolt and conspicuously lacked both a television and a phone line (Crowley told him why, and he’d shivered). After they traded corporations and Crowley departed to check on the bookshop, Aziraphale was hot on his heels. He’d been terrified the TV would come to life and start calling him like something out of that old Poltergeist film.

It was nice to have a chance to look around. The hallway to his left was choked with plants, and Crowley headed straight for them, muttering something under his breath. The leaves began to move as if pushed by a strong breeze. Odd.

After a moment, Crowley turned and motioned him forward. “None of them are flowering.” He glowered at the plants. “They wouldn’t dare. Just in case pollen bothers you too.” As they passed, Aziraphale noticed a few swollen, brightly coloured buds… almost as if there had been flowers a few minutes earlier, and now the plants were doing the botanical equivalent of hiding them behind their backs and whistling.

He smiled. That was rather sweet.

The next room turned out to be the kitchen. A mile or so of granite countertop held shiny silver-and-chrome appliances of every shape and size, and it was spotless apart from a collection of dirt-encrusted plastic pots next to the sink. Crowley began to bang around in the cupboards, but the slant of his shoulders seemed apologetic. “What’s the matter?” Aziraphale asked.

“I don’t have tea.” Crowley looked sheepish. “Fridge is stocked, but mostly for appearances. And…”

“The red-and-green PG Tips box isn’t in keeping with your aesthetic, is that right?” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “So gauche.”

“This is an espresso household, thank you,” Crowley said, the corner of his mouth twitching. He nodded towards a tangle of metal in the corner that looked like it might be close to gaining sentience. The metal front panel said “Speedster”.

“I forgive you. At least I can breathe.” Aziraphale demonstrated, then rolled his eyes. “I wonder what other surprises our corporations have in store for us.”

“I’m just going to say this because I know you won’t. It seems mean spirited to make you, of all people, allergic to dust.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. She couldn’t have known about books… or old bookshops.”

“Bet She could've.” Crowley pursed his lips, but evidently decided to let the matter drop. “What do you want to do now?”

“Actually… would you mind if I had a nap?”

Crowley cocked his head, looking surprised.

“We didn’t sleep last night,” Aziraphale explained. “I’m not sure my body knows it’s supposed to have a circadian rhythm yet; can’t imagine what my pineal gland’s up to, but those pills made me feel like I have weights on my eyelids.” He yawned.

“Course, uh, yeah. Come this way and I’ll get you sorted.”

“I can rest on the sofa, or–”

Crowley simply gave him a significant look, which Aziraphale could read well enough. He might have been embarrassed about certain recent events but he wasn’t entirely foolish; Crowley would redecorate his stylish flat in the sort of twee wallpaper that featured beribboned kittens before he’d let Aziraphale “rest on the sofa”, particularly if the angel was ill.

As they walked toward a set of sliding doors, something caught Aziraphale’s eye. “Crowley!” he said, his tone half amused and half impressed. “That’s an… interesting piece.”

It was, too. The sculpture was reminiscent of Rodin’s work, two forms twined together, balanced carefully on a tripod of limbs: hand, foot, knee. Wings strained towards the ceiling and the floor, the darker pair uppermost. The figure with coppery hair was atop the one with… with… well, not to put too fine a point on it, the one with blond curls.

Perhaps the type that tended towards fluffiness and garnered the praise of barbers.

“Oh!” Crowley made a series of sounds in the back of his throat, mouth open as if he were as surprised by the sculpture as Aziraphale was. “That, engh, y’know, just a standard, er, Good vs. Evil style of thing, ennit? They love that stuff downstairs. So… so, when I found it, I thought I’d take it home, keep it around for when the bosses call in. Make ‘em think I’m toeing the company line.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. His face looked flushed, but maybe it was the light.

Aziraphale glanced around. “They could see it from the TV in the lounge? That’s remarkable. What with all the walls in between.”

A guilty expression crossed Crowley’s face. “Mostly I’ve forgotten it’s there,” he said airily. “You know when you pass something every day, you don’t even really look at it–”

“It’s alright, Crowley! I’m not offended!” Aziraphale forced himself to chuckle. No, he wasn’t offended, and he wouldn’t want Crowley to get the wrong idea… but he was having a reaction of a different sort.

Theoretically the demon figure was winning, but for some reason the angel’s position– held down, a firm length of naked torso pressed against his back, wrist wrapped in the demon’s long fingers…

Well. It didn’t look all that bad to be the conquered party. In this particular case.

He folded his hands in front of him again with exaggerated casualness. “You were showing me the bedroom?”

“Bedroom! Right!” Crowley spun around with obvious relief and opened the nearest door. The place was as spare as the rest of the flat; just a largeish bed and a pair of snake-themed side tables. “I’ll opaque the glass so you can have some privacy.”

The demon was avoiding his eyes again, as far as he could tell behind the glasses. When had everything gotten so awkward between them? Aziraphale felt like he was walking through a field of emotional land mines, strange tension blossoming upward with every misstep.

“Crowley, I…” What did he want to say? “The statue didn’t bother me at all, quite the opposite in fact”? “I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable last night, it’s just that I’ve been feeling rather strange”? “Why don’t you come in here and let me show you something as hard as your granite countertops”– no, no definitely not. “Er. Thank you.”

Crowley nodded, looked like he was going to say more, and then abruptly turned on his heel and slid the door shut. There was the sound of a fingersnap, and the glass walls went dark.

Aziraphale changed himself into a bamboo nightdress (the material was wonderfully soft, and he had vague ideas about it being sustainable although he wasn’t sure if that applied to miracle clothing) and lay down on top of the covers. Crowley’s bed was made with military precision, but the coverlet was silky and the mattress gave a reasonable impression of a cloud (Aziraphale would know). The room was quiet and dim. He was a novice at sleeping, but between the medicines and the sudden influx of biology he was barely holding onto consciousness. Sleep would come easily, he was sure of it. He closed his eyes.

He opened his eyes. He turned over onto his stomach. No help there.

He rolled over to his back again, and closed his eyes.

After a moment more, he opened his eyes and sighed irritably. How the… Hell… was he supposed to sleep with a persistent erection tenting the front of his nightclothes?

Aziraphale glared down at his lap. He supposed he could try to ignore it. It wasn’t exactly in his way. Humans managed to sleep with them all the time; woke up with them more often than not. But the erection wasn’t the problem, not really… it was the sensations. The twist and throb in his lower belly. The ache as his rigid cock twitched in time to his heartbeat. It was downright uncomfortable…

He’d told Crowley he wasn’t an infant, and he wasn’t. Of course he knew what he could do to, er… address this. Humans did it all the time; the activity seemed both ubiquitous and a source of near universal enjoyment. Yes, certain churches frowned on it, but that was just because of a misinterpretation of God’s beef with Onan (and honestly, She had been tetchy that day). He could…

But he was in Crowley’s bed. Crowley was right outside the room. It seemed grossly impolite. Besides, what if he heard?

Aziraphale groaned under his breath and turned over on his stomach again. His cheeks were burning. Why had those thoughts made the problem worse? The idea of Crowley hearing him… of Crowley knowing…

Forehead pressed into the cool pillowcase, Aziraphale remembered how the demon had looked at him this morning. The focused intensity in his eyes as he’d inspected Aziraphale’s bruise had been strangely exhilarating. As though there was nothing more precious to Crowley than the angel’s skin.

Aziraphale inhaled a shuddering breath. Almost without realising it, his hips began to make short, sharp arcs against the bed. Crowley, on his knees in front of him, just like he had been for those precious few minutes. That was an image, wasn’t it? It was a vision. What if Aziraphale had taken his trousers all the way down as Crowley knelt there? Showed him the effect those light, tantalising touches had had on him? Would Crowley have looked up and met his gaze while his irises spilled over the whites of his eyes like molten gold?

God… even though it felt good to rub against the sheets, the ache was getting worse. He reached down, bottom lip white between his teeth, and lifted his night dress to curiously palm the head of his cock. Fuck. It was a little wet right around the slit, and the sensation when he stroked it was startlingly good, making the muscles in his stomach jump and tighten. His hips jolted, and he moaned aloud without meaning to.

He shoved a pillow into his mouth and froze, still gripping his shaft. It hadn’t been much of a noise, but Crowley had good hearing. Was he listening now? Did he know what his angel was up to? Aziraphale whimpered into the pillowcase and closed his eyes. His hand began to move again… fingertips brushing from root to tip, light strokes beneath the head, touching his cock just like Crowley had touched his side. Crowley. Aziraphale imagined them back in the washroom. Crowley would be on his knees in front of Aziraphale, ah, yes, and he’d smile. “Impressive erection, angel!” His eyebrows would climb his forehead. He had such lovely, expressive eyebrows. “You’re really learning how your body works. I’m proud of you.”

Aziraphale’s hips rocked harder. He trapped his cock between stomach and palm, needing more friction, waves of pleasure lapping his belly with every thrust. In his mind, he was looking down at Crowley through half-lidded eyes while Crowley praised him: “Just like that. Show me what you can do. You’re so beautiful, angel.” His fantasy Crowley opened his mouth, showing the soft bow of his lower lip, the tip of that gorgeous tongue–

Aziraphale’s thighs seized up and his stomach clenched. He gripped the pillow and shuddered through a series of muscle spasms that lit up his synapses like fairy lights. In his hand, his cock pulsed and then spilled, wetting Crowley’s pristine coverlet with spend.

Oh. Oh, that was… pleasure was still wringing through his body in a series of shivers as he panted in the aftermath, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. He rolled onto his back and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, wet with sweat and semen but hardly caring.

That was an orgasm?

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Heaven’s cafeteria, 4004 B.C.E

“What is it?”

“When She said lunch, I was expecting a flight of scented oxygens, or maybe a nectar sampler. Not this.”

“What’s with all the silver vessels? Are they engraved with sacred wisdom?”

“Don’t think so. They look like big square bowls. Is that holy water, there in the flat trays?”

“Could be, but it’s steaming. See the little fires underneath?”

“Huh, blue fire. Same colour as Delta Circini. I worked on that one.”

“What are… ahh!” There’s a clattering noise. “Those spoons tried to attack me!”

“They don’t look like spoons. More like some sort of claw…”

Gabriel pushes to the front of the line of angels. “I think this is human food, guys. Look, each of the vessels is labelled.”

“Lift the lids, Gabriel.”

“Um… why don’t you lift the lids?”

“I would, but I sprained my wing last week, see? I’m officially on light duty. Raphael did me a note.”

“Oh for Heaven’s sake. I’ll lift the lids.”

A moment of silence.

“It doesn’t look dangerous, anyway. Nothing’s moving.”

“Michael, read the labels.”

“Let me see… eughh. ‘Domesticated flightless bird ova, mixed with the lactational secretions of the bovine female and cooked until solid’.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Says here in parenthesis: ‘Scrambled Eggs’.”

“That almost sounds worse.”

“This one is some sort of bread, I think, that should be okay… wait. It's ‘topped with a mixture of rooster breast, swine belly, rotted solidified bovine milk…’ oh good Lord. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“You don’t actually have a stomach, Sandalphon.”

“Even so.”

“What’s it called… ‘Chicken Vol-au-vent’?”

“Sounds like an incantation. Probably Hellish.”

Gabriel sighs, clearly trying to rally. “Okay, look. She’s probably watching, so just smile and take a tray, alright? We have to trust in Her divine wisdom, even when it comes to the consumption of gross matter.”

“Emphasis on the gross…”

“Shh!”

“Uriel, come share my cloud.”

“Certainly, Michael!” The archangel Uriel pats her hair and straightens her robe minutely as she hurries over.

“Did you try the food?”

“I thought it might be acceptable to sample the figs. At least I know what they are.”

“I had an olive.”

“Oh?”

“It crunched.”

Uriel laughs. “You’re supposed to take the stone out!”

“The what?”

“The stone. There was a little diagram. Here… watch.” Uriel takes an olive from Michael’s plate, places it delicately between her lips, and pushes the stone from the olive with her tongue. It lands daintily in her upturned palm. “See?”

Michael’s cheeks go pink. “Ah… yes. Very well done.”

“Thank you. Um. Are you feeling better? You looked quite ill, before.”

“I’m alright.” A wan smile. “She could have warned us.”

“I agree! A bit showy, that. Not in good taste at all, putting human coitus on display like it was some kind of puzzle She solved.”

“I couldn’t tell whose limbs were whose!”

“Right! And their faces… have you ever seen expressions like that?”

“It almost looked like they were in pain, but…”

“...But not exactly. I know what you mean.” Uriel clears her throat and toys with another olive. “It was a… striking visual.”

“Very.”

“Mmm.”

They’re quiet for a moment.

“So…” Michael says eventually, “I hear they put you on recorder duty.”

“Can I be honest with you? I don’t understand it. Why the sudden urge to make an operations manual? This information is highly classified, and everyone who needs to know it is already here.”

“With our God-given perfect memories, I might add.”

“Exactly! So why write it down? She’s asking for trouble if it falls into the wrong hands.”

Michael folds a napkin into progressively smaller squares. “Sometimes I wonder…”

“What?”

“What She’s thinking. There must be a reason, right?”

“With Her, there always is.”

“So what is it? Does this mean She plans to give your manual to someone outside the First Sphere?”

“Like who? That fussy little principality She put on guard duty?”

“Hah! Not likely. Can’t imagine anyone with less use for it. Fancy him wanting to have… sex? He’d have to remove the stick from his arse first.”

“Stop! Stop, I can’t.” Uriel giggles.

“In all seriousness… the only other reason I can think of is that… is that we might not always be around.”

“What?”

“The lower ranks would need instructions if we weren’t here, Uri.”

“Where would we go?”

Michael looks downwards, raising her eyebrows significantly.

“No.”

“You know what She’s like sometimes.” Michael’s voice is quiet and serious.

“You don’t really think there’ll be any more redundancies. Do you?”

“I want to say, ‘of course not’. But… I don’t know. She seemed quite put out with Sandalphon earlier, and he’s the most righteous of any of us.”

“Oh, certainly not. Not compared to you.” Uriel puts her hand on top of Michael’s, and then looks away, blushing.

“You flatterer.”

“You dealt the final blow to Lucifer.” Uriel stares furiously at a distant cloud, but she leaves her hand where it is. “Me, on the other hand… I’m just writing Raph’s progress notes and stoking the holy fires. Nothing to write home about, really.”

“Don’t say that.” Michael smiles at her. Uriel’s blush deepens, lighting up the gold marks on her cheeks. “Speaking of writing… how’s the poetry coming along?”

“Oh! I’m… um, I’m actually working on a new one. It’s about contrast and balance. I’m trying to compare Earth’s infancy with energy’s eternal recurrence.”

“That sounds perfectly fascinating.”

“I-if you want, I could read you some? I mean, if you wanted to hear it, that is. If you don’t, that’s completely fine–”

“Of course.”

“It’s just that I do value your opinion–”

“Uriel, please read it to me. I’d like that very much.” Michael sits back, moving her hand away as she does so. Uriel looks at her with an unguarded expression for a split second, then composes herself and gets out her journal.

Traditionalist demons still took the most direct route– straight up– when they manifested on Earth. It was faster, plus they liked the hey presto! effect of erupting out of the ground like one of Aziraphale’s second rate magic tricks. (They said that nothing set the mood for a temptation like a little occult razzle dazzle, which– ironically– was one thing Aziraphale and the older denizens of Hell might agree on.) After the conclusion of a bad job well done, they’d simply slip back down and let the dirt close over their heads.

Crowley, who had standards, preferred the escalator. There were only so many times you could miracle silicate rock dust out of an Armani suit. But he still had the ability to sink beneath the floorboards, and the moment Aziraphale’s eyes fell on his statue he’d very nearly used it.

Just… rrggh! Why hadn’t he said literally anything else, hmm? ‘Keep it around for when the bosses call,’ he’d stuttered, nearly swallowing his own tongue in the effort to remain casual. Aziraphale wasn’t an idiot. The fucking thing was nowhere near his office. No, it was proudly displayed outside his bedroom, visible from the bed if he turned his head to the side and looked through the glass doors. He’d put it there for the exact reason Aziraphale probably suspected he had.

There were few things that drove people to sin quite so effectively as shame, particularly when they were trying to avoid being found out. Your average human would sell their soul at a loss to prevent Mum (or the missus, or their constituency; that sort of request came through with depressing regularity) from knowing their dirty little secrets, and as a result Crowley was no stranger to what sort of secrets these tended to be. (They often involved animal get-ups, or feet, or several yards of black rubber, and he didn’t really see the harm, but a soul was a soul so in the end he just shrugged and drew up the paperwork.) It wasn’t like Aziraphale had caught him with a box of angel-themed marital aids and racy photos under his mattress… but that was probably the only way it could have looked worse.

He hadn’t been thinking, that was the problem. His mind had been running on a fixed track like a dog chasing a mechanical rabbit. “Aziraphale wants stay at my place”, “Aziraphale nearly bled out after he bruised his hip and he didn’t tell me”, “Aziraphale flinched when I touched him”, but “Aziraphale wants to stay at my place”, and around and around and around… because how was he supposed to make all those things make sense at once? So his thoughts had been scrambled, and he’d been upset over not having tea in the house, of all the irrelevant things, and while he’d been distracted Aziraphale had practically walked face-first into his pornographic sculpture.

Some part of him was dimly aware that he might be overreacting. The angel and demon were, technically, wrestling. He’d seen The Birdcage, and the statue wasn’t quite on the level of sodomitical china patterns… but if he was trying to play the part of a demon who wasn’t pathetically obsessed over his angelic companion, he was doing a piss-poor job of it so far. Maybe he should have leaned in to diffuse the awkwardness. Said, “Yeah, the sculptor made the fight between good and evil just a little bit sexy. Actually, it looks like fun. What d’you think, angel? Want to see who’d come out on top?”

Crowley groaned and clutched at his head. Then he froze, because… what was that? It sounded like an answering groan, coming from the bedroom.

Was Aziraphale alright? He’d taken all those pills. The fine print listed dozens of so-called “side effects” with no additional information apart from “If you experience this, consult your doctor” (currently, their “doctor” was a herbalist witch whose last text had been a recipe for homoeopathic allergy relief tea). Dizziness and drowsiness had been on the list, and the angel certainly had those. Did that mean he was also going to develop the other, scarier-sounding reactions? Crowley picked up a box at random and his lips moved as he read. Seizure… arrhythmia… something called “acute labyrinthitis” which sounded like a Hellish punishment… toxic psychosis? Oh Satan, what if Aziraphale was trouble? Would he tell Crowley if he needed help?

“Course he wouldn’t, the great stubborn feathery git,” Crowley muttered through gritted teeth as he padded over to the door. Aziraphale had had all the information needed to save the world, right down to the Antichrist’s sodding address and phone number, and it had taken getting himself discorporated to realise he should, perhaps, have shared it. Maybe he’d learned something from the experience… but then again, he’d kept his bruise secret from Crowley until today, so maybe he hadn’t. Habits were hard to break.

Crowley reached out to put his hand on the darkened glass… and abruptly went as still as his statue.

He could hear more of what was going on in the bedroom, now that he was closer. Heavy breathing– not the kind that signified distress (he’d been around long enough to know the difference). A gasp. A few unsteady moans, soft, like they were being muffled by a pillow. Underneath it all was a rhythmic fabric-on-fabric sound… the sort of thing you might hear if, for example, someone was rubbing their body against a Donna Karan black silk quilt.

The pace of the (thrusting, it’s thrusting, you know it is) rubbing noise began to quicken, and then there was an unmistakable “Mmm!” of pleasure. Crowley’s eyes went wide, because he knew that sound. It was the exact one the angel made when he ate battenberg cake.

He backed away, step by careful step, until he thought he was out of earshot (not that Aziraphale was likely paying attention at this point). Then he turned and hightailed it to the opposite end of the flat, swinging the rotating door shut behind him.

The remains of his last melancholy night in were still on the coffee table in the living room, and he poured himself a brandy with trembling hands, sinking down onto the sofa. After a moment’s thought he got up, walked to his music cabinet, pushed the power button on the CD player with enough force to dent the plastic housing, and sat down again. Then he got up again, wrenched the Janis Joplin disc out of the tray (“Cry Baby” cut off mid-smoky warble), vaporised the album just to be petty, put on Iron Maiden, and skulked back to his seat.

Of course it was bound to happen. These things did. Their bodies would need to… to… to ejaculate from time to time (come on old boy. Buck up, as Aziraphale would say. It’s just biology). They’d need to… ejaculate… just like they’d need to eat, and piss, and do more esoteric things like synthesise cortisol. Crowley remembered seeing a magazine headline claiming men should aim for twenty-one orgasms a month. Made for a healthier prostate.

He ought to be proud of Aziraphale for working things out. And grateful, probably, that he hadn’t been asked to lend a hand. But… why hadn’t he been asked? The angel had practically dragged him into the loo when he needed a wee, but when it came to recreational use of the genitals he was suddenly self-sufficient? Had he taken Crowley’s advice about certain things being private to heart? Had a sudden attack of modesty?

And what was Crowley supposed to do about his body’s reaction to hearing his angel having a wank in his own bed?

He refilled his glass, mostly to give his hands something to do. His cock had thickened until its outline against his thigh was lewdly obvious, and it ached to be touched. Even though Aziraphale clearly had no reservations about masturbating while they were under the same roof, Crowley felt oddly reluctant to return the favour.

The demon part of him was bent over laughing, hands braced on its figurative thighs. Here sat the tempter in determined, self-imposed chastity… while at the other end of the flat, an angel was happily getting himself off. Why don’t you go and offer to show him how it’s done? the demon whispered. That was your plan, remember?

Problem was... the Crowley who’d come up with that plan hadn’t been saddled with a fully functional amygdala. His brain might be fogged with lust but it was also petrified, because Aziraphale hadn’t exactly welcomed his romantic overtures. Okay, fine, that wasn’t entirely true; there’d been that moment back at the bookshop where he’d thought… Crowley shook his head. They’d been well past tipsy on pink champagne at that point. It didn’t count. Ever since sobering up, Aziraphale had been skittish, flinching away if Crowley got too close. He’d practically fled down the stairs when Crowley touched him, and bless it if the memory of that didn’t make him hot and stingy behind the eyes.

Crowley hissed through his teeth. He needed to talk to someone; he was tying himself up in knots here. He briefly considered going and having a good long shout at his plants, but they were right outside the bedroom, and if Aziraphale had managed to satisfy himself (the words echoed bitterly inside his head) then he was probably asleep. Crowley always slept well after an orgasm. (That was how he’d learned, actually, back in Rome. After a certain oyster lunch he’d badly needed to work off some urges, so badly he’d gone out at dusk, picked up a reasonable, but less oblivious– and, after the initial surprise, quite keen– Aziraphale surrogate– light curls, stout frame, nose in a scroll– and shagged him until the sun was peeking over the edge of the hills. Afterwards– exhausted, sticky, and more than a little embarrassed– he’d surprised himself by falling asleep.) Oxytocin was soporific.

“Witchfinder Army H.Q., this is Private Pulsif– blast, I mean, Witchfinder Sergeant Pulsifer. Ana, if this is you, don’t hang up, please? Mr. Shadwell really wants me to answer the phone like this when I’m at headquarters.”

“This is the computer human, right? Newt? Problems with your love life? We had drinks once.” Crowley had scowled his erection into submission and was twirling his keys in one hand, trying to decide if he could safely drive after two-and-a-half brandies.

“Mr. Crowley! I– uh, that’s not really…”

“Fancy a pint?” Probably better not to drive. Then he couldn’t have more alcohol. Right now, ‘more alcohol’ seemed like a really excellent idea.

“Actually, er… I’m meant to meet Anathema. She’s coming from Tad–”

“Perfect. She can join us.”

“It’s just that we haven’t been able to, um, spend much time together? Since I had to come back to London, that is. So I thought–”

“Meet you in twenty at that pub near yours. Actually, make it thirty. I’m taking the tube. And I have to use the loo.”

“What?”

But Crowley had hung up.

Anathema Device appeared to be dressed down, which meant a ruffled white blouse (it put Crowley in mind of his time on board Queen Anne’s Revenge) paired with jeans and lace-up boots. “Modern relationships are hard enough without date-crashing demons,” she remarked as she approached their table. “You know it’s nearly a three-hour bus ride? I hope I didn’t come all this way just to be a third wheel.”

Newt jumped up and pulled out her chair. “Of course not! Crowley’s not staying long, he…” he trailed off, probably because he still didn’t know why a demon who dressed like an ageing rocker had invited himself to lunch. (The full story was too complicated to send over text, and anyway service was rubbish on the Victoria line.)

Anathema gave Crowley an appraising look. “I’d burn some sage, but I doubt it’d get rid of you.”

“Hosepipe ban, isn’t there?” Crowley said amiably. “Can’t be setting the place alight when everything’s so dry.”

“Wore my horseshoe pendant, at least.” Anathema pulled a chain out of her frilly neckline and waved it in his direction.

“And here I am with no antidote for snake oil-peddling adolescent females. Helpless, me.”

“Snake oil! Methinks the pot is calling the kettle black!”

“I’m the dire snake who led Eve to the tree of prohibition. It’s only ‘snake oil’ if you don’t get results.”

“Devil.”

“Witch.”

Anathema’s severe expression cracked, and she grinned widely. Crowley handed her a bottle of cider. Newt, whose eyes had been bouncing back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match, visibly relaxed.

“So, what happened with the aromatherapy?” said Anathema, taking a sip.

“I tried lemon essence. No go, I’m afraid. He couldn’t smell anything at that point.”

“I brought you this.” She rummaged in a purse that could have comfortably accommodated a pair of watermelons and handed him a brown glass bottle. “Blend of sandalwood, frankincense and Ravensara.”

“Sounds pungent. We went with Benadryl in the end.”

“You shouldn’t put anticholinergics into a body that’s just learning how to manage secretions. He’ll be at risk for overheating, plus they can interfere with his ability to urinate.”

“If he’s overheating, it’s very much self-inflicted,” Crowley muttered.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing.”

Newt was frowning at them. “Would someone like to tell me what’s going on? You two know each other?”

Anathema Device had given them two slips of paper when they left the airbase: the charred prophecy, and an official witchfinder’s warrant card with her mobile number jotted on the back. “Let me know how it all works out,” she’d said, and Crowley, surprising himself, actually had.

Hell hadn’t encouraged friendships. Come to that, Aziraphale didn’t exactly encourage friendship– at least, not until recently, and that was… well… complicated. (In 2007, Crowley had enjoyed a brief but productive stint on Facebook’s development team, and had introduced the “It’s Complicated” relationship status– a term that sent even the most secure of partners into a frenzy of unspoken doubts, conversational scrutinization, and insecurity. He’d gotten a commendation for it). When, a week or so later, Anathema started texting him:

Crowley had stared at the single name in his previously-empty message box for nearly a day. Eventually, though, he’d begun to text back.

He regretted it now. She was never going to let him hear the end of the fact that he’d hit her with the Bentley.

Back in the present, Anathema nodded at Crowley. “I was conscripted into being his naturopath. He and that angel– you remember– decided to become human. Apparently for kicks.”

“More like… we made a workflow change to maximise our corporeal potentiality,” said Crowley, who hadn’t sat through six millenia of Hell’s powerpoint presentations for nothing. “We’re still supernatural.” He slid his glasses down over his nose to emphasise his point, feeling slightly defensive.

Newt sighed. “Sure, okay. That might as well happen. But what’s it got to do with Benadryl?”

Crowley polished off a very average glass of house white and ordered another while Anathema caught Newt up on the Adventures of the Allergic Angel. He suspected he wasn’t very good at being a friend, all things considered. He was moody and self-centred. He didn’t know very much about what humans liked, or the things they thought about… the small, everyday things like whether the Tube strike would affect their commute to work, or what Our Cheryl said to Our Evan over Christmas dinner. He had trouble understanding the pace of their lives; why things felt so urgent to them when he knew for a fact that both Our Cheryl and Our Evan would be dead in a hundred years’ time.

He hoped these two didn’t mind his shortcomings too much, because they were currently the only people he could talk to about… shit. His train of thought crashed back into the spine-tingling memory of Aziraphale’s moans. He made a miserable “Mmmph!” noise and put his head down in the cradle of his arms.

He could feel their eyes on him. Eventually Newt cleared his throat. “Er…”

“He’s never even thought about sex before, you know? Never had the hormones f’r it. Much rather read a book than get his precious curls mussed.”

Crowley peeked over the barricade of his forearms and saw Newt and Anathema exchange a look. Eventually Anathema said, “I’m guessing… I’m guessing that’s not the case anymore.”

“‘Turn everything on’, I said. It was all my idea. Just didn’t think he’d take to it like a… like a duck to bread. And in my own bedroom!”

Newt’s eyebrows nearly met his hairline. “He’s…”

Crowley nodded unhappily.

“Oh honestly. I’m surprised at you.” Anathema pursed her lips in an expression so like Aziraphale’s snooty frown that Crowley almost laughed. “Are you implying there’s something wrong with it? Good for him for, um… getting his hands dirty.”

“Anathema!” Newt mouthed, shocked.

“Hush, it’s a figure of speech. Maybe if more angels explored their bodies there’d be fewer religious figures preaching about abstinence.”

“Organised religion’s got nothin’ to do with us. We gave some v’ry basic instructions, back at the beginning, and your lot got carried away. Not my fault.” Crowley drained the second wine glass. “Listen. I am bloody proud of him, ‘kay? S’great that he… whatever. It’s great. But…”

“But you haven’t told him how you feel. And he’s getting on with it without you.”

Crowley moaned and let his forehead thunk against the table.

Because they were adolescents, whatever their driving licences said, Newt and Anathema had plans to go shopping. Rather, Anathema had plans to go shopping, and Newt had plans to hold an increasing number of brightly-patterned drawstring bags for her. Crowley, who felt like he wasn’t being taken seriously, stalked behind them and projected his most menacing aura.

Since they were at the Camden markets, this went largely unnoticed.

While Anathema poked through the wares at a stall that appeared to sell exclusively dried herbs and rainbow tunics, Newt leaned against a poster-encrusted pillar and shuffled his packages. “So… um…” he scuffed the toe of his trainer on the cobblestones. “Look, I don’t know what to say here, but you clearly want to talk about it.”

“No. Boll’cks to talking. I want to finish this pint and buy a button with a humorous slogan on.” Every time they passed a pub, Crowley snapped himself up a glass of their most palatable ale. They’d gone by seven pubs so far, and the ubiquitous fairy lights (places like this seemed to spawn them) were beginning to spin.

Newt pushed a breath through closed lips. “Then why’re you still here? You barged in on the first chance I’ve had to see Anathema in weeks, and you know it’s… well, it’s complicated.”

What was he supposed to say to that? ‘Sorry I ruined your date, but I had to get away from Aziraphale before I went and did something well outside the realm of plausible deniability’? “‘M rubbish at this,” he moaned. “Your relationship’s complicated? I’ve been ‘going too fast’ for him for sixty centuries, and the minute– the minute!– he gets some hormones on board he’s off an’ running with them, and where does that leave me?”

“Let me give you some free advice. It’s not nice to respond to a friend’s problem by saying you’ve got a bigger one.”

“‘M not nice, am I?” Crowley rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. His glass appeared to be empty. Blast.

“I don’t know. We only met last month, and then we had drinks once. But you picked up the tab.” Newt shrugged.

“I just thought…” Crowley sank slowly down the wall. He was sitting in something sticky. Another drink would probably make him stop caring about that. He snapped his fingers and one obligingly appeared. “Thought maybe you’d sorta get it. You an’ her, right? Kind of… opposite sides, like us. Witch and witchfinder. Star crossed, Aziraphale would say.”

“Adam called it an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. But he said we had to take it in turns. I go out witchfinding one day, and the next day it’s the witch’s turn to find me.”

Crowley wrinkled his forehead. That sounded like the sort of pop-culture philosophy that got embroidered on throw pillows. “Weird kid, that one.”

“Well. Obviously.”

“But… but…” Crowley waved his glass. Foam sloshed over his knuckles. “Issa same idea. You’re s’posed to find each other, sure, but y’r not meant to be together; nobody wanted you to be. Tons’ve old buggers wagging their fingers at you, sayin’ no, it isn’t right. Isn’t proper. And then suddenly…” Crowley made a “poof!” noise with his lips and cheeks, “...Game Over, Insert Coin. Except it turns out you get another life.”

“Is that a video game reference?”

“Modern demons’re allowed to know about arcades. Shush, pay attention. You get another life, but… but it’s not what you thought it’d be. Nobody’s lookin’ over your shoulder anymore, but you still have all this fear sloshin’ around. Noplace f’r it to go. So what d’you do then?”

Newt crouched down next to him, settling the bags carefully in his lap to keep them off the ground. Crowley watched this move out of the corner of his eye, fighting a smile because it was exactly what he’d have done. It was strange, spending time with this human. He was so like Aziraphale in his quiet intelligence, awkwardness, and unquenchable enthusiasm for things he couldn’t quite master; but he was also the one who held the shopping. The one who wore that longing look Crowley recognized from his own mirror. He would be willing to bet money that Newt already knew Anathema’s favourite songwriters… the films that made her laugh… the flavour of scone she liked with her lapsang souchong in the morning.

He wondered if Anathema even knew Newt’s full name. It’d taken Aziraphale four hundred years to learn his.

“It seems like there ought to be a guidebook for this sort of thing,” Newt said. “Everything I ever knew how to work came with a manual. But Anathema’s not like that. She’s fantastic, don’t get me wrong! But she’s… I don’t know. Wants to do things her way or not at all. Looks at the world like a problem to be solved.”

“Set ‘o morals like a steel trap?”

Newt huffed a laugh. “I had to go vegetarian.”

“I had to save a bunch of humans from shooting each other after I put real bullets in their paint guns.”

“Er… right. Oh! When I had to come back to London– because my bloody job is here, and I’d just got a promotion!– she said I was being ‘instrumental in the perpetualization of a misogynistic, outdated institution founded on the persecution of women who respect the natural world’.” Newt dropped air quotes around the phrase. “But then she kissed me! And two hours after I left, she sent me a, um.” He went red. “A rather suggestive text message.”

“Six thousand years of mixed signals,” Crowley said morosely.

“I’ve only been a witchfinder for about six weeks,” Newt complained. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Yeah, welcome to the club, mate.”

Anathema’s boots appeared. “Would you boys like a cup of coffee at The Fields? Or are we too busy wallowing?”

Newt jumped up, holding his arm out. Anathema draped the handles of another bag over it and gave him a brief smile before she turned and walked away down the sidewalk. Newt stared after her, suddenly all adoring grin and unfocused eyes.

Crowley scrunched his mouth sympathetically. He stood, meaning to follow them… but when he did the world tilted. He lost a brief battle with his eighth pint and threw up in the gutter.

They were about halfway between Newt’s flat and Crowley’s, so after some debate (Crowley didn’t hear it; he was retching into a plastic bag) the humans decided to bundle him home in a black cab.

“Look sober,” Anathema hissed at him as their driver pulled up.

Crowley swayed against Newt. “‘M dying.”

“Well, don’t do it in the taxi.”

She’d gotten him a burning-hot cardboard cup of peppermint tea. Crowley clutched it in both hands, trying to give his body something to focus on besides the spinning car interior and waves of nausea. He’d tried to sober himself up, of course; to Heaven with whatever gentleman’s agreement he and Aziraphale might have had about it– but it felt like the miracle was stuck behind a glass wall. He could just about see how to do it, but he couldn’t quite make it happen.

His stomach heaved, and he took a deep breath of peppermint-scented steam. He hoped there was something to Anathema’s aromatherapy techniques, because there was no way he’d be drinking any of the tea. He was never drinking anything, ever again.

Then they were in his foyer. The doorman gave their stumbling group a look that said, in bold capitals, that he was contemplating not letting them up. Crowley flapped a hand at him. “S’okay Roy.” He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. His body wanted to collapse into snakiness, where at least he wouldn’t have to worry about balance anymore. Bipedality was vastly overrated.

Newt shouldered him into the lift. “What floor?”

“Thirteen.”

“Of course it is.”

“Juss… press the buzzer.”

“Don’t you have a key?”

“Miracle’t open, usually, but… can’t.” Crowley tried to snap his fingers. There was a sad little noise, like a stone being dropped onto carpet. “Brainsh all fuzzy.”

Whispers to his left as he tried to focus on having one door instead of three. “How much did you let him drink?”

“He’s a demon! What was I supposed to do, start passing him no-alcohol lagers? He’d curse me!” The buzzer sounded, deep in the flat.

“He’s brand new to metabolism, Newt! And he didn’t eat anything at lunch. You could at least have gotten him a curry.”

Crowley covered his mouth with both hands and groaned. “Please don’t talk ‘bout curry.”

Aziraphale, looking as prim and buttoned and fluffy as ever, opened the door.

Belatedly, Crowley remembered he’d spent the better part of the afternoon complaining about the angel’s brand new pastime. Was that something people talked to their friends about? Would Aziraphale be upset? How was this interaction supposed to go?

The ceiling and the floor chose that moment to switch places. He stumbled forward, mouth filling with saliva that tasted of battery acid.

Strong hands cupped his elbows. “Crowley, good lord!”

“Sorry, he, uh… he’s had a bit to drink.” Newt winced and scratched the back of his neck.

“Sober up, please.” Aziraphale put a hand under his chin and lifted his face. The world gave another sickening lurch.

Crowley opened his mouth to say he couldn’t, did the angel really think he hadn't tried… and suddenly the bile was right there, at the back of his throat, even though he didn’t think he had anything left to throw up. He pushed out of Aziraphale’s grip so he could at least do it on the floor of his entryway and not down the front of the angel’s waistcoat (because he’d never bloody hear the end of that).

“Crowley!”

It was like an iron fist twisting his stomach. He’d seen this happen to humans thousands of times, and he’d never understood how deeply unpleasant it was. Nothing was coming out now but his muscles were still locked up; his body shaking. “Havin’ a seizure,” he slurred, because he was pretty sure he was, he must be, this couldn’t simply be mild alcohol poisoning. There was no way this terrible sensation could be part of the general human experience…

But Newt and Anathema were looking down at him not with worry, but with pity. Understanding too; a sardonic tilt of the mouth that said “Yeah… been there”.

“Is he going to be alright?” Aziraphale's hands twisted together so tightly that the skin around his knuckles was shiny and white. That wasn’t what Crowley noticed first, though– what struck him in that moment was that Aziraphale was being rude. No greeting for their guests, no polite re-introductions, no “Let me take your things, dear”. Just a panicked request for reassurance, eyes never leaving Crowley’s clammy face.

Anathema brandished a small wicker basket. “I carry an emergency kit with me. Why don’t we get him to bed and I’ll see what I can do.”

Bed… probably a bad plan. There were a lot of complicated emotions associated with that bed right now. Crowley tried to protest, but before he could he found himself being scooped up off the floor, strong arms beneath his shoulders and knees.

He squeaked. The stunned excitement of being embraced by Aziraphale for the first time– sort of– was unfortunately trumped by the face-crumpling indignity of the whole situation, not to mention a stab of nausea brought on by the position change. “Easy, angel,” he pleaded. “I’m a liability to y’r clothes.”

“I was worried,” Aziraphale said quietly, and bless it if those three little words weren’t an additional punch to his aching gut. Didn’t seem fair, really. Wasn’t he suffering enough?

He made a pathetic noise, buried his head in the soft wool of Aziraphale’s cardigan, and let himself be carried to the bedroom. Whatever torture the angel and the witch had in store for him, he’d have to take it on the chin. He had no fight left in him.

Life was better when the spinning finally stopped. He could close his eyes without immediately upchucking over the side of the bed, for one thing. Being able to move his eyelids had never felt like such a victory, not even when he’d first gotten them.

He’d spent the past hour lying on his back, unfit for anything but staring at the ceiling, while Anathema fed him ginger extract with an eye dropper. His austere bedroom was cluttered with the detritus of sickness: discarded cloths, a large (and now mercifully empty) bowl, the glass of water Aziraphale was trying to force into him, a bottle-and-jar forest of herbal remedies. Newt had been dispatched to Boots to pick up some sort of diffuser gadget, and more peppermint-scented steam filled the air.

As his mind cleared, he tried several times to miracle himself entirely sober. It didn’t work. That was worrisome, but also very much something for Future Crowley to think about.

The door rolled back. “I saw our guests out,” Aziraphale remarked, not looking at him. “Miss Device said she’d ‘text’ you. Apparently that word has become a verb.”

“You must know what texting is, angel,” Crowley croaked, and tried to smile.

The angel didn’t smile back. “Are we telling one another what we must know? In that case, Crowley, you must know that you cannot drink a dozen alcoholic beverages in the space of two hours while maintaining an entirely human digestive system!”

The heavy feeling in his stomach wasn’t nausea anymore. “C’mon angel,” he whined. “You can’t tell me you’ve never put away an entire bottle of lagavulin at dinner, because I’ve seen you do it.”

“That was when I knew I could sober myself up!”

“In my defence, I had no reason to think I couldn’t,” Crowley muttered. Then he added, half to himself: “Why can’t I?”

Aziraphale looked troubled. "It appears to be an unexpected side effect, and there could be others. You need to be more careful.”

“I didn’t think it would hit me like that, angel, honest. My liver is going to get a stern talking-to,” Crowley said sourly. He’d expected better. Didn’t his organs know they had a demonic reputation to maintain?

Aziraphale stood at the edge of the bed. Crowley turned his head to the side (a small victory) and saw the scrunched expression on his face. He looked like he was about to cry, and Crowley couldn’t have that.

He scooched over and patted the quilt (probable angel orgasms on said quilt notwithstanding, it appeared as pressed and spotless as it had ever been). “C’mon, sit down. You don’t need to hover there in your guardian pose, it’s only me.”

“Perhaps I should have been doing a bit more guarding,” Aziraphale sniffed. “Instead of… of napping.”

Crowley heard the catch in his voice, the momentary hesitation, and if any small part of his brain had doubted what had happened in this bed earlier, it didn’t anymore. Aziraphale had touched himself, had probably enjoyed it immensely, and now Crowley was ruining the memory of the experience for him with his selfish dramatics. You’re not a very good friend, his brain whispered.

Fuck. “Aziraphale… this isn’t your fault. You’re not my nanny. You’re no good at nannying, remember, that’s why we decided you’d garden…” Okay, that wasn’t helping.

He tried again. “Look, I didn’t want to wake you, so I thought I’d go out for a bit. Anathema was visiting. We went to a pub, I thought I could still drink like a fish, I can’t. I wish more than anyone that it hadn't happened, believe me, but it was an accident.”

“You left… right after I fell asleep?”

“Headed out the minute the door shut behind you,” Crowley lied gratefully. “I didn’t know if you’d be a light sleeper and I wanted you to get your beauty rest.”

The angel's shoulders sagged a little. “Well, that’s, um. That’s very kind of you.”

Shut up, angel. If you only knew. Crowley wasn't sure if the developing hangover or the self-loathing was worse, but he knew which one he'd trade in if given the chance. Why did he always fly off the handle when he felt snubbed? He winced at the memory of his last temper tantrum: 'I won't even think about you!'  

There was silence for a moment. Outside, the streetlights had come on. Crowley realised that he was tired; a sort of bone-deep tired he didn’t think he’d ever felt before. It was the difference between liking sleep and needing it, he supposed.

He sat up, wincing at the icepick stab of pain through the centre of his forehead. “Ughh. Listen, I need a long nap. Couple of days at most.” He’d take the sofa and give Aziraphale some space. The angel could do some more… oh, what had Anathema called it? Self-exploration? Yeah. He could explore at his leisure, without a demon around to ruin the mood.

Aziraphale gave him an unreadable look. “You can’t sleep for days anymore, Crowley. Your body needs to eat, and drink, and dispose of waste.”

“Oh. Right.” Crowley had been halfway out of bed, legs swung over the side. He sat back again, heavily.

Aziraphale took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. When he looked up, a smile was tugging at his mouth. “I have an idea.”

“You do?”

“I was just thinking… neither of us has ever allowed our corporation to be quite this biological, but we do have our respective areas of expertise.”

The angel leaned towards him, face beginning to light up with excitement, cheeks staining pink. Crowley gulped. What was this about?

“You certainly held my hand all day yesterday…” Aziraphale’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Then he carefully and deliberately covered Crowley’s hand with his own.

Crowley’s mouth dropped open. There were klaxons going off in his head; this was a red-alert emergency, it was all systems go. His body began to take up battle stations, blood rushing southward to assist.

“But now, I think, it’s my turn to teach you a lesson.” The angel’s voice dipped, husky and low.

Hours earlier, Aziraphale had snapped him into a pair of slippery pyjamas. Now, Crowley was made abruptly and uncomfortably aware of the outline-enhancing properties of silk. Behave! he thought frantically at his prick.

“There’s something I’m very good at.”

“A lesson?” he repeated, blinking. He was a sentence or two behind current events. His brain, frustrated by his earlier refusal to masturbate, was busy supplying him with detailed images of the sort of lessons Aziraphale could teach him.

“Yes, dear boy. I think you’ll like it.”

Crowley made a desperate noise; a have-mercy, all-vowels plea. “Angel. If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about then I already know–”

Aziraphale wasn’t listening. His eyes fluttered shut in concentration, he ran his tongue absently over his full bottom lip, and Crowley reached blindly for a throw pillow. He pressed it into his lap just as Aziraphale looked at him, eyes sparkling, and snapped his fingers.

A table appeared, laden with what looked suspiciously like two bowls of chicken soup from Pho Soho. They’d eaten there just last week.

Whatever Crowley had been expecting, it wasn’t that.

The angel hummed in satisfaction, dropped Crowley’s hand, and unfolded a napkin. “I’m going to teach you how to really eat. You can’t live on cups of espresso any longer, my dear. I thought chicken Pho would be a good start, what with your upset tummy.”

It was too much. The sensitivity of his body, every organ system clamouring for attention; the lack of control over any of it, even something as simple as sobriety; the erection that would be damningly obvious the minute he dropped his pillow; the memory of Aziraphale’s strong arms; the memory of Aziraphale’s moans. Aziraphale. The way he looked right now, so pretty and perfect there in the soft light, delighted by his little surprise.

If he didn’t get out of the room this instant he was going to do something that would get him thrown out of the angel’s company for good, and that would be much worse than Falling.

Crowley sprung up like he’d suddenly realised he was on a holy water waterbed (he’d actually contemplated a waterbed back in 1981, but the idea ultimately made him too jumpy. It would be just like Michael to bless a demon’s mattress. She hated the idea of anything being comfortable, especially for one of his lot). “Shower!” he exclaimed.

Aziraphale looked exactly like someone who’d just had a complete non-sequitur shouted in his ear. “What?”

“I need a shower. Now. Hair smells like sick, s’not good for the appetite. Gonna go clean up.” Crowley backed toward the door, gesturing for understanding with one hand while the other clamped the throw pillow to his groin. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been more embarrassed, but that was a secondary concern; the thing he had to do now was take care of his starving-for-attention erection before he went insane.

“Oh. Let me help you! You could get dizzy and slip on the wet tiles. You’re dehydrated, which lowers your blood pressure, and heat is a potent vasodilator.” The angel looked extremely satisfied imparting this tidbit of information, like he’d just read it in a book… which he probably had.

“No! No. I’ll be fine.”

“But–”

Crowley fled.

The shower was a disaster.

Crowley snapped the silky pyjamas off the moment he shut the bathroom door, jammed the tap all the way over to scalding, and fairly threw himself under the spray. He had himself in hand before he was even properly wet; fist moving in tight, urgent strokes that were almost painful. He’d been wound up too far, built the pressure too much, and his body craved relief with a desperation that blotted out rational thought. He braced his forearm against the shower wall, muscles rigid, legs splayed, and set to working himself over with a ferocity that had him moaning immediately; loud, open-mouthed moans that bounced wantonly off the tiled walls.

Some part of him knew he was making too much noise, but he couldn’t help it. He scrunched his eyes shut, shoved his forearm into his mouth, and silently screamed into it as his hand worked, faster now, skin slapping against wet skin. His mind was full of Aziraphale.

Had it been Aziraphale’s first time? Had the intensity of the sensation taken him by surprise– making his eyes slip shut and his mouth go slack– when he groaned so loudly it brought Crowley running? Maybe he’d teased, brushing the velvet skin of his cock with light fingers, or maybe… maybe the excitement had overwhelmed him (oh yes), had him devouring himself with both hands, giving himself every ounce of pleasure his body could provide.

Crowley could picture it now. His fantasy Aziraphale arched his back and gave a debauched, filthy “mmm”, just like the one Crowley had heard through the door. His arm shook as he stroked that gorgeous cock (of course he had a gorgeous cock), and he clutched the sheets with his other hand as his body twisted in ecstasy. He was panting, skin shiny with sweat, and at the end he turned his face into the pillow to stifle his cries as the sensation barreled over him like an avalanche–

Oh. Ohfuck. Crowley bit his hand, his pointier-than-usual eye teeth drawing blood, but he didn’t feel it. He came hard enough to paint the shower wall in strips of white, so hard he shook and shuddered and tried to back away from it, needing to loosen his grip at the end because it was too much, too much, but still not enough; even though he was left dizzy and gasping and twitching, he still fucking ached.

The water washed swirls of come down the drain. Crowley collapsed boneless against what turned out to be the glass door, because there was the sound of a latch snapping and a lurch, and then he was on his back, dripping wet, coming to rest with a thud on the macrame bath mat.

Oh for Pete’s sake. Could this day get any worse?

Pounding on the door. “Crowley? Are you alright?”

Crowley tried to answer. His voice appeared to not be back online.

“I’m coming in, dear!”

Of course the day could get worse. He should know that by now.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 4: Building Blocks

Welcome back, and thank you for sampling the buffet! I’ve been experimenting… you know me, I always am. I’m particularly happy with the candy floss. Isn’t it just like eating a cloud?

(Transcriber personal note: I’d never question Her divine plan, because everyone knows how that goes, but… putting out food made of matter? For us? Creating Earth and all the humans must have taken its toll on Her, that’s all I can think. Ever since She finished the project She’s been acting strange.

Hopefully I can talk it over later with Michael. She’ll know what to make of it.)

Now. I promised I’d tell you about orgasms, and I will, but first we need to cover lust. Lust is what you get when you put attraction and arousal together, along with various other building blocks: social rewards for approach behaviour, positive responses to touch, neurotransmitters that facilitate bonding, and conditioned pleasure in the presence of a particular individual. It all adds up to a drive to copulate so powerful that there’s almost no stopping it. Seriously. If the pairing is frowned on by the community, for whatever reason, it makes it seem even more appealing. Dopamine again, I’m afraid, along with something that’ll become known as the “forbidden fruit effect”. Basically, telling a human they can’t have something makes them want it even more.

I had a little chuckle over that.

In all seriousness, though, lust can be tricky. Attraction is meant to be selective. There’s a whole host of traits the human brain takes into account when it’s in the market for a partner: things like facial symmetry and equivalence in physical appeal (basically, societies will decide what’s good looking, and humans will want to mate with someone who is as good looking as they are– not more, and not less). So if attraction, from a neurological standpoint, is a complex puzzle… then lust is a hammer. It wants to put the pieces together any which way, never mind what the picture on the box says.

Remember the repression of rationality I talked about before? Dial that up as high as it’ll go, and you’ve got lust. It’s basically a good, strong hit of testosterone, which suppresses serotonin, increases vasopressin, makes the genitals sensitive, and winds the organism up until sexual release is the only thing that can get them thinking clearly again.

I figured that would be alright. I’d laid the groundwork for creating acceptable pairings by installing the various social conditioning responses, and I can’t be doing complex detail work all the time. Between you and me, I’d stayed up late tinkering with the immune system the night before I created lust… that might have contributed to my decision to go with a broad strokes approach.

I don’t think they’ll complain. They’re going to have a lot of fun with it.

Three hours earlier

“Crowley.” His head spun. It was dark. His mouth felt like he’d been sucking on wet flannel.

“Crowley.” He’d cleaned himself, and the bed, after… after. But now his skin was damp all over.

“Crowley?” If Aziraphale had ever seen a bank of lights illuminate a large room– a cafeteria, perhaps, or a gymnasium– the experience of regaining consciousness would have reminded him of that. Slowly, one by one, areas of darkness lit up. The world fell into place again. He was an unemployed angel who was temporarily lodging with his old adversary in a tea-less flat, and he apparently had hormones now.

All right. Well, it wasn’t exactly what he’d call ideal, all things considered, but it was good to have the facts.

He needed to urinate.

Blinking, Aziraphale shuffled out of the bedroom. “Crowley?” No answer. Perhaps the demon had gone to have a nap of his own. He passed the wrestling sculpture with eyes averted and tried to find a likely door, which was more difficult than it should have been. The flat seemed to be an unholy marriage of brutalist architecture and demonic manipulation of space, hallway giving way to twisting hallway like an Escher lithograph. It could use some brightening up, perhaps a few table lamps, a bouquet in one of the stark vases… something. “Ah!” he said aloud when he found a room off the lounge dominated by an enormous slate bathtub. It was all dark tile except for the shower’s glass door, and gloomy as anything, but he’d take it. He’d begun to worry that Crowley didn’t have a bathroom.

Luckily, the necessary equipment was present. Aziraphale stepped up in front of the toilet, lifted the hem of his night dress, and paused. He was… hmm. Tumescent, not to put too fine a point on it. Why? He wasn’t aroused. He put a hand on himself and drew a hissing breath. Not very aroused, anyway. The need to empty his bladder was paramount, but how was he expected to aim with his penis bobbing around in front of him like this?

Aziraphale turned and sat down on the toilet with an annoyed tsk. He found he could get the necessaries done by nudging his erection downward and engaging his core muscles to start the stream. As he emptied, the stiff flesh began to relax, which was a relief, but the growing sensation of pressure between his buttocks told him he had a new problem…

Aziraphale gritted his teeth. This would be a part of his life now, so he’d just have to figure it out, wouldn’t he? Adam had (Eve too, he assumed, though he’d never witnessed it firsthand). In the end, it wasn’t so complicated– his body appeared to want to do most of the work for him. As soon as he relaxed his pelvis the way Crowley had taught him the stool passed, followed by a feeling of emptiness and surprising contentment.

It hasn’t been so bad. Still, he wished Crowley were here. Where was Crowley?

Two hours earlier

The demon in his arms smelled strongly of acid. Aziraphale didn’t know if infernal stomachs contained something more than usually corrosive or if he’d just never been this close to fresh gastric secretions, but on balance he thought the latter. He’d lived among humans as long as there’d been humans, but he’d been ordered to keep his distance (after what happened with Samyaza and his lot they’d all had to go to a training).

Crowley moaned and buried his face in his jumper. Aziraphale’s arms tightened around the gentle arc of his ribcage, the lean muscle of his thigh. He tried and failed to stop himself resting his cheek against the crown of Crowley’s sweat-damp head. This level of contact might be unwelcome, but if he didn’t allow himself some small outlet for his feelings he’d simply shake apart. The urge to protect was going wild inside him, thrashing about like a caged animal, making his wing joints ache.

You’re being ridiculous, he told himself sharply. Crowley wasn’t some delicate flower. The demon could stop time; could become a snake or a monster or a terrifying, maggot-ridden spectre of death in the blink of an eye. He navigated that ridiculous car through central London traffic at stomach-swooping velocities and flitted through phone lines at the speed of sound and he certainly didn’t need to be rescued. Did he?

Aziraphale squeezed harder, mostly to stop his hands from going rogue and stroking Crowley’s cheek.

He’d made the bed the human way, but he’d taken care of the stain from his accidental fit of passion using a miracle. He eyed the coverlet as Anathema drew it back, feeling his cheeks heat. It looked fine, but he wasn’t as good with stains as Crowley was. He’d always know it was there, deep down.

Aziraphale settled Crowley against a pillow, withdrew his arms, and pulled the covers over him; each movement spare and clinical. I don’t care, he tried to say with without words, that I just held you for the space of a hundred heartbeats. It doesn’t matter to me that you leaned your head against my chest and let me carry you across your flat. Our corporations are responsible for the sensations we’re experiencing, these feelings are just… just side effects. That was all it was, really. Simple. Bodies reacting to stimuli. Crowley’s body had sensed stomach irritation and the elevated levels of alcohol in his blood, and it had made him vomit. The same sort of perfectly explicable biological mechanism was the reason Aziraphale felt pleasantly flushed, tingling, like he’d been filled with warm champagne and sunlight… stop it, he thought. It doesn’t mean anything. He was just reacting to the influx of peptides, opioids and various neurotransmitters his brain released when he touched someone he loved…

…Someone he loved…

Oh dear.

Twenty minutes earlier

Aziraphale stepped out of the bedroom when Anathema snapped her purse shut and declared Crowley recovered, at least so far as further bouts of emesis were concerned. He said he was going to see the humans out, but he slipped away from them while they were prodding at their mobile telephones and disappeared into the maze of hallways. He needed a moment. He couldn’t seem to stop his body shaking, and his heart was pounding so hard he could see it in the subtle rise-and-fall of his shirt front.

Anathema eventually found him standing among the plants and staring down at his chest, one palm pressed against it as if to hold everything in place. She gave him a long look, then simply said “Okay,” and guided him to the nearest seat, a tall chair beside the kitchen island.

Aziraphale looked again at the empty pots next to the sink. “I think he murders plants in here,” he heard himself say, apropos of nothing. Crowley’s earlier hissing at his collection of palms and ferns and monsteras had been mostly inaudible, but he was almost positive he’d caught the words “garbage disposal”.

Anathema shrugged. “Everyone kills plants. Root vegetables die when they’re pulled up. Weeds are poisoned. Hell, Death carries a scythe because the symbolism of reaping wheat touched a nerve in someone, way back when.”

“Perhaps.” Aziraphale said. “We met him… do you remember?”

“Only a little. Like remembering a dream, you know?”

“Actually, I don’t.”

“Oh.”

Anathema reached down below the lip of the counter. There was a pile of drawstring bags by her feet. While she sorted through them, Aziraphale said, “I’m very sorry. For all of this.” He waved a hand towards the bedroom.

“It wasn’t the outing I expected.” Anathema resurfaced, holding a package and… grinning? “It was better.”

“Better?”

“Do you know what it’s like to have your whole life planned out for you? Not necessarily the little things, although sometimes I’d order a sandwich, remember the passage that went ‘Ye shalt feast on yond which Abraham did feed the angels beneath the signeth of the und'rground train’ and realise Agnes had been talking about my lunch.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Abraham fed the angels bread. ‘The und'rground train’ means subway, which is the name of an American deli. It’s not important. The thing is, that sort of life feels… flat, I suppose. After a while. Not that I didn’t love my parents, or my friends; and not that I didn’t find things to keep me busy, but…” Anathema sucked her lip, thinking. “There weren’t any surprises. I always knew what came next.”

“That sounds rather nice.”

“Maybe to you. I’m twenty,” said Anathema, a little coldly. “At twenty, life is supposed to be this big mystery, right? So much potential and hope for the future.”

“I’ve never been twenty,” Aziraphale said. He didn’t really see the problem. His life had been planned out for him, down to the tiniest detail, but what of it? He was an angel. Having a destiny you couldn’t avoid was a benefit, not a drawback.

At least it used to be.

“I was told that when I was twenty, me and everyone who was important to me would die.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’ is right. That’s what came next, d’you see? I’d had a completely predictable life, and I was sure it would be over soon, along with everything else.”

“I do understand what that’s like,” Aziraphale said softly.

“But then… then it didn’t end! And now anything can happen.” Anathema laughed, pink roses in her cheeks. “Today I planned to have lunch and go shopping with Newt, and instead I ended up playing nursemaid to an immortal snake demon because he’d never thrown up before. It was great.”

Aziraphale bristled. “I’m glad you think so. I’m not certain Crowley shares your outlook.”

Anathema was unwrapping the box she held, which was encased in plain brown paper. “He’ll be fine. It’s no fun to drink too much and end up with your friends having to hold your hair back, but it’s happened to everyone.”

“I didn’t see you holding his hair. Is that something I should be doing?”

“It’s just a figure of speech. Here.” Anathema got the box open. She drew out a glass jar of loose leaf tea and pushed it towards him.

Aziraphale unscrewed the cap and breathed deeply. “Oh my.” A fine Earl Grey with extra bergamot and orange peel. It smelled… not Heavenly, but, as Anathema might say, better. “My favourite blend. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. He did.” Anathema gave him a small, inscrutable smile.

Newt poked his head in. “There you are. Anathema, cab’s here.”

Aziraphale looked away as Anathema walked smartly up to Newt and brought their mouths together. He couldn’t imagine either of their ancestors would approve of that, particularly not while using so much tongue. After a minute he heard her murmur, “Your place, then?”

“Yeah, all right!” Aziraphale cautiously raised his eyes. Newt looked like someone had given him a winning lottery ticket, the key to the city, and a lifetime supply of Cadbury's Flakes. “Fantastic. Let’s go.”

He bent to sweep Anathema’s bags into his arms. Anathema giggled, looped a finger into his belt loop, and sang “Tell Crowley I’ll text him!” over her shoulder as she was pulled along towards the door.

Bodies reacting to stimuli… Aziraphale looked down to find his hands twined together again, the way they’d been when Crowley was retching in the entryway.

Now anything can happen.

He squeezed, then stroked, running his fingertips over one another. Touching himself didn’t feel anything like touching Crowley. No warm fuzzy feeling. No monoamines. Hmm. He wondered if touching himself intimately would also pale in comparison to…

He strangled the rest of that sentence, but when he walked back to the bedroom, he was deep in thought.

Five minutes earlier

Aziraphale stared at Crowley’s retreating back until he disappeared into his forest of houseplants. Then he looked down at the steaming bowls of Pho, feeling rather put out. This was ridiculous. There was no reason the changes Crowley had made to his corporation should have affected his manners.

Fine. It was fine. If the demon was hellbent on showering right this instant, he could just eat cold soup, but there was no reason Aziraphale had to. He shuffled the table over to the edge of the bed and miracled up his copy of Harrison’s Internal Medicine for a little mealtime reading.

The humans hadn’t been fazed by Crowley’s gastric distress. Anathema said it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but the whole experience worried Aziraphale. It really hadn’t been that much alcohol, not by their standards. If the amount they generally drank during, say, a five-course meal at Hide now had the potential to poison them, they probably ought to find out before one or both of them ended up discorporated.

He flipped through a few pages of text that seemed to be mostly chemical formulas and words ending in ‘-osis’. There was something called an ‘anion gap’, which would make a nice name for a scenic mountain pass. He ran his finger down the section labelled “Intoxication”... first rapidly, then more slowly, summoning his notebook and pen to the bedside. He wrote:

Severe intoxication:

-nausea

-vomiting

-loss of coordination

He put a check next to “nausea” and “vomiting”. Then he read a little further. The list grew:

-loss of consciousness

-coma

-death (??)

He swallowed. But Crowley’s almost recovered. Surely we don’t have to worry about… he turned the page and a word caught his eye: a term for Famine’s work, dressed up for polite company. He went back and read the entire section header: “Alcoholic Ketoacidosis in the Malnourished”.

Was Crowley malnourished? Of course not… it was just that, right this second, Aziraphale couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper meal. The demon picked at his food like a fussy goldfinch at the best of times, and when he was nervous he just sipped something and watched Aziraphale (waiting for him to give in and agree with whatever was up his sleeve, generally, so there was no reason he should have such pink, floaty feelings about it. None whatsoever). “Once drinking stops in the patient with poor nutritional status”, the text read, “the increased levels of catecholamines and cortisol resulting from ethanol withdrawal amplify the hormonal responses to fasting…” with a horrific number of potential consequences. Aziraphale couldn’t have said what it meant to be “potassium depleted” or have a “combined acid-base disorder”; he had no idea what a “beta-hydroxybutyrate” even was, but he did know Crowley hadn’t eaten in days.

There were a slew of diagrams and a few tables with treatment recommendations, but it was so complicated, the words blurring together and getting mixed up inside his head. All he could glean was that a person who didn’t eat much was at risk for getting sicker after they’d stopped drinking.

Crowley might still be in danger.

And he’d let him go off by himself.

Aziraphale ran for the bathroom, soup forgotten. How could he have been so foolish? Crowley was proud (and apparently as modest as a maid, low-cut tops and tight trousers notwithstanding), but that was no excuse for letting him be his own worst enemy. He did need to be rescued, sometimes– not from humans, as Aziraphale sometimes did, but from himself. From his impulsiveness and brash gestures and stubborn refusal to ever stop and think things through.

The door was shut, and Aziraphale could hear the shower running. He hesitated. Surely he was overreacting…

A thump. A strange, drawn out moan that he heard even over the hiss of the water. It sounds almost like… he lost the thought before he could grab hold of it, because what came next was a crack, followed by a wet-sounding thud that could only be a lanky demon body hitting the floor.

Aziraphale pounded on the door. “Crowley! Are you alright?” No answer. Sod it. “I’m coming in, dear!”

He tried the knob, and, when it wouldn’t turn, pointed an impatient finger at it. There was a click (Crowley probably would have done something showy like kick the lock out or miracle the door off its hinges, but then you’d stuck yourself with a completely unnecessary door repair, at least if you were an angel and couldn’t just leave things like that). Aziraphale pushed inside… and froze.

Crowley was sprawled half in, half out of the still-running shower, wet and naked and staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. His skin glistened. The vee of his lower abdomen tapered towards a long, half-hard prick which lolled enticingly against his thigh. He had flat dusky nipples and sharp hipbones and slender ankles dusted with hair…

The part of Aziraphale’s brain that now seemed entirely devoted to wanting Crowley shorted out from stimulus overload. Thus freed from his trance, he rushed over, shut the water off with a thought, and pulled Crowley’s head into his lap before he remembered you weren’t supposed to move a trauma victim.

“Blast! Don’t move… I mean, ah, I’m sorry dear. I didn’t mean to– that is, are you hurt?” His hands broke free of their earlier restraint and cupped Crowley’s cheeks, stroking the length of his jaw, pressing gentle fingers against his temples and lips and the arches of his cheeks. “How are your phosphate levels?”

A long, slow blink. “What’s a phosphate level?”

He sounded like himself. Aziraphale heaved a sigh of relief. Then the lingering adrenaline and his embarrassment over his outpouring of physical affection, which he seemed powerless to stop, tipped all his worry over into pique. “I told you you needed help!” he snapped. “Why do you keep running off?”

“M’fine.” Crowley tried to sit up, then swayed and clutched his head. “Ouch.”

“Stop moving!” Aziraphale glared at him. “If you’re going to behave like you don’t have an ounce of sense then I suppose you’ll have to listen to me. For the next twelve hours you’re not to do a thing I don’t give you leave to do, is that clear?”

What on earth was he saying? His mind roared with static, but the words came out with crisp authority, as if he thought he had the right. Oh God. Now Crowley would snap at him for his audacity (“a pathetic excuse for an angel!”), or worse, he’d mock (“you’re a lean, mean, fighting machine, what are you?”). Then he’d get up and storm out of the flat.

No, that was silly, of course he wouldn’t.

It was his flat. He’d kick Aziraphale out.

Aziraphale was breathing too fast. The bottoms of his lungs wouldn’t fill. He stared at Crowley, waiting for the axe to fall.

Crowley blinked again. Aziraphale looked away. There was a rivulet of water making its way across the tiled floor and he stared at it, marking its slow progress–

“Okay, angel.”

He raised his eyes. The expression on Crowley’s face was… contrite? It was hard to tell, he’d never seen him look like that, not even when he’d misplaced a satanic baby and the mistake had roped Aziraphale into a decade of manual labour (or would have done, without Crowley bullying the garden in the evenings. That had taken care of the plants, but he’d still had to touch a slug, and he wasn’t sure if he’d entirely forgiven the demon for that, now that he thought about it).

“Sorry?” he said dumbly. It was all he could think of to say. It didn’t help that his… fine, lust, call it lust… had rebooted and was doing its very best to get him to leer at all the interesting bits of demon currently on display. Stop it! he thought, appalled. Really, this was completely unacceptable.

“No, I’m sorry. Been a complete arse today.” Crowley shut his eyes, brow furrowed.

“Well. Perhaps a bit.”

Crowley’s mouth quirked at that. He looked up. Aziraphale was suddenly positive he was going to say something self-sacrificing like “I’m sure you don’t want to stay with me anymore” followed by “Let me get you a hotel room” or “I’ll miracle the dust out of your bookshop so you can go home” (a daunting task, but not an insurmountable one; Crowley was particularly good with that sort of thing. Removing dust was a little like lifting paint from a bespoke jacket– you simply had to visualise the object being completely clean. Apart from the fact that he worried the process would damage his books, Aziraphlae wasn’t even sure he was capable of the requisite mental gymnastics– old books were dusty. That was part of their identity, as far as he was concerned)… and he suddenly didn’t want to hear it with a ferocity that surprised him.

If Crowley wanted him gone, then he’d go, but that wasn’t what this was. (Now that his wave of panic had subsided, he could see how ridiculous the thought had been, sprung from the wounds inflicted on him by other angels like Athena rising from Zeus’ cloven skull.) Both of them had a bad habit of withdrawing when things felt difficult between them, and the last time they’d indulged in it they’d nearly been killed.

Time for a change. “We need to stay together, Crowley,” he said again. “That’s all I ask. No more of the disappearing act, if you please.”

Crowley almost looked like he was going to object, but then his shoulders slumped. He nodded once. “Yeah, alright. I just didn’t want…” his lips worked, but nothing else came out. “Okay,” he said again. He looked down, and seemed to realise for the first time that he was naked and half in Aziraphale’s lap, dripping all over his trousers, their thighs tangled together. His body tensed. Then he waved a hand and he was dressed and dry, his hair perfectly coiffed.

Which, of course, he could have done in the first place. Azirapahle had seen him clean himself with a miracle dozens of times; not even the fourteenth century had put a dent in his commitment to personal hygiene.

Why had he needed the shower?

Ten minutes later

“Bodies’re more trouble than they’re worth.” Crowley sat at the table, head cradled in his hands.

“This was your idea.”

“You should’ve talked me out of it. I wasn’t thinking straight,” Crowley groused.

Aziraphale had piled all the pill boxes and vials and eye droppers haphazardly onto a tray, which he set down by the sink. He rummaged a bit, found something with “headache” on the label, and pried two tablets from their foil bubbles. Leaving the box open and on its side, he fetched a glass of water and pushed everything towards Crowley, to join the reheated soup by his elbow.

When he turned back around, all the containers had been shut or capped, organised by size, and settled on a nearby shelf.

Keeping house with the sort of personality who compulsively tidied his kitchen and alphabetized his miniature record collection was going to take some getting used to. Aziraphale guessed the demon probably ironed his underwear… if he wore any.

Crowely dry-swallowed the pills and grimaced. “Water,” Aziraphale commanded. When Crowley opened his mouth, Aziraphale raised an eyebrow and nodded at the clock. “Twelve hours.”

“Eleven hours and fifty minutes.” Crowley rolled his eyes, but took an obliging sip. Four seconds later, he’d emptied the entire glass in a series of large gulps. He drew a breath and set the cup back on the table, eyeing it like it might be cursed. “Never liked water,” he said. “Tastes like wet nickels. But right now all I want is more of it. Why?”

“You’re thirsty.” Aziraphale got him a refill.

“Never been thirsty before.”

“Interpretation of sensations can be challenging,” Aziraphale acknowledged. “When I awoke, earlier, my skin was damp. I felt this sort of… shivery discomfort, like my corporation was missing something. Made me want my jacket.”

“You were cold.” Crowley traced a finger along the side of his water glass, brushing the condensation away. “Know all about that one. D’you want me to turn up the heat in here?”

“You don’t even have a fireplace–”

Crowley snapped. The air warmed. He gave Aziraphale a look that was a mix of fondness and exasperation.

Aziraphale snorted. “Silly me.”

“Just a matter of movin’ molecules. Same as sobering up,” Crowley said. His expression turned thoughtful. “Why can I do this and not that?”

“I’ve a theory.” Aziraphale had thought about this earlier, sitting next to Crowley’s bed while Anathema assaulted him with essential oils. “Actually, two.”

“Go on.”

“Eat your soup and I will.”

“Angelll…”

“Remember, I led a platoon. I know how to give orders.” Aziraphale mimed scooping up soup with an invisible spoon.

“You’re insufferable,” Crowley grumbled, but he took a bite.

“You need glucose. I can’t have you walking around with acidic blood.”

“What does that mean?”

Aziraphale sighed irritably. “Honestly, I’m not certain. The medical texts are difficult to follow without some sort of background knowledge– and not being human in the first place puts me at a distinct disadvantage.”

“Seems like there ought to be a guidebook,” Crowley muttered under his breath.

Something tugged at the back of Aziraphale’s mind. He sat up straighter. “What was that?”

“Oh… it was just something Newt said. We were talking about… well, never mind what we were talking about.” Crowley’s ears went red. “But he said when it came to, you know… gadgets, and machines, that sort of thing, he’d always have a manual to show him how they worked. Seems like we could use one too. ‘Guide To Your Human Corporation’, style of thing.”

“Oh. Yes. That would come in handy,” Aziraphale said slowly.

“Angel?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Never mind. Where was I?”

“Sobriety miracle theories.”

“Right, right! I don’t know which of these is correct, but I suspect at least one may be, perhaps both. Which would you like to hear first, the complicated or the simple?”

“Izzat like… ‘bad news or good news first’? I’m a demon, so whatever the equivalent of ‘bad’ would be, I suppose.”

“Complicated it is. I think when we started utilising gastric metabolism we lost the ability to control the amount of alcohol in our bloodstream.”

“How’s it even get into our bloodstream?”

“It passes from the stomach and intestine to the liver, gets changed into a number of chemicals with complicated names, and enters something called the citric acid cycle–”

“You have been reading up.”

“–but I gather that process is slow. Meanwhile, it affects several body systems, most notably digestive…”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“...and nervous. We can’t affect our neurotransmitters with a miracle, Crowley. Once alcohol dehydrogenase came out to play–”

“Alcohol dehy-what?”

“–it neutralised our ability to sober up.”

Crowley gave him a long look. “Not sure I understood any of that,” he said at length.

Aziraphale smiled, tight-lipped and anxious. “That’s precisely it. We don’t understand. When the stuff we drank just sat in our stomachs, removing it was like… like taking a rock from a bucket, do you see? Now it’s as if we scattered a shovelful of sand over a beach, and getting rid of the alcohol means retrieving every individual grain.”

Crowley rubbed his forehead. “Great. What’s the simple theory?”

“Ah. That we actually haven’t, precisely, been drunk before,” Aziraphale mumbled.

Crowley stared at him. Finally he blew air through his lips and said, “That’s bollocks.”

In lieu of an answer, Aziraphale walked over to the refrigerator. He opened the door and cool air puffed out. Neat rows of bottles, boxes and shrink-wrapped gourmet dishes filled the shelves, all apparently fresh and delicious. Then he closed the door, went around the back, and picked up the plug. He held it out to Crowley: coiled, bound with a rubber band, plastic caps over the prongs.

He raised his eyebrows.

Crowley scowled. “That doesn’t prove–”

“No? How many things in this flat work because you expect them to, Crowley? I noticed that clever music-player in your lounge doesn’t have any speakers.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Look, it makes sense if you think about it. We watched humans imbibe for years before we tried a drink ourselves. We had– er– expectations. We’re very powerful beings, and when we expect something to happen the world generally obliges us.”

“But… this isn’t the world. It’s us.”

“Suggestion is a very powerful thing. Ask yourself: did anything ever happen when you were intoxicated that you weren’t, ultimately, in control of? We’d drink to let our guard down a bit. It was like a transaction.”

“How’s that?”

Aziraphale smiled, a touch sadly. “Almost as if getting outside a bottle of merlot was the price we thought we had to pay to relax. To talk about things we really ought to have kept confidential, you know. To laugh together…” he cleared his throat. “But neither of us have ever vomited before. You never…” he stopped. What he’d been about to say was that Crowley had never taken his hand before. That he, Aziraphale, had never tried to kiss him. But probably they weren’t talking about that.

Crowley took a long, exaggerated slurp of soup. Then he sighed. “We only thought we were getting drunk?”

Aziraphale bit the inside of both lips and nodded.

“If that’s true, then it’s the most humiliating thing to happen to me since I sent the Antichrist to a hamlet in Oxfordshire.”

Aziraphale decided not to mention that throwing up in a Camden gutter was probably also up there on the humiliation scale (Anathema had filled him in). “All I’m saying is, I’m not sure we’re really prepared for this. I feel like every ripple in the water has turned out to be a Great White shark.”

“Or a Kraken,” said Crowley, morosely.

Aziraphale looked at the deflated demon. A tiny drop of soup was making its way down his chin. He reached out and brushed it away with a fingertip.

Crowley looked up at him, eyes wide and filled with some combination of affection and nervousness that swirled like oil on water. Had he always had such fascinating lips? Thin and mobile and oh-so-slightly pink, prone to pouting, devilishly mischievous, probably velvety-soft to the touch…

Aziraphale snatched his hand away from Crowley’s face. “I’ll make tea!” he cried, and dashed away to prepare the kettle like the coward he was.

The electricity of skin-on-skin contact hadn’t diminished in the slightest. His finger tingled. The sensation radiated in waves across his body, flushing his face, pooling in his belly. He slammed the kettle on the hob, lit the burner, and turned… and Crowley was right there, practically on top of him. The air between them felt warm, like Crowley had worked a very localised temperate miracle.

Aziraphale forgot to breathe.

Crowley looked down, then up into his eyes. He hadn’t put his glasses back on yet, and his naked gaze was… smouldering? That was the kind of cheap, melodramatic term you saw in romance potboilers, but… nevertheless. He smouldered, and Aziraphale’s thoughts turned to molasses, and Crowley reached out…

And put the jar of tea into Aziraphale’s hand. “Got this for you.” He looked away then, staring furiously at something over Aziraphale’s right shoulder.

“Th-thank you,” Aziraphale stammered. He gasped, leaned back, and laid his hand directly on the burner.

“Blast and drat.”

“Just hold still, will you?”

“Sss… don’t pull on it like that I can do it–”

“Satan’s tits, Aziraphale, I’m a demon! I know how to treat a burn!”

“It hurts.” Aziraphale’s chin wobbled. He cradled his hand against his chest. It was ridiculous to be upset over such a tiny injury, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t even leave a mark.

“I know.” Crowley wrapped long fingers around his wrist, slowly drawing him out. “I spent two centuries restructuring the red-hot-poker corrections department, did I ever tell you that? Argued damned souls’d be more tortured in an endless bureaucratic queue, used the American DMV for inspiration.”

“It just looks the slightest bit red. But it feels like…” Aziraphale huffed in pained frustration. It felt like his hand was still in the flame.

“You didn’t have your pain receptors turned up all the way, did you? Before, that is.” Crowley had a flannel full of ice, and he pressed it against the angel’s palm.

“No.”

“It’s probably a good thing, now. Keeps you safer. Just like my corporation, throwin’ up all those drinks before they could do me any real damage.” Crowley laughed darkly. “That’s Her style, innt it?”

“What is?”

“Well… She can’t just tell a body to stay away from something with, oh, a tap on the shoulder, or a polite note. Not Her.” Crowley gestured with the hand not holding the ice. “Gotta hit you over the head with a bloody sledgehammer. Like I always said, not very subtle.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale tried and failed to hide his grin. What did it matter? He'd already been fired, and for much graver offenses than giggling at light blasphemy.

“It’s like She doesn’t trust them to figure out what’s dangerous if it doesn’t really hurt.”

Maybe the problem is that some dangerous things are very appealing, Aziraphale didn’t say. His wrist was resting on Crowley’s thigh. He’d told himself not to reach out again… not after Crowley had flinched away from the bungled kiss, and practically sprinted across the flat when Aziraphale touched his hand. But his brain had been mulling things over– in the background of everything else– and it was now doing the equivalent of straightening its papers and clearing its throat, waiting to present its findings.

Crowley wound the trailing end of the flannel around his hand and tucked it in. Item one, Aziraphale’s brain said. He cares about you. He might not be able to say it, but he shows it, doesn’t he? Bought you all that allergy medicine. Brought you to his flat. Got you your favourite tea. Now he’s tending your trifling little burn with the focus of a trauma surgeon whose patient is at death's door.

Aziraphale smiled at Crowley. “Thank you.”

“Nggh. Don’t mention it.” Crowley rose abruptly and headed for the hallway; calling over his shoulder, “I have to use the loo!” The door slammed.

Item two. Even though he cares for you, he keeps running away. Why do you think that is? Is it, perhaps, because he has certain difficulties with his corporation when you get too close?

Aziraphale rose from the floor. He cleared away the dishes one-handed, brow furrowed. He supposed it wasn’t impossible. His own corporation was presenting him with… certain difficulties… at this very moment. He looked down at the distorted line of his trousers, almost with annoyance. Again? he thought.

Item three. You pleasured yourself in his bed, and woke up to find him gone. Crowley. The man-shaped being who’s barely left your side since the whole Armageddon business fizzled. Would Crowley have abandoned you, alone in an unpredictable corporation, on a whim? Or could it be that his judgement was compromised by something? Perhaps… something he heard?

Aziraphale blushed deeply. He remembered wondering…

Item four. What possible reason would he have had for needing a shower?

He thought about this. He couldn’t make it fit. True, Crowley had a bathroom with a tub and a shower, but that was likely because he knew a human’s posh flat would have those things. It had looked unused. He’d never known Crowley to bathe for cleanliness, not when he could simply snap his fingers. For Heaven’s sake, he even manifested his clothes out of the ether.

What did you notice when you went back into the bedroom, after Anathema left?

The acid smell… it had been gone, hadn’t it? Difficult to tell with all the peppermint wafting about, but Crowley had looked neater, too. As if he’d miracled himself back to his usual state of compulsive cleanliness the second he’d been able, just like he had back at the airbase.

And what was that sound you heard, right before you opened the bathroom door? The internal voice sounded triumphant.

That’s right. He’d nearly forgotten. But… it hadn’t sounded like Crowley was in distress, had it? It had sounded like…

Oh.

Just like one of those fascinating hidden pictures that had been all the rage in the early naughts, Aziraphale saw.

Their relationship was a mess of complicated emotions and fraught interactions, and had been for centuries. Aziraphale wanted to untangle it, he did, but he didn’t know how and was terrified that trying to cut through the knots would leave him with nothing. He wasn’t ready to face that possibility head on, not yet… but there was perhaps something else they could share. Something they both clearly wanted. Something that was… how had Crowley put it?

Like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer.

His wide eyes landed on Crowley as the demon crept back into the kitchen. “You know, angel, I think I’ll skip the tea. Leave you to it. I need to get my head down for a bit.”

“Get your… oh, sleep!” Aziraphale nodded. “Of course. It’s late. We should start trying to set a sleep schedule, now that we’ll both need it.”

“So, I’ll, uh, just take the sofa…” Crowley rubbed the back of his neck.

“You’ll do no such thing, and neither will I.”

“But–”

“Your bed is quite big enough for two.”

“Agk. No, no, angel, I’ll just–”

“I’m afraid I have to insist. And you promised to listen to me for another… ten hours and forty-five minutes.”

Crowley made a noise like an operatic mouse. His mouth opened, then closed again.

“Dear. Come to bed with me.” Aziraphale let his half-smile fade, looking at Crowley with an expression he hoped was both knowing and sincere.

Crowley swallowed. Then he gave a jerky half-nod, eyes gone fully gold from edge to edge.

Aziraphale turned and padded towards the bedroom.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 5: Bonding

Humans need to live in groups.

(Transcriber note: God laughs.)

That’s not a very interesting start to our session on orgasms, is it? Bit dry. Bear with me for a minute; it’ll get better.

Up here in Heaven, we live together because we enjoy each other’s company. We’re one big happy family! (Transcriber note: indistinct murmuring.) Yes, yes, alright… minus Lucifer and his crew. Point taken. By the way, I keep meaning to ask where they’ve gone; does anyone know? Luci and Beel used to sneak off to that block of warehouses in the bad part of the firmament sometimes… when they wanted to smoke those awful sulphury firesticks, remember? And I said they couldn’t do it in the office? Oh dear. I hope they’re not holed up there making trouble.

My point is, angels like living together, but humans will need to. No choice in the matter, at least for the first few thousand years. After they invent the internet things might be different, but that’ll be a long ways off. Where was I? Ah, yes. I made them in my image, as you know. I stand by that decision, but this form (Transcriber note: God gestures towards Herself) comes with certain limitations. Earth isn’t like Heaven. It’s spikier, for one thing: thorns, horns, claws, teeth, sharp rocks, you name it. More temperature variation, too. Practically hairless bipeds with no natural defences won’t stand a chance in that environment… unless they stick together.

I really cannot overemphasise the importance of that. Defence in numbers. They’ll need to hunt in packs, share domestic responsibilities, and care for their infants– which, between you and me, are fairly unbearable. There were issues with the upright pelvis, you see. Long story short, human babies have to be born earlier than I’d like in order to fit through the exit, so they’re helpless for a long time: can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t run away from saber-toothed tigers. I had to equip them with an alarm system and, well… I went overboard with it. My fault entirely. (Transcriber note: God chuckles.) I had to do some really creative things with oxytocin to convince parents to put up with them.

I’m explaining all this because it’s not enough to know what an orgasm is… you also have to understand why an orgasm is. It’s a teaching tool. I created it to encourage adult humans to form pairs.

Here’s how it works: the brain learns what it likes through positive stimuli. Pleasure, in other words. Sexual pleasure is experienced consciously in the sensory cortex, but also activates the cerebellum, pons, ventrolateral thalamus, hippocampus, and… sorry, sorry. I can see I’ve lost you. These are names human scientists will give to the various neuroanatomical structures involved in learning and memory. It means that when a human has orgasms with a partner… or even with a partner in mind… they’re conditioning themselves to want to do it again.

(Transcriber note: God snaps Her fingers.) I know. Let’s put the diagram back up, and I’ll walk you through it. Here we are. Now, the sexual encounter generally starts with erotic stimulation or thoughts, which facilitate arousal. Lust. You remember. Pair bonding is stronger in humans who spend a lot of time in this state prior to coitus, by the way– it sharpens their focus on the object of desire.

Lust leads to erection of these tissues here. Then, when the engorged areas are touched, spinal nerves stimulate the part of the brain that produces oxytocin and vasopressin– both crucial for bonding. In the meantime, dopamine, testosterone and opioids are released, which ensure that the person really enjoys themselves and help the brain encode that enjoyment. Learning through positive reinforcement, see?

Then– after a variable amount of time and stimulation– orgasm. (Transcriber note: God flips to another slide. There are shocked gasps.) Intense pleasure, a sense of euphoria, and increased electrical activity across multiple brain regions… accompanied by pelvic muscle contractions and ejaculation of seminal fluid or paraurethral secretions. The experience usually lasts a few seconds, followed by– hold on, hold on, one at a time!

(Transcriber note: general sound of raised, overlapping voices.) Yes, a few seconds. Believe me, any more than that and they’d never get anything else done. Yes, Michael, it does have to be the genitals, specifically. (Transcriber note: Sandalphon wrinkles his nose. Michael is visibly flustered, poor thing. She usually looks so perfectly composed. I wonder if she’d like another ambrosia shot.) Genital involvement is essential to fertilise the ovum, and when it comes to species preservation that’s necessary… but, and this is important, not sufficient. Coupled orgasm is about bonding, and the majority of sexual encounters will be undertaken exclusively for the feelings they evoke in the participants. Any combination of genders is fine.

I think we need to take another short break. Why don’t you drop your questions in the suggestion box and I’ll answer them one at a time after everyone’s had a few minutes to compose themselves.

Crowley escaped to the bathroom for the second time in as many hours. He pulled a face at the mirror. Surprised to see me back? he thought. Before today, he hadn’t been in here for weeks.

Whether or not they continued this little experiment, Crowley decided he’d keep the “I have to go to the loo” excuse in his back pocket indefinitely. Leveraging the body’s frequent need to dispose of waste in order to exit an uncomfortable situation, what a marvellous idea. Humans were clever buggers.

An uncomfortable situation… he sighed, a little shakily. His lungs were acting strange, refusing to inhale deeply, or to breathe out without an embarrassing hitch. He thought about Aziraphale’s blue-hazel eyes, large and pleading while he’d cradled his injured hand. Aziraphale’s wrist on his thigh. Then, God, Aziraphale’s completely devastating “oh-thank-you” smile…

“Uncomfortable” was one way of putting it.

He’d needed a moment.

Being back in the bathroom really wasn’t helping. He looked around– shower door, hanging open on its hinges; rumpled bath mat; lake of water on the floor– and winced. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the door opening, slow motion like something out of a horror movie. Saw Aziraphale take a step towards him and falter, shock written all over his face.

Well, he was a demon, and he didn’t have to take this sort of cheek from a room. He glared at the wet tiles, and they dried up. The towels straightened themselves. Water spots disappeared from the shower door. He had perfect control over everything… except his own physical responses, which seemed bound and determined to get him into trouble. The hair-trigger erections were bad enough, but that was only part of the problem, wasn’t it? He couldn’t trust his corporation at all: not the limbs, not the lungs, not the sweat glands or capillaries or larynx. Whenever the angel touched him, which was happening with (joyfully, terrifyingly) increasing frequency, his brain flooded him with chemicals that paralyzed his muscles and made his heart seize. His body was in all out mutiny, every component of his physiology working together to crash him into the rocks of total humiliation.

He washed his hands (mostly to make it seem like he was using the bathroom for its intended purpose rather than, say, wanking, which he’d done earlier; or hiding, which he was doing now), while he thought about this. He didn’t think it was strictly a hormone thing, so why was it happening? When Aziraphale went to his knees– soaking his precious trousers without a second thought– and pulled Crowley into his lap, the demon had blown a whole row of fuses without any help from his penis at all. Couldn’t even move his mouth to say he wasn’t sick or hurt, just an idiot who’d leaned on the wrong surface in a post-orgasmic haze. So now he was being taken care of; he was under orders to let Aziraphale hold the reins, and this wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

Crowley gave the mirror his most frightening snarl, fangs and all. He itched to shred a plant, but they’d all been behaving quite well. Not a leaf spot in sight. Maybe he’d do it anyway. Show them they could be punished even if they’d done nothing wrong.

He glanced at his watch. It’d been three minutes; he’d better get back out there before the angel came looking again. At least his fit of self-pity had calmed the threatening pressure in his jeans (Storm front coming in, he thought half-hysterically. Forecast says thunderheads’ll keep building until there’s a cloudburst). He would walk through that door, and he’d be calm. Collected. He’d get some sleep on the sofa, and when he woke up he’d have himself under control again. He would.

Everything would be fine.

Oh shit. He knows.

Crowley slouched back into the kitchen, hands in his hip pockets, determinedly projecting nonchalance… only to be hit with the full force of Aziraphale’s “I’ve figured it out” gaze. He recognized that look. He’d seen it in Saxony, when they’d been deciding who would intercede with John George on behalf of King Adolphos, and Crowley had rigged one coin toss too many. Seen it in Italy, when Crowley had told him the 3rd legislature needed their attention urgently, and it was simply a coincidence that the dates lined up with Milan’s first fashion week. Most recently, he’d seen it when Aziraphale raised his finger to Gabriel and Beelzebub and said “Is that the ineffable plan?”.

It was a known hazard of presenting the angel with any kind of logical inconsistency. The gears would start to turn, he’d slow down until he was practically catatonic, then he’d suddenly look up… and, well. “Eureka”.

Crowley’s mind tried to backpedal. He didn’t know what Aziraphale had discovered (if he’d discovered anything at all). Maybe it had nothing to do with alcoholic binges, pornographic sculptures, or jerking off in the shower. Maybe it was the fact that Crowley’s plan to make him functionally human meant that he, an angel of the Lord, would need to pass wind sometimes.

He could salvage this–

“Your bed is quite big enough for two.”

Fuck me.

Crowley shut his eyes briefly. There was no mistaking that tone; it wasn’t so much “dripping” with innuendo as “soaked”.

He knows.

He’d hit his head when he fell, but sadly not hard enough to put him out. No, instead it had imbued the scene with a hideous clarity, sparks dancing around the edges of his vision, Aziraphale’s face bathed in otherworldly light (yes, yes, it was just the bathroom fluorescents but in that moment he’d looked every inch an angel). The glorious creature standing over him had flicked his eyes over Crowley’s naked body; had taken in the still-running shower… and his still-swollen cock.

He knew the angel had seen it. He’d spent the past hour and a half carefully avoiding the subject in the hopes that Aziraphale somehow wouldn’t realise what his residual stiffness had meant (who knew, he could have had his eyes closed during the entirety of his time in Rome. And of course there was that “discreet gentlemen’s club” but maybe he’d been really, really focused on the dancing). Now he watched that hope go up in smoke, along with the last shreds of his dignity. He gave a punched-out little moan.

“I’m afraid I have to insist. And you promised to listen to me for another… ten hours and forty-five minutes.”

His brain wasn’t working right. He couldn’t seem to form words, and Aziraphale was ordering him into bed with him, looking at Crowley like he expected an answer, and how was he supposed to deal with this? It was happening so fast. His windpipe tightened like he was trying to breathe through a straw. His body started to tremble. And, shit, there went his eyes– they always gave him away, which was half the reason he wore the glasses, even Downstairs where he didn’t need them.

All he could do was nod as Aziraphale walked away from him like everything was decided and there was nothing left for them to talk about.

Crowley made it as far as the doorway to the bedroom before his legs stiffened and he ground to a halt like a wind-up toy with an uncoiled spring.

Aziraphale placed the flannel of ice, which was starting to drip, onto the bedside table and drew back the coverlet. His cheeks seemed pinker than usual, but that could have been the light. He motioned Crowley forward, and Crowley attempted to communicate the problem– he wanted to come, it was just that his corporation had overruled him– using facial expressions. He raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and pulled his lips regretfully downward. Can’t, old boy. Very sorry, I’d like to, it’s just that my feet are frozen to the floor.

“Crowley?”

He tried to speak. Some sort of noise came out, certainly nothing that could be mistaken for a word.

What is the matter with you? his mind hissed.

“Are you feeling ill again?” Aziraphale fluttered his hands in that worried, neurotic, completely adorable way of his.

Go on. He wants you to. Yeah, okay, maybe he worked out what you were up to in the shower, but you eavesdropped on him in the bedroom so fair’s fair. You both know what’s going to happen now. It’s exactly what you were hoping for when you tempted him into this.

Oh, Someone, he had, hasn’t he? He’d goaded Aziraphale into turning on his endocrine system. The angel, left to his own devices, had quietly and methodically switched everything back to the settings he was used to, just in time for Crowley to swoop in and muck it all up. Now they were staring at each other across a bed, for Hell’s sake, and would they ever have gotten here if Crowley had left well enough alone? He doubted it.

Crowley suddenly felt more contemptible than he had the day he’d been turned into a snake. He dropped his eyes. Dreary grey concrete. Why didn’t I ever put some throw rugs down? Brighten the place up. Aziraphale likes rugs. Christ, why am I thinking about home decor at a time like this?

He looked up at the angel’s puzzled, concerned expression… and guilt squeezed the remaining air from his lungs. He gave Aziraphale an imploring look as he went red in the face and attempted to make his chest work. The sound that emerged from his nostrils was like the whistle of an anaemic teakettle.

“Oh, my dear.” Aziraphale was at his side in the space of a heartbeat, guiding him to sit down, then getting his legs up over the side of the bed, boots and all.

Crowley inhaled with a herculean effort, feeling like he was forcing his throat open. “Can’t breathe–” he wheezed.

Aziraphale stroked the hair off his forehead, and Crowley closed his eyes. The angel’s touch seemed to steady the thing inside him that was quivering and twisting, cinching an iron band around his ribcage. He took another ragged breath. This one came easier.

Crowley was lying on the floor, his head in Aziraphale’s lap. Aziraphale was touching his face.

He was naked, and Aziraphale was touching him.

Here they were not two hours later– back in the same position, or close enough. Putting aside his annoyance at the fact he was, once again, incapable of contributing anything to the conversation except a series of mute gasps (how many times was this, now? Three?), he thought it meant something. Aziraphale was still here, still with Crowley, because he chose to be.

He didn’t think it was lust that was making them spark against each other like flint on steel– at least, not just lust. He wasn’t blind; he knew the angel had sneaked a few glances southward while he lay stunned on the bathroom floor, but mostly his worried eyes had been fixed on Crowley’s face… just like he knew they would be now, if he ever drummed up the courage to look. What did it all mean?

Crowley could do “sleeping together”, just sleep, if that was what Aziraphale wanted. Or they could interpret the phrase the human way: touch themselves, or (he gulped)... or eachother, if that was what Aziraphale wanted. What had he said, all those years ago? “Anywhere you want to go.” The angel only had to lift a single, perfectly manicured eyebrow, and Crowley would do anything for him.

He just needed to know. Had to figure out if “sex” (more specifically, “sex with Crowley”) was a destination Aziraphale had ever thought about. If his desire was genuine. He’d never take advantage of someone under the influence of their own androgens.

Crowley would ask him, he promised himself. The very second Aziraphale stopped scrambling his thoughts with his pressed-flower smell and his gentle touches and his intoxicating closeness, he’d ask.

“My chest felt tight when I was breathing in all that dust,” Aziraphale said at length. “Perhaps you’re experiencing something similar?”

Bless him, or… or whatever. It didn’t matter. Despite the noble intentions he'd had less than five seconds ago, Crowley seized the excuse to avoid Talking About His Feelings like a drowning man clutching a buoy. What could he say? Demons didn’t exactly have much experience asking angels if they wanted to make love. “M’be,” he grunted.

His eyes were still shut, but he could just about picture Aziraphale glancing doubtfully around the room. “Not many of what the books refer to as “typical allergens” in here, though.”

“Could be the peppermint?” Crowley said hopefully. Breathe in, breathe out.

“Oh! Maybe that’s the ticket.” There was a snapping noise, and the minty smell vanished, along with, he guessed, the diffuser. He owed Newt whatever it was a small steam dispenser cost. A hundred pounds? That seemed about right.

Breathe in, breathe out.

“Is that better?” Aziraphale asked. His hands were making aimless shapes in Crowley’s hair– a figure eight, a helix, an ellipse.

“Yeah. Better.” It was. He tried to form a conscious thought out of the pink mush his brain had become. “Sleep! Er. How did you sleep? Sorry. Never asked.”

Aziraphale forced the most insincere chuckle Crowley had heard since his days of eating cucumber sandwiches at Harriet Dowling’s book club. “Ahaha. Very well, thank you.”

Good, glad we’ve discussed it. “Are you still tired?”

“What? Oh! Yes. It was only an hour or so, and those pills made me quite fatigued. The feeling hasn’t entirely worn off.”

He tried one last time to diffuse things, just until he had time to get his thoughts in order. Write a speech, maybe. He was sure it would take him less than a decade. In the meantime, the best way to resist temptation was to avoid it; as a demon he could tell you that for free. “Please take the bed, angel. I’ll be fine on the–”

“On that ridiculous sofa? It looks like an Esse Biscotti. The only way anyone could possibly recline on it is if they were a snake.”

“As luck would have it–”

“No, Crowley. What with everything else, I think we should save transforming into your serpent corporation until after you’ve had a rest.”

Crowley pouted. “That sofa’s from New York, you know. It’s avant-garde.”

“Ah, yes, an experimental design. Amazing how they managed to combine so many aggressively anti-relaxation elements into a single piece. A ninety-degree curvature ensuring that it can’t be lain on, a backrest that seems to be angled specifically to induce neck spasms, and it’s as pleasant on the buttocks as a pile of doorknobs.”

“Alright, alright.” He tried to avoid thinking about Aziraphale’s buttocks. “D’you… wanna lie down, then?”

He cracked his eyes open– and noticed, for the first time, the deer-in-the-headlights expression on Aziraphale’s face. He’d been speaking so calmly, but he looked the way he had…

In Rome. Hesitant, unsure of his welcome, but trying his best to invite you in.

Don’t shut him out because you’ve decided what’s best for him, a voice in his mind whispered. It sounded a little more mature than the usual fellow. Maybe it was his superego. You don’t know what he wants, but you know what you want. Show him, and see how he responds. He understands what’s happening with the chemistry, and he still said, “Come to bed with me”. He still asked. Thinking you know what he needs better than he does would be the worst sort of condescension. You’re not his keeper.

You’re his partner.

Crowley’s mouth went dry with nerves, but he made himself reach out (his hand moved at an absolutely glacial pace; accompanied by the kind of booming, echoey audio you got when you slowed a video down to quarter-speed) and pat the sheet beside him.

Aziraphale gave him a final wide-eyed look, but he shifted (he had to stop touching Crowley’s hair to do it, which was a shame). He lay back, white-gold curls flattening against the gunmetal grey pillowcase, hands twisting together over the curve of his belly.

They stared up at the ceiling, side by side, fully dressed with their shoes on.

After a moment, Aziraphale looked over and caught Crowley’s eye. A mischievous smile crossed his face, the one that said he’d just learned a new sleight-of-hand manoeuvre and was going to spend the next half hour subjecting Crowley to watching him drop coins on the floor. “We’re doing a very good job of being human so far, I think.”

Crowley began to laugh.

They did sleep, in the end.

Crowley had underestimated his exhaustion. As soon as the adrenaline faded he’d been dragged down, quick as if he’d gone over the side of a boat in cement overshoes. He was a powerful occult being, and of course two days without sleep was perfectly fine… except, apparently, now that it wasn’t.

When he awoke to see light peeking around the edges of the blinds, the contentment he felt was unmatched by any other moment in his life. Nothing like two days strapped to a physical and emotional tilt-o-whirl to make him appreciate the simple act of opening his eyes in his own bed, where he was warm, and comfortable, and there were curls tickling his nose… wait.

He’d shifted in the night.

He didn’t think he could really be blamed. He was part snake, wasn’t he? If he wound himself around the nearest warm object and clung so tightly that there wasn’t an inch of space left between them; if he pressed against said object from shoulder to ankle, that was just, like… instinct, right? Not his fault.

Aziraphale’s back was to him. At some point he must have changed into night clothes, because his collar– now white and loose– gave Crowley’s cheek access to what felt like acres of soft skin, all the way down to where his neck met his shoulders. He’d nestled an arm around the angel’s chest, and he felt a slow, steady pulse against his palm that could only be Aziraphale’s heartbeat.

Despite his growing consternation, that made him smile.

His thigh was thrown across the Aziraphale’s thigh, foot tucked under his other calf, and his cock was…

Oh. Oh fuck.

Ice slid down Crowley’s spine. He usually didn’t wake up with an erection, although he understood human males often did. It was something to do with a full bladder and functional spinal nerves, and he’d never had those things before.

The problem was, he realised with growing panic, that he had them now. He also had an armful of warm, sleeping angel who smelled like sweat and honeysuckle. His cock was stone-hard in his jeans, of course it was, and it was pushing against Aziraphale’s backside in a way that would be impossible to miss if the angel woke up.

Crowley almost sobbed. His brain was telling him to roll away immediately, but no part of his body from the neck down wanted any part of that idea. He drew a wobbly breath and squeezed his eyes shut…

And Aziraphale shifted against him.

It was a hesitant motion, the physical equivalent of a susurrus, almost like his nervous shoulder wiggle– but from the hips. At the same time, the heartbeat under Crowley’s hand gave a shivery skip-hop and began to speed up.

The moment hung there. Crowley felt like he was watching something delicate fly through the air, and whether it shattered or landed safely depended on his next move. The way he saw it, he had three choices: pretend the angel was still asleep, pretend that he was… or be a gentleman and move his hard prick away from the angel's arse. (He wasn’t sure what the social protocols were for this kind of situation, but maybe it was the bedroom equivalent of taking one’s elbows off the table.)

He decided to do all three. He feigned a sleepy snuffle and drew his thigh back, intending to turn onto his other side (and steal the blankets for good measure. Hazard of sharing your bed with a demon).

Before he could, soft fingers brushed his knuckles, and then Aziraphale’s palm covered the back of his hand.

They drew simultaneous, shaky breaths. Crowley’s lips felt numb, but he managed to whimper something that sounded like “angel.” His hips rocked, entirely without permission, pushing against plush buttocks. He made a tortured noise in his throat. How could he explain to Aziraphale that this was all his corporation’s fault?

The situation got worse– in a confusing, agonising, wonderful way– when Aziraphale gasped softly and pushed back with clear intention.

It would be so easy to… no. No, no, no, they had to talk about this. Shouldn’t they talk about this? He thought he’d decided they definitely would, but any resolutions made last night now seemed hazy and far away. Here and now, the angel was moaning, that same barely-there moan that Crowley had heard through the bedroom door. The sound bypassed his brain and went straight to his dick, which twitched sharply and obviously against Aziraphale’s arse.

Crowley watched in dismay as all the plausible deniability they’d cultivated over thousands of years dissolved like a sugar lump in a bathtub.

Okay. What was done was done. If Crowley now had the same sinking ohhh shit feeling he’d gotten when Michael handed down his sentence all those years ago, that was okay– at least he knew how to handle it. Circumstances changed, and you did the best you could with them. He had to say something, though. If the angel hadn’t thought this through and he regretted it afterwards, Crowley didn’t think he’d be able to bear it.

He gritted his teeth and pushed away, putting careful distance between their hips though it felt like it would kill him to do it. “Aziraphale…” he whispered, and then stopped, because where on earth did he go from here? His chest was breaking open with the loss of his secret; all that frustrated longing he’d been holding inside was about to spill in gummy, ugly, overwhelming torrents over the angel’s perfect skin.

“Th-the penis often becomes engorged during sleep.” Aziraphale’s voice was trembling the tiniest amount, unnoticeable unless you knew him well.

(There were a lot of things Crowley had imagined Aziraphale saying if they ever got to this point. He had to admit he’d never considered that one.)

“Ah. Read about it, did you?” Crowley was shocked at his own conversational tone. His mouth seemed to be moving on autopilot.

“Yes, actually.”

There was no sound for a moment but two supernatural beings trying to hide the fact that they were breathing too fast.

“I, um. I looked it up, because, well. Because I experienced it after my nap.”

“Oh?” Crowley realised he was still holding Aziraphale, and he didn’t think he could let go. Also, he didn’t want to.

“It’s perfectly normal. Just… biology. There’s apparently a lack of, um, of inhibition. During sleep. Allows testosterone to excite the flesh, the theory goes.” He gulped. “N-nothing to hold it back.”

Just biology… nothing to do with Crowley at all, then. Or did the angel think Crowley’s painfully hard cock had nothing to do with him (a concept so patently insane that Crowley almost couldn’t get his head around it)? It was so confusing.

All he knew was that he couldn’t take any more science talk right now. He was going to explode. “Angel…”

Aziraphale drew a wobbly breath. And bless all the saints and choirs and spheres of the Heavenly host, he pressed himself back again, against Crowley’s swollen, aching flesh. “It’s alright. If– if you…”

Oh, fuck. The soft yield of his buttocks under the drapey fabric. Crowley dragged the bulge in his trousers over the hollow between them, imagining shadowy, tantalising clefts…

“If you want…” Aziraphale gasped.

If you want, angel. It’s all for you. Crowley made himself stop moving. “Nah… it’s… it’s… s’you, angel.” He whispered in Aziraphale’s ear, trying to find a way to put his enormous feelings into a wholly inadequate string of vowels and consonants. His mind suddenly remembered something and waved it in front of him like a white flag of surrender. “Uh. I’ve gotta listen to you, remember? You said.”

The relief was enormous. He didn’t need to probe into Aziraphale’s feelings; whatever interplay was happening between his affection for Crowley and his newfound libido and his centuries-old conflict over their friendship didn’t have to matter right now. The angel had set things up so that he was in charge, and all Crowley had to do was exactly what he was told.

He didn’t know if the twelve hours had passed yet and didn’t care, but if Aziraphale asked him to rub off against his perfect arse then he wasn’t in any position to argue.

“Ah.” Something in Crowley’s words seemed to still the angel’s restless shifting. “Of course, you’re right.”

How in all of the seven hells could he sound so bloody composed?

“This is as much a part of life as eating,” Aziraphale said in that same measured tone. “If we’re going to live like this, then it’s something we need to address.”

He pushed back, a slow undulation of his hips, and Crowley made a desperate noise that was half-moan and half-sob. “I– ah– experimented earlier. It was lovely.”

“Yeah?” Crowley measured the frantic beat of the angel’s heart under his fingertips. He rocked into him again, gently, waiting for the go-ahead.

“It was nice by myself. But I thought… I thought it might be even better with two. Desired touch triggers a hedonistic response in the synapses.”

Crowley’s body shook with the effort of holding back. “Tell me what to do, angel.”

“Could you…” Aziraphale trailed off.

Crowley pulled him closer, dared to brush the shell of his ear with his lips. “I want to. It’s okay.”

“Could you, please… keep doing that? It makes me feel… ah, I don’t know how to describe it.” Aziraphale laughed shakily. “It makes my pelvis feel heavy. Warm. Sort of… aching…”

He had his orders. Crowley snapped his hips forward, once, again; giddy with the knowledge that the angel had asked for this. Since he was still trapped in his jeans, the pressure wasn’t anywhere near what he wanted, but at the same time it was absolutely perfect. Delicious, sharp pleasure built between his legs, radiated down over his perineum, flooded his lower belly. It could be simple, he thought. Maybe it really could. Just bodies, warm and rocking together, driving towards a peak that rose higher, twisted tighter, with each little moan that Aziraphale tried to keep in the back of his throat.

He forgot to think. He dragged his cock along the cleft between the angel’s cheeks, and that wire around his chest was tightening again, his palms were sweaty, his spine and buttocks and back found a rhythm that was almost, almost, almost enough. He hissed, chasing it. The angel groaned, jerked his hips, and clutched Crowley’s hand so tightly he felt short nails dig into his skin.

Oh fuck, oh God, he loved him. It was too good. He pulled Aziraphale close, closer; wrapped around him like an octopus just to feel the quickening rise-and-fall of his chest. “Crowley,” the angel whimpered.

That did it. His body went cold and hot, his stomach clenched and he shuddered to a stop, cock twitching against Aziraphale’s backside. He made wordless, frantic noises on every sharp exhale as he came.

He was still gasping against Aziraphale’s shoulder when the angel turned onto his back. Crowley saw his face for the first time since he’d awakened: mouth open and scooping up air in great lungfuls, eyes closed, brow furrowed in some combination of frustration and pleasure. His hips moved restlessly, and his ridiculous flowy nightdress (Really, angel? Crowley thought fondly) did nothing to conceal the outline of his erection.

Crowley wanted to devour him. Instead he looked, wanting to fix the image of the aroused angel in his memory. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “You… experimented?” he asked, voice rough.

“Just the once.”

Hellfire and Cocytus, that was his first time. Crowley shuddered. “D’you want–?” he gestured downward.

“Would you mind?” The angel could have been asking if he’d top up his champagne glass, if not for the catch in his voice and the sheen of sweat on his face.

“Yeah, angel. Course.”

He took his right hand from the pulse-point on Aziraphale’s chest and drew it down, ghosting over wiry hairs that caught the thin cloth. When he found him hard between his thighs, leaking into the fabric, he savaged his lip. His heart was going to pound right out of his chest.

It took a few seconds to work up the courage to touch. He scanned Aziraphale’s face for some sign, but when he bucked impatiently Crowley decided that was probably good enough. He grasped the angel’s prick through the night dress and moved his hand in time with the restless, quickening pulses of Aziraphale’s hips.

They found a rhythm. He got lost in Aziraphale’s face as the angel tossed his head on the pillow, breathing growing ragged. “Like this?” he murmured, running his fingers up the angel’s shaft, then pressing his thumb to the underside of the head. Had he thought the nightgown was ridiculous? He took that back. It was perfect; just the thing for sliding over the angel’s slick, heated flesh.

“Like that, like that, ah, ah, Crowley–!” His name came out on a spectacularly filthy moan as Aziraphale drew up his thighs and dug his fingers into the mattress. He shivered his way through an orgasm that seemed to go on and on, making him curl in on himself, shoulders coming off the mattress as he shouted something incomprehensible and grabbed Crowley’s wrist with both sweaty palms.

Slowly, slowly, they came back to themselves. Aziraphale collapsed into the sheets, gasping for air, gorgeously messy with his soaked clothes and sex-tousled curls. Crowley reluctantly withdrew his hand and cupped himself instead, feeling the dampness through his jeans.

It hadn’t been anything like how he’d imagined their first time… but what the Heaven. He wasn’t complaining.

Nearly a minute went by before he realised that despite his promise to himself, despite Aziraphale’s insistence that they ought to “address” this... they hadn’t talked about it at all. Morning wood and testosterone and physiologic withdrawal of inhibition, sure, but not “I got hard because I woke up next to you”.

“I thought it might be better with two”, not “I thought it might be better with you”.

Crowley’s heart sank.

The demon part of his brain was laughing fit to split.

Chapter Text

Outside the gates of Heaven’s main conference room, 4004 B.C.E.

“Sandalphon, a word?”

Gabriel steps into a side passage, and then opens a narrow door. The archangels crowd into a closet stocked with binders, ink cartridges and reams of printer paper.

“We won’t be overheard?”

“Sandalphon! Nothing will be said here that we wouldn’t also feel free to say in the presence of our Lord!”

“Right. Of course.”

“What do you make of it, then?”

“She’s certainly taking a… unique path, isn’t she?”

“Thinking outside the box.”

“Extremely innovative.”

“But… does it add value?”

Sandalphon sidles closer. “To be honest with you, I can’t think how it aligns with the mission statement.”

“Right!” Gabriel claps him on the shoulder. “You get it. It’s wildly inconsistent with organisational objectives. Nothing like Her previous work at all. Here you have someone who created the cosmos, created us– flawless, powerful entities– to shepherd it, and now… what? She’s playing around in-in the dirt, and telling us we’ve got to be humanity’s babysitters.”

“Do you remember when She made the Capella system? I had tears in my eyes, watching the two binary pairs circling one another when it finished. Masterful stuff. Now…”

“Creative types are easily distracted.” Gabriel speaks with uncharacteristic thoughtfulness. “Three quarters of the design team went off with Lucifer because they were, and I quote, ‘inspired to move in a different direction’.”

“There’s no one more creative than Her.”

“That’s a fact.”

A moment of contemplative silence.

“Let’s talk logistics. I don’t think I’m alone in finding human sexuality distasteful.”

Sandalphon clears his throat. “No! No. Distasteful was just the word I was thinking of. Particularly the idea of other, ahem! …other gender combinations. Excuse me, I seem to have a slight tickle in my throat.”

“Precisely! I don’t think we can get around the fact that they need to use genitalia to reproduce. That’s built into the hardware, but perhaps they can be encouraged to at least keep it to a minimum. Human females can gestate a half-dozen offspring per lifetime, give or take, and perhaps not every coital session will bear fruit… but I can’t see a reason any human would need to have intercourse more than twelve times, max.”

“It sounds like that would be an ideal goal. And the act should only be undertaken in very specific circumstances. To prevent them becoming… overly exuberant about it.”

“Agreed. No one wants to see that.”

“Indeed. Ahem.”

“Can I get you a glass of nectar for that cough?”

“No thank you, I’m fine.”

“Splendid. Can you have a word with the publicity department? We’ll probably need to have some fliers done. I don’t think the humans are going to be easily persuaded to abstain, after what She said, but it’s for the greater good.”

“What about… Her?”

“Don’t worry about Her. She’s a big picture thinker, always has been. She’ll leave it up to us to disseminate this information any way we see fit.”

“She did have a point about negative reinforcement. Maybe we could utilise that as an incentive. Work through back channels if we have to.”

“Thank you, Sandalphon. I can always count on you to understand the needs of the organisation.”

“Michael…? Michael!”

“Oh! Uriel, hello. I was just…”

“Hi! I, I, um… I brought you another ambrosia. Who were you talking to?”

“No one! I wasn’t… I mean, I was just trying out this new tablet. It’s the latest model and the lab needed a tester. So I was, um… dictating! Right. Seeing how the functionality holds up to the last generation.”

“Brilliant! The model I’m using glitches from time to time, especially when I’m doing molecule names. Always have to go back and spell them out. Could I see?”

“Uh… sorry, Uri. There’s some software on there that isn’t for general circulation yet.” Michael tucks the softly glowing tablet into her jacket.

“Oh.”

“Anyway… thank you. For the drink.” Michael sips. “It’s very good.”

“I think break time’s almost up. Shall we walk back over?”

“Lead on.”

“Michael… something She said… it didn’t quite make sense.”

“Oh?”

I mean, a lot of it isn’t making sense to me, but it’s not my job to question, is it? I just write things down.”

“You’re a good soldier, Uriel.”

“That’s the thing. I am, I was! I fought in the war. I testified at the Trials.”

“I remember.”

“So… the thing is… why’d She ask where they’d gone? Just now. Lucifer and the rest, I mean.”

Michael stops walking. Glances around. Pulls Uriel behind an ornamental fountain.

“You remember what happened between Her and Lucifer, right?”

“Sure, everyone does. You couldn’t miss it. Great, screaming, crashing row, he said he hated Her and stormed out. Slammed the gates behind him.”

“She had to go have one of Her lie-downs, she was that upset. Afterwards, I think She disappeared into the test biosphere for a while. Probably made some beetles; you know beetles always calm Her down.”

“But–”

“Everyone was confused. Angels were arguing, taking sides… it was coming to blows. I had a quiet word with Gabriel. We decided it would be best if Lucifer and his supporters… relocated. Just for a while. Until things cooled down. And we could say She ordered it, because… well, She would have, wouldn’t She? If She hadn’t been off fussing with the coleoptera machine.”

Uriel takes a step back, staring at Michael with wide eyes.

“Uri, please! We meant it to be amicable. But tempers were high, and Lucifer’s side didn’t like the new offices, and you know how Gabriel can be sometimes. I can see now that things got a little out of hand. I’m as sorry about that as any of them, believe me. Probably sorrier! But it’s better this way. They wanted to go, in the end, and everyone’s much happier now.”

“Not all of them wanted to go! Michael, I saw their faces! They were frightened!”

“Shh! Look, we were doing God’s work. It’s what She would have done Herself, had she been there. She made us Her delegates for a reason.”

“But She didn’t actually…”

“She would have, Uriel! She still could, at any moment! She plays favourites, you know She does. Then She gets distracted in that testing room the minute you need anything, and you do your best to hold it all together, but if you get it wrong it’s your fault for not always knowing exactly what was on Her mind!”

“I suppose… but Michael…”

“We were just trying to anticipate.” Michael puts her arm around Uriel’s shoulders, and Uriel stiffens. “We have to look out for each other, Uri. I meant what I said to you before: you never know what She’s got planned.”

“Because of the manual?”

“Right. Because we don’t know why She’d ask you to do it. And because She seems so taken with all these disgusting organic systems. There’s still a chance She could fall out with us, o-or get bored with us and decide we need replacing, and you know it. We need to stay one step ahead.”

Uriel still looks doubtful, but her posture starts to relax. Michael pulls her closer.

“We made the others redundant to protect the peace around here. She’s been in such a good mood ever since, hasn’t She? No more arguments. No more slamming gates.”

“No more threats that She’ll take away your wings for the next century…”

“Or send you to your cloud to think about what you’ve done.”

Uriel laughs. “I remember that. Your face was so red.”

“Mm. You know, your face is lovely with the new hair style. Have I ever told you that?”

“Oh, ah, well. Thanks!”

”Uriel?”

”Yes?”

”What I just told you… it’s…”

”Not for general circulation?”

”Got it in one! I can trust you, can’t I, Uri?”

”Of course you can. I’m an angel.”

Michael leaves her arm around Uriel as they walk back to the conference room. In her pocket, the screen of the tablet, across which the word ‘Ligur’ is pulsing, goes dark.

Aziraphale sighed happily. His suspicion had been right: it was better with two. Miles better, in fact. The orgasm this time had engulfed his entire body in pleasant, spreading warmth, he’d felt it in his fingers and toes and hair follicles, for Hea– for Someone’s sake.

He looked over to where Crowley was staring at the ceiling. “Darling, that was…” he quickly nixed ‘divine’ (and, after a moment’s thought, ‘glorious’) as a potential adjective. “...exquisite.”

“Yeah. Nyuh. S’good– I mean… blast… I’m glad, angel.” Crowley’s lip twitched. He was positively glaring upwards now. Did he see something he disliked? Aziraphale followed his gaze, expecting, perhaps, a spider web, but there was nothing.

He sat up. The night dress was a lost cause, and he could certainly snap it back into oblivion, but a half-shameful bit of him wanted to preserve the… evidence? Memory? Best not to think about it too closely. “Do you have anything like a washing machine in this maze of hallways?”

“Sure.” A pause, a tiny line between Crowley’s brows that said he was concentrating. Then: “Third door on the left off the bedroom.”

“I can launder your things too, if you…?” Aziraphale trailed off, face red. Odd that something so enjoyable in the moment was so difficult to talk about, after.

“No, I’m fine.” Crowley sat up too, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, back to the angel. He snapped his fingers and then rose, stalking around to Aziraphale’s side, clothes dry and sunglasses back in place.

Not so sentimental, then. Aziraphale was being silly. The air in the room felt oppressive; when Aziraphale spoke, the words seemed to fall from his mouth and stick to the ground, like iron filings dropped onto a magnet. “May I… may I use your shower? To wash up?” he clarified, redundantly. (Although to be fair, the use Crowley had put his shower to last night wasn’t exactly personal hygiene-related.)

“Sure,” Crowley said again. “You know where it is.”

“Crowley?”

Crowley paused halfway out the door. The face he turned back to Aziraphale was impassive, maybe hinting at the blandest kind of curiosity.

“Ah… nothing.” Aziraphale smiled with his lips pressed together.

Crowley heaved a deep sigh. Something in him seemed to thaw a little, and his shoulders climbed down from their unnaturally rigid line. “Towels’re in the cupboard behind the big mirror. Come out to the kitchen when you’re finished.” Then he was gone.

The bathroom was pristine, all cool light and hard angles. Lacking a soft, naked, crimson-haired demon to provide contrast, Aziraphale decided he didn’t like it. He stripped, leaving the stained nightgown in a puddle on the floor, used the toilet (micturition had lost its initial appeal and was quickly becoming irritating. Every few hours for the remainder of his life? Perhaps they could figure out how to miracle it, like they used to do with alcohol), and puzzled at the blank impassiveness of the shower control lever. It wasn’t labelled for “hot” or “cold” so he made his best guess and tested the spray from the overhead nozzle.

The water– too hot by far– hit the blister that had formed on his palm, and he hissed. At that moment, there was a knock at the door.

Feeling flustered and not certain why he should, he retrieved a (black, obviously) towel from the cabinet Crowley had indicated and fixed it around his waist. He then stood awkwardly next to the door but didn’t open it, in the traditional style of humans responding to knocks on bathroom doors for as long as there’d been bathrooms. “Yes?”

“You have to turn the knob exactly forty-eight degrees to the left,” said Crowley’s disembodied voice. “Even demonic interventions aren’t a match for West London pipes.”

“Thank you.”

“Uh… I’m leaving your clothes outside. Didn’t think you’d want ‘em miracled in to you. You told me once that teleportation’s bad for the seams.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks flushed. “Outside the door is fine,” he said.

“They’re clean, though. Couldn’t see you puttin’ your two hundred year old threads in the wash, even on the gentle cycle.”

“What’s a gentle cycle?”

The sound of Crowley’s chuckle drifted in. The air in the room was starting to get humid, apparently. Aziraphale was suddenly very warm.

He waited, but Crowley seemed to have wandered off. He gave it one more minute for good measure, feeling extremely silly… he’d seen Crowley nude hours ago, and they’d… well. When he was sure it was safe he cracked the door and peered out.

There were his clothes, neatly folded on a red velvet-topped footstool, bowtie balanced on the top of the pile. A laundry basket which surely hadn’t existed for more than two minutes. And, set on a hallway table of similar age: a mug of steaming, perfect tea.

Dressed, combed, and smelling of Crowley’s tea tree oil shampoo, Aziraphale deposited the nightgown in the washing machine (which sat in a room with a dryer, foldaway clothes rack, bright-capped collection of bottles resembling an opportunistic mushroom cluster, and a box of soap flakes… all clearly pulled from Crowley’s vague ideas of what a laundry room should look like, as this space had been a closet yesterday), poured what looked like the right amount of detergent into the waiting dispenser, and pressed a likely-looking button. As the machine began to fill, he made his way towards the smell of coffee, steps slowing as he got closer.

When he awoke in Crowley’s arms, the unambiguous evidence of Crowley’s arousal pressed up against him, it had all seemed so simple. The demon had been strangely hesitant at first, which given his actions over the previous day and a half didn’t make an ounce of sense. Still, when he’d given in, it was beautiful: he’d clutched Aziraphale to him and made sounds in his ear that turned his knees to jelly. When he touched Aziraphale, he’d done it with the same intensity and concentration on his face as he’d had when he’d inspected his bruise, and his burn. He clearly took caring for Aziraphale’s corporation very seriously, and the determined set of his lips was almost as heady as the movement of his hand had been.

He had to touch you, though, didn’t he? his mind whispered. You told him to, and he’d promised to do what you asked.

Don’t be ridiculous, he snapped back at himself. (He wished arguments between internal voices were just a side effect of all the new neurotransmitters, but his brain had been at this sort of thing for years.) He wanted to. He said. And he’s been…

Aroused, turned on, randy, horny… Aziraphale remembered Will laughing over a pint, penning As You Like It in a tawdry pub and sketching a crude dick-and-balls next to the line ‘The horn, the horn, the lustful horn’. A genius, but an unquestionably filthy-minded one. Crowley had been in a filthy frame of mind too, what with his groin-concealing cushions and provocative home decor and frantic shower self-pleasure. Aziraphale knew he had been, that’s why he’d asked him to share the bed, and why was he doubting everything he’d felt sure of twelve hours ago?

You said it yourself, sunshine. Human males often wake up aroused, and he’s practically human now. It’s got nothing to do with you. The voice sounded like Gabriel. It made his stomach uneasy, like he’d swallowed a draught of ipecac.

Immersed in his thoughts, he rounded the corner to the kitchen… and began to laugh.

Crowley looked up from the hob, cheeks flaming. Smoke curled from the pan. A pile of what looked like charcoal briquettes sat on a plate to his left. “Crepes,” he stated flatly, “are not as easy to make as the Food Network website would have you believe.”

Several crowded minutes later, the burned pancakes had been binned and the window opened to clear the smoke. Aziraphale sipped his second cup of tea while Crowley tapped on his phone, ordering a couple of full Englishes from Popina. “Be honest. You read the first two lines of the recipe, skimmed the rest, and started throwing things into a bowl, didn’t you.”

“In my defence, it didn’t look very hard,” Crowley said, not looking up.

“It’s baking. You can’t just handwave your way to a perfect pancake. You have to measure.” Aziraphale had spent time at a great many patisseries, thank you, and he’d learned a thing or two.

Crowley stabbed a button with particular force and slipped the phone into his back pocket. He then immediately jumped up from his chair and began to pace around, radiating nervous energy. The stainless steel pan had been miracled clean and scrubbed for good measure, but Crowley took it back down from the dishrack and began to dab at it with a cloth. He avoided Aziraphale’s eyes. “Sorry. I thought…”

It doesn’t look very hard to take your friend to bed, either, Aziraphale thought. Humans do it all the time. He hadn’t read the recipe through, though, has he? Just dived in headfirst, which honestly was much more Crowley’s style. He suspected, at least, that he knew what ingredient they were missing– a vital leavener known as “Having A Conversation”– and he also suspected he knew why. If he had angels whispering doubts in his ear, then he couldn’t imagine what the inside of Crowley’s head was like. He must have a whole host of demons on his shoulder.

Would a group of demons be a host? Perhaps a legion? his mind wondered irrelevantly, but he was already moving. “Since we’ve ordered delivery, we have a little time before breakfast, yes?”

Crowley’s eyes widened behind his glasses (Aziraphale had got very good at reading them from the movement of his eyebrows and the skin at his temples). His lips parted, and he made a dry-mouth clicking sound. “Twenty to thirty minutes, per Deliveroo.”

“Well, then.” Aziraphale stepped forward, close enough to see the fluttering of Crowley’s pulse below the angle of his jaw. He took a fortifying breath. “I wanted to tell you that… that…” his resolve, already thin as puddle ice on a sunny day, cracked at the terrified look on Crowley’s face. “…that the twelve hours are up.” He kicked himself. He’d wanted ‘honest’, would have settled for ‘seductive’, but what he’d gotten was ‘Magnus Magnusson hosting Mastermind’.

“Released from your service, am I?” Crowley said, voice tight.

Blast. “No! I’d never hold you in bondage.” Aziraphale fell back a step, hurt. “You… you do know that, don’t you?”

Crowley rubbed the back of his neck. “Course.” The word was clipped.

The backs of Aziraphale’s eyelids stung. It was a strange sensation. “I just mentioned it because… because…” good God, why was it so hard to get the words out? ‘Because I want you. Because I love you. I need to know that you weren’t just following orders.’ But Crowley was so tense and he was frightened and it wouldn’t come.

He tried a different track. “What do you want, then?”

He got one of Crowley’s rare, slow blinks. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” Aziraphale snapped, fed up. “I thought what we did this morning– and don’t say something deliberately evasive and argument-provoking like ‘which thing would that be, angel?’, because I can see you thinking it–” (Crowley shut his mouth), “was very nice. I’d like to do it again. But not if you don’t.”

Crowley stared at him, mouth slack, for a moment, then began to sputter. “If I– do you think– what do you mean, ‘if I don’t’? Course I do, you bloody idiot!”

“Then why are you being so– so– withholding?”

“Withholding? That’s rich, that is, coming from Mr. I-don’t-like-you-we’re-not-even-friends!”

“I didn’t mean that, I was under a great deal of pressure!”

“Well that’s news to me.” Crowley’s lips pressed tightly together.

“We both said things we didn’t mean! I recall someone mentioning something about Alpha Centauri which never came up again, once the danger passed!”

Crowley jabbed his finger agitatedly at the ceiling. “Would you listen to yourself? Of course it didn’t come up again, because the danger had passed. You think I’m taking you to live on a planet that hasn’t invented the sriracha Bloody Mary if I’ve got any other choice?”

“Oh, come off it, Crowley. That’s just something… something you say, isn’t it? You’re always talking nonsense when you’re frightened.”

“I meant it.” Crowley glared at the floor.

A few decades earlier, Aziraphale had been burgled. Well, not really, of course, since the erstwhile thief had had a change of heart the moment he crossed the threshold of AZ Fell and Co, but a burglary had been attempted. He’d been in his poky upstairs flat taking another run at the cardboard box pile when he’d heard a loud, splintering crash, followed by… silence. He’d almost convinced himself it was a collision on the street outside; not uncommon even in the middle of the night, when he’d heard the sliding noise of the door being pushed open.

Afterwards, he’d inspected his doors. The ruffian had apparently taken a heavy object– perhaps a length of timber from a nearby building site– and used it as a makeshift battering ram, breaking the frame. Chatting with Nicole and Raj at Intimate Books (who were impressed he’d been able to get the door repaired so quickly, new wood and locks in the middle of the night, who’d have thought, must have cost him a bundle, they hadn’t even heard anything), he’d been told that this was a common strategy for break-ins: burst through a door in one, impossible-to-miss explosion of sound, then retreat. The noise might disturb the occupant’s sleep, but if there was nothing more they’d likely not bother to investigate. After a suitable interval, the thief, seeing the coast clear, could creep in through the open door and move about at leisure.

It struck him now, for the first time, that Crowley’s approach to romance was a little like this. A dramatic, impossible declaration or a wild proposal so over-the-top that one could hardly credit it… followed by nothing at all. Aziraphale had gotten into the habit of ignoring the outbursts, eventually, since they never seemed to lead to anything. It hadn’t crossed his mind that Crowley was simply waiting for him to let his guard down again, before tiptoeing inside with offers of perfect cups of tea and clean laundry and charred crepes.

When Aziraphale spoke, his voice was quiet. “I’m sorry. You are my friend. I should have said that before.”

Crowley took a breath in through his nose and let it out his mouth. “I know.”

“You know you’re my friend, or you know I should have said?”

“Can’t it be both?”

“You are incredibly frustrating, do you know that? It’s like talking to one of those mythical gate-guardians, the way you hedge your bets. ‘One of us lies and one of us tells the truth’.”

“Would I lie to you?” Crowley asked, not for the first time.

You're a demon, that’s what you do. It had been reactive, and said in jest, and… cruel. “Well,” said Aziraphale evasively. “You lied about that statue outside your bedroom.”

Crowley jerked a little in surprise, at that… and then put a hand to his mouth. The edge of a smile peeked out around it, even though his ears were pink.

“Now that that’s settled, would you like to continue rowing, or would you like to answer my question? And not–” he pointed at the demon, as if to pin him down, “–with a question this time.”

“Hmm. Forgotten it.”

“Crowley!”

“Kidding, kidding!” Crowley held his hands up in submission. “You want to know what I want.”

“Yes!”

“I said, dint I? Before you started shouting at me. Said I wanted to do it again.”

“Well… so do I,” Aziraphale said, deflating a little.

“Good. That’s… that’s good.”

Crowley twitched. Swallowed. Pulled his glasses down over his nose, pushed them back, then swept them off his face in a single move and threw them onto the counter, where they clattered against the salt-grinder. “I…”

“Yes?” said Aziraphale encouragingly.

“It’s–” Crowley cut off mid sentence, as his phone buzzed. He dug it out of his pocket. “It’s the food. Back in a tick, angel.”

Not seeing a dining table, Aziraphale set plates and silverware out on the island, placing Crowley’s espresso across from his own tea. It felt pleasantly domestic. Of course he missed his bookshop, and of course he’d have to go back sooner or later, but… was it wrong to feel grateful that God had given his corporation a dust hypersensitivity? He ha-rumphed under his breath at this. He could feel grateful for whatever he liked, couldn’t he? It was all part of Her plan.

Crowley returned with two clamshells in a plastic bag. He’d replaced the dark glasses for his trip downstairs, but removed them again when he sat down, shooting Aziraphale a look that said ‘don’t mention it’ as clearly as if he’d written the words on his forehead.

Aziraphale brightened when the boxes were opened, breathing in aromatic steam. Crowley stared suspiciously at the runny eggs while Aziraphale distributed the food. “Not the generous portions one used to get in Edward VII’s time, but it seems they’ve done a fair enough job. I do enjoy an upmarket sausage.”

Crowley twisted away and hunched over, shoulders shaking. Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “Are you laughing?”

“No.”

“Even though I’ve been running my gustatory sensory apparatus for years,” said Aziraphale, ignoring him, “I was always lacking a crucial piece: the brain’s chemical contribution. I didn’t know until last night the kind of enjoyment I’d been missing out on.”

“You’re saying… you’ve been ‘missing out on’ the full enjoyment of eating? You?” Crowley sounded choked.

“Precisely, dear boy! I grant you, the stimulation of taste buds and experience of textures during mastication has always been satisfying, but even last night’s Pho… the few bites of it I managed, anyway…” Crowley opened his mouth to protest, and Aziraphale shut him up with a strategic eyebrow, “...was like Babette’s Feast.”

Crowley frowned. “Who’s Babette?”

“‘Babette’s Feast’. A lovely little Danish story. They made it into a film in the 1980s, though of course adaptations of books lose so much wonderful language, why, the descriptions alone–”

“Aziraphale.”

“Right, sorry. Tale as old as time, really. Pious sisters live an austere life. An outside influence– in this case, a Parisian housekeeper– prepares a sumptuous meal, the sort of food that the religious main figures of the story have spent a lifetime spurning. They regard it as sinful luxury, perhaps even deviltry.”

“Let me guess. The temptress learns the error of her ways?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Quite the opposite. At the feast, the diners are elevated to new levels of physical and spiritual pleasure. ‘The rooms had been filled with a heavenly light as if a number of small halos had blended into one glorious radiance. Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that for years had been almost deaf were opened to it. Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air’.”

“So the food was holy.” Crowley rolled his eyes.

“That’s just the thing! It wasn’t! God’s grace was in the pleasures of the flesh, which they’d spent a lifetime denying themselves.” Aziraphale sighed. “I thought about that a lot.”

“There had to be a reason She gave them the ability to feel these things,” Crowley said. “Your lot’s always gone around saying they oughta wear hair shirts and live on bread to annoy Satan, but the boss isn’t bothered with any of that. Wasn’t him set them up that way.”

Aziraphale looked into warm golden eyes. Crowley was wearing that intense expression again, the one his body had started responding to in a distractingly Pavlovian fashion. “All I know is, discovering this corporation’s capacity for pleasure has been a revelation.”

He held Crowley’s gaze, face serious, until the demon looked away, taking a desperate slurp of espresso that made him cough. Aziraphale cut into his egg with a tiny, pleased wiggle. “I’m not sure what generates such intense prandial satisfaction,” he said. “The medical physiology texts I’ve been referencing are helpful for understanding pathological responses– like your bout of emesis– but short on the mechanisms behind normal function.”

“Monoamines, like I said before.” Crowley, who was drinking water in large gulps again, shrugged. He put the empty glass on the table and poked at his knife with the tines of his fork. “I dunno the details either. Reward sensations’re generally a dopamine thing.” He watched Aziraphale place a bit of egg, a sliver of sausage, and a scoop of beans onto his sourdough. “What’s it like?”

“The meal? Spectacular, I expect, but I haven’t gotten started yet.”

“Well… go on. I had the chicken soup last night too, and it wasn’t anything revelatory.”

“No? I admit I was a bit distracted when I was eating, and the food was bland, but I definitely noticed a difference.”

“Why don’t you eat first, then? And you can tell me about it.” Crowley flapped a hand at him and pretended to be engrossed in using silverware to tap “Hot Cross Buns” on the edge of his plate. “A… ahem. Sort of a science experiment.”

“Alright.” Aziraphale sniffed. “The experience of the meal starts in the olfactory system. There are complimentary aromas: cooked meat, sage, woodsmoke. Acidity, from the tomatoes. The earthiness of the mushrooms. It makes my mouth water.” Crowley gulped.

Aziraphale breathed in again. “The anticipation is satisfying in its own right. But as to the actual taste…” He placed the forkful into his mouth, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly. “Mmm. The scents enhance the delight of placing the food against the tongue. The crunch of the sausage is a pleasing contrast to the soft texture of the egg. The beans have just enough firmness for me to enjoy squeezing them between my teeth.”

He chanced a quick peek at Crowley, who was utterly still, eyes round, lower lip caught in his teeth. “Then…” he swallowed. “It hits my stomach. And the feeling I get when that happens is novel. It’s a… a consumptive satisfaction… hmm. The pleasure of being, well, filled, I suppose.”

There was a clatter that sounded like a knife being dropped onto a plate.

He laughed softly. “The sensation lights up my brain. Until yesterday, I’d say it was the peak physical pleasure of my life, though of course now I know something that can top it.”

“Ngk.”

Aziraphale looked up. “Just one bite of sausage and egg, Crowley. And it’s miles better than anything I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

Crowley’s mouth was slack. His eyes were doing the all-yellow thing again, which Aziraphale now knew went with stress and arousal.

He grinned, another set of puzzle pieces having just clicked into place. “My word,” he said, feigning surprise. “Is this… doing something for you?”

“You cannot ask me that.” Crowley buried his face in his hands. He was as red as his ghastly throne.

Aziraphale smiled, delighted. “If I had to guess,” he said, “my brain’s making use of networks I’d neglected up until now. I’m no longer eating because I’m pretending at being a human; I’m eating because my corporation won’t survive if I don’t.” He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. After he swallowed, he said, “There’s an urgency to wanting food, an intense enjoyment while consuming it, and a feeling of pleasant satiation that follows. I only ever experienced the second part of that cycle. And even there, the difference between then and now is like the difference between–” Like the difference between touching myself and having you touch me, Aziraphale didn’t say. He pressed his lips together. “Er, night and day.”

“Hades wept,” Crowley whispered, apparently to himself.

“Now you try.”

“The food?” Crowley sounded dazed.

“Of course, the food! You’ll enjoy it; I know you really will this time. Put a few things together in your mouth, like I did.”

Crowley took a deep breath in, let it out, and then lowered his hands. For a moment he looked at his plate as if he didn’t know what it was or where it had come from. “Why’re the beans in their own little pot?” he asked, after a moment.

“To keep them from making the toast soggy, dear, do keep up.”

“If we’re on the subject of things that do things for me, this… doesn’t.” Crowley picked up a slice of bacon, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger and holding it away from him like a highborn woman handling a mouse by its tail.

“When I met you, you liked eating. Showed me how, even. And you told me you’ve maintained a little hedonistic responsiveness, over the years.”

“Key words: ‘a little’. Not enough to send me into paroxysms of delight over intestine-wrapped pork.”

“Don’t be a spoilsport. Try it now you’ve got your unusamines–”

“Monoamines.”

“–turned up.”

“Don’t expect much,” Crowley grumbled. “Just because some people only have to take a single bite of egg to achieve orgasm…” he bit into the bacon, showing an enticing flash of pointed canine.

“Well?”

“Hang on, I’m formin’ an opinion.” Crowley chewed. Swallowed. “S’alright.”

“‘Alright’?”

“Okay okay!” Crowley held up his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t get your undergarments in a twist. It’s good, okay? I’d sort of forgotten the taste of fat and salt, and they’re better with… with whatever brain chemicals’re involved, here. It’s satisfying, I’ll give you that. But I’m not sure I have quite the neurological, um… talent for it that you do.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Aziraphale tried to keep the appreciative “mmm”s and lip-smacking to a minimum, since they flustered Crowley so much he kept dropping things on the floor, but it was unquestionably the best meal he’d ever had. He’d eaten ten courses of sashimi in Kyoto; a caviar and lobster frittata in New York; and an Irish cream, pomegranate and mango cassata with champagne sabayon Sri Lanka… yet here he was, completely enraptured by a £15 English breakfast that had arrived lukewarm in a styrofoam container.

At last, he drained his tea and began to clear the plates. Crowley had done better than just pick at his meal… but only a little. Aziraphale snagged a leftover mushroom. “You didn’t like it?”

He was still chewing when Crowley got to his feet, eyes on Aziraphale’s face, upper body swaying just enough to put someone in mind of a snake. “Can think of somethin’ I’d like more.”

All (or, he should say, both of) Aziraphale’s experiences with sexual pleasure had been more or less accidental. He wasn’t completely prepared for a sudden armful of amorous demon, doing his best constrictor impression and rocking his hips against Aziraphale’s thigh with clear intent.

He squeaked and froze, heart pounding like he’d just come up three flights of stairs. Crowley pulled back immediately. “This okay?”

You make me feel like I’ve a belly full of fireworks and you’ve just lit the fuses. Aziraphale thought about his meal. About anticipation and appetite. He craved Crowley’s touch like a starving man craves a plate of potatoes, but he didn’t know what to do with the wanting. Food was easy: you put it in your mouth. Lust was new.

Some of that must have shown on his face, because Crowley gentled him, running big palms over his shoulders and down his arms, leaning in to kiss his neck. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “Done this a time or two. Just like you and big breakfasts, yeah?”

It was like he’d stepped on a wasps’ nest, the way the voices came boiling up. He’s fucked other people, said Uriel, who somehow managed to sound both mocking and matter-of-fact. Did you think you were his only boyfriend?

He knows one thing you’re good at, crowed Gabriel. Not exactly hard to tell, though, is it? Just look at yourself.

Shut up, shut up! Aziraphale jerked and shut his eyes. They were just phantoms. They couldn’t hurt him. Crowley was very warm, and very real. He wanted…

You can’t trust a demon, Aziraphale, Michael said in her posh, clipped voice. Not when it comes to this. They’re at the mercy of their baser instincts, aren’t they? You’ll never know if you’re Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now. She chuckled.

Aziraphale put his hands to his face and sucked in a frantic breath. His body was in full revolt, perspiring and trembling and trying to handle the speedy cocktail of hormones that had just hit his bloodstream. Arousal collided with panic. The flames in his belly went out like they’d been doused with sand.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Crowley’s arms drew away for half a heartbeat, and then they were around his shoulders and pulling him tight against the demon’s chest. His ear pressed against black wool and he could hear Crowley’s heart, also galloping away.

Aziraphale was making an embarrassing, high-pitched noise with every shallow gasp. “Sorry…” he managed.

Crowley didn’t say anything, just rubbed circles over his back. As Aziraphale’s breathing slowed he drew back a little, but didn’t let go. “No, I'm sorry, angel.”

“Whatever for?”

“Whatev– you– argh.” Crowley raised his eyes to the ceiling. “For goin’ too fast. Again.”

A laugh bubbled up, surprising them both. “No, Crowley!” Aziraphale said. He hesitated. There was simply no way he was going to tell the demon that he’d gotten jealous and insecure over the idea of him having past lovers with the taut, nubile bodies of Greek gods… but he had to tell him something. “I don’t know what happened. Why I reacted like that. It’s just… that this is all very new. For me.”

“Yeah, course. I shouldn’t’ve– I mean, it’s fine. It’s great! Got a little carried away, that’s all. Won’t happen again.”

“Crowley–”

“You wait, angel. We’ll take things so slow snails’ll pass us.”

“Dear–”

“Old snails. The ones considered slow even by other snails, yeah?”

The look on his face– open, eager, tinged with the tiniest hint of desperation to please– silenced the voices, though Aziraphale knew they weren’t gone for good. He wanted to touch his cheek, and he could, couldn’t he? He could do that now.

So he did. Crowley leaned into him, closing his eyes, and they stood like that for a long moment.

Crowley had eventually been persuaded that Aziraphale wouldn’t fall to pieces if he let go. Now he was stomping around the flat, getting his excess energy out by slamming dishes onto shelves and miracling away specks of dust and hissing at his plants. Aziraphale, perched on a throne fit for a flamboyant Miami playboy, was reading. He had Harrison’s in front of him, as well as a few newer texts he’d found at the local library and “borrowed” (they’d show up in the computer system as having been checked out by Mr. A.Z. Fell, even though he’d never been to the local library and didn’t even know its address), all with the word “physiology” in the title.

Crowley leaned in the doorway. “Hey.”

“Oh, hello. Have you finished cleaning? Got the spoons aligned exactly right? Couch fibres satisfactorily brushed?”

“Very funny. What’re you lookin’ at?”

Aziraphale made a note in the yellow legal pad he’d created for the purpose. “We both seem to be having some difficulty regulating our sympathetic nervous systems.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“I’m talking about these episodes of tachycardia, diaphoresis, trembling, shortness of breath… it can’t be normal, and I don’t really think it’s dust or peppermint either, not entirely. It’s something else. Something’s not working right.”

“What do the books say?” Crowley rested a sharp hip on the side of the desk. It made Aziraphale shiver, desire twisting low in his belly again.

“Um. Could be a heart condition. Asthma. Irritable bowel syndrome–”

Crowley snorted. “I’m a demon. If my bowels were irritated, you’d know.”

“–problem with the thyroid, cancer…” Azirapahle shook his head. “None of it seems to fit.”

“Angel. We only took the plastic wrap off these corporations three days ago.”

“Sorry, what?”

“The stuff you’re talking about mostly sounds like it affects older models.” He held up a finger when Aziraphale opened his mouth. “Corporations that’ve been running full-tilt for years, I mean. Wear and tear issues. We shouldn’t have those, least not yet.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Aziraphale stared down at columns of tiny, blocky text. He was getting a headache. “I can’t imagine God putting a, er… a pheochromocytoma in an angelic corporation that was fresh from the factory. Not Her style, really.”

“How’s your hand?”

Aziraphale held it out, mutely. There was a dime-sized blister on the heel of his palm, but it already looked less angry than it had that morning. Crowley tsked all the same. “More ice?”

“Not necessary. It isn’t painful.”

“Hmm. How about the hip?”

“Gone a rather garish shade of yellow, but I think that’s part of the healing process.”

Crowley sighed. Perched on the edge of the desk, he looked like a dejected raven. “You’re getting on with it,” he said, under his breath.

Aziraphale didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. “I think I’m missing something vital,” he said. “These books are fine for humans, but it would help us to know what She was thinking when she made some of these systems. It could help us determine the reason we’re–” (panicking? Hyperventilating? Shaking like leaves?), “–dysregulated.”

“Like… ‘I juxtaposed the trachea and the oesophagus because I thought it would be fun to see how many grapes end up in the wrong hole’? That sort of thing?”

“Ye-es, actually. I think there’s some kind of instruction booklet upstairs. It was very hush-hush, but the archangels would mention a ‘reference’ from time to time. Usually when they had to troubleshoot a corporation malfunction.”

“Too bad you’re not allowed back. You could go rifle through their desks, but I’m pretty sure the gate guards have orders to shoot you on sight.” Crowley let a hint of smugness creep into his voice. “You being a dangerous degenerate and all.”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale thought about this. He wouldn’t need to do any rifling, not if he were in the right place at the right time…

He looked up and smiled brightly. If he even thought it through with Crowley in the room the demon would get suspicious, and if he knew the angel’s plan he’d certainly try to stop him. “I think we should talk to some people,” he said. “Human problems require human solutions, as they say!”

“I don’t think they say that.”

“Well, they ought to.”

The problem was, they knew very few humans. Rather, they knew a great many humans, but there were very few humans who knew them– at least, in the particular way that mattered. Crowley was tapping on his mobile again, which apparently meant he was “talking” to Anathema, though it seemed to Aziraphale that telephones had been invented for the exact purpose of not having to write everything down when you wanted a quick chat with a friend. He still had Tracy’s number, so he called her from the landline.

“Aziraphale, love! Why, it’s been weeks! Let me just turn the burner down. I’m heating water for cabbage soup but don’t fret, the greens will keep for a spell, though Mr. Shadwell will moan about the cutting board being out, it’s in front of his milk cabinet.” There was a series of shuffling noises, clanks, and small crashes. “There we are. Calling to take a lady to lunch, are you now?”

“Ah… hello. Yes, actually. I had promised, and I certainly owe you a meal at the very least after what you did for me.”

“Isn’t it funny? I know that’s true– that you promised me lunch, and that I helped you with something very important– but for the life of me, I can’t quite remember what it was I did.”

“Yes, very odd. I’m sure it will come to you. How about…” he trailed off. Crowley had shoved the mobile in front of his face. Blue and grey bubbles marched down the screen. He tapped the last one, which said Maynard Arms, 2pm, followed by a stylized picture of a hand giving the “thumbs up” sign.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and made a shoo-ing gesture. “The Maynard Arms at two o’clock? Splendid.” He broke the connection. “Anathema is still in London, then?”

“Yeah, guess she stayed at Newt’s.”

There was an awkward silence. Aziraphale remembered how Anathema had laughed when Newt pulled her out of the flat the night before. She’d looked flushed, and excited, and happy in an uncomplicated sort of way.

It had all seemed so simple.

“So what were you–”

“I was thinking we might–”

Aziraphale stopped, and gestured. “After you.”

Crowley made a strange face, like he was sucking on his top teeth. “Look,” he said, at length. “When I was havin’ that, uh, trouble with the peppermint oil… it helped when you stroked my hair. Calmed me down. Your books say anything about that?”

“Not very much,” Aziraphale replied. “Only that a preferred partner’s gentle, moving touches over follicle-rich areas of skin activate C tactile afferent nerves, which in turn influence parasympathetic tone through modulation of vagal outflow.”

Crowley rubbed his temples. “Pretend you’re explaining that to someone who hasn’t read six medical textbooks in the past hour and a half.”

“Being stroked is both pleasant and calming. Particularly when done by someone you… well… d-desire,” Aziraphale mumbled into his bowtie.

“Kay. That makes sense.” Crowley fiddled with the edge of his blotter, but didn’t say anything more.

“Crowley… you know, I’m not feeling completely calm yet. After my little episode.”

Crowley looked up, hope and caution warring on his face. “Yeah?”

“We’ve an hour until we have to leave. Would you mind terribly…?”

The demon sprang into fluid motion. “C’mon,” he said, taking Aziraphale by the wrist and pulling him to his feet. “Let me show you something my sofa is good for.”

The dreadful piece of furniture was S-shaped, with curved, rigid back sections. Aziraphale thought they were riveted to the frame, but when Crowley leaned over and pulled a hidden lever, one of them lifted up on telescoping metal arms and flipped so it was parallel with the seat cushions, more or less. When the rearrangement was finished, that section looked less like a sofa and more like a bench with a padded, arched platform fixed above it, about shoulder height to a sitter.

There was no way you could lean on the thing at all, now. Aziraphale eyed it from a few feet away. “That looks even more uncomfortable than before. I didn’t think it was possible.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re thinking inside the box. You’re gonna get on facing the back. Put your legs through the gap, then lean your head forward onto the cushion after you sit down.

Aziraphale cautiously approached and began to shuffle into position, but Crowley suddenly said, “Wait!” He turned.

“It’ll be easier with your jacket and waistcoat off,” said Crowley. “And… um… look, it’s completely up to you, angel, this is for you, it’s whatever you want, but you can take the shirt off too. If you like! You don’t have to. But if I’m gonna do the thing where I pet your nerves…” he busied himself rearranging throw pillows as he spoke, not looking in Aziraphale’s direction, but the angel could see his hands shaking.

He touched his buttons. Well-tailored clothes, apart from being comfortable, could hide any number of corporeal imperfections. Crowley’s clothing was emphatic, made to show things off– gorgeous thighs, tapered waist, broad back– but Aziraphale had always favoured the idea of putting layers between himself and the world.

It had never been about modesty before; simply a way to compensate for his obvious shortfalls when it came to blending in with humans. He might not age, he might mangle modern vernacular and he might casually mention a personal connection to someone long dead, but at least he dressed the part (Aziraphale would have been dismayed to realise that his current outfit was out of date by over a century and he’d last paid a visit to his tailor in 1932; he enjoyed human rituals but it was hard to remember how often one was meant to do things like “buy new clothes”). He’d been rolling his eyes at Crowley’s odd aversion to seeing one another naked as recently as last night, but things had changed, hadn’t they? Now that he’d discovered what looking at Crowley’s body made him feel, he had to wonder if his own corporation was capable of arousing someone, and that was a train of thought that always collided with Gabriel’s impeccable fitness and sneering face.

On the other hand, he had no doubt Crowley blamed himself entirely for Aziraphale seizing up in his embrace earlier, and there was nothing he could do to mend that– except demonstrate that he still had Aziraphale’s trust. If he was too embarrassed to disrobe, he just knew the demon would take that to mean he was having second thoughts about… whatever this was… and he might never make a move again. That would be a terrible disappointment.

It was practicality that tipped the scales. If he wanted to have sex again– and he very, very much did– he couldn’t keep his clothes on forever. He reached up to remove his bowtie. What did those snooty archangels know about it, anyway? If any of them had ever had an orgasm then he was the queen of Denmark.

Thus fortified, he folded his jacket and waistcoat on the coffee table and unbuttoned his shirt, dropping it to hang from his elbows. Then…

He glanced over his shoulder to where Crowley was swinging another section of the sofa around, and found snake eyes fixed on him. Crowley looked… he looked… well, he looked like Newt had looked after Anathema kissed him. Like he thought he was dreaming, but was astonished that even a dream could be this good. Like he couldn’t believe his luck.

Aziraphale pulled his arms from the sleeves and dropped the shirt onto the floor before sitting down as fast as he could. His heart had gone off like he’d been touched by a live wire.

“Lean forward,” Crowley said again. Aziraphale heard shuffling and squeaking. He’d gleaned that the different sections of the sofa were detachable, on casters for ease of movement. Crowley pushed one up behind Aziraphale and sat down on it with his legs spread. He was so close that Aziraphale could feel puffs of breath against his bare shoulder.

He leaned, as instructed. To his immense surprise, he was immediately comfortable. His cheek rested on the canted surface of the backrest and his arms fit snugly into flared groves along the sides of the cushion. It was as if the sofa was made for this, which he abruptly realised that it had been.

“I’m sorry. Crowley,” he half-laughed. “Do you have an avant-garde, height-of-fashion, flown-in-from-New-York-City massage sofa?”

There was a beat of silence where Aziraphale had expected to hear Crowley needling him back. When he finally answered he spoke slowly, almost reluctantly. “Transformations, right? Human muscles don’t like bein’ asked to suddenly become snake muscles. That’s not even mentioning how they start howlin’ when I have to change into some horrifying maggot-ridden beast. Shelly says I overstretch.”

“Shelly?”

“My physio. She’s great. Got this thing she does with a curved bit of stone, really works out the kinks.”

I never knew. How was it possible they seemed to know next to nothing about one another, after being friends for so long? Each of these shy revelations made Aziraphale feel like he was shedding his clothing all over again, exposing pale and sensitive skin. It was terrible and wonderful in turns… but mostly, it was overwhelming.

Crowley coughed. “Anyway. Reckon I’ve picked up a thing or two. Are you… er, do you want me to…”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Aziraphale stopped his woolgathering. “Touch me. If there’s a better way to activate calming neurotransmitters I haven’t stumbled across it yet.” That was a massive lie. Of course he had, several, everything from deep breathing to meditation to jogging to eating would do the trick just fine, but there was no reason Crowley needed to know that.

Aziraphale had been reading physiology texts, not anatomy. He didn’t know what humans called the big, triangular muscles that sloped away from his neck and down towards the shoulder joint, but that was where Crowley started. A light stroke, almost a brush, over his skin, the same on either side. The tips of his fingers were cool. His hands were trembling.

“Crowley.” It was a whisper. He closed his eyes and let the sensation pour into him, shivery warmth that sank through his lungs and belly all the way to the base of his spine, where it pooled. Crowley kept up the featherlight touches: shoulders, shoulder blades, spine. The back of his neck where vertebrae swelled under his skin and up into his hair, scratching lightly against his scalp. “Mmmm.”

“Helping?” The breaths against his shoulder were warm and regular, and if they were coming a little fast, well, what of it? His were too.

“It’s wonderful.”

Crowley was silent for a long while. Then he said, “Tell me about it?”

“Tell you…”

“Um. Like you did. With the food.”

Aziraphale smiled. His mind was full of candyfloss, but he made an attempt to come down from the clouds. “It won’t be the same, darling. I ate thousands of meals before I had the full complement of chemicals to help me appreciate them. There was a basis for comparison. But no one’s ever touched me before. Not like this.”

Crowley’s hands paused for a moment, and Aziraphale heard the tiny hitch of his breath. “That said, I’ll do my best.”

“Ghnk.”

“My corporation seems to respond differently depending on what structure is receiving attention. Hmm.” Crowley was making long, firm, curving strokes along the inner line of his shoulder blades. “That gives me a feeling of pleasant heat… like I’m standing in sunshine. I can feel my muscles roll and loosen under your hands.”

Without ever losing contact with his skin, Crowley lifted his palms until he was just using the pads of his fingers, and ran them up the centre of his back. “The lighter touch is more hedonic than therapeutic, I believe. Don’t stop! I didn’t say I minded.” As Crowley settled back to his task, Aziraphale continued, “It’s very different from what I felt when I ate. Those sensations were more clearly cyclic: drive, followed by consumption, followed by satisfaction. This is…” he laughed, shakily. “It’s difficult to say. Only that I know it wouldn’t feel the same if I were to touch myself like this. My corporation wants to tremble, it wants to push into you, it wants you to push into it. That most of all, I think.” (There was a tiny gasp behind him, and a noise like someone had swallowed a groan.) “It wants you never to stop. I can’t imagine reaching a satiation phase, unless…”

Well. He knew something that would probably provide a gratifying conclusion. He was hard again, had been for some time, though his skin was singing so pleasantly that he’d barely noticed.

From the way Crowley shifted as he worked, hips moving restlessly, he had the feeling he wasn’t alone in that.

The demon threaded fingers through his hair, and he didn’t know why that should make him tingle all over, why it should cause a pulling, aching sensation between his legs, but it did. He moaned, low, under his breath.

Crowley leaned towards him. “It feels good for me too, angel. I’m not… I can’t describe it, not the way you can, we both know that. But…” for a moment there was nothing but Crowley’s breath on his neck, Crowley’s fingers brushing slowly over his nape and skull. “Getting to touch you, finally, after all these years…” he choked, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Difference between night and day. Like y’said. Better than anything’s ever felt, f’r me. Nothing even comes close.”

Aziraphale stirred, reached back, and found Crowley’s thigh. The demon twitched. Then he swayed forward, smoothly, snakily, pressing his chest against Aziraphale’s back like he had in bed that morning. He stopped petting, but Aziraphale couldn’t say he minded, because his arms went around his torso and pulled him so close he hardly had room to breathe.

Just like before, Aziraphale felt the rigid line of him, twitching in the prison of his trousers. He smiled. He had to get Crowley out of those things, the sooner the better. His poor member must be dreadfully uncomfortable.

Crowley kissed the back of his neck, a slow press of open lips caressing his skin, a flicker of tongue, then gone. Aziraphale panted and bit his own lip. Warmth bloomed and radiated from all the places Crowley had touched, but that one most of all.

There was a low chuckle behind him, and then Crowley was standing back, getting up, taking his strong hands and lovely shoulders and hypnotising hips with him. Aziraphale nearly wailed. The demon, the absolute fiend, kissed him again, this time on the shoulder, brief but affectionate. “C’mon angel. Time to go. We’ll miss lunch.”

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from the post-break question and answer session.

(Transcriber note: God is standing at the podium, drawing slips of parchment out of a golden chalice.)

First question: ‘Is it just a human thing?’

Is what just a human thing? Orgasm? Pair bonding? Please specify what you mean.

(Transcriber note: overlapping voices. Eventually, Agiel calls out: “Both?”)

No. Neither, actually! As I said, sexual reproduction is the name of the game for the majority of organisms down there. Even plants will do it, though I didn’t feel the need to build them an elaborate system of mutual gratification and reward-based modulation of behaviour. Too complicated for something that’s rooted to the ground; went with bees in the end. And yes, orgasm is a cross-species phenomenon.

Except maybe in fish. Even I’m not really sure what fish get up to. I handed the design mostly over to Diagonel; water stuff isn’t really my thing.

Additionally, many species will form long-lasting pair bonds, mostly depending on the complexity and effort required to raise their young. In other words, the ones who need to: large, slow-growing mammals; most birds; Australian seahorses; prairie voles (no real reason for that one, actually, but I had to experiment with something).

Next: ‘What about angels who take on corporeal forms?’

Great question! I realise that we don’t have an exact equivalent of orgasm on this plane of existence. But yes, the corporations available to you will be fully functional in every way. You’ll have the ability to modify that functionality if you wish, but to be honest I wouldn’t recommend it. Lacking operational physiology will be a major handicap if you’re planning to spend any significant amount of time on Earth.

(Transcriber note: Gabriel pushes forward. “Lord, surely you’re not expecting us to… to…”)

Have orgasms? Why not?

(Transcriber note: Gabriel’s mouth falls open. “W-with humans?”)

Tch. Again, why not? Or by yourselves, or with one another, if you’d like. This is an opportunity for you all to try out an entirely new set of sensations! I know you’ll enjoy it. In fact, some of you might enjoy it so much you choose to stay corporeal indefinitely. I don’t want to brag, but orgasm is extraordinarily pleasurable. The pull to repeat the experience is difficult to overcome, and why would you want to? Have fun with it.

In all seriousness, though, I do– strongly– encourage you to experiment with the entire spectrum of human physicality. It’ll help you understand their intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, and develop a sense of empathy that will be vital for your work together. Ideally, I’d like you to be creating community with them as well as for them, and you can’t do that if you don’t understand what their experience of life is like.

(Transcriber note: there’s a sound of grumbling protest from the host, although no one disagrees out loud.)

Alright, next question: ‘How does an experience that lasts seconds lead to the formation of sustained pair bonds?’

Ah! I was hoping someone would ask. We’ve gone over attraction, lust, arousal and the sexual response cycle, but that’s not all there is to it– not by a long shot. These elements are powerful by themselves, of course. I made them to be strong, but as you pointed out, they don’t last forever. In fact, everything we’ve talked about so far is transient.

Let me explain. The monoamine neurotransmitters we discussed, dopamine and norephinephrine– the ones that set you up so strongly to seek repetition of sex with a particular person– they wear off. After about thirty months, max, intercourse with a familiar partner doesn’t have the same addictive effect on the brain.

Why? Because I couldn’t have humans walking around barking mad over one another forever, could I? Eventually they need to think about other things. For the species to survive, they have to make more humans but they also have to do the boring stuff, like harvesting grain and changing diapers and paying the electric bill. If the initial intensity never faded they’d starve, believe me.

Have you ever heard of an antechinus? It’s a type of marsupial, mouse-sized, kind of cute. Back when I made them, I hadn’t quite figured out how powerful sexual pleasure was. Turns out, it’s so powerful that the antechinus will literally screw itself to death. Boy, was my face red when I found out about that one! Once they hit reproductive maturity, the males especially go completely crazy over sex. They mate with females in marathon, half-day sessions, over and over, not eating, not drinking, for weeks… until their immune systems collapse and they fall down dead.

They’re not the only ones, either. The humans will eventually call it ‘semelparity’: death after a single reproductive cycle, occurring as a direct result. Be more accurate to just say ‘God didn’t know Her own strength’. Honestly, I was pretty embarrassed. Rookie mistake.

Female antechinuses do alright, they can raise their young just fine without a mate around, but that setup wasn’t going to work in humans. At the same time, I did need to figure out a way to encourage them to stay together over the long term. It was a real head-scratcher, but eventually I stumbled upon the key: oxytocin.

Think of all that flashy, addictive stuff with monoamines as bait. Once the humans are hooked, I use oxytocin to bind them together. In other words: sharing orgasms encourages people to fall in love.

(Transcriber note: Raphael speaks up: “You’re saying they’ll stay together because of love? But that’s so simple. Why didn’t you just start there, and forget about all the other stuff? Tell them to love each other, and they will. Right?”)

(Transcriber note: God sighs). Remember, Raphael, I’m not telling them anything. They’re meant to figure it out all on their own.

Listen. Our immateriality gives us the ability to share a certain amount of emotion with one another, right? But down there, it’s a closed system, and I don’t just mean Earth. Every human is closed inside their own mind. They can’t sense love. The only way they can truly know what others feel is if they’re told or shown.

(Transcriber note: The room is suddenly very, very quiet.)

I understand that feels a bit frightening.

(Transcriber note: Michael stands up. Her face is pale. “Lord. Will we be subject to the same restrictions? If we inhabit a body, that is?”)

“Yes. That’s why I advise you to use the built-in features. It will make things easier.”

“Crowley?”

“Yeah.”

Crowley kept his eyes on the road. His skin was prickling with residual arousal and Aziraphale’s nearness. At the moment, he was attempting to decant that energy into navigating the Bentley up Kentish Town Road at the speed of a small land-to-air missile.

He swerved around a lorry, and there was a moan from the seat beside him. “Crowley…” Aziraphale said again, more urgently.

“Angel, it’s fine. I’m arranging things, alright? Just have to make sure the Bentley’s not where anything else is, and vice versa. When have I ever hit anything?”

“You hit Anathema.”

“She hit me!”

Crowley took a turn on two wheels, and Aziraphale made a strange noise, part gulp and part hitching gasp: “Mph.” Crowley did look over then, and saw to his dismay that the angel was pale as chalk. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

“Shit!” Crowley screeched to a stop on the double yellows outside an Ethiopian restaurant. He was around the car and opening the passenger door before the chorus of car horns had dopplered into the distance. “What’s wrong?”

Aziraphale swallowed and blinked, keeping his body completely still. “I think,” he said, eyes straight ahead, “that I may have a touch of motion sickness.”

Motion sickness, dust allergy, what’s next? You going to make him lactose-intolerant so he can’t eat crème Anglaise? Crowley thought bitterly in the direction of the hanging clouds. He reached out to put a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder, but the angel stiffened. “Don’t. Touch me. Sorry. I might…”

He gagged and clapped a hand to his mouth. Crowley waited, feeling the unique sympathy of someone who’d recently lost a battle with their own stomach. After a long moment, Aziraphale relaxed. He leaned back against the seat, and a bit of colour returned to his face. “I apologise. That was extraordinarily unpleasant.”

“Don’t have to tell me. Is it gone?”

Aziraphale tried to look at him, but quickly returned his gaze to the middle distance. He groaned. “I can’t move my eyes.”

“Just a sec.” Crowley tapped on his phone:

Crowley shot back a thumbs up and knelt, shoulders level with Aziraphale’s thighs. Another horn blared. They ignored it.

“Is it normal to feel burning in the back of your throat? Urp.” Another of those half-gulps.

“Give me your arm.” Crowley held a hand out, keeping his voice level and his motions practical. He’s sick, he told himself firmly. This wasn’t even a pseudo-relaxing sexy massage, this was medical care, and he needed to get his mind and various points south on board with that. It was just that the thrill of laying his hands on Aziraphale’s skin hadn’t come close to diminishing, and he wasn’t sure it ever would.

Aziraphale looked puzzled, but he put out his arm, palm down. Crowley pushed the coat to his elbow and slid the button at his wrist free before rolling the sleeve up, keeping his face neutral, trying to act like he hadn’t fantasised about doing this a hundred times before.

Conservative estimate.

“Anathema said this would help.” He set three fingers just below the crease that divided wrist from palm, measuring the distance like the picture indicated, then felt for the space between the tendons with his opposite thumb.

“What’s my wrist got to do with my stomach?”

“About as much as your inner ear has to do with it, suppose. I don’t make the rules. Here, I’m meant to press down,” he said, and did. Aziraphale inhaled sharply. Crowley, keeping the pressure steady, moved his thumb in tiny circles. “Two minutes.”

The sun peeked out for a moment, catching the golden hairs on Aziraphale’s forearm, and Crowley was prepared to go on record saying the sight could rival the finest oils in the National Gallery for striking, breathtaking beauty.

You’re waxing poetic over an arm. An arm, his inner voice said wearily.

Well, so what. Hadn’t Pablo Neruda written an ode to feet? There were poems dedicated to thighs and tits and all sorts of things; he could have a moment over an actual angel’s forearm. It was only fair.

Aziraphale’s voice interrupted his reverie. “After two minutes of that I may have another problem.”

He couldn’t be expected not to flick his eyes up. Saint Paul would’ve flicked his eyes up. When he did, it was to the (gorgeous, exhilarating, gratifying) sight of Aziraphale’s erection straining the flies of his high-waisted trousers. The surge of lust that hit him was as sudden and forceful as a physical blow. He’s that sensitive, he thought. Getting hard just from someone touching his wrist.

Not that Crowley was one to talk. He was plenty hard himself, just from doing the touching.

He looked back down quickly, pretending he hadn’t noticed. But then Aziraphale laughed, a little ruefully, and Crowley was laughing too, laughing and dropping his forehead to rest against the angel’s thigh. Aziraphale ran fingers through his hair. “It’s not my fault,” he said. “You’re very tempting, and you left me in quite a state back at your flat.”

“I provide your corporation with medical treatment, and this is the thanks I get,” Crowley complained, but he didn’t drop Aziraphale’s wrist. He pressed, relaxed, circled. Aziraphale made a noise in his throat that almost undid him.

They both jerked at the sound of a drawn-out beeeep and the patter of water hitting steel. A lorry missed them by inches, splashing the Bentley on its way through a puddle. Crowley took a breath and got himself back under control. Slow.

He gave Aziraphale’s wrist a final pat and returned it to his lap. “Better?”

“Miles.” When he looked up again, it was into the full blast of Aziraphale’s grateful, crinkle-eyed smile. His eyes were grey and glowing, like clouds with the sun behind. “Thank you.”

Crowley never knew what to say to that. He bobbed his head minutely, then put his hands on his thighs and jackknifed to his feet. He caught Aziraphale sneaking a glance at his trousers as he did so.

“Perhaps not so fast through the roundabouts this time?” Aziraphale said as he turned away.

“Roger. I’ll hug the curves.” Crowley shot a look over his shoulder that was all raised eyebrow and strategically bitten lip, and Aziraphale’s mouth dropped open. He grinned to himself as he walked back around the car to his seat.

The humans had pushed two tables together in the far corner of the pub. Shadwell looked his usual rumpled self; it seemed someone had persuaded him to put on a clean shirt but it was already grimy around the collar. He gazed out the window, a curl of smoke rising from his cupped hands. Anathema, diagonally across from him, scowled. Newt was talking quickly, apparently trying to broker a peace treaty.

Tracy spotted them first. She rose from the padded bench, beaming, and kissed Aziraphale on the cheek. Both angel and demon were engulfed in a cloud of jasmine perfume, and Aziraphale emerged smeared with crimson lipstick. “Aziraphale, in the flesh!” She winked. “And you’ve brought your gentleman friend, how lovely.”

Crowley didn’t really do introductions. He tried to glower a little less fiercely.

“Ah, yes, well!” Aziraphale, looking rather pink, made a little flapping hand gesture at the seated humans. “Lovely to see you all. Thank you very much for coming, and on such short notice.”

“How could we miss this? Not everyday you get asked to lunch by an actual entity from beyond the veil, now is it? I’ve a list of questions– just in the line of professional curiosity, you understand.” Tracy dug in her pocket.

“Sit down, woman. Y’said ye were well oot of that.” Shadwell glared at them from under heavy brows.

“I am, love, I am. I took the adverts down. But I spent all those years communing with the dead, you know, and never once did they commune back until I met your Mr. Aziraphale. You can’t blame me for wondering what it’s like.”

“Damp. Unless you’re a door-to-door salesperson, in which case, it’s cold,” said Crowley without thinking.

Aziraphale elbowed him. “Can we get anyone a drink?” he said to a table on which six drinks already sat. (Between the massage at the flat and the massage on the side of the road, they were running quite late.)

“I ordered for you.” Anathema gestured to the two unclaimed glasses. “You’re having a passionfruit martini, Aziraphale. He’s having a Coke.”

An anticipatory grin bloomed on Aziraphale’s face. “My dear, how did you know?” The angel had Views about passionfruit and its absence from most cocktail menus, which he thought was a grave oversight.

“How did ye know? Mindreadin’?” Shadwell leaned forward, trying to be as intimidating as his barely-five-feet would allow. “I canna abide witchcraft under me very nose.”

“She’s not using witchcraft, she’s just nosy,” said Crowley. “Course she knows our drinks orders. She pro’bly knows my knicker size by now.”

“And you’re not supposed to smoke in here.” Anathema gave Shadwell a pointed look, then flicked her eyes up to the No Smoking sign.

“Who said I’m smokin’?” Shadwell raised his cupped hands to his face. Another white cloud drifted up, smelling of stale tobacco, but he had a point– Crowley never quite saw the cigarette.

“Mr. Shadwell, just put it away, there’s a dear,” said Tracy, unbothered. She sat back down, drawing Aziraphale into the seat beside her.

Crowley perched in the chair next to Anathema, who pulled a face at him. He snapped his fingers under the table, then handed her the crystal pendant he’d seen her eyeing at the market, before clicking her tongue at the price and turning away. “Sorry for last night,” he muttered. He didn’t really do apologies either.

He’d tried to be subtle with the gesture, but Shadwell was surprisingly observant. To be fair, Crowley thought, he’s spent his whole career watching out for just this sort of thing. The man choked on his mouthful of ale, then slammed the glass down hard enough to splash flecks of foam over the side. “Ay thoot we had an understanding,” he said to Crowley in a tone of betrayed outrage. “Come to find oot you’re in league wi' the deel himsel', an’ a nancy boy to boot!”

“Sergeant!” Newt exclaimed.

“Duncan! There’s no call for that kind of talk, none at all! You apologise to Mr. Crowley this instant.”

“He’s not, technically, a boy.” Aziraphale raised a pedantic finger.

“Jealous?” Crowley smiled with all his teeth. Shadwell sank back a bit. “Anyway, we’re just friends.”

“Friends. Right.” Aziraphale’s shoulders sank. Crowley mentally hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “We are. Friends. Yes.”

Anathema rolled her eyes. “I think that about does it for small talk. Nice going, Mr. S. Why don’t you and Newt go and order lunch?”

“No need, no need!” Aziraphale sprung up from his seat. He made “stay where you are” hand motions at Shadwell. “I’ll go with the lad. I’d like to peek at the menu, and this is my treat in any case.”

“Angel–”

“I’ll get you the fish and chips,” Aziraphale said, voice over-bright.

Crowley opened his mouth to say– anything, really, but Aziraphale was already gone. Newt trailed behind him like a bemused duckling.

Crowley put his head in his hands.

“Smooth,” Anathema commented, sipping something peach-coloured and bubbly.

“We are friends,” Crowley said wretchedly.

“But you’ve slept together.”

Crowley levelled her with a yellow glare over the tops of his glasses. “Do you have a bloody crystal ball or something?”

Tracy perked up. “If you don’t, they sell them wholesale at the Astrology Shop off Seven Dials. They tend to fog, you know, so it’s best to have a spare.”

“Who asked you?” Crowley snapped.

“You watch your divil tongue when you’re talkin’ to the lady, foul demon.”

“Dear, he’s just upset, there’s no need to carry on. I can look after myself perfectly well.” Tracy said calmly. She turned to Crowley. “ I believe you did, love. Why else did you ask us all to come here?”

“Can’t an angel and demon treat the humans who helped save the world to lunch?”

“Is that what we did? Thought as much,” Shadwell grunted with satisfaction.

“They wanted us to come because they need advice on being human,” Anathema said.

“That’s part of it, I admit,” said Aziraphale’s apologetic voice from behind Crowley’s right shoulder. He and Newt were back, Newt holding one of those black discs that buzzed when your order was up. “Crowley and I have embarked on a necessary biological experiment. We ascertained that we’d be unable to maintain these bodies without allowing them to be functional enough to self-repair.”

“We got fired. Heaven and Hell used to patch us up when we got injured, but they won’t anymore,” Crowley translated.

Shadwell frowned, if possible, more deeply. “Yer just possessin’ those bodies, then?” He looked imploringly at Newt. “Ah told ye, it’s witchcraft! Takin’ on the faces of humans like a witch would ride oot in the body of a toad.”

“In a way,” Aziraphale said simply, sliding back into his seat. “Although I’d like to believe there’s more to it than that. We’ve been man-shaped for six thousand years, and I think the shape alone influences one’s thoughts and responses, particularly after so much time. Perhaps we’re finally becoming what we were trying to be all along.”

Crowley blinked. Was this the same angel who’d fussily turned off all of his body functions less than a week ago?

Shadwell didn’t look satisfied. “Where’d ye get ‘em, anyway? Digging in a graveyard at midnight, under a blood moon?”

“Oi, excuse me. I moulded this body out of the firmament myself, thank you very much. Where’d you get yours?”

“Adam was good enough to restore my corporation, as you saw. But we’ve been having some problems, and, well. I suppose it’s selfish of us, really, but who else could we ask?” Aziraphale’s smile looked strained. Crowley’s heart ached.

Madame Tracy laid a hand on top of his. “Look no further, ducks. I’m something of an expert when it comes to helping people through their first time with things. Almost everything boils down to getting past the fear of it, you know. They say a person is truly brave when they feel the fear and do it anyway.”

“Who does? Inspirational coasters?” Crowley muttered, but no one heard him.

“That’s just it! Fear! We’ve both been having rushes of paralysing anxiety. Muscles freezing up, tachycardia, diaphoresis, shortness of breath… I believe it’s adrenergic, linked to the biological ‘fight or flight’ response, but there’s no threat! There’s just… well…” he looked helplessly at Crowley.

“First time for me, we were at the bookshop,” Crowley said. Stick to facts, that was the way forward. “Then again the next evening, in my flat. Aziraphale had just got dinner on. Third time was… uh. Later that same night. It’s been mostly my problem, but this morning something similar happened to Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale’s fingers drummed nervously against the table. He looked at his drink, but didn’t have any. “Something must be wrong. That’s why we wanted you all to come here. We thought perhaps you’d have heard of something like this.” He looked at Anathema. “You knew what to do for my allergies, and Crowley’s unfortunate mishap with the lager.”

Anathema had a peculiar expression on her face, like she’d bitten into a chocolate filled unexpectedly with chicken salad.

“Is it some sort of bug?” Crowley implored Newt. “Like a computer system error?”

“Uh–”

Tracy stirred her Pimm’s Cup with a slice of cucumber. “What are the circumstances?”

“The circumstances? It just happens!”

“When does it happen, love? Call me an old silly, but sometimes these feelings come over me and I’ve learned to pay them mind. Right now they’re telling me that context might be important.”

“Well, we’re always together,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale fiddled with the stem of his glass. “It seems to involve our proximity to one another, somehow. Particularly if we’re doing something… novel. From a physical standpoint.”

Shadwell coughed. Newt took a sudden, large swallow of Guinness.

Tracy looked serene. “What sort of physical things, love?”

Aziraphale turned as red as the padded bench. Crowley was suddenly, acutely aware that they were sitting in a half-full pub in the middle of the afternoon. But he probably owed the angel one after the “just friends” comment, so he did his best to field the question. “Um,” he said.

Anathema broke the silence, making a noise into her drink that was almost certainly a laugh. Peach seltzer splashed over the side of her glass.

“Don’t laugh, Ana,” Newt said softly. “I was terrified when we first… youknow.”

“You were?”

“I was. But you said we only had two hours left to live. That sort of thing makes you bold.”

Tracy’s face was sympathetic. “You’re both very new at this, aren’t you?”

“New at what?” Azirapahle looked lost.

Shadwell was looking incredulously between the two of them. “How long have ye been on Earth?”

“Er. Six thousand years?”

“Did ye spend all yer time on witchcraft, then? I’d think even a couple o’ great Southern pillocks like yourselves could work it oot, long as you had eyes tae see.”

“Work what out?” Aziraphale asked him desperately. “Do you know?”

Crowley got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d just put his own set of puzzle pieces together, partly because he’d had hormones for longer than the angel had, partly because he’d seen a lot of movies. In retrospect, he wondered how he could have been so stupid as to allow Aziraphale to gather humans, in public, to talk about the neuroendocrine manifestation of what he now realised was just a severe case of first-time jitters.

The angel had been reading the wrong sort of books, that was all. The answer had been there all along, not in human physiology texts but in Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë and bloody Shakespeare.

Shadwell opened his mouth. Tracy shoved a strawberry into it, quick as a hummingbird.

Shit. Crowley came to the further realization that a homophobic probably-Scottsman was about to tell Aziraphale that Crowley was in love with him; just as soon as he swallowed a bit of gin-soaked fruit. He silently spat a few curses so virulent that they’d have grown wings and flown away if he’d voiced them. Out loud he said, “Look. “Nothing’s changed except the hormones, okay? And neurotransmitters, and, and, vitamin levels, maybe. It has to be something to do with that.”

Anathema’s expression had morphed into something understanding and a little sad. “Maybe your bodies are still working out how to regulate cortisol,” she said.

Aziraphale’s face fell. “You don’t know. Well, no matter. We have other resources.”

“But it’s simple,” Shadwell protested. “Noo, I dinnae condone it, but you’re clearly fallin’ in argh.”

“I’m sorry dear, my foot slipped. Me in my heels today, too.” Tracy smiled brightly.

“But–“

Crowley snapped his fingers under the table again, and the alert began to buzz. “Food’s ready,” he said, and was off to the bar before anyone could stop him. He’d miracle their dishes out if he had to.

By the time Crowley arrived back at the table (juggling several plates of sandwiches, one basket of fish and chips and a slice of toast slathered in something green and slimy enough for a witch’s cauldron; he’d tried to send it back but had been told it was ‘avocado toast’ and part of their order) the conversation had been steered into safer waters.

Newt and Aziraphale were talking about dust. “It was terrible when I was a kid,” Newt said. “Mum had to bin my stuffed toys when I was about eight– the dust mites were giving me asthma attacks. All the rugs in the house went at the same time, which seemed to help a little.”

Aziraphale paled, probably at the thought of having to get rid of his books. “What’s an asthma attack?”

“I can’t give you the kind of answer you’d get at the GP. All I know is how it feels– like you’re breathing through a straw. Hard to get enough air in, and even harder to get it out. I wheeze like a teakettle.” He pulled a plastic tube out of his pocket and held it up. “Two sprays of this daily. I think it’s some kind of steroid.”

Crowley passed out the plates. Aziraphale examined the tiny writing on the side of the tube. “‘Beclomethasone’… a steroid? This is meant to suppress the immune system.”

“Just the part that makes me wheeze, mate.”

“B-but surely you need your immune system! Why, that’s half the reason we did what we did!” Aziraphale was visibly flustered.

“Course I need it. But mine tends to go overboard–”

“Just like yours, with the dust allergy,” Anathema pointed out to Aziraphale.

“And this calms it down. Humans have all sorts of things like that. Most of our physical systems need to work a certain way for us to stay healthy. When they don’t, we sort of help them along.”

Aziraphale sighed unhappily. “I know that that’s true, but at the same time I don’t understand it. She’s meant to have made everything perfectly. In Her image. Perhaps this is demonic influence.”

Crowley’s lip curled. “No offence meant, I’m sure.”

Aziraphale looked up at him, face set in that determined way that told Crowley he was about to be wrong about something, but academically. Sometimes he constructed a scaffolding of facts and hid inside to avoid admitting he’d built it on shifting sand. “I didn’t say you would have interfered, dear. But as I recall, Lucifer resented the creation of the humans. He worked closely with the design team. I’m just saying it’s possible.”

“Lucifer wanted to make stars. He didn’t give a fart in a windstorm about the humans. That was the entire problem. As you know.”

“But he was resentful when She had other priorities. He produced a child meant to destroy the world, Crowley. You can’t say he isn’t above sabotaging Her creations.”

Crowley sputtered. “Y-y-you said it was the Great Plan! You were perfectly happy to go along with it at first!”

“That’s not true.”

“It is, it is. ‘It’s all going to be rather lovely’, I distinctly remember you saying. When you thought the end of the world was Her idea, you weren’t going to lift a finger to stop it!”

Aziraphale blinked. The expression on his face was three-quarters resentment, twenty percent hurt, and the tiniest bit of… something else, Crowley didn’t even know what. “That isn’t fair,” he said quietly.

“No more than it’s fair to assume She’s perfect, ‘cause she’s not. Not when She sent the flood, not when She had Azrael kill all those kids in Egypt, and not now.”

Aziraphale dropped his eyes. When he looked up again his expression was cheerful, his smile as fake as the table’s dusty floral centrepiece. He directed his words at the wide-eyed humans: “Let’s eat! The food will get cold.”

“I have to use the loo,” Crowley muttered, and stalked off.

It was a good excuse, Crowley thought two minutes later, but it didn’t work on everyone. “What’re you doing in the gents’?” he growled in the direction of Anathema’s voice.

“Restrooms should be moving towards gender inclusivity. Anyway, there’s nobody here but us.”

Crowley made sure she could hear him sigh. He’d used the toilet for its intended purpose, and now he was just sitting on top of the closed lid with the stall door shut, brooding.

Anathema’s boot heels clicked on the tile. “What happened last night?” she asked.

“Why do you want to know? Come to scoff at the immortals, fumbling around in a sea of mind-altering chemicals?”

“We’re friends. And if you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been trying to help you.”

Crowley bared his teeth at her, invisibly. “Not much to tell. We had a bit of, oh, whatever you want to call it. Aziraphale would probably say something like ‘slap and tickle’, or ‘a roll in the hay’.” Satan help him, he was in love with someone who said things like that.

“For Heaven’s sake, Crowley! That’s what you wanted! Why’re you sulking in the toilets?”

“It doesn’t mean anything!” Crowley said, hearing the plaintive note in his voice. “We’ve got hormones; well, he’s got hormones and I’ve got more hormones. That’s it. He’s got off with me ‘cause I was there.”

“Right, sure, of course. Obviously that’s why. He’s out there right now making calf’s eyes at Shadwell, him being the next closest male body and all.”

“He is?” Crowley popped out of the stall.

Anathema, leaning against the sink, rolled her eyes. “Of course he isn’t. Although they are both waxing poetic over the short rib burger.”

“...Oh.”

“You’re exaggerating the negative.”

“I’m a fallen angel. In case you hadn’t noticed, the negative tends to happen to me.”

Anathema shrugged one shoulder. “Well, the actual angel looks at you like you hung the stars, if you would just open your eyes and notice. But you can’t expect someone to know all the steps of the dance when it’s their first time on the floor. You ought to cut him a break.”

Crowley pooched his lips out, thinking this over. “What do you know about it, anyway?” he said, at length.

Anathema smiled in a slightly conspiratorial way. “I’m Newt’s first, too.”

“Is he your first?”

Anathema snorted in lieu of an answer. “Right. Look, I’m just saying, I’m not going to run off and pout if he doesn’t always know what he’s supposed to say. His heart’s in the right place.”

“You liar!” Crowley pointed a finger at her. She giggled, and it felt… good. Sort of like teasing Aziraphale, but lighter. Less complicated. Was this what friendship was? “Two days ago, you weren’t speaking to him ‘cause he was still huntin’ witches, at least in name.”

Anathema sniffed. “That’s different.”

“She said, hypocritically.”

“It’s a philosophical divide we have yet to reconcile.”

Crowley’s mood darkened again. “Yeah, well. Imagine six thousand years of ‘philosophical divides’.”

“So you throw up your hands and walk away, or you figure it out,” Anathema said. “I’m just saying that if you want to figure it out, I think he does too.”

Crowley glowered at her. She smirked and crossed her arms. Crowley, to his dismay, broke first. He turned away to wash his hands, pretending he hadn’t conceded. “You really think he does?”

“I do. But I’ve only known you for about two seconds. Ask him!”

Anathema headed for the door. As she put her hand on the copper plate Crowley said, “Hey. Uh. Thanks. I think I owe you one, or more than one. Several.”

“Don’t mention it.” Anathema laughed. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had.”

Crowley stared after her, trying to figure out what she meant by that. The paper towel dispenser wasn’t talking, though, so after a minute he loped back to the table and slid into his seat with his shoulders hunched.

Fortunately, Aziraphale had finished his lunch; Crowley didn’t think he could have endured another show like the one he’d gotten this morning. As he started to pick at his chips (now so cold and soggy he doubted even an angel could love them), he was greeted by a nervous smile. “I-I was just telling Tracy there are a few additional volumes I’d like to collect from my shop, along with some personal items. She and Mr. Shadwell are willing to take you back to their flat for a few of Tracy’s resources–”

“I’m retired now, ducks, and I can’t think when I’ll use them, but I’ve a few things that might help you work out the, uh, the…”

“Panic attacks,” said Newt, at the same time Aziraphale said, “Corporeal malfunctions,” and Tracy said, “Kinks.”

“At any rate, it’s only a few books and a stack of magazine articles, but they might be more specific to your particular situation than the medical texts,” said Tracy.

“–and then on to the bookshop.” Aziraphale handed Crowley a sheet of notebook paper. “Here’s what I need, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh?” said Crowley. Then: “Wait, where’re you gonna be?”

“Newton was kind enough to offer to walk me to the nearest station. I shall take the Victoria line.” He sat back, looking pleased with himself. Crowley wondered if the humans had given him one of those Underground credit card maps.

“But why not all go together? Bentley’s big enough for four.”

“Oh, I-I shouldn't come into the bookshop, really. I’ll sneeze.”

“So we load you up with sprays again.”

“Or frankincense,” Anathema said.

“You don’t even have to go in,” Crowley said desperately.

Aziraphale shifted. “I’d rather take the Underground, if it’s all the same to you.”

Certainly it was ridiculous to feel cut to the quick over the idea of Aziraphale preferring the Tube to the Bentley. It wasn’t personal. He simply didn’t want to get sick again. There was no reason for the sensation in his chest, as if he’d gone to step down onto a staircase and encountered only empty air.

“I said I’d take him to the chemist, too,” Newt said into the loaded silence. “I’m an old pro at navigating the ‘cold, cough and allergy’ aisle. Hopefully find something that doesn’t put him to sleep.”

“But–”

“I'll get the tab!” Tracy exclaimed. “Here, don’t mind us, we’ll just take care of it and meet you outside.” She pushed past Aziraphale in a cloud of flowery scent, Shadwell’s wrist clasped firmly in one scarlet-nailed hand.

“But I’ve already paid–” started Aziraphale, who had, and honestly had probably paid for everyone else in the pub as well. That was the sort of thing he tended to do when left unsupervised.

“And Newt and I will just, uh, we need to use the toilets,” said Anathema.

“I’m alright, actually–”

“Newt, come on.”

Ten seconds later it was just the two of them. Aziraphale’s eyes darted around, then settled on Crowley’s face. He winced. “What’s the matter, dear? I’ll see you in an hour, and you won’t have to worry about my stomach.”

“Is this about me saying we were just friends?” Crowley blurted out.

“No! No.” Aziraphale picked at a cuticle. The resultant flicking noise seemed very loud. “Although I’d be lying if I said it didn’t smart a bit.”

“But we are friends.”

“We are! Yes.”

“You said. I remember. It was a little while after you told me we shouldn’t split up,” Crowley said, acidly.

Aziraphale sighed. “All right. I deserved that.”

He hadn’t. Crowley shook his head. “No, no, sorry, I just meant–”

“I definitely deserved to hear you say we were ‘just friends’. I imagine it made me feel the same way you did, all those times I said we weren’t.”

When Aziraphale looked up, his eyes were glossy. Crowley pushed his glasses to his forehead and knuckled his own eyes. “If it did… then I’m sorry.”

“No reason to be!” The angel’s smile was brittle. “What you said was at least the truth.”

Ask him. “Okay. That what you want to be, then? Friends?”

“Of course.”

Oh.

“And…”

Aziraphale’s eyes were very wide, but his voice was steady. “Perhaps something more.”

“Like what?” Crowley said. His inner voice puts its metaphorical face in both metaphorical hands.

“Well. I’d. Er. I mean, Anathema and Newt are… a-and Tracy and Shadwell are…”

“Courting?”

Aziraphale bit his lip. Then he nodded.

There was a pressure under Crowley’s breastbone. It felt like water building up behind a dam. “D’you want to court me?” he asked, voice somewhere in the stratosphere.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Aziraphale said crossly. “I’ve all but tattooed it on my forehead the past three days, Crowley. We’ve slept together. What on earth did you think?”

Crowley laughed, a bark of mixed joy and panic. “Honestly? I thought you were horny.”

Aziraphale heaved a large sigh, and his shoulders relaxed. “Well, that too, a bit.”

The dam broke. Cool waters flooded through him, and it felt like hope and relief and the sort of unadulterated happiness that usually only happens in films. Crowley was out of his seat before he even realised he was moving, grabbing Aziraphale by the hand and swinging him into his arms like a less graceful Fred Astaire. His back gave a warning twinge as he rose and twisted but it didn’t matter; he was holding his angel again and this time Aziraphale wasn’t shaking or sobbing, this time he was laughing and the pink roses were back in his cheeks.

Aziraphale settled their foreheads together and touched Crowley’s jaw with one soft hand. “Well then. Do you want to court me?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Crowley squeezed him tighter. He wished they could get their wings out here; he wanted to be wrapped up together to the very limit this dimension would allow.

“Why didn’t you say? You’re meant to ask for someone’s hand before taking them to bed, you know.”

“Not my fault, not my fault, I was…” Crowley grinned at him and managed to hiss a word with no sybillants: “...tempted.”

“An angel, tempting a demon? I must have had a very good teacher.”

Crowley thought his smile would split his face in half if it got any wider. “I wanted to kiss you two nights ago. Back at the bookshop.”

The laughter drained out of Aziraphale’s face, and Crowley froze instinctively… before recognizing the expression that replaced it. He’d seen it before, he realised, and not just over the past three days. He’d seen it in Rome. Seen it in Paris. Seen it in a Satanic religious-hospital-cum-team-building retreat. It was a little like how Aziraphale looked at food, but hotter and focused entirely on Crowley’s lips. His mouth began to tingle, that gaze warming them like sunlight through a convex lens.

Situational awareness fled, replaced by a bloom of eagerness that flooded his synapses. His hands tightened on Aziraphale’s hips. Aziraphale licked his full lower lip, tilted his head, and leaned in–

“Sirs! This is a family establishment.”

They jumped and separated. Crowley’s first panicked thought was that they’d been caught by one of their superiors, so when he turned and saw the (very human) speaker his relief turned immediately to anger. The man was balding and rotund, with a gleaming pate that barely reached Crowley’s shoulder and an expression suffused with self-righteousness.

Crowley hissed. “What’sss family got to do with it?”

The man sank back half a step, but rallied. “Y-you can carry on however you want behind closed doors, but be decent in public! My kids’re at an impressionable age, and it’s obscene.”

“Why’s that?” said Aziraphale, almost conversationally. “We were only going to kiss.” He nodded towards the pub’s front doors, where Anathema had pulled Newt into a brief liplock. “Like they just did. Twice.”

“With tongue,” Crowley added.

“Don’t be stupid, you know that’s different. Children shouldn’t be subjected to the sight of two blokes goin’ at it while they have their tea. We’re raising them to understand that marriage is between a man and a woman. Like the bible says.”

“Bible says a lot of things.”

“We’re not exactly men–” Aziraphale started.

Crowley interrupted him. “D’you miss your hair?”

“Oh dear.” Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Excuse me?”

“Betcha do,” Crowley said silkily. “Bet you’ve tried all the creams, the keratin oils, the ‘As Seen On TV’ treatments. Bet you’ve looked into surgery. You can forget about all that. I’ve got something better.”

“Crowley–”

“Don’t worry, angel.” Crowley grinned, or at least, showed all his teeth. “It’ll be a blessing.” He snapped his fingers.

Nothing appeared to happen.

The bald man, who’d gone pale, drew a deep breath. “Nutters, the both of you,” he said, and turned back to a table where two young boys of indeterminate pre-pubertal age were watching something on an iPad that seemed to have a lot of explosions in it. They didn’t look up when their father sat down.

Aziraphale took Crowley by the arm and dragged him forcibly to the door. “Darling, that wasn’t nice.”

“What? He wanted hair. Every desire in his head was for hair.”

“Yes, and now it’ll grow so fast he’ll need a barber twice a week.”

“Not just a barber.” Crowley smirked with satisfaction. “A waxer, too. And a nose hair trimmer, and someone to shave his back.”

Aziraphale tried to give him a reproving look, but the veneer cracked and he snorted. They walked together into the half-light of thickening clouds, where the humans stood waiting for them.

Aziraphale dropped his arm as they approached. The disappointment must have shown on Crowley’s face, because the angel immediately reached out again to twine their fingers. He tugged Crowley closer, then went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek– a soft, lingering press of lips. A promise.

“Later,” he whispered. “When we’re alone.”

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 6: Love and Fear

Why don’t we talk about what love is like down there? It’s not inferior to angelic love, it’s just different. You experience it in an elemental sense: “love” is an essential component of the “angel” energy signature, because I was heavily into radiation when you all were created. When I did humans I was more focused on chemistry, so “love” for humans is chemical. It’s the same sensation, though– at least, I think it is.

Love is important because humans will need to be social to survive, like I said. But fear is also important, because conditions on Earth are hostile. I had to find a way to tell humans– using these little chemical signals that push buttons in the brain and the body– when to spend time bonding with each other, and when to drop everything because there’s a hungry saber toothed tiger prowling around. I figured I could sort of link these two urges together. Love and fear, attraction and repulsion… they’re opposites, just like hot and cold. Why not make a kind of “approach/ run away” thermostat for the brain, where spinning the dial one way gives you fear and spinning it the other gives you love? It’s just another kind of homeostasis– a way to keep internal conditions stable.

So that’s what I did. I used two molecules that are almost identical: oxytocin and vasopressin. These two are active all over the body, they’re not picky… but in the brain, they’re concentrated in the amygdala, where the fear response is generated; the brainstem, which controls things like blood pressure and heart rate; and the cortex, where conscious thought and planning occur. Oxytocin and vasopressin are like hot and cold taps. When oxytocin turns on, you want to stay where you are and engage with the people around you. When vasopressin turns on, you want to get away.

At first, it seemed like it was going to work out great. Oxytocin does an incredibly good job binding people together. I let it synergise with dopamine a little, too, and the brain’s endogenous opioids– anything to increase that reward sensation. Basically, the brain gets a message saying “you’re safe here” and “this feels really, really good.” As a result, humans want to get close, cuddle… have sex if it’s that sort of relationship; play or talk if it’s not. A long time from now, scientists will come up with the term “immobility without fear”, which is just a fancy way of saying humans are peaceful and relaxed in one another’s presence when they feel love.

Turn the dial the other way and vasopressin kicks in, which prompts the human to go into “survival” mode in response to a threat. The sympathetic nervous system engages. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is produced in the adrenal glands. The amygdala lights up with fear, and all of these reactions help humans survive dangerous situations… like hungry saber toothed tigers, for example.

(Transcriber note: God sighs.) Okay. The actual thing is… well. You know how some sinks have one tap for “hot” and one tap for “cold” and the two streams only mix in the bowl? Sorry, of course you don’t. You will, though, in a few years. Trust me on this one. Sinks will be made with separate taps for a while, and sure, it simplifies the plumbing, but then you’re either scalding or freezing when you go to wash your hands. The humans will think– and I’m inclined to agree– that it’s better to have a way to blend things. I decided that oxytocin and vasopressin should be blended. Emotions are meant to be a gradient, not an on-off switch.

Only… it doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to. There’s a lot of really finicky wiring in there, alright? I ended up putting the cells that respond to oxytocin and the cells that respond to vasopressin right next to each other in the fear centre of the brain, because there’s just not that much room, and I figured it would be okay– but I also made the molecules so similar to each other that their receptors get them confused. For example: high levels of oxytocin after mating will cause a male prairie vole to kill any strange prairie vole in his territory. Territorial aggression is a vasopressin response, but when you’ve got lots of oxytocin floating around the vasopressin receptor gets activated– sort of by mistake– and next thing you know you’ve got a dead prairie vole who was just minding his own business. Oops.

I modulated that reflex in humans, but to be honest I’d already done the fiddly work laying everything down and I didn’t want to take it all apart and start over. So, jealousy is a thing. Hopefully it won’t cause humans too much trouble.

Then I noticed some weird stuff was happening at the transition point between love and fear. Vasopressin starts the fear cascade, which makes it hard to think clearly– it overrides your higher cognitive processes and reasoning, a little. Do you remember the other things that override your higher processes? Yeah, attraction and love. It turns out that the fear response and the love response aren’t all that different, chemically speaking. So you get things like… oh I don’t know. A fearful event during the “attraction” phase leading to increased levels of attachment to a romantic partner, for example. People are more likely to experience lust and love after they get scared. On the flip side, oxytocin can inhibit fear. And, as it turns out, you need both vasopressin and oxytocin to create pair bonds, because they won’t form with oxytocin alone.

That’s all fine, I guess… but with these variables in play, you get really unpredictable, risky, protective, territorial, anxious and compulsive behaviours that come along for the ride with romantic love. Let’s go back to the slide deck. Here, see these two? They’re doing something called “cuddling”, which is the best example of “immobilisation without fear” I could come up with. Now look at them. Notice the sweat on their brows, the wide eyes, the fearful looks on their faces. That’s “immobilisation with fear”, which is a vasopressin thing. You’ll get both of these responses, and everything in between, when two people fall in love. Because of the mixing thing.

Working with radiant energy was simpler, I will give you that.

After Crowley departed, accelerating the Bentley out of its parking spot so fast Shadwell’s head hit the back window with an audible clunk, Aziraphale turned to the two remaining humans. This was going to be tricky.

He laced his hands in front of him. “I have a favour to ask.”

“You’re not going to the tube station, are you.” It wasn’t a question. Anathema crossed her arms at him and glared, which seemed unfairly judgmental, seeing as she didn’t know where he was going instead. Maybe he had plans to bless a cancer ward populated entirely by malnourished, large-eyed orphans.

He didn’t, though. “Not exactly. I have to try to obtain a resource from my former employer. I couldn’t tell Crowley.”

“Why not?”

“He’d say it wasn’t safe.”

“Employer? You mean that big American with the lilac scarf?” Newt asked.

“You remember.”

“Some of it’s fuzzy, but yeah. That bloke with purple eyes, right? Looked like he was wearing coloured contacts to match his outfit? Good jawline. Kind of a wanker.”

“That’s Gabriel,” Aziraphale said wearily.

“And is Crowley right about him being dangerous? He seemed a little worked up the last time we met.” Anathema wrapped her coat around her. The wind was getting stronger.

“He’s an angel.”

“So that’s a yes.”

Aziraphale’s shoulders slumped. “Yes. I suppose. I doubt he’ll try to hurt us. If Crowley and I have played our cards right, he’ll be frightened of me. But he’s very powerful. Things have the potential to go… well… pear-shaped.”

“I like pears,” said Newt.

Aziraphale smiled. “If you’re willing to help me, here’s what I think we should do.”

Gabriel had mapped out his jogging routes sometime in the 17th century, and hadn’t changed them since. He was a creature of habit, and the white board in his office had displayed the same monthly schedule for so long that the ink had undergone some dry-erase version of fossilisation.

He ran through London parks Monday through Friday, though he whinged about the rain and was always going on about “giving the old corporation some Vitamin D” in sunnier locales at the weekend: lap swimming in Belize, cycling in Tuscany. Aziraphale thought he’d eventually abandon the UK and its perpetual gloom (now that he was no longer overseeing Heaven’s most recalcitrant angel), but figured it would take a couple of months for Gabriel to realise there was no reason to continue running the gauntlet of suggestive glances on the path by Whitestone Pond.

Not that he noticed anything of the sort. He’d been jogging through Hampstead Heath since moving at a “gentle bouncing trot” had been regarded with utmost suspicion, and was entirely oblivious to the blossoming of the cruising scene over the past two centuries. He’d once told Aziraphale how friendly the gentlemen were on his Thursday route: solicitous, chatty and impeccably dressed. Aziraphale had bitten the insides of his lips and nodded.

As it happened, providently or not, today was Thursday, and they’d had lunch less than two miles from the park. Now it was four-thirty, and if Aziraphale was right Gabriel would be crossing the road in front of Jack Straw’s Castle and coming down the hill towards them sometime in the next five minutes.

Aziraphale stood in the centre of the path, hands in front of him and clearly empty, trying to look harmless. Anathema and Newt were concealed in the brush with their secret weapon.

He took a breath. There was a trembling sensation in his chest and a noise in his head that sounded like rushing water. He tried telling himself the odds were in their favour. He was almost positive that Gabriel would remain civil. And if he didn’t, he was almost positive he wasn’t bright enough to see through their ruse.

Almost.

It was still a gamble. But Gabriel couldn’t kill him. And they needed that… book. Or whatever it was.

Squinting intensely at every broad-shouldered fellow to come down the hill towards them was certainly sending mixed signals. He’d already been asked if he was one person’s "Grinder" date, whatever that meant, and a few others had favoured him with a raised eyebrow or a suggestive caress to the front of their jeans. On the wide path through the woods, men lounged against trees or sat on benches, legs apart, singly or in pairs. Occasionally, two of them would head off, presumably to find a secluded spot in the bushes.

Aziraphale’s mind wasn’t on the comings and goings of the gentlemen, but something stirred in him all the same. Not lust, exactly, and not jealousy; something more like regret. It might have been enjoyable to know some of these young men… the way he could have known the young men at the Hundred Guineas if he’d been willing, at the time, to learn a different sort of dance. He’d seen what went on at the club, he wasn’t blind… he’d even been curious, in an academic sort of way. Now, he wondered how things might have gone if he’d had working androgens just a little sooner. He could have explored his physicality at a leisurely pace; learned to control the urges and the awkwardness; developed a sense of what he enjoyed and what he was good at. As things stood, he was terribly inexperienced. What if Crowley lost interest in his fumblings before they’d even properly begun?

A grey tracksuit was coming towards him, and Aziraphale snapped back to the present. The last time he’d seen Gabriel, he’d been all but gnashing his teeth in frustration, and had eventually imploded in an irate shower of purple sparks. Today, he was smiling. He nodded and threw little waves to the men, like a political candidate on the campaign trail.

Everyone perked up as he passed. Someone whistled.

“Ev’ry Thursday,” remarked a tall man with a hint of Scouse in his voice, “the Bishop there jogs down the path, swinging tha’ staff around.”

“Crosier,” said Aziraphale.

“Who’s he?”

“Bishops carry a crosier. But what staff…? Oh. I suppose I see.”

“Hung like an innocent woman during the Salem Witch Trials, he is.”

“Those sweats do leave very little to the imagination.”

“He flirts with all the lads but never stops fer a chat. That’s why we call 'im the Bishop, see? Chaste. We all wonder what it would take ta get under those robes.”

“He hasn’t worn robes in years. He’s partial to a silk blend suit, generally,” Aziraphale said without thinking.

The man looked him over with newfound admiration. “You ‘is boyfriend?”

“Oh, Lord no. We’re quite emphatically separated.”

An understanding nod. “Exes.”

“In a sense. Excuse me.”

Aziraphale stepped into the middle of the trail, hoping he looked more assured than he felt. His hands trembled, and he laced them behind his back. “Gabriel.”

Gabriel looked up… and froze. Just for an instant. Then he walked towards Aziraphale, arms swinging at his sides, a friendly smile plastered all over his face. The moment of hesitation had been reassuring. The look in his eyes was not.

“Hey, Aziraphale. Good to see you. How’ve you been?”

“Please spare me small talk. It was never a strength of yours, and after the attempted murder it falls particularly flat.”

Gabriel stopped in front of him, just a hair too close. It made Aziraphale want to lean back on his heels. He resisted. “Is that any way to say hello to an old pal?”

“We’re not friends.” Aziraphale’s mind was floating somewhere in midair, calmly watching his body lift its chin and glare at an archangel.

The smile dropped like it had never been there. “Fine. What do you want? I’m afraid your old posting is no longer available. The search committee is already interviewing candidates for your replacement.”

“I need…” Aziraphale clicked his teeth irritably. How was he meant to ask for something he’d never seen, that he’d heard referred to only in passing? “There’s a… guide. I know there is. Something She gave you to help maintain the human corporations.”

Gabriel gave him a considering look. “Sorry Aziraphale, not ringing any bells.”

“Oh, cut the… the crap.” Aziraphale pressed his lips together. His body was trying to shake, and he stopped it, barely, by clenching the big muscles of his thighs. “I went to every training. I was there when Raphael had to do all that extra healing, back at the beginning. I’m the one who got the nociceptors turned on. I know you were referring to something. You’d all gone to some lecture series and She gave you a guidebook.”

“You’ve been in that body an awfully long time,” Gabriel said. “Maybe the memory’s getting faulty, huh? I’ve heard that can happen.You should go see Raphael and get yourself a tune-up.”

“I’m not confabulating, Gabriel.” He wasn’t… and the pressure in his ears, the feeling of heaviness in the air… that wasn’t his imagination either. Gabriel was gathering power.

He took a fortifying breath. He can’t hurt you. He thinks you can hurt him. “There’s nothing at all wrong with my memory, or with my ears. Michael was talking to Uriel during one of the bipedal ambulation drills. She referred to an ‘Operations Manual’.”

Gabriel’s eyes blazed. Aziraphale hoped it was just a trick of the light, though come to think of it the light was fading. A storm was on the way. “Afraid you don’t have access to classified documents, pal. Not that you ever did, at your pay grade, but you definitely don’t anymore. Official policy when it comes to traitors and defectors.”

“That’s right. I am a traitor, if it pleases you to think so.” Aziraphale gave him a thin smile. “I’ve certainly defected. You remember how that went, don’t you? You must. After all, you were there, and I was there, and oh, there was something about Hellfire…”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all. No more than you threatened me, all those times you showed up unannounced with Sandalphon in tow. I believe you wanted to remind me of what you could do to me if I disobeyed. Think of this situation as, oh, what’s that delightful method of expression the humans use? The shoe being on the other foot.”

“You haven’t got Hellfire here.” It wasn’t a trick of the light. Gabriel’s eyes were glowing from within, holy radiance throwing the bands and crypts in his irises into sharp relief.

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. If you grant my request there’ll be no need to find out.”

Gabriel’s gaze flicked from side to side. It was less than a second, but Aziraphale saw it. He wasn’t as assured as he seemed, then. Aziraphale could work with that. “Go ahead and look around. There’s lots of places to hide. It could be anywhere.”

The archangel shifted nervously, and actually did look around for a moment. A thin young man in a crew-neck sweater gave him a finger-wiggle wave.

“You’re a tourist here,” Aziraphale reminded him. “But I’m on my own ground.”

“Your ‘ground’... oh, my God. That's it, isn’t it? That’s why you want it.” Gabriel grinned. His expression had layers: outwardly friendly, with a mocking in the tilt of the lips and eyebrows, and darkly murderous underneath. “You want to be a human! Is that what ‘going native’ means? Grubbing around in the dirt and blood and fluids with the rest of them? Disgusting. And you call yourself an angel.”

An angel. He was an angel. He’d spent his long life walking over and around and through the misery of human existence without getting so much as a smudge on his white robes. No urges, no drives, no neuropeptides. None of the things that drove the humans to dangerous extremes of love, war, rage and betrayal. In his mostly-for-show corporation, he’d been safe.

Aziraphale thought of Crowley’s face– shouting at him to come to Alpha Centauri, snarling over being called ‘nice’, inspecting his wounds with solemn intensity. Of his eyes, gone all-over gold with fear or passion. Of his smile when he’d said he wanted to kiss Aziraphale.

His life as an angel had been safe. And peaceful. And clean.

And empty.

Thunder crashed, somewhere over London. Leaves blew across the path with a skittering noise. Gabriel was glowing all over now; Aziraphale wondered if the radiance was visible to the humans (“the Bishop” and his angry ex-boyfriend had gathered quite a crowd). He also wondered if the archangel would attract the electricity of the storm like a lightning rod, but that was probably too much to hope for.

He raised his voice to be heard over the wind. “Gabriel, I don’t want trouble. I just want the manual. That’s all, I swear I won’t seek you out again.” He spread his hands reassuringly.

A crack of lighting. Aziraphale thought for a moment Gabriel actually had been struck. He blazed briefly, hurting Aziraphale’s eyes, and when the light faded to shifting, purple after-images he was holding a flaming sword.

Shit, shit, shit. He hadn’t thought Gabriel would call down his sword. The archangel had been wearing suits and pushing papers for centuries; after the Annunciation gig he’d shifted to full time administrative duty. But of course he still could, any angel could reach for their weapon anytime, even while they were in a human corporation.

Any angel, that is, except for Aziraphale, who no longer had one.

“A sword and a staff?” someone called. “The Bishop’s gonna take us to Heaven.”

“Is it a staff in his pocket? Or is he just happy to see us?”

“Oi, Daddy, show us how big it is!”

“It’s not how big, it’s how he uses it.”

Perhaps the humans thought this was a bit of street theatre. No one was running; in fact, more were converging on the scene. Stupid, Aziraphale thought desperately. Get out of here while you can. You’re ants to him. He wouldn’t even see you as collateral damage.

Gabriel looked down at his hand, like he was surprised to see what it held. As he hefted the blade he tipped Aziraphale a conspiratorial glance. “I know you’re immune to Hellfire,” he said. “But what about holy flame? Should we try it? I think we should. It’ll be fun. You like human sensations, right?”

“Gabriel…” Aziraphale fell back a step. He couldn’t help it.

Gabriel struck, quick as a cobra.

The tip of the blade passed over Aziraphale’s cheek, and at first he thought it had been a bluff, that the archangel had sliced the empty air. But then his cheek began to burn. Warm droplets slid down his face like tears.

He gasped. Gabriel bared his teeth in vicious triumph. “Not untouchable after all.” He raised the sword again.

The crowd erupted in dismay. “Whoa whoa whoa hold on. Is he bleeding?”

“Jesus, what the Hell!”

“Are they cosplaying?”

“Lover’s quarrel?”

“Exes, they’re exes,” someone said, and then: “Why’d ye seek 'im out, mate? He’s nuts!” That was the Scouse voice again.

“My ex went crazy too. Had to get an injunction in the end.”

“Yeah but Carl didn’t have a huge fuck off sword, Anton!”

“I’m dialling 999.”

“Anathema!” Aziraphale called, or tried to. His voice was as dry and thin as the wind whipping around them. But he got through. Somehow he got through.

There was a roaring, crackling sound and a blaze of light from the trees, then Anathema and Newt stepped out of the concealing branches. Anathema held a silver stock pot at arm’s length (£9.50 at the kitchen shop off Hampstead High Street).

Inside it was an inferno.

The humans advanced. The crowd fell silent, though several people held up mobiles. Gabriel faltered.

Aziraphale took two healthy steps backwards. He willed his voice not to shake. “I warned you.”

The pot was boiling angrily, its contents too bright to look at directly. Red, gold and white chrysanthemums rocketed upward from the source of the flame. Not too close, Aziraphale thought desperately. If Gabriel got hit with a spark, it would be all over.

He took the handles of the pot from Anathema and made a show of waving the thing around, letting the fire illuminate his face. “The book, Gabriel. Now.”

The murderous expression had blotted out the more superficial ones, but Gabriel didn’t try to strike him again. He held onto the sword but kept it pointed down by his side, like a child who’s been chastised for poking a stick in someone’s eye. “I don’t have it,” he said in a reluctant, grating voice. “Uriel has it.”

Anathema and Newt flanked Aziraphale. Anathema was staring at his wounded cheek, face pale. Aziraphale shoo-ed them behind him. “How do I get it?”

Gabriel, despite everything, rolled his eyes. (Someone in the crowd said, “Wanker.”) He drew a glowing tablet out of his pocket, pressed a button, and spoke into it, gaze never leaving the flaming pot.

Hurry up, Aziraphale thought. They had three minutes at most.

After an agonising interlude, Gabriel put the tablet down. “Uriel’s on assignment in Belgium, and then we have the quarterly budget to sign off. She’ll meet you in three days. 12 Hay Hill, off Berkeley Square.”

Aziraphale nodded tightly. The fountain of sparks was starting to sputter. “I don’t want a war, Gabriel. Truly I don’t. I just want the manual. In exchange, I won’t try to interfere with Heaven’s plans– the reasonable ones, at least. And I won’t bother you again.”

Gabriel was visibly casting around for an appropriate attitude to project. “Graceful defeat” clearly wasn’t in his repertoire, so he went with “affronted irritation”. He waved his hand. The sword disappeared, and his internal glow went out like someone had flicked a switch.

The flames died a few seconds later.

Everyone appeared to relax. Newt snatched the pot from the ground and threw his coat over it to conceal its contents. Anathema stepped to Aziraphale’s side and pressed a handkerchief against his cheek.

Some of the humans clapped. “Blast,” Aziraphale whispered. “Am I going to have to wipe their memories?”

The crowd was breaking up. Anathema waved her mobile. “Thanks everyone! It’s for TikTok,” she said loudly.

Gabriel and Aziraphale looked at her, perplexed. She shrugged. “You can do whatever you want in public if people think you’re filming it for social media.”

Gabriel clapped his hands together. “Three o’clock on Monday, then. Uriel will be there. Don’t be late.”

Aziraphale nodded. He was sure he was only still upright because all his muscles had locked up. His stomach was leaden and his knees were trying to collapse out from under him.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish my run.” Gabriel smiled and smoothed his hair, as if his sunny facade had never cracked. “The humans on this route always appreciate my presence. They’re an extremely reverent bunch, I must say. I’ve seen them on their knees more than once.”

He waved at the three of them, turned, and headed off down the path.

Anathema stared after him. “Someone should tell him.”

Aziraphale barely heard her. His ears were ringing. He touched his cheek, and stared at the blood on his fingertips. Time slowed down, his heart slowed down, and a black chasm opened up in the centre of his vision…

Newt caught him under the armpits before he could fall. “Easy.”

Anathema held his gaze. “Squeeze your glutes.”

“What?” Aziraphale’s eyes wanted to drift closed. He fought the urge. Sparks danced in front of him, like the “Hellfire” was still burning.

“Squeeze your glutes. Your butt muscles. Your blood pressure is too low, and your blood’s collecting in your extremities. Tense up your muscles and get it back to your heart.”

Breath tearing in and out of his chest, Aziraphale did as he was told. Slowly his vision cleared. After a minute, he was able to stand under his own power. “What on earth was that?”

“Vasovagal reaction. It’s a reflex. It’s what makes some people faint at the sight of blood.” She used her handkerchief to wipe all traces of red from Aziraphale’s fingertips, then folded it carefully and handed it back to him.

He slowly pressed it against his cheek. “Th-thank you. Um. How is it you know all of this?”

“I thought I might have to survive in a post-apocalyptic Hellscape. So I learned about herbs. And healing plants. And some basic first aid.” She shrugged. “Not that it would have helped, but it made me feel a little better about things.”

Newt was peering into the pot. “I don’t think it’s salvageable. The inside’s scorched to kingdom come.” He pulled out the smoking remains of a shell. The words “Bellagio Firework Fountain” (£29.99, YTM Fireworks Hampstead) were just legible on its side.

Aziraphale sighed shakily. “No matter. The pot and the incendiary were forty pounds very well spent.”

There was a snarl of an engine, and they all looked up. The Bentley had apparently taken the steep path behind the pub’s car park at speed, and was now bouncing towards them with a fury that eclipsed the approaching thunderstorm.

Aziraphale whipped his head around towards Anathema, who looked a little sheepish. “I didn’t expect him to have a sword, Aziraphale,” she whispered fiercely. “I thought we might need backup.”

The car screeched to a stop in front of their little group. Crowley exploded out, eyes uncovered and wild, lips drawn back in a snarl.

Aziraphale stepped forward, holding out a reassuring hand. “Crowley, he’s gone!”

The look Crowley gave him froze him in his tracks. The demon stalked a wide circle around them, taking in Aziraphale’s burned and bleeding cheek, the scorched pot, the spent firework tube. His eyes grew wider with every new item he catalogued. He stopped in front of Aziraphale, took him by the shoulders, and shook him roughly. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he shouted into his face.

Then he pulled Aziraphale to his chest and wrapped him in his arms so tightly he could hardly breathe.

“G’on ed, lad!” said a voice from behind them.

“Cor, is that ‘is boyfriend now? Professor there sure knows how to pull ‘em.”

“Come on, let’s stop gegging in.”

Aziraphale was back in Crowley’s chrome-and-steel kitchen, perched on a stool, heart beating nervously. Crowley hadn’t said much on the drive home, but had also driven the speed limit and asked about the angel’s stomach, so Aziraphale was fairly certain he wasn’t going to simply chuck him. Apart from that, though, who could say? His anger was almost palpable, clinging to the sharpness of his hips and elbows, swirling around him as he jerked things out of a paper bag and threw them onto the counter. A bowl of warm water was filled and placed next to a pile of clean gauze pads, a box of plasters, and a tube of some sort of ointment. Finally Crowley sat down in front of him, holding an orange bottle of Dettol so tightly the sides pinched inward.

Aziraphale reached for his hand, and Crowley flinched.

He put his hand back in his lap. “I’m sorry,” he said miserably.

“Don’t.” Crowley looked down. His forelock flopped over his forehead, obscuring his expression as he soaked one of the gauze pads with antiseptic.

Aziraphale swallowed around a lump in his throat the size of Paris. “Er. Where did you get all this?”

“Stopped at a chemist. Wanted supplies for a first aid kit. Didn’t think I’d be using them quite this soon.” He nodded at Aziraphale. “Chin up.”

Aziraphale raised his face and turned his cheek towards Crowley, hoping his lip wasn’t wobbling too noticeably. Crowley’s face was utterly still. His hands never faltered as he touched the angry skin around the wound, red and just starting to blister. He pressed the soaked gauze to the cut, spearing Aziraphale with an all-yellow gaze that hurt worse than the sting of the antiseptic. Aziraphale closed his eyes.

For a few moments, there was no sound but their breathing, the slip-slop of water against the side of the bowl and the rasp of gauze as Crowley first disinfected, then cleaned, the cut on Aziraphale’s cheek.

“I-it’s just a scratch, really.” Aziraphale said.

Then, “The burn makes it look worse than it is.”

And, “I think he only meant to frighten me.”

Crowley said nothing. Aziraphale sagged, letting his eyes shut again. Between the rush of adrenaline, the near syncope, and Crowley’s dark mood, he had reached his limit. He wanted to drift away to a place where none of this would matter.

Or, more accurately, a time. Last week, this wouldn’t have affected him the way it was now, making him feel like there was tar smeared all over the inside of his rib cage. Maybe he should go back. He’d clearly made a mess of things. It would be nice not to be bogged down with emotions anymore. And to have a corporation that did what it was told.

But then he opened his eyes and saw Crowley holding a plaster in trembling fingers. Saw a clear droplet fall from his cheek onto the sterile pad.

The demon hissed and swore under his breath before tossing it to the side and fumbling another one out of the cardboard box. Aziraphale reached out, took it from him, and set it on the counter. Then he brought Crowley’s hands together, palm to palm, and squeezed them between his own.

Crowley’s face spasmed strangely, mouth pulling down and brow furrowing, eyes screwed shut. It took Aziraphale a moment to realise he was trying not to burst into tears. “My dear…” he started.

“Shut it.” Crowley snatched his hands away and wiped his face furiously with the back of one of them. “How could you do that, Aziraphale? Why? What in creation would possess you–” he stopped, jaw clenched.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said again, uselessly. “I didn’t think he’d try to hurt me. We made it very clear to them that we’re dangerous.”

“Are you fucking insane? Started hallucinating from all the extra dopamine around? ‘I didn’t think he’d hurt me’ is not a viable insurance policy, Aziraphale! And in case you forgot, we were bluffing.”

Aziraphale tried to smile. His injured skin pulled unpleasantly. “It worked out alright, though. I brought backup.”

“Backup? A cheap pyrotechnic Gabriel would’ve seen through if he wasn’t dumber than paint chips? Or do you mean the two humans you put in danger? Humans who’ve done nothing but help us, by the way. What came over you?” Crowley stared at him like he didn’t know him, and Aziraphale’s stomach twisted. He tasted acid in the back of his throat.

“I wouldn’t have let them come to harm.”

“What were you going to do about it? Distract Gabriel with your magic act while they ran and jumped in the lake? Leaping, galloping Christ, Aziraphale! You’re a principality with a reputation for being a little bit of a bad boy. He is an archangel with a sword!”

“Let me remind you that you were prepared to face your boss with a tire iron.”

Crowley’s mouth fell open. “First of all, I only did that ‘cause you made me; second of all, I didn’t think we’d win; third of all, that was important!”

“So was this!”

“No it bloody well wasn’t! You want some celestial guidebook” (he said the words in a bitter mocking tone, baring his teeth to hiss the ess) “to tell you why our corporations are bein’ unpredictable, because you can’t stand it if everything’s not written down. Got news for you, though– you’re going to have to figure it out for yourself. D’you think humans understand everything their bodies do? Course not. There’s lots of stuff you won’t find in any book, not even Heavenly ones. They muddle through, and we will too. Or we won’t, if you destroy yourself trying to get answers!” Crowley flared his nostrils, sucking air in like an angry bull.

“It’s not just about that, Crowley!”

“What’sss it about?” Crowley looked away, lips pressed in a thin line. After a moment he picked up the plaster again.

Thunder boomed overhead. Aziraphale tried to breathe, but it seemed like he could only get air into the tops of his lungs. As Crowley squinted at his wound– trying to see if the plaster would fit, he supposed– Aziraphale said, “It’s about the future.”

Crowley made an irritated noise and abandoned the bandage. “You’re burned. Plaster’ll stick to it,” he muttered. He unwrapped more gauze and squirted it liberally with some sort of ointment. Just when Aziraphale thought he wasn’t going to answer, he said, “What about it?”

“Wear and tear,” Aziraphale said in a small voice.

Crowley finally met his eyes again. “What?”

“Earlier today, you said the things I was reading about… the pathology I found that could explain the problems with our sympathetic nervous systems… were mostly ‘wear and tear’ issues. And they shouldn’t affect us. But…” He hadn’t said this part out loud, even to himself.

“But what?”

“If our organs are fully human now they could be vulnerable to human diseases. And the functional limitations that come with ageing.” He bit his lip. “Be a silly experiment to turn everything on to keep our corporations going, just to find ourselves dying of– of cardiac arrest in ten years’ time.” He considered this. “Though I suppose liver failure would be more likely.”

Crowley frowned as he pressed the dressing to Aziraphale’s cheek. The ointment stuck the pad in place while he fixed the edges with clear tape. It seemed to have cooling properties– the burn stopped clamouring and Aziraphale heaved a sigh of relief.

At last, Crowley said, “We’re not fully human. We’re not limited to a single lifetime in a single body.”

“I don’t know what we are anymore.” Aziraphale was so tired. His hands lay limp in his lap. “We’re dependent on our corporations in order to continue to exist on Earth. And we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Crowley leaned back, hip against the counter. “I wouldn’t say dependent.” He waved a hand. “We get discorporated, we hitch a ride.”

“I don’t recommend it. It’s a nuisance. Besides, you hate being in the passenger seat.”

“Okay, but–”

“I hoped Heaven’s manual would tell us if we needed to worry about things like that. If these bodies aren’t going to last forever then we need to make another plan.”

“Alpha Centauri’s still an option. Push comes to shove,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale lifted his face. Crowley’s eyes were wide and he looked at Aziraphale like he was Crowley’s whole world. Like it didn’t matter where they were, as long as they were together. He touched the uninjured side of Aziraphale’s face with the tips of his fingers. “I can’t think about ten years from now,” he said, voice cracking. “I almost lost you today. Please, angel, please don’t–”

Aziraphale never found out what he shouldn’t do, because he leaned in and pressed his lips against Crowley’s still-moving mouth.

He’d seen a few television programmes that portrayed humans expressing their fondness for one another in this manner, generally by zooming in until you could count their eyebrow hairs. He preferred the sort of kissing you got in plays and books, which had the decency to leave out the smacking noises, but had to admit television– and film– supplied more details, at least in terms of the mechanics. Thanks to Coronation Street, a series of romantic comedies featuring Hugh Grant, and a James Bond movie (called, for whatever reason, Octopussy), he knew the approximate angle he wanted, that he ought to part his lips slightly, and that it would probably be wet. He braced himself for the taste of spit, and for the slimy texture of a tongue that wasn’t his own.

Instead there was a jolt like he’d fallen… a rush of air… and then he was caught. Someone help him, he couldn’t describe it any better than that. Crowley’s bottom lip was spit-slick, yes, but it was warm and soft. When he tilted his head to stop their noses bumping, Aziraphale hitched a breath against his skin and smelled sugary coffee, spiced cologne, and a tang of sweat. Crowley made a noise that sounded like the glottal part of a sob, swallowed it before it could reach his mouth, and kissed him back. He was gentle, but he kissed with so much trembling, restrained longing that the malignant voices in Aziraphale’s head didn’t dare speak. Crowley wanted him, and the force of it burned his doubts away like fog in the sunlight.

Aziraphale was half out of his seat and Crowley, elbow propped on the counter, had leaned down to meet him. Their bodies didn’t move. Their hands didn’t tangle in one another’s hair, not yet. (They would, but not yet.) For one perfect moment, it was just mouths together, layered lips, soft puffs of exhaled air against cheeks.

Their bodies didn’t move, but Aziraphale felt held in a way he hadn’t even with Crowley’s arms around him, surrounded by a limbless, wordless embrace.

Then Crowley opened wider and pulled Aziraphale in like he was starving for him, like he’d die if he didn’t. His hands came up, one against Aziraphale’s cheek and the other sinking, long-fingered and clutching, into his curls. Aziraphale parted his lips and let Crowley kiss them with bruising intensity, let him suck his bottom lip into his mouth, felt the press of his teeth. It wasn’t anything like it had looked on screen; wasn’t all shared saliva and awkward tongue-touching and embarrassing noises. Or rather, it was those things but each and every one of them was absolutely phenomenal.

He couldn’t get enough of touching Crowley. He pulled at the lapels of his jacket, slipped a hand underneath to skim along his rib cage, traced the snake mark on his face with a fingertip. He sat back so he could hook a leg around Crowley’s skinny thigh, anything to get him closer, moaning softly into the kiss like he’d once seen people do in a very different sort of film (it had sounded silly to him at the time. It wasn’t). How had he never known about this?

“Angel… angel…” Crowley sounded gutted. The words escaped between hot, open-mouthed kisses, whispered, like Crowley couldn’t find his breath. He held Aziraphale’s head, moved it the way he wanted, so he could kiss him harder, deeper, and Aziraphale felt like he’d been kicked in the chest with the force of his own longing. He tried swiping his tongue into Crowley’s mouth, partly because he’d seen it done and partly because it felt right. Crowley gentled him, guided him, set them up in a rhythm that had their mouths open wide and tongues twining with each surge forward.

Aziraphale burned. Every movement of Crowley’s tongue, every caress of lips, every stroke of his hands was making him hotter, and he was starting to sweat, and surely they were wearing too many clothes? He got his fingers under the hem of Crowley’s shirt, started to roll it up, and Crowley’s body shuddered. “Angel.” His words had a little more substance this time. “Slow, you said slow, said you wanted–”

Aziraphale shook his head, an “nnn” of negation on his lips. He pressed his mouth to Crowley’s again and only tore it away when he had to, after he’d clawed off the black jacket and waistcoat and needed to pull the shirt over his head. “You said that,” he breathed against Crowley’s neck, feeling the demon tremble, seeing the roll of his hips. He hadn’t ever wanted to go slow, not really, and he certainly didn’t want to now. If Crowley’s naked body wasn’t moving against his naked body in the next five minutes he thought he might go mad. Part of him remembered how tentative they’d been, their argument, the subsequent, careful negotiations… but most of what was between his ears at the moment was a roar of blind, dumb, terrible wanting. Desire had been building in his body since that morning and he didn’t want to tamp it down again, he wanted to come. Wanted to come with Crowley wrapped around him and pressing him down and gasping in his ear.

Crowley scrabbled at the buttons of his waistcoat, growled, and yanked. Aziraphale spared a tiny miracle, all he could muster, to make sure the mother-of-pearl buttons didn’t snap their threads. He didn’t bother when Crowley moved on to his shirt, and there were scattered plinks as plastic buttons hit the floor, but no matter, that shirt had been three-to-a-package at M&S.

Crowley pushed back and stared down at him, red-bitten lips slack. Aziraphale was acutely aware of the swell of his stomach, the fullness of his pecs, the padding around his ribs; all presumably what Gabriel had been talking about when he said “lose the gut”. He flushed with a different sort of heat and tried to pull Crowley back into his arms. If they were moving and touching and building friction Crowley might not mind that Aziraphale didn’t look like the people one usually saw kissing on television. But Crowley resisted, wearing that mulish look he sometimes got when he was determined to be a nuisance, running his eyes up and down Aziraphale’s naked torso until the angel was ready to shake right out of his skin. He pressed his hands to his face and Crowley took pity, reaching out to him, touching him so reverently that he felt truly holy for the first time in centuries. Maybe aeons. “Gorgeous bloody…” he said, then shook his head, seemed to give up on words, and pressed kisses down Aziraphale’s neck, over his collar bone, and down to a nipple.

Oh, that was… Aziraphale clutched Crowley’s hair and bit down on his lip, hard, to stop the noises that wanted to erupt out of him. He’d spent his whole life waiting for permission, being told when to speak and to whom, and something about moaning out loud with pleasure didn’t feel right. But Crowley’s tongue was moving in clever half-circles and his nipple ached in a way that shot straight down between his legs; he hadn’t known nipples could do that. Crowley rolled the nub between his teeth, then sucked gently, and there was nothing for it, his mouth fell open and he groaned and shuddered, thighs shaking. “Crowley.”

“Fucking… fuck…” Crowley pressed forward, and the stool wobbled. “C’mere.” He bit Aziraphale’s neck, pulled him up, then turned him around and crowded him against the lip of the counter. “Bend over.”

Aziraphale did. Had to really, because Crowley was draped over him, kissing the back of his neck and his shoulder blades with frantic urgency. He pulled blindly at Aziraphale’s belt. Aziraphale took pity on him and unhooked it, then released his trouser buttons. Between their four hands they managed to shove both his trousers and pants into a messy puddle around his ankles.

Aziraphale would have tried to help with Crowley’s trousers, too, but had a feeling there was nothing he could do short of a miracle. So he stayed where he was, palms pressed to the granite, trying to keep his heart from leaping out of his chest as Crowley untangled himself from the remainder of his own clothing, muttering curses as he did so.

After a thousand years or so trembling with anticipation and nerves, bent over and utterly exposed, Crowley pressed up against him. His hands shook, the bare muscles of his stomach and chest twitched, and the cock prodding Aziraphale’s buttocks was like silk-wrapped stone.

They both froze, lungs working, breaths coming rapid and harsh. The terror that he’d get things wrong mixed with arousal so sharp and needy it was painful, and Aziraphale had to shut his eyes. It was too much. Crowley rocked against him, sank fingertips into his buttocks with a groan that sounded hungry, and then ran his big palms up over the angel’s shoulders and down his arms.

Then he laced their fingers. He put his hands over Aziraphale’s where they rested on the counter, squeezed, and said, softly, “Okay, angel?”

Aziraphale dragged in a breath that felt like it was opening his lungs again. He forgot to be afraid. I love you, he thought. I love you. Out loud he said, “Please.”

Crowley took one hand away and did something with it over Aziraphale’s shoulder. Then it was guiding his cock between Aziraphale’s thighs, slicked with spit. The head nudged against his sack before Crowley drew back, then thrust forward again. “Okay?” he said again, voice choked.

Aziraphale was beyond words. He squeezed his thighs together, and Crowley gave a punched-out little moan. His head fell against Aziraphale’s shoulder as his hips worked, chasing his pleasure between Azirapahle’s legs.

Aziraphale twisted his body. He cried out, frantic, higher and higher in pitch, until Crowley dropped his still-wet palm to his aching cock. Then, oh. It was like lighting the fuse on a firework. Between Crowley’s quickening thrusts and the hand moving on him his reserve was burning away; the feeling built and built until he was trembling, aching, so full of pleasure he couldn’t contain it another second. Then Crowley twisted his wrist exquisitely on an upstroke, the powder caught, and he went up in flames. Heat burst out of him, he was glowing with it, he was being consumed.

He shuddered and squeezed Crowley’s hand so hard his knuckles went white. Crowley stiffened then, cried out something wordless, and Aziraphale felt pulses of warm wetness between his thighs. The demon sagged, pressing Azirapahle down against the counter.

For a long moment they lay where they’d collapsed, gasping for breath. Rain pounded on the roof. Aziraphle twitched through lingering shocks of pleasure that made him bite his much-abused lower lip.

Finally Crowley spoke. “‘M still mad at you,” he said in a voice that was more air than anything else, tone suffused with surprised pleasure.

“If this is how you show it, get mad at me more often.”

Chapter Text

Gabriel’s office, 2019 CE

The door slams. Opens again. Gabriel pokes his head out. “Executive meeting, my office, now,” he bellows.

When the others arrive, he’s pacing back and forth. Uriel startles when she sees the whiteboard, wiped clean for the first time in 200 years. “He had the nerve,” Gabriel is saying, “to threaten me. Me! That abject, sycophantic, grubby little traitor is down there right now, slumming it with the humans, and I can’t do a thing about it. Why are You letting this go on?” This last is shouted into an intercom on his desk.

“You know She hasn’t answered that in years,” Michael says. “Calm down. What happened?”

“Aziraphale wants the Operations Manual,” Gabriel snarls. He tells them about his encounter in the park. “I managed to put him off. Said I needed a few days to get it from Uriel. We need a strategy.”

Sandalphon wrinkles his nose. “Why does he want it? It’s a massive treatise to living organically. None of it’s applicable.”

“You’re wrong,” Uriel says slowly. “I’ll bet I know why. It’s because of his boyfriend.”

Three sets of eyes turn towards her.

“You saw the photographs,” she says to Gabriel. “Proof he’s been carrying on with the demon Crowley. Seems they like each other. But if Aziraphale wants to please him, he’s going to be looking for guidance.”

Gabriel looks repulsed.

“Demons have been more biological than us right from the beginning,” Michael points out. “They didn’t even get sterile corporations. My, ah, informant tells me they go around with most of the physical functions running; probably don’t know how to turn them off.” She smiles a private little smile. “They have drives.” Gabriel and Sandalphon exchange a look.

Uriel scowls. “What you’re saying is, Crowley probably wants to fuck him and Aziraphale doesn’t know how,” she says bluntly.

“Uriel!”

“If we want to take him down we need to get on his level. It’s just like God always used to say: you can’t just tell people what to do. You have to find a way to make them think it was their idea. She used neurotransmitters and hormones, which we don’t have direct access to, but if Aziraphale is turning on his physiologic functions then he’s vulnerable to the systemic pitfalls She created. You see?”

“Right.” Michael looks thoughtful. “Say he feels affection for Crowley… which I think we can assume. He won’t be able to be physically intimate with him without deepening that bond. The chemicals aren’t specific enough. If they have orgasms together he’ll experience infatuation, at the very least.”

“You would know,” Uriel says under her breath, but with palpable venom. Her face is a thundercloud.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Infatuation and affection are chemically linked to jealousy and fear. Early relationships are neurologically compelling but easily disrupted. And if that happens…”

“Despair.” Sandalphon smiles oilily. “Cravings. Irrational behaviour. Susceptibility to offers of stabilisation from any quarter.”

Uriel looks sad. She just nods.

“We can use the Manual to make him doubt Crowley,” says Michael, warming to the idea. “All we have to do is restrict certain passages. If he loses faith in what his brain is telling him about pair bonding, then he’ll likely terminate the relationship and return home voluntarily. Once we have him, we can figure out how to end him.”

“I don’t hate it,” says Gabriel. “But how do we get him to trust a guidebook over his own sensations? She spent weeks telling us how powerful they are.”

Uriel’s smile is bitter as poison hemlock. “I know how. Leave that part to me.”

“I’m starting to feel a bit like Frodo.” Aziraphale lay on his side in the bed, touching the dressing on his cheek with curious fingers.

Crowley gave him a long, cool look. “Curly-haired? Big feet? Food fetish?”

“No, no, I mean… in the sense that I seem to be a magnet for trouble. Like Frodo on Weathertop, or in the mines of Moria. As if evil is drawn to me.”

Something large and hot lodged itself in Crowley’s throat, about halfway down. It made talking difficult. His eyes burned.

After they’d… well, after, Aziraphale seemed to be bursting with good cheer. He dabbed at the stickiness between his legs with a tea towel while he did the crinkle-eyed smile and “dear boy”-ed Crowley and asked if they might order supper from that charming little French-Vietnamese bistro he’d spotted on their way in. Crowley sent him off to the bedroom while he called for the food, then spent the next three minutes with his hands against the counter, trying to hyperventilate quietly enough that he wouldn’t be overheard. When he finally slunk into the bedroom, holding a bag of fusion tapas in front of him like a peace offering, it was to the sound of Aziraphale waxing poetic about being catnip to the forces of darkness.

Sort of thing that could drive a demon into therapy, that was.

Aziraphale, oblivious to his most recent panicked freeze, was still talking. “Allergies… bruises… superficial burns… do I have a target on my backside?” He looked performatively over his shoulder (at what was an extremely alluring backside indeed).

Crowley shut his mouth with some effort. Then he opened it again. “You’re talking about getting hurt?”

“Of course. I can’t explain it. It’s only been three days and you’ve had to patch me up as many times, if you count your first trip to the chemist when the bookshop started giving me hives.” Aziraphale looked up at him. “What did you… oh. Darling, sit down.”

Crowley wobbled to the bed and collapsed, eyes closed but face turning blindly towards the angel like a flower towards the sun. This was all wrong, it wasn’t what he’d planned–

Aziraphale kissed him. Temple first, then the shell of his ear. Jaw. Cheek. The corner of his mouth. “I wasn’t thinking. Forgive me.”

“But I am drawn to you,” Crowley said miserably. The other words were still wrapped up in his throat lump: I said I’d go slow. I promised. And I lost control.

“When I used that word, I was actually thinking about Gabriel,” said Aziraphale, reflectively. Then his voice firmed. “Anyway, I should hope you are.”

“I wanted to wait. It’s like I stopped thinking rationally.” Crowley scrubbed his forehead. He didn’t like this. The feelings were heady and intense, but they shouldn’t be able to take over. He’d never liked being in the passenger seat.

“Cobblers,” said Aziraphale, which was so perfectly ridiculous it snapped Crowley out of his funk. “We were on the same page for once in our lives. Stop twisting yourself up in knots.”

“You’ve come a long way in a month,” said Crowley, opening his eyes.

“I have, haven’t I?” Aziraphale was smiling, the slow, shy smile he used when happiness was lighting him up from within. Crowley’d seen that smile at the Ritz a month ago. He’d thought, then, that it was for the world, and maybe then it had been. Now, though…

“You’re not angry?”

“Angry? That you made me come so hard I momentarily lost the ability to feel my legs?”

Crowley had to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Who taught you to talk like that?” he asked.

“I do read.”

“Read what, E.L. James?”

“Fiend.” Aziraphale gave his lower lip a reproachful nip. “Now relax. I’d like to not have to go back to the icebreaker stage of our relationship every time we’re intimate.” He shuddered. “Gabriel loves icebreakers.”

“Please stop saying ‘Gabriel’,” Crowley pleaded. Belatedly, he remembered he was supposed to be angry with him. It was hard to keep up, especially with Aziraphale in his bed, looking sex-rumpled and pleased with himself. “Not even Frodo went out looking for trouble like you did today. Not ‘til the end of the third movie, anyway.”

Aziraphale huffed, probably less over the chastising and more due to Crowley referencing the theatrical adaptations. (That was an old chestnut of an argument they got out and dusted off every few years. When The Hobbit had been made into a trilogy, Crowley had relished the overblown, CGI-ed monsters and hackneyed attempts to shove in a love story, and Aziraphale hadn’t spoken to him for a month). “Time for dinner.”

It was a transparent attempt to change the subject, but Crowley decided to let him. Aziraphale had said they weren't meeting Uriel for three days, so it was unlikely the angel would get up to any additional boneheaded schemes before morning. The rest of the lecture could wait.

He flopped onto his back. “Food? Again?”

“Humans generally eat three to five times a day. Aren’t you hungry?”

Crowley shrugged. To be honest, he hadn’t been. His body seemed to want water, so he was taking care of that, but his appetite had yet to make an appearance. “Maybe I forgot to flip that switch.” He waggled a finger at Aziraphale, who was reaching for the spring rolls. “Ahh. Crumbs. Use the tray.”

“Wha– oh.” Aziraphale blinked, then resettled his food on the lap tray that had appeared in front of him. “How did I never know you were so fastidious?”

“The sheer inertia of your sloppiness overpowers it when we’re at yours.”

“Excuse me? Sloppiness? I know where every book in that shop is!”

“Because I put them all back when you’ve gotten distracted and fucked off doing something else, angel. D’you know what it looks like in there after you’ve had an ‘afternoon in’? Trail of books and mugs and bits of biscuit on ev’ry flat surface.”

“I’d get them eventually.” Aziraphale looked untroubled. He bit into the spring roll, the pastry crunched, and his eyes fluttered shut. Crowley felt like a set of bulging eyes on one of those old cartoons you used to see.

Aziraphale caught him at it, and gave him a slow, warm smile, like melting chocolate. “Not hungry at all?” he asked, and held the roll out between pastry-flaked fingers. The moment Crowley registered he was meant to take a bite he was already chewing, having opened reflexively, and yeah, okay, it was pretty good. The crunch and the softness inside, the way his mouth got wet, the softening of textures on his tongue… good. Pleasant, even. But who the fuck cared?

He hadn’t bothered with his shirt, even to answer the door for the delivery girl. Aziraphale had sponged off in the bathroom and retired to the bed cheerfully naked as if he didn’t know the effect it would have on Crowley, who was still a little twisted up about angels and sex and this bed in particular. The swoop in his stomach felt anticipatory this time, rather than terrified. He took Aziraphale’s wrist, pulling the roll towards his mouth for another bite and pulling their bodies flush. Aziraphale made a pleased, squeaky hum.

Crowley stroked down Aziraphale’s side, over barely-there depressions beneath his ribs and the tantalising roll of flesh above his hip. “I can’t believe,” he growled, shifting so he was lower in the bed, “you’ve made it more excruciating to watch you eat. I didn’t think it was possible.”

“Excruciating?”

“You bloody well know what I mean.” Just in case he didn’t, Crowley nudged the tray aside and pressed the evidence against his thigh.

“Oh.” Under Crowley’s intent gaze, Aziraphale’s lids closed again and his eyebrows raised, just a millimetre or so, while his lips parted. He kept watching, ready to draw back at the first sign of a wince or frown, but when he brushed Aziraphale’s hardening length with his first two fingers colour bloomed in the angel’s cheeks.

“Keep eating if you want,” said Crowley hoarsely. “But show me what it feels like. What it all feels like.” The angel was a banquet. Propped against the pillowed headboard, nipples coral-pink, thighs smooth and parted, heavy balls, curves of buttock with a hint of tempting cleft between. Slowly, Aziraphale reached for a potsticker and brought it to his lips. He bit down, there was a sharp smell of lemongrass, his cock twitched in Crowley’s hand, and Crowley said “Fuck me,” and put it in his mouth.

Muddled fantasies of tasting Aziraphale while the angel was at his desk, focused entirely on one of his delicate books, surfaced and receded. This was better. He’d also pictured himself ducking underneath the long tablecloth at the Ritz, drawing Aziraphale out and sucking him while he made sounds in his throat usually reserved for really excellent crème brûlée, and this was better than that too. There was a rush of blood against his tongue he could almost hear, that big vein on the underside relaxing and swelling Aziraphale to full hardness. A tiny pulse of bitterness was accompanied by a noise from Aziraphale that he’d never heard him make for food. Crowley closed his eyes. He circled the cap with the point of his tongue, dragged the flat of it down his length, and sank down until hairs tickled his nose.

How was it possible that he was so hungry for more, and so soon? Nothing was taking the edge off, he ached like he hadn’t had relief in ages. Aziraphale seemed no less affected. He sat up, chest heaving, and gripped Crowley’s hair hard enough to sting. The tray overturned when his knee jerked and a box of noodles slurped onto the sheets, but neither of them noticed.

Crowley had done this a time or two; he had some moves, thank you very much– but he couldn’t remember them. All he seemed able to do was bob up and down, Aziraphale’s cock pressing into his throat on every eager lunge forward. He sucked, he swallowed, gulping greedily and blindly, letting drool drip from his mouth and pool at the base. He was making a mess of himself, a starving man at a feast.

Aziraphale– polite, considerate, bloody perfect Aziraphale– patted his shoulder, face creased with sudden urgency when Crowley looked up, and he doubled down, taking Aziraphale fully in his mouth again before drawing back slowly, sucking hard–

Pulses of thick, alkaline fluid, bitter and tasting slightly of the sea. He fixed his eyes on Aziraphale’s face as he swallowed, watching his open mouth and fluttering eyelashes. “Ah, ah, ah, Crowley!– ssst–”

Crowley waited until he collapsed back, gasping; waited until his cock softened and his heels stopped their dance against the bed, then he let Aziraphale go and laid his head against his thigh. He was aware in a vague way that he was painfully hard, but his body was heavy with satisfaction and bliss. Whatever was happening between them, this tentative, new thing that Aziraphale had called “our relationship”– well, they’d have to wait and see what it grew into. In the meantime, he had a roaring, needy lust to feed, and if Aziraphale wanted it too, what was the harm? It was good, it had been good, and he wanted to show the angel it could be even better.

Aziraphale got his voice back at length. “Crowley?”

“Mmm?” Crowley smiled lazily.

“That doesn’t count as dinner.”

What did “count as dinner” was a torture so exquisite that even Asmodeus would have slowly backed away, hands in the air. Aziraphale ate prawn mango ceviche and shaken fillet with bell peppers and, worst of all, Belgian chocolate lava cake with raspberry coulis. Naked. And, for all that was unholy and corrupted, he wouldn’t stop talking. “I can’t believe I’ve lived this long in a human body and never tested its capabilities fully. Not that I don’t understand the reason we were warned off. How could Heavenly representatives be expected to stay on task, knowing there was such a riot of sensations within their reach? I feel almost intoxicated. Mmm.” He licked melted chocolate off of his finger. Crowley made a soft, whining noise.

“Finish your ginger chicken, I won’t have you wasting away. We’ll have to figure out what’s going wrong with your hunger signals. Hah, do you remember when you used to have to persuade young Warlock to clean his plate? I always wanted to ask if you had to use demonic influence, he was as stubborn as a mule up a staircase. Now, I liken the pleasure of gustation and early digestion to that of completing a task– there’s a profound but muted sense of satisfaction when the meal’s done. I suppose that makes sense for something that needs to be repeated every few hours for survival. Not so often that She’d need to automate it, like breathing, but often enough that meeting the body’s needs in that respect can’t be entirely distracting. Sexual pleasure, on the other hand… dear, are you alright?”

Crowley lay on his back, eyes on the ceiling, thinking (not praying) for mercy. He’d listened to Aziraphale moan through appetisers, a main course, dessert and an orgasm, and there was only so much a demon could be expected to bear. He thought he’d been doing well, considering, but when Aziraphale started in on the drippy vanilla ice cream while he talked about the pleasures of the flesh Crowley silently surrendered. He would have to sprint for the bathroom again, there was simply nothing else for it.

Aziraphale was quiet until Crowley put an elbow down and started to lever himself off the bed, but then he said, in a voice so small Crowley almost didn’t hear it, “Can I help?”

Crowley glanced up. Aziraphale looked suddenly shy, pink-cheeked and picking at the coverlet, and Crowley realised several things in quick succession: the angel had been jabbering partly because he was nervous, he hadn’t offered to reciprocate after the blow job because Crowley hadn’t asked, and–

“I’m not sure I know how. But I’d like to touch you.” Aziraphale raised his eyes and Crowley saw the same hope and terror that were gnarled so tightly under his own breastbone.

“Course you can. Christ, please. It won’t take much,” Crowley said in a voice that wobbled more than he liked. He was trying to be reassuring, bless it. But maybe his obvious desperation helped after all, because when he turned towards Aziraphale the angel had banished the remnants of the meal and met him with open arms.

Crowley wasted no time opening his mouth and deepening Aziraphale’s hesitant presses of lips, swiping inside with his tongue while he made pathetic, needy noises and clutched the angel’s thigh. Lust had taken over again, buzzing between his ears like a nest of bees. But when Aziraphale pushed at his shoulders, he drew back immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just… let me touch you. Beautiful thing. You’ve been doing all the work.”

They shifted around until Crowley was sitting with his back to Aziraphale’s bare stomach, his head in the hollow where the angel’s neck met his shoulder, hips pillowed on either side by Aziraphale’s thighs. Aziraphale’s lips were next to his ear, so close he heard a soft noise when they parted. “You’ve lovely legs, you know. Shall we take the trousers off?”

Crowley did a quick mental calculation of the time it would take to shuffle out of skintight leather and shook his head. “No need, just let me–” he lifted and wiggled his arse, shoved the blastedly clinging garments to mid-thigh, and called it good. He hissed with relief and longing as his prick was freed to tent the front of his silk Y-fronts.

“Ah.” Aziraphale’s voice shook. “I don’t… tell me what…” his lovely hands reached out, hesitated, landed on Crowley’s stomach.

Crowley’s muscles fluttered. He both felt and saw the glurt of fluid that pulsed from his sensitive head, forming a darker patch on the fabric. “Just… touch me like you touched yourself. If you want.”

A worried noise from above him. “I only ever did that the once.”

Crowley laced long fingers with plump ones. He drew one hand up to his lips and kissed it. “These hands, Aziraphale. Do you know how many times I thought about your hands? When you were doin’ those fancy illuminated manuscripts– remember, in Paris? First time you could work outside a monastery, so I got to watch you do it, and the way you held and dipped your brush made me so–” he swallowed. “Watchin’ you write. The meals we shared in Rome, when your fingers were shiny with oil by the end and you’d suck on ‘em, one by one… ffft.”

Aziraphale had grown bold enough to brush the damp spot. Crowley’s prick jerked. “Y-you were always so careful. So fussy and precise. You drop crumbs everywhere and your whole shop is dusty and I think you actually cultivate cobwebs, but when you use your hands you’re so graceful, an’ not Heaven’s sort of grace either, the human kind that can make ordinary things beautiful.” Crowley wished he could shut up. Aziraphale already thought he was soft and here he was making it worse.

Breath rapid in his ear, Aziraphale brushed his length with the tips of his fingers, then parted the front of his pants and drew him out. Crowley arched against him, squirming and almost sobbing, he’d been on edge for so long and now the angel was really going to do it, he was going to use those hands to grip and stroke his cock like he’d dreamed about for at least ten centuries…

“Is this all right?” Aziraphale wrapped him in a gentle but firm grip, just the right amount of pressure, and slid up his shaft until his thumb pressed that sensitive spot where the damp head emerged from his foreskin.

“Fuck. Aziraphale!” Crowley jerked, reached wildly back to grab the angel’s shoulder, and held it in a death grip while his stomach muscles clenched and his prick spurted so hard the first pulse hit him between the nipples. “Oh. Oh.”

Aziraphale’s chuckle was surprised and pleased. Crowley covered his face when he could move again, groaning with humiliation. “I did tell you it wouldn’t take much,” he mumbled from between his fingers.

“That helped my confidence enormously.” Aziraphale planted a delighted kiss on his temple.

“Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head. I left out the part where your hands become tragically unsexy when you try to do stage magic.”

“I shall pretend I didn’t hear that. Your corporation is marvellously sensitive. Aziraphale ran his hands up Crowley’s bare torso, spreading the come that gleamed stickily in red chest hairs. “What shall we do now?”

“Sleep, you complete hedonist. Might have known you’d be like this. It’s like the invention of puff pastry all over again.”

“It’s nothing like that.” Crowley turned in his arms at the change in tone and met solemn grey eyes. “Though I admit to wanting more, even now that we’re sated. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of this.”

“Suits me fine.” Crowley kissed him, then gently touched the dressing on his cheek. His amateur treatment seemed to have stopped the pain, but the angel was definitely seeing a doctor in the morning. This was above Anathema's pay grade. “But bein’ fully human has its drawbacks. Circadian rhythms, for one.” He yawned.

Aziraphale settled next to him, then twitched, sat up, and declared he needed to go to the lavatory. Crowley shucked his trousers and joined him, feeling sleepy and slow, wiping his chest and waiting for the toilet. He’d heard the term “domestic” before and supposed this was what it meant. Urinating while Aziraphale ran his tongue over his teeth, then snapped a toothbrush into existence and proceeded to dot the mirror with flecks of paste. Wiping them off without a word while Aziraphale retrieved his pyjamas from the dryer. Doing things side by side with someone, then walking to the bedroom with them and getting into his side of the bed. Pulling the sheets down so Aziraphale could climb in, then covering them both.

For all his big talk, the angel was asleep with his head on Crowley’s shoulder almost before Crowley could turn off the light. He lay awake a little longer, head swirling with worries and fantasies and doubts. The last thought he had before unconsciousness swallowed him was wonderful and horrible all at once: I’ll never get enough of this either.

The surgery had one buzzing, flickering fluorescent overhead. Crowley had been flicking the shells of sunflower seeds at it for the past 30 minutes. If he scored a hit when the bulb was dark, he got a point. No hit was minus one, and hitting a lit bulb was minus two. He was at negative 46, but the annoyed glances he got from the waiting humans were a bonus.

Aziraphale calmly turned a page. He must know people were staring, but millenia of Crowley’s companionship had honed his ability to tune out minor irritations. Buddhist monks could have looked to him for inspiration. The receptionist glanced around the room. “Mr. A–”

Crowley perked up, but she finished with “–natole?” A man in a yellow shirt followed her back. Crowley sighed loudly. He’d been able to miracle them both NHS documentation, registration and same-day appointments, but apparently even infernal power couldn’t shorten the GP’s wait time.

He’d woken up more determined than ever to solve their problems the human way. “There have to be answers,” he’d said to Aziraphale over breakfast. “We’ve just been asking the wrong people. Anathema knows her herbs, but she can’t order a blood test, or…” he thought for a moment. He hadn’t been involved much with the advancement of medical science over the past century, but back in the 1960s he’d caught some of the younger demons sniggering over what sounded like a rectal periscope. “...a colonoscopy,” he finished, pleased to have remembered the word.

Aziraphale looked doubtful. “How can we expect a human doctor to tell us if ancient corporations, created outside the bounds of time and space as they understand them, are vulnerable to disease? I’m sure that’s not a question that comes up on training exams.”

“Obviously we’re not going to ask them that. But we can get an inspection, right?” This was something Crowley vaguely understood that the Bentley was supposed to need, though it had always been quicker to just miracle the paperwork. He got up from his stool and swayed into Aziraphale’s path as the angel headed for the hob. “I want someone to look at your cheek. Spent most of the War hiding in a supply closet, so I’m not an expert on flaming-sword wounds.”

Aziraphale tapped his chest with the spatula, though his eyes softened. “They won’t be either, darling.”

“Humor me.”

Aziraphale had made a dismissive noise, but he’d allowed Crowley to make the appointments while he scrambled eggs. He even picked a birthdate: October twenty-first, same day as Earth. (Crowley went with July 10th, because it had ‘double-oh-seven’ in it when you wrote it down).

So here they were. Crowley flicked another shell. Plink. It hit the suspended ceiling and fell to the floor. Minus 47.

“Where are you getting those?” Aziraphale whispered snippily at last. (Crowley smiled. That was how you won the game.) “It’s not as if you’ve actually eaten any sunflower seeds.”

“Mr. Ah… zeer-a-phile?” said the receptionist.

When Crowley tried to come back with him, he found his way blocked by a polite hand. “Dr. Carr always requests to meet with new patients privately, unless there are special needs,” the receptionist said.

“We’re here for the same reason. She could get done in half the time seein’ us together,” Crowley said reasonably.

“You’ll need to wait, sir.”

Aziraphale gave him a sympathetic look as he was led away. Crowley slouched back down in the plastic bucket seat as deeply as he could and scowled. He wondered if he could leave the practice a scathing Yelp review.

Eventually he picked up the book Aziraphale had abandoned on top of a pile of magazines. It was one of Tracy’s loaners, which had come in a box decorated with neon pink flower decals and had titles like Codependent No More, The Dance of Intimacy, and Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. He didn’t see what they had to do with physiology. Aziraphale had brought something called The Art of Sensual Loving: an Illustrated Guide to read in public at the surgery, confirming he was just as skilled at getting under peoples’ skin as Crowley was (which the demon had always suspected). Crowley opened it to the first section. The importance of courtship, he read. Hmm. Maybe there was something here after all.

Crowley was immersed in a section called Learning the art of seduction when his name was called. He followed the receptionist to a room, ignored their instruction to don a gown, and sat with a crinkling noise on the paper-covered exam table. A nurse pushed the door open, said brightly, “Knock knock! I’m here to take your vitals!” and Crowley raised his eyes to the ceiling and groaned.

“Is this Your idea of a joke?” he asked the empty air. The nurse stared wide-eyed at him, recognition beginning to dawn. It was the nun from the hospital– the one who’d thought the young Adversary had had “lovely little tosie-wosies”.

Mary Hodges, as she apparently called herself now, tightened the blood pressure cuff with more ferocity than Crowley thought the exam warranted. “Ow,” he said.

“It’s just lucky for me that I kept up my certifications,” she said, ignoring him. The machine began to whir, and the cuff tightened further.

Crowley jerked his arm instinctively. “Ow.”

“Stop moving or it won’t give a reading. It’s all very well to say insurance will cover the damages, but in the meantime the place certainly isn’t making money. This goes under your tongue.” Crowley accepted a plastic-sheathed probe into his mouth. It beeped at him. “Dr. Gale is a family friend. A Satanist too, at least she used to be. Now that the Saturday night rituals have turned into a potluck and she’s bringing her children round I’m not sure she’s keeping up with the craft, and anyway her wife has crucifix earrings, if you’d believe it.” Mary shuddered lightly. “No accounting for taste, I say, but she’s always been kind. I worked here while I was in night school, and now here I am back again, thanks to someone turning my executive paintball retreat into a crime scene.”

Crowley widened his eyes innocently behind his sunglasses. “How dreadful,” he said, holding the thermometer in his teeth. “But I heard no one was hurt?”

“Keep your mouth still. You know how these things get drawn out. They’re investigating ties to Al Qa’ida and the new IRA. I can’t exactly tell them it was probably demons, just like the fire was.”

“Can’t trust ‘em,” Crowley said sympathetically, spitting out the probe. “Demons, that is. They’re an impulsive lot.” The cuff relaxed and blood flowed back into his fingertips.

Mary wrote some numbers on a pad of paper. Crowley craned his neck to see. “What’s it supposed to be?”

“Your temperature is a little low, but everything looks fine.” Mary’s expression was curious. “Why are you here? Blood pressure is the last thing I’d expect a demon to be worrying about. Honestly, I didn’t think demons had a blood pressure. Or is that vampires?”

“Just wanted a tune-up,” Crowley said warily. He didn’t think she had any actual connections downstairs, but you never knew. “New world, you know.”

“Is it?” Mary said. The computer’s keyboard clacked as she typed in the readings. “Whatever happened to the little mite, anyway?”

Crowley tried to keep up. “The Antichrist?”

“That’s right. His parents, the adoptive ones, that is, named him Adam. You know, I always thought the whole thing was a little strange? The father didn’t have an accent. At the time I assumed he’d just gone native, but then I heard him saying he came to Tadfield from Luton.”

“And you knew that the whole time.” Crowley sighed and collapsed backwards, making the paper rustle. She’d probably have told them, too, if he hadn’t played his little trick with the guns. His plans always backfired in the end. “The world,” he said, “is under new management.”

“All hail Satan,” said Mary, dutifully. She locked the screen, gave him a generic smile, and said, “The doctor will be in shortly.”

Crowley listened to the ticking of the clock. He was almost positive he was being paranoid… but as the minutes passed, Sister Mary’s presence started to seem less and less like a coincidence. They knew, now, that Heaven still wanted to see Aziraphale dead. Gabriel had made that clear. And his attack might have been opportunistic, but that didn’t mean Hell wasn’t planning something.

If he were Beelzebub trying to catch them off guard, what could be better than this? They’d been isolated in separate rooms, then told to remove their clothes and wait. They were expecting to be examined by a strange human, and wouldn’t even protest if it tried to use penetrating instruments on them.

Crowley’s heart pounded. They don’t know how to kill you, he tried to tell himself. Fair enough– but a human might. Hadn’t he and Aziraphale tried using humans to find Adam? Sometimes they thought of things no angel or demon would dream up in a thousand years.

‘Evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction,’ Aziraphale had once said. Crowley didn’t know about that, but he personally seemed to ‘founder on the rocks of iniquity’ more often than not. He’d gone and made them appointments at a surgery where Hell had planted a Satanic nun, and they were horribly vulnerable, and he needed to get them out of here. Now.

Crowley leaped to his feet and ran out of the room.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 7: Making Love

Have any of you ever thought about what love is? Where it comes from?

(Transcriber note: I raise my hand. “We were created from love, Lord.”)

Technically, you were created from light. Love is an emotion. And human emotions are produced by certain electrochemical reactions in the brain.

Let me explain. Making human love is a little like baking a cake, which… never mind. The important thing is, you have to have your mixture just right– in this case, the correct balance of hormones and neurotransmitters– you need to follow the steps in order, and then it’s got to be baked at a specific temperature. Romantic love is necessary for the species, absolutely vital, because of the high demands of parenting young offspring and the importance of social support… but it’s finicky. Not an exact science.

When it comes to choosing a mate, the systems responsible for sexual arousal and those involved in attachment need to work together– that’s the rewards system and the stress-response system, just to remind you. So the first things you need to “make love” are oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, and various steroid hormones.

Remember what I said about oxytocin and vasopressin acting like an approach/ retreat dial? Well, add the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis to that– it influences the body’s stress responses using hormones called glucocorticoids and cortisol. Turns out, the HPA axis produces higher levels of these hormones during the beginning of romantic love, and the inverse is also true– people are more likely to fall in love when they have a lot of stress hormone around, for any reason. (An unexpected side effect, but let me tell you why I left it in: if a person is in danger, their stress levels rise, and that’s usually a time when they need help. Allowing the neuroendocrine system to facilitate bonding in situations like that is protective.)

Next on the list of ingredients is serotonin, which between you and me is a particularly disobliging little molecule. Too much of it kills the libido– that’s sexual arousal– not good when your goal is to get two people to have sex. I decided to turn it down when people become attracted to each other, and… okay, fine. I should have anticipated problems with that. Serotonin is responsible for regulating mood and decreasing anxiety. Since people who are falling in love have less of it, they end up experiencing anxiety, mood swings, and obsessive thoughts.

Silver lining, though: that keeps their attention very focused on one another.

Once you’ve got all these chemicals together, they need to be deployed to the areas of the brain that are involved in emotional response, memory and pleasure. That causes those parts of the brain– the hypothalamus, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, and anterior cingulate cortex, primarily– to become more active. At the same time, I decreased activity in certain other areas: primarily the amygdala and frontal cortex. The amygdala is responsible for fear, and the frontal cortex does rationalisation, impulse control and long range planning.

(Transcriber note: there are scattered disapproving grumbles.)

What?

(Transcriber note: Michael eventually raises her hand. “Mood swings, obsessions, reward-seeking behaviour, dangerously low fear levels and inability to think rationally?”)

Well. Yes.

(Transcriber note: Michael says: “It sounds like falling in love makes humans vulnerable, unpredictable and reckless! Perfect targets for the opposition! Was that wise?”)

(Transcriber note: God looks puzzled.) The opposition?

“You’ve never had any scheduled vaccinations? That’s very hard to believe, Mr. Fell. They’re required for school.”

Aziraphale was beginning to wish he’d paid more attention to exactly what records Crowley had produced for them. “What I mean is, I’ve had them.” He attempted a casual laugh. Perspiration was beading on his forehead. “It’s just that the report was destroyed. In a fire. Er.”

Dr. Carr– tall, with light brown skin and darker circles under her eyes (poor dear, Aziraphale wondered how long she’d been awake and at work, you saw the occasional article in The Guardian about it)– tapped her keyboard. “They’re not in your GP record.”

Crowley never paid enough attention to detail. “How very odd,” he said.

The doctor sighed. “The database is probably acting up again. For now I’ll just recommend the influenza vaccine later in the fall. How much do you smoke?”

“Oh, I gave that up in 1983. It’s not good for book bindings.”

“That’s the most important thing you can do for your health,” said Dr. Carr. It had the sound of something she said by rote, but Aziraphale felt pleased all the same. He was on the right track. “Do you exercise?”

“I jogged last month.” Aziraphale didn’t mention he’d only gone about ten metres.

“How many standard-size drinks per week?” Dr. Carr was still typing.

“Oh, let me see. I’m partial to a Kir Royale or Bellini around nine-thirty or ten am, though occasionally I’ll have a mimosa around eight– that’s if I’ve opened early enough to get an almond croissant from Gail’s, because they pair very well. Usually there’ll be a few martinis with lunch; I got into the habit in the nineties and there are so many ways to prepare them it seems a shame not to try them all… though I always come back to the perfect martini, for that balance of dry and sweet. A glass or two of wine in the afternoon and then it’s time for the aperitif, generally a Gimlet or a Campari cocktail, though I also enjoy an Aperol spritz for its simplicity if we’re planning a heavier dinner. Most evenings my partner and I share a few bottles of Burgundy red. I know California wines are supposed to be very trendy these days but I’m a bit of a traditionalist and honestly no one does red wine like the French, wouldn’t you agree? Then, after supper a warming brandy or a cream sherry, though I’ll not say no to port. That’s the general total, though on weekends it’s a little more.”

The keyboard had stopped clacking. When Aziraphale looked up, the doctor was staring at him.

“Is that bad?”

“It’s… over the recommended amount for a man your age,” she said, slowly looking back at the computer screen, where a red warning had popped up.

“Oh dear. I’ve actually cut down quite a lot this week, if that helps.”

She nodded, seemed like she was going to say something more, then pressed her lips together and hit a key. “Are there any diseases that run in your family?”

“Just fanatic religiosity.”

She smiled at that. “Right. Well, your vitals look fine. Twenty to thirty minutes of cardiovascular exercise per day is recommended, along with reduction in alcohol consumption to under two drinks daily.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

“Let’s have a look at that cheek.” She rose from her stool and gently pried the dressing loose. For a moment she was silent, then she gloved and touched the edges of the wound. “How did you get this?”

“Oh, I, um. Don’t recall exactly.” Aziraphale winced internally. He’d never been a good liar. “Will it heal?”

“Of course. Might scar, though. I’ll clean it and reapproximate the edges with Dermabond– that’s like a glue for skin.”

Aziraphale watched her put a few bottles onto a tray, along with cotton swabs and fresh gauze. As she started to clean his cheek, he asked, “How do I establish that this body is working correctly?”

“After we finish up here, the nurse will draw some labs. You’re not due for colon cancer screening yet so there aren’t any more tests to run right now, unless there’s something bothering you.”

“Well, yes! Something is bothering me. I’m allergic to my own bookshop, just for a start.” Aziraphale could feel the uncertainties and frustrations of the past few days pressing into his throat and trying to tumble out. “Dust makes me sneeze, I get sick to my stomach in my partner’s car, and my sympathetic nervous system’s been a complete nightmare. I want to be able to heal injuries naturally, but how can I tell if I’ve got platelets right when there’s clearly multiple other system failures?”

Dr. Carr’s eyes were wide behind her glasses. “Your sympathetic nervous system?” she asked, in the tone of someone who had considered and discarded several other questions first.

“Yes, although it’s gotten better. My heart starts pounding, my hands shake, and I have a sense that everything’s about to come crashing down. And it isn’t! Believe me, I would know.”

“Sounds like panic.” She stopped swabbing and picked up a little tube with a screw top. “Does it happen when you’re nervous?”

“Yes!” Aziraphale exclaimed gratefully. “I was very worried about something, a feeling that seems to have been provoked by the combination of unpleasant memories and- ahem- novel physical stimulation. Could that cause an adrenaline rush?”

“Not my area of study. But yes, new things can make you nervous. It’s like stage fright.”

“What’s that?”

“Are you serious?” The doctor laughed, but stopped when she flicked her eyes up and seemed to realise that he was. “I’m applying the glue, so try not to move your face. Stage fright’s the fear of speaking or performing in front of a crowd. People find the idea of being judged unpleasant, and worry they’ll do something wrong.”

“Ah!” Aziraphale started to smile, then remembered he wasn’t supposed to. Relief washed over him. “Stage fright. How interesting. And now that the performance has gone well, it’s resolved itself.” He’d been petrified of not being enough for Crowley. But Crowley didn’t mind his inexperience or his corporation's softness. Crowley wanted him.

“Panic feels very distressing, but it isn’t dangerous. Okay, this glue needs to dry.” Dr. Carr put her supplies down and sat back on her stool, this time facing him. “You haven’t visited a doctor before, have you?”

“Whatever do you mean. I’m nearly fifty,” Aziraphale replied, after taking a moment to remember the birth year he’d picked.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you strike me as someone who’s learning about his health for the first time. Some of the statements you made about your body were unusual. And… okay, look.” The doctor tugged her yellow head scarf, making Aziraphale feel an immediate kinship– here was another person who fiddled with clothing in awkward situations. “Sometimes we get new patients from some of the, er… the more fringe spiritual groups. Like Universal Medicine. There are cul– er, organisations that don’t allow members to receive standard medical care.”

What did his papers say? If a doctor caught him in a lie, were there consequences? Aziraphale felt, suddenly, very ill at ease. “I’m just a bookseller. I keep to myself. My partner arranged this visit for me.”

“You’ve mentioned your partner. Occasionally, I see patients who want their body to behave in a certain way, because someone told them it ought to. Sometimes they come in with injuries that were obviously inflicted by someone else, and won’t say how they got them. Do you understand?” Dr. Carr’s face was sympathetic. “Often it’s their partners who arrange these visits, who escort them in and out of the building, and try to force their way into the room.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“Mr. Fell, are you safe?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to answer, and heard raised voices in the hallway.

“Sir? Sir! You can’t go in there!”

“Aziraphale? Aziraphale!”

There was a crash, and Aziraphale shut his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, it was to the sight of Dr. Carr’s steady gaze and raised eyebrows. “We have security officers who can remove him from the premises. There are numbers I can call for you–”

“No, see, you’ve got it wrong.”

“Aziraphale!”

A door slammed. Aziraphale rose and snatched his folded clothes from the room’s single chair. “Thank you for your time. It would take too long to explain.” He hesitated. He could hypnotise her, of course, but it seemed inconsiderate. She was in the middle of her workday.

He put a hand on the doorknob. “He really is quite a nice person, when you get to know him.”

When he pushed into the hallway, it was to the sight of an overturned steel cart– that must have been the crash he’d heard– multiple curious heads poking out of doors, and Crowley baring his teeth at a man in uniform. The nurses were huddled behind a workstation.

“Crowley!”

The demon’s head snapped towards him. “Angel.” He rushed over and grabbed Aziraphale’s wrist. “Let’s go.”

“What’s this about? I’m not dressed! Dear–!”

The last word was lost in a surprised shout as Crowley yanked him forward. Off balance with his clothes and shoes tucked under one arm, he ran into a plant stand which tottered and fell on its side, shattering the pot it held. Dirt scattered across the white tiles. “Oh my, I’m so sorry,” he said. He snapped his fingers to restore it, but missed and hit a coat rack, which sprouted leaves.

“Plant deserved it,” Crowley muttered. “Did you see the powdery mildew spots? Pathetic.”

Aziraphale found himself half running and half dragged towards the exit. The uniformed man yelled something after them. A woman in scrubs emerged from a doorway, holding a tray of plastic cups filled with something yellow, and Crowley shouldered her out of the way. Aziraphale winced as the tray flipped upwards, liquid splashing everywhere, the woman exclaiming with surprise and disgust. “I’m sorry!” Aziraphale called. He waved a hand to dry her shirt, and then they were past her and out through a door that said “Emergency Exit Only”. An alarm blared behind them, but Crowley didn’t look back, and they didn't stop until they reached the car.

Once they’d put a few blocks between themselves and the surgery, Crowley pulled into an alley and let his head flop back against the seat. “That was a bust,” he said.

“You’re telling me.” Aziraphale, trying to put on a pair of trousers within the confines of the passenger seat, shot Crowley a sour look. “We didn’t learn a thing.”

“I rescued your book, at least.” Crowley held up The Art of Sensual Loving like a peace offering. “No telling what Hell would do with this. They might decide to bring back feathered hair and that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

“What does Hell have to do with anything?” Aziraphale asked, exasperated.

“My nurse was a Satanic nun. One we know.” Crowley told him about Sister Mary.

“Coincidence, maybe,” Aziraphale said, but his heart sank.

“Yeah right.”

Aziraphale took a breath. They had new information, and they needed to decide what to do with it, that was all. It was just like any other unexpected complication, and God knew they had experience with those. But when they’d learned Warlock was no more malevolent than any other eleven-year-old boy, Aziraphale hadn’t been afraid. Not like this.

Crowley touched his knee. “You okay?”

“I made it very clear we were to be left alone. I splashed holy water! Not at anyone,” he clarified hastily. “Just general splashing.”

“If you could trust demons to keep a promise, Hell would be a very different place.”

Aziraphale’s heart was pounding so hard he saw spots. He knew his brain was simply reacting to danger, preparing his body to run or fight, but what good did it do him now?

He tried to calm down. “I’m sorry. You caught me by surprise, and my stress hormones are getting the better of me. My corporation wants to protect you, but there’s no one here to protect you from.” He heard a rattling noise behind them and whipped his head around, but it was only the wind blowing a plastic cup along the pavement.

Crowley’s smile held a strange mix of sympathy and admiration. “Bet you were impressive during the War. Glad I didn’t see it for myself, you understand.”

Aziraphale didn’t know if he’d been impressive. He’d protected his platoon the best he could, and left the front lines early after taking a lightning bolt to the thigh. But he wasn’t new to being threatened– even outside the War and his recent encounter with Gabriel, plenty of humans had decided he looked like an easy mark. He knew how it felt to have a knife pressed to his throat, or the small of his back, and he’d stared down the barrels of firearms from muskets to pistols. He’d been struck by Uriel and hit over the head by demons, and during each encounter he’d been… what? Nervous, maybe. Uneasy. Alert to possible escape routes. But bone deep terror hadn’t been a part of his emotional library.

He thought about Crowley’s face when he’d arrived at Hampstead Heath the day before, and something he hadn’t quite understood clicked into place. “How long have you felt like this?” he demanded. It seemed unacceptable that he hadn’t known.

“Ngk. What?”

“Fear. Panic. My doctor told me that’s what I’ve been experiencing. But it’s old hat for you, isn’t it?”

Crowley looked bewildered. “Being scared?”

“Yes! Physically scared, I mean. With the full complement of adrenaline and norepinephrine.”

“I told you. I had most of my functions on simmer before, but I had them.” Crowley ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in tufts. “A demon who’s not capable of bein’ afraid is a demon with limited prospects for advancement. Or for keeping all their limbs.”

Aziraphale glared around the outside of the car, fingers itching to smite something. “They’d hurt you?”

“Aziraphale, this isn’t news. You know what Hell’s like.”

“You’re never going back there. And I’ll destroy any demon who comes within ten yards of you,” Aziraphale grated. Then he grabbed Crowley by his scarf and pulled him into an awkward, across-the-seat kiss.

Sunglasses jammed up against his forehead, cold, and he pulled them off impatiently. Crowley’s mouth was slack with surprise, and Aziraphale took advantage of that to push inside, caressing his palate with his tongue and then licking his bottom lip before huffing a warm puff of air over it (blowing air across wetted skin could be “highly arousing”, according to The Art of Sensual Loving. Aziraphale, after his hesitant and rather terrified first attempt at active sexual participation, had resolved to consult his references. Luckily, it seemed Tracy had understood the situation much better than she’d let on, or maybe this was simply what she had to offer. She was a woman who’d spent her life working with bodies, whose hands translated peoples’ needs and dispensed what they craved– possibly without the involvement of conscious thought. In any case, her lending library was full of books about touch and sex and pathways to intimacy, and although they were strictly and disappointingly heterosexual they’d do. Sensual Loving, despite the dated illustrations, had been the best.)

Crowley’s eyes went wide. As Aziraphale ran his lips down the column of his neck, he shivered, then tangled a hand into Aziraphale’s curls to guide him. “Hah. Not protesting, just so we’re clear, but what brought this on?”

He couldn’t explain. He hauled Crowley’s arm until the demon’s skinny posterior was across his thighs, then helped him shimmy until he was straddling Aziraphale’s lap, letting him feel how hard he was. Crowley let out a surprised, pleased “mmm” and heat gathered in Aziraphale’s belly. His trousers were still open, and he thrust up as he sucked a red spot on Crowley’s neck, getting a satisfying, growled, “Fuck!” in response.

Crowley knows fear, he thought as they ground against each other, finding a rhythm. Aziraphale remembered how many times he’d stood impassive by his side as Crowley sputtered with panic, face pale. When Satan boiled up from the earth, Crowley had fallen to his knees. What had Aziraphale done? He’d looked at him.

Just… looked.

Then you shook your sword in his face, a little voice reminded him.

His new complement of neuroactive chemicals seemed to have turned the lights on in a previously dark room. Here was panic. Here was territoriality. Protectiveness. Pleasure. Grief, lurking razor-sharp behind glass. And here, hulking under a drape in the very centre, was love…

“Ah!” He bit Crowley’s collar bone and stiffened, prick spilling onto the hospital gown he hadn’t had the chance to take off, one hand digging into Crowley's arse hard enough to bruise. It was messy, it was frantic, there were people walking by the alley’s mouth mere yards away–

“Angel-!” Crowley shouted. His hips bucked and then he shuddered to a stop, hiding his face in Aziraphale’s hair.

For a moment, there was no noise but their breathing.

“Wow,” Crowley said. “D’you want me to go back in there? Could be some demons lurking about. We’ll let ‘em menace me, then you smite ‘em and we can go back to mine and do that again.”

Aziraphale huffed a laugh. His cheeks were red with embarrassment, but he was tingling all over with pleasure. “Fiend.”

Miracles were a fine thing when it came to getting dressed in a car after sex without staining the seats (he suspected it had also been a miracle that had kept passing humans from noticing them, though he wasn’t sure whose). The post coital hormones had neatly cancelled out the stress hormones, and the sun was coming out. All in all, Aziraphale felt encouraged. He hummed as they approached the bookshop.

The double yellows rolled back for the Bentley, and Crowley killed the engine. “If you had just let me stay a bit longer I could have had Dr. Carr prescribe something for allergies,” Aziraphale grumbled. “I’m sure antihistamines aren’t an infernal plot.”

“I can find what you need. Got the list.” Crowley flashed the bit of paper Aziraphale had passed him at yesterday’s lunch. He’d been on his way to the bookshop when he’d gotten Anathema’s frantic text.

“I gave you that to keep you busy, as much as anything else,” Aziraphale said apologetically. “I don’t actually need those. But I’ve thought of some I do.”

Aziraphale didn’t collect books about biology. Humans had always got it wrong until very recently, and he’d seen enough of the results of their attempts to cure hysteria and other dangerous mental conditions– like speaking one’s mind while under the influence of being female– firsthand. He did, however, have a sizable collection of grimoires. Sniffling in the dusty air, he piled The Key of Solomon, Pneumatologia occulta et vera, the Red Dragon, the Black Dragon and the Grimoir of Pope Honorius into a shopping tote.

Crowley clicked his teeth. “What did you plan to do, raise somebody in middle management and ask them to tell us everything? Nobody important ever answers the summoning phone.”

“They’re just insurance.” Aziraphale held Crowley’s gaze. “It’s too bad my people are viewed as benevolent. If the humans knew what was good for them they’d have written a library of angel-binding books too.”

“Huh.” Crowley flashed one of his rare, toothy grins. “Really.”

“I’ve learned a great deal about my former coworkers over the past month, thank you.”

“No, no, credit where credit’s due.” Crowley paced across the floor, fingers hooked in his belt loops. “Do you think we need to steer clear of the places they’d expect to find us? Are they watching us, or was the surgery just a trap they laid?”

Mr. Fell, are you safe? “I don’t know. Perhaps we should be cautious. Our people know where we live.”

“Let’s do the Ritz,” Crowley said.

Crowley looked odd in the sea of pink and gold upholstery. Aziraphale felt a pang of loss over the smooth sheets at Crowley’s flat, but the bed was huge and soft and had crimson bolsters, so it would do. He set about organising the books on the coffee table: one pile of human physiology texts, one pile of Tracy’s various, dogeared resources, and one pile of occult books.

Crowley lounged on the sofa with his boots on, flipping through The Art of Sensual Loving, apparently intent on being a nuisance. “Here we are, I think this applies. ‘Changing the setting. The vast majority of lovemaking occurs in the couples’ bedroom. Having said this, most couples also enjoy making love in other places, if only from time to time’.”

Aziraphale tried to focus on the “Gastrointestinal” section of Harrison’s Internal Medicine. He wanted to know why Crowley didn’t seem to have hunger signals. “Dear…”

“Oh! ‘Generally, in-car sex is pretty unsatisfactory. It is confined; highly restrictive except for oral sex; is suited only to quick copulation rather than true intercourse; and can soon generate muscle cramps’. Says you.”

“Crowley…”

“Look, there’s even an illustration.”

Aziraphale sighed and looked up. “Didn’t you have that hairstyle once? When was it, 1992?”

“Wore it better,” Crowley sniffed.

“We have work to do,” said Aziraphale, but he was smiling.

“Two days to come up with a plan.” Crowley rubbed his face. “D’you think my people and your people are working together?”

“Why not? They clearly have lines of communication. They agreed to swap holy water for hellfire so fast you’d think it was in a procedural workbook somewhere.”

Crowley groaned. “I need a drink.”

They both knew how to feel anxious. Cortisol levels notwithstanding, they’d been meeting surreptitiously and fudging reports for so long now that stress was a cognitive reflex. Aziraphale looked at the way Crowley was sitting, noticed how the long lines of him were straighter than usual, the way his jaw clenched, the fact that he’d put his sunglasses back on.

He put down his book. “The tub in this suite is simply enormous. I’d like to freshen up. I’m starting to notice another unexpected side effect,” he said, wrinkling his nose. He’d never had to worry about how he smelled before, except when it was time to update his cologne.

“Sure, angel. Gonna raid the minibar and–”

“I suggest you read that section on ‘changing the setting’ a little more closely, and then come and join me.”

Aziraphale retrieved a bottle of Macallan 12-year from the shelf above the bar and headed for the bathroom, leaving Crowley to stare after him with his mouth open.

After filling the tub and salting the water liberally with something that smelled of ylang ylang and lavender, Aziraphale was starting to wonder if he’d misread things. Crowley hadn’t come in. Was he tired? They’d had quite a lot of sex over the past two days, and while Aziraphale felt he was making up for lost time, nothing they’d done together was new territory for Crowley. Maybe he’d gotten bored. Maybe he’d–

“Hey.” Crowley looked a little looser. He held a tray with two tumblers and a bowl of strawberries. “You forgot the glasses.”

“Ah. Thank you.” Aziraphale wiggled, pleased, and Crowley’s eyes crinkled at the corners.

“So, uh. The doctor said you were panicking?” Crowley asked as he unlaced his boots, eyes fixed on his task.

“Yes. She told me humans often feel the sensations I described in anticipation of new experiences.” He left out the ‘being judged’ part. It was ironic when you thought about it. Technically, he’d been in the business of judging for six thousand years. They all had: angels, demons, Satan, God. No wonder humans had developed neuroses.

Crowley never judged him, and he shook his head, now, over the fact that he’d worried about it. But he did watch him. He was doing it now, as Aziraphale unbuttoned his waistcoat, eyes naked and lips parted softly. ‘Stage fright’, Dr. Carr had said.

Poppycock. That had never been a problem for him before. He liked putting on a show.

He left the waistcoat hanging open and lifted his hands to his bowtie, noting with satisfaction how Crowley tracked them. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled it free, silk whispering against collar, and dropped his fingers to his shirt buttons.

“Can I–?” Crowley’s voice was hoarse.

“Why don’t you pour the drinks?” said Aziraphale, and his voice trembled a little, but he’d been doing his research. The book talked about setting the scene.

Crowley nodded wordlessly and sat down on the edge of the bath, legs spread. When he tipped the bottle, the neck chattered against the rim of the glass.

“You told me you thought about my hands.” Aziraphale lowered one shoulder to let the shirt slide down his arm, and paused to unbutton his cuffs. “Tell me what else you thought about. You, ah… did think of me?” He couldn’t help raising his eyebrows the slightest bit.

Crowley closed his eyes and took a long swallow of whiskey. Aziraphale watched his throat bob. That hungry pit was opening again in his stomach, the one that made him want all manner of things he’d never thought of before. Did Crowley feel like this, too? Had he experienced it with other lovers?

“Thighs. Spent probably a couple of centuries on those, angel. Wonderin’ what they’d feel like under my hands, wantin' to kiss up the inside all the way to the centre of you. Hss.” Crowley was breathing fast, almost hissing, teeth bared. Aziraphale, encouraged, let the shirt drop to the ground and reached for his flies.

“The curls at your temples. You never change your hair much, but every few decades they get a new look: you brush ‘em forward or blow them out or grow sideburns. I dreamed about making you sweat and seeing them stick to your skin.”

The air was very warm. Aziraphale exhaled a shaky breath. He opened his trousers, dragged them down with his thumbs, fingers spread and pointing inward (‘A man could wear tight jeans and stand with his thumbs hooked into his belt with his fingers pointing down to his genitals when chatting up a woman at a party. He is, usually quite unconsciously, emphasising the part of his body he will want stimulated should things go further’). He was half-hard from Crowley’s words; from the sound of his velvet-over-gravel voice.

“Your mouth. Your lips. God. Wine glasses are the worst, the way your bottom lip shapes itself around the rim, and I couldn’t watch for too long or you’d catch on.

“Where did you want my mouth?”

Crowley rubbed the bulge in his trousers, looking like he didn’t even realise he was doing it. “Anywhere. Everywhere. Wanted you to taste me. Thought about you using your tongue…”

Aziraphale sank to his knees. His trousers were still around his ankles but he didn’t care, he shuffled forward, and whatever grace he’d possessed during his little striptease had fled. He put his hands on Crowley’s thighs, feeling the muscles bunch, stroking from the back of his knee along the inseam like he’d always (always?) wanted. His beautiful, long-limbed Crowley. He unzipped him, drew him out, and circled the head hesitantly, picturing the steps in his mind.

‘Run your tongue around the head in a swirling motion, and be sure to give plenty of attention to the little ridge on the underside where the head joins the shaft’. Aziraphale flicked his eyes up, to where Crowley was red-faced, head thrown back, the tendons on his neck standing out. “Can I?” he asked and the demon gave a jerky nod. Holding the base, Aziraphale licked experimentally, then ran his tongue from head to root, hitting the spots Crowley had responded to the prior evening.

Crowley groaned, low, and clutched the edges of the tub. The steam from the water clouded the mirrors and it seemed they were floating, dreamlike. Aziraphale let himself explore, mapping different areas, keeping teeth tucked behind lips. He used the flat of his tongue to move the testicles inside the scrotum, took one testicle and then the other gently into his mouth, then surged back up to inscribe tiny, intricate designs over the head. Crowley was writhing, making rocking motions with his hips, and Aziraphale sank down onto him, beginning to suck in earnest, letting Crowley’s moans and gasps turn his core to warm liquid.

“Ah, angel, you don’t, you don’t have to–” Crowley stuttered, sounding shattered, thrusting harder, every muscle tight. He’d thought about this part, though, and decided he’d try it. He gave Crowley’s knee what he hoped was a reassuring pat and took him as deep as he could, swallowing around him… and coughed in surprise as his mouth and throat were flooded with thick, bitter pulses.

“A moment,” he sputtered, replacing his mouth with his hand to soothe the abruptness of his withdrawal. “I’m sorry.” He dabbed his lips with a tea towel. When he looked back, afraid he’d caused offence, Crowley was red-cheeked and grinning behind his hand.

Aziraphale collapsed against the tub with a rueful laugh and leaned on his thigh. Crowley stroked his hair. “‘S an acquired taste. Not exactly caviar.”

“No, no, it’s not that. Here.” Aziraphale licked Crowley’s spent cock, tasting the bead of semen at the tip. “Hmm, seaweed and miso. I like the taste. It just surprised me.”

Crowley shivered and bent to kiss his curls. “I love you,” he said.

They both froze.

Chapter Text

Uriel’s office, 2019 CE

There’s a knock on the doorframe. Michael is hovering just outside. “Are you making progress?”

Uriel motions her in, though she doesn’t look up from her tablet. “The selective redaction of passages is going fine, if that’s what you’re wondering. I left the part about human pair bonds lasting four years on average, and I’m striking all the material on transitional phases.”

“It seems like a monumental waste of time and effort.” Michael takes a seat across the desk, toying with the vanes of a quill pen left lying on the blotter.

Uriel makes a noncommittal noise. “What does?”

“Romance, I suppose. Love.”

“We’re beings of love.” Uriel holds herself very still. There’s no emotion in her voice at all.

“Yes, fine, but love that makes sense,” Michael says sharply. “The love of stewardship. Of caretaking. The love between comrades, or between a parent and a child. The relationships She made to last, you understand? I can’t blame Her. I’m sure she understands parental attachment very well, but what frame of reference could She possibly have when it comes to pair bonds?”

“That’s not a question for me.”

“No, I suppose not.” Michael sighs. “I’m just not sure why they bother with it. They’ve learned enough about it by now to know what to expect.”

“You were there for the didactics. The human brain’s chemical response to a suitable mate is designed to override rationality.”

“In the short term. After early love fades, shouldn’t they stop and take stock?”

“I believe they do,” Uriel says. “Often.” She touches a line of text on the tablet, and it vanishes.

Michael stares at her, a look of mild frustration on her face. After a moment, she blows a puff of air towards a lock of hair that’s slipped down her forehead. “At any rate. She’s given us plenty of incendiary material to work with here, so I suppose we should be grateful.”

“She moves in mysterious ways,” intones Uriel. She still hasn’t looked up.

“After you’re finished, would you like to get a cup of ambrosia? Or some nectar from the pool down in First Heaven? You won’t believe it, but a few of the agents who were stationed on Earth in the 1980s decided to build something called a ‘swim up bar’, and it’s really quite–”

“I’m fine. Thank you. I’d like to get this done.”

“Um, yes, that’s… of course.” Michael blinks. “Er… have you written any poems lately?”

“I’ve been very busy. Speaking of which…” Uriel tilts her head and looks up at last– to nod in the direction of the doorway.

“Ah. All right. I’ll see you later.”

The door snicks shut behind her.

Fix it fix it fix it. Crowley felt dizzy. The room was full of steam, his head was full of the scent of bath salts and crushed violets, and he couldn’t put a coherent sentence together no matter how hard he tried. He just stared at Aziraphale, whose eyes had gone wide.

He’d seen that face before. The surprised blink, the hope tinged with sadness. That was the face that’d told him “Listen to yourself” and “You’re being ridiculous” and “I don’t think my side would like that.” The face Aziraphale had worn when he’d said “You go too fast for me”, and if he heard any version of that right now he’d shatter like glass, he would, the angel would be picking shards out of his clothing for weeks.

“I didn’t mean it,” he managed to stutter. “Sorry. ‘S just… something you say. Hormone thing.” He wished the contents of the tub would turn to holy water.

A beat of silence. Aziraphale’s eyes registered hurt, then the emotion vanished like he’d pulled a curtain. He gave Crowley a tight-lipped smile. "A ‘hormone thing’. Of course."

Shit.

“I myself have been struck by the surge of euphoria that follows orgasm,” Aziraphale continued, sounding detached and clinical. “I can imagine it loosens the tongue somewhat. Interferes with one’s impulse control.”

“Rngh. That’s not–”

“Silly of me to think–” Aziraphale pushed away; he was getting up, clutching his discarded clothes in front of him like armour. The bowtie was snatched from the countertop with trembling fingers.

“Angel, hold on. Wait. just wait.” Crowley buttoned his jeans with one hand while holding the other out in supplication.

Aziraphale paused. He’d pulled his trousers back up and had the shirt and waistcoat hugged against him in a crumpled ball, as if for reassurance. His eyes were huge and wary.

Once, Crowley had tied his tongue into a bowline knot during an interminable Dark Council meeting. When he’d been unexpectedly called on he’d felt just like this, with urgent words building up in his throat he had no way to voice. His mind was screaming at him. What was wrong? Why on earth was he stalling? Of course he loved Aziraphale. It was as much a part of him as his slitted pupils– which he’d rather not have, truth be told, but he didn’t exactly have a choice. Loving Aziraphale was like that, had been since… oh, around 1236.

(The angel had shown up to the siege of Córdoba with Ferdinand’s knights and, at the sight of a mud and blood-streaked Crowley among the ranks of the instigating Almogavars, had rolled his eyes and clucked, “Really, my dear,” under his breath. Then he’d snuck Crowley into his tent, soothed his wounds with rose honey salve, and complained about the new mendicant orders– Aziraphale was opposed to asceticism on both general and personal terms; he’d once been reprimanded for multiplying bread loaves for Maria Aegyptiaca while she wandered the desert– until Crowley fell asleep, warm and safe.

The angel had been a beacon, immaculate from breastplate to sabatons, with a slight, ethereal glow about him that should have felt as cold as the rest of Heaven but somehow never had. He was the place Crowley’s heart ran to when he was hurt or afraid, and in that moment he’d realised it. Loving him was like breathing: something he had to do now, whether he wanted to or not.)

“I–” he tried. Nothing else came. Aziraphale’s lower lids were red-rimmed, his lips pressed in a thin line.

The thing was… the thing was. Okay, so it was partly his own cowardice; he was demon enough to admit that. The idea of finally showing his hand terrified him. Lust was one thing, proper demon behaviour even, but love…

They’d never talked about it, because Aziraphale hadn’t had the necessary equipment. The angel might natter on about sensing love, but the idea was clearly abstract– he was like a Geiger counter, clicking away over something he detected, without any understanding of what it really was. The danger it posed, and the damage it could do. Crowley’s surges of desire, the dark and brooding withdrawals, the yearning desperation for something as simple as the touch of his hand… those were biochemical reactions, produced by a closer-to-fully functional corporation, and it had always seemed like Aziraphale couldn’t relate. Anyone who could reply “So sorry to hear it” to a trembling, confessed, “I lost my best friend” wasn’t playing with a full complement of neurotransmitters… but Crowley knew that. He’d never begrudged Aziraphale for what he lacked. He didn’t take it personally.

Tried not to take it personally, anyway. Nobody was perfect. It was possible he harboured some very slight resentment, but that wasn’t the main issue.

The actual thing was, he was supposed to protect Aziraphale. All of this– the physical and emotional roller coaster that came with letting one’s body go fully native– was brand new. Crowley was meant to be looking out for him; teaching him what to expect, like he had with urination. Letting him set the pace. He wasn’t supposed to be pushing him at every fucking turn. Aziraphale had had enough of people trying to mould him into something he wasn’t, trying to get him to do and say things he didn’t believe. If he loved Crowley, fine, great, but it should be his decision. He’d earned the right to come to it on his own.

Crowley forced the words out like they were lumps of heated metal, stinging his throat and tongue. “It’s too soon. Is what I meant to say.”

“Too soon?” Aziraphale looked lost. “Do you mean you don’t… or you think that I don’t…”

You didn’t. The whisper in the back of Crowley’s mind was malicious, but hard to silence. They’d had two days of touching and caressing, of tentative advances and shy confessions and enjoyable, if inexpert, sex. Two days, up against six thousand years.

“I know this is new,” was what he finally said, fingers running restlessly over the side of the tub. Cool. Smooth. Just like he had to be. “S’okay. We’ve got time.”

Aziraphale’s face sagged a little; just a deepening of the lines around his mouth, but Crowley could read the exhaustion and worry that ran beneath the surface of the delight he’d been taking in his newfound sensations. “We’re in hiding,” he said. “The accommodations are excellent and I can’t complain, but we’ve evidence both of our former employers are going to attempt to act against us. We don’t know how much time we have.”

“Humans don’t either. They take a risk just getting out of bed in the morning, but they still wait for things. ‘Brother, now don't blame yourself. You can try again! Just wait a while’.” Shit, he was babbling.

Aziraphale gave him a blank stare. “Is that Keats? I’m not familiar.”

“No. Born Invincible. It’s… forget it. Point is, no pressure. You don’t have to say it back.”

“I don’t understand–”

Crowley was on his feet, cupping Aziraphale’s elbows, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to his forehead. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine, see?” He lifted the angel’s chin with one hand and forced himself to smile. His chest ached and throbbed like a rotten tooth. “We can go on just like we were.”

Aziraphale’s lower lip trembled for a moment. Then he seemed to rally. “Ah. Yes, of course. That’s prudent, I suppose.

“Because it’s so–”

“New, yes. I see.”

“Right.” Crowley dropped his hands, and they stood awkwardly.

Aziraphale blinked rapidly. “Um. Now what?”

A horrible feeling stole over Crowley. He’d gotten something very wrong. But shouldn’t he give Aziraphale time? The angel always needed time to adjust to things. It’d taken him five hundred years to say yes to the Arrangement; five hundred years of Crowley needling him in particularly cold weather, pointing out this or that festival he’d miss because of work (he particularly hated being away during the apokreas), and even going so far as to take the same ship to France when they were both assigned to oversee the election of the first Capetian monarch. He knew moving things too fast was a surefire way to make Aziraphale retreat into himself and not speak to Crowley for years. And he’d already broken his promise to slow down…

“Alcohol!” he said out loud. “I’m going to, anyway. Even if we’re not processing it like we used to, a glass or two shouldn’t hurt.” He’d left the tumbler on the shelf above the tub. He put his hip down on the lip of the bath to reach for it and felt an uncharacteristic sensation of instability, followed by a stab of pain in his left buttock. He yelped, twisted, and promptly fell into the water.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale yanked him up by both lapels. Crowley winced and pushed him away; his left leg felt like it was being pinched in a vice and his hip was the centre of a ring of jagged discomfort. He collapsed back into the tub, with a regretful thought for the state of his suede jacket. At least the warm water was helping the seized muscles relax.

“Sorry, shit. Hsss. Dunno what that was.” He dropped a hand to his thigh and moved the leg cautiously. There was a clicking noise.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale was practically in the water too, and Crowley finally registered that something unusual was going on with him. The angel was breathing in jagged, high-pitched gasps, each punctuated by a barely-audible whine. His face was grey.

“Yeah, fine, just… Christ, are you alright?”

“I don’t know what’s come over me,” Aziraphale admitted. “I drew the bath! This is so… so stupid…” he whimpered and tried to cover his face with one hand; started to turn away.

“No, hey, hey, come here. Come here. It’s just a little muscle cramp, it’s not your fault.” Crowley made to draw Aziraphale’s head into his shoulder; he was bewildered but it was obvious the angel needed comfort.

Aziraphale resisted (which, seeing as Crowley had deliberately walked back his love confession five minutes ago, was fair). He stared blankly into the middle distance, looking like someone had kicked him in the stomach. “I’m fine,” he said with patent dishonesty. “It’s not as if it’s holy water…”

The penny dropped. “Oh. Oh shit.” Crowley pushed himself up enough to get his arms around Aziraphale’s bare shoulders, pull him back towards him. When the angel was upset, he curled up and tried to make himself smaller. Neither of them had ever had anyone to reach out to, not really. It had never been safe.

Aziraphale gave in and let himself be hugged, though he was stiff, his body occasionally giving tense little shivers. Crowley stroked the hairs at the nape of his neck. Water ran in rivulets from his cuffs down the angel’s back. “Bathtub?” he finally asked, gently.

“The bathtub wasn’t a problem. It was seeing you fall into it… suddenly I was back in that horrible room. The judgement hall, or whatever they called it. The place they planned to kill you with everyone watching.”

“Probably Conference Room B. It’s the biggest. Hush, angel. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“Why did that happen? It wasn’t… um… stage fright.” Aziraphale drew back a little, searching his face. A child in need of reassurance. He picked up his precious waistcoat from the floor, looked at it blankly for a moment… then, moving robotically, used it to dry his chest and arms.

Crowley’s eyes widened. He really was bad off. “It’s normal, well, the new normal anyway. For us. See a reminder of something you’re afraid of, you react. It’s just the brain trying to keep you safe.”

“From hotel bathrooms? Crowley, that’s ridiculous.”

“I didn’t make it up. Haven’t you ever heard of a phobia?”

“Of course, but that’s… spiders. And elevators, small spaces, that sort of thing. Not… whatever this was.”

“It can be anything.” The exploitation of specific fears was a demon’s bread and butter. “Fear of dentists. Airplanes. Deep water. Holes in the ground. Travel… my point is, humans sometimes develop phobias after a scare. Knew a bloke who was nearly killed by an Audi. From then on, he’d turn around and walk the other way if he even saw a German sports car parked on the street.”

“I’ve been nearly killed plenty of times. But I don’t have a problem with guillotines– besides the obvious– or revolvers from the 1940s, or– or remote air bases in little Oxfordshire hamlets.”

“Maybe you would if one were right in front of you.” Crowley rubbed his hip. The discomfort was fading. “You’ve got cortisol now. Welcome to the club.”

“It’s too much.” Aziraphale suddenly clutched his head like it was threatening to split open. “I’m so tired, Crowley. I didn’t think–”

Crowley swallowed tears that pressed against the back of his throat, pushed his own uncertainty down to the base of his spine. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

“How am I meant to feel this way and carry on like– like everything’s tickety boo?” Aziraphale’s voice was bitter, the words sharp as ice breaking. “You talked me into this, this… corporeal immersion, a-and now I’m always shaking and sweating and I get these urges… you said it would be fine. That we’d figure it out together.”

“That’s what we’re doing,” Crowley said desperately.

“We’re figuring it out together? Really? You’ve been telling me how things work from the very beginning. You’ve experienced panic before, you’ve micturated– o-or pissed or whatever vulgar term you want to use. You’ve had intercourse!”

Crowley’s eyes widened. Aziraphale had spat the word “intercourse” with the sort of venom Crowley used when saying things like “archangel” and “performance review”.

“Humans, demons, I don’t know, it’s none of my business… the point is you’ve been with people. It’s not frightening for you, it’s not turning your whole world upside down. You’re used to it.”

Crowley felt his jaw drop, like something you’d see in a cartoon. “‘Used to it’?” he practically screeched.

Aziraphale ignored him. He leaned his head back against the cabinets and glared at the ceiling. “You could have warned me! That I’d– that we’d– but instead you let me wander around in the dark, looking things up in books. Books, Crowley!”

“You like books!”

“Our friends were laughing at me! That doctor thought I was some sort of idiotic shut-in!”

“Rggh. That’s not true, but this is exactly why I said–”

“I feel so– I feel like an idiot, Crowley. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Angel, you’re doing great. You’re–”

“A novice, I know–”

“That’s not what I was going to say!”

“–and the minute I thought I could finally see which way was up, when I really started to get the hang of things, you said… you said…” Aziraphale’s chin wobbled. “You said it’s too soon. How can you roll out the carpet for me and then yank it from under my feet like that?”

“Angel–”

“Everything is changing. I can feel a million little processes whirring away inside of me. Cells dying and being born. Chemistry and electricity and metabolism a-and fucking peristalsis–”

“Aziraphale!”

“–a-and the only thing I know for sure is that I… that I…” Aziraphale turned his furious face towards Crowley. “I don’t even want to say it!”

Crowley shifted his weight, and the hip, which had settled down, screamed at him again. Abruptly all the pain and sorrow and confusion coalesced into anger, like a collapsing star behind his breastbone. He was heavy with it, he had to spit it out or be consumed. “Come off it, Aziraphale. ‘Roll out the carpet and yank it from under my feet’, that’s rich coming from you.” He shook a finger in the angel’s direction. “‘Perhaps one day we could go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz’. Does that ring any bells? Sure sounds like a bloody invitation– demon, me, don’t get a lot of invitations so I’m not an expert– but d’you remember what you said next?” He did, they both did, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Aziraphale was finally looking at him, face set in that stubborn way he got sometimes, breath coming quickly.

“Just last month we promised to tell each other if we found the Antichrist, and then you looked in my eyes and lied. Never even told me why. If anyone goes around pulling rugs out from under people’s feet it’s you!”

They stared at each other. Crowley found his gaze being drawn to the red patch on Aziraphale’s cheek, the line of split flesh that had been knitted together with some sort of clear, shiny material.

The reminder of the last time Aziraphale had lied to him.

Crowley clenched his teeth so hard his molars ached. “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time being human. I really am. Turn it off if you want to, and we can go back to the way things were.” He got up, dripping, and hissed. “Ow, fuck.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aziraphale reach for him, but he brushed by and limped out of the bathroom, through the common area, and into the bedroom, pointedly not slamming the door behind him.

Crowley regretted not bringing the whiskey almost immediately. The problem with a good storm out was that you couldn’t slink back again for anything you’d forgotten. Ruined the impact. You had to lump it with whatever you’d got, which in Crowley’s case didn’t even include a towel, or paracetamol.

He snapped himself dry and began to pace, trying to work out whatever was wrong with his hip. It felt like the joint was slipping, now that he’d jostled it out of alignment, and it was unpleasant in a way that made him want to curl his lip and fingertips. Maybe Aziraphale had been right about the “wear and tear” thing.

Aziraphale. He had some bloody nerve, accusing Crowley of… of turning around and doing the same thing Aziraphale had always done. The very thing Crowley ought to know better than to do, because it hurt. How could he throw that back in Aziraphale’s face now, when it finally seemed they were on the same page?

Crowley flopped down on the bed. No. He’d earned this sulk. Let Aziraphale experience the nasty stomach-drop of holding his heart out on a platter and having it dashed to the ground. It wasn’t like he didn’t have it coming. Crowley was right, anyway. It was prudent to be cautious. Letting all this– chemistry, to use Aziraphale’s word– go to their heads would not only set them up for problems, it could put them in danger. They had to keep their wits about them. They weren’t safe.

But even if something was really bearing down on them… Heaven or Hell or even an annoyed Satanist, that nurse had every reason to dislike Crowley and could probably cause him a fair amount of trouble with a summoning circle if she put her mind to it… was this how he wanted things to be? Did he want to keep defensively lashing out at the slightest provocation? To sling arrows back and forth until they were both bloody and bruised? What was the point of that?

Crowley groaned. He’d never been able to stay angry with Aziraphale. He blamed it on his dopamine. Hadn’t the humans done some study with gambling… or was it video games? Crowley had done a lot of video game work in the 1990s, specialising in the loud, the flashy, and the ones with the most unpredictable achievement unlocks. Intermittent reinforcement. Large but random rewards were addictive, and if you could say one thing about Aziraphale, it was that you never knew what to expect. One minute he told Crowley he didn’t even like him, and the next he was catapulting, blind and bodiless, back to London to find him. That show of bravery and bastardry had been all the more impressive because Crowley knew how scared he’d been.

“Crowley?” The voice was very small. If he hadn’t been straining his ears for any sound from the main room he wouldn’t have heard it.

He considered pretending to be asleep, then sighed and sat up. “Yeah.”

“I’m just… I’m leaving something. Here, outside the door. For you. I thought you might… well. Anyway. I thought it might help. Sorry.” Aziraphale sounded like he was apologising not for the fight, but something much larger. Possibly for existing, or having the audacity to take up space. It was the voice he used when he’d talked to Gabriel and Sandalphon, that long ago night when they’d spoiled the opening of his bookshop, and Crowley hated it.

He opened the door. The room was dark apart from the lights of Piccadilly below. Aziraphale had crossed the room in the time it took Crowley to get up, and was staring out the window with his back turned. Crowley saw the tiny movements of his shoulders and guessed he was squeezing his hands together, one set of fingers wrapping nervously around the other.

He’d placed a silver tray on the floor which held a bucket of ice, a soft flannel that looked like it had come from his personal ragbag (it was nothing like the stiff whites of the room’s other linens), a couple of oval medicine tablets, and…

The last item actually startled a laugh out of Crowley, despite everything. “Is this A.B.C. Liniment?”

“Yes? I think so. I remembered the look of the bottle, and it wasn’t hard to reconstitute. You said you had a strained muscle.”

“I did say that.” Crowley shook his head. Aconite, belladonna and chloroform… using too much of this would relax his muscles all right. Up to and including his heart. “Think I’ll stick with the Macallan. Do we still have any?”

“Of course. Why don’t you lie back down, and I’ll leave it for you?”

“I can get it.”

“No, no, stay there–” Aziraphale flapped a hand at him. He kept his face averted; Crowley could only see an ear and the side of his cheek.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Crowley took a step towards him.

“There’s something… um, the matter with this corporation’s eyes…” Aziraphale’s voice dissolved. His shoulders shook harder.

“Oh, angel.”

Crowley wasn’t sure where they stood and certainly didn’t want to come across as suggesting anything, but his hip throbbed and eventually he took the sobbing angel to bed. He lay back and tucked Aziraphale’s head into the hollow between collarbone and shoulder (how did that Whitman poem go? Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side). Then he pulled him close and rubbed circles over his back, pressed kisses into his hair, and waited for the storm to pass.

“What’s happening?” Aziraphale wailed. “Why can’t I stop–” he gasped. “I can’t breathe…”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Aziraphale’s fingers were digging into the back of his jacket. When Crowley had finally seen him come back to his body at the airbase, alive and whole, he’d wanted to weep. When they got to his flat much later he had– but he’d done it alone, in his bedroom, under the pretence of getting an hour of sleep. Curled into a ball, clenched fists pressed to his belly while silent tears poured down his cheeks, he’d been so embarrassed… both because he couldn’t hold it together a second longer (when he fled the room Aziraphale had been motionless on the sofa, staring at that little scrap of paper, as silent and distant as the moon) and because he wanted to be in Aziraphale’s arms while he fell apart. Hadn’t dared.

He’d spent so stupidly long holding himself back. Was he protecting Aziraphale? Or was he trying to protect himself? What if this hesitation was just another selfish flaw in his nature?

Aziraphale rolled onto his back and put his hands to his face. “My muscles are seizing up. Here, and here.” Fingers pressed to eyebrows, drew down to circle around his mouth. “There’s… uh… excessive lah-lacrimation–”

“You’ve seen humans do this, angel. Hundreds of times.”

“Yes. It seemed like a kind of distress vocalisation. A way to invoke social support. Similar to… to many other animals…” he inhaled a shuddering breath. “I didn’t know it felt so unpleasant.” His eyes widened. “Oh, Crowley, I hope you’re not doing this because I’m crying. You don’t have to…” he tried to push away.

“Aziraphale, don’t be an idiot.” He winced– wrong word choice. “What I mean is, of course I’m not. Well, I am, but only because I want to be close to you anyway. Only thinking of myself, promise.”

That earned him a watery smile. Then Aziraphale’s face crumpled. “No, I’m only thinking of myself. Still. I just wanted to give you something for your leg, and now you’re stuck h-helping me again–”

“Shh.”

“I’m ruining your coat…”

If they’d been human that probably would have been true. It wasn’t easy to get tear stains out of silk liners. “I already dunked it in a bathtub. It’ll survive.”

“There’s so much mucus…”

“Yeah, we both knew that was a risk when we switched on. Aziraphale, please don’t cry.” No. That was something the archangels would tell him. Don’t cry, don’t sully the temple of your celestial body with gross matter, don’t fuck a demon…

He didn’t think they’d actually said that last one, but they would have if they’d known.

“That’s not what I mean. Cry if you need to. But you don’t need to– at least, if you’re upset because I… because we…?”

“Because you don’t love me. Because I’ve hurt you too much, and it’s too late.” Aziraphale said it mechanically, like he’d run the words through his head over and over until he had them by rote. Then he began to sob again, silently, chest hitching and lips pressed together.

Crowley stared, speechless, before mentally shaking himself. “No. Nonono you’ve got it all wrong, hey, hey, just calm down. Angel. Hey.”

“I’m sorry Crowley–”

“Listen.” Crowley cradled the angel’s face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. For cocking everything up. I always–” he grimaced. “Forget it. You think I know what I’m doing here, huh? That this–” he pulled back to catch Aziraphale’s eyes, and gestured between them, “–doesn’t scare me? Angel, I was less scared of Lucifer popping up through the tarmac.”

“Well, what was it you said? You had your functions on simmer then.”

“Not that day. Full boil that day, adrenaline got away from me sometime after the M25.”

Aziraphale turned to stare at the ceiling. “When I think back on how I felt, knowing what I know now… it was like being under a blanket. I could see the shape of terror and loss, and I was afraid to look at them directly, so I pulled the covers over my head like a child. I don’t even know how I was able to do it! Remember, I was at… er… ‘full boil’ then too. Adam had just given me my corporation back.”

Crowley blinked. “That’s right.” Aziraphale had been so composed and serene that night, when from a purely biological standpoint he should have been falling apart.

Interesting, but a mystery for another time. A tear ran down the side of Aziraphale’s face and dampened the hair at his temple, and Crowley couldn’t let him go another second thinking– “It’s not too late. Never. Not too soon, either. I love you. Forget all that other stuff. I love you. Course I do.” It felt like he was wrenching something open. The words fought him, but he said them anyway, and he smiled with his whole face when Aziraphale finally looked over at him again.

The angel’s expression was doubtful. He drew a shaky breath. “You’re only saying that because I’m upset.”

Crowley shook his head forcefully. “Not. Wouldn’t. Anyway, I’m the expert on emotions according to you. So you have to listen to me.”

“You just said you don’t know what you’re doing,” Aziraphale said, infuriatingly.

What a pain in the arse he was sometimes. “You’re right, I don’t. I’ve never been with someone like this. Someone like you…”

“What does that mean?”

Crowley indulged himself, just for a second, and clutched his hair. Then he uncurled his fingers and touched the angel’s cheek, just below the burn. “Bad choice of phrasing. I’ve never been with you. I always wanted to.” He swallowed. “Other people… there haven’t been that many, and not for years, whatever you think… fuck, Aziraphale, I used them to take the edge off, okay? Not proud of that, but sometimes I… and I couldn’t… I wanted it to be you.”

He decided to see whatever was so interesting on the ceiling. His cheeks were hot.

No response from Aziraphale. Crowley swallowed. “You still don’t have to say it back. We do have time. I meant all that. Just not the ‘too soon’ part. I’ve been waiting to tell you since the fourteenth century, so, you know. Not too soon for me.” Oh Satan. He covered his face with his hands.

Aziraphale moved then; coldness started to seep into Crowley’s side the moment he withdrew. He listened to him blow his nose and tried to resign himself to spending the night alone (he could do one night. Hadn’t he done eighty years once? Like solitary confinement, that had been, but you could get used to anything)... when he felt the angel take his hand.

He tangled their fingers with pathetic neediness and sat up. Aziraphale was looking at him carefully, like he was working out what he wanted to say. The angel didn’t spit things out at random the way Crowley did when he was nervous; he considered. He deliberated. Crowley could see the gears turning behind his eyes.

Then he seemed to reach a decision. With a snap, the bottle of Macallan was on the bedside table, accompanied by two full tumblers. Aziraphale downed half of one with none of his usual finesse, then turned and offered the rest. Crowley took it and gulped, shamefully but gratefully, like it was medicine… until Aziraphale pulled it away and replaced the glass with his lips.

Crowley made an embarrassing noise and they staggered forward, clutching at each other. Their mouths were open and Aziraphale tasted like whiskey with a tiny hint of bitterness underneath that Crowley realised was the taste of his come. At the thought of that he was instantly hard again, shivering with the icy heat of it, tangling his hands in soft blond curls while Aziraphale tried to climb into his mouth, tongue first.

He pulled and shifted until the angel was in his lap. Aziraphale drew back with a murmur of concern. “Your hip…”

Did he even have hips? He couldn’t feel them. An armful of Aziraphale was a better painkiller than liniment made from deadly nightshade; it was better than fentanyl.

“Fuck my hip,” he growled.

“That wasn’t exactly my idea. Something close, though.”

Crowley gawped. His head hit the headboard.

Aziraphale gave him that prim smile, the one that said “You’re mistaken. I’m far too polite to have said what you thought you just heard”. The one that was half a second away from breaking into peals of mischievous laughter. “I’m afraid Sensual Loving rather disappoints with regards to that particular act, though I did find the illustrations of different positions quite informative.”

“Aggh.”

“Don’t look so surprised. You’re the one with the not-at-all erotic statue.”

Crowley was moving his mouth soundlessly, like a beached carp. “Are you sure?” he managed to wheeze.

Aziraphale just nodded. His face was still puffy, but his eyes were clear. The quiet trust in them stole Crowley’s breath.

“After… after everything you said?”

(They were in his car. Pink light pierced the cab, moving over Aziraphale’s face as he held out a tartan thermos. Crowley stared at it. “After everything you said?”)

“I haven’t changed my mind. About this… or about you. Us.”

(“You told me what you thought. One hundred and five years ago.”

“And I haven’t changed my mind.”)

It dawned on Crowley that he’d given the angel permission to turn everything off again. He’d said it in anger, but it was the sort of invitation Aziraphale would have seized upon, once upon a time. When he’d used any excuse to put distance between them.

(“I’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go.”

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”)

Tonight, Aziraphale had been sad and terrified, wracked with sobs over the (stupid, insane, inconceivable) idea that Crowley didn’t love him. He hadn’t needed to be. Crowley had opened an escape hatch and practically waved him through it, but the angel hadn’t run.

He’d stayed.

Should I say thank you? Crowley thought… and then he shoved the memory of that night out of his mind. “Angel,” he breathed, and pulled Aziraphale down to him.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 8: Practical

(Transcriber note: Michael eventually raises her hand. “Mood swings, obsessions, reward-seeking behaviour, dangerously low fear levels and inability to think rationally?”)

Well. Yes.

(Transcriber note: Michael says: “It sounds like falling in love makes humans vulnerable, unpredictable and reckless! Perfect targets for the opposition! Was that wise?”)

(Transcriber note: God looks puzzled.) The opposition?

(Transcriber note: Michael clams up immediately. “Never mind. But… Lord…?”)

All right, all right. You raise a good point, but you have to understand that when you’re working inside a contained system, there are always trade-offs. It simply isn’t possible to “have it all”. Some things don’t make sense from the point of view of an individual organism, but they need to happen anyway.

(Transcriber note: “Ah, because of ineffability!” Gabriel booms. He’s such a wanker sometimes, honestly.)

Not really. It’s just that if humans could always act logically, they wouldn’t bond at all, and that would be a disaster for the species. That was an unexpected side effect of consciousness down there. To keep Earth self-sufficient, I prioritised species’ survival over individual survival. It works fine for things like monkfish. But humans know they’re going to die– what’s more, they know everyone they care about is going to die, too. Without helpful little things called “defence mechanisms”, which are basically ego armour, humans would probably be horrified at the idea of forming attachments at all– since they’ll inevitably lose them. Even as things stand, the appeal of love has to override good sense.

Let’s review. We’ve discussed the “bait” for falling in love: dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and the sex steroids. You know by now this mix of substances obliterates a human’s ability to make higher-order decisions. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes it feels awful (that’s because a lot of these early relationships don’t work out, by the way. Humans make connections the way animals who don’t protect their young produce offspring; there are dozens, even hundreds of initial forays for every one bond that survives and flourishes. Does the red snapper or the jellyfish or the sea turtle sense the fact that most of their children end up in the food chain? Unlikely; I’m not that cruel. But humans feel the loss of love, and it’s painful, particularly when they have this level of neuroendocrine obsession going on), but it’s always strong. Then, when the oxytocin/ vasopressin reaction– which takes some time to ramp up– is well-established, the rationality-killing chemicals fade, and hey presto! You have a semi-permanent bond designed to help a pair of humans raise a child during the years they’re most vulnerable. So you can be reassured that the out-of-character behaviours don’t last forever.

(Transcriber note: there are a number of perplexed-sounding comments. “Semi-permanent?” Michael asks.)

Oh, yes. About four to seven years. That's how long it takes infant humans to mature past the point of needing total care.

(Transcriber note: Raphael, who’s been taking notes as furiously as I have, looks up. “That’s almost no time at all. Why not extend the duration, if breaking these pair bonds is so painful?”)

Can’t you guess? Remember what I said about saber toothed tigers? I had to find a way to make humans want to stay together, but also allow them to move on if a partner was lost. That's just practical. Don’t worry, though– there are built-in mechanisms that decrease the pain.

After twelve to eighteen months of partnership, serotonin levels return to normal– which causes the obsessions, compulsions and mood swings to resolve. Elevated testosterone lasts one to two years before going back to baseline, and taking heightened libido with it. Dopamine releases its stranglehold on the frontal cortex, and executive function is restored. Infatuation becomes passional love, a stage of safety, calm, increasing intimacy and commitment– which is great for raising kids, by the way– then passional love becomes companionate love. Pair bonds can be dissolved with relatively little fuss during the points of transition from one phase of attachment to the next.

(Transcriber personal note: I don’t understand. Things are, or they aren’t. Love isn’t a… a transient illusion! It’s the foundation of what we are as angels, and the basis of Creation, and it’s a part of everything in Her universe! It doesn’t vanish overnight. Does it?)

Uriel’s office, 2019 CE

Uriel touches the glowing tablet in her hand. Most of the text disappears. What’s left reads: “After twelve to eighteen months of partnership, serotonin levels return to normal– which causes the obsessions, compulsions and mood swings to resolve. Elevated testosterone lasts one to two years before going back to baseline, and taking heightened libido with it. Dopamine releases its stranglehold on the frontal cortex, and executive function is restored. Pair bonds last about four to seven years.”

“Hey presto,” she whispers.

“Making Love With Intercourse” was the final chapter of Sensual Loving. But Aziraphale was a fast reader (and had, for obvious reasons, skipped all the bits on contraception).

To steady himself, he went over the introduction in his mind. He’d memorised it. “For most people, intercourse seems to be the most natural progression from mutual pleasuring”.

Crowley loves you.

Aziraphale hushed the thought. He needed to focus.

“Most of us begin our sexual lives quite modestly, but with time, care, a little effort and some real communication, we can transform this rather simple, biological activity into a supreme piece of communication and sharing”.

Crowley loves you.

He’d wanted to know, of course he had. He just hadn’t thought it would frighten him so much.

“Intercourse isn’t the start of a journey into a couple’s sexual relationship but the consummation of a lovemaking partnership. It involves absolute commitment, it knows no barriers, and it is a lifetime’s investment”.

Aziraphale thought a rude word about Dr. Stanway, the author of Sensual Loving. He hadn’t had to put it that way. He must have known some of his readers would be novices who were already feeling overwhelmed enough. If Aziraphale left things to his id, he’d be back at his bookshop by now, logy on antihistamines and comfort eating iced buns from Gail’s.

But…

Crowley loves you.

It had been difficult for Aziraphale to believe at first (not that the demon had hidden his feelings particularly well. Even Aziraphale, one of the world’s expert self-deceivers, had to admit to being in possession of what could only be called a preponderance of evidence) because of the gnawing self-doubt that had been with him since before the rift in Heaven. It told him he wasn’t worthy of loyalty or regard, whispered that no one even liked him, much less… well. Compared to that force, Crowley’s love was in its infancy.

But that wasn’t Crowley’s fault. He didn’t deserve to be subjected to unending prevarication because Aziraphale couldn’t comprehend his rationale. (‘Love me? Why, it must be requited’. That was how the line was written, but Will had coached his Benedick to emphasise “me” and deliver “Why?” as a single word question: “Love me? Why?” and Aziraphale had always found that more relatable.)

He still had some rationality left underneath the chemical storm brewing in his synapses, and he understood that it was time to treat Crowley as an equal. A partner. Not someone who was Fallen, below him, as he’d said selfishly so many times; and not someone so far above him that he couldn’t even allow himself hope.

None of that changed the fact that he was absolutely terrified. They were careening at ninety miles an hour down a narrow country road; he knew Crowley would protect him but it didn’t stop his heart from trying to beat right out of his chest. This was rash. What on earth had gotten into him? Was he ready for “absolute commitment”? Hell, was he ready to have the demon he loved explore an orifice that had most recently been used for defecation? Wouldn’t Crowley be put off? He hadn’t even gotten to have his bath.

It was all terribly confusing, but the physical sensations were uncomplicated. God help him, he was so grateful for that.

Crowley touched him like he had all the time in the world, eyes fixed on his face. They’d both dressed again after their argument, shoes and all, so they set about unwrapping each other… a step in the process Aziraphale realised they'd mostly skipped up to now. He liked it. Crowley's thin tie was rougher under his fingers than he’d imagined it would be, coarsely textured like gecko skin. The chain necklace whispered musically as he pulled it off. Then he had his hands underneath the henley, which was as soft as it had felt in his fantasies, tracing the contours of Crowley’s back: subtle paraspinal swells flanking his spine, delicate ridges of cervical vertebrae, the hollows beneath his ribs. He hadn’t taken the time to explore, before; their couplings had felt so urgent, the pace frantic.

This time, it was slow. Crowley handled him like glass, undoing each button on his waistcoat with utmost care, pressing gentle kisses to every inch of newly bared skin. Something about the intense concentration made Aziraphale’s flesh feel electric. It began to make its own demands, arching his back to press his chest forward into Crowley’s hand, pushing their hips and lips and thighs together. Crowley’s stomach and cock were hard, gloriously hard, and warm. Aziraphale hissed when seeking fingers found his nipple, rolling and pinching it until the pleasure tipped down towards his centre.

Time was slipping oddly. Aziraphale had been conscious nearly every instant of his existence. It wasn’t in an angel’s nature to forget; if he’d been asked he could have retraced his steps and words and deeds back through the long centuries, following the thread until it finally led him up to Heaven and the fiercely glowing radiance from which he’d been created (which didn’t explain how he could have gotten “out of practice” with French, but he suspected he had a bit of a mental block about it). The disruption of sleep had come as a surprise, but he’d seen humans (and Crowley) sleeping and knew what to expect.

This was different. He was awake, but kept losing self-awareness in a way that was utterly alien. One moment Crowley was under him, kissing his neck while the ends of Aziraphale’s unravelled bowtie brushed his cheeks; next the bowtie was gone and Aziraphale’s shirt was rucked up in back as Crowley thrust against him, groaning softly; then Crowley’s flies were open and the demon was gently unclenching Aziraphale’s fingers from his penis so he could shuck his jeans. “Easy, easy,” he whispered, and Aziraphale realised he’d been making noises, desperate little moans and whimpers.

He rested their foreheads together. “Please,” he said, and didn’t know exactly what he was asking. His thoughts were muddled and swirling and fogged, like he’d been drugged.

“Yeah, okay.” Crowley sat up partway so he could push Aziraphale’s trousers down and off. After what he’d said earlier, the spectre of the incubus– which Aziraphale now knew had been colouring his interpretation of so many of Crowley’s actions– had mostly faded. Crowley no longer seemed tremendously experienced; it had been like one of those optical illusions that relies on the brain to fill in the blank spaces. His face was pale. His hands shook. His skinny chest rose and fell jerkily, and his pulse fluttered in his temple and against the line of his neck.

He looked overwhelmed and terrified, and that gave Aziraphale the ability to quiet his thoughts and come back to himself. They were both scared, and neither had to go through it alone anymore.

Be not afraid. “I love you,” he whispered, feeling his lips and tongue make the shape of those words for the very first time. ‘It feels loved… I’m astonished you can’t feel it’. Had he said that out of spite, or hope? Perhaps both.

“Right. Good.” Crowley closed his eyes. The noise he made was such a stereotypical sigh of relief– ‘Phew’– that Aziraphale almost laughed, but bit his lip because he suspected it was a genuine reaction.

“I’m sorry I didn’t–”

Crowley shook his head minutely. Aziraphale remembered being shushed at the airbase (“I was technically on apple tree duty…”). When Crowley's eyes opened, there was a sheen to them.

Aziraphale smiled at him. Crowley scowled. “‘M fine,” he said, as he rubbed the inside of his wrist across his cheeks. “Don’t say anything.”

“Not a word.”

“Um. How did you want…?”

His breath started doing that strange hitching thing again. “Th-the book… the book said…”

Crowley drew him close, kissing his forehead. Face pressed to the demon’s neck, out of view of those piercing yellow eyes, the words came more easily. Aziraphale spoke into his shoulder. “It said, ‘Many men obtain great pleasure from their G-spot being caressed’. I had to look that up. It seems the author is arguing for a physiological equivalency between the internal root of a female’s clitoris and the male prostate, which may not be accurate, but he said ‘the area is found a couple of inches inside the anus on the front wall of the back passage’. So I thought that…”

“You want me to start by touching you there.”

“Ah! Yes, yes, it’s better when you say it like that.” Aziraphale’s cheeks flamed. He wanted to dive under the covers.

Crowley’s lips brushed his closed eyelids, then both heated cheeks. “Knees up then. There. Let me slide this under.” He used a pillow to lift Aziraphale’s buttocks. “Now, just–”

“Um.” Aziraphale squeezed his thighs together as Crowley started to reach between his legs. “It’s just… just…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, oughtn't I wash up first?” Aziraphale nearly wailed. “It’s so unfair, I’d never used my fundament for anything but sitting until three days ago, and now I’d quite like for you to… but isn’t it terribly unhygienic? Stop laughing!” But he was laughing too, suddenly. Humiliated, but laughing.

“I’m sorry, angel, I’m not…” he was, but it was alright. Aziraphale took his hand and pressed it.

“Your corporation makes all sorts of things,” Crowley murmured. “So does mine. We’ve been swapping lots of spit…”

“Crowley!”

“What? Licked plenty of sweat off your skin by now, too; got your tears and snot all down my neck, put your penis in my mouth. I promise you, ‘hygiene’ was the last thing on my mind when I did that.”

“But…”

“Love’s messy.”

Aziraphale forgot what he’d been about to say. His eyes filled. Crowley had a way of smiling at him that made his whole face shine with affection, even though his mouth barely lifted at the corners.

“And I love you. Please don’t worry.”

Aziraphale sat up and drained the last of the whiskey glass. Then he nodded.

At first, he couldn’t relax. Crowley stretched out beside him, looking watchful, and began to caress him like he’d done on his couch the morning before. The movement of his fingers was so tentative that at first he wasn’t properly touching at all, just whispering over the hairs on Aziraphale’s belly and thighs. When Aziraphale shuddered and let his legs fall open, Crowley moved his hand down, stroking Aziraphale’s cock until he was writhing and pressing up into his touch, then dropping lower. Each testicle was handled reverently, then two fingers brushed over Aziraphale’s perineum, down to a place he’d never been touched before.

He gasped and felt his hips nearly come off the bed.

“This okay?” Crowley murmured, moving his finger pads in a gentle circle, not breaching, just brushing.

“I… ah…” He was wordless. He’d read about it. ‘The anal area is far more arousing than many realise’.

Bit of an understatement.

Crowley circled his entrance again, slow, dragging. Aziraphale groaned. “First time, it might not be comfortable,” Crowley said. “You’re just getting used to moving the muscles down there. We can try it. Stop if you need to.”

“We need… something…”

“On it.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and a bottle appeared in his free hand. “Figure’d a posh place like this’d be stocked.”

(It hadn’t been, being a class of hotel that decidedly didn’t rent by the hour. But Crowley thought it ought to be, so the room had obediently manifested a tasteful selection of lubricants, tucked into a discreet marble box on a shelf above the sink.)

Aziraphale watched Crowley coat his palm, eyes half-lidded. Instead of reaching back, he curled around Aziraphale’s prick again, stroking slowly, which made his vision swim and pleasure build like a wave below his waist. He sobbed Crowley’s name and grabbed his wrist; moved the demon’s hand back between his buttocks himself.

“A-angel,” Crowley choked. His mouth went slack as he pressed carefully inside with a single, slick finger.

Aziraphale’s muscles contracted to protest the little invasion, but this sent a jolt of pleasure through him. Crowley didn’t move that hand for a moment; he shifted on his elbow and reached up with the other to where Aziraphale was swollen and slick and aching.

“Ah.” The slow pulls on his cock combined with the new, gentle pressure lower down made his head spin. Crowley watched him, rapt, lips parted. Aziraphale closed his eyes.

When he began to feel the sensation of being stroked from the inside, it was because of his own quickening movements. He was being exquisitely tortured– thrusting up into the tight circle of Crowley’s fist, then sinking downward onto his slippery finger. He moaned, and Crowley made a fluttering motion against his walls, which made him feel like he’d been touched by an electric spark. He thought of having Crowley’s tongue up there, and clenched his fists as the image of that made his pulse thump in his cock, made him twitch helplessly and cry out.

Crowley made a desperate noise. He was pressed up against Aziraphale’s thigh, rocking his hips in tiny arcs, and Aziraphale smiled at the evidence of how much it pleased him to give Aziraphale pleasure; how his prick twitched and pulsed every time Aziraphale gasped. He slid his finger slowly forward, then even more slowly back; draggingly, achingly slow. “How is it?”

“Again, please… ah! Like that.”

Crowley repeated the motion, each time venturing a little deeper, crooking his finger to stroke the front wall like Aziraphale had asked. Aziraphale’s thighs quaked. It was too much. It wasn’t enough. His testicles tightened around a sudden spike of pleasure from his cock and he whimpered at Crowley to stop touching him there, “Just for the moment, love, or I’ll…”

Crowley gave an understanding “hmm” and leaned over to lick and bite at his nipples, all the while moving his finger smoothly, sometimes stroking, sometimes circling.

Time blurred again. When Aziraphale resurfaced, he was conscious of the dampness between their chests– when had he gotten so sweaty? –and the harsh rasp of Crowley’s breath. The demon’s eyes were wide and full yellow. He’d squeezed a handful of bedding so hard there were half-moon shaped tears in the slippery gold duvet cover; Aziraphale could only assume the instinct was similar to biting down on a stick when one was in pain. Trying to diffuse an overwhelming sensation by engaging different sensory nerves, maybe. Aziraphale himself had all ten toes dug into the mattress and both hands wrapped around Crowley’s forearm. His throat felt dry, like he’d been crying out without even knowing it.

“Good?” Crowley asked shakily. He’d started using two fingers at some point, and he began to slide gently out again, dragging fingerpads against a nodule of sensitive flesh that must be Aziraphale’s prostate; holy Hell, did the G in “G spot” stand for “God”? Surely this was the pinnacle of Her achievements, this staggeringly intense pleasure, he’d never felt anything like it.

That thought was probably blasphemous. “Jesus,” he stammered. Oh dear.

“D’you want to try?” Crowley’s bangs were stuck to his forehead. Aziraphale wasn’t the only sweaty one. Good.

He glanced downward. Crowley fully erect was long but not intimidatingly thick. The head of his penis was slick with clear fluid, flushed red. Aziraphale bit his lip and nodded, lying back, heart hammering so hard he saw spots. His breath was shallow and thready. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

“Kay. Gonna lift your leg a little.” Crowley put a hand under his thigh, moved it upwards and outwards.

The little bottle had got lost in a fold of sheet. Aziraphale ferreted it out and handed it over. Crowley got it uncapped on the second try, poured a generous dollop onto his shaft, spread it around (synthetic lubricant dripping glutinously over that part of his anatomy shouldn’t be so arousing, but the visual hit Aziraphale like a punch to the stomach. He groaned), then slicked Aziraphale’s cleft and entrance with slippery fingers.

“It hurts, we stop,” Crowley said through clenched teeth. “You want to stop, we stop. Just tell me, angel.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure he could, due to the cricket-ball-lodged-in-throat sensation he was currently experiencing, but Crowley was watching his face so carefully he felt safe. The demon held the base of his cock in one hand and Aziraphale’s thigh in the other, shifted down the bed, moved those snakey hips in a sinuous sort of ripple, and began to press forward.

It was more intense than the fingers had been by several orders of magnitude. The feeling was very strange, heavy and warm; his body trying to fight the intrusion even though the slow, stretching burn made his cock ache and dribble all over his stomach. It hurt a little. He gave a high-pitched cry and clutched Crowley’s shoulder.

“Stop?” Crowley murmured.

“No, just… a moment…” he breathed. It felt good to hitch his knees up and spread his thighs so he did that, he probably looked ridiculous but never mind. Crowley was between his legs. Crowley was pushed halfway inside of him, body tense and rigid as he tried to hold himself back. Crowley was looking at him with an expression of such amazed wonder on his face that it made Aziraphale’s eyes prickle.

Crowley loves you.

Aziraphale smiled up at him. “‘Once more unto the breach,’” he murmured. He saw Crowley start to roll his eyes at that, but just then Aziraphale hooked his ankles behind the demon’s back and pulled him in.

They both gasped. The feeling of Crowley pushing fully inside was like being punched, a dull shock that diffused outward, but the sensation was pure pleasure. “Ah, oh God, oh God,” Aziraphale babbled, twisting his body and reaching instinctively for his cock. It was too much, he was hurtling towards a cliff’s edge…

There were a few rocking, jerky thrusts. Aziraphale was aware on some level that Crowley was favouring his hip, oh dear, that’s right, he’d hurt his leg. Aziraphale had selfishly forgotten. He’d attend to it, he would, but right now…

“Don’t stop,” he wailed, waves beginning to crash over him, stripping his cock frantically, “oh God! Crowley!”

Crowley whined low in his throat and moved faster. As the tip of his cock brushed over that amazing bundle of nerves Aziraphale clenched, wrapped his legs around Crowley’s back like hoops of steel, and came, shuddering, the pleasure sweeping him under like a riptide.

(He’d read, curiously and shamefully, about climaxes so intense that they whited out vision, but hadn’t known that could actually happen. Until now.)

As the muscle contractions faded to pleasant shivers, the feeling of Crowley still hard inside him was too much. Aziraphale hummed with discomfort and gave Crowley an apologetic look as he pushed his shoulder. “Apologies. I–”

Crowley just shook his head, pulled out and collapsed onto his back in one movement, and reached between his own legs with a still slick hand. Aziraphale watched in muzzy, post-orgasmic contentment as the flushed head slipped in and out of vision, Crowley pumping himself rapidly until he threw his head back and came all over his chest and stomach, with a cry that sounded torn from somewhere deep inside him.

They looked at each other as their breathing slowed. Aziraphale laughed ruefully. “I’m sorry. I wanted you to…”

“Told you, take it easy your first time. You were perfect.” Crowley pivoted on one elbow and nosed Aziraphale’s shoulder. He was the lithe, seductive, intimidating demon he’d always been, but now at the same time he seemed so delightfully… innocent? Playful, maybe. Unreserved in his affection like a friendly housecat.

Somehow he didn’t think Crowley would appreciate that line of thinking. Aziraphale shifted and hissed a little.

“You okay?” Crowley touched his cheek.

“I’m wonderful. A bit sore, that’s all. It wasn’t quite as easy as the illustrations made it look.”

“Next time you get on top, easier to set the pace that way. That is, if you…”

“As soon as physically possible, dear boy.” Aziraphale kissed him, soft but open-mouthed, running the tip of his tongue over Crowley’s bottom lip. “Male refractory periods seem to vary in length, but given past experience I’m optimistic about our chances twenty or thirty minutes from now.”

Crowley shook his head. “I’ve created a monster.”

They didn’t make love again in twenty minutes, or thirty. They talked in the dark. Aziraphale felt like the words were suddenly crowding his throat, falling over one another in their eagerness to get free. “The ‘Woman in White’ musical. Surely you had a hand in that.”

“Told you, angel, I stayed away from all those big literary adaptations. If I’d messed around with a translation of Dickens or Austen or Eliot you’d have found out and been stroppy with me for months.”

“But the West End production was such a dreadful bore. It smacked of infernal intervention.” Aziraphale punctuated this statement by loudly kissing Crowley’s neck. “And you were at loose ends, what with Warlock and his parents on holiday in America.”

“I spent that summer watching Euro 2004 and you know it.”

Aziraphale pulled him closer. “I suppose humans have as much potential for mediocrity as they do for good or evil.”

“My turn. The 70 mile-per-hour motorway speed limit.”

“There were an unacceptable number of collisions happening due to excess speeding–”

“You got that passed specifically to annoy me! I knew it. You were so grumpy in 1965.”

“I was trying to quit smoking.”

“Why’d you have to try?” Crowley shifted against his shoulder and hooked an ankle over Aziraphale’s knee. His fingers played in Aziraphale’s chest hairs, absently pinching and separating the strands. “You need dopamine to get addicted in the first place.”

“Purely force of habit, I suppose. I’d started to cope with visits from Gabriel by slipping out for a calming cigarette. Plus, it was a way to distract myself from that red velvet mini-dress you were favouring.”

Crowley grinned. “You noticed.”

“You were unbearable in the sixties, Crowley. Just because I didn’t have active hormones doesn’t mean I was blind.”

Crowley breathed a laugh, and they were quiet for a moment. “How’s your leg?” Aziraphale asked, at length.

“Fine, now. It didn’t hurt too much before, either… just felt strange. Like something slipped out that shouldn’t have.”

“I don’t think any of our recent changes would have affected your bones. I don’t like it.”

“Something to do with more blood circulating, maybe. Do bones have blood?”

“I think they must.” Aziraphale thought this over. “Wait, though, what about teeth?”

“What about them?”

“Teeth are bones. But chipped teeth don’t bleed. I’ve seen plenty of boxing matches. The Marquess of Queensbury; awful man.”

“Huh. Not blood then. Dunno.” Crowley yawned. “‘Member, I had to sort of cobble my corporation together. Maybe something’s not up to factory standard.” He wriggled his hips thoughtfully.

“Perhaps it’s muscular,” Aziraphale said hopefully. “In that case, massage and analgesics might help. Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “Warm water! That’s the ticket.”

Crowley gave a little groan of protest. “Plenty warm here.”

“Come now, up you get.”

Aziraphale shuffled through the jars on the glass shelf in the bathroom. “Lavender… vanilla honey… oh, this one’s called Ambrosial Ofuro, I think we’d better have that one. Delicious. Do you remember the ambrosia bars?”

“Do I remember having nothing to eat or drink except anaemic sugar-water?” Crowley pulled a face.

“Point. Actually, I could eat. Shall I call for room service?”

“Angel, it’s one o’clock in the morning.”

“Ah, but this is the Ritz.” Aziraphale sparkled at him and sent a miracle downstairs that would bring them a selection of morsels from the first dinner course. Perhaps he just hadn’t been tempting Crowley with the right food; they’d had mostly takeaway in styrofoam containers whereas Crowley tended to dress himself in Nicole Farhi and order things like ballotine of duck liver with sour cherry and pistachio. In recognition of the hour, he included a substantial tip and a formless blessing for the servers.

He started the tub filling and straightened up to find Crowley looking at him with a peculiar expression. “What is it?”

“Didn’t think you’d want me in the tub, after…”

Aziraphale thought about this. “I feel better now,” he decided. “Perhaps because I already saw you fall into it, and you didn’t melt.”

Crowley lifted one long thigh– Aziraphale stared; no, who was he kidding, he ogled– and stepped carefully over the lip, bracing himself on the marble wall. “I had a turn like that when you did the picnic for us, back in 2014,” he said in a confessional sort of voice. “Greenwich park. Remember? I had to make myself sit there and stare at that wicker basket until I was convinced it wouldn’t vomit up some eldritch horror bent on destroying our lives.”

“You did seem tense that day! I thought it was because… well… of what I said. In 1967.” What Crowley had been doing could only be called “sitting” by the very loosest definition. He’d been so tightly wound that he hardly touched the blanket, jiggling his foot incessantly, starting at every gust of wind. After twenty minutes, he’d said he had to mind Warlock and dashed off. Aziraphale had been crestfallen. Clearly Crowley wasn’t interested in a picnic after all.

“I was worrying a lot at the time, you know? I knew the stupid basket didn’t have anything to do with end-of-the-world babies, but I couldn’t stop my mind running in circles. Eventually couldn’t take it anymore. Was always sorry about that,” Crowley added. “You’d gone to all that trouble. Quail pie with shallots and dill, just like we used to have in Ninevah, dunno where you even found it. Kadeh. Turkish coffee.”

“We could try again?” Aziraphale lifted his eyebrows. “It might be easier now. Just like me with the tub.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, eyes soft. “I’d like that.”

“Does it hurt when I do this?” Aziraphale rubbed firm circles over the knotted muscle just below Crowley’s hip. The tub was indeed large enough for two. Crowley nestled against him, back to Aziraphale’ stomach, Aziraphale’s soft thighs bracketing his skinny ones.

“Nyuh… no. No.”

Aziraphale grinned into his hair. “But your brows lowered and the corners of your mouth turned down. As if you were in pain.”

“Sss… not exactly.”

The box of lubricants hadn’t gone unnoticed while Aziraphale shuffled through the bath salts. He snapped one over. “For so many years, I thought of my corporation like… a carriage. Perhaps a horse?” He considered. “No, definitely a carriage. It was comfortable. Well-padded.” He flicked open the bottle top with wet hands and coated his fingers. Crowley watched him do it, lips parted. “It took me where I needed to go, didn’t demand much maintenance, and was almost entirely… insensitive.”

He resumed his stroking, hand slippery. The sharp iliac crest… the line of muscle from hip to knee… the lovely hollow formed between pubic symphysis and flexed thigh. “Oh, Crowley,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know. How much…” he stopped, the words heavy on his tongue. How much I was missing. How much I loved you. How very much, for so very long.

Crowley moved his buttocks against Aziraphale in a movement that was not so much a shifting of position as it was a suggestive writhe (although he could have been wrong about that. The cradle of his hips had to be getting uncomfortable, what with the erection now prodding Crowley in the lower back). Aziraphale caught his lower lip in his teeth and hissed. “Now, don’t distract me. You’re injured, and I mean to relax you.”

“Dunno about injured. Definitely tense.”

“Ah, so you are. Look at these lovely rosebuds. The way they pebble… are they cold?"

“Try warmin’ ‘em up.”

Aziraphale dipped his hands in the bathwater, then reached up to cover both dusky pink nipples. Crowley shuddered, head dropping back against his shoulder, mouth open, as Aziraphale caressed him with the tips of his fingers. He tried rolling the stiffened flesh between finger and thumb the way Crowley had done for him, first softly, then with more pressure when Crowley bucked his hips and groaned.

“You’re so lovely,” he murmured. “Seeing your response makes me ache all over. It feels…” he didn’t quite have the boldness to say what he meant, yet, so he held Crowley’s hips and thrust against his cleft to make his point. They shivered together. “Why… ah. Why is that?”

“Empathy, m’ybe?” The breathy tone of Crowley’s voice suggested that he didn’t much care. “If your partner feels pleasure, so do you.”

Aziraphale tried not to think about how Crowley knew this, about Crowley’s other partners, or about Crowley making someone else feel pleasure. They’d talked about this, and– “How did you like to do it, then?” Oh dear.

Crowley twisted in the water, leaning with one elbow on the side of the tub and meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “Angel?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean… or maybe I did… Crowley, tell me what you did with them.” The words tumbled out in a rush. 

Crowley didn’t answer for a long moment. Aziraphale fretted, certain he’d put his foot in it. Finally Crowley said, “Let’s get out,” wearing the furrowed-brow expression from the Tadfield bus stop.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have–”

Crowley sighed, kissed his forehead, and handed him a towel. “‘Present fears are less than horrible imaginings’. I’ll tell you, but let’s get the food first. I heard a knock.”

“It’s working!” Aziraphale was thrilled.

“What is?” Crowley asked through a mouthful of beef tartare.

“I decided to tempt you with a particularly gourmet selection… in the hopes that your taste buds might just have been too epicurean for pub food.”

“Tempt me?” Crowley raised his eyebrows.

Aziraphale poured most of a glass of Kir Royale down his throat. What the hell, it wasn’t a night for half-measures. “I'm told I have a bit of a talent for it,” he said, and winked. He hadn’t missed the way Crowley’s eyes had fixed on the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

Crowley coughed. “Your innocent act will never work again,” he said, taking a large forkful of calamari salad. “I can’t believe I ever fell for it. You’re a complete tart. Bet you’ll be asking me to lick chantilly cream off your nipples before the week is out.”

“Why wait? We have some here.” Aziraphale dipped a finger in the chocolate soufflé’s vanilla chantilly and brought it to his lips. Crowley pointed at him with an aggravated, see-what-I-mean? sort of gesture, but then got distracted by the Dorset crab. He’d already put away an entire platter of langoustine with fennel, and was eyeing the veal sweetbread possessively.

Aziraphale watched in pleased silence. “What?” Crowley asked again, after a moment.

“You’re clearly enjoying it. And that makes me happy. Is this what you felt, all those years you watched me eat?”

“Something like. Though you could make eating a bowl of porridge look erotic.”

“Eye of the beholder.” Aziraphale couldn’t suppress a delighted wiggle. “You old flatterer.”

Crowley grabbed the champagne bottle by the neck with two fingers and upended it. “Dunno why I’m so hungry. Probably the bath. Always feel hungrier when I’m warm.”

“Fascinating. That’s not a human reflex I’m familiar with. Shall I order another tray?”

Much later (Crowley had had quite an appetite, even by the standards of a recalcitrantly hedonistic angel), Crowley sat down on the bed, took Aziraphale’s hand, and said, “Alright.”

Fluttering with nerves, Aziraphale sat facing him. He reached up to straighten his bowtie and remembered he was wearing a hotel bathrobe and nothing else.

They stared at each other. Crowley finally scrubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t… with you lookin’ at me…”

“Let me hold you?” Aziraphale suggested. “And I can help stretch your leg. You’re still favouring it.”

They rearranged themselves. Aziraphale had some uncertainty about what to do with his lowermost arm and ended up tucking it above his head, under his pillow. Crowley rolled partway on his stomach, flexing his thigh so Aziraphale could reach it. He knew he was “helping” the tense muscle in the same way that bead-wearing women who were called things like Calyx Elderflower (or Pippin Galadrial Moonchild, incidentally; he had never known Pepper’s given name) and practised energy massage "helped" their clients’ auras, but he ran his fingers up and down in a way he hoped was at least soothing.

“You want to know,” Crowley said at last, sounding like the words were being forced out from a rusty place inside his chest, “what I like.” He swallowed audibly. “No. Already told you what I like… or what I thought about, anyway. You want to know how I liked it.”

Aziraphale’s heart sped up. “I understand I wasn’t… available, Crowley. It isn’t… I mean, it’s fine. It is. I just don’t want to grope around in the dark anymore.”

“Angel…” the word was thick, Crowley’s voice laced with tears.

“No, no, none of that. Hey.” Aziraphale left off any pretence of “stretching” and wrapped his arm tight around Crowley’s ribcage.

“You and I weren’t close… back when it started. Before the Flood.” Aziraphale sensed more than saw Crowley’s grimace. “Was your lot gave us the idea, you know. Semyaza, Azazel, that whole crew. Up to then, none of us knew about orgasms. Hard to tell just from watchin’ the humans at it, you know that, mostly it just looks like they’re uncomfortable. Saw Adam make the same face when he stepped on a prickly pear as he did when he… well.”

“Wait… demons weren’t aware sex was pleasurable?”

“How could we? You remember how it was in the early days– we were all sort of kids in the sandbox together. Figuring things out. Then a few hundred years later that group of angels came down, all excited, and started mingling… rumour had it there’d been some sort of tutorial Upstairs. They knew what they were about, anyway.”

Crowley’s chest moved as he sucked in a breath. “I was told to gather some intel.”

Aziraphale went still. He’d banished a few incubi in his time, as well as a succubus or two. Crowley never had any patience with them, but it was a fact that demons knew sex. They used it.

“Turned some things on. Experimented. Reported back,” Crowley said, leadenly.

“Dear–”

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“You don’t. I gave the humans a sword, they decided to make war with it. What your people chose to do with lust isn’t your fault.”

After a long moment, Crowley continued. “It did feel good. Found that out, anyway. I figured you already knew about it, though, and weren’t interested.”

Aziraphale shook his head.

Crowley turned in his arms. “I was between a bloody rock and a hard place, angel. There you were, swanning around like the personification of a rather shaggable sunbeam, doing that twinkle-eye thing at me right up to the moment someone suggested we might know each other and you’d snap shut faster than a Venus fly trap. Meanwhile I’ve still got my hormones on, wanting you, but thinking you’d already had the briefing on orgasms and said ‘thanks but no thanks’.” He stopped and considered this. “Now that I actually say it out loud, that seems unlikely.”

Aziraphale snorted.

“Well, your people got in pretty hot water over the whole business. Figured maybe it wasn’t allowed anymore.”

“It wasn’t. Isn’t. Technically.”

“Naughty principality.” Crowley mock-growled and bit his shoulder.

“I’m retired,” Aziraphale said loftily. “I can do what I like.”

Crowley flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “At any rate, I figured even if you wanted to, you wouldn't, not with the likes of me. And I never would have pushed you. Please believe that, Aziraphale... know I've gone a little too fast these past few days, but I'd never, not if you weren't ready." 

"I know." Aziraphale curled their fingers together. 

"When it all got to be too much I... I looked for people. People who had…” he coloured and spoke through clenched teeth. “Similar carriages. To yours. If you want to put it like that.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. “Tell me,” he said, quietly.

“Uh. What d’you want to know, angel? I liked makin’ them feel good.”

“Was it good for you?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“Did you do what we just did?”

“Usually. Turned the tables, sometimes.”

“How did you like them to touch you?”

“The best was when they… wanted a lot of touch,” Crowley said in a thin, scraped-sounding voice that Aziraphale had never heard. “Some men don’t. But some of them wanted to be stroked, and held close. They were lonely, I think.”

There was a hollow space in Aziraphale’s chest. “Lonely” was so much a part of him that he wasn’t sure how to be anything else. And Crowley had… well, it made sense, what he’d done. But there was still something he didn’t understand.

“Crowley, I think I enjoy this because I love you. What you said, earlier, about empathy… a-and I’ve seen thousands of naked men, but never one that made me feel anything like this.”

Crowley laughed, but there was a strange, tense edge to it. “You’re just newly turned on, angel. I’ve seen the same thing happen with human teenagers. I’m just lucky I was in the area.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “It’s not an opportunistic sort of sensation. If it weren’t you…”

“Havin’ a sex drive is a human corporation thing. It’s not made to be exclusive, or even particularly picky. I would know.”

Trying not to feel stung by this, Aziraphale said, “Well, I can’t separate the feelings. Lust and love, I mean.”

“What’re you getting at?”

“Did you… love them?”

Crowley stroked his cheek. “You must know the answer to that.”

“But you could still…”

“Sure. It’s like you told me. Those C-afferent nerves, or whatever it was, that’s part of it. It feels good to be touched. ‘Specially when touch is something you almost never get.”

Aziraphale had to blink rapidly several times to clear his vision. “I… I just don’t think I could. With someone else.”

Crowley was staring at him in a way that made him feel a little like an idiot again… fondly, this time. “You don’t have to, angel.”

(Image credit: anotherwellkeptsecret)

They had both flung their robes over the side of the bed and were kissing as the sun came up. Aziraphale had begun to feel nicely breathless, and a bit floaty– perhaps from a half-bottle of whiskey and a nearly whole one of champagne– but Crowley kept pulling away for jaw-cracking yawns. Eventually he touched Aziraphale’s lips regretfully. “It’s useless. After a big meal I have to get my head down whether I like it or not. Think it’s a snake thing.”

Aziraphale pouted at him, but his heart wasn’t in it. He wanted to have intercourse (he was going to have to at least get used to thinking the word “sex”, as a sort of compromise with Crowley who would of course call it fucking) again, but suspected his “back passage”, as Sensual Loving discreetly put it, needed a bit of a breather. “Fine, alright,” he sighed, trying to sound put-upon. “I’ll read.”

“You should sleep.” Crowley began to cocoon himself in the covers, eyes already slipping shut.

“We have to meet Uriel tomorrow. I want to be as prepared as I can. I need a refresher on the grimoires, too.”

Crowley muttered something that might have been “Uriel’s a wanker” but also might have been a snore.

Aziraphale watched him at it for a bit. It gave him a strange sensation of having Crowley here but also gone, his mind off somewhere he couldn’t reach. “Don’t go where I can’t follow,” Sam had said in the Two Towers. How could pair bonded humans bear to spend so much of their lives separated from one another? It was too much like the last six thousand years had been, with Crowley close enough to touch but fundamentally, devastatingly unavailable. He could never go back to that. It would break his heart.

He felt a foreboding chill creep down his spine and got up, giving his hands a businesslike clap. He was being a melodramatic old fool.

He tried to concentrate on Harrison’s, then the Key of Solomon, but found himself reading the same passages over and over again. He kept picturing bits of their evening– Crowley pushing forward with that very sensual undulation of his hips, Crowley’s look of shocked pleasure when he stroked Aziraphale’s prostate, Crowley shuddering in the bath while Aziraphale touched his nipples– and smiling moonily. Eventually he closed the book with a snap. Right. He was unfit for academic pursuits at the moment, and far too keyed up to sleep. What to do?

(“We could try again? It might be easier now. Just like me with the tub.”

“Yeah. “I’d like that.”)

Aziraphale smiled. Crowley had the look of someone who would sleep for hours. He’d be safe enough, going out; they had a standing date with Uriel and he didn’t have anything to fear from demons so long as he kept a bottle of springwater on his person somewhere. Marks and Spencer opened at 8am.

Aziraphale dressed quietly, put on his coat, and kissed Crowley on the temple, which was the only part of his face currently visible. “I love you,” he whispered, the words feeling swollen and new. “I’ll be back soon.”

The problem with modern-day shopping, Aziraphale groused to himself an hour later, was that there were too many choices. Did he want afternoon tea sandwich fingers or classic sandwich fingers, or simply a selection of good bread and cheese? Which cheeses? Perhaps just jam, butter and hummus… oh, should they have these smoked salmon and cream cheese pinwheels? Pickled olives? He hadn’t even started on the cakes, and then there was the question of the hamper itself… he rather fancied the pre-packed one with the full set of china, but there was also a cunning little rattan option with two spaces for wine bottles… or, should they perhaps skip the potential trauma trigger of a “picnic basket” and go with a canvas tote, or the so-called “picnic backpack” in green fabric?

When a hand gripped his right wrist, he jumped and dropped his shopping basket. A wrapped wheel of Langres cheese rolled towards the nearest shelf in a wobbly bid for freedom. “Crowley?”

He looked up into Uriel’s smiling face. “No,” she said.

Adrenaline hit him like a javelin to the chest. He gasped and tried to pull away, but Uriel had already snapped her fingers, and it was too late.

Chapter Text

Uriel’s office, 2019 CE

“Right,” says Uriel, sounding tired. “Let’s go over it again.”

There’s a large, boxy television on a stand with wheels in the centre of the room. Underneath it, a video player is stacked with several cassettes, jackets featuring chiselled young men in sunglasses pointing guns.

Sandalphon is visibly frustrated. “If we’re punishing him, let’s just punish him.”

“Yeah? How are you going to do that?” Gabriel asks sulkily. “Hellfire didn’t work. My sword didn’t work.”

“Exactly,” Michael says. “He’s a threat, but he’s eluded our direct approaches. The situation needs a light touch.” The look on her face says she thinks a rhinoceros with a toothache would be better suited for that than Sandalphon.

“All I’m saying is, God never talked about… ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop’.”

“God never needed to deal with someone She couldn’t smite into next week. We need him to trust one of us.”

“How is threatening him while Uriel plays nice going to accomplish that?”

“Assume his brain is human, or close enough. Even if he hasn’t gone completely native, he’s been down there in that corporation for six thousand years. It’s clearly affected the way he thinks.”

“We’re employing ‘psychology’,” Michael says. “Think of this as a beta test. If it works, it could expand our influence on Earth considerably.”

“The people downstairs are a little ahead of us there,” Gabriel admits. “They got their hands on an Austrian in the 1940s¹, apparently, and while doing the routine entry paperwork got a whole involuntary course on something called ‘The Unconscious Mind’.” He winces like a person who’s had to listen to someone from the rival company complain about this for a number of years.

“What does psychology have to do with human physiology?” asks Sandalphon.

“Natural extension.” Uriel says. “I’ve been reading. Because God’s neurotransmitters and hormones influence cognition, human reasoning is often flawed. They call this a ‘bias’. It’s something we can use.” She holds out a book bound in brown fabric.

Sandalphon peers at the title. “‘Judgement Under Uncertainty²’. But She said it’s only attraction and early love that causes mistakes in judgement.”

“No, She said that’s what happens in attraction and early love, not that it’s exclusive to those states. Apparently they do it all the time.”

“It’s actually brilliant,” Michael breaks in excitedly, taking the book. “Listen: ‘Risk aversion distorts decision-making’. If Aziraphale feels that he’s in danger from the three of us, he’s likely to listen to Uriel. The appeal of protection in the short term will overcome his distrust.”

“He’s going to forget that we tried to execute him last month?” Sandalphon sniffs.

“No, but it won’t matter as much.” Uriel looks at her hands. “What matters to human brains is what’s happening in the present. It’s more important than the past.”

“We antagonise him a little, and he’ll run to Uriel’s outstretched arms like a chick to a hen,” Gabriel says thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

“Let’s watch the tape again.” Uriel pushes “LA Confidential” into the video and presses play.

It was the pain that woke him, a bloody twisting bastard of a cramp in his stomach that made him draw his knees up to his chest and want to rub his feet against the sheets (why? Strange biological quirk. These corporations were downright buggy, if you asked him).

Crowley dialled the sensation down from a scream to a moan before he thought about it. It was an automatic reaction, learned over millennia spent having to cross the burning sand of the Seventh Circle to reach his cubicle (Hell had renovated in the 1950s when Brutalism had been all the rage, so now the floors were poured concrete, but old habits died hard). He immediately felt guilty– they weren’t supposed to be using the power they had over their nociceptors, and he knew it. He’d taken paracetamol for his hip, even, but this was several orders of magnitude worse.

Grimacing, he rolled over onto his back and thought regretfully about that second plate of fried calamari. Something was certainly disagreeing with him. Maybe Aziraphale would know what.

Come to think of it, where was Aziraphale?

Thirty seconds later, panic had settled over his mind like a black stormcloud. It was hard to think. His lower abdomen pulsed and throbbed angrily, so he turned the irritated nerves all the way off. No time for distractions.

Aziraphale wasn’t on Earth.

When he’d run into the burning bookshop last month, the void he’d felt hadn’t been unfamiliar– that was the worst part. He was used to Aziraphale’s trips upstairs. When he was in Heaven, his presence– which Crowley generally sensed the way a person with closed eyes could turn towards the sun– was nowhere, but that was alright because he and Aziraphale always told each other when they had to be away on business. The angel being unexpectedly absent was always bad news, but especially now.

His phone buzzed and he pounced on it.

Crowley stabbed the grey circle with the letters “BG” at the top of the message thread. When Anathema answered, her voice was nearly lost in a crackle of static and the sound of rushing wind. “There … are. ...my way to Tad…”

“Need to see you. It’s an emergency.”

“...are you?”

“Ritz hotel. Get off at Green Park.”

A burst of white noise, then: “...just got on… 41 bus…” in a helpless-sounding tone.

“It’s been rerouted. See you in fifteen minutes.” Crowley concentrated, then broke the connection. He sat down on the bed, head in his hands, trying to talk himself out of marching right into the portal at Broadgate Tower. That sort of thing would get him into trouble. More importantly, it would get Aziraphale into trouble. He didn’t even know for sure where Aziraphale was: Heaven, Hell, or…

Crowley shut that last thought down before it had the chance to germinate. He couldn’t afford to be paralyzed with panic, and he needed a plan. For once in his life, he had to think before he leapt.

“Let me go this instant!” Aziraphale snatched his arm away, glaring.

There were a few ways to travel between the planes of existence. The portals were simplest, though they tended to be located in city centres and in recent years various types of traffic snarls had resulted in Aziraphale being late to more than a few important staff meetings (and earning a reputation for untidy dress which he certainly didn’t deserve, it was just that sometimes taking the Tube meant ending up with sticky and undesirable substances on the back of your coat. Crowley was good about helping him get them out, after. Oh God, Crowley). In a pinch, though, you could travel as radiant energy, which was faster. Aziraphale didn’t like it. Putting all his molecules back where he’d left them was a chore.

His new least favourite mode of transport, he decided, was being jerked rudely into the celestial realm by someone else. The unfiltered, glaring light of Heaven was giving him the beginnings of a migraine.

Uriel held up her hands. “Look, you wanted to meet,” she soothed. “I’m sure you understand why we had to alter the original plan. Management couldn’t have you walking in with anything… Hellish.” Her curled upper lip told him that absolutely included Crowley. “Bad for diplomatic relations, you know.”

“I didn’t want to meet,” said Aziraphale, who thought this had been obvious. “I wanted the manual. You could have left it in a letterbox for all I care.”

“Don’t be absurd. It’s highly classified information. I’ve arranged for you to view the material, but you can’t take it out of Heaven.”

“Plus, we couldn’t risk having you lose it in that warren of a bookshop,” Gabriel said, snorting laughter.

Aziraphale’s heartbeat ratcheted up another few beats. Crowley was always circling. He’d have realised immediately that three other archangels were standing behind him. Stupid, stupid. He was surrounded and defenceless. There was no way to beam yourself (a term he’d picked up watching a very silly television programme about space exploration with Crowley in the 1960s) down from Heaven without permission. You needed a pass, or a clear path to one of the exits.

“Look at him,” Michael said silkily. “He’s perspiring.”

“Is he?”

“Fascinating.”

The angels crowded closer. Aziraphale tried, futilely, to back away. “Don’t be frightened,” Sandalphon chuckled, laying a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“I’m not. It’s very warm in here.” He hoped the angels were as bad at reading body language as they’d always seemed. Truthfully, he’d never been more scared in his life, but his former bosses had all the sensitivity of a jar of pickled herring and probably wouldn’t realise if he didn’t let on.

Uriel extracted him from Sandalphon’s grip and led him to the room’s single, long table. He guessed they were in one of the private meeting areas, which were glassed in and soundproof. There weren’t many walls in Heaven. Nobody, in theory, had anything to hide.

He glowered at Uriel, who smiled back peaceably enough. “Never mind that lot,” she said quietly. “They’re frightened of you, really. But you and I… we understand each other. We know the meaning of the word ‘duty’.”

“What are you talking about? I want to go home. I don’t care about the manual.”

“I told you not to waste your time,” called Gabriel. “He wanted it dropped into his lap, but he won’t stay here and read it. He’s a coward. Wants to go back to Earth and hide under the covers.”

“Of course you care about the manual,” Uriel said sweetly, ignoring this. “You take your responsibilities seriously. All along, you’ve just been trying to be a good guardian for the humans, I can see that now. Bit of an unorthodox approach, perhaps, but how can you be faulted for doing the assignment we gave you?”

“You think that’s why he wants the manual?” Sandalphon sneered. “Sense of responsibility? He’s a deserter.”

Gabriel gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Right. The only thing Aziraphale’s rabid about guarding is his lunch.”

“Sandalphon! Gabriel! …Don’t mind them,” Uriel continued, voice lowering from a snap to a conspiratorial murmur. “I’ve been Raphael’s assistant ever since humans had bodies to heal. I’m fascinated with them too, and I want to help you.”

“You didn’t want to help five weeks ago. You were happy to let everything go up in smoke. Me included.” Aziraphale raised his chin, but his temper had lost some of its edge. Uriel’s eyes were soft and understanding. He really didn’t want to fight.

Uriel exhaled and shook her head– as if accosting Aziraphale twice, then trying to burn him alive was all some sort of embarrassing social gaffe. “All that unpleasantness is water under the bridge, dear. Upper management has restructured to allow for alignment with a changing system of attainable, goal-driven priorities. Come sit down.”

Aziraphale hesitated. He looked over his shoulder, and Michael grinned at him. Or something like. She showed all her teeth, at any rate. “Do I have a choice?”

“Aziraphale, there’s always a choice. That’s one of the things we’ve learned recently. You’re free to go if you wish. But it took a great deal of high-level clearance to get you access. If you decline this offer, it will be retracted.” She gestured to the table. A glowing tablet appeared, with The Human Corporation: Operations Manual embossed on its cover. Next to it was a cup of what looked very much like cocoa and a tiny vase of violets, apparently the archangels’ attempt to create a welcoming atmosphere.

He should leave now. What was it Crowley had said? “D’you think humans understand everything their bodies do? Course not. There’s lots of stuff you won’t find in any book, not even Heavenly ones. They muddle through, and we will too. Or we won’t, if you destroy yourself trying to get answers!”

But on the other hand… they weren’t exactly threatening him. Angels weren’t subtle. If they wanted to menace him, he’d have been menaced already. And there were things in that book he needed to know.

Uriel smiled encouragingly and pulled out a chair.

Feeling like he was being seduced by an ambush predator– a leopard, or perhaps a crocodile– Aziraphale sat.

When he opened the door, Anathema– large floppy hat, rain slicker, dripping wet– took a step backwards and blanched. “What on earth’s wrong?”

“Aziraphale’s gone. I need your help.” Crowley turned on his heel and walked into the sitting area, where he’d laid Aziraphale's grimoires out on the table. He felt faint, and vaguely nauseated.

“No, I mean… Jesus, are you running a fever? You look terrible.”

“Thanks very much,” Crowley said sourly. “I’m fine. He might not be. Can you use these?”

Anathema absently shed her hat and coat and left them in a heap on the nearest chair, which was so much something Aziraphale would do that Crowley started to smile, then had to blink back tears. She bent and picked up the Red Dragon.

Crowley felt a strange urge to defend Aziraphale’s ownership of texts that could theoretically summon, bind, or banish him. “I think he kept them around for me, really, even though that sounds mad. Angels can’t get through to Hell directly, we block their numbers– spam calls, that’s where I got the idea– but they can use a human power source, like one of these books. He always muttered about, you know… if something ever happened, he’d want to be able to get in touch…” he gabbled, because his face was trying to collapse and if he started snivelling they’d never get anything done.

“It says you have to sacrifice a kid–”

“A kid?” Crowley looked at her, aghast.

“Baby goat.”

“Oh.”

“But, my great-aunt Mable actually did some research and it turns out it isn’t necessary. I’ll need candles, a couple of willow twigs, and an egg.” She paused. “Should be a fresh egg, though.”

“I’ll call room service.”

While they waited on supplies Crowley told her what had happened, which didn’t take long, since it amounted to “I woke up and he wasn’t here”. They sat awkwardly facing each other, Crowley on the edge of an armchair and Anathema with legs folded underneath the low table. “Um,” Crowley finally said. “You and Newt…”

“It was a lot of pressure,” said Anathema, abruptly getting up and making a show of inspecting the fireplace. “I’ve never had my own life before. Always running on tracks, you know? I finally get out from under all that and there’s this… whole new set of expectations. Do you understand what I mean?” She got the fire going, but didn’t turn back around.

It was a good thing he and Aziraphale were on the same page, because the sinking sensation in Crowley’s chest told him the angel would also be justified in having feelings along those lines. “I can’t see how Newt’d stop you from doin’ what you want,” he said, wondering as he did what Aziraphale might like to do with his freedom, and how Crowley could keep him from feeling similarly smothered. Ah! He’d take him on holiday. They’d never had a proper one together. Majorca, maybe, or Santorini.

“He wouldn’t!” Anathema wheeled to face him, hands on hips. “But I wouldn’t know if I were doing things for him or for myself. If something’s always there… a book that tells you how to live your life, for example, or a boyfriend… you end up unconsciously taking it into account, even when you think you’re not. It bends your decisions around itself the same way massive objects warp gravity.”

Was that a problem? Crowley had orbited Aziraphale for as long as he could remember.

“I’m not cruel,” Anathema continued. “If I’m part of a couple, I won’t be able to completely focus on myself– not without thinking about the other person, at least a little. And even if I could… well… I wouldn’t want that for him. He deserves someone who isn’t so selfish.” She glared at nothing. Her chin was trembling, just the slightest bit.

Crowley just nodded, feeling lost at sea. What did you say in a situation like this? “Sounds like you’ve got a lot of plans for your independence.”

“Oh, I didn’t expect you to understand,” she responded huffily. “It’s very complicated.”

There was a knock at the door. Crowley, deciding she was right on both counts, went to retrieve the occult supplies from a bemused-looking man wearing a blue-and-white braided coat.

“How’s it organised?” Aziraphale finally grumbled, hating to admit defeat. “Most medical texts have an index.”

“Most medical texts aren’t dictated by someone with a galaxy-sized brain and a tendency to lose focus the minute something shiny wanders by.” Uriel sat down and pulled the tablet towards her. “Let me help, I wrote the thing.”

Aziraphale glanced around. Situational awareness. Gabriel and Sandalphon were talking with their backs to him, and Michael was idly inspecting her nails. “Alright.”

“What are you wanting to know about? Biliary drainage? The citric acid cycle? Oh, alveolar diffusion, that one’s interesting.”

“Longevity,” Aziraphale said confidently. “How long will our corporations last if they’re fully functional?”

“What do you mean by fully functional?” Uriel asked, swiping her finger across the screen.

“Ah. Um. You remember we were told ‘heart and lungs only’? And then I petitioned for additional sensory input– touch and taste, noxious stimuli, that sort of thing– the rationale, of course, being to blend in more completely with the resident population, a-and that worked a treat but I discovered recently that deployment of the immune system is essential for a rogue agent such as myself, without the resources of my, ah, home base, as it were…” he trailed off. Uriel was staring at him.

He took a shaky breath. “I am physically fully human,” he said simply. “All organ systems operational. So that my corporation can heal itself without the need for direct assistance from Head Office.”

“I knew it!” Gabriel broke in, with the sort of morbidly fascinated expression Aziraphale had seen on the faces of people gawping at poor Joseph Merrick in the 1880s.

“I thought there was a bad smell in here,” Sandalphon said in a repulsed-sounding voice. Michael wrinkled her nose.

Aziraphale couldn’t help it. He turned his head to sniff at his collar, then looked up to see a tiny smile of triumph on Sandalphon’s face.

Only Uriel seemed unimpressed. “Then you’ll want to start with neuroendocrine,” she said. “The organ systems are ultimately controlled centrally, and if there are differences in the responses of angelic corporation components over time then She’ll probably have talked about it during those lectures.”

“Don’t you remember?” Aziraphale leaned forward eagerly. He was so close…

“It was six thousand years ago,” said Uriel in a bored tone. “Not really. You’ll have to read it for yourself.” She pushed the tablet back over towards him.

Aziraphale took a sip of cocoa, simply out of habit. (He panicked internally, a little, after– what if that swallow was the equivalent of Persephone’s six pomegranate seeds, and he’d have to spend half the year in Heaven now? He didn’t think he could bear it.) Then he leaned over. “Excerpt from Didactic Session 1”, he read. “Drive.”

Anathema drew a circle on the floor, ringed with letters in cuneiform script and containing a simple but mathematically precise triangle. She lit candles while Crowley stood back, holding the poker from the fireplace. He couldn’t use the human rituals to summon demons himself– something to do with recursion, snakes eating their own tails, or perhaps just the finance department deciding not to fund redundant power drains. After all, demons could just ring someone downstairs. But they couldn’t bind or compel, and right now he needed answers.

“Who did you want to call?” Anathema asked him. “The book mentions Lucifer and Beelzebub first, but…” she broke off, frowning. Crowley guessed she had vague memories of meeting them, and how annoyed they’d been at the time.

“Just dial the general number,” he said. “Someone’s always on duty. Quickest way to get an answer.”

Anathema broke the egg. “Aglon, Tetragram, vaycheon stimulamaton ezphares Retragrammaton, olyaram irion esytion existion eryona onera orasim mozm messias soter Emanuel Sabaoth Adonay, te adoro et te invoco³.”

“Easy on the adoring,” Crowley said, wincing.

The fire blazed, there was a sound like a thousand voices screaming in horror which cut off the moment Anathema clapped her hands over her ears, and then Eric appeared with a pop of displaced air. “What?” he asked. He looked up, saw Crowley, and backed away as far as the circle would allow. “Oh shit!”

Aziraphale frowned. He read the passage over. “When they get interested in another person, the neural circuits that generate pleasure and reward kick into high gear. Meanwhile, rational decision-making, complex executive processes, and sensible caution go right out the window… They experience a whole roller-coaster range of emotions– euphoria, craving, obsession, compulsion, dependence, and distortion of reality– but the one thing they're not doing is thinking clearly”.

Uriel, across the table, was writing in a notebook. The other three archangels seemed engrossed in a discussion that prominently featured the term “value add”.

“Ahem,” Aziraphale said. “Um. This isn’t the information I’m looking for. The two sections I’ve read are all about influencing behaviours.”

“Most of the rest are, too,” Uriel said without looking up. “You’re smart enough to know how important that is.”

“If your progress reports are anything to go by,” Gabriel said, “influencing behaviours is the business you think we ought to be in.”

Aziraphale raised a finger. He couldn’t help it. “Philosophically, religion’s primary purpose–”

Michael groaned. “I preferred my plan.”

“We agreed,” Gabriel told her in a faux whisper.

“Your plan?” Aziraphale asked nervously.

“There are lots of ways to punish an angel. We haven’t tried them all yet.” Michael, with her precise curls and statuesque bearing, always seemed so composed– even when casting Lucifer down at swordpoint, or pouring a bath of holy water in Hell. Aziraphale had cheekily, irreverently, asked her for a bath towel and her expression had barely changed.

Now she was snarling. “Remember Azazel? ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light’⁴.”

Aziraphale felt the blood drain from his own face.

“We are soldiers of the Lord. We’re not in the business of negotiating with terrorists, or of sitting around like rubber ducks while a traitor taints our sacred knowledge with his grubby little fingers.”

She slapped her palms down on the table and leaned towards him. Aziraphale cringed, gripped by an unpleasant but involuntary adrenaline surge which made his hands shake and his mouth taste like metal.

Uriel stepped between them. “There’s no need for that.”

“There are millions of us, and one of him. The valley of fire has plenty of room to spare.”

“Michael!” Uriel laid a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Why don’t you three go and get a refreshment? A little ambrosia always calms you down.”

The two locked eyes for a long moment, then Michael looked away and gestured to Gabriel and Sandalphon. “Come on,” she said gruffly. We’re wasting our time in any case.”

“I don’t think Uriel should be left alone with him,” Gabriel said.

“He doesn’t mean us any harm, do you, Aziraphale?”

“N-no. Not a bit.”

“There we are, now. We’ll be fine. Off you go.”

They filed out. Michael gave him a poisonous look as she passed the table and hissed, too low for anyone else to hear: “You shall have no peace⁵.”

He probably ought to try to be terrifying. Problem was, he liked Eric. He seemed to hero-worship Crowley, which was awkward, but he was good with technology and a quick learner, plus he always shared his hair polish and Hanz de Fuko gravity paste.

Crowley tossed his glasses onto the side table with a clatter. “What’s going on?” he asked bluntly. “I said we were to be left alone.”

“Yup, yup, orders received and obeyed,” Eric said, eyes wide. “Your file’s been thrown into the Lethe. Everyone’s pretending you never existed.” He squinted at Crowley. “Hey, man, are you alright?”

Fair enough question. He kept sweating– side effect of worry, probably. Crowley wiped his brow on his sleeve. “I’m fine. No, I’m not. I’m missing an angel. Where is he?”

A demon in a summoning circle couldn’t lie. To be fair, the people who answered the phones never knew anything important. That was why you got put on summoning duty in the first place.

But the presence of an angel in Hell would be front page headline news. Surely Eric would have heard something?

The dramatic dual-peaked updo was shaking back and forth. “He’s not with us.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Eric still looked spooked, but a smile crept onto his face. “The bosses have embarked on a ‘campaign of transparency’. They’ve been in face-to-face meetings with staff around the clock for the past month, talking about ‘reshaping the organisation for future stability and growth’ and ‘facilitating communication’ and ‘prioritising demons over profits’. It’s been great, actually, ‘cause all our normal duties are suspended and they put a suggestion box in the break room. Lucifer is holding office hours.”

A bizarre image of Lucifer’s bulk swathed in a massive, bespoke three-piece suit from Gieves & Hawkes, complete with red silk four-in-hand necktie and wearing an expression of open-minded concern underneath the shadow of his horns crossed Crowley’s mind. He blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah. After your performance in that bathtub, there was almost a riot. I think they’re doing damage control. They’re increasing our bonuses, and there’s a pizza party planned if we meet our targets next quarter."

“Huh.” Crowley’s stomach sank. Demons weren’t subtle. If they had embarked on a coordinated effort to bring him and Aziraphale to heel by using a Satanic nurse as a spy and angel-napping his boyfriend, everyone downstairs would have heard about it. The last time something big got planned they’d held Armageddon-themed happy hour mixers every second Tuesday for eleven years.

“Suppose Ligur’s been on the phone a lot,” Eric continued, nonchalantly. “That red line that connects with Heaven, the one we’re not supposed to know about.”

“Hang on. Ligur?”

Aziraphale stared at the tablet, thoughts swirling. There was a steady drip-drip-drip of dread below his breastbone. It felt like acid.

“Something wrong?”

“Ah. It’s just that… um. This bit here, about serotonin…”

“Yeah, real kick in the pants. Warm your cocoa up for you?” Uriel snapped her fingers and the mug began to steam.

“And dopamine… look, what She says here, about the ‘forbidden fruit effect’… it’s disheartening.” Aziraphale looked up, feeling desperate. “It doesn’t work like that for us, does it?”

Uriel took the manual from him, scrolled forward a bit, and tapped a passage.

‘Transcriber note: Michael stands up. Her face is pale. “Lord. Will we be subject to the same restrictions? If we inhabit a body, that is?”

“Yes.”’

“But surely.” Aziraphale took a breath and tried to calm himself. He thought of Crowley stroking his shoulders while he leaned into the sofa. The tingling, expanding sense of warmth and contentment. “We’re angels. We aren’t creatures of biology. We can form permanent connections.”

“Of course we can,” Uriel said soothingly. “Our love for the Lord endures forever.”

“Don’t quote Bible at me. You know that’s not what I’m asking about.”

“Fine.” Uriel’s placid expression cracked open. There was something almost vulnerable underneath it. “I can only tell you what I know. She was very clear that angels who incorporate are human, in every sense that matters. If we want to think clearly, we need to turn off the biological drivers of behaviour modification. That’s why we put the restrictions in place.”

“Heart and lungs only,” Aziraphale whispered. What was his heart doing now? It felt like it was breaking.

“That’s right.” Uriel looked pleased, as if he were a poorly trained dog that had managed not to widdle on the carpet for once. “We didn’t do it to make things difficult, you know. The policy was conceived after a thorough vetting from the First Sphere angels on the potential, or lack thereof, of consistently aligning with the company mission statement while navigating organic stimulatory input.”

Aziraphale’s lips moved while he translated that into English. “You tried it. Being ‘fully functional’, I mean.”

“Briefly, yes. And it caused a great deal of turmoil. Workplace relationships fractured. Objectives went unmet. Priorities shifted in a way that made our target numbers unobtainable.”

“I’m no longer working for you,” Aziraphale pointed out. “My priorities have shifted.”

“True. But I think I understand why you’re still concerned– even though you’ve been dancing around it. There is a human saying about… a pachyderm in a dwelling?”

“Elephant in the room,” Aziraphale corrected tiredly.

“Yes, precisely! Let us address that elephant. Your relationship with the demon Crowley.”

Aziraphale felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Leave Crowley out of this.”

“Aziraphale, I’m not your enemy.” Uriel patted his hand in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring.

Aziraphale flinched. “You tried to execute me!” Didn’t anyone up here understand why that might constitute the end of diplomatic relations? He remembered looking at the empty pots in Crowley’s apartment and Anathema’s shrug. “Everyone kills plants”.

“Oh, that was just politics. And you came out on top. The whole thing was bad optics for us, any way you slice it. That’s why I said we should try to find a peaceful resolution this time.”

“And no hard feelings, I suppose.” Aziraphale bristled.

“Precisely!” She looked him up and down, concluding with an expression that told him he had absolutely failed to measure up. “This is why it’s important to eliminate distractions during business meetings, you know. Your biological fear reaction is preventing you from being objective.”

“Fine. Fine.” Aziraphale pressed his fingers to his eye sockets, hard, to stop himself from weeping. He wanted to go home. He wanted Crowley. But… “What were you going to say?”

Uriel’s voice was soft as silk. “Let me tell you a story.”

It was completely intolerable that they’d tried to execute him for killing a demon who was still alive. Didn’t anyone down there have any standards?

That internal voice had sounded like Aziraphale. He swallowed hard. Aziraphale, I’m so sorry. I’m trying. I don’t know where you are.

He did, though.

Eric was still talking, and Crowley needed him to shut up so he could throw himself in the Bentley and drive to the nearest portal. He hadn't wanted to risk it, but Aziraphale had been missing for at least an hour and he couldn’t sit still any longer.

“After you left,” Eric was saying, “everyone started shouting and pushing towards the exit. Fights were breaking out… I ran and hid behind the printer/ fax machine. Then all at once someone goes, “What’s all this about?” and Ligur’s just standing there, blinking. Beelzebub stared, and Hastur lets out this scream–”

“Think I’ve heard it.”

“After the dust settled, we took stock. I guess there was some sort of reset? I had a couple of corporations that were back, good as new, even though bloody Hastur burned ‘em.” He paused. “Seems to me, though, Ligur’s not exactly good as new. He’s quieter, sort of jumpy… and you know that pipe in the Fifth Circle that’s always dripping? Won’t go near it.”

“How sad.” Crowley gritted his teeth and ran a hand through his hair. Where in the nine circles of Hell were his car keys?

Eric seemed to look around the room for the first time. Crowley saw him take in Sensual Loving, lying open on a table by the sofa. His eyebrows shot up.

“I think we’re finished here,” Anathema said quickly, catching Crowley’s eye for confirmation. “Um, exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica⁶.”

Both Eric and Crowley winced. “Steady on,” Eric said, rubbing his forehead.

“Sorry,” Crowley muttered. He shot Anathema a filthy look and rubbed away a portion of the binding circle with his foot.

“Cheers,” said Eric, and vanished.

“Oops!” Anathema rushed over, making fluttering motions with her hands like she wanted to pat his shoulder but didn’t quite dare, him being a malevolent force from the pits of Hell and all.

“S’fine. Stings a little.” Crowley spotted his keys lying on the floor by one of the spindle-legged, green padded dining chairs next to the fireplace (its presence, along with a half-dozen identical chairs, in a suite with no dining table was an unexplained mystery), bent over to pick them up, and abruptly collapsed to his knees.

Chapter Text

The Human Corporation: Operations Manual

Compiled from the didactic series on human physiology

Originally presented 4004 B.C.E

Revised and updated 2017 C.E.

To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere

–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–

Excerpt from Didactic Session 9: Dissolution

I think we can wrap up pair bonding and the human sexual response. Is everyone ready to transition to sodium channels? They’re very important. Do you know what an action potential is? No? Ah-hah, then you’re in for a treat! You see–

(Transcriber note: Michael has her hand up again. “Lord? What happens when you dissolve pair bonds at other times?”

I wonder why she asked that.)

Other times?

(Transcriber note: Michael clarifies: “Not… during a transition period, I mean.”)

During the height of infatuation or passional love? Well.

(Transcriber note: A pained expression crosses God’s face.)

I’m afraid it’s a bit messy. I don’t want them to separate during those stages unless they have to. At that point, they’ve invested time and resources into the relationship, formed social bonds that will protect them both, and it’s a potentially important time from a reproduction standpoint. Why throw all that away? But yes, alright. It does happen sometimes.

(Transcriber note: God seems to consider for a moment, then puts a new slide up. It’s that gelatinous folded organ the humans will use for thinking.)

I want you to watch this area.

(Transcriber note: She points to a spot just below the bulk of the front part of the organ, near the centre. It doesn’t look very special, but then again, none of them do.)

Humans will call it the nucleus accumbens, which is a mouthful, but don’t worry about that. The point is, it’s a hot button. Loaded with dopamine. Remember that dopamine causes pleasure and reward, so having a regular source of it causes this area to be active.

Now. What happens when the source of the dopamine is removed? That’s the kicker. The brain is programmed to look for it, to try to get it at any cost. Remember, these are drives we’re talking about– the really important things that keep humans alive. Food, water, sex. Withdrawal of something needed for survival focuses all the organism’s efforts on recovering it. This area– (Transcriber note: She taps it with her pointer, and it glows red) –begins to act like a crying infant: loud, compelling, very difficult to ignore. Even activities that used to produce pleasure won’t satisfy it.

The upshot is cravings, increase in stress hormones, obsessions over the lost loved one, anger, jealousy, and despair. The organism in question will spend upwards of 80% of its time thinking of the partner, usually about ways to make them come back.

(Transcriber note: She shudders lightly.)

Unpleasant. But it’s meant to be. During those particular stages, I want that bond to be well-nigh unbreakable.

The pain fades with time. But it can be reactivated by reminders of the person who’s been lost. Sometimes a different source of dopamine can be substituted, like another lover or a compulsive habit or a drug– you’ll learn about those later– but I’m afraid even that won’t help much. The brain wants what it’s programmed to want.

(Transcriber note: She spreads her hands.)

All this… it’s just a mechanism to help humans pass their genes on safely. Some of you look uncertain, but don’t overthink it. Humans have to be motivated by rewards and punishments, remember, since I’m not planning to talk to them. The levers that control their behaviour have to be ingrained, and they have to be powerful. It won’t work out perfectly for every single individual, but that’s not the goal– the goal is survival of the species. A certain amount of collateral damage is expected.

Now… sodium channels! This is a cell membrane permeated by a voltage-gated transmembrane protein…

Uriel picked up her notebook and opened it. Aziraphale wiped his sweaty hands on his trousers.

“I was chosen to transcribe the Operations Manual because I’ve always recorded the divine teachings, board meetings, and Heavenly council minutes,” Uriel said. “It became a habit. So when the First Sphere angels embarked on our experiment with corporations, I kept a journal.”

Just like human scientists doing field work with chimps, Aziraphale thought. He remembered the programme he’d seen about gorillas.

“Ahem. ‘Day zero: Assembly of the Earth proceeding as expected. While all animals are represented in the Garden, other environments must be populated as well per orders. Dispatched teams to investigate rain forests, arctic tundra, etc.

‘Animals’ unique features seem designed for particular surroundings. For ex.: antelopes with long limbs: place on plains. Marsupials with gripping forepaws: place in trees. There is a game in it, almost; flora and fauna fitting together like a great puzzle.

‘(Speaking of games, crew assigned to the rock cycle constantly whispering and giggling. Something about overlarge lizard bones. May be planning one of their pranks.)

‘Trial run with human corporations commences tomorrow. God has advised us to immerse ourselves completely in the new forms. Have been warned biochemical reactions may impact cognition, but am confident foresight and preparation will allow us to examine these phenomena from above, as it were. After all, we are angels.

‘Day one: Corporation rather nice, feels warm. Seems to focus nebulous inputs much like light ray through curved glass. For ex., clouds no longer appear as network of suspended, energetic molecules bound by electricity, but rather look “white” and feel “wet”. Michael says the visual input apparatus is somewhat limiting.

‘Have never seen Michael quite this way before. Find the way she tilts her head when she listens, lines appearing at corners of her mouth when she smiles, etc., complex and fascinating. Change in associated emotions also, which merits further study.

‘Day four: Seems that God created Michael and myself as two halves of one whole, much like Adam and Eve. Yet another example of Her supreme knowledge and foresight. Astounding never realised this before.

Being together is enormously satisfying, though conversely feel dejected when she has to be away on business. Almost as if am hungry for her.

‘(Hunger interesting in its own right. It’s a distracting, gnawing sort of feeling, but reward sensation of eating quite makes up for it.)

‘Day seven: Must get to inbox. Received notice from air crew that atmosphere too thin, vulnerable to pollutants. (Must also look up word: pollutant.)

‘Perhaps tomorrow. Michael and I are flying to a local nebula for some sight-seeing. Michael will need to bundle up, human corporation so fragile. Will give her something called a “fur stole” which found in wardrobe filled with clothing meant for manifestations.

‘Day nine: Sight-seeing expedition was a failure, or perhaps it wasn’t, as Michael and I spent entire time gazing into one another’s eyes. (True, only two each in these bodies, but hers are such a lovely, captivating shade of blue. Also, her hair smells wonderful– like sun-warmed hay.)

‘Day fourteen: Returned to office and pile of unread notifications. Appear to have forgotten to install swim bladder on sunfish. Also, got memo that sea snakes cannot drink salt water. Hmm. Had intended to modify that before they went live.

‘No matter. Michael is taking me ice skating on Saturn’s rings tonight.

‘Day twenty: God spoke of alterations in perception and rationality when fully incorporated, true… but am somehow confident that feelings for Michael (and mounting undone assignments) are unrelated. What we have is unique and special, suffusing us both with a tender regard for one another, as well as certain… physical sensations have yet to put a name to. Plan to reference didactics on human sexual response, then perform additional field work. Investigation of utmost importance here.

‘Notice from koala committee: switch to allow variable diet was not flipped. They are now programmed to eat only eucalyptus leaves. Sure will be alright, though. Plenty of eucalyptus trees around’.”

Uriel looked up. “As you can see, I missed some deadlines.”

“Where was the harm? Koalas survived just fine,” Aziraphale said, but he could see what she was getting at.

“Koalas starve to death when their single set of teeth wears out. Wouldn’t happen if they’d eat fruit.” She looked a little pained. “Down to me, I’m afraid. I was meant to be on quality control.”

“So you were attracted to someone and didn’t pay attention to your work. I’ve seen that happen to humans. What exactly are you trying to prove?”

Uriel gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Prove? Nothing. I’m merely providing you with data. If you’re going to do this, you should know how it goes for us.”

“I’m not like you.”

Uriel ignored him. She turned a page. “‘Day forty-five: God did not pull any punches– I believe that’s the phrase– when She designed the human sexual response. Have never before experienced such a physical thrill. Was like climbing mountain of pleasure, then bursting though clouds into sunlight at the summit… shall have to write a poem. For now, suffice to say the diagrams didn’t do it justice.

‘Feared encounter was climax– so to speak– of existence to date, which was a bit of a dismaying concept as then would be nowhere to go but down… but then we did it again, and somehow was even better the second time’.”

Aziraphale searched Uriel’s face, but her expression was unreadable. He’d never seen her acting other than coolly professional around Michael, and he’d known them both for a very, very long time. “Er… you don’t have to…” he started.

“I think I do. It’s important to understand what comes next. What always comes next.” She gave him a piercing look. Then, turning back to the book, she read: “‘Day sixty-seven: Michael acting strange. Making excuses, always on her tablet when she thinks I can’t see her. Appears to be talking to someone. There is an odd, swooping feeling in my stomach. Perhaps corporation demanding more gross matter? But somehow the thought of eating gives me sick acidic sensation in throat.

‘Day seventy-two: Unbelievable. Michael put in for three-day leave and has not asked me to come, nor told me where she is going. Caught her trying on some sort of garment covered in what wardrobe department tells me are sequins. Also, has let hair down, and Gadreel says she asked for help with her make-up.

‘Day seventy-six: Right, Michael away, so can concentrate on responsibilities. Will start by opening post from Earth-based team.

‘Day seventy-six, later: What is sodding point, though? Who cares if Earth’s orbit around the sun is glitchy? So what if it could cause the polar ice caps to expand? Cannot focus on any of it. What is Michael doing? Who is she seeing? Why hasn’t she called?

‘Day eighty: Cannot believe what a fool I’ve been.

‘Michael returned, wearing same satisfied smile as last time we were together. She smelt of brimstone. Worst part is, she didn’t even try to deny what she’d done. I knew she kept in touch with Downstairs, suppose I’ve always known, but didn’t think she’d… that she’d ever…

‘Day eighty, later: Right. Am sophisticated, professional archangel providing objective documentation. Problem with tear ducts has been sorted out. Michael told me that God wanted us to experience a variety of human interactions. That she hadn’t thought we were going to ‘limit ourselves’ to one another. Says she’s fond of me, and wants us to be together here in Heaven, but…

‘Day eighty, later, again: Emotions appear to be ranging from numbness to fury to despair. Cannot predict when next wave will hit, and sweep me under.

‘Unable to go on with workflow implementation and quality control for Earth systems. Have asked Raphael for sick leave’.”

Uriel paused, but didn’t look up.

Aziraphale resisted the temptation to say, “I’m sorry.” This angel had thrown him against a wall. She’d been there when they tried to burn him. He didn’t understand… were his corporation’s empathy circuits malfunctioning? Why was he trembling, worrying at his cuticles, and wondering how he’d feel if Crowley…?

He threw a boulder into the path of that thought. Surely, Crowley would never…

‘I didn’t think she’d ever’, Uriel had said.

“Love,” Uriel said, “Is a biochemical reaction. You read how it’s made in the manual. It isn’t special, or even exclusive. It’s a reaction the human brain is designed to have in response to nearby adults that can provide protection or social connection. And that’s all it is.”

Havin’ a sex drive is a human corporation thing. It’s not made to be exclusive, or even particularly picky. I would know.

Aziraphale told his brain to shut up. “Crowley and I–”

“He’s the centre of your world, is he? Sun rises and sets in his eyes? Makes you feel fluttery in your stomach, gives you a warm, comforting sense of security?”

“Stop it.”

“You could gaze for hours at the little dimples in his cheeks, right? Making love with him is like a blazing inferno of pleasure? You crave him every minute you’re apart?” Uriel put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, and this time Aziraphale didn’t flinch away. He suddenly didn’t have the energy. “Love. Human love. It’s a powerful cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters, just like She said. It devastates rational thinking, defies our efforts to control it, manipulates our behaviour… and then it fades.”

“Four to seven years?” Aziraphale whispered.

“Best-case scenario.”

“But–” Aziraphale rallied. “I’ve seen human couples who were married for decades! There are life-long love affairs that inspire great works of literature and art!”

“Oh? There are lots of famous books about torrid, breathless passion between humans who’ve been married twenty years?” Uriel rolled her eyes. “There’s a reason stories end with ‘happily ever after’.”

Aziraphale had to admit he didn’t have an answer to that. “The problem,” Uriel continued, “Is that twenty years to us… or thirty, or fifty… is no time at all. If you’re relying on a human corporation’s emotional response, you can’t expect it to keep up with your longevity. It’ll burn itself out.”

“What did you do?” Aziraphale asked, finally, around a lump in his throat roughly the size of Gloucester.

“Oh, there was a top level summit about three months in. We were getting complaints from all over the map– construction teams, planning committees, you name it. Management had completely broken down. Gabriel discovered something called, I believe, a ‘runner’s high’ and wouldn’t shut up about it. Raphael started using his poppy-based medicines recreationally. Sandalphon… well, let’s just say his decision to smite Sodom and Gomorrah had more than a little to do with projection.”

“Ah.”

“No one was getting a stroke of work done, that much was clear. Most of us agreed to turn everything off again. There was a group who didn’t… I think you know what happened to them. The point is, it was a disaster. For us and for the humans, if you recall.”

“The Flood.”

Uriel looked at him sympathetically. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re feeling, Aziraphale. I’ve been there. But you’re playing with fire. There are consequences that you can’t see right now.”

“Crowley hurt his hip,” Aziraphale blurted out. Suddenly, Uriel– who he’d always liked, sort of, up until the end; she knew a little about books which was more than you could say for the rest of them– seemed like a beacon of wisdom and reassurance. “He hurt his hip, and he couldn’t miracle himself sober after he got drunk… and I think there’s a problem with his hunger signals. It all started after we turned everything on. I’m afraid he’s being harmed somehow.”

“Demon corporations are prone to breakdown. Didn’t you know that? Half of them can’t even maintain the integrity of their own skin.”

“I suppose I thought that was the fashion,” Aziraphale muttered.

“Far as I could ever tell, it’s a side effect of the fact that they made their own, without any help from…” Uriel pointed significantly at the ceiling. “Didn’t always put everything together right.”

“Crowley never had problems like that before.”

“If you go back to how things were, they’ll probably stop. The more organic processes your body is running, the more vulnerable it is to mistakes.”

“Oh… but…” his mind whirled. Too much, too much. Crowley’s hands on his face. His head between his legs. The easy way he’d been smiling, the past few days… then the images twisted. Crowley touching another man. A series of men, a parade; naked and entwined with his demon, over him or under him, Crowley’s head thrown back in pleasure.

He knew it had happened. Crowley said he’d loved Aziraphale since the fourteenth century, but he’d gone to bed with other people. How? How could he love Aziraphale and share that with someone else?

No. He wasn’t being fair. It wasn’t Crowley’s fault he’d had hormones and Aziraphale hadn’t. That he’d loved Aziraphale, and Aziraphale…

Wait.

It was hard to think about what he’d felt for Crowley before. Now that the lights were on, he couldn’t remember the texture of the darkness. Hesitantly, he said, “You turned your corporation’s biochemical functions off.”

“Yes.”

“Afterwards, did you… did you still love her?”

“Crowley? Crowley! C’mon, talk to me.” Anathema waved something under his nose that smelled of concentrated cat piss. Crowley inhaled instinctively and began to cough.

“You would have smelling salts, you bloody witch,” he gasped, sitting up. Black spots bloomed in front of his eyes.

“Something’s wrong. I’m calling 911… um, 999, I mean. Whatever.”

“No. Just a little woozy from the smiting. I have to get to Broadgate Tower, there’s a portal there.”

“A portal to where?” Anathema asked, then rolled her eyes. “You know what, never mind. Sometimes I forget that my life is a religious circus, no matter how hard I try to be normal.”

“If you’d been ‘normal’ the world would be a charred cinder drifting through space. Don’t question it. Just help me up.” He clutched the keys and got his feet under him.

“You absolutely cannot drive.”

“Have to. Tube’ll be a nightmare from here. There’s no time.”

“Crowley, you look half-dead.”

Crowley turned on her, snarling. “You don’t understand! Those bastards have Aziraphale! I’m not going to lose him again!”

He tried to shove her out of the way, but she clung to his arm like a crayfish. Kid could give Aziraphale a run for his money when it came to being an immovable object. “Let go.”

“Don’t be stupid. At least let me drive.”

Standing had set off a wave of dizziness. Probably he could manage to drive the Bentley or arrange things so the perpetually-gridlocked Thames Street didn’t hold them up, but not both. (Which brought up the question of what he thought he was going to do when he actually got to Heaven, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.) “Fine. Floor the accelerator and steer. I’ll take care of the rest.” He tossed her the keys.

She turned so he could half-lean on her shoulder and dug in her bag with her other hand. His thoughts were slow and fuzzy. He felt like he was walking on the edge of a great abyss, trying not to fall into a sucking blackness. It would be so good to rest…

“Newt,” he heard Anathema say into her mobile. Her voice was laced with tears. “Newt…”

He didn’t catch much of the conversation, concentrating as he was on putting one foot in front of the other. Something about being in trouble, and being sorry, and could he meet them…

Things came back to him a little when they got outside. He stumbled to the Bentley, vanished the inevitable clamp with a wave of his hand, and slumped in the passenger seat. Anathema slid behind the wheel.

Crowley was getting a headache. Impatiently, he turned off the rest of his nociceptors, and gave his sympathetic nervous system a jolt for good measure. It helped a little.

He ought to say something about Anathema putting herself in danger. About how she didn’t have to do this. “Anathema–”

Rain pounded on the windscreen. In the swimming light of the car’s interior, Anathema looked very pale, and very young. But then she reached out and put her hand over his. “We’ll find him.”

Crowley turned and scowled out the window so she wouldn’t see his face.

“Crowley?”

“Yeah.”

“Which side of the street, again?”

Uriel looked at him steadily. “I came back to myself,” she finally said. “I could trust my thoughts again. My emotions stopped causing me unpleasant physical reactions.”

Aziraphale remembered crying until his chest ached, until he couldn’t breathe from the mucous clogging his nostrils. “That’s not an answer.”

“I’d say the sensation… hmm. Dwindled? It changed, certainly. I like Michael. She’s a very accomplished angel. There was certainly no reason for our work relationship to be further strained, which came as a relief.”

Aziraphale was silent.

Uriel turned a page. “‘Day ninety. Doing grassland detail work today, which gives me time to think. The plains seem featureless from above (antelopes notwithstanding) but the ground is riddled with dens, there are clusters of flowers, and each head of grass is crowned with a spiky awn that cradles its seeds. In the autumn they’ll float through the air, get stuck in the coats of passing animals, and bury themselves in the dirt… waiting for spring, and new green shoots.

Point is, there’s so much richness in all of God’s creation. Could get lost in watching a spider weave her web (and have). Icicles forming as the air freezes is hours of fascinated distraction… and I was blind to all of it.

I remember being able to think of nothing but Michael. How perfect she seemed, how satisfying, and then how very devastating. The thoughts are still all there, memories lined up like books on shelves, but the feelings? Can’t say I have much of anything left.

It was an interesting experiment. Everyone agrees. Understand humans must be compelled through unsubtle means, as direct communication with Creator impossible.

Rivers that cross the grasslands teem with life: trees, shrubs, mammals, fish, those mud-dwelling lizard creatures with sharp teeth. I think being human is much like living at the edge of a river. Behaviour constantly directed by obvious, crude signals (for ex., run away from that crocodile).

Most of planet, though, is desert of some kind. Near-sterile expanses of grass, sand, water, rock. This is where angels ought to tread, out where there is peace and open space. Is enough there to fascinate us for all the years of our existence, studying the neverending wonder of God’s work… without, as it were, getting stuck in the weeds’. Clumsy metaphor, that, but it was just my journal. Didn’t really think anyone would read it.”

“Did Michael… ah. Did she feel the same way?” Something was tearing loose inside Aziraphale. It was painful in a way his brain didn’t want to fully comprehend; he kept shying away from it, like the idea of having a fingernail pulled out with pliers.

“Never really talked about it. I could see from her face, though, that she also wondered what all the fuss had been about.” Uriel laughed, bright and uncomplicated. As though the affairs of her heart were a hilarious joke.

Crowley’s brain had been part human from the very beginning. He’d known fear, and lust, and euphoria, probably; Aziraphale didn’t know, they hadn’t talked about it, but… he said he’d fallen in love with Aziraphale. What if “love” was just the effect of all those simmering chemicals, effectively binding him to the nearest convenient supernatural entity– whether he liked it or not?

‘It’s a reaction the human brain is designed to have in response to nearby adults that can provide protection or social connection’. They’d certainly been that to each other, hadn’t they?

What if it wasn’t real? What on earth would he do?

Aziraphale swallowed. “God talked about dissolving pair bonds. She said it was painful.”

Uriel closed her journal, took the manual, and scrolled to another section. She pushed it towards him. “Read this.”

Michael, Sandalphon and Gabriel watched the screen in Gabriel’s office. “She’s doing well,” Gabriel said. “I’d never have guessed. Psychology! Remarkable.”

“What does ‘projection’ mean?” asked Sandalphon.

“Not sure. Shining light through film, isn’t it?”

Michael looked unhappy. “I don’t see why she had to say all that. It’s personal.”

“No, it’s strategy! He’d never have listened to her if he didn’t think she’d been in his shoes. And making us look bad helps get him on her side. Don’t worry. I know none of that ever happened. Imagine us going fully corporeal.”

“As if!” Sandalphon snorted.

“I know we all… experimented a bit. That’s only to be expected when there’s new technology around. But her story about you is a brilliant fabrication. Especially the ‘dalliance with demons’ part, very topical.” Gabriel punched Micheal’s shoulder. “Did you come up with it together?”

“In a sense,” Micheal said, shoulders slumping.

“It’s great. He has to go down there and convince Crowley it’s over between them, so we don’t have a demon immune to holy water storming the gates of Heaven.”

“I installed passwords on all the gates that time we had Isaiah round!” Sandalphon protested.

“I know, but let’s not take chances. I think this’ll work. Aziraphale’s starting to believe love’s a transient bond and demon corporations are flawed… and the best part is, we didn’t even really have to lie!”

“Because angels don’t,” murmured Sandalphon.

“Exactly. He’ll give up on this silly game, come back up here sans demon, and he’ll be all ours.”

On the screen, Uriel laughed. When Aziraphale looked away, though, the smile dropped and her expression became one of deep sadness.

Michael turned and walked out of the room.

‘It won’t work out perfectly for every single individual, but that’s not the goal– the goal is survival of the species. A certain amount of collateral damage is expected.’ Aziraphale finished reading, closed his eyes, and shuddered lightly. “It sounds very unpleasant.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened between me and Michael hurt… and then it didn’t. The chemicals were gone, and the pain went with it. Humans don’t have a choice, but we do.”

Aziraphale opened his eyes again. He stared at the screen. “Why does She treat them this way?” he said softly. “She said She loved them.”

The question hadn’t really been meant for Uriel, but she answered anyway. “What makes you think She doesn’t love them? Humanity as a whole has done very well. Their species has grown and flourished.”

“But they’re people… every member of that species has their own feelings and thoughts and experiences. That’s what none of you ever understood.”

“You’re saying they’re all valuable.”

“Well… yes. Of course.”

Uriel shook her head. “That’s not how it works. Do you remember Charles Darwin? He got so many things laughably wrong, but he wrote this: ‘One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die’. She set it all up, put the checks and balances in place, and then let it go. The failure and death of individuals is a feature, not a bug.”

“She wants to see who comes out on top.” Aziraphale put his face in his hands.

“I think she just wanted to see what would happen.” Uriel waved her hand. “Creative types, you know?"

“I want to go home.”

“Aziraphale…” Uriel smiled like a shark. “You are home.”

There was a flurry of horns. “Shit!” Anathema shouted, and swerved.

“Sorry,” said Crowley. “Missed one. Don’t slow down! I’ve got this.”

He’d become used to things simply arranging themselves for him, but that particular skill seemed to have gone offline. He was thinking too hard, that was all. He took a deep breath as the Bentley rocketed around a delivery van, one of the mirrors leaving a long gouge in its side.

“Okay,” said Anathema in a shaky voice. “Okay. So. What’s your plan?”

“Don’t know. Don’t have one. Get him back.”

“How can we help?”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me. Newt. Tracy and Shadwell, if they can come. Your friends.”

“Demons don’t have friends,” Crowley responded automatically, and Anathema shot him a brief but deeply sceptical glance.

“Fine, ugh. Point taken, but you can’t help. You’d be cannon fodder.”

“It’s Heaven. They won’t hurt humans!”

“Why not? In the eyes of Heaven and Hell, every human is more valuable dead. Your souls are what we use to keep score.”

“That’s horrible.”

Crowley shrugged. “They don’t understand what life is. To them it’s an idea that got out of hand. Or…” he snapped his fingers thoughtfully, “something like a plate of cucumber sandwiches left out for a week. Mushy, disgusting, growing mould. They think being disembodied is far superior– especially the angels. That’s why they’re so dangerous. They’d kill you to do you a favour, if they bothered to notice you at all. Just stay out of the way.”

Anathema swung the Bentley briefly onto the pavement to avoid a snarl of stopped traffic near Tower bridge. Crowley gave her an appreciative nod. She was getting the hang of this.

“What do you think?”

“Bout what?”

“What’s better? Being an angel, or being human?”

“How’m I supposed to answer that? I’m a demon.”

“That makes you the perfect person to ask. You’ve been an angel and a demon, and now you’re… human? I guess?”

“Maximising my corporeal potentiality,” Crowley growled.

“Whatever. So?”

“Suppose it depends. Some of it was better than…” Crowley shook his head. “There’s no comparison. Angels don’t have a sensory equivalent to what humans experience. Five senses, right? And you think that’s all there could ever be, but as an angel– really an angel, I mean, not one who’s been folded into a corporation– it’s all different. You see more, but you don’t feel any of it. Then sometimes…” Crowley looked out the window again. His chin was trembling, and he made it stop.

“I wonder what it was like to be Agnes. D’you think she had a mind like an angel? The first prophecy she wrote was the story of her death. She never seemed to feel anything. ”

“You can’t be sure of that. Lots of people never say things out loud.”

“Newt did,” Anathema said softly. “He said it all the time, like it was easy. Like it was the simplest thing in the world.”

“Don’t push him away,” Crowley heard himself saying. He was in no position to be giving advice, but then again he had a long history of finding out what people wanted. Really wanted, underneath the layers of propriety and obligation and guilt they built around them to keep from seeing it themselves. Also… “Not sayin' you should be with him if you don't want to be. But let me tell you from someone who knows… when a person shuts you out to protect you, it makes you crazy. Ought to be a punishment in Hell, that.”

Anathema didn’t answer. Crowley fixed his eyes on the glass walls of Broadgate Tower, growing larger in the distance.

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale pushed his chair back, stood up, and backed away.

“Look, you came to us wanting to know how things were going to work for you. The answer is, they’re not. An angel can’t live as a human! More importantly, though, a demon can’t live as a human. Not fully. They’ll fall to pieces. And for what? A biochemical reaction that’s a pale facsimile of divine love? Something that runs out? You’ll be left with nothing.”

“You don’t know that!”

Uriel suddenly looked furious. “Do you think you’re special, Aziraphale? You didn’t want to be an angel, fine. Go ahead and live as a human if you want to, but you’ll be playing by their rules. I wasn’t immune to being manipulated by my hormones, and you’re not either. It’s biology.”

Aziraphale stared at his clenched-tight hands. The image blurred as his eyes filled. He and Crowley had done alright before, hadn’t they? They hadn’t had what they had now, true, but they’d enjoyed their time together and kept each other safe. The whole point of this experiment had been to keep them safe on Earth, and it had backfired for Crowley. Was it worth continuing? They’d be risking everything, and– as Uriel had said– for what? He knew now what would happen to their newfound passion and turbulent emotions, God Herself had told him: they’d fade away like blood in water. The chemistry only stayed potent for a few years, and their lives were very long.

Or maybe not, if Crowley was having trouble with his corporation. Hell was in the mix somehow, and if Crowley were to be discorporated because they were clinging stupidly to this idea of being in human love…

Sex was nice. But it wasn’t worth never seeing Crowley again.

“Oh, God,” he said, faintly.

"Heaven and Hell are prepared to offer a truce,” Uriel said. "Make Heaven your home base again. Come here for healing– and budget meetings, company-wide announcements, strategy planning sessions, that sort of thing– just like you did before, and Crowley can go Down. You won’t be harmed. Just go back to the way things were. Leave the chemistry to the humans. It wasn’t made for us."

“Why would you offer us anything?”

“PR.” Uriel shrugged. “It’s very bad for Heaven’s image, what happened. Hell’s too. If Armageddon’s off, we’d at least like people to stop thinking it’s our fault. Having you and Crowley make nice with your respective sides would go a long way towards presenting a united front.”

And convincing other angels and demons not to try rebelling as a way to get off desk duty permanently. She didn't say that part, but she didn't need to. “If I refuse?” Aziraphale asked.

“Then you’re on your own. When you’re discorporated– and notice I’m saying when, not if– you come back here, and he goes down there. No matter what you think you feel for each other, it’ll be over.”

Aziraphale pressed his lips together and knuckled tears away, trying to make it look like he was scratching an itch. It was never going to end well for them, was it? No matter what they told themselves, they were what they were.

What a fool he’d been.

“It’ll hurt,” he said, finally.

“It doesn’t have to.”

Newt was waiting when they pulled up outside. (Crowley didn’t know how he’d beaten them at first, but then he saw his strange three-wheeled car parked on the double-yellows. Anathema had said something about Adam tricking it out.) “Tracy and Shadwell are coming, but I don’t know how long they’ll be. She said something about a flying scooter which I think was a metaphor.” He avoided Anathema’s eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she said, then closed her eyes and shook her head. “No.” She walked into his arms.

Crowley took a few seconds to tell his irritated viscera in no uncertain terms that it was not to interfere right now. He wasn’t sure if a demon could get food poisoning– if an angel could have allergies then anything was possible, but he couldn’t afford to be dizzy or in pain. He’d deal with… whatever this was… when Aziraphale was safe.

Crowley nodded to Newt, who nodded back over Anathema’s shaking shoulders. Then he went inside.

Aziraphale was wonderfully numb. He prodded some of his recent memories, cautiously, like a man at the dentist might poke his tongue into a raw, open socket. Nothing. Was this how he’d felt before? He wasn’t sure. Perhaps returning to factory settings was overkill, but he’d wanted to make sure it was done right. Couldn’t have any stray oxytocin mucking things up this time.

Uriel gave him a considering look. “How do you feel?”

“Much better, thank you.”

“Glad to hear it. Your pet demon is downstairs. He seems to be trying to get on the escalator.”

“The Up escalator? Oh dear. Let me go and talk to him.”

“I doubt he’ll be easy to dissuade.”

“Leave it to me. I have some experience in that area.” Aziraphale gave her a tight smile.

In the Broadgate Tower lobby, people saw what they expected to see. To humans it was a typical central London office building: glass walls, high ceilings, reception desk with curved edges to create a pleasing silhouette. To angels and demons, it was a front door.

Humans milled about. A receptionist spoke on a phone as sleek and polished as the marble floors, and bored-looking security guards leaned against the wall. Two of them had slightly different uniforms.

The pale-skinned woman in the tattered overcoat that smelled of plate scrapings congealing in a sink trap had a badge that said “Hell Staff”, and in smaller letters, “Hello I’m Milcom.” She was pointedly ignoring a statuesque man in white who had a distinctively empty-headed look and wore a gold name tag with the name “Cassiel” engraved on it, along with two little wings. They both stood up straighter when they saw Crowley.

He headed for the Up escalator. "Cassiel" pulled a glowing tablet from his pocket and began to speak frantically into it. Milcom moved to block the top of Hell’s entrance, but didn’t come any closer.

Crowley put a foot on the bottom step. Cassiel jolted like he’d been touched by a live wire and sprang into action. “You can’t go up there!”

“Piss off, mate.” Crowley pulled his glasses down and gave him the full force of the serpent eyes over the tops.

“I’ll shoot!”

“What is this, America?” But Crowley hesitated. Cassiel had reached into his coat and removed a very silly-looking plastic gun.

It was a water pistol.

He recalled Aziraphale had turned all the Secret Service guns into water pistols during Warlock’s birthday party, and realised he’d never asked the angel how a Soho bookseller with a mind barely in the twentieth century at the best of times knew about water pistols in the first place.

“I thought your lot didn’t approve of guns.”

“Unless they’re in the right hands. Then they give weight to a moral argument. I think.”

Bastards, all of them. He grinned, hoping he looked swaggering and not how he felt, e.g. terrified and sick to his stomach. “I’m immune. Didn’t you hear?”

“I dint hear nuffin.”

“Crowley!”

“Angel!” He almost went to his knees in relief. He clutched the rail of the escalator, and Cassiel shook his gun menacingly. There was a sloshing noise.

Aziraphale flew down the steps two at a time. He looked unharmed. Crowley swayed. It was alright. It was going to be alright.

Cassiel swivelled towards Aziraphale. “You’re not s’posed to come down. He’s not s’posed to go up.”

“Call upstairs. I’ve got clearance.” Aziraphale reached him, plucked the pistol from his hands before he could blink, and squeezed. Water ran over his knuckles, but then he blinked and was dry again.

Cassiel was listening to a tinny voice from the tablet. After a moment, he drew aside. Aziraphale sidled by him and patted his shoulder. “There’s a good fellow. I just need a few minutes in the lobby to speak to my friend.”

“Don’t try any funny stuff,” Cassiel muttered resentfully.

“Certainly not.”

Aziraphale took Crowley by the elbow and walked him to the centre of the wide, echoing space. “Now,” he said finally, pulling back and straightening his waistcoat, “What’s this about?”

“Aziraphale. I tried to find you… what happened?” Crowley put his arms around the angel’s shoulders. Aziraphale let himself be pulled into an embrace, but he didn’t return it. His body was stiff.

Crowley let go. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? I come down here to find you attempting to storm the gates of Heaven, face to face with a holy water pistol? What were you thinking?”

“Knew you had to be up there.”

“Would getting yourself killed have helped me? You’re not being rational.”

“Don’t tell me from rational. Neither of us’ve been exactly rational lately. Thought you were enjoyin’ it.” Crowley tried to smile. There was something about the way the angel was holding himself: shoulders square, hands front, face blank.

“It was causing too much trouble.”

Was. Oh, no. “What happened?” he asked again, slower this time, stomach sinking.

“I’m very sorry, my dear. I’ve received some information that has… changed things.” Aziraphale looked unhappy, but not exactly upset– like he was delivering an unpleasant but trivial bit of news. Beach plans rained out, something like that.

“What could they possibly tell you that you’d believe?” The words were edged with desperation. He could feel it trying to choke him. His pulse was loud in his ears.

“It wasn’t them, exactly. It was Her.”

Crowley looked around. Suddenly he wanted to be anywhere but here, now, having this conversation with everyone– Heaven, Hell, humanity, fucking God, probably– watching them. He saw Anathema and Newt, standing wide-eyed near reception. Tracy and Shadwell were close behind.

“The… the manual, Crowley. It told me everything.” Aziraphale brows drew up, forehead creasing. A ‘please understand’ sort of look. As if it made one iota of difference whether Crowley understood or not.

As if Aziraphale cared what he felt anymore.

Crowley staggered back a step. “What did you do?” he asked. But he already knew.

“It’s alright! We don’t have to continue the experiment! Heaven and Hell will allow us access. If we… play nice.” At least he had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Why the Heaven would we want to do that?”

“Oh, come now. This was a bit of fun, but it wasn’t sustainable. Try to look at things logically. We can’t maintain entirely human corporations; they won’t last. Everything is transient by design: heart function, vascular health, gastric motility, emotional states…”

“Emotional states?” Crowley bared his teeth.

“Love.” Aziraphale looked him straight in the eye. He took a breath. “Unfortunately, it appears to be something of a flash in the pan. No stamina whatsoever.”

“I have loved you for eight hundred years. How can you say that?”

“I’m afraid it’s hard to explain. But don’t worry!” Aziraphale reached for him, conciliatory. A hand extended from winner to loser.

Crowley took another step back. The bottoms of his glasses were wet.

“We can still see each other, that’s the important thing. And you can get your corporation healed now– your hip, and anything else that goes wrong. Speaking of which– you look a little peaked, dear.” A vaguely concerned line appeared between Aziraphale’s brows.

(Crowley fell to his knees on the tarmac, face creased in pain. “Oh no! No no no no!”

“What’s happening? I can feel something,” said Aziraphale, calmly, from somewhere above him.)

(“Sorry, consecrated ground. It’s like– oh– being at a beach in bare feet.” That had been an understatement. Stabbing pain with every step, like in that Hans Christian Andersen story about the mermaid.

Aziraphale hadn’t batted an eye. “What are you doing here? …I should have known, of course. These people are working for you!”)

Crowley couldn’t, he couldn’t. How could Aziraphale ask him to go back there? Opposite sides, that’s what it would be, no matter what the bloody archangels said. Heaven whispering in Aziraphale’s ear. Worse than that, a return to Aziraphale’s indifference, his ability to separate them on a whim, while Crowley’s heart bled all over the floor.

“Crowley, please. Let them heal you. Look, I’m all better! No scar, even.” Aziraphale pointed to an unmarked cheek.

“You can go back to the bookshop now,” Crowley said in a leaden voice. “So. That’s nice for you.”

“Ah yes! No more allergies.” Aziraphale smiled, but then the expression faded into uncertainty. “We can go back there, you mean?”

“No. Angel… I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Crowley drew a shuddering breath. The knives that had stabbed his feet in the church seemed to have made their way to his throat. “I can’t pretend I don’t love you. Not again. I can’t look at you and feel… everything I feel…” he shook his head.

“It’ll help if you turn your neurotransmitters off,” Aziraphale said encouragingly. Crowley thought he looked worried, though he could hardly see him through his tears.

“Goodbye, angel.”

He let his feet carry him back towards the entrance. Someone tried to grab his coat, probably Anathema, and he flinched away. The Bentley was outside, and he didn’t have his keys, but hey, what was the point of being a demon if you were going to let a little thing like that stop you? He started the car with a gesture, screeched away from the building, and drove off blindly into the pouring rain.

Chapter Text

Heaven's Lobby, 2019 CE

“Uriel!”

Uriel is standing in the lobby, watching Aziraphale disappear down the escalator. She jumps. “What? This was part of the plan! He’s got to go call off the demon.”

“You never told me.” Michael stands in front of her, shoulders back, chest heaving, indignant.

“Told you what?” Uriel lifts her chin.

They lock eyes for a long moment, then Michael looks away. “Was all of it true? Gabriel said you’d made it up.”

Uriel murmurs a few lines of poetry under her breath. “The young deities discussed / Laws of form, and meter just, / Orb quintessence, and sunbeams, / What subsisteth, and what seems.”

“Straightway, a forgetting wind / Stole over the celestial kind, / And their lips the secret kept, / If in the ashes the fire-seed slept,” Michael replies.

Uriel blinks. “You remembered.”

“Of course I remember.” Michael looks like she’s about to burst into tears. “You read it to me during the didactics. It was brilliant.”

Uriel shrugs, uncomfortable. “Was a long time ago.”

“Do you think so little of me?”

“Michael–”

“‘No reason for our work relationship to be further strained’,” Michael says mockingly. “That’s what you told him. What relationship? You’re always closed up in your office with your papers and books, or off on a research trip. You never stop to talk… I bring you an ambrosia smoothie and see it still on your desk a month later, untouched… you just…” Michael glares. “You get everyone hooked on your poetry, then go and shut the door in their faces, that’s what you do. And it isn’t nice.”

“Nice!? Was it ‘nice’ when you went off with Ligur?”

A number of angels have looked up at the sound of raised voices. Gabriel and Sandalphon round a corner.

“I’m an intelligence officer! It was a job!”

Uriel remembers a word she overheard on her most recent trip to Earth. “Bullshit.”

Michael’s expression is embarrassed and miserable. “Fine. It was a mistake. I didn’t realise… but then you stormed off, and we never even talked about it again, and here I’ve had all these bloody poems of yours in my office for years… can’t even look at them–”

“Why are you angry with me?” Uriel exclaims, looking lost.

“I’m not! I’m just too late!”

Michael lurches forward, takes Uriel’s face in her hands, and kisses her.

Gabriel’s mouth drops open.

It was all meant to be switched off. Why, then, did it feel like his chest was collapsing? It was the same feeling he’d had when Crowley handed him the note that said “holy water” in his stark, impossible-to-mistake handwriting; when Crowley walked away from the bandstand; and when he’d sped off in the Bentley, headed to Alpha Centauri.

Aziraphale wondered where he was going this time.

It wasn’t fair. He’d made a plan that would save them both a painful separation and a lot of heartache, and Crowley had flown off the handle like he always did. The demon never thought things through, that was the problem. When he cooled down he’d see–

Something hit him: two solid fists. He looked down, startled, into Anathema’s furious face. “What is wrong with you?” she demanded.

“Dear girl. What are you doing here?” Aziraphale bundled her towards the entrance, giving the supernatural security officers a wide berth. For all he knew, she and Newt were on a celestial hit list, charged with apocalypse aversion and archangel deception.

Speaking of Newt… here he was now. He had his mobile out, and shook his head when they reached him. “Right to voicemail.”

“Keep trying,” said Anathema.

“Tracy… Shadwell… what a pleasant surprise.”

Tracy stepped forward and brushed Aziraphale’s shoulder. “We all thought they’d done something terrible,” she murmured. “But look at you. Not a hair out of place.”

“No, just his sense of decency,” Anathema muttered.

Tracy gave her a look of mixed sorrow and exasperation. “Mr. Aziraphale was abducted, dearie. Have a heart.”

“Why should I? He doesn’t.”

“I think perhaps it was all a bit much,” Tracy said carefully. “Sometimes things take time. Understanding not least of all.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Aziraphale said helplessly. “He wouldn’t let me explain.”

“Newt, can you go after him?”

Newt spread his hands. “He’s gone, Ana. Dick Turpin’s fast, but I don’t know where he went.”

“Just try. Follow the sound of car horns.” She kissed his cheek. His expression turned stunned and happy. With the air of one who has suddenly decided he is going to Do Something Intrepid, he turned and strode out of the building.

In the mid 1880s, Aziraphale had investigated a few of the newer pharmaceuticals that claimed to have mind-altering properties. He’d been in a very black mood at the time, bored with wine, and couched it to himself as helping advance the nascent medical profession. His corporation couldn’t be harmed by human drugs, after all. A young man– Dr. Karl Koller, an Austrian surgery trainee– had been speaking to his classmate, Dr. Freud, about the virtues of a white powder made from a South American leaf. “It’s a stimulant,” he’d said, “und Sigmund thinks it may help those who are compelled to use opium even in de absence of pain. His friend, Dr. Fleischl-Marxow, vas treated in such a way, but developed terrible visions.”

Aziraphale was no stranger to terrible visions, particularly over the past few decades. “What of its medicinal uses?” he had asked, over a bottle of Vin Mariani at Dr. Koller’s seedy lodgings near Vienna General Hospital.

“Ah,” the man had said. “Dat vill change de vorld of surgery. A vay to produce localised anaesthesia with no loss of consciousness. Try dis.” He dipped his pen knife into a vial of white powder and deposited a tiny bit onto Aziraphale’s tongue, which went numb almost immediately.

The two had diverted themselves with trying to taste lemons, salted fish and raisin cake and, when the thrill of that wore off, poked their tongues with needles. At the very end though, as Aziraphale’s nerves began to recover, there was a flicker of red pain: the promise of things to come.

What he felt now was like that: a needle piercing flesh just on the edge of sensitivity. The pain couldn’t be coming back, could it? Surely not. He’d taken care of that.

But seeing Anathema kiss Newt…

“I should go home,” he said faintly. “I’m not feeling well.”

Anathema grabbed the lapel of his coat. “We. Are. Finding. Crowley,” she hissed. “He’s sick.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean. He’s looked terrible all morning, and he collapsed on our way out of the hotel. But he won’t tell me what’s going on. He was fixated on getting to you.”

“Crowley’s corporation is very strong,” Aziraphale said, suddenly dizzy. For a moment, he was outside himself, observing their conversation from above. “I’m sure he–”

“He had me drive the Bentley.”

Aziraphale looked at Tracy and Shadwell. “Dear lady, could you possibly spare your scooter one more time?”

The seats in the waiting room were a slightly shiny fabric; some horrible blue and orange pattern straight out of the 1970s. The echoing footsteps and high ceilings made the space feel like the lobby of a once-grand hotel after a very unfortunate remodel.

Or maybe it was more like being in an airport. People sat or paced aimlessly, some clearly wearing yesterday’s clothes, while men and women in uniform bustled in and out. There was a snacks machine under the sort of sputtering fluorescent Crowley liked to flick sunflower seeds at.

Aziraphale’s eyes gazed at nothing. His legs walked him, once again, to the desk where the receptionist sat. “Has there been news?”

“Mr. Fell, someone will call you.” The woman looked sympathetic, but sounded a little irritated– as if she’d been interrupted by the same question five times in the past thirty minutes (which was in fact the case).

Aziraphale sat back down. The big clock on the far wall ticked. He heard laughter.

People can laugh, he thought absently. They’re going about their lives right now feeling perfectly happy. They don’t know something’s happened to Crowley. Even if he were to tell them, well, so what? They didn’t know Crowley from Adam. Life would go on for them just as it always had. Their world hadn’t fallen into ruin.

He put his face in his hands.

Crowley had made it to St. James park. Aziraphale suspected it’d been a headlong dash on autopilot, given the trail of destruction he’d left behind him. No humans had been harmed, but there were numerous so-called “fender benders”, bent signposts, and several police cars that had sprouted tentacles. Aziraphale passed over on the scooter (just like riding a velocipede, hah) and subdued the worst of the damage, even as his eyes scanned the roads worriedly for any sign of a black Bentley.

He and Newt’s oddly named car reached the scene about the same time, but the ambulance had already gone. The Bentley, which was half-in and half-out of the duck pond, seemed to have taken steps to protect Crowley; or Adam had– Aziraphale was almost positive it’d never had airbags before. A policeman was bellowing at people to move along, and Aziraphale snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Where’s the driver of this car?”

“Took ‘im to University Hospital,” the man said in a faraway voice.

“Was he hurt?”

“Not sure. ‘E was unconscious when we pulled ‘im out.”

Aziraphale swayed, and Newt put a hand on his elbow. “Where’s the hospital?” he heard someone say, in a voice that sounded like his. He was outside himself again, hovering near the tops of the trees, looking down on the twisted fence and the lines of caution tape, at the deep divots in the grass and the waterlogged Bentley. He couldn’t make sense of it. He’d just seen Crowley. Crowley had been fine.

Somehow he’d ended up in Newt’s car. He must have closed his eyes, because suddenly they were pulling up outside a hulking brick-and-glass structure and he had no memory of how they’d gotten there. Newt was talking into his mobile while he led Aziraphale inside, flagged someone down, and told them this was the next of kin of the man in black who’d been brought in from the park.

There’d been forms. One wanted to know his relationship to Crowley. He’d sat immobile, staring down until Newt took it from him, wrote “Partner” decisively in the blank spot, and brought everything up to the front.

The others arrived a half hour later, and a woman in a crocheted jumper appeared with yet more paperwork and told them Crowley was in surgery. Without a word, Aziraphale pushed past her and headed straight for the double doors with the “No Admittance” sign.

Shadwell grabbed him by the collar. “Easy, lad.”

He twisted. “Let me go.”

Anathema and Tracy took his arms. “You can’t barge into an operating room. You’ll spook the surgeon, and then where will Crowley be?”

“But…” but they were right. Aziraphale let himself be led back to the chairs, limbs like water. Of course he had to leave it in the hands of the humans now. He couldn’t heal Crowley. There was nothing whatsoever he could do. “How is he?” he asked Crocheted-Jumper.

“I’m just admitting. I’m sorry.”

So now he waited. He was an angel, and British, so patience usually came naturally to him, but how long could he possibly be expected to bear this?

His eyes felt huge and hot. He’d turned off the chemical cascades that would allow him to cry. It seemed he’d blocked up all the avenues for emotion to escape his body, sobbing and shaking and the like, but the emotions were still there, which was definitely Not As Advertised. Bloody Uriel.

“How does it work?” he asked Dr. Koller.

“Pain fibres conduct noxious signals. Cocaine seems to quiet them. Stimulus but no response. Remarkable.” He was pacing the room, pulling at his hair. (Aziraphale had quietly purged the cocaine from his bloodstream some time ago.)

“It’s different from ether?”

“Indeed. I believe ether stymies the brain. Pain fibres vork as usual, but no one is at home.” Koller tapped his temple.

Aziraphale frowned. “The pain is still there, then?”

“Dr. Fell, there is no escaping pain. Not forever. Ve delay it a bit, is all.”

It was three o’clock in the morning. Shadwell had gone out for a smoke. Tracy nibbled a stale-looking pastry she’d gotten from the little refreshment closet. Newt’s eyes were at half-mast, and Anathema was slumped on his shoulder, sound asleep.

Aziraphale, of course, no longer had any need for food or sleep. (He wished he’d gone with Shadwell, though. He could have used a cigarette.)

A young woman wearing that mint-green uniform he’d seen on about half of the medical staff, with masses of brown curly hair escaping the cap she wore, emerged from the doorway to the restricted area, spoke briefly with the new man at the front desk, and then headed in the direction of his pointing finger. “Excuse me,” she said as she approached their group. “I’m looking for Mr. Fell?”

Aziraphale stood and let her lead him into a small, private room that smelled of coffee and antiseptic. There was a box of tissues on the table in the centre.

“I’m Dr. Ames,” she said, while Newt pulled out a chair for Anathema and Tracy, having retrieved Shadwell, bustled in and shut the door. “One of the Surgery Specialty Registrars. You’re Anthony Crowley’s family?”

“Yes,” Anathema said firmly, when Aziraphale didn’t answer.

“He’s in Intensive Care,” she said. “He’s not breathing on his own yet, and he’s in critical condition.”

Aziraphale didn’t know what most of that meant, but– “He needs to breathe!” he exclaimed. “Well… right now, anyway. He can’t just stop like he used to.”

Tracy touched his hand, and when he looked over, shook her head and put her finger to her lips.

Dr. Ames gave him a perplexed stare. “Ye-ess,” she said. “He’s connected to a ventilator– that’s a machine that breathes for him. He’ll have a tube in his mouth when you see him.”

“What happened?”

A strange expression passed over her face. “He came in as a trauma code, but as far as we can tell he wasn’t injured in the collision. We think he lost consciousness due to sepsis. He had an infection in his abdomen.”

“What? How did he get that?”

“His intestinal tract is… unusual,” she said, speaking slowly, with the air of a person who’s trying to put rational boundaries around something inexplicable. “It may be a case report… but that’s not what you want to hear about right now.” She smiled for the first time, emphasising the dark circles under her eyes. “The important part is, he had appendicitis. Sometimes people say ‘the appendix burst’, which isn’t accurate; what happens is, inflammation causes the walls of the organ to lose their integrity, becoming leaky and necrotic. Eventually a phlegmon can form, which is a pelvic abscess, and–”

She looked at their blank faces, and pushed her glasses up her nose in a gesture that looked half-apologetic, half-embarrassed. “I’m sorry. What I mean to say is, his appendix ruptured. This allowed contaminated material to spill out, and his body was overwhelmed by it.”

“He has an immune system, you know. A good one.” Aziraphale felt he should be sticking up for it.

“Of course, but a perforated appendix can’t be healed without surgery. We removed it, and cleaned and drained his belly. However…” she hesitated. “He’s still very weak. He’s requiring medications to keep his blood pressure up, and his organs show signs of possible damage. Sometimes they can recover, given time. But the next few hours will be critical.”

Aziraphale said nothing. Eventually Anathema, looking at him worriedly, said, “Can we see him?”

“Of course. Two of you can go back for a few minutes.”

Thoughts seemed to be arriving very slowly, like barges coming single file into port. Aziraphale blinked at Dr. Ames. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What’s an appendix?”

A nurse waved a rectangular card at the double doors and then Aziraphale was on the other side of it, in a world of glass walls and beds surrounded by lighted, beeping machines. Each bed contained a fragile-looking human– or so he assumed; they were so thoroughly obscured by blankets, wires and tubes it was sometimes difficult to tell.

He and Crowley had never spent much time around healers or medicine men. They’d known Hippocrates, of course– he’d been an irascible curmudgeon in his later years, staunchly anti-religion, and Crowley had liked him very much– but hadn’t paid much attention to his teachings, or those of the early anatomists, or the priests who healed with miracles (complete bunk, of course, but people had to believe in something in those days). After his stay in Vienna, Aziraphale had suspected that medical science was starting to advance more quickly, but despite all the reading he’d done recently he’d never expected this.

The person in Room 14 had dark red hair and Crowley’s cheekbones. The lips stretched around the breathing tube were the same ones that had kissed Aziraphale… was it only yesterday?

Suddenly Aziraphale couldn’t have breathed even if he’d wanted to.

They’d both been discorporated, of course. It was an odds game. No matter how careful you were with your body, there were things that couldn’t be predicted: rock slides, earthquakes (and, in Crowley’s case, horses). Before, it had just been paperwork, and a nuisance. Now…

Trying to keep his thoughts from spiralling into panic, he turned to Anathema, who’d come with him despite not being asked to. “I… had some books. Back at the hotel. I need to call… to call…” the words wouldn’t come out right. His throat burned.

“We already did.”

“Sorry?”

“When we couldn’t find you. Summoned someone. He didn’t know anything.”

“Heaven said if I. If I went back to the way things were. Um. They’d heal him, if he–. Hell would, I mean. If I turned it off.” He wasn’t making sense.

“I mean… could be?” Anathema’s face told him everything he needed to know. “Maybe Eric, or whatever his name was, just wasn’t in the loop?”

Ironically, without the surges of adrenaline and cortisol clouding his thinking, Aziraphale could see he’d been… well. What was the term? Played for a sucker. The Satanic nun’s presence at the surgery they’d visited could have been a coincidence– probably had been. They hadn’t heard a peep out of Hell. Heaven only wanted Aziraphale because…

“I made them angry,” he said out loud. “I made Gabriel angry. With the stupid firework, and asking for the manual. There was never going to be any truce.”

Inside his head, a familiar dry voice said, Obviously.

They were afraid enough of him to want him to come back of his own free will, without Crowley. So they’d told him a story calculated to make him feel doubtful, confused and desperate, then set him loose to warn Crowley off. He’d fallen right into their trap, of course. Done what they’d expected like a wind-up mechanical soldier, and he hated himself for that, but the thing was… just because the truce was made up out of whole cloth didn’t mean Uriel’s story had been. After all, the manual had said…

Oh God. What was he supposed to do now?

Aziraphale sank to his knees by the bed. He found a hand. There was a glowing red device on one finger and a plastic tube stuck in the wrist. Careful not to disturb them, he wrapped both of his hands tight around Crowley’s limp one.

His skin was so cold. Aziraphale sagged against a hard plastic side rail, cradled the hand to his chest, and closed his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he knelt there, motionless inside and out, heart stilled, lungs empty. There were voices, followed by silence, followed by an alarm’s shrill cry, followed by more silence.

‘Cravings, increase in stress hormones, obsessions over the lost loved one, anger, jealousy, and despair’. That’s what the manual had said. But would it be worse than this aching, terrible numbness? It was like being buried in sand: the world drawing in around him, sounds distant and muffled, a crushing pressure on his chest while his body screamed for air.

“To Hell with it,” he finally said out loud. He’d been breathing for six thousand years, and his body was used to it. Why was he maintaining Heaven’s standards now? Eyes fixed on the mist that condensed on the inside of Crowley’s tube with every exhale, he relaxed the iron grip he’d been using to hold back his corporation’s natural processes.

His heart began to beat. His hands and feet started tingling as a network of capillaries filled. He took a breath in time with Crowley… and an overwhelming wave of bone-deep weariness swept over him.

It wasn’t a choice. He managed to shift himself into a (shiny, blue and orange) chair, pull Crowley’s hand into his lap, and reach out with his own hand until he was touching Crowley’s shoulder. Then a black curtain came down across his vision, and he slept.

“Aziraphale,” someone said.

Leave me alone, he thought. I don’t want to wake up. I’m not ready to face what’s out there. Please.

“Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate.” The timbre of that voice… like bells in achingly beautiful harmony.

His eyes opened.

The dawn light streaming into the room was dazzling, turning the machines and the bed and Crowley to dark silhouettes. Everything was hazy and insubstantial except the figure at the window.

The rising sun behind her short-cropped hair crowned her in fire. Her skin was bronze, with hints of gold and peach, and her eyes were black and full of laughter. Her uniform was the same mint-green colour the junior surgeon’s had been. She was smiling. “Aziraphale,” she said again. “I’m Dr. Luciente Gale.”

Aziraphale stared, open-mouthed. Dr. Gale. The doctor who’d been supposed to see Crowley the other day. Mary Hodges’ family friend… the Satanist. How could it… how could She…

She was looking at him expectantly. He had to say something. “Hello,” he wheezed at length. “Um. I read your book.”

They were walking together down a long, white corridor. Aziraphale didn’t know how they’d got there, but what was the point in questioning it? This was God. She could do what She liked. “Why are you here?” Stupid question, of course. She was everywhere.

“Dr. Gale” (it was easier to think of Her like that, somehow) gestured to Her uniform. “I’m working. Rounding in the hospital this week.”

“Oh.” Should he be curious? There wasn’t any room for curiosity. He ached from his breastbone to his pelvis, a twisting and miserable sorrow so sharp it was almost physically painful.

They reached a room, and She stopped outside the door. “Maternity,” She said. “Ariel had a difficult time. There was a haemorrhage, and the loss of blood pressure caused damage to a structure in her brain.”

Suppressing the urge to say, “So?”, because sassing the Almighty would probably get him turned into a pile of dust, Aziraphale murmured, “Oh dear.”

“It’s called the pituitary gland. It produces oxytocin and vasopressin, among other things.” She gave him a sidelong look.

Oxytocin and vasopressin… the mortar that bound humans together. The essential ingredients in the chemical soup that made “love”. “Wait–”

“Many of the hormones made by the pituitary gland can be replaced. Thyroid, ACTH, gonadotropins. There are pills… But Ariel will remain oxytocin-deficient for the remainder of her life.”

“That’s terrible. How will she–”

Dr. Gale pushed open the door. “Look,” she said.

The woman in the bed was pale, the sort of alarming pallor that meant she had not only shaken Death’s hand but had dinner with him, kissed him passionately on his doorstep, and nearly been persuaded to come in and spend the night.

She was stroking the cheek of a downy newborn, face suffused with love. Aziraphale looked away as she bent to kiss the baby’s forehead, but he could feel it, surrounding her and her child, filling the dingy little room with its sterile sink and whiteboard and plastic commode next to the bed, spilling out into the hallway.

He didn’t understand. “How?” he asked again.

Dr. Gale smiled inscrutably. There was a flash of light, and then they were in front of a different door.

Aziraphale frowned. “I thought you were rounding. I know what that is, I did hospital rounds with the doctors in Vienna once. You’re meant to examine the patient.”

“Oh, but I am. I’m making a treatment plan.”

He’d forgotten how smug She could be sometimes. “Very mysterious, I’m sure. Could I go back to Crowley?”

“Not just yet. This is Taye’s room. Taye is in the later stages of Parkinson’s Disease.”

“What?” Aziraphale asked tiredly.

“In Parkinson’s Disease, the brain’s dopamine-producing nerves die off. The brain does its best to compensate, but eventually there simply aren’t enough nerves left. Taye has so little dopamine remaining in his brain’s motor circuits that he can no longer walk.”

She opened the door. A thin, older man in a wheelchair was speaking quietly in Amharic to a woman around the same age. His body was very still, and there was absolutely no expression on his face… but when the woman reached into a bag behind her and opened the tupperware container inside, the tiny movements of the man’s features broadcasted joy as clearly as if he’d been shouting and dancing. “Eh, Abeba! Homemade enkulal firfir?”

“Yes my dear! Your mother’s recipe.”

“The smell of it… you are a genius with the spices.”

“Extra nitre kibe.” She twinkled at him. “Don’t tell Emaye.” She took a forkful of vividly yellow eggs and lifted it to his mouth. He closed his eyes as he chewed, slowly but with obvious pleasure.

“Dopamine, also, can be given as a pill,” said Dr. Gale.

“Ah. I suppose that explains–”

“But in Taye’s case, there’s very little left for it to bind to. It’s like adding fuel to a car with no engine.”

“Crowley would appreciate that analogy.” (Although come to think of it, would he? Aziraphale didn’t remember Crowley ever putting petrol in the Bentley, and wasn’t sure he knew it needed any.)

“And yet, Taye feels pleasure. He is reminded of his home, and his mother. He sees the love in his wife’s cooking. All his life, these things formed a scaffolding around his neurochemical responses. Despite their loss, the structure remains.”

Aziraphale wound his hands together, worrying at the skin of a knuckle. “That’s not what the manual said.”

“Books don’t tell you everything.”

“You sound like him.” Aziraphale smiled sadly.

“We have one more patient to see. Shall we?”

“Are you the Ghost of Christmas Past, or have I stumbled into ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’?” Aziraphale muttered under his breath, but before he could protest they were standing in front of yet another door.

“Andrea,” She said. “She was in a traffic collision last year. She struck her head and there was a large bleed in her brain. The surgery team saved her life, but they could only do damage control.”

The door opened. A woman sat up in bed, drawing shaky circles on a piece of paper in green crayon. She was humming tunelessly.

“Andrea was an emissions engineer with a passion for green energy,” said Dr. Gale. “Her proposals and projects are nationally known. She was active with many volunteer organisations. She ran marathons. All of that is lost to her now. It will never return.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Aziraphale pressed his lips together. Certain other circuits were starting to come back online. The pressure of tears building up in his throat was suffocating.

A tall man with glasses and messy brown hair walked past without seeing them and sat down by Andrea’s bed. He had a girl of about eight with him, and a boy who looked a few years younger. He took the woman’s hand the way Aziraphale had taken Crowley’s, just hours ago. “Hi sweetheart.”

She looked at him briefly, then back down at her colouring. “Hi.”

“I’m going to see if your doctor’s been by, but first I wanted to check on you. Did you eat breakfast?”

“I think so.”

“Mum! Mum. I got into a fight at school yesterday.” This from the boy, with the air of someone who thinks he’ll get credit for honesty. “Davey said I smelled like poop.” He paused reflectively. “So I pushed him in the sand pit.”

“A ham sandwich,” said Andrea.

“Hon, do you have anything to say to Marcus?”

“I think this bed is made of poop.” She held up her crayon. “Here’s a poop pen.”

“Now you’ve got her going,” said the man with a wry smile for his children. Aziraphale doubted they were old enough to see the deep sorrow etched in the lines around his eyes.

“Mum,” said the girl, “Can I get a violin? Janie has one.”

“I wish I could see,” said Andrea. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears.

The man leaned over and kissed her. “I’m going to talk to the doctor about whether the seizures have stopped. I hope they’ll let you come home today, okay?”

“Yeah.” Andrea sighed. “It’s good that I’m alive. I’m sorry.”

The boy– Marcus– climbed onto the bed. “I’ll show you how to draw a dino,” he said, taking the crayon.

“I love you.” Andrea reached up, slowly, and stroked his hair.

“Is that a ‘yes’ to the violin?” the girl said hopefully.

"Love you too, Mum."

Aziraphale turned away. His thoughts were fractured, jagged things he couldn’t make sense of. “They still…”

“Humans are marvellous, aren’t they?” said Dr. Gale, with a touch of professional pride. “There are a few programs they all run, more or less; some standard settings here and there, but every brain is different.”

“They love each other. They all still love each other. How? Uriel said… she said it wasn’t possible. She said without the chemicals, everything goes away.” His cheeks felt hot. A teardrop fell from his chin and plopped onto the calfskin leather of his shoe.

Dr. Gale chuckled. “Uriel should know better. And I think she does. I suspect she was trying to convince you.”

“But the manual… things wear out. You said so. You said humans don’t stay in love.”

“My dear Aziraphale.” Dr. Gale touched his cheek, and he shivered. “You always saw things in black and white. It makes you a good guardian, but you have a tendency to be reductive. Tell me. Did you only start loving Crowley when you turned your brain’s chemistry on?”

“I…”

Tens of thousands of nights. Ever since the beginning, stars had wheeled overhead and time swept him along. Cities rose and fell, mountains grew angry and vengeful, humans made war and they made love; they pillaged and burned, planted and multiplied. Aziraphale had kept busy. There’d been assignments and directives and missions, there’d been endless forms to fill in. He’d done the work, and he’d seen the magic in it, he had. Like Uriel said, there was magic in all of it… but without Crowley it was as dry as words on a page.

If he’d been here alone, he’d still have been curious about the world. He’d have studied. Read his books. But would he ever have eaten fresh turbot with mussels, or guzzled Kir Royale, or laughed at a vaudeville performance until there was a stitch in his side? Would he have spent slow weeks debating colonialism and firearms and the value of tragic plays, would he have immersed himself in the baths of Caracalla or dressed up in silk stockings or ever even gone to the cinema if it wasn’t for Crowley?

Dr. Gale talked about a scaffolding, but Crowley was a city inside his heart. It’d sprung up before he knew what was happening and it was so dear now, so familiar, treasured memories around every corner: a rescued valise of books, Hamlet’s first sold-out show, a pair of champagne-coloured shoes.

He’d gotten lost, but Crowley was home.

His head was spinning. He opened his eyes, but he was glare-blind from the light that filled the room, streaming in from the window…

“Mr. Fell?” There was a hand on his shoulder.

“What?” He blinked. He was sitting in a garish blue and orange chair, holding Crowley’s hand. A woman with short dark hair and a green tunic with a badge on the front was shaking him gently.

“I’m sorry to wake you. I have to examine Mr. Crowley, and I thought you’d like to talk to him while I do. Sometimes the voice of a loved one is calming.”

“Where… what?” Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “Dr. Gale?”

“Have we met?” She smiled, warm. Human.

“I thought… I thought…” he wrinkled his forehead. “Did you take me on rounds?”

She laughed. “Goodness, no. Big confidentiality violation. The manager’d have my head for that.” She checked a monitor, and wrote something on a piece of folded paper already covered with letters, numbers, and symbols that looked like fishbones. “I came by earlier, but you were sound asleep. It looked like you needed it.”

“I dreamed–” Aziraphale said, and then didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “You showed me…”

“I think our brains work things out in dreams, sometimes. They’re problem-solvers, day or night.” She tapped her temple.

“Yes, I… yes. I suppose they are, at that.”

Dr. Gale said Crowley was making good progress, and they would likely be able to “wean him off pressors” today, whatever that meant. Shortly after she left, Tracy knocked on the doorframe. She held a tray containing two plates of sausage, egg and limp-looking chips; several cardboard containers of orange juice; and a pair of teacups with lids on. “I sent the young people home an hour ago,” she said, settling the food on the be-wheeled table next to the bed. “And Mr. Shadwell is sorting things out with Mr. Crowley’s car. He’s got a knack with police officers, or so he says. I think he makes himself enough of a bother that they eventually do what he asks just so he’ll go away.”

Aziraphale smiled wanly at her. There were sparkles at the corners of his vision, whether from exhaustion or the morning light he couldn’t say. “What about you? Have you taken any rest?”

Tracy handed him the tea. “I’m used to being up and about at all hours. When I was younger, it was the work, but now it’s more likely to be my stiff back giving me trouble than my derrière getting up to any.” She winked.

Crowley’s hair was unkempt, his skin slightly shiny with sweat, and he didn’t smell very good, if Aziraphale was being completely honest. He stroked his cheek. “I fell asleep next to him. Had a very strange dream.”

“You’ve had a trying few days. Why don’t you eat something?”

For a few minutes there were no sounds but the scrape of plastic forks and the occasional beeping of Crowley’s monitors. The machine helping Crowley breathe went whoosh, whoosh, whoosh with a strangely comforting regularity. “I made a terrible mistake,” Aziraphale said, at length. “Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?”

Tracy chewed her eggs thoughtfully, and Aziraphale waited for her answer with calm almost-indifference. It didn’t matter, he realised. He loved Crowley, and that was that. If Crowley walked away now… or if Crowley were discorporated… then he’d have to love him from a distance.

Done it before, hadn’t he?

“I remember a burning car,” Tracy said, “when you were, er, sharing with me. You’d been pacing around my head, do you know that? Darting from one corner to the other of whatever space you’d found for yourself, worrying at my thoughts, never still. About drove me out of my skin.” She laughed. “I could tell there’d been some trouble, but when your Mr. Crowley climbed out of that inferno, well. You stopped being afraid, all at once. I had this overwhelming sense of relief, a certainty that things would be alright now, and it didn’t come from me.”

“Yes, I know how I feel,” Aziraphale said sourly. “Now I do, anyway. Even if it’s too late.” He sagged.

“Oh ducks, didn’t you see the way he looked at you? Duncan nearly snicked off his head, before he realised it wasn’t me he was after.” She giggled.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. He took a sip of tea. “He was so handsome. I remember thinking I wanted to… well. Something I certainly wouldn’t do in a corporation that wasn’t mine.”

Tracy snorted.

“I thought at the time it was the influence of your human biology. That we’d… got our wires crossed somehow,” Aziraphale continued thoughtfully. “But I’d had the urge before.”

“Why hadn’t you done it before, then?” Tracy asked.

Aziraphale looked at her sharply, wondering how she could possibly even think such a thing, the words “angel and a demon” and “hereditary enemies” already forming on his lips… then he frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe that’s where you start.” She nodded towards the bed. “I’m no scientist, but for my money, love’s not really the stuff that goes on up here or down here.” She made an unsubtle gesture, and despite everything, Aziraphale nearly laughed. “I think love’s what you do.”

A flurry of humans came to check on Crowley: nurses; technicians; a lady with a portable machine that took a picture of Crowley’s lungs right at the bedside (“Fascinating!” Aziraphale murmured); a man who put sticky tape all over Crowley’s chest, pressed a button on a machine, inspected the resulting jagged line carefully, and walked out again without a word. A junior doctor pulled the blankets down to look at his “incision”, and Aziraphale winced: it ran from breastbone to pubis, held together with shiny silver staples.

Apparently it looked “fine”.

That doctor returned in an hour with a team of trainees, all clustered around a grey-haired gentleman like chicks with a broody hen. Grey-Hair shook Aziraphale’s hand and introduced himself as Dr. Baker, the senior surgery consultant.

“We try to do appendectomies laparoscopically,” he said, hovering over the bed so Aziraphale had to crane his neck to meet his gaze.

“I understood four of the words in that sentence,” Aziraphale replied acerbically.

“Using specialised instruments that fit into small incisions, and cameras to see. But your partner has some unusual anatomy. One of his lungs is much larger than the other, and extends into his abdominal cavity. His intestines aren’t coiled in the expected way, and appeared quite hypertrophic–”

“What?”

“Vascular. Enlarged. I’m not sure if any of that helps explain what happened. Obviously, appendicitis isn’t uncommon, but it could be that a recent large meal tipped his system past what it could handle. The appendix seemed to be trying to digest food along with the rest, and the lumen became overextended and inflamed.”

“I see.” He heard a conversation in his head, echoing from six thousand years ago:

‘We didn’t have access to the warehouse or the factory. Nothing got handed to us. We had to cook these corporations up from scratch, and make sure everything was working.’

‘How did you get the specifications in the first place?’

‘Eh, one of the blokes in the design department nicked a set of blueprints on his way down. Although we couldn’t make sense of some parts. You know there’s a little wobbly bit hanging off the large intestine that looks like a thumb? Does fuck all, as far as I can tell.’

Crowley’s corporation was part snake. Aziraphale knew that, but hadn’t thought about it since they started this whole experiment, not even once. Snake eyes… hip joints that were mostly for show… and, apparently, mismatched lungs and a gastrointestinal tract made for a rather more elongated abdomen. One that demanded large meals at infrequent intervals, then commandeered all the corporation’s energy to digest them.

He began to laugh. He threw back his head and closed his eyes and laughed until his stomach was sore.

The physician team stared at him. “Mr. Fell?” Dr. Baker said, at last. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yes. Yes. I’m sorry.” He wiped his eyes. “It must have given you quite a shock.”

“We’ve never seen a syndrome quite like this before… do you think he’d mind us writing it up for a journal?”

Aziraphale curled his hand tighter around Crowley’s. “You can ask him,” he said softly. “When he wakes up.”

Later that morning, “Jackie from RT” came by to do an “SBT” (The constant use of acronyms was making Aziraphale itch). “The doctors lightened up the sedation,” she said brightly. “We’ll see if he can breathe on his own, and if so we’ll take the tube out.”

At that moment Crowley winced and tried to cough. His stomach heaved, and he bit down on the tube, eyelids fluttering. Aziraphale brushed the hair back from his forehead. “Hush. Hush. You’re alright.”

“That’s a good sign,” Jackie-from-RT said soothingly. For two endless minutes she watched him struggle, face impartial, while Aziraphale spoke softly into his ear. He told himself this was better than whiskey for amputations, and it was, but…

“Okay.” Jackie-from-RT stripped the tape holding the tube in place from Crowley’s face with a swift gesture, attached a plastic syringe to a valve and drew back on it, then pulled the tube from Crowley’s mouth. Crowley coughed violently, gagged, and subsided. Aziraphale leaned forward, put his head on his chest, and watched his face while he breathed.

Several minutes later, he miracled away the damp spot that had been left by his tears.

Newt brought lunch from a cafe down the street, and Anathema installed a diffuser at Crowley’s bedside that pumped out puffs of lavender and eucalyptus-scented steam. Shadwell reported that a “bloke” he knew at the “Tow N Go” had had the Bentley transported back to the underground garage at Crowley’s flat. Fine, fine. Aziraphale ate what was put in front of him, nodded answers to questions, and held Crowley’s hand. He thought about Dr. Gale (Our brains work things out in dreams sometimes), and Tracy (I think love’s what you do).

Around 1pm, Crowley opened his eyes.

“Hello.” Aziraphale raised the hand he held so he could brush his lips against the knuckles. Crowley turned his head. He blinked, gaze focusing and going cautious.

For a moment, no one said anything.

Crowley’s throat bobbed, and he grimaced. “Ow. Shit,” he said in a raspy voice.

Aziraphale smiled, feeling the corners of his mouth quiver. “You’re in hospital. You had a tube in your throat. They seem to put tubes just about any old place they can think of.”

Crowley shifted his hips and looked down to where, yes, alright, another tube snaked down from under his blankets to a bag hooked to the side of the bed. The nurses emptied it periodically.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to interfere. They saved your life. Well, your corporation, anyway.”

“Thought we didn’t have to worry about that anymore. Was all worked out.” Crowley looked up at the ceiling, then back at Aziraphale. “No?”

Aziraphale began to cry.

His body shook with twisting, violent spasms, a sudden storm of the sort that turns the air to water. The bitterness of guilt and grief and fear and longing, held back so carefully for so many centuries, washed over him and out like the tide. “I gah-have you a thermos,” he sobbed, voice so thick with tears the words were probably gibberish.

“Shhh.” Crowley reached out. Pulled Aziraphale weakly down against his shoulder. “What?”

The edge of a plastic clip dug into Aziraphale’s cheek but he clung there anyway, shaking. “Ah-I. Gave you a thermos. Knew what was in it could hurt you, but with it locked away you were. Safe. Don’t go unscrewing the cap.” He gave a shuddering, undignified sniffle.

“Okay?” Crowley said. He sounded bewildered, but his hand made steady, comforting circles on Aziraphale’s back.

Aziraphale lifted his streaming face. “Loving you was like that for me. So many years. ‘F I let it out, I’d lose you. Knew I would, they’d never let us… So. Nobody could take the lid off, not even me. Afraid,” he said, and hung his head.

He felt fingers under his chin, Crowley lifting it so he could meet his eyes. “Loving me?” he rasped. “Years?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Oh.” Crowley looked away, blinking. His chin wobbled. “That’s a thing,” he said, and a tear slid down from the corner of his eye to darken the hair at his temple.

Aziraphale brushed it away. “Rome,” he said. “You were so grumpy, but I didn’t care. Prague, up in the observatory that night. Our faces were so close together sharing that telescope, I thought I would go mad. That time…” he laughed wetly. “The time you got drunk and decided you’d try dressage with the princess’ Andalusian stallion.”

“Kicked me right in the breadbasket.” Crowley’s lower lip was trembling, but he smiled.

“And you turned into a snake to scare him off… I laughed so much. I laugh so much with you.” He sniffed. “Always bringing me foods you’ve had a hand in: aspic and black licorice and stargazy pie. Holding the door for me… paying the tab… taking me to the Ritz because you remembered what I said, all those years later.” He squeezed Crowley’s hand until his knuckles went white. “Hamlet. My books.”

Crowley touched Aziraphale’s cheek, and came away with tears on his fingertips. “Why’d you turn it back on?” he said softly, looking at them.

Aziraphale didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Because I like having it on,” he told him. “But it doesn’t matter. Whether I have oxytocin or vasopressin or dopamine or any of it, it doesn’t matter. I love you.”

Crowley’s eyes welled up, and his face contorted. His breath hitched. Aziraphale leaned forward, kissed his ear clumsily, and rested his cheek against Crowley’s forehead.

That was how the nurse found them ten minutes later, tangled up in each other. She glanced at the numbers on the monitors and then quietly backed out of the room, shutting the door behind her and putting up the “Ask A Staff Member Before Entering” sign for good measure.

Chapter Text

Conference room 6, Broadgate Tower Lobby, 2019 CE

“Okay. Okay.” Gabriel rubs the bridge of his nose, sighs deeply and tries again. “I think we should take turns. We’ll pass the Holy Grail around, and only the angel or demon who’s got it can speak.”

“I’m not touching that thing. How about thizz?”

“What is that?”

“Eye of the Graeae.” Beelzebub smiles unpleasantly, holding up a grey, jellied orb. It drips.

“Don’t be a complete adolescent,” says Gabriel, looking disgusted.

Beelzebub tosses the eye to Michael, who drops it and wipes her hand on her trousers. “Urgh.”

“Here love, let me help you with that.”

“Could you two knock it off? We’re trying to conduct negotiations here.” Gabriel scowls at Uriel, who pauses guiltily in the act of caressing each of Michael’s long fingers with her sky blue silk handkerchief.

“‘Negotiations’,” mocks Hastur. “So You lot finally decided to get dirty with the rest’ve us. What d’ye want, a parade?”

Gabriel glances at Sandalphon and mouths the word ‘parade?’. Sandalphon shrugs.

“Let’s start by putting our cards on the table,” Michael says in her best diplomatic tone. Her professionalism is somewhat eroded by the fact that she and Uriel are making calf’s eyes at each other. “It’s come to our attention recently that angels aren’t immune to certain physiological and emotional responses, as had previously been thought.”

Dagon rolls her eyes.

“All right, I know what you’re thinking. Please believe me when I say it wasn’t obvious to us. We’ve been studying the teachings of Sigmund Freud recently, and I believe that we’ve all been engaging in profound repression of our basic desires… which then became externalised in various contentious discharges.”

Dagon shows all eighty-seven of her teeth.. “You started a six thousand year long cold war because you weren’t getting laid?”

“Look, you know it’s more complicated than that. But…” Michael looks embarrassed. “I see now that there might be a better path to conflict resolution than having a winner-takes-all battle over the burning cinders of the Earth.”

“Have a gold szztar,” says Beelzebub, with the perhaps understandable bitterness of someone who’s been relegated to the dripping basement office for the past sixty centuries. “You think thiszz will change anything?”

“Could do.” Ligur gets up from his seat. “She’s sayin’ we could leave off fightin’.”

“Why is he even here?” asks Dagon, without looking at the Duke. “Must cut into his busy schedule of avoiding his duties so he can sit for hours with his legs folded in strange positions and his eyes shut.”

“It’s yoga,” protests Ligur. “Human invention. Centres your spirit, like. Oughta try it.”

“He’s here ‘cos he’s a Duke of Hell, and he’s got skin in the game,” Hastur says, glaring at Dagon. “How many holy water attacks’ve you survive lately?”

Eyes dart at Ligur covertly from around the room; glance down again after meeting his thousand-yard stare.

“Right,” says Ligur. “You wouldn’t like it. So why’re we ready to kill each other? ‘Cos Lucifer and God parted brass rags, and then Michael here threw her weight around and slam, into the burning sulphur for us?”

“She is the oldest,” Raphael says, as if this explains it.

“Can’t we move on? Lucifer doesn’t even remember what they argued about, wanna bet? Good odds God doesn’t. From what I recall, She usually doesn’t remember what She ate for lunch.”

“Hell doezz not… ‘move on’.”

“Why should we? What’s in it for us?” Dagon asks.

“Amnesty,” says Gabriel. “Access. Heaven’s got lots of open office space. Plus a top notch gym, VIP lounge, great benefits package. We’ll relax security. Obviously there might be friction, but I think the appeal of the milk and honey pool will go a long way towards mollifying even the more… uh… labile members of your staff.”

Dagon looks reluctantly intrigued. Beelzebub’s flies buzz.

“There’s a water slide,” Gabriel adds encouragingly.

“And what d’you want?” Hastur asks bluntly.

“We’re angels. Whyever would you imply that we’d want anything?”

“Cut the crap, Sandalphon.”

“Beelzebub’s right,” Uriel says. “We’re interested in peace for peace’s sake, but it wouldn’t be truthful to say there wasn’t something more.” She looks at Michael.

“Help us learn,” says Michael. “This is new territory for us. We don’t have a guide.”

Beelzebub looks furious. “Help you? After everything? Fat chance, pigeon breath.”

“Watch your tone,” Uriel snaps.

“Boss, come on,” says Ligur.

“Shut it, Ligur. Everyone knowzz about you and Michael.”

“That was six thousand years back. Her point. We know ‘six thousand years ago’ means it’s done and dusted, but they don’t. Don’t get relationships. Help ’em out, they’ll pro’bly stop bein’ such insufferable wankers all the time.”

There’s silence around the table.

Ligur speaks up again. “You lot are princes of Heaven and Hell. Never been in the meat grinder yourselves, but the way things’re going, you might get your chance. And you. Won’t. Like. It.”

Hastur puts a hand on his shoulder.

“C’mon,” says Gabriel. “For old time’s sake?” He grins at Beelzebub. “We can stop meeting in the supply closet off the lobby.”

Dagon looks sharply at Beelzebub, who suddenly becomes very interested in their leaking fountain pen. “We want renovationz downstairzz,” they say, after a moment. “Air conditioning, for a start. Get some of your thrones to fix the leakzz, you know they’re handy. And we’ll need full accezz to the oxygen bar and the ambrosia bar.”

“Done.”

Ligur and Hastur share a look. “One more thing,” says Ligur.

Being a patient wasn’t too bad at first. Crowley was allowed out of bed after the first day and they took out, if not all the tubes, at least the one that was bothering him the most (though he was instructed to piss into something that looked like an upside-down tophat instead). He had to remember not to laugh, or cough, or try to sit up by himself, but so long as he was careful (and took the pills the nurse brought in a white paper cup every four hours) the discomfort was manageable.

He’d told Aziraphale about turning off his pain signals, and been forbidden to do it again. “You have to engage the nociceptors to know what’s safe for you to do. I won’t have you injuring yourself further because you can’t tell something is hurting you.”

“What about just when I’m asleep?”

“No, Crowley. What if something ruptures and you bleed out before you wake up?”

“I thought they took out the only rupturable organ.”

“Oh yes, let’s trivialise the entire ordeal, shall we? You nearly died. Anyway, there are lots of organs that can rupture. Spleens, for a start. According to everything I’ve read, the spleen is basically a ticking time bomb.”

“You sure I have a spleen?”

“Snakes have spleens. I looked it up.” Aziraphale shot him a glance that told Crowley there was no point in arguing about it further.

Aziraphale was being a total mother hen, to be completely honest. But the sappy, moony looks he kept giving Crowley were making up for it. That first night, when he was pulled out of drugged unconsciousness by the burning in his abdomen, Aziraphale was in a chair next to the bed– stroking his hair, face silver and shadows in the moonlight. “You sh’ld sleep,” Crowley had mumbled. “Why don’t you go home for a while?”

“I’m staying here. Hush.”

“You’re hovering.” But Crowley stretched a hand towards him. He couldn’t move far or quickly without feeling it, but Aziraphale crossed the distance and tangled their fingers, looking at Crowley like he was something breakable and infinitely precious.

“I’m a guardian. What did you expect me to do under these circumstances, go out and dance a polka?”

“Thought you just knew the one dance.” The feel of Aziraphale’s fingers against his forehead was nice. When they scratched over his scalp, it sent a peaceful tingle through his body, a physical sense of wellness like a warm blanket. His eyes closed.

By the fourth day, though, Crowley had run out of patience. Something called “pre-rounds” happened at five o’clock in the morning, and after that there was a constant stream of nurses, physios (bullies, the lot of them) and dieticians, followed by the entire group of doctors who would poke and prod and talk over his head to one another. A man approached him about writing some sort of paper on his anatomy, and Crowley nearly set his eyebrows on fire. “Get me out of here,” he complained to Aziraphale when he’d gone.

“You’re hardly walking. You’ve staples in your stomach.” Aziraphale looked slightly green.

“I can lie in bed at home just as easily. C’mon, angel. I’ll be good.” Crowley pouted.

“As if I’d trust a promise like that from a demon.” Aziraphale smiled fondly at him.

Crowley smiled back. He couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the little white pills? Something was making him downright soppy.

The nights were long. Aziraphale tried to help by piling pillows in various configurations– behind him, under his knees, between his legs– but every time he rolled over it felt like he was tearing open down the middle.

His hip still hurt, too. A consultant had done something at bedside involving a strange-looking wand, cold jelly and shadowy black-and-white images– which seemed about as occult as you could get, if you asked Crowley– and told him he had developmental dysplasia.

She’d taken in his blank face, and explained: “We don’t often see it in adults. Your hip sockets are very shallow, which allows the joints to move around too much. They can even become dislodged from time to time– what we call a dislocation. Your muscles are strong, so I’m guessing they generally pop back in on their own, but over time that sort of thing can cause arthritis and pain. It wears out the cartilage.”

“How do we fix it?” Aziraphale asked.

She gave him a cynical-looking smile and handed Crowley a card. “A surgical fix is a big operation. It could take a year to become fully ambulatory again. See a physiotherapist first. Sometimes strengthening exercises and gait re-education is all that’s needed.”

“Gait re-education?” Crowley exclaimed when she left. “I’m a snake demon. I should smite her. Curse. Whatever.”

“You told me you already have a physio,” Aziraphale replied with annoying calmness. “And that you get muscle pain sometimes. How is this different?”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “It’s alright for you with your perfect, factory-standard corporation. Spend enough time with people looking at me like I’m a freak. Didn’t need to have my insides on display for them to point at too.”

“They’re just trying to help.”

“It’s humiliating.”

Aziraphale considered this for a moment, then touched his temple, a hair’s breadth away from the corner of his eye. “So you didn’t get to pick from the body selection in the big white room, back before it all started. That’s not your fault. You made this corporation.” His face was full of wonder. “It’s yours, maybe more fundamentally than my body could ever be mine. And it’s lovely, every bit of it.” He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Crowley's, lips moving and clinging.

They hadn’t kissed since that night at the Ritz. Crowley breathed out a little more of the tension he’d been carrying since he opened his eyes in a hospital bed and saw Aziraphale (He’s here, he came, had been his first thought, followed closely by, He looks awful) gazing down at him. But… “What if something like this happens again? We don’t know what other surprises a human body with snake parts might be waiting to spring on us.”

“We’ll figure it out. Together.” Aziraphale sat back, crinkling the corners of his eyes. "So… my corporation is perfect? Did I hear you right?"

"Told you that six thousand years ago. Slipped out."

"'Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt the virtue of that fruit'."

"Show you overpraising. C'mere.'

They got told off for snogging in hospital, but it was worth it.

As it turned out, the good people at the NHS were more than happy to send you home with staples in your stomach. Crowley got a sheet of instructions, an appointment to see his doctor in a week for an “incision check”, a few boxes of medicine, and a firm farewell on the fifth day after his surgery. “What is this?” he hissed, while he and Aziraphale waited for Anathema to bring the car around. “It reads like the Ten Commandments. ‘Thou Shalt Not Drive For Six Weeks’. Six weeks? ‘Thou Shalt Not Immerse Thyself In Water’. ‘Thou Shalt Not Lift More Than Ten Pounds’.”

“No carryin’ that angel of yours to bed ‘til you’re better, then,” a voice piped up, words suffused with so much innuendo it was a wonder they didn’t crystallise out of the air. Aziraphale turned red. Tracy bustled in, festooned with carrier bags and trailed by Shadwell, who was wearing his usual expression of defensive bafflement. She set her packages on the tray by the bedside and, to Crowley’s slight shock, kissed him on the cheek. He was enveloped in a cloud of Dior J’adore.

“Gettin’ sprung, are ye?” Shadwell grunted. “‘Bout time. These places make ye soft.”

“It’s actually been good for my moral fibre,” Crowley deadpanned. “Ice cold sponge baths. Rationed meals. Up at dawn for callisthenics. Having quite an effect, let me tell you. Be down to two nipples before you know it.”

“Dear. Madame Tracy, what a pleasant surprise!”

“I’ve brought you a welcome home present,” Tracy said. “It wasn’t right, you not havin’ your own reading material.”

Crowley took a closer look at the carrier bags: all plain brown paper. A suspicion began to form.

People were always giving Aziraphale books. Owning a bookshop, it seemed to Crowley, should have curtailed that sort of behaviour. Wasn’t the owner of a bookshop capable of obtaining any piece of literature his heart desired? Wouldn’t one imagine that he was saturated with reading material at baseline? But when humans went to buy the eccentric Mr. A.Z. Fell a Christmas gift (as landlord to a half-dozen local Soho businesses, he tended to receive a fair amount), a switch seemed to flip in their heads and good judgement was overridden by a flashing neon sign reading “He Likes Books!”.

“Oh, I couldn’t–” Aziraphale began to protest, but Tracy was already stacking paperbacks in the paisley carpet bag where Aziraphale kept his clean underpants. Crowley couldn’t make out the titles, but there were tastefully nude (in the sense that black-and-white photography was automatically tasteful), Adonis-like men on every cover: kissing or wrapped in sheets together or, in once case, contorted into positions that would be a stretch even for someone with a serpent spine.

“Startin’ over can give you an appetite, isn’t that right, love?” Tracy twinkled at Shadwell, who made a “har-umph” noise and stared at the ceiling.

“Anathema’s downstairs,” said Newt from the doorway. Crowley saw his eyes fall to the open carpet bag– he was closer to it than Crowley was– and then immediately swivel skyward to see what Shadwell found so fascinating.

Crowley snorted.

“You know,” Aziraphale said, “I think I’ve rather gone off that particular sort of book. Not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, of course!” he added hurriedly, flapping his hands. “But I’ve discovered, recently, that I’ve a regrettable tendency to substitute the written word for good sense.”

“That’s ‘cause you never had any good sense to begin with.” Crowley pushed himself upright in his new careful way and went to put his arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders. “‘S why you need me. Give you direction.”

“‘If they be two, they are two so / As stiff twin compasses are two’,” Aziraphale murmured.

“Naughty. We’re in public.” Crowley smiled. Aziraphale looked at him like he’d put a heart-shaped constellation in sky with the initials “AZF” and “AJC” picked out in the centre.

Newt cleared his throat.

“Thank you anyway, dear lady,” Aziraphale said. “I’m sure they’ll make wonderful references.” He snapped his fingers, and a stack of worn paperbacks appeared on Crowley’s bed. Sensual Loving was on top. “These are yours.”

Tracy put them in her now-empty carrier bags. “I never was much of a student,” she said. “Got a degree from Bangor in the end, but I can’t say my heart was in it. Book learning never felt like it was enough. That’s a terribly snobbish thing to say, isn’t it?” She laughed. “But I always thought it only gave you the shape of the thing. An outline. And the only way to colour it in was by living, every day, just as hard as you could.”

Aziraphale abruptly lurched forward (Crowley had to steady himself on one of the upright monitors, which beeped reproachfully in his ear) and hugged her. He whispered something into the crown of her head that sounded like “Thank you.”

Shadwell har-umphed again and glowered at them. “Oh, do be reasonable, Mr. Shadwell,” Aziraphale said, stepping back. “I haven’t the faintest of amorous intentions towards your good lady. Southern Pansy, remember?” He took Crowley’s hand.

“Southern Pansy?” Crowley whispered as Aziraphale loaded their things onto a trolly and prepared to follow Newt down to the car.

“I’ll explain later.”

Crowley was getting sick of beds, but after wincing at every jolt on the ride home and having to hobble to the lift (feeling nearly as undignified as he had when Anathema and Newt had brought him home last week, pissed out of his gourd), his own bed looked better than a fluffy cloud in the Sixth Sphere of Heaven. (Say what you would about Heaven– they knew how to make a good lounge chair.) Aziraphale held his arm while he sat down on the edge, then lifted his legs and helped him pivot around until he was cushioned against a mound of pillows.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Anathema and Newt put the bags down. “Boys, why don’t you go make up a tray?” Anathema said. She handed Aziraphale a wooden box. “A tisane with a spoonful each of yellow dock, senna, fenugreek and slippery elm– they’re labelled– and one with burdock, calendula and mullein. Warm up the rice sock, Newt, and add some dried lavender. Make a liniment with a few of the tinctures… Arnica, I think, and St. John’s Wort, willow and, hmm… comfrey. Put it in one of Crowley’s plant misters. Then we’ll need two big glasses of water, and some good old-fashioned chicken broth.”

“Is that all?” Newt asked sarcastically.

“Not quite. Be a dear and bring my crystals up from the car? I think I left them on the seat.” Anathema smiled angelically and hustled Newt and Aziraphale out the door.

“What’re all those things for?”

“The first tisane is to promote peristalsis, the second one stimulates your lymphatic system, and the rice sock and liniment will help with pain. Mostly, though, they’re for getting rid of Newt and Aziraphale.” She perched on the edge of the bed. “How are you?”

“Sliced open and sewn shut.”

She gave him a Look. It was a very Aziraphalean look, so he knew exactly what it meant. He sighed. “No… I mean that. Psychologically too, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He rolled his eyes to indicate that he was an ancient demon who didn’t even have a psychology, much less think about the state of it, but Anathema had seen him cry so he probably wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“Not really. Think he wanted to wait until things settled down.”

“He was beside himself, you know. When we couldn’t find you, and then when you were in surgery. Ever since you woke up he’s seemed very calm, but I’m not sure he’s showing you everything.”

“When did he ever?” Crowley recalled Aziraphale sitting by his bed and weeping like his heart was breaking. It had been as deeply unexpected as the sneeze he’d heard from among the shelves, back when this all began.

“I told Newt I was trying to protect him,” Anathema mused, “and he said he could look after himself. ‘Okay, then prove it’, I told him. ‘Say if I’m too much, or if I’m being selfish. Don’t carry all the bags, and make all the phone calls, and always be the one to text first. If we’re being pulled in different directions, don’t just leave your path for mine’.” She toyed with an onyx nail. “I know it’s different for us human couples. Maybe we’ll be dead before you two work it out. But for what it’s worth, I was afraid Newt would get hurt, putting me first all the time. And the idea of that scared me more than the thought of losing him.”

“Nothing’s worse than losing Aziraphale. I’d know.”

“He might not feel the same about losing you. Hear me out!” Anathema held up a hand. “I’m a powerful person.” She said it with no trace of self-consciousness, just a statement of fact. “Maybe it’s charisma. Maybe it’s the fact that people will follow anyone who stands out, so long as they’re different in a way that feels appealing instead of dangerous. I’m sure there’s a formula somewhere. Anyway, I attract people, and I can turn them into copies of me. Used to happen all the time in high school. Other students would dress like me, try to talk like me. Wear the same sort of glasses, even people who didn’t need glasses… I hated it. I’d rather see Newt be alone and himself than be reduced like that.”

Crowley thought about this. “But I don’t try to copy Aziraphale,” he said at last, confused.

“You were facing off against that guard with the water gun, so you didn’t see the look on his face at first. I did, though. ‘In order to avoid or prevent the pain, trauma and perceived devastation of the loss, you will do anything to avoid your greatest fear from being visited on you’.”

“Emily Dickinson?”

“Iyanla Vanzant. American life coach, goes on Oprah sometimes. Mom’s a big fan. Never mind. The point is, the idea that you’d sacrifice yourself for him terrifies Aziraphale. He tried to push you away before it happened. I don’t think it had anything to do with neurotransmitters. I think it had to do with who you both are as people.”

Crowley sucked his teeth. He remembered Aziraphale saying, ‘They’d destroy you’, and ‘It’ll destroy you completely’, and ‘Don’t go unscrewing the cap’, and the way he always looked when he talked about Hell and holy water… terrified, pleading, almost hunted. Afterwards, invariably, he’d make himself scarce. Crowley had always assumed he had other things on his mind, and that he simply didn’t care all that much, but maybe he’d been wrong.

He’d die for Aziraphale, happily, without a second thought. What if Aziraphale knew that, and hated it, and thought he had to leave Crowley in order to stop him?

“For me, I’d rather have Newt be away from me and unhappy and safe, than with me and dead. I’m speaking from a Jungian or mystic perspective, you know, psychic death; I guess for you two it’s more literal, but… I think the principle is sound.”

What would he have said to Aziraphale, if they’d been standing in St. James all those years ago and the angel had asked Crowley for Hellfire? How would he have felt if Aziraphale had been the one with ties to Hell, to the people who did not send rude notes?

There was a sickening, helpless lurch in his gut. He looked up at Anathema, who smiled gently. “Just… take care of yourself, and you’ll take care of him too. Oh! Thank you, bug.” She flounced up and pecked Newt, who was just returning, on the cheek, taking a black velvet bag from his hands.

“Bug?” Crowley mouthed.

“Because I cause bugs in computer systems,” Newt mumbled, cheeks pink.

Crowley laughed, then groaned and put a hand to his stomach. Aziraphale bustled in with a tray of teas, water, narcotics (thank Someone), roasted almonds, and honeyed crackers with goat cheese. He’d plucked a bloom from the tea rose and laid it on a linen napkin, and the look he gave Crowley was overflowing with so much love that Crowley had to wonder if he’d had his head under a rock for the past thousand years.

He’d been seeing that look since the sixteenth century. Conservative estimate. But he’d brushed it aside because surely an angel without hormones couldn’t feel anything.

He’d brushed Aziraphale aside, and the cautious, quiet love he’d offered, because Crowley thought love had to be dramatic and grand.

Well. No time like the present to make amends.

Aziraphale held out the tray, but Crowley snapped his fingers and moved it to the bedside table. He took Aziraphale’s hands instead, said, “I love you, angel,” and tugged him down into a kiss.

Aziraphale stiffened, probably because of something to do with ‘polite company’, but then said “Mmm,” and closed his eyes. His lips softened and parted.

“Bye, you two,” Crowley heard Newt say, from a thousand miles away.

“But I’m not finished with the room! I was going to place the crystals around for luck!”

“Think they’re feeling lucky enough. C’mon.”

The flat door clicked shut a moment later, but neither Crowley nor Aziraphale heard it.

“Walk in the park?” Aziraphale exclaimed cheerily, early the next morning.

Crowley gave him the look a sleepy snake might give an overly enthusiastic trumpeter swan in the vicinity. He groaned and covered his head with a pillow.

“None of that. I’m under strict orders to make sure you ambulate. Though I’m not a monster. Have you still got that fetching snake-headed cane?”

“I’m an invalid. What happened to staying in bed for a month after surgeries? That’s what people used to do.”

“I gather people also used to die from pulmonary embolisms. Come on, up you get. Berkeley Square is only a block over.”

“An-gel…”

“Here, put this on.” Aziraphale was pulling something white and bandage-like out of a cardboard box with a smiling woman on the front. “It’s a corset.”

“Lace up?”

“Don’t be flippant. It’s meant to Eliminate Abdominal Pain After Surgery, apparently.” They’d worked out that the easiest way to get Crowley from reclining to upright was for Aziraphale to lift him, fireman style, and set him on the edge of the bed. Aziraphale had been moving him around a lot over the past few days, and it was causing Crowley’s libido to write checks his body wasn’t up to cashing, yet. Crowley hissed and ran his hands down Aziraphale’s shoulders as the angel stepped back.

Aziraphale looked worried. “Did I hurt you?”

“Hah! …ow. No. Just… everything’s still in working order down there.” Crowley dropped his eyes, briefly but pointedly, towards his lap.

“That was also on your list of Thou Shalt Nots,” Aziraphale said, but he was smiling.

“Yeah, yeah. How do you get into that thing?”

Aziraphale helped him up and into a thin vest. It was funny– they’d spent most of their time together not touching. Then, suddenly, they’d been lovers, but they’d gone about it almost backwards: bringing each other off before they kissed, saying ‘I love you’ last of all. Now, Crowley was more physically intimate with Aziraphale than he’d ever been with anyone, but it felt for the first time like it wasn’t his body the angel was touching. No, the demon Crowley’s corporation had been injured, and needed tending. Aziraphale had had to help him with bathing and turning over in bed and walking more than twenty metres; he’d handled him in all kinds of personal ways, and it wasn’t the same at all.

Crowley sighed. He wished they could do things the right way round, for once. No wonder his cock was sending mixed signals.

“I think… oh, this is clever… it’s that nylon adhesive, with all the little hooks.” There was a tearing sound, and Aziraphale had the corset open. “Splendid.”

“How’s that s’posed to help?”

“I don’t… here, hold your arms out.”

“Feel like a coat rack.”

“Steady now–”

“Ow! Don’t pull there!”

“Sorry, sorry… here, why don’t you hold this end? Just across your stomach… I think that’s–”

“Careful–”

“Got it.” Aziraphale stepped back.

Crowley let out a cautious breath and… “Well, what d’you know?”

“Better?” Aziraphale asked anxiously..

Crowley rotated his shoulders experimentally. “Well, I wouldn’t say it’s ‘Eliminated’ the pain, but… not bad.”

Aziraphale beamed. Crowley, taking advantage of the fact that it was suddenly easier to lean forward, kissed him on the nose. “Thanks, angel.” He paused. “You’re going to make me walk to the park now, aren’t you?”

“Oh yes.”

“What do I get if I do?”

“One of these when we go–” Aziraphale handed him a white pill, which Crowley dry swallowed gratefully. “...and one of these when we get back.” The kiss was brief, snatched away before Crowley could really start to enjoy it, fresh and sweet as a single bite of ripe peach.

Crowley followed the angel’s mouth instinctively, but Aziraphale stepped away and held out his arm. Pushing his lower lip out petulantly, Crowley snapped his fingers to get dressed. “Hmm. Could make the trousers a bit tighter in this. Remember the corset I had in the eighteenth century?”

“I remember your hips were more distracting than usual. Come on. You can lean on me.”

Crowley took the proffered arm and let Aziraphale walk him to the door.

Bloody parks. He and Aziraphale liked them, but sometimes they forgot that their former colleagues did too. Angels and demons tended to zero in on green spaces: Gabriel at Battersea Park and Hampstead Heath, Uriel and Sandalphon and Hastur and Dagon at St. James. There was something twisted in their supernatural DNA that made them all crazy for gardens, he supposed.

When he and Aziraphale got to Berkeley Square, nibbling croissants from Popina and sipping coffee, they were greeted by the sight of Uriel lounging against the statue of the Lady of Sumeria.

Crowley wondered– in that slow, contemplative way that comes with being terrified– if he was up to making Hellfire. It took a fair amount of core strength.

Aziraphale's hand, covering Crowley’s in the crook of his arm, clutched at him hard enough to hurt. Crowley bared his teeth. “Get behind me, angel.” He didn’t make much of his chances up against an archangel, particularly in his current sliced-down-the-middle condition, but screw it. Even though he hadn’t heard the whole story yet, he knew it’d been Uriel who’d convinced Aziraphale to chuck Crowley for his own good. Maybe he couldn’t take her down, but he could get in a few good licks that she’d be feeling for a while.

Aziraphale drew in a quick, jagged breath. “Crowley, don’t. Please.” He dropped his breakfast and got a death grip on Crowley’s arm.

Crowley remembered how he’d felt– desperate and furious and nearly out of his mind with worry– when he found Aziraphale bleeding on the Heath. He heard Anathema’s voice in his mind: ‘The idea that you’d sacrifice yourself for him terrifies Aziraphale’.

He forced himself to relax. “Sorry. Force of habit. What’s the plan, then?”

Uriel walked towards them, holding up both hands. “I just want to talk.”

“That’s what you said last time. We’re not interested.” Aziraphale was trembling, voice cold with fury.

“I think you will be. There’s been a change of policy. Upstairs and down.”

“That old chestnut again. Haven’t you ever heard of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? There’s nothing you can say that I would trust.”

Crowley fought the urge to punch the air.

Uriel sighed. “We have the same goal, Aziraphale. Let me explain. You want to be free from Heaven, and he doesn’t want to have anything more to do with Hell, I assume.”

“View’s better up here. So’re the drinks.”

“I have a contract.” A glowing tablet appeared in Uriel’s hand. “It’s modelled after the agreements humans draw up when they don’t want to be involved with one another any further. The two of you are barred from the celestial and infernal realms, and you’re to stay at least two hundred metres away from any portal. Standard non-interference clauses, a non-compete–”

“Wait, I’m sorry. But what happened to ‘Make Heaven your home base again’? What happened to offering us amnesty in exchange for turning off our physiologic processes? What happened to threatening we’d become your property the minute we’re discorporated?” Aziraphale’s voice got progressively higher with each question.

Crowley turned and stared at him. That was what they’d blackmailed him with, then. Inevitable, permanent separation… no wonder Aziraphale had caved.

“In the interim, we’ve entered into a somewhat delicate agreement with the opposing faction which requires compromises on both sides.”

Crowley’s mouth dropped open. “You’re talking to Hell,” he said. “You’re talking to Hell, and Hell doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“In plain language… yes.” Uriel met Crowley’s eyes, and there was a hint of something there… respect? Understanding? “I understand you destroyed a colleague with holy water, who was then restored by the intervention of the Antichrist child. As a prerequisite to forming an arrangement with us, he’s asked that we eliminate the possibility of either of you showing up back at your respective offices.”

“Well I’ll be blessed.” An astonished smile crept across Crowley’s face. They respected his work, he had to give them that. Maybe his reputation was finally paying off. Or maybe Ligur really hadn’t liked his bath. Under ordinary circumstances, Beelzebub would’ve told him to go kick rocks, but Eric had said things were changing down there.

He looked at Aziraphale, who was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but that simply won’t be possible. You said it yourself: discorporation, eventually, is inevitable for us. If we’re barred from Head Office, what are we to do?”

“Unintentional discorporations will be processed through the automated system, and you’ll be returned to Earth.”

The angel looked at Crowley, anguish on his face. “That’s alright for me, maybe,” he said softly. “But Crowley’s corporation may not be as hardy as mine. We’d be fools to sign anything that prevents us from negotiating with Hell ourselves. Maybe they’ll be willing to talk to him, in time.”

“If there’s a problem with the demon’s corporation, just modify it,” Uriel said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

They stared at her.

After a moment, Crowley said, “I can’t. I can’t change my corporation outside of Hell. I can’t heal myself if I get hurt.” That was Having A Corporation 101. Surely she knew this already?

“Of course you can. You were both told by your management team that you couldn’t because we didn’t want field agents going rogue. Requiring people to come home for repairs is just good management policy.”

Aziraphale went red in the face. “What?” he sputtered. “That’s… that’s poppycock! I’ve tried to heal myself. I’ve tried to heal him! I could never fix so much as a papercut!”

“You’ve tried to heal me?” Crowley murmured.

“Of course I have. At Córdoba. And Delphi, Bavaria, Germany, Ethiopia, Iberia… you were always getting yourself into scrapes.”

“Huh.” Crowley made a pleased little noise.

“Anyway, she’s lying. I don’t see any point in continuing this conversation.”

“Aziraphale, be reasonable,” said Uriel. “Why would you be able to control the behaviour of your brain’s biochemistry and your organs’ functionality if you couldn’t do something as simple as regenerate tissue? The only reason you weren’t able to do it before is because you both believed you couldn’t. We found early on that belief is quite a useful tool. Pity we didn’t discover psychology earlier, really. Might have changed our perspective on any number of things.”

Crowley remembered what Aziraphale had said about alcohol. ‘We’re very powerful beings, and when we expect something to happen the world generally obliges us’. Did the power of suggestion work the opposite way, too? If they believed something was impossible, then it became impossible?

Heaven could say what they liked about Crowley, but he’d always been adaptable. He let go of Aziraphale’s arm.

“Crowley–”

“Hang on. ‘M concentrating.” He closed his eyes. He’d changed his corporation plenty, now that he thought about it. He could become a snake or a monster; he could collapse into a cloud of ions… Hell’s sake, he’d taken on Aziraphale’s appearance, down to the atom, just last month.

If his body was a house, and if he knew how to repaint and rewire it, shouldn’t he also be able to fix damaged walls? He pictured a crack splitting the plaster.

Then he waved a hand, and the wall was whole again.

When he looked up, Uriel was watching them with a knowing smirk on her face. Crowley reached under his shirt and pulled at the corset’s velcro fastener until he could feel the unbroken skin below.

He met Aziraphale’s eyes. “Oh my God.”

Chapter Text

Two weeks later

The note read: “Will you favour me with your company at dinner on Saturday? Let us partake in a splendid dinner to be held at the Ritz Hotel at nine o’clock sharp. I kindly request your presence complete with well-fitted coat, crisp shirt, and a tie of choice. Yours sincerely, A”.

He’d sealed it with green wax and sent it through the post, humming to himself. The reply showed up a day later, on the screen of the mobile telephone Crowley had insisted he carry with him while they were apart.

He’d pursed his lips and fired back, typing on the tiny illuminated keypad with his pointer finger:

Honestly, the demon was going to wreck Aziraphale’s precisely, painstakingly planned evening with his aggressive… sauntering. Cheek. Oh!

And as you’ll be my guest, I will of course be paying the tab

Crowley’s reply was immediate.

it’s from tchaikovsky’s good old fashioned lover boy, angel

see you at 9

Aziraphale stared at the screen for a minute, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. Then he set the phone down and picked up a book. He had time for a little more research before he saw Crowley again.

Spending the last two weeks alone had been Aziraphale’s idea, but Crowley agreed once he explained.

After seeing Uriel, they’d walked back to Crowley’s flat, mostly silent, holding tight to each other’s hands like Hansel and Gretel in the woods. Aziraphale’s thoughts swirled, buffeting him, refusing to be pinned down, until he was on the verge of panic. What was wrong with him? Uriel had given them a gift, and he was floundering.

The minute they were through the door Crowley stripped off his shirt, corset, and vest, movements quick and almost frantic. They both stared at his unmarked stomach.

Aziraphale’s chest ached like he’d been struck by a sledgehammer. They’d paid a heavy price to live functionally as humans, it’d nearly destroyed them, and for what? Seemed there’d been a solution all along. Oh, but could they really pick and choose their corporations’ functions without worrying about their healing capabilities? Biology à la carte? Was the only condition really a restraining order that neither of them needed?

When had anything, ever, been so simple? There must be a catch.

“Angel, breathe.” Crowley took him by the shoulders.

“I don’t believe it. I can’t.” Aziraphale tried to fill his lungs. They felt like two bags of sand.

“Yeah. Seems a little too easy,” Crowley muttered. “But… proof of the pudding’s in the eating.” He poked himself experimentally, just above the navel.

“God wouldn’t… I mean, She would…” Aziraphale rubbed his temples. “Oh, I suppose this is the sort of thing She might find amusing, actually.”

“Her style, innit? Give ‘em freedom, see what they do with it? Maybe She never wanted us to be changeless in the first place. Supposed to grow with them.” Crowley made a vague gesture towards the city below. “Evolve.”

Dr. Gale, the one in his dream. He hadn’t told Crowley. “She was always very hands on,” Aziraphale said slowly. “Disappear for weeks with a new project, and later you’d find out She’d been off rolling balls of dung as a scarab beetle or something. She’s different from them… different from us, too… but She didn’t let that stop her.”

“We’re never going to see the whole picture. All we can do is work with what we’ve got.” Crowley’s gaze was steady, raised eyebrows furrowing his forehead. “It’ll be alright. We tried to influence the wrong boy for a decade, and it saved the world, remember?”

“It sounds like a demon is telling me to have faith.” Aziraphale laid both palms on Crowley’s chest, warm and whole.

“Don’t you dare spread that around. I’ll deny it.” Crowley pulled him into his arms, and they stayed that way for a long time.

Later, as they lunched on cold chicken and slices of baguette spread with soft cheese, Aziraphale told Crowley he was going back to the bookshop– “alone”.

“What?” Crowley’s expression turned wary.

Aziraphale picked up one of his hands, toying with the tips of his slender fingers. The feeling of cool, rough skin against his own was grounding. “I want us both to think about this. If what Uriel said is true, and we can decide what systems to run– indefinitely and without regard for consequence– then we each ought to make that decision separately.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not rational around each other,” Aziraphale told him, touching his cheek. “It’s normal when two people are in love, but I don’t want you to turn something on just because I do.”

Crowley leaned his chair back against the counter, crossing his long legs at the ankle. “Ev’rything up for grabs,” he said thoughtfully. “Do I want to keep my kidneys working?”

“I calmed the immune oversensitivity so I could go home without sneezing,” Aziraphale said. “But apart from that, I’m just not sure yet.”

“What if I turn my intestines off again?” Crowley asked. He looked accusingly down at his torso. “Caused enough trouble, you have,” he said, under his breath.

“Then you’ll go back to watching me eat, I suppose.”

“Guess you’re already resolved on that one.”

“Guilty.” Aziraphale smiled.

Crowley was worrying at his bottom lip; Aziraphale caught an enticing flash of white canine. “What if you decide to leave the sexual rewards system in place… and I don’t?”

“Then we won’t have sex.”

The demon gave him such a nakedly anxious look that Aziraphale laughed and kissed his forehead. It was an awkward angle, so he scooted his chair closer and spoke with his lips against Crowley’s temple. “I suppose it would be insensitive of me to tell you not to worry. I’ve given you plenty of cause. I’d expected a long rehabilitation of body and soul… Uriel’s interference has thrown me, rather.”

Crowley leaned in with an easy vulnerability that made the angel’s eyes prick with tears. “I told Anathema I felt sliced open and sewn shut,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard.

“And so you have been. I can’t mend it. I hope it will heal with time.”

“Bollocks you can’t mend it. Don’t leave again, angel.” Crowley looked up, caught his gaze, held it.

“You have my word, love.” Aziraphale took his hands. “Nothing you decide to turn on or off will change how I feel, but I don’t want to influence you. Make your choices, and I’ll meet you on the other side.”

Crowley visibly thought this over. “Probably won’t get rid of the sex drive, in the end,” he said.

Aziraphale grinned and kissed him hard.

Hardly counted as influencing, really.

Aziraphale spotted Crowley first, and spent a few seconds soaking him in. He stood midway between the fireplace and the curving, plush-carpeted staircase, hands in his pockets, elbows at his side and one hip cocked (if he’d repaired that particular joint, he’d clearly done so in a way that wouldn’t affect its aesthetics). He was wearing a starched white shirt, scarlet tie, and a perfectly devastating jacket with a twinkle of gold cuff links at the sleeves.

He looked delicious, and the familiar thump of longing in Aziraphale’s stomach was accompanied by a flutter of butterfly’s wings– because tonight he could do more than look.

Theoretically, at least. There was a chance Crowley might not… but then Crowley turned, saw Aziraphale, and lowered his glasses to stare at him over the tops of the lenses. His lips parted.

That seemed promising.

During Crowley’s brief stint as a patient, he’d often leaned on Aziraphale’s arm. Aziraphale held it out as he approached now, and Crowley took it. “Sight for sore eyes, you are." He was wearing that tiny smile that lit his whole face up with joy. “Hope the suit’s alright. Sweating bullets.”

Aziraphale laughed. He couldn’t help it, he was a tea kettle boiling over with happiness, and it had to come out somehow. “You look beautiful.”

Crowley ran two fingers over the knot of Aziraphale’s blue-and-gold tartan ascot. Aziraphale had a new suit: modern, in textured linen that complemented the criss-cross bands of the cravat. (Tracy had helped him pick it. She’d also folded his pocket square, earlier in the evening, and dabbed his neck with magnolia cologne from Cartier. “There we are,” she’d declared, stepping back. “Pretty as a present, and I daresay Mr. Crowley will enjoy unwrapping you.” Aziraphale had blushed and flapped a hand at her.)

“Tell me if something’s turned off I oughta know about, ‘cause otherwise I’m going to kiss you now,” Crowley said, low in Aziraphale’s ear.

“Well. Go on then,” answered Aziraphale, contentedly. Then he remembered his plan and lurched back, just before their lips met. “Wait!”

Crowley blinked behind his glasses. “What?”

“There’s an order to the events tonight. A certain sequence we’ll do things in. If– if you’re amenable,” Aziraphale trailed off, suddenly feeling very silly. Here he was, trying to tempt the original tempter.

“What’re you up to, angel?” Crowley asked, one dimple showing as he looked Aziraphale up and down.

“Never you mind. Come on.” Aziraphale put his hand over Crowley’s, and they walked through the double doors of the restaurant.

The day before, Aziraphale had done a little reading, then retired to his recently redecorated flat on the first floor for some practical work. If Crowley decided to remain his lover, Aziraphale wanted to be in a position to be generous. He’d been on the receiving end of Crowley’s skills, and yes, he’d offered some clumsy reciprocation, but it had all been in the heat of the moment. Aziraphale was meticulous by nature. He wouldn’t feel satisfied with what he was bringing to the table (or the bed; probably there wouldn't be any actual tables involved) until he’d done his homework.

He’d told Tracy he was finished with instructional manuals, but curiosity had gotten the better of him after a few days of solo experimentation. “A reference,” he’d muttered, turning the pages of The Joy of Gay Sex. Like the now-defunct (or at least, Aziraphale decided firmly, defunct in his particular case) Sensual Loving, it had illustrations.

Aziraphale read it, cover to cover. He made notes. Then he opened Ultimate Gay Sex, which had colour photographs– even better.

He hadn’t come downstairs again for a full twenty-four hours. And he’d revised his assumption about tables.

The waiter poured champagne. He read the specials, but Aziraphale barely heard him. He was gazing at Crowley, chin in one hand, smiling a little. Serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine, he thought. How wonderful.

“Angel? Hello?” Crowley waved a hand in front of his face. “He said they have the squid ink risotto you like.”

“Oh! I’m very sorry.” Aziraphale ordered two starters, a main, and a side of honey marinated aubergine. “Are you eating?”

It sounded like a casual question. It wasn’t.

Crowley met his eyes, looking mischievous through the dark lenses. “Thought I might.”

Over scallops and creamy oyster potatoes, Aziraphale put out feelers. It was fun. This is flirting, he thought, surprised. And then, We’ve been doing it for years. Because of course they had. Teasing, asking leading questions whose answers sounded straightforward but could mean something else entirely. Trading gentle barbs like amuse-bouche. “Another glass of champagne? It’s quite good.”

“Hadn’t better, if I’m driving home.”

“Ah, very wise. I was hoping to prevail upon you for a ride.”

“Be late when we get back.”

“I imagine.”

“Plans for the evening?” Crowley asked.

“Sleep… eventually.”

Crowley took a deliberate bite of bread. “Still sleeping, then?” He chewed. Swallowed.

Aziraphale remembered a black-robed demon eating the root of a Devil’s Thorn on the bank of a stream, long ago. “It’s become a habit. Quite enjoyable; you were right about that.” You were right about so many things. “What will you do with your meal?”

Crowley put a modest hand on his stomach. “I made a few updates,” he said. “It’s very efficient in there now.”

“I might have known that someone with an appetite for tinkering with motor vehicles would rearrange his own insides, if given the chance.”

“And I might have known that someone with a hedonistic streak a mile wide wasn’t about to give up his reward pathways. Not without a fight.” Crowley’s voice was so laid back it was practically flat on the ground, but there was a question in it.

“I didn’t give any of it up,” Aziraphale said. He paused. The pianist was playing Mozart’s piano concerto Number 17, a piece that had always evoked feelings of sincerity. Over the years, he’d found sometimes that music unlocked him when nothing else could.

He squared his shoulders and continued. “I even kept the allergies, though I did stop them from bothering me at the bookshop. A touch of miracle’s as good as a Clarityn, I’ve found.”

Sometimes the movements of Crowley’s head were almost birdlike. A tiny, quick tilt: inquisitive. Go on.

“Do you remember when I told you that preventing my corporation from catching biology was like damming a river?” Aziraphale asked him. “I was thinking about how that felt… because I turned everything off again, you know, after I went to Heaven… well, of course you know…” he stumbled.

Crowley reached across the table and tangled their fingers. “It’s okay.”

“It hurts, a bit. Like wearing shoes too tight for your feet. I’d gotten so used to the sensation over the years that I hardly noticed it anymore, but when I went back to it after a week of freedom, I felt… I felt… hmm. Have you ever seen a bug trapped in amber?”

“Sure. Like in Jurassic Park.”

Aziraphale gave him a blank look, but decided to push on. “It was as if I were that bug, but alive. Paralysed. Nothing getting in or out. I wanted to run to you and tell you everything when I saw you on the escalator, and it all got stopped up. Then you were sick, and they took you, and I didn’t know if you were even going to wake up, a-and…” he paused to swipe at his eyes. Heaven’s sake, but he cried at the drop of a hat now. Making up for lost time, he supposed. “I couldn’t weep. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t even breathe.”

Crowley squeezed his hand.

“Gentlemen?” said a quiet voice near Aziraphale’s elbow.

The world flowed back in around him. He nodded to the waiter. “Ah. The soup course. Thank you.”

While the bowls and spoons were set down, Crowley sat very still, watching him carefully. “That doesn’t tell me why you decided to keep the allergies,” he said at last. The words were playful, but his voice was very gentle.

“It’s better for me to feel things. Even sensations I’d rather not have. In a way, it’s become my guide.” He stroked Crowley’s knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Do you see?”

Crowley shook his head.

“It’s difficult to put properly into words. I told you the chemicals have nothing to do with my love for you, and I meant it. But I got extremely good at not letting myself know that I loved you. Like when you turned your pain signals off. I tried not to admit it was happening.” Aziraphale sighed. “But pain is just… well, it’s information, isn’t it? Helps you figure out what’s hurting you, and how to stop it.” It was probably time to tell him, but Aziraphale hesitated. He didn’t want to spoil Crowley’s mood. “I thought I needed Heaven’s manual to understand how things worked, but of course that’s nonsense. If I don’t try to keep everything I feel behind glass, my body and brain will give me all the direction I could ever ask for. I welcome it.” He smiled. “Even the allergies. And that itch you sometimes get in the middle of your back, right where you can’t reach. And the occasional wind.”

Crowley burst out laughing.

Aziraphale popped the question over Anjou pigeon with sweetcorn purée (he’d thought fondly, when he ordered, of the quail pie from Ninevah). He tried to make it sound like the answer didn’t matter… because truly, it didn’t. “What did you decide, then?” he asked.

Crowley didn’t reply immediately. “Got some new anatomy books,” he said instead. “Those tomes you had were thirty years out of date.”

“Yes, and of course the human body updates as often as you change mobile telephones. It’s vital to stay current.”

“Human knowledge updates all the time. There could have been an important discovery about the pancreas, or something.”

“Was there?”

“Anyway,” Crowley went on, ignoring this, “Like I said, I did some re-configuring. Human organs when I’m human, and snake organs when I’m a snake. Took a little practice, but I’m gettin’ the hang of it.”

“Not your eyes,” Aziraphale said, too quickly.

Crowley swept his glasses off and grinned at him. “I didn’t touch the outside. Very bad form to modify the appearance of a classic car, you know. Sends the resale value through the floor.”

“You could if you liked,” Aziraphale insisted loyally. “I’m quite happy with my, er, classic car– however it looks– and as I don’t ever plan to part with it, the so-called ‘resale value’ is immaterial.”

“I’m attached to this corporation, strangely enough,” Crowley said, shrugging. “I just fixed the things that were causing problems: the wonky hip sockets and snake digestion and mismatched lungs. Hospital was good for that, at least. All those clever pictures of my insides. They gave me a disc.”

Aziraphale wondered, briefly, what a circular plate had to do with anything. He looked down at his own plate. “And the rest?” he asked, softly.

Crowley began to fold his napkin into narrow rectangles. “Eugh, thought I’d keep it,” he muttered. “Get into habits, like y’said.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale didn’t look up, but he breathed out, and the corners of his mouth lifted. Through his lashes, he saw Crowley put his chin on his fist and scowl at the wall.

They ate in silence for a while. The waiter brought tea and coffee. Aziraphale waited. Eventually, as he’d known he would, Crowley put his cup down and said, “Fine. I liked how we were going along. Thought we could… y’know. Pick up where we left off. If you wanted.”

“I liked it too, Crowley. That’s a bit of an understatement, actually. But…”

“What’s wrong? Something is, isn’t it? You wouldn’t let me kiss you.”

“Nothing’s wrong! I just–”

At that moment, the lights dimmed.

Aziraphale had seen the band getting ready out of the corner of his eye, but he hadn’t mentioned it. At the back of the big dining area, tables had been cleared and people were starting to get up from their chairs and drift over. Now the pianist switched smoothly from Chopin to Gershwin, someone blew a trombone, and a bass guitarist picked out a rhythm. A woman in a spangled boa, her glossy black hair in pin curls, stepped up to a microphone. “Embrace me…” she crooned, bell-like. “...my sweet embraceable you.”

Crowley swung his head back around to pin Aziraphale with a suddenly knowing look. He raised an eyebrow. “I’m being wooed, aren’t I?” he said.

“We rather did things back to front. I’d like to start over, if you’ll let me.” Aziraphale rose from his seat, and held out his hand.

Crowley smiled.

As a rule, angels didn’t dance. And the last time Crowley had danced was at Cleopatra’s, a club in the Second Circle, in 1973.

As they stepped out onto the floor– the light was blue, dust motes floated in the spotlight’s beams, and all the tables around them blazed with candles– Crowley hesitated. There were human couples swaying together, some so seamlessly that it almost looked like lovemaking. He didn’t know the steps.

“Like this.” Aziraphale folded his hand around Crowley’s, bent his elbow, then put his other arm around Crowley’s waist and drew him close.

The beat was soothing. Ella Fitzgerald had performed this one, back in 1984. Crowley remembered sitting in the audience at Royal Albert Hall, aching with loneliness, feeling hollowed out inside. He’d never expected anything to change.

Now Aziraphale was warm in his arms. Crowley hadn’t put his glasses back on. His hands were shaking a little. The angel he loved was here, he was staying, he’d promised.

They swayed. Aziraphale laid his head on Crowley’s chest. I don’t know the steps, he thought again, terrified. He didn’t know how to love like this. He wasn’t used to love that didn’t feel like a fist squeezing your heart.

“I’ve got you,” the angel murmured. The hand on the small of Crowley’s back was firm and sure. “Don’t worry. We’ve always been dancing.”

“I love all the many charms about you. Above all I want my arms about you…”

We’ve always been dancing.

(“Just cancelling each other out.”

“We’ve done it before. Dozens of times, by now.”

“We have a lot in common, you know.”

“That was very kind of you.”

“Don’t go unscrewing the cap.”)

Crowley nuzzled (extremely undemonic, nuzzling, he hoped nobody saw) Aziraphale’s hair. Tea tree shampoo and scalp oils.

(“I worked it all out.”)

You did, didn’t you, angel, Crowley thought. Somehow you always do. In the end.

The music quickened and couples scattered to keep pace with it, laughing. Crowley spoke against Aziraphale’s ear. “Take you home?”

“Yes, please.”

(Image credit: Anotherwellkeptsecret)

When they got to the car, he held Aziraphale’s door for him, and the angel kissed him– softly at first, layering their lips and tangling his fingers in Crowley’s hair. He drew back, blinking up at Crowley like someone waking from a dream, and whispered, “Oh. I’ve missed you.” Then they crashed back together, mouths open, taking shaky breaths through their noses as they kissed because of course they had to breathe.

All their previous physical encounters had felt so urgent, and Crowley suddenly realised it was because somewhere, deep down inside, he'd believed each one to be their last. He was the original tempter, after all. You were supposed to want him, but only once. After tasting what he had on offer, and realising what it truly meant, people ran.

He’s not leaving, Crowley reminded himself again. You have time. The kisses turned slow, flowing like honey into one another, and the pulsing thump of heaviness below Crowley’s belt felt far away. He pulled back, easing the sting by kissing each of Aziraphale’s cheeks, both delicate eyelids, the centre of his forehead where the worry lines were.

Aziraphale chuckled ruefully. “Lost myself for a moment. Come on, then. I have something to show you.”

The bookshop was… different. Neater. Crowley couldn’t tell if the piles of papers and scrolls and stacks of books on every surface had been put away, or just relocated to some storeroom out of sight where unbalanced towers, even now, were getting ready to collapse on the heads of the unsuspecting.

Aziraphale snapped his fingers and lit the candles in the back room, where a tartan blanket was spread on the floor. On it were bottles of champagne in crushed ice, miniature chocolate ganache cakes with fresh strawberries, slices of cream tart, a basket of chocolates, crème brûlées in white ramekins, and a steaming pot each of tea and coffee; as well as napkins, saucers, spoons, forks, glasses, ceramic teacups and fluffy-looking over-sized pillows. A bowl of crimson roses sat on Aziraphale’s writing desk, and the floor was scattered with petals.

Crowley stood frozen, staring. A part of his mind wondered if Aziraphale was expecting someone else. This couldn’t be for him.

Arms circled his waist from behind. “I would have put it away if you weren’t eating,” Aziraphale said. “But I did hope. I’d promised you, after all.”

“‘Perhaps someday’, Crowley said, and his voice was cracking. “That’s what you said.”

“Then I promised myself.”

While he poured drinks and filled plates, Aziraphale told him about going out shopping the morning after they made love at the Ritz. “I was in the middle of Marks and Spencer when she grabbed me,” he complained. “She could have just sent a note. But of course I was completely wound up when I got to Heaven, which is what they wanted.” For the first time, he went through the whole story from start to finish: how the other archangels had threatened and bullied him, while Uriel pretended to be his friend. How she’d shown him the manual, and his dismay at learning how fickle neurochemistry could be. “I’ve never done this before, and it turned out she had,” he said. “Her story fit the pattern I was reading about. I was so confused. It seemed to me that love and lust and affection were all woven together, and they couldn’t be separated… because of course that’s how I feel about you. I’ve never known anything different.” He touched Crowley’s face, and Crowley’s wonderful endorphins (course he’d kept those, there’d never really been any doubt) sent a surge of joy through his body. “I got scared. It was all so new between us, and you said you loved me, but how could you be sure it was real…”

Crowley gave him a tired look.

“I know. It was unfair, and I’m sorry. I don’t blame anyone but myself, but…” Aziraphale’s hands knotted together, knuckles white. “I’ve since learned that they lied to me.”

“No.” Crowley popped a truffle in his mouth and affected an expression of astonishment.

“About something else, you fiend. This showed up at the bookshop a few days ago.” Aziraphale hesitated a moment. Then he got up, took something off his desk, and handed it to Crowley, snatching his hand away the moment Crowley had it. As if it had burned him.

“Angel?”

“I-it came with a note. ‘The essence of repression lies simply in turning something away, and keeping it at a distance, from the conscious. Unfortunately, repressed emotions do not die. They are silenced. But they continue to affect the person’. Sigmund Freud.”

Crowley turned the object over in his hands. Small tablet, button press to turn on. Celestial tech.

“It’s The Human Corporation: Operations Manual. I know this sounds crazy, but I think Michael sent it.”

“So what? You’ve seen it already.”

“Not precisely. It appears to contain information that was withheld from me. Uriel presented a carefully edited slice of what God told them about falling in love… designed to erode my trust in you, and in myself.”

Crowley hesitated with his finger on the button. “‘Appears’? Haven’t you already been through this cover to cover?”

“I didn’t read it.” Aziraphale was blinking, looking everywhere but at him. The candlelight turned his eyelashes to molten gold.

“What? Why not?” The tablet clattered to the floor. “Is it hexed?”

“No, no! Nothing like that. Crowley…” Aziraphale met his eyes, shy. He looked convinced he’d done the wrong thing.

The air squeezed out of Crowley’s lungs. He’d seen that expression on the wall of Eden. Was that when he’d started to fall in love? Had one look been enough to start his parched heart beating again?

“...I don’t want to know what it says.”

Silence. A car passed by on the street. Rain began to patter on the oculus.

“I’ve always lacked a firm sense of what I ought to do. Not right and wrong, I felt I knew that much… though you taught me things aren’t always what they seem in that regard, either.” Aziraphale took a gulp of champagne, closed his eyes briefly, and then went on. “That’s why I love books. You can’t argue with a book. Remember the airbase? All that talk about ‘It Is Written’? I believed that. I always thought I’d know what to do if I could just find the place it was written down for me. The thing that was Correct.” Crowley heard the unspoken capital letter. “Humans make all kinds of mistakes, of course, but there had to be an answer. Somewhere.”

“You’re the one who always went on about ineffability!”

“Yes. Terribly hypocritical of me, wasn’t it? When we incorporated fully, I didn’t trust myself. What’s worse, I didn’t trust you. I read the wrong things, and trusted them, and it almost cost me everything.”

Crowley slid over and took Aziraphale’s hand. He kissed the slightly chocolaty fingertips, and the angel sighed. “I didn’t trust you either,” Crowley said quietly. It was shameful, but he had to dig it out now or it would keep eating at him. “I tempted you into turning the hormones on. I thought that was the only chance I’d ever get. It sounds stupid, and mean…”

“Crowley–”

“No, it does. I shouldn’t have…” Crowley shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t think you loved me, but I’m more sorry I didn’t think you could. Course you can. You did. I was an idiot for not seeing it.”

Aziraphale smiled at him, soft and hesitant. Crowley smiled back, and he could swear he heard violins swelling. Love was ridiculous.

“Do you want to read it?” Aziraphale asked, picking the tablet up again. “I should have told you earlier. Before you did all that internal rearranging.”

A Heavenly manual documenting the proper structure and stimuli; response pathways and neural circuits all neatly laid out for him. He’d feel like a bug under glass. “Not a chance, angel.”

“Oh! Oh good. I thought you might… of course it would be perfectly alright if you did–”

“Relax. We’re doing fine without it.”

Crowley took the tablet from Aziraphale’s hand and made a complicated gesture. The tablet vanished, reappeared outside the window, and burst briefly into flames. A thin stream of white ash drifted down, steaming, to the wet pavement.

“Crowley!”

“What? I’m sure they have backups.”

“I don’t condone burning books,” Aziraphale said, clearly trying not to laugh.

“Mmm, you don’t know about spyware. They could’ve loaded that thing up with all kinds of surveillance equipment. And I don’t want anyone seein’ what I’m about to do.” Crowley got one hand onto the back of Aziraphale’s neck and tugged the cravat with the other. Aziraphale came to him easily; he was laughing then, they were both laughing, and then they were kissing, and Crowley forgot how to form thoughts until he put his elbow into a crème brûlée and Aziraphale fussed at him and wiped his jacket with a napkin and led him firmly upstairs.

“Said there was…” Crowley gasped, sometime later. “Said there was an order, to, to– ah. To events.”

Aziraphale spoke with lips against Crowley’s shaft, and Crowley twitched helplessly, pulsing another gout of warm fluid. He couldn’t bear this. “Indeed. Not that we need it. But generally human relationships proceed thusly.” His tongue tip traced Crowley’s slit, then down to the base and around his balls. Crowley gritted his teeth and moaned through it, fuck, he was so close. “Attraction. Spending time together. Sometimes the one comes first, sometimes the other, but when there’s mutual agreement on the attraction front, then… a discussion of intentions. Often over dinner.” He swallowed Crowley down again, mouth hot, pulling off when the demon was cursing and sweating, leaving his cock shiny with spit. “Then kissing.” He moved up the bed and kissed Crowley open-mouthed, tongue pressing insistently. He tasted of chocolate ganache and strawberries and the ocean and Crowley wanted to fucking bottle it; he didn’t care if he tasted anything else for the rest of his days.

Aziraphale was breathing as hard as Crowley was when they parted. “Ah… if all of that goes well… humans generally proceed to–”

“Never mind, shut up. Touch me. No, fuck, don’t. Going to come,” Crowley babbled. His head was spinning. Something about Aziraphale’s measured, deliberate speech combined with a deliciously filthy mouth between his legs was making every pulse of blood hammer in his temples and stomach and especially his cock; he was harder than he’d ever been in his life.

“Why shouldn’t you come?” Aziraphale said with that almost-smile he wore when he thought he was being just a little bit improper. He danced his fingers up Crowley’s shaft, only teasing, and it was still almost over; Crowley gasped, grabbing his wrist.

“I don’t want…” Crowley kissed him again. He couldn’t seem to stop kissing him. “Don’t want to come yet.”

“Why not?” Aziraphale murmured. “We have all night.”

“But I can’t… not right away…”

“I think you can. I think you will.” Aziraphale pushed away on his palms, sliding down the bed– Crowley caught a glimpse of that magnificent arse lifting as he moved– and took Crowley back into his mouth, and this time there was no stopping it, Crowley arched and cried out and clutched handfuls of the angel’s hair, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, and Aziraphale sucked him through his climax and swallowed and then spread his thighs with warm hands as Crowley shuddered in the aftermath.

“Fuck… fuck…angel…”

“Mmm.” Aziraphale looked down at him– limbs askew, chest heaving, legs spread– and smiled, eyes flicking down to Crowley’s spent cock for a moment. “Hands and knees, I think, for this next part.”

“Where did you… since when…” What were words, how did you make sentences?

“Well…” Aziraphale helped him turn over. His arms trembled when he tried to hold himself up and he went down to his elbows, wanton, arse in the air. “I didn’t read the Operations Manual. And I returned Sensual Loving, of course, it really wasn’t my cup of tea at all. Far too reductive. But I haven’t completely changed my ways. Some of the books Tracy bought for me were very… enlightening.” Two thumb pads pressed into Crowley’s cheeks, he was being spread, then Aziraphale was licking into him, and Crowley shoved his fist into his mouth because this was too much, his angel shouldn’t… God…

“Oh God,” he moaned out loud after an exquisite, excruciating few minutes. “I– I– are you sure?”

Aziraphale’s clever, wicked tongue flicked against his entrance, tracing his folds. When he raised his head to answer he replaced the tongue with a finger, slowly circling, dipping in shallowly where Crowley was wet and dripping with his spit. “I want to make love with you in every way there is to make love. Slowly. Fast and frantic, kicking over lamps and knocking books off the shelves. With our clothes on. With toys. With my eyes, my mouth, my hands, my… my–” his voice was starting to shake.

Crowley bit the pillow, turning his wails to muffled ‘Mmm!’s and ‘Ohhh!’s. Aziraphale had neighbours, after all. He was a respected Soho figure, and didn’t need to deal with an after-hours visit from an officer for disturbing the peace.

Then Aziraphale pressed the pad of his finger forward and down and Crowley forgot to try to be quiet. He’d have been hard pressed to remember his name.

The angel was panting, he was hard, Crowley could feel it in brushes and wet smears against his thighs as Aziraphale shifted around. “Do you want to come like this?” he whispered, sounding awestruck. “Can I make you come on my fingers? Just my fingers? Can you do it?”

“Ah-hah…” Crowley reached back to grab at a thick thigh; frantic, desperate. “No, I–” but Aziraphale was rubbing his finger lightly over that hard swell of tissue inside him and it was tantalising and not enough but still he wouldn’t stop, it went on and on and before Crowley knew what was happening he was tipping over, shivering through another orgasm, moaning weakly. “Angel,” he kept saying, low, like a prayer. “Angel. Angel.”

He collapsed to his stomach. Aziraphale lay down next to him and gathered him close, pressing his warm, soft stomach to Crowley’s sweat-soaked back. Whatever Crowley’s hormones were doing currently, he was a fan: he felt warm and cradled and safe. “Oxytocin…” he slurred.

The angel smiled against his nape. “Indeed.”

Their thighs shifted, skin brushing heated skin. Crowley’s legs were spread wide, and Aziraphale was between them.

(“Is this alright? You said you turned the tables sometimes.”

“Fuck, yeah, but…” Aziraphale’s first two fingers– slippery with lubricant he’d gotten from the new-looking bedside table that sat next to the equally new-looking bed– were moving slowly in and out of him, gentle but relentless despite Crowley’s shudders and sobs. It was more than alright, it was fucking perfect, but how did he explain that he was the one who ought to… “You said you liked it when I– oh…”

“So I did, and so I will again. Often, I’m sure. But I want to take care of you this way tonight. Will you let me?”

The tiny lift at the end of the sentence was the only hint of Aziraphale’s nerves. Crowley twisted around (the spine was still snaky enough) and found his mouth– kissing him messily, too aroused to do anything but crush their lips together and share breath while Aziraphale pushed impatiently inside him with tongue and fingers both. The angel was trembling, gasping raggedly, so hard against Crowley’s thigh he must be hurting with it.

“I do suspect I’ll enjoy this, too,” he said after a moment, voice thick with lust. Crowley smiled and rolled to his front, bending one leg up in a wordless answer.)

Now he was on spread knees again, chest against the sheets, hands grasping at nothing as Aziraphale filled him; slowly, hesitantly, stopping every few breaths to ask if it was alright until Crowley finally rolled his eyes and rocked back and took him to the hilt. They both groaned like the air had been punched out of them.

“I–” Aziraphale sounded lost, his fingers scrabbling over the skin of Crowley’s back and hips. “I, oh, oh God–”

Crowley braced himself on his hands. He was too shaken to find a rhythm yet, but he writhed and ground his hips on Aziraphale’s cock, whining, needy, he shouldn’t be this needy, he ought to be in control. He didn’t know what to do with a feeling he couldn't hide from. Something inside him was splintering open.

“L-love. Oh, my love.” He couldn’t see the angel’s face, but it sounded like he might be crying. He flailed for Crowley’s hand and laced their fingers, pinning Crowley’s wrist against the mattress.

How was he supposed to get through this? Panic (it had a name now) suddenly rose up in his throat. He couldn’t be this needy, not with his endocrine system working full blast, not trapped in a body that was sending his brain such overwhelming pleasure signals he was sure he’d short circuit. What if he opened his stupid mouth and told Aziraphale how desperate he was for him; how he was terrified he wouldn’t be enough; that he worried his heart would crack and all his ugly, messy, shameful desires would spill out, staining the angel’s perfect skin?

He made a pathetic noise in his throat. Tension wound itself through his body. He clenched around Aziraphale and they both shuddered.

Aziraphale stroked his sides with soothing hands. He mouthed at the back of Crowley’s neck and whispered in his ear. “I’ve got you,” he said again. “Don’t worry.”

Then (fuck, he wouldn’t survive this, he wouldn’t) Aziraphale began to move… slowly at first, pace measured and deliberate.

Like they were dancing.

Suddenly Crowley could breathe again. His tight muscles eased; he dropped his head onto the mattress and gazed at their linked hands, floating, while the angel rocked inside him. Someone was moaning on every gentle thrust, every slow slide out, and he thought it was probably him.

God had done a bang-up job when it came to sensory nerves. Nothing like them. Every brush of Aziraphale’s skin against his sent a jolt straight to his cock, already heavy and dripping, harder than it had any physiologic right to be after two orgasms. As the pace quickened he pushed back, matching Aziraphale stroke for stroke, aching, crying out as the angel grew bolder, fucked him deeper.

“Look at that,” Aziraphale gasped. “Look at you.” He leaned back a little, shifting Crowley’s hips as he did, moving him how he liked (he’d sat Crowley down on the sofa that first night, when Crowley was shaking out of his skin. He’d carried Crowley to his bedroom when he came home drunk and miserable. Arranged Crowley’s limbs for him when he hurt too much to even lie down in bed) so he could watch himself slide in and out. “I wanted you. I wanted this. Even when I didn’t know what it felt like, I–”

“Yesss,” hissed Crowley. “Wanted you, oh, just you.” Aziraphale was inside him and also, somehow, all around him; he was caught and held.

The angel went down on both hands again, warm against Crowley’s back, nipping at his earlobe and nape. The headboard began to thump the wall when Crowley braced himself there, mouth falling open, stomach tightening and pleasure curling his spine.

“I love you,” Aziraphale breathed shakily, sounding like he was on the verge of flying apart. “I love you, and I want you, oh, Crowley, please, please, please, you can…”

He couldn’t, not again. Not a chance. But then… then Aziraphale went to one hip, pulled Crowley onto his side, adjusted his angle with an oh-so-angelic wiggle of his hips… and got a still-slick hand on Crowley’s cock.

Crowley’s head snapped back on a moan that felt pulled out of him. His hips bucked wildly; Aziraphale was stroking him, fucking him hard enough to shake the bed, and all the while he just kept talking: “Oh, you lovely– ah, I can’t, please love, come with me, I want, please–”

His voice dissolved into broken cries. Crowley felt the last desperate push of hips, felt the pulses of warmth inside him, but it wasn’t that, it was the please, it was the come with me, that undid him. He unravelled all at once, one hand over his face and the other gripping Aziraphale’s wrist hard enough to bruise, muscles locking, awash in wave after wave of pleasure so intense he almost struggled against it, sure it would hurt him, sure there was no coming back from this.

Slowly, though, they did.

When he could move his legs again, Crowley turned over and hugged Aziraphale to him, kissing his eyelids and tasting salt.

Aziraphale’s answering smile was slow and beautiful as the rising sun. “Hello.”

“Hey.”

This is what I should’ve done the first time, Crowley thought, making idle circles on the angel’s back with his fingertips. That very first morning. Didn’t have to cock it all up. Could’ve just told him then. He sighed.

Aziraphale nestled against his shoulder, and it wasn’t fair that Crowley’s heart was here, outside his body, but what could he do?

A low chuckle. “You’re quite sticky.”

“Love’s messy. Told you so.” Crowley kissed his sweaty curls. “God created orgasms to make us forget about that.”

“Actually, that’s not inaccurate. During the plateau and climax phase of the sexual encounter, activity in the amygdala decreases, resulting in diminished capacity for processing memories–”

Crowley groaned, loudly and theatrically. “Shut up. You’re on notice. No talking about physiology books, Heavenly manuals or instructional guides to gay sex for the next…” he winked. “The next twelve hours.”

“How ironic of you. What happens if I disobey?” Aziraphale pouted up at him, eyes twinkling.

“Should never have left you alone for two weeks with your hormones on. Gone round the bend, you have.”

“I do feel a bit mad. Love’s fault again, I’m afraid.” Aziraphale’s eyes were deep black pools ringed with luminous grey. Stormclouds and sunbeams, Crowley thought.

“Crowley?”

“Mmm?”

“What do you think it really is?”

“What– orgasm?”

“Love.”

“Askin’ a demon?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Not sure it is anything, angel.” Crowley stroked his cheek. “You’ve got better words than me. Ineffable. Ethereal. It all just means we can’t know about it. There’s no–” he waved a hand vaguely– “no molecules of love floating around out there.”

“I felt like I was chasing it. All those books.”

“I thought it was like making a fire. Couldn’t light it ‘til you had all the supplies– kindling, matches, er…” Crowley hadn’t, actually, ever had to make a fire by hand, but he had attended a fair number of barbeques during his years as Warlock’s nanny. “...sacks of charcoal?”

“We both got it wrong, in our own way.”

“Suppose,” Crowley said.

“Silly of us, really. Not seeing what was right in front of our faces.”

When had it started? Where had it gone, all those years they hid it from themselves? How long would it last?

There was no more Garden on Earth (Crowley’d heard rumours that it had been relocated to Heaven and was being used for cubicle space). Babylon and ancient Rome were in ruins. Most of the humans Crowley had ever blessed or tempted were dead (along with most of the ones he’d taken credit for, which made up a far larger number). Whether or not something was worth hanging onto, it went away in the end.

Then again… even the particles of matter that had made up the Ark were still around somewhere. If you looked at the world from very, very far away, nothing changed at all. Closed system. The ultimate equations didn’t involve gain or loss, addition or subtraction; when you got right down to it, everything was about… “Transformation,” he mused, out loud.

“What was that?”

“Things become other things. Like… water into steam, lava into rock. And back again. You know?”

This time Aziraphale was the one to shake his head, smiling a little.

“That’s the reason we couldn’t see it. Um. The love. It was there– just looked like something else.” Crowley gave Aziraphale a pleading look. The angel would do a much better job explaining this.

Shifting closer, putting his head back on Crowley’s shoulder, Aziraphale smiled. “You mean it was disguised?”

Wrong turn. The angel loved disguises, and was disturbingly literal about certain things. (Part of Crowley wondered if his future held any dressing up of the sort you saw in certain films. He wouldn’t put it past Aziraphale, especially with all the reading he seemed to have been doing.) “No! Yes. Sort of. It looked like… like oysters. Er…”

“Crêpes?”

“Yes! You get it.”

“A box of chocolates.”

Crowley snapped his fingers. “A thermos, like y’said. Couldn’t see what was inside.”

“A note that said ‘holy water’. That too.” Aziraphale’s expression turned stricken.

“We both spent so much time being afraid. It’s not your fault.”

“I was even afraid of this.” Aziraphale kissed the tip of Crowley’s nose, but his eyes were serious. “What if I wasn’t enough? What if we lost what we had?”

Crowley shook his head. “That’s what I’m saying. We can’t lose it. Maybe it’ll be different someday. Maybe we’ll be different. But love can’t be destroyed.”

“Conservation of energy. Perhaps the same principle applies.” Aziraphale appeared to be thinking this over. Then he yawned.

“Enough. Bedtime for you. With all the picnic planning and dinner arrangements and furious wanking you seem to have been up to lately, I bet you haven’t gotten enough sleep.”

“Practising,” Aziraphale corrected, unbothered. “But you may have a point.”

They curled up like two spoons, and there was a pang of that hurt again, just below Crowley’s breastbone– that feeling of ‘I can’t, it’s too much’. This happiness is too big for me, he thought. I’ll drown.

Then Aziraphale sighed, and shifted a little in his arms. Crowley moved with him, and it was like when they'd swayed together at the Ritz. Dancing, Crowley thought again. Music. Sound into motion into heat… things become other things, but they’re never really gone.

We’ve always been dancing.

Crowley would have to live with happiness, whether he liked it or not. Aziraphale wanted him alive and safe, and he loved Aziraphale, and would do anything for him.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.” Aziraphale wiggled again, then laughed softly. “Crowley?”

“Hmm?”

“I have to use the W.C.”

Berkeley Square Medical Center, 2019 CE

On the street outside the surgery, the morning sun paints the leaf tips gold. Luciente Gale sits in a beam of light, tapping on her laptop, content as a housecat. Her desk is a mess of papers and books and journals; there’s a stethoscope lurking in there somewhere and probably the rest of yesterday’s lunch.

The glance Mary Hodges gives her as she bustles in is tiredly fond. “You’re 8:30 is roomed, Dr. Gale.”

“Look at this. They’re so determined to solve the mystery of consciousness. It’s rather adorable, really.” She holds up an article from Computational Neuroscience. “Using functional MRI to explore temporal structures in cognition. The authors are saying there’s rhythm, theme and refrain in the signals the brain uses to make calculations over time.”

Mary is looking over a list of the day’s patients. “Thinking is musical, then?” she asks, distractedly.

“Everything repeats. Certain patterns are woven into the fabric of existence. The world is full of cycles: growth and death and renewal. It’s like a dance.”

“I can never make head or tail of those studies,” Mary says. “Let’s run the schedule.”

“Highlights, if you don’t mind.” Dr. Gale leans back in her chair, taking out a notebook and a pen.

“Connie’s creatinine went up again.”

“Oh dear. It’s looking more and more like she’ll need to choose between the lithium and dialysis.”

“Mm. John Livermore is having trouble with his breathing again; I double booked him over your eleven o’clock because Leslie probably won’t show. Tuyet Le has a GI bug, so gown up for that one. Antoun doesn’t like the insulin you just started. Wants to talk about going back on Actos.”

“He didn’t like the Actos either.”

“I don’t think he likes anything or anyone besides that horrible little dog of his. I told him it’s not to come into the surgery this time. And…” Mary hesitates.

“Yes?”

“Your 10:30 is Anthony Crowley.”

Dr. Gale smiles. “Now how did he get there?”

“I don’t know; he wasn’t in the slot last night. There’s no chief complaint listed. Shall I have front desk phone and cancel?”

“Best not. I don't think that would stop him showing up, anyway.”

Straightening, Dr. Gale unearths her stethoscope. While she hunts for her badge, Mary glances at the framed photo that sits on her desk in a tiny island of clear space. Two women beam at the camera. In front of them, a girl of about five is sticking out her tongue. A younger boy seems to be making a determined bid for freedom, he’s kept in the frame– barely– by the grip one of his mothers has on his arm. “How are the children, then?”

“Chaotic.”

“And research for the book?”

“It’s coming along.” Dr. Gale, triumphant, locates her badge underneath a plate of stale Hobnob biscuits. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. I may take a sabbatical next month.”

“Ah, you’re finally going to start writing? That’s wonderful. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

“I’m not sure. There are some things back home that need attending to, as well… I just got wind there’s going to be a family reunion.”

“That’ll be lovely.” Mary looks like she’s going to say more, but a clerk puts a folder in the bin outside the office door. “Nine a.m. needs vitals,” he says.

“Coming.” Mary snags the folder as she leaves.

Luciente Gale turns back to her desk. There’s a brown envelope there from the Cobra Holdings Insurance Company, and she reminds herself to drop it in Mary’s purse. She’ll be sad to lose her as a nurse, of course, but knows Mary will be delighted to know the repairs to Tadfield Manor are funded.

She sits down in front of the computer. Types a note: ‘The fMRI analyses here point to the pervasive presence of repetition, rhythm, and especially harmony. Among human artefacts, only music approaches this density and structure of repetition. In sharp contrast, these properties are at best weakly present in language, which has often been proposed as the model for cognition and ultimately brain function’.

Harmony.

Luciente Gale isn’t a planner by nature. She gets ideas by the score; that’s the problem, really: the minute she starts a project, another inspiration inevitably hits that feels hotter and more compelling, and she’ll have no choice but to follow it. Her past is littered with the beautiful fragments of unfinished things.

She’s trying to be better about that. See things through. Reconnect with the family she hasn’t seen in years. Because it’s not just her anymore.

Harmony. The melody is fine on its own, but a chord is so much richer.

She knows Anthony Crowley will have questions. If anything, she has fewer answers than she did when she was younger. Maybe the book will help, when it’s written… though she’s not sure he’ll read it. He’s free not to.

Her patient is waiting. Luciente Gale pauses, touches the photograph on her desk, then types a single sentence into a new document on her laptop:

The Human Mind: Anatomy and Physiology of Consciousness

(Working Title: Harmonices Mundi)

“There,” says Dr. Gale. She hangs her stethoscope over her neck and picks up her notebook and pen. “Let’s begin.”