faemused | Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post 2

“You certainly have. Don’t think I’ve forgotten Starlight Express.” He leans up to brush a kiss on her cheek. “But I think they’ve earned a breakout hit.”

His heartbeat picks up a little—now, at last, they can head home. Together. The final piece of his plan is finished by this point in the evening, or at least he has faith in the humans he hired. The rest of the night is for the two of them.

A cab pulls up, as if on cue. Aziraphale’s grin widens.

“Shall we head home?”

With a snap of his fingers, the mess is gone. Almost as an afterthought, he snaps again, and the knocked over books right themselves in the corner and the vintage lamp is back on the nightstand, although he doesn't fix the obvious dent in the frame of the fringed shade.

A souvenir, he'll tell Crowley, if he asks about it.

He is indeed rendered breathless by those kisses, little gasps of 'love you, too' and 'can do whatever you like' all that he can barely manage. His hands rub firm strokes up and down Crowley's back, not wanting to neglect a moment of touching between them, finally settling over the swell of his buttocks. He squeezes there, affectionately, before lightly pinching a bit of flesh between thumb and forefinger.

"See, my dear boy?" Pure laughter bubbles out of him. "Not a dream at all."

Crowley cackles. "That one was fun," she admits, smirking. "And you wouldn't believe what I've had them do with the film version of Cats, it's a masterpiece. But I won't go overboard with this one. Cross my heart."

Once upon a time, that promise would have come with any number of detracting adjectives. Cross my black, withered, demonic heart. They'd been funny, and to her mind accurate, and then eventually also a sort of protection. Her demonic, useless heart, which wasn't supposed to feel things like love and certainly wouldn't have been welcomed if offered, or so she'd thought so deep down that the conviction wasn't even conscious...

Aziraphale kisses her cheek and squeezes her arm, and says those magic words, Shall we go home? They still amaze her. The we she's almost used to, but the home idea, that's still new.

Well, home as a physical place, at least. She figured out a century ago that wherever Aziraphale was counted as home. It's still a miracle to Crowley that she gets to share it.

"Yeah," she says softly, smiling at that grin. He looks so happy, and it makes Crowley's heart, whatever the state of it, just melt to see that. "Yeah, let's. I've got to thank you properly for my evening out, and I can't do that here. Not without a lot of miracles or getting arrested."

[ooc: Maybe more of an evil dragon shapechanger guy. A can wear anything for his clothes or under them, Crowley will be happy with anything. ;) I absolutely accept the headcanon that C is responsible for Starlight Express so on. Explains a lot tbh!]

Edited 2019-12-31 00:42 (UTC)

His laughter fills the cab for a moment as they climb in together. "Wicked woman," he scolds affectionately, pulling her into his lap again before he gives the driver the address.

(Though the driver is normally quite a talkative fellow with his rides, for some reason tonight he finds himself perfectly content to keep his mouth shut. Especially whenever he glances in the rear view mirror and catches a glimpse of the redhead with the sunglasses. Oh well. At least they seem to be having a nice evening.)

Again they're enfolded in their own little bubble, only distantly aware of anything besides one another. Aziraphale wants to have the playbill framed; Crowley thinks they should hang it next to his dirty limerick. They laugh and tease and steal kisses, back and forth, and not for the first time Aziraphale finds himself almost hoping one of his old coworkers would dare to have a peek at him. Though probably they'll have convinced themselves by now that watching an angel and demon sinning together will turn them blind, or something equally ridiculous*.

At last they pull up to their own little corner of the city--home, for as long as they want it to be, as long as they happen to be there together.

The painters he hired have been finished for about an hour, and as requested have packed up to take the rest of the night off. Already there's an email sitting in the tray of Aziraphale's dot matrix printer from the young woman who supervised the team, with a quick report on how the job went (smoothly) and an expression of gratitude for hiring a local business (effusive).

Their work is evident above the door.

CROWLEY, FELL & CO.
Booksellers * Established 1800
Unusual * Antiquarian * Out of Print

* There is, in fact, a rumor to this effect in Heaven. Sandalphon started it.

[ooc: RIGHT? And lord have mercy now I want this dragon/princess scenario so much. We should do the thing.]

Crowley isn't expecting anything further. Why would she? Dinner and a show, and an unspoken but safe to assume promise of several hours of shared passion afterwards. That's more that enough to spoil any demon rotten (if it's possible to spoil a demon). Add in the intensely personal aspects of that particular show, and Crowley honestly can't imagine a better evening.

She wouldn't notice the change on her own. How often do you really look up at the sign above a well-known shop? Especially at night, especially when you live there? Especially when you're much too busy filling your eyes by looking at the most beloved being in the universe?

Crowley probably wouldn't notice on her own. But she notices Aziraphale noticing, wonders what's causing the odd note of satisfaction in his face, glances up.

It takes a few seconds to sink in, to recognize her own name there. Next to his. On his shop, his home. A home she now shares, but which has still mostly been his, two hundred years of ownership versus a few paltry months if squeezing her things in next to his, squeezing herself into his life, invading, invited and welcome but still invading and almost pitifully grateful for the privilege. And now her name is above the front door.

Crowley stops dead in her tracks, staring up at it with her mouth open. Behind her sunglasses there are tears in her eyes. Not many. But they're there.

There's a joy to this that's as good as what came before it, this unhurried stroking and new familiarity, the easy kisses and caresses and endearments without the push of immediate need behind them. Light and giddy and wonderful.

Crowley yelps at the sudden sharp pain, then laughs, leaning up a little so he can smirk down at Aziraphale. "Angel, if you really think I've never dreamt about you pinching my arse, you've got another thing coming.'

A warm arm steals around her waist.

“I told you.” Aziraphale’s voice is a caressing murmur, low and full of love. “I want everyone who walks in to know this is your home as well as mine.”

He glances up at her, at the shape of her open red mouth, the way her eyebrows have gone still.

“That this is where you belong,” he adds, squeezing her slightly. “With someone who loves you.”

Someone who adores you, worships you, who wouldn’t change you for the world, who has only ever wanted to see you happy. Who draws courage and strength simply from being near you, who will stand at your side until the very stars you built burn to nothing.

Aziraphale's laughter peters out, a rosy blush blooming on his face as if he were the one who was pinched. He stares up at Crowley, eyes innocently wide as he absently soothes the squeezed spot on Crowley's backside before drawing up his fingertips in restless lines over his back and sides.

"Is that so?" Clearly, he has a lot to learn about what his lovely demon has fantasized about over the centuries. "What else have you dreamt about me doing to you?" His blush deepens, as does the look in his eyes. "Because I'd very much like to make your dreams come true."

Crowley just stares upwards. She manages to close her mouth, but it's possible she's forgotten to breathe for a few minutes. If it weren't for Aziraphale's arm around her, his own steamed breath teasing at the side of her face as she speaks, she'd wonder if she were dreaming. If she could collect her thoughts enough to wonder anything. Which she can't.

With a movement so slow galaxies could be built and burn themselves out before it's completed, Crowley reaches up and pulls off her sunglasses, still not blinking as she looks up. The words are still there.

She gasps with sudden harshness, almost staggering as she breathes in. Aziraphale's arm supports her, she doesn't fall--not again--but she's still unsteady as she turns to look at him, her eyes wide and yellow and overly bright.

Just as slowly as before, she lifts a hand, this time to touch his cheek. The touch is tentative and oddly uncertain, as though she's making certain he's real. She tries to speak, can't, and then suddenly both her hands are on his face, sunglasses dropped forgotten to the pavement, as she kisses him. Tears of fire run down her skin, and the kiss tastes faintly of sulphur.

For several eternal moments he watches her stare at the sign, watches her wide unblinking eyes; at her gasp he shifts in closer, instinctively, his first priority keeping her steady.

Then she touches his cheek, with the same wondering light in those gold eyes as the moment after Aziraphale had dared to make his feelings clear, and his heart gives the same sort of dizzy lifting leap.

His arms are around her before her glasses hit the ground.

Crowley’s tears sting his skin, just a little; even with his eyes closed Aziraphale is strangely aware of how those tears must glitter as they run down her cheeks and cling to her eyelashes. He shifts in their embrace to smooth a thumb across one of her cheekbones, soothing, deeply affectionate.

Again his heart sings, a continuous soft thrum of song every bit as sweet as any hymn he ever sang in Heaven. Our side, our home, our shop, our night. Our life. Not just mine or yours anymore, not ever again, as long as we exist.

They stand there for hours or centuries, locked in place against one another. Maybe she's stopped time, or God has, or maybe the world just gently decides to ignore them for a while. If there are people talking on the pavement as they walk to the club, or cars honking, or noise blaring from the bar down the road, Crowley doesn't hear it. Just her breathing, and Aziraphale's, and the soft noise of their lips touching, parting, meeting again.

The intensity of the moment is almost painful--is it possible to die if sheer devotion, when you're a demon? It might be--and eventually Crowley can't sustain it. It's with as much a sob as a laugh when she breaks off, rests her forehead against his, breathes in the smell of him. "So... you're officially giving me permission to not sell your books?" she manages.

His smile curves softly against her mouth, thumb still caressing away the stinging wetness on her cheek, steady and certain. Though his actual wings remain safely tucked into their interdimensional space, his heart extends sheltering wings around Crowley, as if he could curl his very self around the source of the joy that now rings through him.

“Officially and permanently,” he says, as quiet and sincere as a vow. “Here, and wherever else we may end up.”

They’re still so close that his view of her is a little blurry; nevertheless, he glances up, trying to catch her serpent’s eyes with his own earnest gaze.

“Can you bear one more surprise, dearest?”

"Angel--" Crowley's voice shakes, and she's all but clinging to Aziraphale, though she manages to pull her head back enough for them to look at each other. Her eyes are fully serpentine. "How can there be more than this?" Officially and permanently. Officially and permanently. "How can I ever--"

Whatever she was going to say gets choked off at the end. She shakes her head, laughing again, a little helplessly. "Can it wait until we're inside, at least?"

Of the many, many, many enjoyable aspects of exploring the delights in human sexuality, one of the greatest thus far has been something humans tend to describe simply as “play”.

It’s an apt description: pretending to be people other than themselves, in circumstances other than their own, often feels like both the best sort of play-acting and the best sort of game. And the sex that ensues is always fantastic—not that it’s ever less than good, mind, they just tend to be more adventurous with these games than at other times.

Today is no exception.

From the way Crowley acted when he first brought up the idea—casually careless, his usual endearing attempt at diffidence—Aziraphale could tell he’d been thinking about it for a while. Not surprising, really; it’s the sort of romantic thing that sticks in one’s head like a particularly vivid painting. A bit fairy-taleish, too, which may be why Crowley hesitated to bring it up, and why Aziraphale immediately loved it.

It’s taken them a little while to get round to it, though. There have been other delights. But now, in the middle of a dreary, rainy week, seems like the perfect time to try it.

As ever, Aziraphale has taken a great deal of care with the costuming: a soft kirtle in the palest blue, beneath a white velvet surcoat with gold embroidery, the only jewellery a plain gold circlet perched in her curls. She is, after all, meant to be a princess of the royal blood.

(She hasn’t been a woman since the mid-1400s, and that only briefly. In private, without needing to negotiate things like shoes and ridiculous social assumptions, it’s far more comfortable than she remembers. And, she has to admit, she rather likes the way her face looks when it’s more feminine, especially since she’s miracled out her hair to shoulder-length.)

Their bedroom is lit softly only by the grey light of a rainy day. She’s sprawled herself fetchingly across the bed, skirts spread against the covers, eyes closed as if in some enchanted sleep, the very picture of innocence ripe for temptation.

Which is the whole idea.

Aziraphale grins, somehow sly and tender at the same time, and lifts up on his toes a little to press one more kiss to her damp cheek before sliding his arm gently through hers.

“Not out in the cold, I agree.”

The front door recognizes them, as it always does, and swings obediently open. A wave of familiar scent rolls forward to envelop them—that of old paper and leather, cologne, hints of good wine, dust and sunlight even in the middle of a winter night.

When the door closes it leaves them in a soft, deep quiet, the sort that’s perfect for reading or murmuring gentle truths. Aziraphale takes Crowley’s coat, as a gentleman should, before hanging up his own; he lets her lean on him as they make their way upstairs.

Edited 2020-01-02 20:12 (UTC)

The smile makes her shiver. It's one Aziraphale never wore before their relationship began in earnest, open and acknowledged. A smile that just seemes to be for Crowley, one that combines the deep depths of Aziraphale's capacity for devotion (angelic and possibly infinite) with the sneaky bit-of-a-bastardness that Crowley adored in him from the start. It's a devastating combination, one that never fails to melt her from within.

She doesn't really need to lean on him as they go upstairs. But neither of them wants to move away from each other, aside from the small necessary moments like removing coats. And heels, in Crowley's case; she carries those up in her free hand, puts them in the closet in their room. Takes a deep breath before she turns around to look at him, trying to summon up some of her more usual casual flippancy.

(In the back of her mind she can still see the sign outside, official and permanent, their names side by side for all the world to see. Heaven and Hell, God, all the humans, everyone. It's one thing to be claimed in private and another to have it be so publically declared, and it's entirely possible Aziraphale is incapable of understanding just how world-altering it is. Good, yes, fucking miraculous, but also world-altering. Aziraphale might have been rejected by Heaven, but he never Fell. The difference is profound. Crowley doesn't intend to enlighten him)

"So--" she says, slinking back to him, hips swaying. "Keeping in mind that you've already treated me to dinner, a show replete with personal meaning for us, an intermission orgasm, and one of the most public demonstrations of affection imaginable...I'm honestly having trouble imagining how you can have anything else up your sleeve." She puts her hands on his shoulders, slides them down his arms. "Unless it's literally up your sleeve and you're wearing interesting lingerie. Or have some for me to model for you."

His laugh is fond and almost purring; as he steps into her arms his heart swells, nearly aching with satisfaction and joy. It will always feel like a miracle to him, that they can be this close with nothing between them but love—that, like the rest of humanity, they can claim their own little corner of the world and make their way together.

“I’m afraid it’s rather small,” he says, a touch apologetically. “Possibly rather anticlimactic after all that, but I can’t say I have any regrets.”

Aziraphale shifts slightly in her embrace. Behind her back his left hand rests over his right.

“I don’t think I ever told you about the first miracle I ever managed successfully.” Leaning against one another as they are, Aziraphale can feel the faint thump of Crowley’s heart against his own. “I was terrible at it, at first. Right at the beginning. Couldn’t keep anything solid for more than a few minutes. At least not until I put a little fragment of myself into what I was making, just to keep it anchored to reality. Didn’t have to do that again, mind, but something about that helped me get the hang of it.”

Carefully he draws the silver ring off his finger. It’s been there very nearly since the beginning of time—he could have released the energy that made it, let the material vanish back into the firmament and reabsorb the tiny spark of his soul he’d put into it, but he’s never wanted to. It’s his first success, a little reminder that he’s capable of greater things than he thinks. And it’s the only thing that’s been his right from the start, the only constant in his world.

Even in the low light, the small silver wings gleam as he holds it up.

“I’d like for you to wear it,” he says.

Crowley relaxes a little as Aziraphale's arms fold around her, the familiarity of it grounding. When he apologies, she outright snorts. As though anticlimax is a problem their evening is likely to have, either in this moment or later when they finally get to bed. As though it's possible for Aziraphale to somehow let her down, after everything he's given her.

It occurs to her that every gesture of the evening, all of them, are in fact the same thing: Aziraphale's love. Differently expressed, some more tangible than others, but the same at heart. Love might be a four-letter word but Crowley's more than willing to give it, and to accept it, even if accepting such abundant amounts of it is a steep learning curve for a demon. Even such a demon as Crowley.

So she's easier as they hold each other, listening. Surprised and interested.

Staggered all over again as he holds up a ring she recognizes as well as she recognizes his face, his voice, and she realizes what the story he's just told her means. What he's giving her to wear. What it contains.

Once again, Crowley goes absolutely still, her eyes unblinking as she stares.

After a few minutes of silence aside from their quiet breathing, she reaches up and touches--not the ring, but the finger that's worn it for as long as she's known him. "Your hand will look all wrong, without it. Incomplete." She takes a deep breath. "Maybe you'd let me make you one to wear in its place?"

Crowley groans a little. "Careful what you offer, angel," he manages, a little breathless between that admission and the fingers trailing along his back. "It'd take a year or two just to tell you the list, and a few centuries at least to actually do all of them. You don't know what you're getting into."

He steals another kiss, sliding his tongue easily now into Aziraphale's mouth, the feel of it already wonderfully familiar and welcoming.

She reaches for his hand, brushes her fingertips over a patch of skin that hasn’t been bare in millennia, and his breath catches at the question she asks.

All of a sudden the moment has become an exchange, private and quiet as any moment human beings share. This can’t simply be a gift—this is a declaration, and it has to be mutual. Otherwise it would be, as she rightly points out, incomplete.

(Incomplete, as he’d tried to resist admitting in the depths of lonely silent moments, like himself without Crowley around. The world has always been a beautiful place, with incredible delights to offer, but all of them are so much richer shared with this one soul. Once he’d thought that meant that his own soul was in some way lacking, that his loneliness was in some way his own fault; now he knows better. The greatest of these is love.)

“I’d be honored,” he whispers.

Aziraphale returns the kiss, his mouth open and inviting. His fingers continue to trail over Crowley's skin, firm enough to avoid tickling, but much more adventurous than earlier, luxuriating in this newfound closeness.

"As it happens," he says when his mouth is finally free, words tumbling out breathlessly. "My schedule is clear. But if you'd rather skip the telling and go right to the showing, I won't complain."

He shifts his hips underneath Crowley's, his Effort already interested in this several century to-do- list, and smiles at Crowley beatifically. If the demon somehow anticipates Aziraphale not being up to the challenge of loving Crowley as thoroughly as he deserves, he's quite happy to prove him wrong. "I only ask that for anything beyond the basics, you give me a chance to do a little research beforehand. I like to be prepared, you know."

Edited 2020-01-03 18:12 (UTC)

Crowley closes her eyes for a minute, letting those words sink into her somewhere to be kept and cherished and wondered over. Honored.

Then she sighs and steps back a step so Aziraphale has to let go of her, and shakes her shoulders a little. It's not a large room, but it's large enough to materialize her wings in, if they're kept folded. She sighs again--it's always a bit of a relief to have them out, like an itch or tension so familiar you've learned to ignore it suddenly vanishing. Carefully she reaches back and under, feeling at the feathers, and pulls at a small one. She winces a little as it comes out, but it is small. It'll grow back, and it's not one it harms her to lose.

Then she reaches up to her hair, plucks out a couple strands, and wraps them around the feather.

Right, base materials accomplished. Now for the interesting part. Crowley closes his hands around the feather and concentrates.

She could have just summoned a ring out of nothing, of course; she summons clothes and such for herself all the time. But it wouldn't be the same, wouldn't have the same impact. There's such a thing as style, after all. And gravitas. And equality.

I'd be honored.

It's been hard for Crowley to accept that they're on equal footing now, after centuries--longer--of seeing their relationship as one where she did all the chasing, all the tempting, all the yearning. Thousands of small acts of service to say the things she couldn't say, show the things she couldn't show. Smaller, safer gestures, things Aziraphale would accept, instead of the things he couldn't or wouldn't. But now does.

It's hard, learning to let yourself be loved without fear. For both of them, in different ways. But here they are.

Crowley's hands begin to glow, a pulse of starlight between her closed fingers. As Aziraphale did, she includes a small spark of herself, a grain of soul melded together with feather and hair and spun together, altered, transformed.

It only takes a few moments, and when she opens her hands she's holding a ring. It's a snake, of course, a serpent ouroboros, made from an unknown black metal with faint streaks of red running through it. The tiny, delicate scales shimmer in the moonlight.

Silently, Crowley holds it out to Aziraphale.

Crowley lifts an eloquent eyebrow, feeling the stirring underneath him, feeling himself already reacting to it. If they were fully human refractory periods might be a thing, but as it is those are optional. And the two of them have waited such a long, long time to get to this point...

Crowley leans down again, brushes his nose against Aziraphale's, gives him another light kiss. "Hands-on demonstration, maybe?" he murmurs, more huskily than before.

Then he rolls them over, deepening the kiss again as he lets his hands roam, tracing light, teasing patterns down Aziraphale's back before reaching down and cupping his buttocks, pulling him down flush against him, their hardening cocks rubbing against each other.

Aziraphale draws in a breath at the sight of her wings—oh, but they are beautiful, sleek and black, the feathers gleaming with a faint iridescence like a raven’s. It takes genuine effort for him not to reach out and stroke along the gorgeous dark sweep of them with a finger, or with one of his own primary feathers. But this is Crowley’s moment, and so he simply watches her in reverent silence.

Raven Queen, serpent, best friend, best beloved. Sometimes when he’s fallen asleep he finds himself waking all at once, heart pounding, certain he’s dreamed every loving word and caress that’s passed between them, absolutely sure he’s gone back to being his former self, cowardly and lonely. Lord knows Aziraphale had gotten used to keeping his love silent and secret, had learned to let it out only in tiny fragments, shyly hidden in glances and daydreams and acts of kindness.

And every time he wakes panicked, terrified he’s been wrapped in the strangling vines of I can’t again, there’s an arm around his waist or long warm breaths stirring against his skin, or a familiar voice drowsily murmuring to him. Like the North Star she forged millennia ago, Crowley lights his way, orients him in the world.

The starlight that spills between her fingers limns her face, its sharp and lovely contours; not for the first time he imagines her brilliant against the night sky, spinning clouds of energy and fire into endless points of light. And when she opens her hands the ring she reveals is dark and glimmering with the promise of heat, like the heart of a star, every scale of the serpent’s small body perfectly formed.

It’s beautiful, and immeasurably so for being a part of Crowley. When his trembling fingers curl gently around it he discovers it’s also every bit as warm as her hands.

In silence he slips it onto his finger, and despite the other slight cosmetic changes it does dispel that sense of incompleteness. The ring settles perfectly where his old one used to sit; the scales wink as he turns his hand a little to examine it.

Only then does he let his own wings show—it seems somehow in keeping with the importance and solemnity of the occasion. They stay folded, of course, and their glow is no more intrusive than the moonlight and street light that slants across their faces, but they’re there all the same.

Love, joyful and certain, fills his gaze as he steps in close to her again.

Aziraphale has never even heard of a refractory period, and if he had he'd promptly disregard it as a human inconvenience. Crowley's tender nose brushing and kiss make him giggle softly, but before he can say anything in reply, he's being rolled over and atop his partner. To what end, he wonders curiously, before Crowley grabs his literal end and presses their growing erections together.

The sound he makes is swallowed up in their kiss, but he clearly enjoys the sensation, rutting instinctively to feel it again. How ingenious, to stimulate one another like this. "Lovely," he gasps, pulling his mouth away only to plant a line of sucking kisses down Crowley's throat and along his collarbone. "Although I hope the demonstration isn't limited to only hands..."

Open To Anyone For Anything RP Post 2

holy shit yes please. A would even go femme for that.

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Too much for header, see below..

HA! I heard the Cats movie is a living nightmare. Also TA-DAAAAAA.

Haven't seen it but the reviews are hilarious. Also crowley.exe has crashed.

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I’ve heard “bewilderingly horny” a lot. Also AWWWW bluescreen demon.

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I can't imagine the film is more fun than the reviews. Loving them. And ohhh yes. Kinda broke him.

And the ring hasn’t even come up yet!

Forget bluescreen of death. That's hard drive catching on fire territory.

“Whoops, your hard drive is on fire, better rip your clothes off!”

She's too shaken for ripping atm. Better save that one for another thread. =) (pity, I love ripping)

A Princess and a Not-Quite-Dragon

Time enough for clothes-ripping. ;) (see princess/dragon below...)

It does have possibilities! But gaaah still need to get back to Sherwood!

Take your time! :D also welcome to this headcanon.

Yay headcanon! There are a few other threads I think I owe you too. Inbox is a mess.

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I know that feeling. I owe you some, I think!

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No worries, of course. =) And gonna blatantly plagerize myself with this but I liked it so there.

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I love it and so does Aziraphale.

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