Doesn't Time Fly When You're Having Your Heart Broken? - Tumblr Posts

Fic: My Bonds in Thee by Nym - Good Omens (TV)

Aziraphale comes back. Their love was never in doubt but they still have different exactlys.

Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley Wordcount: 42,600 of (probably 80,000 - WIP) Rating: Explicit AO3 Archive Warning: No archive warnings apply Tags: Second Kiss, First Time, Flashbacks, Angst, Hurt/Comfort Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49148341/

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Excerpt from My Bonds in Thee chapter 8:

The world ended here just a few days ago. His world. He's not sure he feels good about returning, but Gabriel got one thing right (one damned thing in his damned smug damned charmed damned bloody Supreme existence). Home is wherever the heart is. And Crowley's already given his to Aziraphale. That's like Armageddon: You don't get a do-over when it goes pear-shaped. Push on, then.

Crowley scratches his head through the cloth of the hood, relieved to feel that he still has hair.

"How, um, deviant are we thinking? I mean," he gestures to the spiral staircase, upstairs, shocked to feel his cheeks and ears getting hot. "Physically?"

Aziraphale freezes while putting the front door keys into the top drawer of the desk. He clears his throat lightly and composes his features into his usual expression of placid warmth.

"If you can't choose your form, my dear," he says, with a facade of ease that Crowley really admires under the circumstances, "I'd say, 'very'. Not that one knows much about these matters, being an angel." He closes the drawer, slowly, and turns around. "Were you, um, hoping to find out now?"

Crowley pictures Aziraphale in Eden, hastily turning his back on Adam and Eve with a shocked little huff when they figured out what all the naked bits were for.

He still wonders what would've happened if he hadn't tempted Eve to try the bloody fruit. Suppose he'd seduced an angel instead—whispered visceral temptation in that innocent ear and stroked that sweet, soft, angelic hair until Aziraphale shivered and dropped his flaming sword?

That would've looked great in Genesis.

"One doesn't bloody know," he says, throwing himself lengthways onto the couch in a dramatic sprawl. "And one would like a bloody big drink now."

Aziraphale brings him a small drink, a careful measure of Scotch, but he has the decency to bring the bottle too.

For a moment, the angel hesitates about where to sit. Crowley sees the moment when Aziraphale remembers the park, the water's edge, and their kiss. It softens his whole face with wonder and quiet joy. This in turn makes Crowley stop breathing. He pats the edge of the couch beside his hip, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Aziraphale sits there, flustered, and hands him the glass.

"Can we really do this?"

"It's too late to ask that now." Crowley's not sure of much right now, but he's clear on that. They can only move forward.

"No. I mean, the other thing. 'Pillar of salt time'."

"Oh." Crowley empties the whisky down his throat in one gulp. "I've no idea. Can we? It's not actually written down anywhere, is it? 'Thou shalt not have carnal knowledge of an angel stroke demon'?"

"Carnal knowledge," Aziraphale echoes fretfully. "Sounds very bad when you put it like that."

"You'd blush if I put it any other way."

"I'm already blushing. They call it 'making love'. The humans, I mean. That's nice. I like that one."

"I think we..." Frowning, Crowley tries to think it over. He's not supposed to be out of his mind with temptation. It's been his job to do that to other people. But the possibility of the two of them, more together than they're already together... "We can be anything we want. Any shape, I mean. So I guess we can find one that, you know." He gestures vaguely with his glass, unwilling to sully the idea with what Aziraphale would call 'vulgar language', "Works," he finishes, awkwardly.

"Do snakes, um..."

"Don't go there."

"I'm a bit worried that we could accidentally destroy each other," Aziraphale admits. "With carnal knowledge."

"According to most humans, it's one hell of a way to go."

"Oh." Aziraphale bites his bottom lip. Crowley holds up his empty glass with a meaningful nod. Aziraphale ignores it, instead putting the whisky bottle down on the floor. "It's worrying me," he confesses, almost whispering. "I know nothing worries you, but—"

"You think that?"

"What?"

"That nothing worries me?"

"Well..."

"I'm terrified." Crowley slaps a hand to his chest as evidence of his thundering heart. "I'm absolutely scared out of my mind. Hence the empty glass," he adds, meaningfully. "I don't have the answers, Angel. I'm not sure I even know the questions."

Aziraphale takes the glass out of his hand and puts it down next to the bottle with a tidy little 'chink'. Crowley watches it go with a tiny pang of grief, the hint of a pout.

"I had no idea. I'm sorry." He lays his hand on top of Crowley's with slow care. "I assumed again. That you'd— Being a demon, with all the temptations and everything..." It tails off as the merest hint of a question.

Crowley wrinkles his nose.

"Humans?"

"Yes."

"Ugh. No. It was my job to get them doing it to each other without, you know. The love bit. Selfishly. Destructively. Unadulterated lust. Except when it's adultery, I suppose. Does that adulterate it? Does it get cancelled out if it's adultery but they love each other? Or if they love each other but do it selfishly? There's a few decades of temptation time I'll never get back."

Crowley realises he's babbling and stops.

"I see." Aziraphale's fingers curl around Crowley's unresisting hand, fingertips brushing his chest. Even through two layers of clothing, the sensation makes Crowley's toes curl. "And how exactly does one tempt a human to succumb to the flesh?"

"Uh..." Crowley blows out his cheeks. It's been a while. His temptations, halfhearted anyway, have been on a larger scale since the Industrial Revolution. Whole populations, technology, not furtive couples. "Well, you know. Rainstorms, shelter together under an awning, Jane Austen's balls. That sort of thing. They look uncertainly into each other's eyes, go in for the big, climactic kiss and... and Bob's your uncle. Carnal knowledge all over the sho—place." He fidgets uncomfortably, suddenly regretting the way he draped a nonchalant leg over the far arm of the couch. He's exposed everything, and Aziraphale is looking uncertainly into his eyes. His sunglasses, anyway. "It's programmed in for them. Some of them. A lot of them."

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, making a devastatingly unsuccessful attempt to look naughty. "Take off your glasses. I can't kiss you if you're not looking at me."

Never, never, in the thousands of years since he invented the bloody things, has it taken Crowley so many agonising eternities to snatch the stupid bits of glass and wire from his nose.

Aziraphale plants a hand on either side of Crowley's shoulders and bends swiftly, pecking him on the lips and—Crowley gulps—chuckling in the back of his throat. It's a deep sound. It's the sexy, evil twin of Aziraphale's guilty, nervous titter.

"Oh, God," Crowley mumbles, kissing upwards, like it's programmed in. "If this doesn't work—" kiss, "—we'll be cringin—" kiss, "—cringing about it 'til mumnff—" kiss, open mouths, a shared gasp, "'til the heat death of the universe."

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