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Chapter Text

“You coming?” asks the man from the shadows of the stone archway. In the hour that Aziraphale has been loitering in the public square, he’s watched this confusingly attractive and lecherous individual usher a dozen men of various ages and physiques through. Now the Roman raises a dark eyebrow and gives him a lascivious smirk. “Or you going?”

Aziraphale purses his lips and steels himself. He knows Crowley is inside, likely fomenting sin of one sort or another, but he really does need to see him. He had hoped, honestly, that Crowley would have emerged from the bathhouse by now and saved him this decision.

“’Cause we don’t really allow for gossip, or jealous partners,” the man adds, straightening up and placing his hands on his hips in a vaguely threatening display of his statuesque figure.

“Right then,” Aziraphale says. “I’d like one ticket to the bathhouse, please.”

That man arches an eyebrow. “Three pieces of silver and you can stay as long as you like.”

Aziraphale miracles the coins into the fold in his toga that serves as a pocket, then fishes them out with a flourish and pays.

He goes to enter, but a hand on his chest stops him. “And it’s another piece of silver for towels, wine, incidentals .”

Aziraphale is not at all convinced that that’s right, but he rolls his eyes at the inconvenience and miracles up another coin. He hands it over and then pushes past without waiting.

Beyond the archway is a cobblestone path that turns sharply to the right, continues for a few paces, and then doglegs back to the left. It’s almost claustrophobic how high the stone walls rise on either side and how narrow the path is, and it’s made worse by another closed wooden door immediately in front of him. He can hear the splash of water and the men beyond though, and it prickles the hair on the back of his neck.

As he opens and steps through the door, the main room of the baths lies before him; Aziraphale quickly takes in the scene, finding things approximately as expected.

The space spreads out as a large open-aired courtyard with high walls on all sides. The intricately patterned mosaic – smooth tiles of terracotta and cream and cerulean – that covers the floor is wet in places, but the grout holding all the little pieces together keeps Aziraphale steady on his feet as he moves inside and then purposefully towards a corner to survey the space.

There are vines being encouraged to grow up the walls in some places, and all of the room’s focus is on the pair of large close-to-circular baths, each more than a dozen feet across, that take up the majority of the courtyard. From previous experience, Aziraphale knows one will be hot and the other more tepid.

There are another four doors and a pair of archways to Aziraphale’s left and right, and at the opposite end of the courtyard, there’s an archway large enough to drive a chariot through. Beyond that there appears to be a couple of smaller baths laid into the ground, and more shadows because the room is covered by a wooden roof. Surrounding the main baths, the walls have stone tables and benches pushed up against them, baskets of fruit and bread and flasks of wine arranged there. There are stacks of clean plush towels as well as dropped, wet, used ones, collections of red velvet cushions and blankets and smaller cloths. And some of these have also been used to dry off and are strewn on the stone floor, laying amongst the discarded togas and sandals.

Also strewn about the place, are men, perhaps twenty or thirty, but Aziraphale can’t quite think how to count them. They are moving, often together, and very naked, for the most part.

It is an orgy, after all, so Aziraphale expected this. But his cheeks pinken nonetheless as he locks eyes with a basket of apples and tries to sense Crowley out, to catch a flicker of flame red hair without having to look too long at all the bared and tempting human flesh.

His eyes flick from the apples across the room, searching Crowley out. Aziraphale instead finds himself taking in a trio of younger men, all built like Adonis with rippling chests and veins bulging in their necks and biceps. They’re waist deep in the baths, perched on the shelf that runs along one side. Two of them are kissing, deep enough that Aziraphale can see the rolling pinks of their tongues, the shine of spit – passionate enough that he can hear the suck of their lips and moans reverberating around the chamber.

There are other men, closer to the edges, also watching them.

The man in the middle has his arms spread out behind the others’ backs, but the two either side of him, they have their hands under the water. And the water is so clear, Aziraphale can see exactly who has which hand on which cock, stroking away and making the water shift but never splash, perhaps being careful not to ruin the show.

Aziraphale can’t help but be affected by it; four millennia on earth and he has learned of beauty and pleasure without even trying. Understanding the human desire for it had come easily to Aziraphale. While Socrates and then Plato and then Aristotle debated and ranted, slowly chipping away at describing ethical hedonism, Aziraphale seemed to know it intrinsically. He sat off to the side through hundreds of years in Ancient Greece just listening.

But that was for humans, and he was an angel, so he remained uncertain about the apparent ease with which his earthly corporation seemed desperately hedonistic. It probably didn’t help that Crowley had been the one to teach him one of the first lessons. He wasn’t meant to learn from the universe’s original teacher, being that Crowley was the enemy and that his previous, infamous lesson had been the unleashing of all sin on humanity. Ox ribs and taste and the feeling of sated fullness are secrets he held onto and thought on for two millennia and then whispered as a fable into Homer’s ear. The discovery of debauched wanting and just how well that could be satisfied with enjoyment.

So he partook in earthly pleasures now, if only because he enjoyed them and they did not detract from his ability to be emissary to God’s favourite planet. They weren’t necessarily for him, but he was meant to relate to the humans around him, and he was a master rationaliser, given the right circumstances. 

This meant that when he saw three handsome, enamoured individuals, enjoying their pleasure, exchanging it, displaying it, he felt it deep in his belly, and it made his cock twitch.

But he is here for Crowley, for business, so he tries to will his corporation calm.

The man in the centre of the trio turns his lips to the other side, starting up another deep, decadent kiss while the mouth he’s left behind drops to bite at his shoulder. Aziraphale stares, and the man in the middle opens his eyes and stares back as he kisses his lover. Aziraphale can see the smile on his lips, the flutter of the man’s eyelashes before he winks and then closes his eyes again and surrenders to it.

Not everyone in the bathhouse is so amorously involved. There’s an older gentleman, still in his toga, dangling his feet in the water with his head tipped back to the ceiling. He doesn’t even seem to be watching, although surely he can hear the slap of skin, the grunts and breathless moans, that suffuse the humid air. There’s another younger man, sitting on the edge of a bench, eyes flicking about the place, taking it all in, but gripping the stone either side of him like he’s on a cliff’s edge. In the bath closest to him, there’s a trio of blondes talking animatedly and rather loudly about the most recent tournament. 

Aziraphale sticks close to the wall and moves slowly through the room, heading towards the back.

There’s another pair of Romans on one of the benches playing some sort of game with polished stones and board, sharing a plate of bread and cheese. And there’s a rather hilarious story being told off to the side, although both the teller and those listening, waist deep in the water, are all naked and in various states of arousal.

There’s a cherubic young brunette being fucked into the wall, held up easily with strong arms under his thighs and Aziraphale can see the splitting thickness of the cock thrusting him mercilessly up against the stones. The persistent whines make it clear the young man is enjoying himself.

There’s a pair delivering a blowjob in the archway on the other side, both kneeling on cushions, skin flushed with sweat that they’ll clean off in the water, a hand in each of their hair as they work their own cocks and kiss around the length of hard flesh between them.

In the end, he recognises Crowley by his laugh: low and gravelly, but genuine. His hair’s much darker when it’s wet. He’s close to the back edge of the second bath, the hotter one, Aziraphale guesses, judging by the slick of steam shimmering over the liquid. He’s slid down on a low submerged bench so that the water’s lapping at his shoulders.

It suddenly occurs to Aziraphale that he could have found Crowley here in flagrante delicto – plenty of others are. The thought crosses his mind like it’s been scratching to get out of a sealed box, and he only has a moment to unpack it, turn it over, and then push it back somewhere locked away.

Thankfully, Crowley’s being entertained more simply, by a man lying flat on his belly across the floor behind him, a towel covering his buttocks, as he leans close to Crowley’s ear and speaks in hushed whispers. He’s got his fingertips buried in Crowley’s dark hair, half of it amassed in a bun and the rest hanging loose to his shoulders, as he massages Crowley’s scalp. The interloper has white blonde hair drawn back in long curls tied off at the nape of his neck, he looks middle-aged, stocky, the slopes of his back and arse broad and supple.

The blonde says something else that makes Crowley tip his head back and laugh, and the man tightens his fingers in Crowley’s hair, tipping his face back further so he can lean forward and over him, bite at the angle of his jaw from above and then draw back to dangle a bunch of green grapes over his lips.

Crowley plucks one with his teeth and slides back into the water, so that it laps at his chin as he chews. He sees Aziraphale suddenly, surprise making his bright yellow eyes go wide and then his lips smile around the last of the grape juice and he arches an eyebrow.

“Aziraphale!” he says, voice warm and drawled as though the baths and whatever else he’s been up to here have him relaxed, perhaps even sated.

As Aziraphale shuffles past another amorously engaged couple and crosses to stand a few feet from Crowley, he can’t stop himself from dropping his gaze to the water. It is the hotter bath, he concludes, the water less clear with steam and microscopic disturbances of heat bubbling up, all of it fed by the hot springs. But he can still see that Crowley is naked, can see the way he’s sprawled low in the water, legs spread wide so that his thighs appear broader, stronger than Aziraphale expected. And between them through the refraction and shimmer of the water, the outline of his cock, large, hard looking, aroused and full of blood and –

“Aziraphale?” Crowley calls again and the angel feels the blood shift into his cheeks. “What on earth are you doing here?”

The blonde behind Crowley has moved back a little and is resting his chin on his folded arms, watching Aziraphale with pale blue eyes.

“Oh, I’m a regular,” Aziraphale reveals, hoping it’s convincing. “Nothing more pleasant than a warm bath.”

That statement happens to coincide with a particularly loud pair of climaxes at the other end of the pools, a growl that shifts into a howl and then keening whines of “Yes, yes, yes, gods, yes, yessss !”

Crowley lets his gaze shift and linger in the direction of the exaltation, but Aziraphale doesn’t turn around to look. When Crowley shifts his gaze back to Aziraphale, the demon is grinning and dropping his hand into the water, making Aziraphale watch the overly distorted visual of Crowley wrapping his fingers around his cock and giving it a half dozen slow strokes. It still looks big, heavy, but at least it doesn’t grow, or become any clearer through the water. Crowley’s arched eyebrow asks whether Aziraphale objects and Aziraphale’s shake of his head and batting of his eyelashes says that he doesn’t. 

“You’ll join me and Decimus, then, if you’re a regular?”

The blonde – Decimus – raises an eyebrow to match Crowley’s and he looks Aziraphale up and down, seemingly genuinely hopeful.  

Aziraphale bristles, although he’s not prepared to think too much about why. “I prefer one on one activities.”

Crowley stares at him for several long seconds, his expression unreadable and Aziraphale hopes he can guess that this is business.

Without breaking eye-contact, Crowley says, “’s been nice, Decimus, time for you to move along.”

Decimus’s face falls. “But – “

“Aziraphale and I go way back, you understand.”

Although he still seems displeased, Decimus pushes himself up on his hands and then onto his knees, he huffs out a sigh as Aziraphale fails to stop himself from looking at the impressive erection hanging heavy and unsatisfied between his legs.

Crowley doesn’t seem to notice. Decimus grabs up his towel which has fallen to the stone, wraps it around his hips and disappears through a door.

“The water’s lovely, Aziraphale, I take it you’ve just arrived?” Crowley says, sweeping his gaze down over the toga, all the way to his sandals, before casting his eyes back up, slower than would be appropriate anywhere else.

Aziraphale gives a nod and clasps his hands together in front of him, tugging on his own fingers and entirely unsure of how to proceed from here. What is he even doing here? Business, work… consorting with the enemy, if he’s honest.

The uncertainty makes him tilt his chin up, automatically defensive. “I’m sure you don’t actually expect an angel of heaven to sully himself.”

“You’ve just chased off my companion, the least you can do is join me. Completely innocent, angel, promise,” Crowley says and Aziraphale suspects it’s a lie. “It’s a bathhouse, you are kind of expected to bathe.”

“It’s an orgy ,” Aziraphale says, sounding appropriately scandalised.

“Yeah,” Crowley agrees, “But you don’t have to fuck.” He presents his palms on the surface of the water, palms up. “Cicero’s never once gotten involved,” he says and nods towards the plump naked gentleman sprawled staring up at the sky from a bench.

There’s another orgasm, a wiry individual kneeling with his back to them on the other side of the cavernous bath. He’s clearly engrossed in watching something more entertaining occurring in the other pool, but both Crowley and Aziraphale’s attention is drawn when he suddenly moans and spasms, curling in on himself, hunching over the lip of the bath, panting and grunting as he very clearly comes into his own hand and the water Crowley’s sitting in.

Something must show on Aziraphale’s face and however Crowley interprets it, he slips down into the water, letting his mouth and nose slip under in a playful, filthy display. He reemerges, teeth bared in a toothy grin as the water that he’d allowed to flood his mouth dribbles back into the pool.

Aziraphale wrinkles his nose because it is rather disgusting: the unkempt, shared nature of the place, the anonymity and the filth that some of the men have blatantly walked into the bathhouse. “You’re clearly in your element,” he accuses with more bite than intended.

Crowley considers him. Then, all too carefully, he says, “Not really. Not much evil to foment, if I’m honest. All far too steeped in pleasure and affection to be properly sinful. Nothing abusive or non-consensual so it’s not really evil.” He pauses and drops his gaze to survey the fornication happening around them; somewhere, someone moans, and from a similar direction, there’s a giggle that ends with a gasp. Crowley looks back to Aziraphale, “Funny, I’ve heard so many rumours that all of this is going to be determined abominable, the very worst sin around, any day now.”

“What?” Aziraphale hasn’t heard that and immediately wonders if it’s a plan from Hell, or a trick from Crowley.

“Yup. That was the whole original sin, wasn’t it?” he asks and they’ve already had far too many drunk conversations about this, so it’s not even worth pretending that they have the foggiest idea about exactly what original sin was… other than fruit and knowing and bad – well, bad according to Heaven and Hell and God. Supposedly.

“The humans discovered nudity and sex and got it in their heads that it was all terribly shameful. So of course they’re going to eventually start punishing each other for it,” Crowley explains.

“But for… this.” Aziraphale looks around and, besides some of the more unpleasant smells, textures, and general dirtiness of certain individuals, he sees nothing wrong with it. Pleasure and enjoyment are not for the angels, but the hedonistic lifestyle… he’d thought that for humans that might be entirely the point of living. After following the will of God, of course.

Crowley shrugs. “Reckon what’s coming is gonna be the trigger for a whole lot of shame and hatred and evil,” he says, and his lips quirk down before he stops himself and forces a gleeful grin. “ Then I’ll be in my element.”

Aziraphale resists the urge to apologise, and then another man appears: middle-aged, blonde and tanned, with deep lines etched into his face and neck from a life of working in the sun. “May I join you?” he asks Crowley, ignoring Aziraphale.

Crowley looks disinterested. “Party for two, I’m afraid,’ he says, tilting his head to where Aziraphale is still fully clothed and fidgeting.

When the Roman is gone, Crowley says again, “Get in the bath, Aziraphale, you’re drawing attention.”

Aziraphale still hesitates, not at all keen to sink his corporation down into water occupied by goodness knows how many individuals and their accompanying bodily fluids. He’s not averse to it intrinsically, but the crowd of the bath makes his shoulders uncomfortably tense.

Crowley sighs, tilts his head back and then sits up straight for the first time. The water streams over his shoulders, revealing pale and freckled skin, lithe but strong with cords of muscles defining his neck, the gaps behind his clavicles catching little pools of water in them. “Surely you came here to get wet,” he says, loudly, drawing the looks of a few nearby. “Why else would you have come ?” he wraps his lips and teeth around the word like he wants to swallow it.

Steeling himself, Aziraphale plays his part. “Of course I came to bathe, I just didn’t realise it would be so busy. And obviously I had no idea such evil fornications would be occurring, otherwise Heaven would never permit me to be here.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes so violently as he says what is necessary to toe the party line, that Crowley laughs, head tilting back, his half-loose hair dripping water onto the ledge. “In you get, then.”

Scrunching his face up again, Aziraphale tries a different tact. “Perhaps we could go somewhere more private? Off to the side?”

Crowley rises all too quickly and Aziraphale is unprepared for the vision of him, standing dripping a couple of feet into the pool, the water coming up to mid-cock, to near where the lower curve of his arse transitions into thigh. He’s still halfway to hard, the heavy flesh between his legs hanging thick and lewd. His body is more pale skin and gentle curves and crevices of ribs and hips and an unexpectedly soft-looking belly and chest. The muscles beneath are evident, but the skin looks wet and warm and inviting. There’s dark hair across his chest, all the way down around his navel and then thick at the base of his cock.

Aziraphale drinks it in and then looks away deliberately as Crowley steps up onto the shelf and then out of the bath. When Aziraphale looks back, determined not to let his gaze slip again, Crowley’s grin is lascivious and knowing.

“You don’t like the water?” he asks, making no effort to reach for a towel. He bends and Aziraphale absolutely doesn’t look at the long lines of him bent double as he plucks the bunch of grapes from the plate still down on the stones and pops two in his mouth. Crowley rolls them around on his tongue before biting down.

“I don’t entirely like what’s in the water. You don’t know where they’ve been,” he says primly and hopes he can convince Crowley to come sit by the side.

Crowley barks out a laugh. “You’re an angel, miracle it clean!”

Aziraphale wrinkles his nose again at that and scrambles. “I couldn’t possibly,” he says. “I’d still know it used to be there. And, besides, too many frivolous miracles,” and that’s true, he has been reprimanded, but that’s been a note on his file for about 1400 years. “Head office is keeping tighter tabs on what we get up to and I suspect miracling water clean at an orgy might raise a few red flags.”

Crowley grins and raises his hand, fingers poised in an upside down click, “You only have to ask – “

Aziraphale closes his hand over Crowley’s and ignores how it feels wet and hot, sparking with electricity. “It’ll only get dirty again.” He looks sideways at the wiry man who’s now snoring lightly with his head on his hands, still half submerged in the water.

Crowley huffs and casts his eyes about. They settle on the room at the back and there’s something devious, a proper streak of mischief there for the first time. “What about over there?”

Aziraphale looks and takes a few steps in that direction, moving towards the broad archway and sensing Crowley following him. There are indeed four small square baths set in the corners of the equally large second bathing room. There are shadows and candles and only one of the smaller baths is occupied. It’s a pair of men, they must be in their sixties, grey haired and their shoulders freckled and scarred. They’re entirely wrapped up in each other, a tight embrace as they kiss and rock, one wrapped around the other as he stands in the centre of the pool.

Aziraphale fails to find a reason to say no and eventually Crowley moves past him, sure steps to the back corner bath, opposite to the one that’s currently occupied and once there he makes sure Aziraphale sees him snap his fingers. He even adds a flourish of an electrical crackle across the water’s surface, to make sure Aziraphale knows.

“Glacial water, freshly collected from a lovely place in a far off place that they’ll eventually, very inventively, call Iceland. Clean as can be.”

Aziraphale toes off his sandals at the edge automatically and dips a toe in, expecting to find it ice cold, but it’s hot, warmer than his skin and the steam is already making him sweat.

Crowley descends into the water easily, a gentle hiss escaping him as he steps down onto the submerged ledge and then another step into the depth at the middel. It’s deeper than the previous pool, as well, and the water goes up to his chest before he flops easily down and under, fully submerged for a second before he surfaces, the water sluicing off him. He shakes his head and droplets spray the bottom of Aziraphale’s toga.

“No excuse now, angel,” he says and when Aziraphale doesn’t come immediately, he challenges, “Don’t tell me you’re ashamed of your God-given earthly corporation?”

Aziraphale grumbles. Because he is not. He knows what this body can do, knows the pleasures it can experience and what it can bring about in others. He rather likes it entirely. But the idea of Crowley, the fiendish, brazen demon, looking upon him, judging him, makes him squirm. It’s not quite shame or fear, more expectation and uncertainty.

“I’m here to discuss work,” he blurts out and Crowley dips under again, splashing to the surface and shaking out his hair once more. New, dark tendrils escape the loosely tied bun.

“Then get in and we can discuss work.”

It’s a fair bargain, Aziraphale rationalises. And he has nothing to be ashamed about. He’s only a little bit hard and that’s a perfectly natural reaction for a corporation surrounded by so many sounds and smells and sights of sex. Although he guesses none of this is, strictly speaking, procreational.

He unfastens the belt around his middle and sets it to the side on a stone bench and then pulls the pins from the clasp near the side of his throat. It sets the shoulder of the garment free and it drops to reveal half of his chest and the top swell of his belly.

Unexpectedly, Crowley interjects, “See, one of God’s finest, alabaster skin and everything.”

Aziraphale can’t quite pinpoint the jibe in that and so he continues undressing as if Crowley hadn’t said anything at all. He pushes the fold of material off over his other shoulder and gravity goes the rest, pooling the yards of fine cotton at his feet. Then he’s standing there naked and he hears Crowley whistle as he lets out a long breath.

He’s sizing him up for some reason, for taunts, perhaps, although that doesn’t seem like him. “Absolutely gorgeous,” is what the demon says instead. “Probably best you didn’t disrobe out there; you’d have been mobbed.”

Aziraphale huffs and half-crouches awkwardly to gather up the puddle of material and place it on top of the belt, before sliding his sandals over with his foot. He looks down at himself and feels the blood rush to his face, he’s sweating from the sun and the heat of the pools, his chest hair tangled into tufts from a long day out in the streets encouraging divinity.

Suddenly the water is entirely inviting.

He steps forward, over the edge and finds the drop down to the shelf Crowley’s sitting on deeper than expected. Crowley’s hand catches him by the forearm, long fingers curling up towards his elbow and the strength steadying him.

Before he can stop himself, he gives a lopsided smile and squeezes his hand in thanks where it’s come to rest around Crowley’s forearm. Then he pulls it back and steps further to the side, slipping into the pool properly, letting his legs give out a moment after they’ve touched the bottom so he can float with the surface lapping at his neck.

“Stay back, demon,” he says without any venom at all.

It’s a familiar exchange but not one they’ve had naked in a bathhouse before. Crowley raises his eyebrows and offers a quick shake of his head in absolution.

Aziraphale eventually settles on the ledge around the corner from Crowley, close enough to speak in hushed tones but certainly not close enough for anyone to suspect anything untoward. Not that it would be untoward in this setting.

“The water alright?” Crowley asks after several long moments of just looking at each other. Aziraphale isn’t sure what he means so Crowley explains, “The cleanliness? Temperature? There’s some extra salts.”

“Why are there extra salts?”

For a moment, Aziraphale thinks Crowley looks like he’s been caught up to no good, or good, in fact; he seems guilty and he looks a little redder. Although that could just be his hair starting to dry, or the shadows being cast by the large candles set up and flickering in the corners.

“Makes you more buoyant, ‘s fun. And good for your skin,” he says.

“Hmm,” Aziraphale hums and gives an experimental wiggle. He thinks maybe he’s just imagining it but he does seem to float more easily. Crowley seems to be waiting for more of a response. “It’s lovely.” He stops himself from saying thank you.

“Now,” Crowley continues, “Business?”

Aziraphale’s eyes go wide as he remembers why he’s supposedly here and he nods, leaning in. “Have you heard what they’re planning?”

“Your side or mine?”

“Both.”

***

It turns out Crowley has never heard of Jesus, the human son of God, set to be born in a few decades’ time, only to die at the hands of man to absolve their sins or… something. Aziraphale has read all the memos and explains it just as well as Gabriel does, but Crowley just gets angrier and angrier and has several questions Aziraphale can’t provide answers to:

“What exactly is this meant to teach them?”

“What about the boy? Jesus? He just dies in agony? Abandoned?”

“Wait… so God and Jesus, the son of God, are the one and the same… but they’re not.”

Eventually Aziraphale whines out, “ I don’t know! ” tips himself forward from the bench and submerges himself fully in the depths of the pool until his lungs are screaming at him to find oxygen. He forces his eyes open and is faced only with the vision of Crowley’s legs, one extended towards him, long toes wriggling at the end, the other crooked at the knee, resting up on the bench. He can see the weight of his balls and the thickness of his hair, and his entirely flaccid cock, now far less intimidating in size, resting against his thigh.

He’s not entirely here for business, he admits, very quietly, and only to himself.

Aziraphale rises out of the water, spluttering for breath.

Crowley fixes him with a hard stare, calculating, amber yellow and flickering in candlelight all the way to the edges. “Is this the big one?” he asks.

“The big one?” Aziraphale asks and then coughs, pushing back into his seat, drawing his legs up to sit cross-legged with his hands hovering demurely over his crotch.

“Armageddon?”

Aziraphale isn’t sure. “I don’t think so.”

“We let it play then, what else is there to do?”

“ We don’t do anything,” Aziraphale reminds him.

Crowley pulls a face and flicks water at him with his index finger; Aziraphale can’t stop the smile that belies a level of trust that really shouldn’t exist. He says the thing he’s been needing to say since he found Crowley. “I can’t protect him, this Jesus fellow.”

“You think I can?”

“You could be there for him. This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

Crowley considers. “You aren’t worried about my demonic influence? That could really derail heaven’s plans.”

“He’s going to be brutally murdered and set in motion millennia of religious turmoil,” Aziraphale counters.  

“No more orgies,” Crowley offers a tenuous link back to the present, but his soft smile says he understands the directive.

Whatever Aziraphale’s about to say is interrupted by the sudden splash of bodies joining them in the bath. So engaged in their conversation, it comes as a surprise to both as they turn to find three men, standing on the submerged bench, with the water lapping at their knees. They’re all dark in colouring, two of them bearded and one with long hair curled down to the small of his back.

They’re naked and aroused, and it’s an array of erections Aziraphale might find intriguing at some other time. On the left, slim and on the smaller side, but twitching and curved up to almost run vertical against sculpted abs. In the middle, more hair than Aziraphale cares for, and more girth, as thick as his wrist and that would be a challenge, but short and hanging heavy, the weight dragging it down even as it’s clearly engorged. And then the third, longer and curved to the left rather prominently, the reddest of the three, and jutting. They’re all presented suddenly at eye level, two of them being tugged and gripped by hands not belonging to their owners.

Crowley lets out a tired sigh.

“You two seemed lonely over here on your own,” the Roman with the long curly hair says. “Thought we’d join you.”

“No, actually,” Crowley says immediately. “We’re rather fine by ourselves.”

“Not really in the spirit of things,” the man with the smaller cock says, indicating the muffled sounds of sex beyond the archway.

“Each their own,” Crowley shrugs, “But we’re fine.”

“Sure we can’t tempt you,” the long-haired ringleader says, flicking his eyes to Aziraphale. “Seems a waste not to fuck one so brazenly beautiful.”

Crowley scowls. “Not sure how it’s brazen of him,” he says. “But no, not interested.”

The three men exchange glances and Aziraphale wonders what they are, if anything, to each other outside the baths. Finally, the man that has done most of the talking shrugs, looks down through the water at Aziraphale’s crossed legs and crotch, and then turns and steps back out. “Shame,” he says as one of his lovers turns and follows him.

The third, however, lingers, eyes focussed on Aziraphale’s face, darting to Crowley only to check in on his reactions to his defiance. “Too much of a shame,” he says and reaches out too quick to stop, running a hand down the side of Aziraphale’s face, over his cheek and a thumb over his lips. Aziraphale is shocked dumb and for a moment the stranger’s hand dips and grabs a handful of his chest, only a fleeting touch, more embarrassing in Aziraphale’s slow reflexes than anything else and then it’s gone.

There’s a high-pitched yelp and Crowley’s between them, standing in the depth of the pool with the man’s arm jammed up between them, his wrist at an awkward angle. Crowley’s grip is tight, but not forcing more; it’s the Roman’s twists and attempts to escape that are making him wince and yelp in pain. He whimpers as Crowley snarls and Aziraphale senses the shiver of dark wings unfurling on a plane of existence not too far from the one they’re currently inhabiting.

“We said no,” Crowley says, voice low, quiet, as eyes from the other baths turn to determine the cause of the splashing and yelps. He bares his teeth and his canines are just slightly longer, his eyes brighter, and the otherworldly power and threat sneaks through and terrifies the man to his core. 

Crowley relents but keeps him there, held in his grip. There’s something wicked and relentless about Crowley’s demeanour in that moment, unforgiving and enjoying the instantaneous loss of bravado as the Roman scrambles to repent all too late.

“Apologise,” Crowley demands.

“I’m sorry,” he whines and tries, uselessly, to twist his arm free.

“Not to me, to him,” Crowley presses his thumb into the underside of his wrist, even that simple touch, making the man turn and shake, presented to Aziraphale like a gift.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t – ”

“Enough,” Crowley snaps.

Aziraphale doesn’t think he’s trying to hurt him, rather he can see that Crowley is just trying to scare him. If he wanted to hurt him, the man would be in agony and it would last an age. Still, it’s unforgivable that the display snakes through Aziraphale’s nerves with some sort of fire, with admiration and affection that he can never acknowledge but that settles under his skin and deep within his bones like sticky, everlasting honey. He can fend for himself, but this is Crowley’s reflex, to defend him to the point of benign demonic. It makes Aziraphale’s skin prickle and the water feel too hot, makes his thighs tense up as his cock fills with blood, and he does his best to ignore it.

“Let him go,” Aziraphale says, managing to sound mildly unimpressed when he’s entirely the opposite.

Crowley does, instantly, and the man scrambles to the other side of the bath, pushing his hair from his eyes and muttering to himself. He’s red in the face, his cock deflated, but as he steps out of the bath, the eyes of all the men closest to them through the archway are watching. Crowley hisses, low in his throat, though none of them can hear it and then he settles back on the ledge far closer to Aziraphale, an arm elongated against the stone behind his shoulders, although it’s barely touching, and Crowley’s hand hangs limp beside Aziraphale’s opposite bicep.

“To keep from being interrupted again,” Crowley explains.

The enquiring eyes turn away but Crowley remains tense beside him. It’s that thought that makes Aziraphale aware that they’re touching elsewhere, that Crowley’s thigh is pressed to the side of his, that he can feel the ridges of his ribs against the side of his rounder chest and belly.

And Aziraphale is still half-hard between his legs, not entirely surprising given the display of Crowley’s strength, of something like possessiveness, but embarrassing in his complete inability to hide it. When he realises Crowley is staring down between his legs, the water returning to stillness after the frantic splashing of their unsavoury encounter, and that he can see it, Aziraphale holds his breath.

Of course, Aziraphale could miracle it away, he could leave: their business is done – and really, was ‘Forty years from now, it begins!’ really the urgent update Aziraphale made it out to be. Particularly when he was scheduled to meet Crowley for dinner just next week.

No, coming here was foolish, a complete mistake, triggered by curiosity and boredom, jealousy  and the seduction of earthly pleasures that he is not designed to partake in. But, oh, he enjoys them.

Crowley exhales and it’s shaky, he’s about to speak when he brings his arm from behind Aziraphale’s shoulders and suddenly sinks down into the water, spine going sinuous as he slips until he’s stretched out, his chin close to the surface, ducked behind Aziraphale’s bicep.

“Fuckkk,” slips from his lips in a whisper instead.

The hairs on the back of Aziraphale’s neck, wet with sweat and condensation, do their best to stand on end at the note of concern in Crowley’s voice and he cranes to look for the new threat. He sees nothing except Romans and their orgy, but Crowley stays low, the side of his arse now pressed into Aziraphale’s thigh, the closeness stronger as – it seems – Crowley tries to hide himself from the main chamber’s view.

“What is it?” Aziraphale asks, immediacy trumping the temptation to take precious seconds to enjoy the press of warm, smooth skin to his.

“Hastur,” Crowley whispers and the breath tickles Aziraphale’s elbow where Crowley’s turned into him. Even that goes straight to Aziraphale’s cock, though he staunchly ignores it. “A demon. What the fuck is he doing here?”

Aziraphale sweeps his gaze across the main chamber, searching out the new guests and he quickly realises who Crowley must mean: there’s an individual dripping with some sort of dark oil, it runs in thick greasy rivulets down his neck and his cheeks, it stains his toga, and men are already withdrawing, moving to the far ends of baths and the corners of the chamber.

“What is he doing here?” Aziraphale whispers back.

“No idea,” Crowley says. “But I can’t be caught here like this. Not with you . Hell won’t just tell me not to do it again.”

Hastur’s still far from them, lingering near the entrance, looming over humans who come too close and clearly asking questions no one wants to answer. He stalks to the table set up off to the side and sniffs at some bread before dropping it into the bath like some sort of deranged cat. Then he turns to scowl and survey the entire room.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck” Crowley says again at Aziraphale’s side.

“Could you not just… make him go away?” Aziraphale asks, more thrilled at what that might possibly look like than he cares to admit.

“Of course,” Crowley groans, “Piss-weasel like him, I could take him in a fight but then there’d be questions about what I was doing here, what the humans saw. Hell doesn’t like it when demons waste bodies bickering and even if Hastur doesn’t see me, my name might come up when Hell talks to the witnesses.” He goes very still. “So might yours.”

“No one knows me here.”

There’s a pause long enough that Aziraphale looks away from the demon to Crowley on his other side, to find him staring with an arched eyebrow and a smile about his lips. “Thought you were a regular?”

Aziraphale pulls a face and Crowley doesn’t push. “Doesn’t matter anyhow. Golden haired angel, thighs and arse to die for, hanging out with me? That’s enough of a description even for Hell to start making connections.”

Aziraphale breath catches in his throat. “The humans don’t know I’m an angel.”

“Nah, but I bet that’s what they’d call you anyway, look at you.”

Aziraphale swallows and tries to think of an appropriate response, it isn’t like Crowley hasn’t described him as angelic before, on multiple occasions, in fact, usually lightly mocking. But never in the same breath as telling him he has an arse and thighs to die for.

Hastur saunters a few feet towards them and then sets about poking a finger into the back of a man spread across the laps of two others.

“Fuck,” Crowley says once more, as though that’s his last defence. “You could smite him from existence for me, couldn’t you, angel?”

That’s not entirely new, either, dropping his name altogether and just calling him angel, but it still feels different here, pressed up against each other, a pet name that’s suddenly more tempting to read into, to bask in.

“No! I… I don’t think he’s here for you, he’s just…” They both watch, Crowley peeking out from behind Aziraphale’s arm. Hastur manages to snake a hand between three men and whatever he does makes them suddenly pull apart and abruptly there’s the sharp crack of a slap and the hasty departure of one member of the interrupted threesome. “He’s just causing trouble,” Aziraphale says.

“We should just keep very still, then,” Crowley breathes but he seems to have relaxed, the tension in his thigh and torso starting to melt away, Aziraphale can feel it. Then Crowley shifts away entirely, the coolness where there had been heat sending a jolt through Aziraphale that makes him want to lean back across and pull Crowley in against him. Instead, Crowley shifts to the corner of the bath, the best vantage point from which to watch the rest of the space and once again his hand falls to between his legs, stroking slowly, second nature, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Crowley’s eyes flit between Aziraphale and Hastur. They’re in shadows, they’re alone, in the back corner of the back bath, and the demon is clearly just jumping from human to human, sensing out weaknesses and poking at them, more often than not, quite literally. They watch Hastur grab a handful of someone’s arse and then he leans in and says something that makes the individual flee. Next he holds up his thumb and forefinger, an inch between them, tilts his head and laughs in the direction of another; the individual lands a punch to Hastur’s nose which makes him howl and in response, Aziraphale’s spine straightens in satisfaction.

Suddenly Crowley seems squarely focussed on Aziraphale again, his hand still working over where Aziraphale can guess he’s entirely hard once more. “A man on his own in the corner of the baths won’t be worth his time,” Crowley says, voice light, lilting, while his eyes bore into Aziraphale. “A pair of us, clearly otherwise engaged, and he wouldn’t suspect it could be me. Or that you could be you.”

It’s tenuous, contrived, but Aziraphale cannot believe Crowley’s gall. “Are you suggesting we – ”

Crowley crosses one leg over the other beneath the water. “Course not, just that we make ourselves minimally interesting to the demon.”

“Which would involve….”

“Come here.” He uncrosses his legs again. 

Aziraphale stares at him, his brow furrowed low as he tries to work him out. Crowley spreads himself in the corner of the bath, legs wide, thighs thick and angled outwards, impossibly long against the stone ledge as he keeps his arms under the water, hands moving in mirrors of each other, little circles, sending out ripples.

Aziraphale moves with more surety than he feels, crossing the bath in two steps to stand in front of him as he pointedly ignores his own half-hard cock. Crowley must be able to see it, surely, if he would just drop his gaze, instead of staring back into his eyes. “How do we avoid the demon?” Aziraphale asks, voice edged with breathlessness.

“Turn around,” Crowley tells him and he goes far more easily than any angel commanded by a denizen of Hell should.

Crowley’s hands close around his hips softly, just the tips of his fingers pressing into his flesh to test out the give, then guiding him down. Crowley’s breath heats up the back of Aziraphale’s neck and he’s whispering into his ear. “If you just sit here, and I slide down, he’ll barely even be able to see me. And if he does…” Crowley moves then, slips down behind him, sliding easily deeper into the water until his arse is perched on the edge of the deep curved corner of the shelf, his feet planted, his legs together beneath and between Aziraphale’s. He draws Aziraphale back into his lap. Aziraphale settles across Crowley’s thighs and then Crowley’s fingers set to work, encouraging, coaxing him to lean further back.

He doesn’t go so easily though, remaining perched, acutely aware of where his balls and cock seem to float between his spread legs, mere inches off the flesh of Crowley’s legs. He can feel the presence of Crowley’s cock behind his arse as well, and suddenly Aziraphale is entirely hard and throbbing with wanting: to rut, to fuck, to come.

Of course he is, he’s naked in a bath with another turned on attractive individual who, for all intents and purposes, also wants… something. It doesn’t matter that it’s Crowley, or rather it does, and Aziraphale is not ready to think about that. 

Hastur is still there, slowly emptying the bathhouse of its occupants.

“What will he see if he does look?” Aziraphale asks, breathless and resisting every impulse to press back and roll his hips.  

“Just two incorruptible lovers, not worth his time.”

It twists hot through him and Aziraphale arches, something small and needy escaping his lips in a way he’s never permitted himself to sound. Crowley’s fingers tighten reflexively, not pulling but following Aziraphale’s movement as he shifts back, seating himself more firmly in Crowley’s lap and allowing himself to feel the delicious hardness of Crowley’s cock caught behind his arse and Crowley’s stomach.

They sit like that for what feels like aeons, watching Hastur turning his attention on anyone who dares enter the baths and ineffectively taunting the old man near the bread in between. But eventually the sharp edge of the bench is jutting too uncomfortably into the backs of Aziraphale’s spread knees, and the decadence of Crowley’s unflagging erection against the small of his back is not enough. The temptation of friction, of movement, consumes him and Aziraphale shifts, trying to get the imprint of the stone edge away from his skin and the length of Crowley’s cock closer into the cleft of his arse.

Aziraphale’s wriggle draws a gasp and then, “ Angel! ”

Beneath the water, Aziraphale feels Crowley’s cock twitch and throb against his skin. “Uncomfortable?” Crowley stutters out, voice rough and cracking half way through the single word, making Aziraphale wonder just how turned on the demon must be. 

“Just my legs,” Aziraphale admits, he doesn’t say anything about the rest. Crowley’s hands drop further into the water, under Aziraphale’s thighs and the path they take catches fire, down beneath and around the strength of muscle Aziraphale has there, and then drawing them up, holding his weight in the water so his legs can float.

It makes him lean more of his weight back into Crowley, closing what little distance they had left.

After a long moment, punctuated by a shriek from a young gentleman that’s gotten too close to Hastur, Aziraphale asks, “Are you comfortable?”

“Not entirely,” Crowley says, rocking forward, the prominence of his cock and the way he moves it against Aziraphale propositioning before he puts words to it. “Would be much nicer inside you,” he says and his teeth click when he closes his mouth too quickly.

“We couldn’t possibly,” Aziraphale says, but he forgets to sound surprised, or scandalised, or anything but breathless. He’s already entertaining it, he’s been hard and desperate for touch, for friction, for several long minutes and it’s just pleasure, freely given and taken. And he trusts Crowley, if he can admit nothing else, Aziraphale can admit that. 

“I think you want it, too; I think you want my cock inside you,” Crowley breathes into his ear and after another beat he adds, “If it means staying hidden from Hastur.”

Aziraphale sees it for the flimsy excuse it is – they both do – but that’s beside the point. He does want it. He arches his back, pressing the round globes of his arse up against Crowley. Aziraphale feels the underside of Crowley’s hard length slip into the cleft of his arse, a ghost of friction carried through water stroking over his arsehole and making him bite down to stop from whining. Instead, “ Yes, ” drips from his lips before he can stop himself.

“Yes,” Crowley repeats, and his hands lose their passivity, at once tilting Aziraphale’s hips forward and pulling his arse back, sinking both of them down deeper into the water. Aziraphale arches and his head drops forward.

“You want my cock in you,” Crowley says. “Say it.”

Aziraphale’s eyes flutter and if he couldn’t feel how achingly hard Crowley was, he might have mistaken the request for an attempt to humiliate, instead he knows better. “Yes…” One of Crowley’s hands lets go of his hip and then he feels it pressing Crowley’s cock more snuggly into the small of his back. “Yes, I want you to fuck me.”

“Not what I was offering,” Crowley tells him, the hand left on Aziraphale’s hip gripping tighter and he fucks his cock up against the base of Aziraphale’s spine, Crowley’s own pressing palm controlling the friction. Crowley moans and sounds already lost to the sensation, so easily pulled under, but Aziraphale doesn’t know by what – by him, by being here? By the softness of his arse or the lewdness of the display that no one’s paying attention to.

“Just my cock in you,” Crowley tells him, voice breaking on a gasp as his hips stutter and Aziraphale has no idea how this escalated so quickly, but he knows he doesn’t want it to stop. “To stay hidden from Hastur. It’ll be more… be better, I promise. You want it.” And his hand drops ever so slowly, deliberate enough to be caught and thrown aside if Aziraphale wants to, but Aziraphale lets it wrap around the length of his own hard cock, tight and hotter than all the water around them, and stroke.

Aziraphale whines and Crowley has to immediately let go of his cock to close his dripping wet hand quickly around Aziraphale’s mouth, stifling the noise. “Not the best way to avoid Hastur,’ he says, voice laced with laughter and need; he’s still rocking his cock up against Aziraphale’s back. “And precisely why I can’t possibly fuck you… Yet.” Aziraphale gets his teeth around the meat of Crowley’s middle finger and bites down. He doesn’t expect Crowley to pull him sharply back with the hand over his mouth, the fleshy underside of two fingers spreading his lips wide as Crowley’s hips buck beneath him.

“Say it,” Crowley demands again.

“I want your cock in me.”

Crowley uses his knees to spread Aziraphale’s thighs even wider where he’s leaning back and still half floating in Crowley’s lap.

“Quick and easy,” Crowley tells him. “Penetration in water is tricky and the wrong kind of filthy even if it is from Iceland.”

Aziraphale bites down on telling him that he knows and then quickly forgets about the murkiness of their previous experience, or what they are even doing – because they should absolutely not be doing this. Crowley pulls hellish power up, harnessing it to shape and shift physics, to transform the water that spreads between them, so that the wetness behind Aziraphale’s balls and along the cleft of his arse, everything around Crowley’s cock up against his back, suddenly goes viscous like oil, slicking and soaking them even beneath the water, warm and slippery.

It’s not like any miracle Aziraphale has ever even thought to perform, but a moment later, when the tip of one of Crowley’s long, clever fingers smooths over the back of a thigh and up to press at his hole, the luxury of everything between them being easy is thrilling. Aziraphale focusses on relaxing, on accepting the breach of Crowley’s single, long finger with over-eagerness as he feels the huff of a punched out breath of shock against the back of his neck.

He sinks down as best he can on Crowley’s finger and tilts his head back, arching to rest against Crowley’s shoulder and turning to catch Crowley’s eyes. “More,” he tells him.

Crowley obliges quickly and without any effort, a second finger slipping in beside the first, pushing slick oil deep and letting it coat Aziraphale inside.

Crowley’s fingers work within him, pressing in and pulling out, pushing the oil against his skin and testing the willingness of Aziraphale’s flesh. The way Crowley’s breath speeds up, how it catches and stutters with little whines of surprise, of delight, the expressiveness of his face as he discovers just how easily Aziraphale has given in, only make Aziraphale want him more. 

His fingers aren’t what Aziraphale was promised, though. “You,’ Aziraphale tells him. “Now, please .”

“Patience, angel.” And there it is again, not his name, not even his title. It thrums beneath his skin and makes him rock down against the two fingers inside him. “Try to keep quiet,” he warns and Aziraphale remembers Hastur, focuses his eyes to see him a little closer but still thoroughly distracted.

Crowley’s fingers slide out and Aziraphale moans through clamped shut lips. 

“Lean back,” Crowley tells him and Aziraphale settles, back to Crowley’s front, the heat between them searing, the slick mess across his arse and his balls obscenely miraculous. Crowley pulls him up in the water a handful of inches, and he feels like he’s floating, anchored only by the smell and the feel of Crowley plastered against his spine.

Then he feels the blunt press of Crowley’s cock against his arse, and he focuses, relaxes, and tries to sink down. But sinking in salted water isn’t easy, even with miraculous, welcoming slick and all of Aziraphale’s eagerness. Crowley’s hand under a thigh holds him up. Somewhere beneath the surface, Crowley strokes himself, Aziraphale can feel the movement of water up and down from where the tip of Crowley’s cock is pressed up against his eager hole. Then back and forth, catching at the rim, barely pushing in, until Aziraphale whines and says his name, begging, “ Crowley !”

Finally Crowley presses in, the head of his cock going easily but the stretch still overwhelming, the snugness deliciously tight even when accompanied by the lack of friction so much slick brings. And it’s Crowley, who Aziraphale has known forever, who Aziraphale has shared so much more than he should with, knowing he wants this, figuring, perhaps, that he’s sought him out here in the bathhouse and contrived the circumstance.

It doesn’t matter. They both want this. It’s good.

But perhaps that is how Crowley sees it, perhaps it’s how it is, but it doesn’t matter because it feels more divine than Aziraphale remembers anything feeling in heaven. Crowley’s tight hold on him relents and Aziraphale lets his body drop down, agonisingly slowly through the water, his body taking in each hard, stretching inch until he feels like bursting from it,  like panicking and pressing his hand back into Crowley’s belly or leaning forward and catching himself against Crowley’s knees, to stop himself from slipping further, from being split open on Crowley’s cock.

Before he can quite decide to panic, Crowley bottoms out and lets loose a long, broken groan, louder than he should, but it doesn’t quite reach the main chamber. The pair in the opposite bath pause, though, turning to take in the view of Aziraphale spread in Crowley’s lap, sweating and arching and taking in fast little breaths. The two men exchange a knowing look and whispered words and then go back to their slow, decadent kisses.

Aziraphale tilts, tipping forward to feel the flesh inside of him shift, and then he does place his hands on Crowley’s knees beneath the water, finding leverage and friction as he pushes himself up and off Crowley’s cock.

Only for Crowley to grasp him by the hips and drag him down, fast, rough, and it feels delicious but so very slick. Crowley holds him there, fingers digging into his hips hard enough to leave bruises. “Not yet, I said,” he growls into Aziraphale’s ear, but there’s a shakiness there that Aziraphale has never heard before. “Just sit.”

Aziraphale tries to settle, to stop from squirming, from rocking his hips to find the very best angle to feel Crowley from the inside. Crowley lets it go on for less than a minute and then gets his teeth around Aziraphale’s earlobe, gives a painful nip and warns, “Do you want me to come?”

The whine that escapes Aziraphale makes him slap his own hand across his lips, cutting the sound off.

“Hell, you do !” Crowley says into the side of his neck, his gleeful surprise genuine. “You’ll let me come inside you right now?”

Aziraphale keeps his hand over his mouth but nods because he does, because it will mean friction and he needs that, he needs something.

“Still won’t fuck you,” Crowley warns him, “Hastur,” he says and now the demon pacing the main chamber seems to be an excuse not for them fucking, but for some sort of demonic delayed gratification.

“But I want – “

“You need to sit still until he fucks off, and you can either put up with my hard cock or let me come now and at least have a little relief.” Crowley tilts his hips ever so slightly and the new angle stretches in a way that Aziraphale feels all the way through his belly, down through his balls. Crowley’s big and filling and he can pretend that he wants him to come as some sort of relief, but really he just wants to feel Crowley spill, to feel him go to ruin  in the pleasures of Aziraphale’s flesh. 

There’s a special kind of hedonistic bliss in bringing someone else exceptional ecstasy. Even if – 

“I’ll still expect you to sit here though, nice and still,” Crowley warns, hands tight on Aziraphale’s hips, showing him that he can hold him there, can deny him. Aziraphale nods again and tightens his arse deliberately around Crowley’s cock, drawing a groan. 

“You want it,” Crowley tells him. “You want me to come inside you.”

“Yes!” Aziraphale cries out and wonders if he could come just from the feeling of it. 

“Fuck, look at you, letting a demon fill your arse, begging for it – ”

“ You, Crowley, I’m letting you.”

That makes Crowley buck up off the ledge, deeper still, stretching and splaying, making Aziraphale tighten and grind down. “ Fuck, ” escapes Crowley’s lips in a ragged whisper and he lets his hips keep going, lets his hands move Aziraphale on his cock as he thrusts up, short, sharp and violent, deep the entire time. Around them the water rolls, splashing up against the sides of the bath, echoing the movements beneath the surface. 

Crowley chases his pleasure, shockingly close to the edge already. Until Aziraphale feels Crowley’s whole body go rigid behind him, against him, even inside him he seems to get harder, bigger, more, and then Crowley whines, high in his throat, needy and broken, his face pressed into the space between Aziraphale’s shoulders as he comes deep inside his arse. 

It’s short, shallow thrusts, still not enough friction for Aziraphale to feel it the way he really wants to, Crowley’s flesh within and against him, everywhere, but there’s no catch, no rub, just slippery heat. And Crowley filling him up, spilling inside him as his teeth shift to latch onto the muscle between Aziraphale’s neck and shoulder, biting down in sharp pinpoints that spark like pain but feel like pleasure. 

Aziraphale rolls back against him, encourages all of it, enjoys all of it and tries to see as much of the pleasure as it crosses Crowley’s face as he can, feel it within him and hear it in the quiet, whining sounds that Crowley can’t quite swallow. 

When Crowley stills, it’s still with a vice-like grip around Aziraphale’s hips. His cock still buried to the hilt inside and as the seconds span, Crowley presses his face in the heat of the back of Aziraphale’s neck once again. 

“Crowely,” Aziraphale breathes out when the silence has stretched too long. He doesn’t try to keep the wonder, the affection, from his voice, but it’s blanketed by so much need. 

His own cock is still achingly hard between his splayed open legs. 

“Shhh,” Crowley murmurs into his spine, and squeezes his hips as reinforcement. 

Aziraphale squirms, to feel Crowley’s cock still inside him, less filling now, the burn of stretching hard flesh numbed as he softens. But to feel him still there and to imagine his come, still kept up inside him, kept from leaking out and dirtying the water… of course, Aziraphale squirms and then gasps as he’s forced still instantly. 

Crowley’s voice is threadbare even though his breath is level again. “No angel,” he says, the angles of his nose and the heat of his lips rubbing over the ridges of Aziraphale’s neck. “I meant it, I’ll fuck you, I’ll make you come so hard.”

Aziraphale moans and arches, pushing his neck back against Crowley’s lips, his hips down to grind against Crowley’s soft cock inside him. 

“Not until Hastur’s gone, though,” Crowley continues. “And not until you’ve gotten me hard again, just by sitting here, just like this.” 

A hand comes up to tilt Aziraphale's face so he can meet Crowley’s gaze properly. The demon’s eyes are bright yellow, the color stretched all the way to the corners, but somehow still dark with lust, the pupils blown to wider slits, and his eyelids heavy with satiation. “Can you do that, angel?” he asks. 

It feels like he’s asking permission, like, for just a moment, Crowley’s the one pleading, but it also tastes like a temptation, like a challenge. Although Aziraphale doesn’t know if the temptation is to push him back and down onto the stone beside the bath, take him into his mouth until he’s hard enough to ride… he thinks Crowley would let him… Or if the temptation is to do what he’s been asked, to trust the demon’s game, and sit there, still and stretched open, come-filled on his softened cock. Waiting… 

“Good, angel,” Crowley says and Aziraphale knows his neediness, his desperation is painted across his face. Aziraphale tilts his head back, anticipating the kiss but it never comes. Crowley’s fingers, instead, lace into his hair, gentle and then sharp, tilting him and turning him back to face forward. “You’ll sit there, keep me hidden from Hastur, keep me comfortable and warm and get me hard again with that perfect fucking arse. And if you’re very good, if you do all that, I promise I’ll fuck you later.”

Chapter Text

Aziraphale does as he’s told and stops trying to move. In the flickering candlelight that bounces off the now-calmed water, Crowley can see that he’s flushed red and sweating at the nape of his neck, beneath his mussed white curls, and that it spreads all the way down his back. Aziraphale is still held taut, unsatisfied, needing, but, aside from his breathlessness and involuntary muscle twitches, he’s gone perfectly still. He’s tight all over and inside, tensed and balanced, staring straight ahead. Still watching Hastur, Crowley supposes. 

He glances up from the nape of Aziraphale’s neck, confirms the demon is still lurking near the bathhouse entrance, and then refocuses on the lowest curling tuft of angelic hair and grits his teeth. 

Aziraphale hasn’t moved and it’s been almost a full minute. Crowley has been tracking the seconds in his head. It’s been a little more than three minutes since he came. 

Aziraphale hasn’t glanced back or uttered a word or reached for him. He has simply remained sitting there, perched precariously in the buoyancy of the water, the backs of his thighs splayed over Crowley’s lap and with his calves pressed to the bench on the outside of Crowley’s knees. He’s held in place by Crowley’s hands digging into his hips and Crowley’s cock still deep inside him. 

Aziraphale also hasn’t pulled away and there can be no doubt between them what that means. 

At least that’s what Crowley keeps coming back to, almost unwillingly, because just the idea of Aziraphale there, anchored to him, full of Crowley’s come and warming his cock back to hardness — all of it means that Aziraphale wants Crowley to fuck him. And the thought is making Crowley’s all-too-recently spent dick twitch and fill with blood. 

Having previously encountered refractory periods, Crowley had simply decided they were not for him. And, now, being stirred back to aching, full hardness – when Aziraphale is still holding so obediently still – is giving away just how fast his heart is racing, how much he wants more now. 

A twitch across Aziraphale’s shoulder blades shifts into a sudden small arch of his back; he grinds down and they both groan with the unexpected friction. More than that, it’s the undeniable confirmation that they both want this far more than is permissible, what with them being them and Hastur being right there. 

Once Aziraphale has moved and wrung out just a little of his own pleasure, it seems he can’t stop himself from chasing more, from leveraging himself haphazardly with the tilt of his hips and the flex of his legs to try to rock down onto Crowley’s cock. 

It feels far too good — it all feels far, far too good — which doesn’t seem fair for all the control Crowley has allowed himself to gather up and hold, for how easily he’s already come once; he should be able to wield that control, instead of just gripping Aziraphale’s hips and letting him rock against him.  

Crowley’s fingers grip and spasm into the supple flesh of Aziraphale’s hips and waist, slipping higher, holding on, but incapable of stopping. 

Not when Aziraphale leans further forward, head tipping down to stretch the back of his neck, to make Crowley wonder what he tastes like there. In the next moment, he forgets that taste is even a factor in this little game because Aziraphale has gripped his knees, found proper leverage, and is pulling himself up and off Crowley’s cock only to sink slowly back down into his lap. 

“Fuck,” Crowley breathes, quiet but involuntary and he tries to thread control back. “Told you to sit still.” 

“Can’t,” Aziraphale tells him simply, whining it in a way that makes Crowley believe him and wonder at the idea that he’s so far gone just from being filled, but not quite yet fucked. He’s always marveled at the angel’s propensity for pleasure, but never quite imagined this as a reality. 

As a fantasy though… 

Aziraphale does it again, shallower and then grinding down, arching and twisting, chasing more friction, more pleasure. Using him, his cock and his body and Crowley can’t imagine he’s even chasing an orgasm, not like this, not from so little, it’s not building, it’s just… Aziraphale enjoying himself. 

And that just makes Crowley’s cock harder, fuller, stretching the angel in his lap, and feeling deliriously good. Not five minutes after he warned him to sit still, Crowley is already giving in, intent on coming again. Every wriggle and whispered whimper, the way Crowley can feel Aziraphale’s fingers gripping and kneading his knees, his legs spreading further and his toes, scrabbling without purchase at the sides of his shins. Around them, the ebb and flow of the water increases, where it was almost settled against the tiles, it begins to lap in little, undulating waves set in motion by the roll of Aziraphale’s hips.

Crowley could definitely come from this, again, and maybe he should move properly and take Aziraphale with him? Or perhaps, if he loosens his hands on Aziraphale’s hips and slips back further, if he gives him permission, Aziraphale will take more, will stop wriggling and tilting and grinding and will fuck himself properly, will use Crowley the way he’s fast realizing he wants to be used. 

Or perhaps they can just stay like this, caught in this brief moment but drawing it out for hours, neither of them coming but all of it pleasure-soaked and blissful even as everything coils and knots and feels too much. Tiny little incremental movements until Aziraphale can’t help himself but shove his body down, fill himself up, and get off on it. 

And wouldn't that be a sight? Wouldn’t any and all of the possible eventualities of Crowley sitting there and Aziraphale using him — because he wants to —  be some sort of revelation. They could draw this out for eons, shift outside of time entirely, perhaps. It could be like before time was threaded through reality, when everything was infinite and every potential existed at once. Crowley could do it, he thinks, find a pocket outside reality for the slow, heady drag of them, for it to be infinite. But he’s not at all convinced that would be better than just staying here, in the very real existence of whatever is playing out, of waiting and allowing Aziraphale to take his pleasure. 

Even that wouldn’t be what Crowley promised though. 

And as his abdominal muscles tighten, hips tilting up with a quick thrust that has Aziraphale gasping, he also knows it’s not what he wants. 

Aziraphale’s gasp is breathed out in a huff, impatience leaking into the sound as he arches further, pushing off Crowley’s knees and settling back into Crowley’s lap. Closer, and like he’s trying to get a better angle inside him. He whines and Crowley’s hands tighten, his spine going straight at the overwhelming headrush of Aziraphale’s proximity swamping him. The scent of sweat and some sort of heaven in the glow of his skin, angelic goodness; it makes Crowley’s mouth grow wet mere inches from the tantalizing curve of Aziraphale’s neck. 

“Angel, you’re meant to be staying still.” He warns but his voice is so rough with wanting, so clearly undone and his hard cock betrays any potential argument that he isn’t irrevocably, incredibly turned on and eager. 

Aziraphale has to know what he’s doing to him . 

Aziraphale whines and Crowley bucks up into him, which just makes him whine louder. Crowley glances over Aziraphale’s shoulder just in time to see Hastur’s head snap around at the sound, looking in their direction but not recognising them through the steam and the shadows. And things could so quickly devolve into a heated feedback loop of needy noises and answering thrusts up inside of him, but not if Hastur comes closer, not if it will genuinely risk discovery. 

So, instead Crowley grips his hips and makes him stop. 

Aziraphale falls all the way back in a slump, his shoulder blades against Crowley’s chest, sweat-curled hair at the base of his neck tickling at Crowley’s lips and nose. It’s as though he’s a few inches taller than Crowley like this, sitting in his lap, heavy and flooding him with another wave of scent and warmth that spills between them. Aziraphale leans more heavily back against him, wide expanses of their skin pressed together from the tips of Aziraphale’s toes digging into Crowley’s calves, through the long, lean contact of thighs together, to Crowley’s sharp hips pushing into the plushness of his seated arse. Chest to back and then the unexpected bump of the ledge of the bath against Crowley’s shoulders as the weight and the lean of Aziraphale makes him settle. 

Aziraphale’s whole body rolls and grinds down against him, shoulders flexing, pressing back against Crowley’s neck and chest, head falling back and mostly finding air, only Aziraphale’s chin managed to scratch at Crowley’s temple. Aziraphale makes a frustrated noise and pulls his face away, just a few inches, to twist further and look at him.  

Crowley’s been imagining Aziraphale’s face this whole time but the close-up reality is strikingly gorgeous. All red-stained cheeks and rivulets of sweat; splayed, damp eyelashes and a bottom lip that’s still caught between Aziraphale’s teeth. 

Crowley shuts his eyes against the onslaught even as his grip on Aziraphale’s hips loosens, allowing him to roll his hips in another sinful drag of his hole around Crowley’s cock. 

“Crowley…” comes Aziraphale’s call, small-voiced but pitched high, breath tickling across Crowley’s forehead. 

He opens his eyes, eyelashes fluttering as he tries to focus on Aziraphale, now nuzzling too close to see properly and grinding down in small aborted movements that Crowley thinks he can’t quite control. Aziraphale twists at the waist further, hips swiveling slightly in Crowley’s lap and the curve of his shoulder coming precariously close to catching Crowley’s jaw. Aziraphale works to look at him properly, to stay seated and connected and split open on Crowley’s cock, and still be able to see him. The shoulder that almost broke the moment with proper pain shifts and Aziraphale gets his left arm up and over Crowley’s right shoulder, his hand gripping between Crowley’s shoulder blades to steady himself. 

He catches Crowley’s gaze then, grinning through his caught breath at the reconfiguration and his cheeks flushing darker. Crowley looks away before he burns up and gives in. 

Hastur’s gone. 

Crowley realizes it with a jolt that makes them both moan and Aziraphale’s head falls sideways to press his face into the wet mess of hair that’s increasingly escaping Crowley’s bun. 

Crowley’s eyes dart quickly around the space, checking every shadowed corner and sunken bath for a hint of demonic presence. He meets the eyes of both the men in the water on the opposite side of the room in quick succession, untangled from each other and unabashedly watching Crowley and Aziraphale. 

But there’s no sign of Hastur. Nor out in the main courtyard, where, now that Crowley’s focused, the volume of gossip, laughter and the slap of skin on skin, has increased. Where people are spreading back out and partaking in pleasure the way everyone was before Hastur started scattering bathers like a shark moving through a school of fish. 

Hastur’s definitely gone, who knows how long ago. 

There’s no longer any threat. 

“Crowley…” Aziraphale says his name again, needy and whining and trying to hold still like that’s what Crowley wants. 

Crowley’s mouth is dry and he can feel his heart hammering in his chest. Panic bleeding in around the pleasure. Hastur was the flimsy, moronic, ridiculous excuse for all this. A lie that they could tell themselves, and each other, even while they smirked and drank in all their naked wanting. Crowley knows that, he isn’t so stupid as to deny it in his own consciousness, but fear is still rising in him to have lost that threadbare rationale for why Aziraphale had to be stripped bare and split open on his cock. Without that rationale, they might have to face reality and the hairs on the back of Crowley’s neck stand up at the thought. Trepidation at the potential that this might all suddenly be over, that Aziraphale might ask him to stop.

For the first time in his existence, Crowley wishes Hastur would suddenly appear. 

Aziraphale moans, loud and reverberating — loud enough that if Hastur was there, he would have looked over again —, and his arse clenches tight around Crowley’s cock, gripping him in wet, slick heat and Crowley can’t tell if it was deliberate or involuntary. 

“You’ve been so good,” he breathes out. 

The angel’s eyes spring open, his lips parting in surprise, as he leans back to catch Crowley’s eye. 

Crowley grips his hips with fingers that are starting to feel numb and pruney from so long in the water, but the heat and soft give of Aziraphale’s body presses back and grounds him. He rocks the angel forward and up, lifting him easily in the water and then pulling him back down with a smooth, deep thrust. They both moan and now neither one of them can look away. 

Before Crowley can do it again, Aziraphale asks breathlessly, “Can you kiss me?”

Crowley’s gaze drops to Aziraphale’s lips immediately, tilted up and right there within reach. Of course he wants to. 

“Angel…” he warns instead, still not ready to look away from where Aziraphale’s mouth has dropped open, the pink cupid’s bow of it wet from the steam and sweat, and then wetter still when Aziraphale swipes his tongue across them. 

Aziraphale doesn’t even know the temptation he is. 

The angel’s mouth closes suddenly, pursing into a frown. “You don’t have to,” he says, mistaking Crowley’s hesitation. “You don’t have to do anything.” He pauses and licks his lips once more. “But Hastur… if he looked over and saw us kissing. He could never imagine that it would be you.” 

Crowley finally looks up to his eyes, to try to read them and the little crease between. Aziraphale is offering him an out. But he’s also offering him an excuse — admittedly a flimsy excuse that no longer exists, which is something Crowley absolutely should tell Aziraphale. But, still, an excuse that would allow Crowley to press his lips up against Aziraphale’s and taste, would allow him to find out what the slide of his tongue feels like, how those little moans sound taken into his mouth and swallowed. 

Slowly, carefully, Crowley loosens his hands from Aziraphale’s hips, lays them flat and moves them in slow, soothing strokes up his stomach, all the while resisting the urge to let them roam, rough and needy, in the other direction. To search out Aziraphale’s cock, which he imagines must be hard and bobbing, or further to where he could find the heavy hang of Aziraphale’s balls and tease the stretch of his rim around where he’s still buried deep.

Aziraphale squirms, impatient, and Crowley’s arms tighten around him, holding him steady. After another squeeze, one arm raises out of the water to move between them, to grasp Aziraphale’s chin between forefinger and thumb as Crowley meets his gaze once more. 

He really should tell him Hastur’s gone, should ask him if he wants to keep going anyway. Instead tilts his head up, closes the distance, and presses his mouth to Aziraphale’s. 

Aziraphale startles only for a moment, nails digging into the center of Crowley’s back,  and then his lips go soft and part. A moan escapes him and Crowley begins to discover the feel of sounds and breath and slick this close, passed back and forth intimately, as only kissing can achieve. Crowley presses and angles, his eyes falling closed as Aziraphale lets him, welcomes him with the returned light friction of his mouth kissing back. 

When Aziraphale’s tongue licks inside, it makes Crowley’s nerves catch fire, the water around them suddenly too hot, the steam too sticky, and somehow only the delicious slide of Aziraphale’s skin against his is the right kind of warmth. Broad thighs and the round heaviness of his arse, still sitting across him, all the tight, grasping heat still surrounding his cock. Aziraphale’s back and the side of his stomach pressed in a long line up the center of his chest, surely feeling every hard-fought breath and shudder as Crowley dares to lick out harder and find out what their tongues taste like pressed together. 

Aziraphale whines into the kiss, the vibration tickling the roof of Crowley’s mouth as Aziraphale kisses back fiercely. The hand on Aziraphale’s chin slips down to his throat, to feel the bob and strain of the muscles there, every swallow and suck beneath his palm, around his tongue, against his lips. He holds him there, tilts his face further, wider lips and deeper licks, tasting up behind his teeth and then the lush soft crevices he explores under Aziraphale’s tongue. Crowley moans, wanton and desperate and then worse when Aziraphale’s hips roll and he starts to work himself in short, grinding stutters on Crowley’s cock once more. 

Aziraphale whimpers, “ Please… ” into Crowley’s mouth and then his teeth catch at Crowley’s tongue. The hand on Crowley’s back glides up to twist and thread his fingers beneath the loosened bun of wet, dark hair, to hold him just as tightly, to keep him there and kissing. Wetter, louder, dirtier. Tongues sliding over each other rhythmically, spit slick between and around, dribbling from the corners of Crowley’s lips and passed between them  in messy deep exchanges. 

“Please,” Aziraphale whines again and moves his free hand down between his own legs. He moans so desperately that Crowley has to imagine he’s started stroking his own cock. Aziraphale tenses and tightens, leveraging his overworked muscles up and off and then back down onto Crowley’s cock. He lets his cock go and his arm wraps over the top of Crowley’s, their fingers interlacing, back-to-front. “Please, you promised .” 

It sounds stubborn and needy. 

Crowley can’t help but use the arm around Aziraphale’s waist to encourage another too-slow slide up and then back down, the miracled slickness and the water limiting the friction but the stretching, clenching reality overwhelming. 

"You promised,” Aziraphale pants into Crowley’s mouth and then bites down on his bottom lip. “Please, fuck me.”

Crowley groans and growls, teeth pressing into Aziraphale’s tongue, his hand tightening around the base of Aziraphale’s throat to feel the sharp whimpered intake of breath. Before he can say anything, Aziraphale pulls his mouth back and fixes him with desperate eyes. “Hastur’s gone,” he says, voice rasping. “Please… you promised.” 

Crowley has no idea when Aziraphale realized, but it doesn’t matter because what Aziraphale is giving him is another excuse — he had promised — and he can read between the lines. Those blue-grey eyes are pleading to be fucked, needing it more than either of them really needs a reason, but he’s giving Crowley one just in case. 

“I did,” Crowley admits and he feels his slick, red-bitten lips spreading into a devilish grin. He kisses, off-center to the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth, slips his tongue into the crease before he pulls back. 

“Up,” Crowley growls. “Off.” His hands grab at Aziraphale’s hips, at the arm slung back over his shoulder, untangling them quickly and then lifting the angel unceremoniously off his cock. 

They both moan, desperate, too loud, and entirely undone at the sudden loss of physical connection: Aziraphale empty and unsatisfied, and Crowley with his cock suddenly exposed and aching in water that now feels too cool. Crowley pushes Aziraphale out into the water, forcing him to find his feet and start to turn to face him even as he whimpers, high and breathless at the loss. 

They’re making too much noise, the water growing choppy and every bit of need seeping into their whines and moans, their scant exchanged pleas and commands. It’s certainly enough to be drawing attention, not just from the couple that Crowley thinks is still spectating from the nearby bath, but from the main chamber as well. It sends a thrill up his spine, something like pride at how good all of their pleasure must look, at the blasphemy that no one will realize they’re watching. 

“Knees,” Crowley manages as he reaches out and pulls Aziraphale back by the hand, fingers interlacing easily and Crowley’s strength more than enough to draw him over against the bench beside him. 

Crowley takes a long, centering breath, then a swallow and he doesn’t mean to moan but the way Aziraphale’s hand is clenched around his, the way his other hand has found the meat of Aziraphale’s thigh and grasped, it makes Crowley’s balls throb and his desperation spill over. 

“Like this,” he says, voice rough but unyielding as he pulls Aziraphale up onto his knees on the bench beside him. Crowley slips his hand free and shifts, standing up and shifting behind him so that his feet are planted on the floor of the bath and Aziraphale is craning around to look back. Trying to settle his hands on Aziraphale’s hips, Crowley can’t stop himself from sweeping them forward and across the swell of his belly, over the soft, haired, warmth of so much skin, up to cover the spare flesh of his chest, to tweak at a nipple and then draw him slowly back, to press his own front to the curves of Aziraphale’s spine. 

His cock slides easily into the cleft of Aziraphale’s arse, making the angel’s back dip and arch to angle back willingly, his eyes falling closed as he looks forward, his chin dropping to his chest as he bites out a groan. 

“Crowley…” 

Crowley’s hands move again, quickly now, more desperate still, up Aziraphale’s back and over his shoulders, down the lines of his arms to take his hands from the water and place them up against the edge of the bath where it’s level with the floor of the bathhouse. 

When Aziraphale’s hands grasp the edge there, Crowley allows his hands to rub and run over whatever flesh they please, heavy touches along every square inch he can — biceps and thighs and spine and then, again — because he has no idea if, or when, he’ll get another chance. He grinds his cock against the line of Aziraphale’s arse, up through the water and slick, to rest against the small of his back. And then tilting his hips, angling himself down to catch his tip against the perineum, and then further to press to the underside of his balls.

Against every touch of hands or cock or skin, Aziraphale pushes back, twists and arches for more, until his knees are spread on the smooth stone bench and his arse is presented up above the rippling water line (and maybe that was a small, excusable demonic miracle, because he deserves to see this, to feel the friction undiluted), hands stretched out and elbows locked to steady himself against the tiles of the bathhouse floor. 

Crowley considers the sight of him. All that pink, hot skin, creased with lines in the places the angel is softest, where he’s bent. The spread of his knees wide and willing, the heavy hang of his balls and cock, a darker shade of red between his pink thighs, and dipping into the bath below with each breath and rub back. It’s intoxicating. The hint of Aziraphale’s stretched-open hole between those two ample handfuls of arse, still looking so stretched open and slick and ready. 

Crowley crowds up against him further, ruts harder, but entirely unsatisfying to either of them, into the flesh of his arse. He’s trying to re-center himself, to speed his lust-addled brain up and slow his body down. So he can make this good, make this last, and remember all of it for as long as he needs to. He lets his entire body blanket over Aziraphale’s, heavy against his spine as Crowley breathes and tries to imagine not coming for several hours more, how decadent, but impossible, that would be. 

He wraps one arm around the angel’s ribs and fits his other hand around the base of his own cock. He squeezes to take the edge off and then guides the tip to stroke back and forth over Aziraphale’s hole, letting it catch on the furl of muscle, staring unblinking as Aziraphale spreads his knees wider and the tight core of him clenches and then relaxes in anticipation.  

“Yes, angel?” Crowley manages to ask, still teasing his cock back and forth. 

“Crowley,” falls from Aziraphale’s lips, once more. And then, “For the love of — “

Crowley cuts him off with the smooth, heavy shove of his cock inside of him. No longer under water, nothing is dulled. It’s slick and easy but every millimeter sets fire to nerves which ignite and make pleasure jump back and forth between their bodies. Just one deep, rough thrust in and it makes Crowley hiss profanely and Aziraphale moan so loud it echoes back to them. 

And as Crowley finds himself once again buried in Aziraphale, despite all his re-centering and drawing this out and teasing, he has to pause and breathe deep. The hand that he’d used to guide his cock in moves to grip the muscles between Aziraphale’s neck and shoulder, holding them both steady. 

“More…" comes Aziraphale’s neediness once more and the frisson of electricity it draws from Crowley is pavlovian. He feels Aziraphale tighten around his cock, the deliberate clench of all that delicious muscle, gripping him and trying to drag him in deeper. Then the release, willing him on. Then, “Move.”

Crowley swallows and, with both arms still grasping Aziraphale’s torso, draws his hips back, letting the dragging pleasure of it hollow him out, the same way he’s leaving Aziraphale empty and moaning. And then he fucks back in. 

Again. Another slow, torturous slide out, as far as he dare, until he can feel Aziraphale’s hole clenching, panicking at the potential loss of Crowley’s cock popping all the way free. And then fast and deep back in. Again. More. He focuses on the movement, the repetition, as much as the feel. 

His thrusts speed up, more hurried, less careful, his eagerness to feel as close and as surrounded as possible, slipping and changing the angle on every push in. 

Aziraphale’s persistent whimpers and gasps, the press back of his arse to chase every pull away and to meet every push back in, make it clear that he loves this, that he is just as overcome by it as Crowley. 

Aziraphale’s breath catches, hitching for a moment, and he says “Oh!” as though he’s surprised, and then, “There, just… there.” 

Crowley tries to replicate the thrust but doesn’t get the same hitched breath, he tilts his hips, fucks him in half-aborted presses as he chases that pleasure-soaked ‘Oh’ again. 

“Like that!” he’s told instead, high pitched and wanton and delicious, so he does it again, over and over, wringing louder moans as he drags the breath out of Aziraphale’s body, under and against him, still wrapped up and held close and overly hot. 

That heat suddenly feels too much, and the desperate, humping rut Crowley is managing feels like not enough. His arms unwrap, fingers digging into every centimeter of flesh he canvasses as he straightens his back and keeps pumping his hips. 

Aziraphale sags, no longer held up, Crowley realizes, so he sinks and slips and is only caught by Crowley’s hands closing around his hips, gripping him and discovering leverage he’d been missing because from here he can pull and push as he pleases, lengthening his thrusts, driving deep and grinding there to discover the noise it pulls from Aziraphale. Watching him crumple until his forehead is against the back of his arms where they’ve folded against the edge of the bath. 

And Crowley can look down, can focus on the visual, on the way he can see the sound of their flesh connecting with every thrust in, can smell the sweat and condensation that he can see slicking Aziraphale’s spine and the cleft of his arse, only adding to the miracled slick that remains to ease the way for his dick. He can watch every inch of his aching, thick cock sliding inside Aziraphale, can see the way his hole takes him, the red skin of his rim pulled and stretched with every thrust in and every drag out.

His hips stutter and he suddenly feels himself close to the edge. Of coming hard and violently and the fear of whatever lies for him on the other side because it’s never felt this much, never felt this good, this deep in his balls and his guts, and never with an angel.

Never with Aziraphale.  

The fear claws back a little control and with it the conscious thought that he needs to make this perfect, to make this everything, to make it so good that Aziraphale will be helpless not to seek it out again. 

He sucks down gulps of air and tries to keep the whine from escaping on the exhale. He keeps fucking into him, hard and deep, because Aziraphale keeps rocking back to meet him. 

And then Aziraphale turns his head against his forearms, his cheek a ruddy red, his forehead creased and sweaty, his hair a riot of twisted tufts. He squirms and casts his eyes back to meet Crowley’s, imploring, panting, with his mouth open, spit dribbling out across his fingers. He moans and Crowley growls out, “Fuck,” as his hips stutter and the coil of heavy, heady want wraps tighter in his belly.

“Up,” Crowley demands, and without waiting, reaches for him, slides an arm around his chest and hauls him back up to vertical. 

He only stops thrusting for a moment, just to make sure Aziraphale is balanced and, sure enough, tipping more weight back onto his chest; too close, and all consuming. And then he starts fucking him again, fast and deep, biting his lip and doing his best not to feel all of it too much. 

The new angle has Crowley pressing inside Aziraphale in a way that must feel euphoric: the head of his cock rubbing over his prostate with every thrust in, and the thick ridge that runs the length of the underside, prominent with how hard he is, dragging deliciously with every slide out. At least that’s what Crowley thinks, dimly, with the way the angel squirms and shakes even harder, with the way his hole spasms and grips Crowley’s cock, with the whimpered blasphemies that slip from his mouth each time Crowley bottoms out. 

“Oh God… Oh fuck… Oh heavens … Crowley!” and “Don’t stop,” over and over and over. Aziraphale arches and spreads his legs further, reaches back with a hand suddenly available to pull his arse wide, greedy, for Crowley to fuck into it more. 

Crowley can’t swallow the visceral growl that ripples up his throat. Can’t stop the frantic grab of his hand, up Aziraphale’s chest, over the column of his throat to pull his face to the side and back. Can’t help making him bend and reach, and anchor his remaining hand back into Crowley’s hair as they find an angle and mess of limbs that allows them to keep fucking, desperate and unable to stop. It affords them a moment of clarity, of bright yellow eyes meeting dark steely grey ones in affirmation that this is happening.

Crowley wants to urge him on, to tell him to come, to beg him, because he’s too close, hips stuttering and his thrusts getting shallow as his whole body boils over and his muscles cramp and twitch with how taut he’s holding himself. But when he opens his mouth his tongue is too heavy and he can’t, so instead he just cranes his head down, pushes Aziraphale’s chin up, and kisses him in an off-center, over-stretched mess of tongues and lips. 

Aziraphale whines into it, kisses back uncoordinated and decadent, and then lets his teeth catch on Crowley’s tongue. Somewhere in between presses and licks, Crowley thinks he hears another plea, another ‘Please!’ and his name in a needy, breathless way that makes his stomach knot. And then, once again, “More! ”

Trying to thrust harder, deeper, trying to hold off the inevitable, it takes a moment for Crowley to register the movement of Aziraphale’s hands, one twisting, tightening in Crowley’s hair, the other letting go of the swell of his own arse — which just makes everything feel tighter and hotter and more all over again — and covering Crowley’s own where he’s doubtless leaving fresh bruises against the angel’s hip. Aziraphale’s fingers line up between his and he grasps and pulls Crowley’s hand down to his cock. He gets Crowley’s hand, still underneath his, wrapped firmly around the burning hot length of him and moans into his mouth. 

And why hadn’t Crowley thought of that? 

The feel of him, hot and hard, thick and contoured by pulsing veins and a delicious curve, is perfect in Crowley’s hand in all the ways an angel’s cock really shouldn’t be. It makes Crowley forget to keep kissing. It forces his hips into a momentary, staccato rhythm that feeds back tightness and too much pleasure. But as Aziraphale’s hand fits snugly over his, forming a tight fist for his cock, Crowley refocuses and makes sure that the next thrust builds friction deep inside Aziraphale, and, at the same time, wrings it from him. 

Aziraphale cries out, sharp and shocked, lips falling away from where Crowley’s were barely pressed in an open constant groan. Crowley watches and feels, enraptured as his eyes and arse and fist all clench. And Crowley keeps fucking into him, stroking his cock with both their hands in time, now, his thumb pressed up the underside and swiping over the head again and again and again. 

He feels Aziraphale’s whole body go rigid. 

Momentary relief floods through Crowley, and then the wanting and the pleasure redoubles. He fucks in once, twice more, fists Aziraphale’s cock and lets himself get lost in the panting whimpers that Aziraphale makes as he comes, hard and pulsing, spilling thick white spurts that streak the water and the bathhouse tiles. Crowley holds still, lets Aziraphale use him however he pleases. Watches the arch of his back and feels the dribble of more down over both their hands to dirty the water beneath. 

Aziraphale’s hips rock through it the entire time, back onto Crowley’s cock and then forward into their fists, working himself through his pleasure, drawing it out as much as he can until he’s spent, chest heaving and then his breath held, before he shudders out an exhale, still spread on his knees and impaled on Crowley’s cock. 

Crowley goes to untangle their fingers from around Aziraphale’s dick, the tacky, slick spend dripping down their skin a new focal point. But Aziraphale catches his hand before it can travel far, wraps around his wrist and slowly brings it back to lay heavily over his stomach, pushing Crowley’s fingers and palm and the come that coats them into his skin. 

“Keep going,” Aziraphale urges in a tight, rasping voice. He pushes back, grinds against Crowley’s hips, and gasps. He gets his hands back on the edge of the bath and lets his back go loose before he arches deliberately. 

Crowley start to fuck into him once more, one hand anchoring Aziraphale’s chest with come-messed fingers, while the other goes back to his hip, steadies him, holds him in place, and lets himself take every last ounce of pleasure from his perfect soft, clenching, hot body. 

It barely takes seconds for him to feel his hips start to stutter and fall out of rhythm again. And this time he lets them, fucks sharper and shorter into Aziraphale’s arse, squeezes his eyes shut against the headrush of blood and the impossibly tight, molten coil of his balls drawing up desperate and eager. 

He buries himself inside Aziraphale, latching onto the broken whine of over-stimulation and ebbing pleasure that it draws out of him, and falls forward, pressing his teeth into the back of Aziraphale’s shoulder as he comes with a muffled groan. 

He feels Aziraphale clench for him, chasing every last drop of his come as he thrusts again and again and then stills and revels in the feel of his cock twitching and pulsing, so undeniably deep and surrounded. Something unadulterated and euphoric ripples out to his fingers and toes as he realizes he’s still growling, moaning, too loud and too desperate. 

Eventually he stops, stills, focuses on the overwhelming too-muchness still encompassing his cock — Aziraphale and two loads of his own come. 

“Fuck,” he says into the sucked and bitten bruises he already feels guilty about leaving on Aziraphale’s shoulder blade. 

Aziraphale hums something that sounds like contentment back. 

Crowley doesn’t know what to do now. 

The seconds drag and mostly he focuses on controlling his breathing and untangling their weight distribution without actually stepping away: getting his own feet under him solidly and feeling out where Aziraphale is leaning heavily back against his hips. 

He can feel his cock getting soft and for a moment considers another quick miracle back to hardness, to just continue on, or at least to keep Aziraphale plugged up and full. Just the thought makes him groan, small in his throat, but he resists the temptation. He finally steps back, cock slipping free with an obscene squelch. 

Looking back over his shoulder, Aziraphale straightens on his knees, but not before Crowley sees the trickle of stark white come out of his hole and down towards the flushed red skin of his balls. He reaches out instinctively, before he can stop himself, and pulls Aziraphale’s arse open with one hand, feeling him tense and straighten even further at the contact. Crowley quickly draws his hand back.

Crowley’s eyes race up to find Aziraphale’s, wide, shocked, and watching him. 

“Let me see,” he asks before he can think better of it.  

Aziraphale stares at him for several long seconds and Crowley wonders if this is what will be a bridge too far. 

Slowly — too slowly to be anything but thought-out and deliberate — Aziraphale shuffles his knees back together, thighs pressing, balls caught between, and his arse still visibly tensed. Crowley holds his breath and fails to quite comprehend what is happening as Aziraphale bends at the waist, all the way down to place his cheek against the bathhouse floor, reaches back with both hands and spreads his arse wide. 

“Jesus… fucking… Christ, angel,” is all Crowley can manage to say as he burns the vision into his brain. The supple flesh of thighs and cheeks, marked up with fingerprints he doesn’t entirely remember leaving, flushed red and wrinkled in strange places from too long under water. At the core of it all, Aziraphale’s tight hole, barely loosened despite an age of fucking, clenching and unclenching as the angel drips come down the backs of his legs. 

Aziraphale makes another contented, sated noise from where he’s got his eyes closed, forehead resting against the tiles. And then he hums a questioning sound. 

Crowley reaches for words and only manages incoherent voweless syllables on his first attempt. He reaches out to push a dribble of wetness back up Aziraphale’s leg with his thumb, a testing touch that just makes Aziraphale sigh and lean into the contact.

Crowley manages something more eloquent when he tries to speak again. “Fuck me, that’s gorgeous.” 

Against all odds, Aziraphale giggles at that, wriggling his arse and shifting his fingers against his cheeks to show the white-then-red indents they’re leaving. He simply huffs out another contented sigh and remains on display, giving his arse a decent squeeze for emphasis. 

Crowley grins and dares to rub his thumb up over the crease where Aziraphale’s thigh meets his arse, over his sensitive, overly slick perineum, dragging up a dripping streak of come, and easing it back inside his hole. 

Aziraphale breath catches and he groans, shoving back and Crowley marvels, once again wondering if they could possibly just do this forever. 

Before that thought can progress, though, there’s a sudden jeering cheer breaking into their little bubble of intimacy, louder as other voices join in. Aziraphale pulls away immediately, dropping into the water and twisting around, sitting back and low on the bench even as Crowley’s head whips around, searching out the source of the intrusion. 

There are a half dozen men unashamedly watching from the archway to the main courtyard, mostly naked, mostly hard, all grinning and unabashed in their enjoyment.  

“Go on, go again, put us all to shame!” one of them yells across the chamber, and several of the others joined in with various whoops and dirty compliments. 

Laughter breaks through; the other couple in the bath that have always been there, talking in voices too low to quite hear but something has been said and they are both laughing, not unkindly, as they continue to watch all the action of the bathhouse play out. 

Quickly, Crowley glances down at Aziraphale, chin-deep in the water, skin stained red and Crowley can’t tell if it is embarrassment or the heat of the bath or simply post-sex flush. Aziraphale grants him a lopsided smile and a bit of an eye roll. 

Breathing out, Crowley flops down into the bath, fully submerging himself. Beneath the surface he allows himself a proper look at Aziraphale: still very much there, knees together and hands resting on the bench besides his thighs under the water, his cock now mostly soft and gorgeous between his legs. 

Crowley reemerges, thankful to see most of the men moving back towards the main baths, only two of them remaining, distracted and already tangled up in each other as they press against a wall. Crowley pushes his hair back off his face, taking the time to pull the tie from his mostly ruined bun, gather it back up once more and knot it in place. Then he takes his place on the bench opposite Aziraphale.

Aziraphale is looking at him, unreadably.  

“Thank you for hiding me from Hastur,” Crowley offers and it sounds half like a question, half like a joke. 

One of Aziraphale’s eyebrows arches high and dramatic. “Thank you for…” he pauses, searching, and Crowley holds his breath. “Keeping your promise.” Aziraphale smiles, tight, proper, but cheeky. 

Crowley snorts and leans his head back against the ledge. “My pleasure,” he drawls, and then they are both content to let silent seconds stretch between them once more.