Recipient:
musegaaridTitle: Learning to Dream
Rating: a very hard R
Summary: Aziraphale tries sleeping but Crowley wakes him up.
Author's Notes: This is the inverse of
linnpuzzle’s lovely painting “Morning Kisses” -
musegaarid’s prompt and Linn’s painting inspired me to write the following tale of dream-induced smut.
musegaarid, this may not have been what you had in mind, but I hope it still works for you, dear! Thanks for organizing this. And thanks to two amazing dears for the beta!
Crowley was perturbed, to say the very least. Blessing two humans in a row (teenagers, at that) and inspiring a politician not to embezzle could get to any being, especially a demon. But he’d promised the angel that he’d take care of a couple of cases for him. And so he had.
Now that he was finished doing Aziraphale’s dirty work, he figured the least thing his Associate could do was to take him out for lunch. As he pulled the Bentley up into his usual parking spot (the fire zone) in front of the bookshop, he was unpleasantly surprised to see a “closed” sign over the door.
“Sorry, we’re closed. Please come back again,” he muttered to himself. Crowley’s annoyance was steadily increasing. As far as he knew, Aziraphale wasn’t supposed to be anywhere other than London. For the first time, Crowley questioned Aziraphale’s motives for asking him to pick up a few jobs.
Gripping the steering wheel rather tightly and leaning forward until his forehead rested against the smooth leather, Crowley closed his yellow eyes. A few seconds’ worth of reaching out with his mind assured him that Aziraphale was definitely inside the building. But something was off and Crowley had no idea what it was.
A rather disquieting sensation was beginning to settle in the pit of his belly. He let go of the steering wheel, wishing away the deep indentions in the leather as he did so. Then, as calmly as possible, he got out of the Bentley. He forced himself to take the stairs up to the door at a normal gait just as he forced his thoughts away from all of the disagreeable scenarios that were clamoring to explain this odd set of circumstances.
The door was locked in ways that would take far more than a brass key to open. That Crowley managed to get in without much effort was the first thing that made him feel slightly more at ease about Aziraphale’s disappearance. It was nice to be recognized by a door.
Crowley made his way through the darkened musty shop, carefully skirting the stacks and stacks of Bibles. His good deeds were already weighing on him heavily. There was no reason to go and fondle Holy Words on top of everything else.
The idea of fondling Holy… well, he attempted to leave that one alone almost as soon as it came to him. No good would come of that.
“Aziraphale?” he called. He tried to pretend that wasn’t nervousness in his voice. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that everything about today was highly irregular. And highly irregular for a six thousand year old being was most disconcerting.
He came to the foot of the stairs to Aziraphale’s private apartment. Of course, he had been there hundreds upon hundreds of times. But he’d never been up there uninvited before. While he wasn’t usually one to respect anyone’s privacy, he did feel slightly uncomfortable as he stood at the threshold of Aziraphale’s sanctuary. The niggling feeling of unease was growing. He hesitated only for a few seconds more before he bounded up the stairs.
The small apartment was dark. Blinds and curtains hung down over the windows, effectively shutting out the bright early afternoon light. It was quiet. Crowley could discern the faint humming of the few household appliances in which Aziraphale indulged. Of course, it was just like the angel to actually plug them in. Crowley snickered, thinking that Aziraphale probably paid his electric bill, as well.
Feeling unaccountably sneaky, Crowley cautiously walked through the flat. He was almost surprised to see a closed door to a room that Crowley could only guess was a bedroom. He hadn’t been aware of the room’s existence before. And he was positive that the angel didn’t sleep. Highly irregular, he thought. The quietness was really beginning to fray his nerves.
With a soft click, he opened the door. It was unnaturally dark. But Crowley’s unnatural eyes needed only a few seconds to make sense of the scene before him.
He’d found Aziraphale, all right. Sleeping.
“Of all things!” he muttered under his breath.
Crowley walked into the room and stood before a large lumpy bed, surrounded by a gargantuan wooden bed frame. There, spread out with only a thin sheet to cover his ample glory, was Aziraphale. He wasn’t snoring or breathing or doing anything. He was motionless. He hadn’t been discorporated, though. Crowley was certain of that (though he would have been hard pressed to explain why).
Crowley eyed the massive bed. The large heavy wooden frame looked like something straight out of the Victorian home furnishings section of the V&A. Of course, that explained quite a bit, considering that Aziraphale had dragged Crowley to that particular museum’s recently renovated “Décor of the Victorians” exhibit only a few months before. It seemed that Aziraphale’s concept of bedroom suites was even more outdated than his fashion sense.
He wasn’t a patient being. But Crowley decided then and there that he was going to find out what had possessed Aziraphale to try sleeping. So he stood there, scrutinizing his immobile Associate.
After several hours, much thinking, and some internal rehashing of the new Dr. Who series, Crowley took a step towards the bed. It was rather large. And there was no other furniture in the barren room. Surely he could have a seat on it without waking the angel.
Crowley could have done a number of things to wake Aziraphale-yelled, caused a fire alarm to go off next door, instigated a small and extremely localized earthquake. Yet he didn’t. He wasn’t sure why, either.
Yes, Aziraphale looked peaceful and angelic and all of that crap. Crowley had no problems conceding that. But that wasn’t why he was unwilling to wake him. No, it was more that… well, Crowley could relate. He enjoyed sleeping. He needed to sleep. He liked leaving behind the earthly plane to frolic in demonic dreams that he didn’t have to remember if he didn’t want to.
Perhaps Aziraphale needed something similar? Who was Crowley to deny him that?
And… well, he did look rather peaceful. Beautiful, even.
Such were angels.
Crowley set down on the bed. He knees creaked about as loudly as the old bed frame-both from disuse, he wagered. Still the angel slept on.
His first thought was that the bed, as lumpy as it looked, was both firm and soft and far more comfortable that it had any right to be. He smiled at this realization, feeling a small swell of pride at Aziraphale’s choices. Clearly, his outmoded sense of bedroom suites had nothing to do with his penchant for comfort. Crowley fancied that this was his influence at play.
Merely sitting on a bed waiting for someone to wake up wasn’t really all that satisfying. Crowley still gave it about an hour before he haltingly leaned backwards, kicked off his expensive leather shoes, and swiveled sideways so he was now in position to lie down mere inches from the angelic Principality of the greater London area. That thought, in particular, made him snigger.
He stopped instantly because he heard, quite distinctly, a loud long sigh escape from Aziraphale’s lips. It was the first sound he’d made in the hours that Crowley had been here. It was almost titillating. Really, Crowley thought, how many demons got to hear a sleeping angel sigh like that?
He wished his pillow a little bit softer, careful not to overdo it. Too much softness always smothered his coiffure, after all.
Then he gazed upwards at the dense brocade bed curtains until he felt his eyes begin to grow heavy. It probably wasn’t the best idea to curl up with his mortal enemy for a nap, but Crowley really couldn’t be arsed to care at the moment. He folded his hands across his chest and closed his eyes.
He didn’t allow himself to sleep too deeply. Unlike the angel, he had enough practice at sleeping to be able to control himself, even while unconscious. Therefore, Aziraphale’s soft pants and small movements jolted him awake fairly quickly.
Aziraphale was breathing shallowly and quickly. Crowley turned towards him, propped himself up on his elbow, and studied Aziraphale’s face. He could see Aziraphale’s eyes moving rapidly from beneath closed eyelids. That, coupled with the angel’s dimpled hands clutching and twisting the sheets, convinced Crowley that Aziraphale was having a nightmare.
It wasn’t a surprise, really. Hadn’t they both seen enough horrors over their thousands of years? Didn’t they both understand the magnitude of what the near-Apocalypse could have been? Crowley shuddered as visions from his nightmares flitted through his mind.
He felt his own hand close around Aziraphale’s before he realized what he was doing. It seemed like the right thing to do, so he left it there, even though a voice in his head (one that sounded remarkably like Duke Hastur) was calling him a poofy wimp.
Aziraphale’s panting stopped at once. His eyes and hands ceased their frenzied movement. Another sigh, much softer this time, passed through his open plump lips.
Crowley actively suppressed a warm fuzzy feeling that had been threatening to erupt in his chest. He’d never comforted anyone having a nightmare before.
Carefully, he rested his head back down on his pillow, choosing to stay on his side with his hand still clasping Aziraphale’s. As he felt his eyes grow heavy again, he reasoned that he could still straighten up before Aziraphale ever awoke. There was no need for the angel to know about any of it.
Hours later, it seemed, Crowley felt the most delectable sensation of warmth settling all over him. Languidly, he opened his eyes, expecting to see the bright fireball of the sun beating down on his scaly body. When he breathed in, he was slightly confused to not smell the scents of sand and salt water. Instead, he smelled clean laundry, and tea with milk and honey, and the barest hint of fluffy angelic feathers.
His eyes snapped open and he remembered exactly where he was. He cursed himself for slipping deeply enough into sleep as to forget his surroundings.
Speaking of surroundings, he quickly realized why he felt so fabulously warm in the first place. Aziraphale was splayed across him, his graying golden halo of hair just inches beneath Crowley’s nose. Inanely, Crowley thought that that might have explained the smell of feathers. Then he became aware that Aziraphale was breathing again because he could feel the smooth soft skin of Aziraphale’s belly rubbing up and down against the side of his torso. Their legs were hopelessly intertwined, too.
Crowley couldn’t conceive of a more awkward position to be in. And he wasn’t sure which of them should be more embarrassed. Actually, about two minutes later, he was fairly certain that Aziraphale would be more embarrassed. But then two minutes after that, he was again unsure.
Aziraphale had shifted just enough to move his hips closer to the top of Crowley’s thigh, effectively wrapping one leg around both of Crowley’s in the process. With a soft low moan, Aziraphale then rocked his hips into Crowley’s thigh, pressing what was, unmistakably, an erect cock into his side.
Crowley was motionless. He didn’t even blink. He merely lay there, while Aziraphale continued moving against him with slow sensuous rhythm. He was also stunningly aware that his entire circulatory system seemed insistent on redirecting his blood flow to a single place.
That confirmed it in his mind. This was officially the most irregular day of their entire acquaintance. And that was really saying something.
As far as he could see, Crowley had a couple of options. He could lie there stock-still and let Aziraphale continue to sleep-rut against him. He could wake the angel up and mock him for the rest of eternity, probably earning a commendation from Hell, in the process. Or he could do something else altogether. And as his arms crept around Aziraphale’s generous middle, he smiled to himself, thinking that he could always plead sleep-induced insanity, if necessary.
His hands had barely begun to caress Aziraphale’s soft supple skin when he felt Aziraphale move far more forcefully. He matched Aziraphale’s moans with one of his own. Who was he to deny the pleasures of the flesh, anyway?
Unexpectedly, Aziraphale lifted his head from Crowley’s chest and stared at him with sleepy yet lustful eyes. Totally caught off guard, Crowley held his breath and wondered just how badly he was about to be smited.
But Aziraphale merely smiled, a sloppy heavy smile, and then leaned his face down over Crowley’s, his mouth only inches away.
“So this is dreaming?” he whispered before Crowley felt sweet luscious full lips close over his own.
The kiss was far more surreal -- and utterly spectacular-- than Crowley would have ever imagined. Not that he’d ever admit to imagining such things, of course. It was warm and wet and slow. It was passionate but at the speed of a lazy Sunday afternoon. And it was steadily creeping up the list of “most exhilarating moments” of Crowley’s life.
“My Crowley,” over and over Aziraphale drowsily moaned into Crowley’s extremely willing lips.
“Yessssssssss…. yessssss,” Crowley hissed back. What was the point in lying?
For someone who had been recently sleeping like the dead, Aziraphale was surprisingly agile. He had climbed on top of Crowley without breaking their kisses. For all Crowley could tell, Aziraphale might have still been asleep, too. Would the angel really be on top of him now if he was truly awake? Crowley was certain that the answer was a resounding No.
As Crowley’s clothes disappeared, not of his own doing, he was please to note, he only indulged in the moral dilemma of not waking Aziraphale for long enough to realize that he was willing to risk any level of smiting if only Aziraphale would continue to move just like that… oh yesssss.
And the angel did continue to rub against him, moving with increasing force and speed, dispelling the lazy sensuality from moments before. He even managed to reach his hand between their bodies and to grip both of their cocks together.
“Crowley,” he breathed. And Crowley snapped open his eyes. When had he closed them? Aziraphale’s silvery blue eyes were now all black, completely dilated with desire. And though Crowley was hardly in a position to think coherently, he was quite certain that Aziraphale was no longer asleep.
But it was far too late for Crowley to worry about that. In for a tempting, in for damning and all that.
“Aziraphale… wanted you,” he choked out, though he was certain he’d never meant to admit that particular sentiment aloud.
Even in the lust-induced fog of his mind, the sudden gleam in Aziraphale’s eyes shocked him. It was all but predatory and clashed well with the hunger that Crowley could clearly see in the angel’s expression.
Then it was over. He was gasping into Aziraphale’s mouth, overwhelmed by the physical reality of ecstasy washing through him, and feeling a hot wetness spurt between their bodies. Aziraphale moved against him for a few seconds more before he, too, gasped for breath, and then collapsed on top of Crowley.
*~*~*
“Er… are you awake?”
“Oh, yes.”
“…”
“But I feel like sleeping again.”
“Me, too, I suppose.”
“Hmmm… well, it is a big bed, my dear boy.”
“I like it.”
“I thought you might.”
“Aziraphale?”
“Hmmm?”
“Did you…? How long…? Er…?”
“Oh, that. I suppose I noticed the Bentley about ten minutes before you arrived.”
“So you were… awake?”
“No. I was asleep. Crowley, I’d know you anywhere, no matter what. Don’t you know that by now?”
“So you were sleeping when you…? But you knew it was me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you plan all this?”
“No, but I’m not sorry it happened. Now, sleepytime. And then later, tomorrow maybe, I’ll take you to lunch.”