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Crowley woke up to a strange feeling of someone sharing his bed. There was a warm body pressed against his back, and while the sensation itself was not unpleasant, this was mildly alarming, since it was the first time he had ever woken up in such a situation. Worse still, he had only very vague memories of the night before. Carefully he turned around trying his best not to disturb whoever it was behind him. This carefulness was short lived though, as he found himself facing—
”Aziraphale?” the sound had escaped Crowley’s lips before his brain even caught up with the sight. A feeling of tremendous relief filled him. Of all the people -or things?- he could have fallen asleep next to, Aziraphale was the most welcome by far.
”Mmh?” the angel next to him mumbled. Or perhaps groaned? Whined? Then the blue eyes opened slowly and met Crowley’s. For a moment they stayed still. Looking at each other. Their faces too close to each other. Far too close. It reminded Crowley of something he couldn’t quite catch. He frowned. What…
Then Aziraphale licked his lips, making Crowley shift his focus from his eyes to his mouth just for a second, but that was all it took. The memories from the previous night came flooding back and he felt his face grow hot as his head filled with images of the two of them, tangled around each other, touching, kissing… True, most of it was a bit hazy, but it was more than enough to get the picture. If anything the haziness made it worse, because his imagination was going absolutely bonkers filling in the gaps.
Unable to face the angel Crowley performed a very quick turn that led to him falling off the bed and face first onto the floor, where he decided to lay for a bit, if only because he didn’t know how to proceed.
”Crowley?” the angel’s voice called from behind him, ”Is something the matter?”
What a strange question, thought Crowley. He didn’t understand how the angel could be so calm about it. Surely they had done the worst thing imaginable. They had broken every rule. And while Crowley was fine with rule-breaking in general, there were some one should stay well clear of. And what had they done? Not that, for sure. There would be repercussions. And not even thinking about the whole Heaven and Hell side of the thing, he wasn’t sure where he stood morally. Sure Rome was exceptionally liberal about sex and even two beings that would appear to anyone as men, would not make anyone’s head turn, but that wasn’t what worried Crowley. What worried him was that he had ever so slowly been making friends with the angel and now it felt like they had skipped at least a hundred and fifty three steps. Minimum. They could never go back to how things had been progressing. Maybe they could never be friends at all now. The fact that they had had sex, that he had proceeded so carelessly, so suddenly, it meant something. And Crowley didn’t know what and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know either. He wished he could pretend nothing had happened. He wished he didn’t remember.
A thought struck Crowley then. Maybe the angel was so calm because he didn’t remember. And maybe if he just pretended he didn’t either their relationship could go back to where it had been before the night.
”Crowley?” the angel asked again, closer now.
”All good, angel, all good,” Crowley muttered against the stone floor. He took a breath to calm his nerves. Just pretend nothing happened, Crowley, you can do that, he told himself. He turned around to face the angel staring at him from the bed. He sat up. He realized he was completely naked (of course he was, what else would he be?), which led to him frantically searching for his clothes. He located them in a pile near the door, tangled with the white of the angel’s garments. More images from the previous night flashed through his head. He felt the heat make its way back onto his face. The only thing he could do was bury his face in his hands and curl up into a ball. He probably let out a whimper. He definitely let out a whimper. So much for pretending he remembered nothing.
”What is it?” asked Aziraphale. Crowley couldn’t possibly tell the truth. He tried to come up with a clever lie, or an excuse, or a distraction, or something. Anything.
”We had sex,” he said truthfully. That was not at all what he had meant to say. Now there really was no going back. Everything was changed forever. There was no more room for pretending everything was—
”Yes. And?” Asked Aziraphale.
”What?” Crowley asked back, hazarding a look at the angel. The blue eyes were staring at him, trying to puzzle something out. Then a metaphorical lightbulb (which was the only kind of lightbulb possible in Rome 41 A.D. because lightbulbs had not been invented yet) lighted.
”Is that why you are so distressed?”
”Yes!” Crowley hissed. Then he burrowed his face back in his hands.
”I don’t understand. As I remember it was fine. We had fun, didn’t we? What is the problem? ” asked Aziraphale. Crowley looked at him again.
”What isn’t?” he asked in agony. How could the angel be so calm about it? Well, of course, trying to maneuver them into having a genuine friendship had always been Crowley’s personal project, so perhaps losing that was not such a big deal for the angel. Which thought hurt more than Crowley was ready to admit.
”No, Crowley, please tell me. What exactly is the problem?” Aziraphale prompted. Crowley, of course could not tell him, because secretly machinating a friendship requires one thing above all, and that is keeping the machinations secret. But luckily that was not the only problem Crowley had with the situation so this time coming up with an excuse was easy.
”Surely it is wrong for a demon to sleep with an angel. That must be about the holiest thing. I mean what am I now? Am I even a demon anymore? What if Hell finds out? No, worse! What if Heaven finds out? There will be repercussions, angel! Such repercussions!”
”But what if,” countered Aziraphale cleverly, ”you tempted an angel? Led him astray? A proper demonic deed?”
”Oh,” said Crowley, ”I guess that would be okay then.”
”Good,” said the angel and blessed him with a smile. That was Hell taken care of, but there was still Heaven to worry about.
”What about you?” Crowley asked.
”Oh, I was just keeping you away from the humans.” Well, that hurt a bit. And the worst part was, Crowley couldn’t be sure if it was actually true. It well could have been, but how could he ever ask? Crowley reminded himself that only a moment ago Aziraphale had said he had had fun, so there was that at least.
”Right. So that’s it? Business as usual?” Crowley asked, nonchalantly as he could.
”Business as usual,” Aziraphale confirmed. Crowley nodded. He was still sitting on the floor, which meant that when Aziraphale, who had previously been laying on his stomach and covered with a sheet, decided to stand up and get his clothes Crowley inadvertently got rather a good look at the angel’s body. At once the memories from the previous night filled his head again and he had to curl up again.
Aziraphale gathered his garments from the floor and arranged them on himself by hand instead of just miracling them. Crowley found himself unable to look, because that, brought back more memories. He liked those memories, of course, but it would be best he only ever thought of them when the angel was nowhere near, lest his stray thoughts would become the reason there was no going back to building a friendship. Crowley was determined not to let that happen. He was perfectly capable of controlling his thoughts.
”Until next time,” Aziraphale said once he was done with the clothes and headed out of the door.
”Yeah, see you, angel,” Crowley replied, trying very hard to quiet the little voice in his head that kept mentally wink-wink-nudge-nudging him and telling him that maybe by next time the angel meant to imply they would in fact sleep together again. Apparently he was not perfectly capable of controlling his thoughts. Crowley let out a frustrated hiss.