Disclaimer - As always, all characters are Terry Pratchett's and Neil Gaiman's. Well, except for a blond lad that has no name and a rather frowned upon job.
Notes - This story is a bit longer than the others and has three different viewpoints. I decided to do both Crowley and Aziraphale in this one, as it was a transitional story. The middle of things if you will, and needed to be done this way. Now to just get them closer...
Lay Your Hands On Me: 5 Degrees Higher
It was now summer, the spring having seen many adventures that were very new to Aziraphale. And now it was hot. The phrase 'stinking hot' would have been appropriate if he had bothered to let his body sweat, but he didn't, liking to keep clean at all times.
Half a year had passed since the world had...stopped and started again, for lack of better words, all at the whims of an eleven year old boy. Thankfully everything was back to normal now. Well, if normal included getting hot and bothered what felt like every hour of every day. For the first month after Crowley had touched him, he had been very needy in such things, and it was a cause of embarrassment for him.
Crowley teased him mercilessly over it. He had told the demon to go have sexual relations with the Bentley. He didn't mean any harm to the old fashioned car really...but it was annoying him, being teased constantly. Mentioning anything that resulted in sticky substances on his precious car stopped Crowley from teasing him. In fact, it stopped all contact for days on end. And those days were still counting
His frustration was becoming very much debilitating to him. He couldn't think of anything much but what it would feel like to be touched in private places. To have the explosive feeling of release claim him. His books were being neglected, he hadn't been out of the shop for days on end, and he was getting twitchy. If Heaven was paying any attention to him, he would be getting into big trouble relatively soon.
He rubbed his hands against the shirt he was wearing and growled slightly under his breath as the movement only increased his already sensitive body. He had never felt like this so sharply until Crowley had gotten him to make an effort. Now he felt it constantly, keenly. He had always been sensitive, but this had got to be a joke someone Above was playing on him.
"Damn you, Crowley," he muttered to himself, as he began to pace the back room of his shop, trying to release some of the energy sizzling inside him in the only non touchy way he knew. He had not been in Heaven since people had been invented, only for short stays if his body had been inconveniently discorporated. Since then, humans had come up with the 'touching yourself is a sin and will make you go blind' rule. He didn't know if it was true or not, the sinning part that is, he thought the whole world would be blind sometimes otherwise if the other half was true, and until he was told so, he would not give in to his body's rather growing needs. It was getting harder not to though.
He had tried to tell Crowley over the phone that he was being ridiculous and he hadn't meant the car thing, but the demon refused to speak to him any longer. So he had no help in that regard. He absolutely refused to...pay for such services, and there was no way in...well, no way he was going to touch himself.
He stopped his angry pacing and flopped himself down on his couch. The place where all this...feeling began for him. He lay down, burying his head in the pillow he had gone out and bought so he would be more comfortable with laying down there and reading throughout the night.
He shifted slightly, trying to get more comfortable, but had forgotten to turn and lay on his back first and the movement sent jolts of pleasure through his body and, without meaning to, his hips moved against his will and he groaned aloud with the slight motion.
His body had switched to auto pilot, something he didn't mind in some situations, but was maddening in this case. He lifted his arms and leant his weight on them, pushing his body further against the couch. He growled deeply in utter frustration. This wasn't enough! He needed to...feel something against his skin, and the couch would just be too prickly for that.
He put all his weight on one arm, and untied his belt and pulled his pants and under garments down, sighing as it at least stopped some of the constant friction to his groin. Looking around, he spotted nothing but hard objects, and his books, some of which were soft cover. He wouldn't want his books sticky though, so he shook his head and once again buried his head in his pillow. Wait...pillow. Soft and could fit between his legs.
Perfect.
He quickly got up, put the pillow where he had begun dripping on the couch and laid back down, glad that he could always replace the pillow with another. He gripped the pillow with his legs and began to gently rock, dropping his head and groaning at the waves it sent crashing through his body. This felt good. Really good.
His forehead rested against the arm of the couch, one arm going around his head to grip the piece of furniture like a lifeline, his other gripping the pillow as he felt this gloriously torturous pleasure growing. Being told he was vocal, and it still being early in the evening and not wanting to disturb the people next door to him, he bit the couch arm tightly, only letting a few quiet grunts pass his clenched teeth.
He completely missed the revving of a car engine as it rolled to a stop outside the bookshop, didn't hear the jingle of the bell as someone opened the door and entered, regardless of the door being locked. He had no sense of anything around him, as he grunted loudly once, biting deeply into the couch as release took him, and then as the rush left, he heard a gasp off to the side.
Looking over to his side, he noted that someone with black hair and dark sunglasses, regardless of the time of day, was gawking at him, his mouth hanging open slightly. It took his brain a few sluggish seconds to recognise Crowley, before he shrieked loudly and wrapped the blanket that he kept hung over the couch over himself.
"What in the world are you doing here!" he asked wildly of the demon, clutching the blanket closer to himself, while pulling the pillow out from between his legs with a grimace of distaste. As he suspected, it was a sticky mess. He really hated that part. Why did it have to be such a messy activity?
"Wha...well, what are you...? The Hell with this," Crowley stumbled the words, before turning around and fleeing back out of the shop. Aziraphale hadn't meant to scare the demon off like that, really. In fact, as soon as the familiar figure disappeared and the squeal of tyre's meant Crowley's leaving, he felt nothing but alone. Not liking the feeling, he sighed and got up, miracling himself clean, and grabbed a book to read.
He spent the rest of the night trying to figure out the confusion he felt and the loneliness at seeing Crowley bolt. He never got near an answer.
As the car sped its way away from the curb and onto the streets at breakneck speed (a bit faster than his normal self deemed fit enough for speeding) he couldn't quite understand why he felt so...so! He didn't know what this was, but whatever it was, he didn't like it.
He was half-way back to his apartment when it struck him. So far, all he had been doing since Aziraphale's rather horrid comment about his car, had been spending his time in bed. Either sleeping or sulking. And now he was beginning to understand why. He hit the brakes hard, hearing blaring of car horns behind him. He would have been happy under normal circumstances to have caused a near crash, but now his thoughts were going places not even he had dared think before.
As he had watched as Aziraphale had let his shields down enough to go solo for once in his life, Crowley had felt as green as...but he couldn't possibly be! But he was. He was jealous. Of inanimate objects getting closer to Aziraphale than he was allowed at the moment.
He hit his head hard against the steering wheel of the Bentley and hissed under his breath. If he hadn't been so insulted at the stupid remark and accepted the angels calls and let him apologize, it wouldn't have been a pillow that Aziraphale was busy trying to have sex with, it may have been him.
It may have been him! "Oh, Crowley, what have you gotten yourself into this time," he muttered to himself under his breath, before starting the car and resuming his drive. He needed to get home and think. He didn't want to crash and possibly discorporate this body. No, he was quite attached to it by now, and all it was. He was also very attached to his car, just not enough to go about having sex with it. Although he briefly saw the picture in his mind of Aziraphale with the car, seeing as the angel appeared to have a fondness for inanimate objects?
With a strangled cry, he switched on the radio, truly not in the mood for being left alone with his thoughts, though truly not in the mood of listening to Queen. He was blared with some sappy love song. He switched it off just as fast. "Damn this! What has that angel done to my mind?"
He was sure that this some kind of...sick divine pleasure just to annoy him further than he already had been. To say that he had gone to Aziraphale's to listen to what the angel had to say, to hear an apology...even to apologize himself for being such an idiot. He had known it to be a joke, so why had he acted all shitty? But to walk in on the angel as he...well, he still didn't know what to call what it was he had walked in on, only that he really didn't like it.
He finally reached his apartment and parked his car in its usual spot. He caught the lift up to his penthouse room, rather than climbing the stairs like he normally did, as it was relatively faster. In the fact that it just went straight up and down. In all other ways, it was much slower, but he had a lot to think about.
As the bell claimed he had reached as high as he could get and the doors opened, he slowly made his way to his apartment door, opened it and slammed it shut behind him as he entered the spacious lounge room he had. He saw the plants trying to look all pretty and walked over to them. Leaves shivered on branches and reached higher into the air, even though he was not in the mood to do anything more malicious than water them at the moment.
"What should I do?" he asked the nearest plant, slowly running his hands through vibrant green leaves, as he decided that they were better to talk to about this than himself. "Why do I feel like this? What started this off?"
He could feel the miniscule tremors of the plant through his hand and dropped the leaves he had been playing with. He flopped himself down onto his leather couch and buried his head in his hands. "Ngh, why does this have to be so damned... confusing!" He punched at the leather on one of the couch arms angrily. "Bless this, I need distractions, yeah."
He looked over to the plants, got up and went over to where he kept the plant mister and watered them all. "Tell anyone about this at all, and you will all find yourselves in plant Heaven." He had the firm belief that his plants were all good. Mainly because no demonic plant would cower before someone as low in rank as he was.
There was a nice little brothel not too far away and he decided to get over these pesky feelings, he would go for a visit there. After all, he was just slightly jealous. It wasn't as if he was in...lust or anything. He didn't even like the angel, or at least, in that way. So he had helped Aziraphale find out what it felt like to sample what they could of the pleasures of the flesh. Didn't mean he cared for the angel in any way other than an odd acquaintance for over 6000 years.
He decided to walk. The fresh air might do him some good. Or, he could just swelter slowly from the heat on the way there.
Shaking his head, he locked up his apartment again and made his slow way down the stairs. He needed the time to think, but of what, he didn't quite know. Bless this! Why did everything since the Almost Apocalypse have to be so...confusing! Perhaps Adam was messing around with him as punishment for thousands of years of tempting people? That would explain Aziraphale's sudden interest in...certain bodily functions.
He couldn't remember the walk to his destination, only that when he reached there, he had immediately hired the nicest looking person he could find. A male, with darkish blond hair which fell in waves around his face, and sparkling clear blue eyes. If he was a bit older than his twenties...Crowley shook his head. No, this man and Aziraphale were nothing alike! Or, at least, that is what he tried to tell himself. Too bad his eyes and mind were telling him differently, as was another part of him which begun to get angry at the younger man in front of him.
They made their way to the room that was waiting for them, and fell to the bed.
"Anything in particular you want me to do, love?" the young man asked, smiling at him in quite an ange...nice way.
Crowley buried his head in his hands. "I ... I want something different to what I am used to... something that is more...sex-like."
My Go...Sa...Somebody! He was stuttering like an untouched virgin! He shied neatly away from the fact that in all actuality he WAS a virgin, but he was by no means untouched. Not for a very long time now.
The young man smiled down at him in that way of his and nodded. "What are you used to then?"
Crowley gulped and lay down on the bed. "Just being touched. Either using hands or mouths. Occasionally the other's body..."
The man nodded down at him and smiled that smile of his, before beginning to pull their clothes off and gently folding them and placing them on a chair. He came back when done, a small vial of oil in his hands. "Do you want to go all the way, or not?" the man asked, gently beginning to massage his thighs in a way that was becoming slightly maddening as pleasure began to increase in his body.
"No," Crowley whispered slightly, knowing he would just get into trouble if that happened from his superiors.
"Alright, then I will give you a little taste of what it might be like to be taken."
Taken? Crowley thought to himself, before a shrill shriek passed his lips as one of his feet was thrown over a muscular shoulder. Then fingers went where no fingers had been before.
It was uncomfortable to begin with, and perhaps that was a little twinge of pain, but that was all swept away soon enough by the most wonderful feelings he had ever experienced. Parts of him ached that he didn't know existed, and some parts he did but were being sorely lacked in attention. He was sure he was being driven slowly mad.
His back arched as he tried to bury those fingers deeper, as he tried to relieve the ache that was rising in him, yearning for release in the most carnal way. His body had other ideas however and before he did something completely stupid, he yelled out "Stop!"
Anything other than casual touching was too much to do in front of humans he noted to himself, as his mind and body begun to cool down that bit. His wings had almost shown themselves, his fangs (which were one of the fall backs of having been a snake, like his eyes, not because he was a demon, but more easily hidden,) had been aching to sink into flesh, and if he had had claws, he was sure they would have been raking at skin too. Luckily that last was not part of his features.
"Intense," he stated as a way of explanation to the worried looking blond fellow staring worriedly down at him. He felt like he should be apologizing, but thought better of it. Instead he grabbed one of the small hands of the hired man and finished what had been started in another way.
He didn't feel any better for it, and he had the strange sinking feeling that he had muttered Aziraphale's name somewhere in the rush of release. He hoped he hadn't. He couldn't get up the courage to ask though, so just went on doing another thing he was getting good at. Denial.
Not really in the mood for any more of said activities, he got up, paid a bit more to the blond and left. He still had most of his time left.
His mood was down and he decided what he truly needed was a couple of days of uninterrupted sleep.
The posh French restaurant the two oddly dressed people were in were being completely ignored. It was the way things should be. If people truly began to take notice of them, then some major beliefs would be broken...or begun. The last thing the world needed these days was another religion. There were plenty enough to go around for everyone the way it was. For both sides.
One fellow was dressed in biker gear, all leather and piercing's. One of the most unlikely people to find in a restaurant like this. He didn't normally look so rough, but he was trying to keep up appearances for the man sitting across from him. The one who was wearing a plain white shirt with a pair of light blue slacks. Neither looked anything like the way they were normally depicted by the humans also eating at the seats around them.
Anyone seeing them together would have thought they were probably up to some nefarious sexual experience, but this was not true. They were conducting a centennial business meeting.
"You do know that they're alive, right?" God asked.
The greater evil shrugged, swallowing the oyster. "I created them."
The lighter of the two shrugged and smiled, before peeling the snail he was holding from its shell and eagerly swallowing it. "Snails too, if I am being mistaken? I have made so many good things, and some bad, that I always forget that you had a hand in some of them."
Satan raised a pierced eyebrow and grinned wickedly. "Our greatest achievement together were cats. The things are still neutral animals. Wonder why they have never been swayed to one side or the other?"
"I wanted at least one creature on this earth to be that way," God replied, eating another of the snails in front of him, and washing it down with a swig of beer that lay at his side.
Talking stopped for the time being, as both finished their odd meal of delicacies, each preferring a uniquely different taste in foods, but both liking the beer. The beer here was always good.
As the bill was brought and laid out in front of the nicer dressed of the two, the money was already waiting. None of the patrons of the shop, nor any of the staff for that matter had to know that it was just uniquely shaped air made to look like money. Even God had a sense of humour.
"Counterfeiting? My, I thought you were meant to be the paragon of all that is good in the world?"
"Oh be quiet."
And quiet they both were as they waited for the desert that was now coming. The bill had come early, but they had already ordered. For once, they had both had to wait for their treat. But at least they could just walk out when the meal was done.
"So...I have noticed that two of our people seem to be getting awfully cozy with each other," Satan stated, as his double chocolate muffin was placed in front of him.
"Yes. Aziraphale, the dear boy is getting awfully confused, poor lad. He has become too attached to this world and is now getting more involved in the goings on of the Humans about him," God said, picking up one of three iced cupcakes put in front of him.
Satan snorted. "Yes, well, Crowley had gotten into that habit centuries ago. But he is beginning to have feelings that are rather...undemonic. Towards your angel."
Both good and bad, evil and divine stared at each other for a few minutes, before a wicked grin came over the face of one. "Well, I think a small wager is in order!" God stated, the grin on his face widening as a mirrored smirk fell over the face of his opposite.
"For a divine being, you can be evil do you know this?" Satan replied, but nodded eagerly at the thought of a bet.
God looked innocent for a minute or two before his face faded into a look of concentration. "A bet on who lays who first? Or, as the Humans may put it nowadays, who will be on top?"
"Sounds good to me. You choose first. If you can be evil, I can be nice...for once."
God looked hard into his half empty glass of beer, before draining it. "Well, in that case I will side with the demon Crowley. He will have more inclination to such things after all."
Satan smirked, and slowly sipped at his half full mug of beer until it was all gone, as if for a rather extended dramatic pause. "I will go with the angel then. Your dear Aziraphale. You are sorely underestimating his wicked side, that is for sure."
God shrugged and smiled, which brightened the room about them and made the white shirt he was wearing almost glow. "Well, what shall we get if we win then. You can decide that."
Now the thoughtful expression on a biker did not go well. It made Satan look a bit dim witted, which was the furthest thing from the reality of the situation. "Well, how about this. If I win, Hell gets full reign of Earth for five months. If you win, Heaven gets full reign for five months. Should be interesting and it would be like a little taste of what would it have been like if Armageddon had passed by like it was supposed to.
God thought for a bit before nodding gravely and held out his hand. They shook on it. A deal done. It will probably be written on stone later with the utter importance of it. After all, it was a momentous thing to bet on. A demon and an angel sleeping together. Even more so out of love and not lust.
Now to watch as events would unfold.