shipping | psl

Aziraphale did not, in fact, have any scales to preen but he did have plenty of body hair, and he finds it very sweet that Crowley is attempting to groom him. At least, that's what he assumes he's doing, because otherwise he is very confused.

"Well, alright dear, but we can't let them think it's alright to stake claim on your land. Is there anything we can do to guard it? Perhaps putting up a fence, or a... a charm?" he's not very good at magic, just having found out that it existed about twenty four hours ago, so Crowley will have to forgive any ignorant ideas about the subject.

Crowley seems to like where Aziraphale is soft and warm, so he gently unbuttons the lower part of his shirt and guides Crowley's hand underneath to the soft peach fuzz swell of his stomach.

"Got territory markers set up around the borders," he murmurs, starting to fluff at the soft body hair on Aziraphale's belly. But given an inch, his inquisitive hands will take a mile, beginning to stroke over the warm, soft roundness of it.

"I'll know if there's anyone who's not just passing through - oh you are lovely all over. Why do you cover yourself so much?"

He gives the shirt's hem a mournful tug as if to chastise it for hiding Aziraphale.

"Well, we all do," he says. "All humans wear this much clothing, it's only really when we go out to sea and bathe in it that we don't. Or, you know, sometimes children run around naked in the summer, but adults never do, it would be improper."

Though, he does like the way Crowley's hands feel on his stomach, warm and inquisitive. Oh, he's so very curious, and why wouldn't he be? Aziraphale had touched Crowley's tail upon first meeting him, had kissed him, and had spent part of the morning massaging his sore muscles. Crowley could be allowed a little leeway in getting into Aziraphale's personal space.

"It's only proper to gaze upon another in the nude if you are lovers, or if you are looking at a piece of art, I'd say. Our people are very private that way. It would just be very scandalous not to wear clothes!" He doesn't really know why, just that... it is!

Crowley considers this.

"Seen me naked," he says, pressing a kiss to Aziraphale's neck. "Been naked since we met. So that means I'm your lover then, right?"

Of course that's his take away from all that.

"How do humans bathe then? You wash yourself in sand like the birds?"

His fingertips glide over Aziraphale's ribs, very carefully, and then pause.

"...Right - forgot you can only breath through your ears."

He may also not be entirely well-versed on human anatomy.

Aziraphale laughs, and laughs again. Oh, Crowley is so sweet and so lovely, he can't imagine having not met him. He doesn't know how he's lived so long without him. "We bathe in the nude, darling, but we bathe alone, for the most part."

And then he smiles and he pulls Crowley in towards him, kissing his nose and informing Crowley that, "we breathe through here," and then with one on the mouth that, "we also breathe through here. But goodness, we don't breathe through our ears, I've no idea where you heard that."

And then, after a pause, he asks, "where do you think my ears are?"

He bites back another laugh, and once he calms down, he looks at Crowley and says, "alright, hold on. I'll teach you a lesson about humans. And if you're just trying to trick me into showing you parts of my body, I will say, that was very smooth. Extremely well-played, dear."

"Well-known fact," he insists a little dazedly. That's the first kiss Aziraphale gave him on the mouth - the one in the boat not-withstanding, anyway, and that had only happened because Aziraphale thought a kiss from a merperson would let him breathe underwater. "Everyone knows humans breathe through their ears."

At least he knows where Aziraphale's ears are and gives each one a kiss.

He is very interested in just what's going on under all that fabric. From what he felt, Aziraphale has quite a bit of fluffy bits and Crowley is very eager to run his fingers through them.

Aziraphale lets out a quick giggle as Crowley's breath tickles his ears, and then he takes Crowley's hand and gently moves it to his eyelashes. "These are to keep out the dust, those are little dry things, like sand, but smaller. There's a lot of it up here."

He moves Crowley's hand to his nose. "This is for smelling, and breathing, as you know."

Then to his mouth. "This is for eating, and also breathing, and kissing, and oh, I imagine a lot of other things." Then to his throat. "This is for talking." And then he unbuttons his shirt at the top, relocating Crowley's hand to his heart. "This is for delivering oxygen to my body. And for beating faster when you're near."

Then he moves Crowley's hands down, to his thighs. "These are for running, and walking, which I'll have to teach you how to do, eventually, you know."

Crowley lets his hands be guided over Aziraphale's anatomy, his expression going from surprised wonder, to soft, tender, and affectionate.

"And I can walk with you," he marvels, running his fingers along the length of Aziraphale's thighs, feeling the muscle underneath the softness of him.

"At your side, always."

He presses his forehead to Aziraphale's, and takes his hand, resting it over his own heart.

If Aziraphale were ice, he would be completely melted. He stops to feel Crowley's heart beating in his chest, softly filling him with warmth in its ceaselessness, its tenacity. "Always," he promises Crowley.

It should really scare him, how he feels so strongly for Crowley, but he's blinded by his rose-tinted outlook.

"Are you not the least bit hungry? Perhaps I can show you human breakfast," he offers, sliding his hand up from Crowley's heart around his neck and then into his hair, because he remembers how much he likes it to be played with.

"And I'll teach you to walk. Should go alright, it takes humans several months, you know."

"Good thing I'm a fast learner," Crowley remarks, shivering happily as Aziraphale touches his hair.

He's no better than Aziraphale with his own rose-tinted glasses, wrapping his arms around Aziraphale's shoulders.

"If you're hungry, I can go hunt; all sorts of good things to eat this time of year. Fish, mollusks, crabs - what are you hungry for?"

"My darling, I have plenty of food, I merely need to get extricated from your arms and go fix myself a tea and cut a slice of bread. Would you like anything? I've got some fruits in from the market, if you'd like to try. They're very sweet." And he doubts that Crowley has eaten fruit before.

In fact, he doesn't know if Crowley even likes to eat anything sweet. Well, there's one way to find out.

He does eventually leave Crowley's side, albeit reluctantly, and goes to rifle through his cupboards for berries. They're fresh, and tiny, and full to bursting with strawberry flavor, and cost him a pretty penny.

Aziraphale washes a handful of them, and plucks the stem off of one before offering it to Crowley.

Crowley studies the plump, red fruit Aziraphale proffers and takes it cautiously. He turns it over in his fingers, sniffs it, finds nothing objectionable and takes a bite.

Fireworks go off behind his eyes as his lids flutter shut. A bit of juice escapes the corner of his mouth as he chews the sweet and tart piece of ecstasy that crossed his lips. Crowley makes a sweet little whimpering sound at the back of his throat.

Oh what a marvel it is! He'd never tasted something so delicious in his life.

"...What is that?" he asks, once sense and reason return to him.

Aziraphale watches him, rapt, and nearly whimpers himself in sympathy, when he hears Crowley do it. He offers another, and says, "they're strawberries. Fresh! And just in season. They'll be sweet like this for a month, and then we won't get good ones until next year."

He loves this, getting to show Crowley something and watching the wonder in his eyes.

"Stay here, let me get you some cream." He seems practically giddy with the idea as he rifles through his his cabinets for some sweetened, slightly whipped cream, and spoons some onto a plate where he places the strawberries.

"Try it together, go on."

Crowley nods mutely, coming down a bit from his moment of pure ecstasy as he picks another strawberry and dips it into the cream.

The cream softens the tartness and adds a body to it he can't quite describe. It's incredible - the human world was amazing and here, this lovely human he found, is showing him such wonders and marvels.

Yellow eyes eventually flutter open again, and Crowley beams adoringly at Aziraphale.

"No wonder so many are itching to visit here, with food like this."

"These aren't the greatest food known to man," he says. "But they are rather marvelous, no?" He takes only one, dips it in the cream and eats it for himself, but he pushes the plate towards Crowley to encourage him to take more of them. After all, these are the first strawberries he's ever had.

"Why don't I bake you something?" he smiles and rises to his feet to get out some flour and sugar, little canisters in his teeny tiny kitchen, a bowl to mix in, some milk. "I think you'll like to try cakes."

He's very excited about this prospect, particularly since Crowley has brought him so many lovely gifts. He'd shower Crowley in all the affections he could possibly muster, and make him a proper home on land.

Cake sounds interesting; he has no idea what cake is, but he's curious about it. He's curious about a lot of things, but right now, he is most curious about what might happen if he fed him one of these lovely strawberries dipped in cream.

So he does so, popping the little fruit in Aziraphale's mouth and grinning wide and delighted.

"I'd like to try everything - anything - you suggest. What's cake?"

The answer to his experiment is that Aziraphale's eyes flutter closed and he makes a very satisfied hum. He's so surprised and it's so juicy, that he accidentally gets some of it on Crowley's fingers. Without thinking about it, he takes Crowley's wrist and sucks the remainder of the juice off of Crowley's skin.

Then he turns a bright red and pulls away, clearing his throat. "Cake is... like bread, but sweeter, and fluffier. And there's cream, and sometimes fruit."

Bashfully, he returns to his mixing bowl, measuring out ingredients and whisking it all together, turning his oven on to pre-heat as he works. "Won't be ready for awhile, but surely it will be by dinnertime." He looks over fondly at this merman, eyes like he'd never seen the stars before. Goodness, he was going to enjoy showing him human life.

Crowley is gazing in amazement at his fingers. It had sent a delightful shiver up his spine and he very much wanted to explore further what else that exquisite mouth might do to his fingers.

"Sweet is a nice flavour."

He wonders if Aziraphale would be sweet too.

Slowly, carefully, clinging to sturdier pieces of furniture as he practices putting one foot in front of the other, he makes his way to where Aziraphale is working, observing with rapt attention. Every once in a while, he'll dip a finger in the mixing bowl for a taste.

"I do like sweet. It's my favorite." Aziraphale lets him steal bites, since it's the 1840s and he has no idea about the danger of raw eggs. He laughs at Crowley's antics, and tries very hard not to give in and kiss Crowley, which he desperately wants to do whenever he gets a little too close and he gets a whiff of the salt off his skin.

He butters up a pan and pours his batter in, quickly washing up his tools and sticks a piece of paper in to determine that it's gotten to the temperature he wants.

And once he's able to focus entirely on Crowley once more, he finds himself captured by him, and brushes a lock of hair behind his ear. He wants so badly to promise him all sorts of things. "Crowley, I..." he starts. He knows it's only been a day and a half, he knows that this is crazy, but he also feels--

--What does he feel?

He looks back and-- "Oh yes, hot enough," he says, fishing out the flaming paper with a pair of tongs and popping the cake in the oven.

"Wait, why are you setting it on fire...?" Crowley asks, panicked as Aziraphale gets too close to - whatever the fire box thing is.

He suspects it's something that has to be done to make things like bread and whatever cake is, but he's not sure why, and something in his stomach twists at the thought of fire being too close to Aziraphale.

So he hovers, prepared to pull his human lover out of the jaws of fire-y death at a moment's notice, all while glaring daggers at the oven.

If it sent so much as a spark out of line, so help him...

Aziraphale tosses the piece of paper into the sink and quickly puts it out, as well as sticking his fingers into cold water since he's gotten a bit of red. It's not really a burn, it'll go away. "Oh, it's a bit of magic, really. You'll see in a half hour. Do you remember how the cake went in and it was a liquid, a bit like the texture of the cream? Just keep that in mind."

But surely he'd be enchanted by the smell of freshly-baking cake. In the meantime, he takes out a whisk and some butter and sugar, and squeezes some lemon to make a lovely icing for the cake, which he thinks he might just pour on while hot so he can serve Crowley right away. He prefers a fluffy frosting, but that would require waiting for the cake to get cold first, and he's so impatient when it comes to Crowley. His whole life has been at one pace and it feels like suddenly he's catching up.

"Darling, what's wrong?" he asks, as he looks over and catches Crowley glowering at the oven.

"Making sure it doesn't pull anything funny," he says, not taking his eyes off the oven. "I know how quick fire can get out of control."

He spots the redness on Aziraphale's finger, and puffs himself up again.

"Just like that! You see? It can be very sneaky, fire. ...Right, give us a look, love, I can make it feel better."

Crowley holds out his hand for Aziraphale to show him the damaged digit.

"Crowley, I knew it was going to do that. I was just too lazy to get out my tongs." He gives Crowley his hand anyway, for him to inspect. "It's only a little red, not even properly burnt. It'll be alright."

But he does sort of like the attention, and with his other hand, tries to ease Crowley by rubbing his back. "My love, it's an oven. All human houses have one, and it's meant for making food for us. You know we have to cook everything."

He hopes that explains it, but if not, Crowley will see in about half an hour.

"See, my dear? It's perfectly fine. No harm done."

Crowley makes a skeptical noise at the back of his throat, but nods. Aziraphale seems to know what he's doing at the very least.

Taking his hand, Crowley presses a kiss to the barely-singed pad of his finger, the peculiar coolness of his skin probably some bit of relief. But it spreads, and quite suddenly the redness has gone completely.

"No harm at all. See? Useful, eh?"

"Oh!" he exclaims excitedly, looking at his finger as if to discern some sort of trick. "Wow, that's incredible. Did you do that? How?" he asks, eyes widened. "Is it magic?"

He hopes there wasn't any sort of hidden cost in that, like energy or something. Would just be awful to take any of Crowley's health when he should be using it to heal himself. Which, speaking of, "what about your injuries, dear?"

He'll go back to fussing in a minute if Crowley isn't careful. "Should we redress your wounds?"

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