shipping | psl

"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?"

Crowley doesn't mind the fussing, of course, and is torn between being very impressive and saying they don't hurt a bit or milking the human's sympathy, perhaps enough to entice him back to that soft bed where they could cuddle up and talk the afternoon away.

He decides, however, to be honest.

"Just a little sore, really. They weren't that deep and I heal pretty quick. Little bit of a trick I picked up in my more priestly days."

He surveys Aziraphale with a fond smile.

"...And I had an excellent healer looking after me. That might've helped."

He grins, cheeky.

"...A bit."

"Oh," he says, pensive, and then very excited about this turn of events. "Well, alright, I'm very happy that you heal quickly." He demonstrates this by placing his arms around Crowley until he's completely well-laden with the softest, fluffiest human there ever was. He's warm and he smells dry, like a pleasant wool and blond woods.

Soon, the whole cabin will be smelling of freshly-baked cake. Songbirds come by, more than the general gull, and Aziraphale extricates himself from Crowley to throw open a window and hear them.

"What do you do now?" he asks. "Now that you're not a priest, I mean?" He did wonder if Crowley had an occupation he had to get back to. Or perhaps he did not, and he could get something to do on land. Or, perhaps he could return to the sea while Aziraphale was away at work, and maybe sometimes he could even join Aziraphale at work. Well, alright, he was getting ahead of himself again.

Crowley clearly likes this, having Aziraphale's arms around him is very comfortable, with the added bonus of both making him steady on new and uncertain limbs and being close to Aziraphale. All good things, as far as he's concerned.

"These days? Whatever I like really. Bit of a disappointment I am, so I'm quite a rogue and outcast, unfit for polite society. Asking all the wrong kinds of questions, and squabbling with authority."

He grins in a way that he hopes is both roguish and charming, but comes off more lopsided and perhaps a bit nervous.

Aziraphale sees the nervousness in his smile and attempts to work a little magic of his own, trying to dispel it by simply placing his head against Crowley's chest and holding him closer.

"Well, we'll have plenty of that up here too, I'm afraid. But surely what's better than being troublesome is having a partner to be troublesome with you, no?" He's a bit of an outcast himself, if Crowley couldn't tell by the hermit lifestyle and the fact that he takes all his research out to sea where no other humans go, if not to just get elsewhere or try to reap the bounty of the ocean.

He'd rather protect it. Learn from it. Understand it. "What would you like to do?" he asks, wondering if Crowley'd ever been asked.

Crowley rubs a soothing trail up and down Aziraphale's back, simply basking in his warmth and how comforting it is to just hold him. Perhaps it's hasty but something had simply clicked when he'd met the human. Like a switch had gone off in his brain and he'd thought Ah. There you are. What I've been looking for. It happens sometimes with merfolk. Sometimes they just know when something feels right.

And Aziraphale feels very right. He rests his cheek on the top of his head, making a small sound of affirmation, because having Aziraphale at his side to make trouble just sounds marvelous.

When Aziraphale asks him what he'd like to do, it becomes apparent Crowley has never been asked this before. Aside from the puzzled sound he makes, he actually draws back, giving Aziraphale an inquisitive look.

"...How do you mean?"

He runs a hand through Crowley's hair and looks at him with inquisitive eyes. "Well, I do have to work sometimes, dear, and I wouldn't want you to be left all alone here. Perhaps we could take you out to sea during those times? I just wouldn't want you to be bored all day."

Crowley seems like the type to need things to do, after all. Aziraphale is also not a man who stays idle; he takes breaks for a few days but then comes back and makes sure everything around the house gets done and then picks up silly projects like learning new languages and translating texts.

Actually, he wonders if he could do so for the merfolk language. That would be something.

"Always wanted to go on one of those big ships," he hums, leaning into the touch. Oh, that is marvelous. If Aziraphale could just keep his fingers in Crowley's hair forever, that would be very, very nice indeed.

"Only ever see 'em from a distance, unless they've sunk. S'not really the same though, is it?"

Aziraphale had read Crowley right. Even without his duties, he was always up to something, even if it was making a nuisance of himself.

"Well, you could come with me to Denmark," he says. "I'll have a ship, and I'll be there for... I'm not sure yet, I don't really think I could stay too long, but we could find work there, perhaps, if you liked it. And dally a bit. I'll ask someone to check up on the cabin."

But then what would happen to Crowley's territory?

"It is pretty far." He pulls out the map again and abandons Crowley's hair for the moment. "Here," he says, pointing to where Copenhagen is, where he's going.

Crowley lights up at the prospect.

"Haven't been traveling in a long time. Would have to hide my horde, of course so no one steals it while I'm away, but I got some good spots."

He bounces unsteadily on the balls of his feet.

"D'you mean it though? I really could go with you?"

He thinks about it and then looks under his bed for a box, opening it up and taking out a handful of coins. "Oh," he says, as he tries to dig for some more coins. "I'm not sure I have enough for passage," he admits, sadly. He had free passage, since he was being sent for research. He'd looked before, and been glad - he could hardly afford to go by himself.

"I'm sorry, Crowley, I shouldn't have told you that you could before... before looking, first." He's definitely short a few coins, and even if he had it all, he'd be flat broke afterwards, and there'd be no money to buy food in Denmark...

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