Archive of Our Own ^beta

The little bell rang as an Angel walked through the door.

"Good morning, Maggie!" Aziraphale announced his presence.

"Oh, good morning Mr. Fell! How are you?" Maggie greeted him back, always pleased by the presence of her good friend.

"Do you , by any chance, have what I want?" He asked, trying to sound as mischievous as possible.

"Of course! Let me just get it from the back!"

When Maggie disappeared through the door behind her desk, Aziraphale took a chance to look around, to see if there was anything that caught his attention.

And there it was.

On Maggie's desk, there was a magazine, with yellowish paper, full of words and squares.

Oh! An edition of Eclipse Tear 'n' Share Crosswords, very Maggie of her.

"Here it is, Mr. Fell! Unreal Unearth!" The blonde waved the record. "It's on the house!"

Her voice took Aziraphale out of his own head.

"Oh, if you must be so kind..."

"I must say, Mr. Fell, I am genuinely surprised by your request. You always buy classical records, this must be a breath of fresh air for you."

"Oh, well, this is one of Crowley's many temptations if I must admit." He took the record with a massive smile on his face, examining it as his eyes became shinier and shinier with excitement.

He could already see himself sitting in his armchair with a hot cup of tea, enjoying the music with the quality and kind of sound that only vinyl could have. Even better, when Crowley came back from Ireland today, they would enjoy it together. But Aziraphale couldn't wait to listen to it, and Crowley was away precisely for the same reason, their friend Andrew was presenting his new album and invited Crowley to be there.

Aziraphale was happy that Crowley made a friend. This hadn't happened since the seventies, and back then Aziraphale had been utterly green about it. But now he felt more relaxed and at peace with it.

"Mr. Fell..." Maggie called his attention when she noticed Aziraphale was turning to the door. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything my dear." He answered sweetly, facing her, giving her his full attention.

"I am doing this crossword, but I'm having trouble with one word."

"What is it?"

"Five letters. Across. Noun. The most sinful part of the body."

"I... I don't know." He frowned.

Aziraphale couldn't make up the idea that he didn't know the answer to that. He was an angel AND he had a body! How could he not know? Of course, he would not let a stupid crossword ruin him...

Except that, he totally would. He totally was letting a stupid crossword ruin his day.

After he left the record shop, feeling completely confused, he crossed the street to his beloved bookshop. Except that he could not sit down and enjoy his music, he was thinking about just one thing.

Five letters. Across. Noun. The most sinful part of the body.

His first thought was the head. But it had four letters... Besides, the head was the closest to God. Impossible.

The eyes? The eyes are the ones that create lust. A pair of yellow sharp eyes came into Aziraphale's mind, causing him to blush a soft pink on his cheeks. He glanced at the small statue in which Crowley let his glasses rest.

How could eyes be sinful? They are used to contemplate and admire God's different creations, the world she had made.

Aziraphale decided to boil the kettle and make a cup of mint tea. Not his special tea, imported directly from his last trip to China, the regular tea he bought at the store around the corner. He also took some eccles cakes from the fridge.

As he tasted his delicious meal, his mind wondered again.

"The hands!" He said to himself.

The hands are the ones that touch, grab, squeeze, dig, murder, hold weapons, the ones that write war declarations...

But also, the hands are the ones that could take care and hold a newborn, the ones that healed people, the ones that were put together to pray and talk to God, even if She was not hearing. The hands were made to hold and get people closer, to create, to nurture.

How can the same hands that hold him, that squeeze his shoulder, the same ones that grab the steering wheel of a 90-something-year-old Bentley to get him to go anywhere he desires to be the most sinful part of the body?

"That can't be..." Aziraphale murmured, sipping on his tea.

It took him a while to come up with anything else, mostly because he was doing his best to take his mind off of it. It was frustrating at best, how come a principality didn't know the answer to such a mundane and human question?

Maybe it was the legs.

Aziraphale remembered how many troubles legs had caused. In the old times, men would lose control of their cars when a lady was showing just a bit of leg.

But that was not women's fault. Legs were not inherently sexual or sinful, men were the problem, as always.

Although he could remember a pair of legs under a skirt in 1745 that distracted him from angel duty...

His face was red again, even three centuries later, the image was still stuck within him.

Aziraphale had completely forgotten about his chores for the day. He wanted to dust and  fix the little clock on his desk, but he got too busy revolting about the same thing:

Five letters. Across. Noun. The most sinful part of the body.

He was going insane.

"What about the chest? No... That's because of humans too..." Aziraphale shook his head. "Could it be any genitalia?"

But God created humans with genitalia because She wanted them to make more children of God. Aziraphale knew She was pleased when humans found new ways of using it... Or that some never used them at all. How could you not be when you create something that can have so many shades?

Aziraphale was tired. His tea was cold and the plate where the Eccles cakes had been standing now only had a few crumbs spread on the surface. Without noticing, the day was coming to an end, and his friends in the shopkeeper association were closing their shops.

It was now or never, he had to ask Maggie what the word wa. What was the most sinful part of the body?!

He got up and walked quickly towards the record shop on the other side of the street, ready to finally see the end of this.

When his feet finally reached the pavement again, he looked up only to see Maggie and Nina giving each other an It's-been-a-long-day-and-I-missed-you kiss. Aziraphale looked at them tenderly, feeling the love vibe from them, like a blinding, beautiful reflector.

"Hey, Angel." The voice coming from the other side of the street got Aziraphale to turn around.

A red-haired, deadly handsome demon was coming down from their beautiful Bentley. "I'm back from Ireland!"

And then, Aziraphale knew.

It was so clear, it had been on his head the whole day and he hadn't seen it.

Five letters. Across. Noun. The most sinful part of the body.

Not the eyes, chest, legs, hands, head, nothing of that, no.

What always got him staring incessantly, what got him drooling and wishing, craving, what made him go absolutely, mindlessly, mad.

"The mouth..." He said.

"Oh, Mr. Fell! Didn't see you there!" Maggie greeted him while she touched her lips with the tips of her fingers.

What tasted him, what he tasted, what had tempted him that first time, so many years ago.

What could eat, tear apart, what made him feel like he was starving, what caused the single most pleasant feeling in the world.

"The mouth! Five letters. Across. Noun. The most sinful part of the body." He repeated. "It's the mouth, Maggie!"

"Oh! That makes sense!" Maggie nodded in agreement, not knowing -not even having a clue- how much that answer meant for Aziraphale.

Crowley walked up to Aziraphale and grabbed him by the waist with their arm, the Angel was too flustered by his own thoughts to talk back.

"Evening..." Crowley greeted the two ladies. "Dine at the Ritz, Angel?" They asked the angel once Nina and Maggie waved back at them and left for their date.

"Actually, dear..." Aziraphale finally got the courage to turn around and face Crowley, not being able to get his eyes to look away from the answer to the question that got him stressed since that morning. "Do you mind if we had dinner at the bookshop? There's something that I couldn't get out of my head all day."