a_fell | (no subject)

"Actually," Crowley says, removing the stolen paperback from his stomach to the tabletop, and swinging his feet down so as to twist and look up at Aziraphael without overbalancing. "Now that you mention it, there's something I've been meaning to bring up."

...Word choice.

Oh well. If Aziraphael notices, he'll probably think Crowley did it on purpose.

"Is there?" he asks, eyeing the buttons on Crowley's shirt. It may be that he's counting them.

...No reason.

"Yeah," he says - with a certainty that seems rather strange when, afterwards, Crowley falls silent.

He reaches out to pick at the hem of Aziraphael's pyjama top.

"Mmm," he says thoughtfully, sifting his hand lightly through Crowley's hair.

"Something important?"

For a few moments, Crowley (brow furrowed) seems to find much of interest in the balls of fluff on Aziraphael's shirt; in the faded boards beneath their feet; in the fraying rope binding the frame of his chair.

"This," he elucidates finally.

"This," he echoes. Crowley's hand on his pyjama top is tickling his belly as the cloth brushes gently against him; it's very distracting.

"You've been meaning to bring 'this' up?"

Some confusion might be slightly more apparent if his focus had not shifted to tracing the shell of Crowley's ear; as it is, he only looks vaguely distracted.

"No," Crowley says, annoyed. "Well, yes. What I mean is."

He seems to forget for a second or two, on account of, on account of his ear, gosh that's nice.

- He stands up, capturing Aziraphael's hand in his own as a further preventative measure.

(His skin is warm - deeply, fiercely warm, like midday sand, and flagstones in the sun.)

"This," Crowley says again, a gesture with his free hand sketching out his meaning: the beach, and the sky, and the shining sea, and the loving, yellow sun. "I'm."

"Thanks," he says. "Thank you."

"Oh," Aziraphael says, suddenly beaming. And since Crowley is so conveniently close, he leans in to just brush his lips against Crowley's; just light enough that he can be fairly certain he'll be able to lean away again afterwards.

"You're very welcome, my dear," he says, his free hand sliding up to the demon's shoulder.

Crowley feels so awake today.

He feels so conscious, so acutely aware of everything - the tiny grains of sand between the boards beneath his feet; the feel of paper against his fingers; the smell of salt on the wind (in his hair, against his face); the tart, sweet taste of apple juice on his tongue. And the bright, wondrous lights, still dancing against the night sky, whenever he closes his eyes. He feels almost like he does after a discorporation. After dying, and coming back to life.

But this - this, the way it's hard to breathe when he doesn't even need to, the way the gentle brush of Aziraphael's lips makes him want to say stupid, irrevocable, unanswerable things, only he can't get them out, because all the room in his throat is taken up by his heart.

This. He'd feel like this anyway. Because Aziraphael didn't have any reason to do this.

He'd just thought that Crowley looked wretched.

(He'd thought of bedsheets, and central heating, and the empty spaces where post-its should have been, and the empty space in the lining of his jacket where a white feather should have been, for - so very long.)

Fiat lux.

Crowley leans in to kiss Aziraphael's smile.

Aziraphael's hand tightens on Crowley's without the angel fully realising; he isn't surprised, per se, but the change from a day ago is startling. There's real colour in Crowley's face, real liveliness in his eyes, in addition to the very real heat in his touch.

His hand slides over Crowley's shoulder once again and down his back, then the arm goes around his waist.

His smile only widens between kisses.

"I really am, mm," Crowley says. "I'm very grateful."

He loves how green the palm fronds are. Sunkissed, and floating in the breeze - a vivid, living green.

It's his other hand now that toys with the hem of Aziraphael's fantastically horrible pyjama shirt. And then (a pause), he slides it underneath, fingertips just barely brushing the skin of Aziraphael's stomach.

"Extremely grateful," he leers.

Aziraphael swallows hard. All this has been very hard on his sense of self-restraint.

"As I seem to recall you said once, this really is meant to be all about you," he points out once he feels a little more in control of himself. His hand is winding into the untucked tail of Crowley's shirt.

"All about me?" Crowley echoes, between scattered kisses along the angel's jaw. "That does sound like something I'd say. But I'm not sure how it really applies..."

"No?" he asks, eyes drifting closed and then blinking slowly open again with what is apparently a great effort.

"I'll be happy to show you, then," he says, pulling back and tugging lightly on Crowley's hand.

"Um," Crowley says eloquently. "That's not really what. Uh."

He lags a little behind Aziraphael, something faintly uncertain in his face, but allows himself to be led nevertheless.

Aziraphael leads him back the way he'd come, into the bedroom with the still-open window, the still-rumpled bed, the watch and the handkerchiefs and the book on the bedside table.

"Much more sturdy than the chair," he mumbles almost inaudibly, and showing very little of his usual restraint, he turns to kiss Crowley deeply while his hands go to the buttons on the demon's shirt.

There's little to do while Aziraphael's hands are in the way, so Crowley contents himself with threading his fingers through the angel's hair - reasoning that with Aziraphael's high degree of bedhead, it can't exactly make things worse.

(It keeps Aziraphael close, even when he does insist on pulling back to check his progress.)

Well, he can't see when he's distracted that way. It's hard enough to concentrate on buttons as it is, with Crowley's tongue fairly twisting around his own and Crowley's hands fingering interesting new shapes in his hair.

Twice he almost gives up and puts his arms around Crowley's neck or waist (depending on how far along he is, of course), but after what must have been hours, at last the buttons have all been pulled through their infernally tiny holes, the shirt hangs open and he can slide his hands underneath.

The feeling of Aziraphael's palms, smooth and soft, elicits a pleased hum, echoing in Crowley's throat and against Aziraphael's lips.

As should surprise no one, the demon has little reservation in taking the easy way out; while he begins to open the first few buttons of Aziraphael's pyjamas simply for the sake of it, for the sensation of his knuckles brushing the skin of Aziraphael's chest, he gets only halfway before the rest of the buttons find themselves mysteriously undone.

His fingertips skirt above the angel's waistband, tantalisingly close, before skimming up to slide the shirt from Aziraphael's shoulders.

He wriggles out of the shirt impatiently and lets it slide to the floor before his hands find their way back onto Crowley as though magnetised. It's only a pyjama top, a horrible pattern of clashing colours woven into an approximation of plaid, but it's still surprising that he makes no attempt to tidy it away.

He pushes Crowley's shirt off his shoulders as well, uses his hands to trace down his arms to push off the sleeves.

There's a moment where the sleeves, rolled up to the elbow, refuse to peel off quite as they should. But Crowley wrestles free of them quickly enough, hands going back to Aziraphael's waist where they make good on their promise: sly, hot fingers snaking beneath the waistband of the angel's pyjamas.

This -

(really is meant to be all about you)

Yes. This is familiar ground.

"I hope," Crowley says, grin smug and voice breathless. "I hope you didn't have any plans for this morning."

"Hmm," Aziraphael hums through his smile. His breath catches when Crowley's fingers insinuate themselves beneath his waistband, but he's - there - got past the button, at least, on Crowley's trousers. This stretchy waistband affair on the pyjama bottoms isn't fair at all, he thinks vaguely. To even the odds, (or so he tells himself), he edges the two of them, gently but inexorably, in the direction of the bed.

"That depends entirely," he says, "upon what you mean by plans." and leans carefully forward until both of them topple onto the rumpled blankets.

The thing about literally falling into bed is that it isn't at all as romantic as it sounds - far too many opportunities for knocking foreheads or noses, or for landing elbows and knees in unfortunate places. This morning, however, they strike lucky; the only casualty of the springy mattress is Crowley's chin, which gets rather a bump from Aziraphael's shoulder.

(Or, to put it another way: Aziraphael's shoulder, which gets a rather sharp jab from Crowley's chin.)

"Other plans," he clarifies, rubbing his chin and grinning behind his hand.

"Terribly sorry," Aziraphael says, not sounding particularly sorry at all, but he does duck a little lower to drop kisses along Crowley's jaw. It's close to his chin, after all.

He braces his weight on one elbow, which means the other hand is free to roam. It does, slowly, lingering on Crowley's face, the underside of his chin, that ever-fascinating collarbone.

It might occur to him to move up the bed sooner or later.

Kissing along Crowley's jaw, Aziraphael probably feels it before he sees it: a deep breath, chest rising under the angel's fingers, and then - jaw cracking, breath warm - Crowley yawns.