a_fell | (no subject)

(no subject)

A:

Found something of yours. Will be by to drop it off.

-R

That's all there is, though Aziraphael reads the text wave over several times.

There's no postscript; there's no attachment. He reads it forwards; he reads it backwards; he applies every one of the considerable number of ciphers he can think of, including seven that civilians are quite probably not supposed to know, and three that haven't been used since invisible ink fell out of fashion. He looks and looks for hidden messages that fail to appear - that in fact seem bound and determined not to exist at all, despite his diligence in seeking them.

The problem, of course, is that it's Raguel. With Raguel, Aziraphael has learned, nothing is ever that simple - except when it is.

And so he frets, although he tries not to. The surface message of the wave is itself worrying enough; it might be the next day that Raguel decides to come by, or it might be next year. Of course, the knowledge that it could be any time doesn't stop Aziraphael from scanning the skies nearly all the time, in between trying his luck with Raguel's useless link. It gives him the same message over and over: UNABLE TO CONNECT - INTERFERENCE.

This does nothing for his nerves.

As it happens, however, it's only about two weeks later that a bustling novice, far too officious for his tender years, brings him word of an incoming craft. Or rather, an incoming craft that doesn't then appear in reassuring black and white when Aziraphael listens to the sudden certainty in his gut and goes to check the planner. And as he expected, nobody is expected.

And so it's midafternoon of a lovely Persephone day - beaming and blue-skied and with just the right amount of breeze to provide relief from the sun - that finds Prior Fell making his way up towards the landing dais a short distance from the main buildings at Southdown Abbey.

His pace is just a little too brisk to be called a stroll.

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Aziraphael notices, but ignores him for the moment. His tunic has a lot of buttons.

Once free of its confines, he goes to hang it in the narrow wardrobe.

He can see how to do it, it's just that -

Tunic safely stowed, Aziraphael steals a glance at Crowley before sitting back down on the bed to remove his own shoes.

One.

Crowley kicks it off and into the corner with perhaps a little more force than is strictly warranted.

Between his knees, he flexes his hand, fingertips mottled slightly red.

His socks, he leaves in his shoes for now; his shoes, he nudges under the bed.

His shirt, now; lighter than his tunic in both colour and cloth, but with just as many buttons.

After a moment he bends again, forehead creasing in concentration.

His shirt, of course, needs hanging up as well, and whilst he's at it, he slides his belt from its loop and hooks it over the top of the hanger.

He pauses for a moment, elbows on his knees, listening to the Pleistocene pace at which Aziraphael pads back across to the bed and sits down.

(His footsteps are almost silent, but it's there in the dip and squeak of the mattress, and the soft stretch of wool and cotton over skin. In this state, he can hear it even over the small buzzings of frustration in his brain - hear it very well.)

Face darkening a little, he leans back down.

He sneaks another glance at Crowley. Because he can't not, and because he finds himself amazed at dark hair feathering into the pale nape of the demon's neck, and because Crowley's still struggling to untie his left boot.

After a few moments, Aziraphael makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like an impatient hmph, and gestures at himself.

The feel of it shivers up his spine, followed by understanding, and the rapid-fire of embarrassment, frustration, anger, and - others. Other sensations.

But when he glances back at Aziraphael, there's a low red in his cheeks but as good a grin as he can manage on his face. And something, just a little, softening in his eyes.

One of the tangles comes loose between his fingers.

Aziraphael gives him an innocent look in return.

"You know, I thought I'd lost these," he muses, fingering the hem of his newly-acquired pyjamas.

"I should be so lucky," Crowley observes, not quite as caustically as he might have liked.

Another knot comes away, and - there - he can just about worm his fingers under another.

"As I recall, you were here that evening I last saw them. I vanished them in rather a hurry."

He clears his throat. His fingers are still on the material, but he's not precisely looking at them any longer.

"...Touché."

It's not open. The boot. But Crowley's got bony ankles and narrow feet, and it's open enough for him to wriggle his heel up past the bend and kick his foot free.

"Though - ngk - if thass all it took to bring them back, you can't have missed them much."

The boot lands in the corner with the other.

"Perhaps," Aziraphael says vaguely, edging further onto the mattress.

He did miss them. He just didn't want them.

Crowley looks down at Aziraphael's knee, then around to the pillow.

They're here now. Mattress dipped beneath their weight, and about to lay down. Apart, at first, out of consideration, but then in the night someone will nestle closer (so close that), just as always, and all pressed together Aziraphael will throw a warm arm about his waist and curl half atop him, warm -

It'd wake him up, probably.

Maybe if he -

It isn't easy. Even with how long they've been doing this, it's still difficult sometimes to read in the lines of Crowley's back, or the motions of his hands, or the low flickering in his yellow eyes, what might do more harm than good.

The demon looks as though he's about to get up; as though he's on the very edge of doing so. But when Aziraphael does instead, standing to pull back the blankets, Crowley doesn't move at all. He only watches, perched on the mattress, hands folded in the crook of his knee.

Together, they decide that it might be best to forgo the extra blanket after all, since Crowley should not like to get - tangled up in it (and that barely perceptible hesitation before the word twists something hard in Aziraphael's chest); idle discussion determines that although the worn and colourless layers from Jubilee might not rival Aziraphael's pyjamas for comfort, they are, at least, what Crowley has gotten used to against his skin.

And as though it's just all simply conversation, and not what it is - a different sort of communication altogether - they end up with Aziraphael laying beneath the blankets on one side of the bed, and Crowley lounging atop them on the other. And when Aziraphael draws the blankets further up about him, turned expectantly toward the demon, Crowley slowly shifts his weight: hand to elbow, elbow to mattress.

And he rests his head on his arm, and his arm on the pillow.

And Aziraphael... well. Despite his best effort, which is none at all, Aziraphael completely fails to eradicate the ridiculous, unprompted smile that spreads across his face.

Crowley plucks clumsily at a wrinkle in the bedspread, meets Aziraphael's eyes with a crooked grin, looks away again.

Here they are.

(He'd say something, only he doesn't think it would come out right, on account of it's hard to hear himself think over the thud-thudding of his pulse in his ears. Here they are.)

Here they are.

The blankets are nearly up to his chin; he edges one hand up so that his fingers poke out above the topmost quilt and curl over the top. His eyes don't leave Crowley, though he (wisely) doesn't try to speak, either.

He

He'd almost gotten up, but maybe this is it. This could work.

He rolls carefully over onto his back, feeling the mattress give beneath him, pliant and not hard.

This could be okay.

The blankets dip and lift as Crowley's weight shifts; Aziraphael edges an inch or two nearer from his position under the blankets, a solid, tentative lump.

After a moment, he gives in to a wide and lengthy yawn.

If Crowley hears the yawn, feels Aziraphael shifting closer, he doesn't give any sign he's noticed. His hand rustles over his stomach again. Smooth. Press.

Smooth again.

"You sure you're not too warm?"

He could get up and open a window.

"Not at the moment, thank you, my dear. I can always change into something lighter if I need to."

He hesitates.

"Unless you'd like a breeze?"

"No, no," he says, a little swift. "Well - wouldn't mind, but 'ss lower on the scale of comforts than keeping out the bloody birdsong."

"Ah," he says, managing a horizontal nod.

"They can be a little boisterous, this time of day."

He slides one hand forward just a little, just so he can feel a weighty dip in the blankets. Much better.