Chapter Text
Like this. A jostled ragdoll of a nod, and then a voice that caught in Crowley's throat like thrown back whisky—
“Please.”
He was visibly trembling as Aziraphale, ever so carefully knuckled the tilt of his chin, thumbing his tear damp lips apart and steadying him towards their first, chaste kiss.
Crowley made a soft sound in his throat. As though a sigh had draped itself about the shoulders of a moan and hugged it very closely from behind. His hand found Aziraphale's knee, his mother's book falling slantwise in the safety of his lap, as he kissed a small, shy kiss in return.
And still he trembled. You could hear it in his breathing, drawn shakily over his tongue as they parted just to smutch their noses nearer and kiss once more.
Are you frightened, Aziraphale marvelled, of the things I make you feel? Are they truly so colossal that you shiver in their shadow? He'd have rathered they were smaller if it kept him safe and warm.
When next they faltered in their kissing, Crowley scarcely sucking off before he kissed, then kissed again, as though he feared it might be ending, Aziraphale braced a careful hand against his chest. With the other, he nursed Crowley's face and sought to meet his skittish gaze.
“You're shaking.”
“M’sorry.”
Aziraphale's thumb touched Crowley's lips.
“Don't be silly.” Crowley looked about to cry once more and that simply wouldn't do. “Come along.”
Aziraphale shifted where he sat, drawing his knee up onto the sofa and hotching his bottom across until he lay in half repose against the rather flattened pillow Crowley used to pad the arm. All the clumsied while he ushered Crowley with him, drawing him into the space between his belly and his thighs until he had them well and truly in a snuggle. Crowley’s head came to lie on his chest and Aziraphale cradled it there.
“Alright?” he ventured softly.
“Eeyeah.”
For a spell they merely lay there in slow-settling silence, listening to the mini fridge hum and the timid little tick of Crowley's watch. Crowley’s breathing evened out, his wearied body settling heavier and nearer every breath as he let himself un-brace beneath his burdens. Aziraphale stroked back his hair, and petted the rucks in his oversized jacket, and watched the shapes of shadows on the ceiling above.
“You're so warm,” Crowley murmured, and the chill of his hands pushed under, burrowing out a home at the small of Aziraphale's back, beneath his coat and cardigan. Aziraphale's waistcoat was all ridden up there, and the cold through his shirt made him very nearly shiver. He resisted lest Crowley should shy from him by way of misguided penance.
“I'm well padded.”
“Shut up.” Crowley gave him an admonitory squeeze, before loosening off again sleepily. “You're perfect.” That seemed to rouse him once he realised he'd said it, stiffening his ease round the edges.
“I find you distractingly handsome,” Aziraphale hastened to offer. “If that helps.”
“You do not.” Crowley snorted, retrieving his tucked away hands and folding them under his chin above the bump of Aziraphale's heart.
“I do so,” Aziraphale assured him, and Crowley crinkled round the eyes, though he didn't quite smile. The little Christmas tree, some while forgotten, was wedged just beside Crowley's shoulder and it kissed his lovely face with a dying magic’s glow.
“Is it the sniveling nose or the puffy red eyes that do it for you most?”
Aziraphale huffed in fond exasperation.
“Might I remind you of the evening we encountered my charming elder brother?”
Crowley grimaced.
“Please don't.” Nevertheless, the memory surfaced between them, and Crowley smiled as a notion occurred to him; very tiredly, but as if he were proud. “You didn't go.”
“I didn't go.” Aziraphale snuffed at his own small bravery. “I'll confess I've spent most of the day feeling half sick with guilt and half giddy with self respect.”
Crowley's eyebrows did something unhappy and he pressed up off his hands.
“You didn't say.”
“I didn't wish to.”
Crowley studied him with sleepy, shadowed eyes for several breaths.
“Did they contact you again?”
Aziraphale wondered how much he should say and then decided, fairly promptly, that he didn't wish to hold it all inside him like a shame. Not with Crowley.
“My mother telephoned last night.”
Crowley pulled a face in sympathy, but didn't press him to continue. He looked so tired, and so impossibly attentive, and Aziraphale hugged him round the middle, holding still to him awhile.
“Apparently, I'd’ve been welcomed to dinner in spite of my numberless, egregious crimes, were I only to end my misguided and entirely impermissible fraternisation with such a crude, uncultured, violent and otherwise morally reprehensible individual as yourself.”
“Uncultured! Phuh!” Crowley blinked in the face of such insult. “Like to see her recite Shakespearean soliloquies by heart.”
“Oh, she doesn't like Shakespeare. No.” Aziraphale frowned on her behalf. “Much too bawdy.”
“Reprehensible,” scoffed Crowley.
“Indeed.”
They shared soft smiles in silence.
“So… what did you tell her?” Crowley almost seemed nervous to ask, hoping perhaps that Aziraphale had sallied forth in his defense. What Aziraphale had done, in fact, was to plant himself firmly at Crowley's side on the matter, leaving no doubt as to their perfect unanimity.
“I told her the snowman wanted his nose back.”
Crowley laughed at that. Crowley laughed, and laughed, and laughed in helpless bursts and shakes of laughter, until he was beached on Aziraphale's belly and chest, boneless with exhaustion and swallowing for breath.
Aziraphale chewed at his lip to keep from making a soft, embarrassing sound. He'd managed to stave off the urge to cant his traitorous hips where Crowley shuddered with laughter in the cradle of his thighs, but found himself bodily stirring in spite of his efforts. But he'd been laughing too, and it was everything he wanted. This was everything he wanted; Crowley happy, and safe, and warm.
Crowley settled his chin on his hands once more, and the look in his eyes said he'd noticed. He tipped his head and gave a slow blink, glancing down—and then back up.
“Would it be wicked of me—” His throat rasped with his laughter and his tiredness. Perhaps, Aziraphale allowed himself the liberty of hoping, with need. “---if I kissed you like this?”
Well, it certainly wouldn't be saintly—
“Do it anyway. Please?”
Crowley was steadier about it this time, bending his head to the task with a careful sort of certainty and sliding a hand up under Aziraphale's shoulder to cradle the nape of his neck.
His book was slipping, and Aziraphale felt it go, catching it clumsily to the sofa and breaking their scarcely begun kiss to do so. Crowley was gazing at him as though he'd strung the very stars like Christmas lights once he'd lowered it carefully onto the floor and turned his head to notice. Then Crowley took three little sips of gracious kisses from his lips and pressed them open with his tongue upon a not quite steady breath, and all the rest was slow, soft mouthing for a while.
Aziraphale's need for him simmered, set on a low, rolling heat in the spread of his thighs and the press of their tummies. He didn't chase it, nor try to hide it from the gorgeous, half-maddening creature shifting lazily against him. It felt exquisite, and Crowley snuffed against his ear as, breaking off to tuck his face away and leaving the matter un-smothered, he heard the blissful little moan Aziraphale breathed.
“M’sorry.” Crowley’s voice was warm and ticklish in the hair behind his ear. Aziraphale would have forgiven him anything. “I feel like a tease.”
Aziraphale huffed in case he doubted the utter preposterousness of that.
“Do you need to—?” Crowley didn't end that sentence, and Aziraphale wondered, feeling silly with contentment, where he'd meant for it to go. Did he need to nip out to the portaloos and take the matter in hand, as it were? The thought of the cold out there alone made Aziraphale shiver. And then he recalled that Crowley had to brave it whenever he needed the toilet, and the thought of that sobered him and left him feeling horribly helpless, and so he kissed the top of Crowley's head and hugged him very near.
“If it helps, I'm right there with you.” Crowley sounded as though he'd been biting that back. “If these jeans weren't quite so tight—”
Aziraphale laughed.
“It's alright.” He felt almost shy of a sudden, confessing his sins. “I like it.”
“Mhh?” Crowley sounded delightfully drowsy with bliss, and Aziraphale knew the very feeling.
“Mm.” That writhen ache of kindled interest, like pressing gently on a bruise, was perfectly lovely in and of itself in Aziraphale's humble opinion. He rather enjoyed it, lingering upon him, unresolved. “I could fall asleep like this.”
Indeed, his eyes were closed as Crowley murmured back, “Me too—” and curled his body nearer, like a cat.
And when the valiant little lights on Crowley's Christmas tree gave out two minutes after, neither one of them was still awake to know.