aj_crawley | (no subject)

"'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,'" he quotes, but there's a strange edge - like urgency, or perhaps anxiety - to his teasing.

"But today we can have a lie-in. We don't often - well, we can. Today. We can take advantage of it."

"You could sleep," Crowley says, with a crooked, sideways grin. "I'll watch. I need to do something creepy to make up for all that work ethic."

This must be what Aziraphael feels like, when Crowley turns up the heat too high. It's - difficult to breathe, like his chest is crushing inwards under its own weight.

(A good thing, then, that he doesn't technically need to.)

"That would certainly qualify. Perhaps I will, and you'll just have to sit awake - " he yawns widely, for effect - "and watch."

He considers Crowley sideways, both their heads pressed into pillows so that it's the rest of the room that looks like it's been tilted.

"It's peaceful outside, though. This may be the most peaceful it will be all year."

Crowley, of course, immediately has to grit his teeth against another yawn, neck tensing visibly above the duvet as he swallows it back down.

"If you're suggesting we move out to the balcony, you're in for a disappointment."

"My dastardly plan, ruined," he says - rather happily for someone whose plans have just been ruined.

"Ah, well. I suppose that here under the duvet will have to do."

Perversely, though, he wiggles a little more of his leg outside the blankets where it can be exposed to the cooler air.

The movement catches Crowley's eye, and after a moment, he raises his eyebrows at Aziraphael.

"Go on then," he says. "More blanket for me."

He clutches theatrically at the duvet under his hands.

"Perhaps, but only a very small amount of it. I intend to protect what small claim I can stake."

"No," he says, "I meant - "

The blanket rustles again, suggesting a half-formed gesture underneath. And then:

"Never mind."

He looks curious, but doesn't ask what it was he missed. He pulls the blanket up a little farther and releases it so that his arm can once again rest over Crowley's hip.

"There are other ways to keep warm, of course, but they are often less fluffy."

"Often," Crowley agrees, with an entirely respectable attempt at a straight face, considering the hour. "But not always."

Aziraphael is much less adept at such things; he doesn't even bother to try keeping a straight face. The result is rather silly-looking, especially turned sideways.

"Not always," he agrees.

He looks perfect.

"I'm going to make some coffee," Crowley says, pushing abruptly at the duvet. "You want anything?"

They shouldn't start. It's always that much harder to get back on track.

Taken aback by the abruptness of the change in Crowley's mood, there's a moment before he catches up enough to speak.

"I'll come with you and make some tea," he manages at last, scrambling to sit up. A vague hope flutters through his mind that Crowley will bring his coffee back to drink in bed, but that's a rare event, especially these days. Resigned, he swings his legs down to the floor.

Crowley's fingers close around Aziraphael's wrist.

Then, after a pause longer than a heartbeat but shorter than a breath, they move again, fingertips soft and awkward against the inside of the angel's arm - sliding up just a little way so as to rest not quite so near Aziraphael's pulse.

"I'll bring it in," he says.

"Oh," he says, and freezes where he sits, half-out from under the blankets, poised on the edge of the bed with his hair in an awkward spike.

"You're coming back," he says, sounding pleased. "Thank you, my dear."

"Any preference?" he asks.

(He's stretched out a little awkwardly across the mattress, but that doesn't matter. Not yet.)

"Just the usual, if you please. There was plenty of it, the last time I looked, and anything more exotic would be wasted on me at the moment."

Carefully, so as not to dislodge Crowley's hand, he pulls his legs one at a time back into place beneath the blankets.

It's already gone, leaving only the faint ghost of pressure behind it.

"Alright," Crowley says, slithering out from beneath the blankets in turn.

The floor is a dark wood, almost silky in shine and texture. It isn't cold - far from it, with the heating on - but the demon's toes still curl instinctively as he lowers his feet to the glossy boards.

It occurs to Aziraphael that if Crowley wanted coffee that badly, he could turn to find it has quietly materialized on the bedside table. He watches the demon hesitate at the edge of the bed and doesn't mention it. No doubt he has his reasons.

"Hurry back," he says, smoothing the blankets unnecessarily over his legs.

"Good things come," Crowley retorts, proud - in a distant sort of way - of how his voice doesn't even waver a little bit; not at all.

He pads over to the dresser, one slanted strip of light from the edge of the window gliding over his back as he bends, opens a drawer (the roll of wood on wood), and from its recesses digs out something greyish and woolly and warm-looking.

He breathes a soft, amused exhale and pulls the blankets a little further up his body - unnecessarily, as he isn't cold, exactly. He notes that Crowley's bypassed a double entendre there that even Aziraphael picked up on. He doesn't mention that, either.

"My dear, after all this time I've learned better than to expect 'good' in your usual repertoire," he teases.

"My coffee is good." Crowley's wounded offense is muffled slightly as he tugs the jumper over his head. "My tea is good. And - " his head emerges again, swallowing another yawn, and he wrestles his arms into the sleeves, " - I think you're underessstimating the importance of adverbs."

"Am I? What sort of adverbs?" he asks warily, not at all certain he wants to hear a detailed answer.

He can't argue, however. Crowley's tea is very good, and the coffee in his opinion comes second only because he prefers tea in general.

"Well," Crowley says, propping himself for a moment against the bedroom doorframe. "I think I qualify as being sinfully good at quite a lot of things. By, you know. Thing."

He levers himself upright again, and fades away in the direction of the kitchen.

"Definition."

"Right," he says to the empty doorframe. "I'd certainly say that you qualify."

He plucks listlessly at some invisible lint on the spotless duvet, waiting for the telltale sound of clinks and clanks from the kitchen. The sooner he hears them, after all, the sooner Crowley will return.