Wordless, that's how it happens. How could you have put words to any of this? Six thousand years, they have talked. They've never said anything.
So why start now?
Crowley can't bear it, so he keeps his mouth shut.
Aziraphale is reading - looking down intently at his book, anyways. The tip of Crowley's shoe is pushing against his, and he has noticed. The proximity of his lanky form, almost towering, but gentler, more pliable, ready to bend to breezy whims. A soft shadow, but it doesn't reach or touch him. Not yet. Aziraphale grips his drink a little more tightly, imperceptively, holding on to the tangible reality of the warmed glass.
Sometimes, Crowley wonders what is going on in the angel's head. Ignoring him like that. Ignoring the unignorable. He stares down at him, the crown of his head. Halo, rather, no crown. He's no royalty. Halos are only holes, in the end, more nothing than structure. You can look through them, they are no shield. White curls beneath.
Maybe not so holy, after all.
No manners.
Crowley moves slowly, sinking like a broken ship towards the inevitable ocean floor, until his knee feels softness. It's not the ocean floor, not the end of the world. Another destination, a simpler one. The couch, fabric, his pants, his leg, knee against knee.
He leans over him, but sideways. No need to make it too obvious, what he is up to. For all intents and purposes, he is only resting his glass on the side table; the sort-of-accidental-semi-straddling is only something that happens as a byproduct. A by-thought. He can't see Aziraphale's face, but he knows, he knows the angel is caught up in a strategical weighing of procedure, a tug of conscience: the book and the demon. Attention to divert.
You can't ignore me, angel. You can't ignore this.
But I'm just resting my glass, resting my legs, too, beside yours.
I'll make you pay attention. Are you paying attention?
The story will have to wait.
He reaches for the book, first, takes it gently out of an immobile hand. No resistance at all. Only then does he look at his face, at last, but he's only looking at the glasses. Little round reading glasses, as senseless as the halo. Decoration. Crowley pulls them off, awkwardly with one hand only, and a handle snatches on Aziraphale's ear before he tugs it off. His legs settle more firmly on the couch, on the outside of Aziraphale's. He realizes the angel must have moved his legs to accomodate him better. But now he's still.
Aziraphale doesn't say anything, doesn't move: save his eyes. They seek his. But Crowley avoids the eyes.
Aziraphale is looking at him. He is not looking at Aziraphale.
He is ignoring Aziraphale.
But he cannot ignore the sudden intrusion of sound into the hold-your-breath-silence between them. Crowley blinks, pulls taught like a fraying rope: a clink, loud, a thud, muffled, a little trickle, almost a splash. Out of the corner of his eye, he feels the glass drop out of Aziraphale's hand. He only sees movement, not the mistake itself. Not the glass, lying empty on the carpet, nor the liquid spilling from it like feelings. Not the outcome. That comes later. He's only in the moment.
He can't concentrate on the spilled drink, he can only concentrate on the tremble of nerves and muscles he is feeling. It isn't his own body that does it. No, his body is calm. It's Aziraphale who's trembling, though it's the only movement he makes. So still, so soft. What do you want me to do? Aziraphale lets him proceed, and Crowley accepts the invitation, extended silently beneath Aziraphale's chest. The flutter of his heart. The shiver on his breath.
He wants to inspect him, study him, cease the tremble. He seizes him, ever so studiously. Tilts his head up.
What a face. So well-known, from afar and ever-up-closer, too, centuries of drawing nearer, but he finds something new to discover every time, a new kind of familar, understated beauty. No matter how many times you look up at the same night sky, does it ever cease to take your breath away? Old feelings, new feelings, but all of them warm and fuzzy and awestruck and good. So good, his angel. He doesn't need a halo to be good.
Crowley settles a hand on his lips. Soft lips, not chipped at all. Soft hair. Soft angel. Still so pliable.
At last, at last, Aziraphale moves. Crowley can't even see it - not because it's slow, but because it's out of his range of his vision, which is as fixed and immobile as Aziraphale's body has been, this whole time. He can't sway, he can't stray from his path. But he feels it: fingertips on his thigh, then fingers, a gentle pressure. A hesitant press of half a palm.
He can't look at his eyes. He can't do it.
If he does, he might stop. Might snap out of it, reconnect his body to his thoughts. Worse: he might see a hundred conflicting messages in the angel's eyes. So he doesn't. He keeps his eyes trained on his lips, and leans forward.
It tastes of oak and wood, tart first and then sharp at the back of his mouth, as he inhales. Their lips press firmly together. The pressure on his thigh is gone, but Crowley holds on to the face: he is afraid if he lets go, he might topple off the face of the earth. Or worse, the couch. And wouldn't that be undignified.
But then Aziraphale moves his lips, and Crowley moves his lips too, and the pressure of it shifts and the kiss shifts too. Crowley's thoughts, already teetering, tumble out of his head. The taste of alcohol dies away as they find something deeper, underlying, undefinable: the taste of each other.
Aziraphale's hands slowly settle back on Crowley, clutching gingerly at his back and at his hipbone. He doesn't shy away; he doesn't move their bodes closer together, either. Crowley wants to think he can hear another clink, envisions the halo dropping off his holy head, spinning on the floor before coming, finally, finally, to a rest. Only metal, now. A glow dying away. No more illusion or grandeur. Just them.
He still can't see Aziraphale's thoughts, but that's okay. That's tickety-boo. He can feel his lips, his hands.
The hands and the lips and the patches of leg are the only contact between them. But these points of contact are not to be ignored. In fact, they are ignoring everything else: the entire world.
Even sound, or the lack of it. It is still, silent, wordless. Their breaths come strained but softly, their lips make the barest of sounds. They couldn't speak even if they tried, molded together as they are. So close, and yet they could be so much closer. In body - let's not look at the spirit. We'd only be ignored.
No words pass between them. And yet.
And yet, Crowley's mouth is not shut any longer.
The angel cannot ignore that, and opens his own.
[i saw this insane art by @shoomlah and lost my mind, but hopefully not my words. you decide on that. they seized me.]
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