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Aziraphale awoke with a very pleasant feeling stirring in his chest. His eyes slowly fluttered open, lazily taking in their surroundings as his corporeal form eased back into consciousness.
Sleep, he mused to himself pleasantly. What a wonderfully human invention.
The day had only just begun, quite literally moments ago, and already it was shaping out to be a rather nice one. The sheets around him felt soft, the pillow underneath him plush, and the air held that pleasant heaviness to it, the kind that gave one the oddest mix of nostalgia and novelty at the same time.
The sunlight cast small rays on the floor, muffled by the heavy set of blinds on the window.
Now that won’t do, the angel thought. With a quick snap of his fingers, the blinds were miracled open, letting the natural autumn light spill out and quickly fill all corners of the room.
Let there be light indeed, he thought rather happily.
As he lay there, contentedly watching the way the small dust particles in the air drifted downwards like snowflakes, the sun catching them and making them visible to the naked eye, there came a groan from somewhere. It was, very belatedly, only then that Aziraphale realized that pleasant feeling from earlier wasn’t so much in his chest than on his chest.
From slightly above him Crowley stirred, eyebrows furrowed in a scowl, and small mumbling noises that could almost be described as whining were it not for the low, rumbling tenor of the sound fell from his lips. Despite this, the demon made no point to move, and simply burrowed his face further onto Aziraphale’s chest, tickling the angel’s chin with the red scruff of his hair.
The angel went to brush the hair out of the way when he looked down to realize that he was, indeed, somewhat unable to move due to his former wily adversary. The demon’s body was more on Aziraphale than the actual mattress itself, actually— his torso lay plushly against Aziraphale’s own, with his face nuzzled against the angel’s neck, one arm wrapped rather securely around Aziraphale’s side and the other pressed firmly between his body and Aziraphale’s own arm, which in his sleep had clearly drifted to loosely encircle the demon. Both arms had, actually.
Crowley’s long, bony legs were strewn around the bed, though still somehow managed to be rather possessively on, over, and around Aziraphale’s so that his knees were digging into the angel’s legs like puzzle pieces that one had to force just enough to fit together.
He was, in the long and short of it, quite stuck.
Not that he really minded, of course. After millennia of suppressing, hiding, and fretting over the nature of his feelings, of their relationship, it was nice after a minor adverting of global armageddon to be open and calm, if only in the little ways: in Crowley’s slightly less guarded smiles, in the louder lilt of their laughter when they shared wine bottles, in the brushing of their hands during a picnic— and, of course, most pertinently to the present moment, in their shared living spaces. Sometimes it was in the flat, sometimes the bookshop, but it was always together, and that in itself was a miracle bigger than Aziraphale could really fathom, at times.
Ineffable . Crowley’s seemingly least favorite word came to mind, and the angel couldn’t help chuckling. The demon twitched again at the sudden change in the rise and fall of Aziraphale’s chest, muttering out more grumbles that were rendered unintelligible in his dozing state. Honestly, it was ridiculously endearing, so much so that for the nth time this millennium Aziraphale wondered how it was at all possible that he could be so impossibly in love with anyone or anything this much— even as a being of love himself it at times still surprised Aziraphale.
Not that Crowley made it all that difficult.
At one point, though, despite the demon’s corporeal lithe body producing little weight, Aziraphale could feel the arm that Crowley was currently using as a pillow start to go numb. He tried wiggling his fingers to bring some of the sensations back into his hand, but it was of very little use. He then tried to, with painstaking care, move his shoulder so that Crowley would be moved to resting on the mattress instead, but the demon just clutched on more firmly and burrowed himself further into the angel’s shoulder.
Well, trying to wiggle free certainly wasn’t going to work.
Aziraphale looked over at the vintage cassette-playing alarm clock that Crowley had on his bedside table, and noticed that the hour was well into mid-morning.
Goodness, he thought. It was very rare that angel slept in, when he did sleep at all, that is, though it was happening much more often as of late.
He could always miracle himself out of bed, and replace the spot with an angel-shaped amount of pillows so as to not wake Crowley, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. The moment was too tender, too warm, too genuine to be changed with ethereal tricks.
Well, he supposed he would have to do this the old fashioned way.
“Cr-” Aziraphale coughed away the dredges of sleep from his voice and started again. “Crowley,” he whispered. The soft sound carried through the otherwise silent room. “Crowley,” he repeated.
The demon finally stirred, scrunching his eyes, but made no attempt to move any further.
It was too late, though. For just a moment Aziraphale saw the flash of yellow of Crowley’s pupils, too unique not to notice. Though Aziraphale always noticed things of Crowley, whether they were particularly different from their surroundings or not. He couldn’t help it. At first, he had tried to tell himself that it was simply him scrutinously doing his Earthly job, watching Crowley’s moves to stop his temptings and whatnot, but he could never fully make himself believe that, what with it not really being true anyway.
“ Crowley .” This time there was a bit of scolding in his voice, but for the (albeit long, long) life of him, Aziraphale couldn’t make it sound anything other than overwhelmingly fond. “It’s starting to get rather late. We should really wake up.”
“‘We?’” The demon slurred back. “You’re already awake. Can’t you do that for both of us?” His voice was an even deeper rumble when on the verge of sleep, and Aziraphale was glad that the corporeal rosening of his cheeks was hidden from Crowley’s gaze, who still rather obstinately refused to move more than was absolutely necessary to respond.
“Oh yes,” Aziraphale said, with much more sarcasm than an angel should probably use. “And I suppose I should go try out that new brunch cafe that opened up for the both of us too, right? And reorganize the 17th-century section of the bookshop? And take the Bentley in for its yearly maintenance check? And give Adam’s family a ring to make sure he’s doing alright with the start of school? And try to make that apple jam recipe that you specifically asked fo—”
“Okay, okay, angel,” Crowley groaned with exasperation at last. “I’d say my side invented nagging as a form of torture, but you angels are just so damn good at it.”
He was sure that Crowley could feel the small, triumphant smile that took shape on Aziraphale’s face. “There are no sides anymore, remember?” He repeated back at the demon.
“Ah, but there’s still nagging.” It was hard to take Crowley’s ‘bad mood’ seriously when he was still happily snuggling against the angel’s chest, for all the world acting like the pampered house cat of a rich duchess. It suddenly dawned on him why the humans referred to it as a ‘cat nap.’
A few moments passed in peaceful silence, and Aziraphale simply waited there expectantly. When nothing happened, he huffed. “Crowley.”
“Yes, angel?”
“Weren’t we getting up?”
“Mmm, I don’t recall making that agreement.”
“Crowley.” He repeated.
“Yes?” Aziraphale couldn’t help but pull a face. Without even looking up Crowley responded, “Okay, okay, don’t pout. I’m getting up.”
Neither of them moved.
“Crowley!”
“What? Look! This is me getting up!” He exclaimed, without so much as twitching a single muscle. Aziraphale let out an annoyed breath, stirring loose strands of auburn hair, and finally, he could feel a grin slide over Crowley’s lips from where they were against his chest. Aziraphale didn’t have to look at him to know his expression was cheeky.
He was about to say something else, like how the brunch place he very eagerly wanted to try was going to get very full if they didn’t start getting ready soon, (and yes, he could always miracle open a table, but he really shouldn’t do that too often anyway), when Crowley suddenly started trailing lazy kisses up the angel’s neck.
“Don’t worry,” Crowley mumbled in between the gentleness of his lips. “I already put in a reservation for the cafe yesterday, so we’ll be sure to have a table.” Aziraphale would have had some thought about his mind being read, but his mind couldn’t form much of a thought at all at the present.
The act was incredibly tender, and as the demon continued his slow movements, the blood in Aziraphale’s face rather prominently flushed against the skin of his neck, crawling up to his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He knew that if he were to see Crowley’s expression right now it would simply be a neutral mask, as if he were doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, and that only made Aziraphale’s blush all the more pointed. Though he did nothing to explicitly acknowledge it, Aziraphale could swear Crowley could feel this heat of his embarrassment, could swear he could feel the slightest twidge of a grin in Crowley’s kisses.
“Cr-Crowley,” Aziraphale managed to whine out.
The demon kept placing soft, reverent kisses against the sensitive spot on the side of Aziraphale’s neck, following a languid, lazy trail up and down. His blush only climbed higher, and Aziraphale was rather sure that if this kept up he wouldn’t move at all for the rest of the day.
They did have a dreadful lot to do, but maybe leaving it for tomorrow wouldn’t be so bad. It wasn’t like it would cause the end of the world or anything… and even if it did, if the pair dealt with it once, they could certainly deal with it again, right? And anyway, humanity had done mostly fine on its own without the two of them actively swaying ‘good’ or ‘evil’ one way or the other, so it couldn’t possibly miss them for a day— especially when that wasn’t really their job anymore, even if they had never done it very well in the first place.
Just as Aziraphale had resigned himself to remaining in this soft, blissful envelopment of domesticity with the apple of his eye— pun intended— Crowley finally pushed off of the angel, sat up, languidly stretched facing the other wall (letting Aziraphale see the cords and tendons of his corporeal form’s back stretch in the morning light), and got out of bed all in one fluid motion. The sudden change caught Aziraphale by such surprise that Crowley was already wiggling one leg into a pair of his favorite black slim-fit trousers when he turned to look at Aziraphale, who was still in bed, trying to gain his bearings. The angel’s neck still held a residue of pink.
“Well, come on now,” Crowley said, eyebrows raised just enough to match the gentle teasing in his voice. “Chop chop, Angel, we’ve got things to do.” The demon turned back around, fitting in his second leg and skimming through the closet to choose a belt. “Really,” he mumbled, tone ridiculously fond and chaffing all at once. “So lazy, staying in bed so late. What would you do without me?”
Aziraphale simply rolled his eyes and stood up to get ready.