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Dust motes floated lazily in what little sunlight could filter through the bookshop’s filthy windows. Crowley sneezed, and dropped his mobile on his face.
“Bless you.” Aziraphale patted Crowley’s leg where it was sprawled over his own on the backroom sofa. He didn’t look up from his book.
“No,” Crowley said, rubbing his nose.
Aziraphale hadn’t been paying attention to Crowley for the last few hours. Not uncommon when books were involved, which was a shame because Crowley was very handsome and also very bored.
He slithered upright, landing nearly in Aziraphale’s lap. He lifted Aziraphale’s hand from his shin to run his thumbs over the smooth arcs of Aziraphale’s manicured nails, the creased expanse of his palm.
Aziraphale had the softest hands.
Crowley pressed his lips, featherlight, to those plush knuckles. Through his eyelashes, he caught Aziraphale watching him over his book.
“This brings back memories,” Aziraphale said, before regret flitted uncomfortably over his features.
Crowley, uncharacteristically, blinked.
“Oh, you know how it was.” Aziraphale pulled his hand from Crowley’s to flutter it nervously, dismissively. Crowley’s empty hands missed Aziraphale’s warmth.
“We weren’t...friendly, as it were, in the 1880s, and the men at my club liked to play those little games. Dancing, flirting, kissing. Harmless fun, really. They were all after an intimacy society would deny them elsewhere,” Aziraphale continued. He placed his reading on an already precarious stack nearby. “I wasn’t much different—I craved your company when it was impossible. I didn’t know if you were safe, or if you’d ever speak to me again. If you would want to.” Aziraphale laughed, a melancholy thing.
“I was only napping.”
“But I didn’t know.”
Crowley swiped a gentle thumb to catch the wetness at Aziraphale’s eye. It only burned a little.
“We were both stubborn,” Crowley said. “But we’re on our own side, remember? Now you can kiss me, instead of those Victorian prudes.”
Aziraphale snorted. “I can assure you they very much were not.”
“Shh, angel. Let’s focus on your lapful of demon.”
Aziraphale brushed his lips against Crowley’s.
“A tempting offer,” he said, and the ghost of his breath sent a shiver down Crowley’s slightly too serpentine spine.
“Always on the table now.”
Crowley grabbed his hand again. He wrapped both his palms around Aziraphale’s wrist to feel the flutter of his pulse beneath. Crowley let his hands drift up around Aziraphale’s forearms to the rolled cuff of his sleeve, at his inner elbow. His thumbs slipped further, tucking underneath the edge of the fabric to press at the sensitive flesh there.
Bending down, he mouthed a wet kiss into the exposed crease of his elbow. Aziraphale sucked in a breath.
With a final, chaste peck to the delicate skin, Crowley glanced up. Aziraphale looked a little dazed. Served him right for looking so delectable at all times.
“Delicious,” Crowley said, a little wickedly. “Would you be interested in showing me the rest of the menu?”
Aziraphale swatted at him, flustered. “You know I would, you old fiend.”