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“Did you know,” Aziraphale says as he finishes chewing a bite of Battenburg cake, “that there are different types of gay men?”
Crowley would have choked on his coffee if he hadn’t learned by now to immediately swallow whatever beverage is in his mouth as soon as Aziraphale introduces a topic with “did you know.”
“You’ve lived in Soho for how many decades and you’re just learning this?”
“I think I’m a queen. Or perhaps a bear? How hairy does one have to be to be a bear?”
“You’re not either of those things, because you’re not gay, and you’re not a man.”
“But if I were a gay man.” Aziraphale dabs at his mouth with his napkin. “You’re an otter, I think,” he says, casting an evaluative eye up and down Crowley’s body. “Possibly a wolf. I’m not entirely clear on the difference, if we’re being honest.”
“I’m a serpent.”
“That’s not an option. Do you have hair on the rest of your torso, or just your chest? You’re definitely several millennia too old to be a twink.”
“You’ve been in my body. Shouldn’t you know what my” — Crowley waves a hand up and down his torso — “hair situation is?”
“Well, there were rather more pressing issues at hand. I didn’t exactly have time to inspect the corporeal form.” Aziraphale nods with divine condescension. “And besides, it would have been impolite!”
“Ah yes, wouldn’t want to be impolite.”
Chewing another tiny bite of cake, clearly feigning casualness, Aziraphale says, “You didn’t— that is to say, when you were, er, inside me— in my body, I mean— you didn’t look, did you?”
“I might’ve, y’know, peeked. You’re definitely not a bear, by the way.”
“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasps, his mouth hanging open in a scandalized frown.
“I’m a demon. Surely you didn’t expect me to resist the temptation?” Aziraphale’s only response is an offended cough. “We can switch again, if you’d like, and you can look at whatever you please. Fair’s fair.”
“Oh, like I’d trust my body to your care now!” Aziraphale wrinkles his nose in disgust. “You’d probably take it for some sort of sexual joyride. Bring it back with all manner of diseases and— and hickeys.”
You’re crazy if you think I’d let anyone else touch you, even if you’re me, Crowley thinks but does not say. Instead he shrugs and says “Your loss.”
“No, you’ll just have to show me.”
This time Crowley does choke on his coffee. “Sorry, what?”
“I said you’ll just have to show me,” Aziraphale says primly, as though he were informing Crowley that he owed him a tenner and not requesting that he— he—
“You want me to strip?”
“Well, not right now, obviously.” Aziraphale looks pointedly around the café.
“Obviously,” Crowley mocks halfheartedly.
“It can wait until we’re back at the shop.” Aziraphale finishes the last bite of cake, folds his napkin, and places it on the table, while Crowley blue-screens.
***
Crowley pulls up outside the bookshop and hesitantly cuts the engine. Aziraphale has been acting completely casual, chattering away the whole ride about the upcoming opera season, not that Crowley has registered a single word.
Was it a joke? It must have been a joke. Should he go with Aziraphale into the shop? That’s what he would normally do. But what if Aziraphale thinks that means he didn’t get the joke? What if Aziraphale thinks that Crowley thinks that Aziraphale actually wants to see him naked? But what if Aziraphale does want to see him naked, and—
“Are you coming?” Aziraphale asks, standing at the curb, stooping to look through the open car window at Crowley.
“Er. Sure.” Crowley climbs out of the Bentley, trying to remember how he acts when his heart isn’t thumping halfway up his throat.
In the back room, Aziraphale hangs up his overcoat, flicks on a table lamp, and perches on the sofa. He looks expectantly at Crowley, who has gotten as far as the doorway.
“Go ahead, then.”
So, not a joke. Crowley takes a moment to wonder how he managed to lose control of this situation so spectacularly. “I’m just supposed to…” He trails off, gesturing to his body.
“Quick as you please.”
If you’d asked Crowley to guess what Aziraphale ordering him to remove his clothes would be like — not that he’s ever thought about it before, this would purely be an intellectual exercise, of course — he would have guessed that the request would involve quite a lot of embarrassed stammering and absolutely no eye contact. He has no idea what to make of this calm, laconic Aziraphale, sitting just beyond the reach of the lamplight, waiting.
He steps to the center of the room and looks down at his own body, strategizing. Shoes — those are harmless to remove. Socks, too. Aziraphale's seen his feet plenty of times; took the humans quite a while to invent closed-toe shoes.
Feet bared, Crowley removes his string tie and begins to unbutton his shirt. He knows he could miracle his clothing away, but he needs this buffer time, this small ritual of normalcy. Wading in at the shallow end, rather than jumping straight in to the deep end only to discover he can't swim.
(Crowley is an excellent swimmer, of course. In the 1500s, when he was bored — which was quite a lot, what with all the colonialism that he could falsely take credit for — he sometimes liked to turn his bottom half into his snake form and swim around ships in the Caribbean until sailors spotted him in the murky depths. Caused quite a bit of excitement. No mobile phones in those days.)
He pulls his shirttails out of his trousers, undoes the last button, and shrugs off the shirt, tossing it on a nearby chair. The room is warm and there’s nary a draft, but he can feel his skin turning to gooseflesh anyway. He’s never been so aware of his own nipples before.
Aziraphale just sits on the sofa in shadow, his usually expressive face — with a tendency to reflect every minute emotion and thought and bubble of intestinal gas — unreadable. His palms sit flat on his thighs, fingers spread. He looks like a sculpture of white marble. Crowley’s thoughts dart unbidden to the statue in his flat, before he reels them right back again.
He doesn't want to have to bend over twice, and he knows from experience that his trousers are tight enough that it usually ends up being a two-for-one removal experience anyway, so he hooks his thumbs into both waistbands, lets out a gust of a frivolous breath, and peels everything down to his ankles.
"Well?" Crowley challenges with false confidence, holding his arms out to the side as he steps out of the puddle of clothing. "Whatcha think? Want me to take a spin for you?"
Aziraphale tips his head forward in an gracious nod, as though he is indulging Crowley’s wishes.
Crowley feels his eyebrows climb toward his hairline, but he rotates in a slow circle nevertheless. When he’s facing Aziraphale again, he chances a look at him. Still unreadable.
“Can I put my clothes back on now?” Crowley finally asks, unable to bear the awkward silence any longer.
Aziraphale nods again. Crowley snaps his fingers and is once more safely ensconced in his layers of cotton and silk. He clears his throat uncomfortably, suddenly acutely unsure of what to do with his hands. Pockets! He has pockets now that his clothes are back on!
After one more moment of gazing in silence, Aziraphale slaps his hands on his thighs and stands with a friendly smile. “Well! How about a nightcap before you head home?”
“You’re just going to— after all that— yup, you’re headed for the wine fridge,” Crowley says, apparently to himself. “A little positive feedback wouldn’t hurt, you know,” he mutters as loudly as he dares (which is not very loudly).
“I discovered this lovely riesling the last time I was in Stuttgart,” Aziraphale says, emerging from the kitchenette in the back of the shop. “Seems like a good night for it.”
The last time Crowley felt this disoriented, it was because he’d slept through the start of World War II. “Unbelievable.”
“I know, riesling is rather more pedestrian than I usually go for, but I’m in the mood for something a bit sweet.” Aziraphale holds out a glass to Crowley, and Crowley automatically takes it. “What do you think about Thai food tomorrow?”
Crowley can’t help but sputter. “Really? After that, you want to talk about tomorrow’s dinner?”
Aziraphale purses his lips and scans Crowley’s face. “You’re embarrassed.”
“’Course I’m embarrassed, angel.”
“There’s no need to be; you’re quite beautiful, you know.”
”I— well. Er. Thanks.” Crowley downs his glass of riesling in one gulp, and holds it out for a refill.
***
A couple of hours later, the bottle is empty, and Crowley is flipping through a book on pre-Columbian art while Aziraphale clicks around on his outdated brick of a laptop.
“According to this website, wolves ‘typically have a lean, muscular build and are sexually aggressive.’ Are you sexually aggressive? You’re a demon, so you must be.”
“Me? Sexually aggressive? I’ve known you for six thousand bloody years, angel, and I’ve never so much as copped a feel.”
Aziraphale tsks in disappointment. “None of these categories seem to fit either of us.”
“It’s almost as though a simplistic typology designed to crudely sort gay men can’t accommodate two supernatural, sexless beings.”
“Well,” Aziraphale says, looking meaningfully toward Crowley’s lap, “not exactly sexless.”
“You know what I mean. The human rules don’t apply to us.”
“No, I suppose they don’t,” Aziraphale muses, setting his laptop aside. “I believe most human couples kiss before they see one another naked.”
“Technically I didn’t see you naked, I saw myself naked in your body,” Crowley corrects, before klaxons begin going off in his brain. “Wait. Couple?” The klaxons stop and are replaced by the sound of brakes screeching into a collision. “Wait. Why did you put the emphasis on— are we going to—”
Aziraphale’s lips are soft against his, and sweet from the wine, and he hums in delight when Crowley weaves a hand into his hair.
“I think I figured it out,” Aziraphale whispers against his cheek some time later when they've paused for breath.
“Hm?”
“What you are.”
“Oh yeah?” Crowley dares to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s neck. “What am I? An otter?” Another kiss, and Aziraphale shivers. “Mongoose? Halibut? Tardigrade?”
Aziraphale’s hands are firm around his biceps. “Mine.”
No label has ever felt more right.