Work Text:
The man’s head lay heavy on his shoulder. It was a nice head, as heads went. A lean face, handsome, with high cheek bones, the lower lip full, and soft looking. The overall effect of raffishness was completed by a well-cut coif of flame-red hair and impeccably tailored dark suit, the jacket lined with scarlet silk.
Aziraphale could see the lining because of the way the man was slouched, sound asleep against his shoulder, while a few rows in front of them, the orchestra laboured on through the final movement of Shostakovich’s tenth symphony, a work of which Aziraphale was inordinately fond.
How the fellow leaning into him could sleep through the sheer volume of the piece Aziraphale couldn’t fathom, but slumber on he did. One bony knee of those attractively long legs lay warm against his thigh. Aziraphale sat ramrod straight in the attitude of a discommoded heron, hoping with each rolling blare of brass that the man in the seat next to him would wake and free him from this torture.
Aziraphale adored his concert nights. He’d had a season ticket for this chamber orchestra for years now. He was comfortable in the auditorium, it felt safe there, amidst his fellow music lovers. Each year the faces next to him changed, and if he was lucky, he would be able to engage in some amiable conversation before the concerts started or during the interval.
Now though, there was this fellow. Aziraphale hoped he wasn’t prone to drooling. This was his best suit, and he didn’t want it stained.
The music stopped, and with a sudden snort, the man woke, saw the position he was in, and his cheeks became suffused with colour.
“Uh, sorry,” he said as he straightened up.
“Quite alright,” said Aziraphale, settling himself upright in his seat again with a wiggle, now that the weight was off his shoulder.
“Can I buy you a drink, make up for the inconvenience?”
“That would be very kind.”
Aziraphale, under the scrutiny of his good-looking neighbour, found himself colouring up in his turn. He indicated the aisle to the side of them. “After you,” he said.
It was happening again. Beethoven, this time, his seventh symphony. The fellow’s head was lolling next to his, warm breath tickling the shell of his ear. In addition, there was an elegant hand curled, childlike, on his thigh. Everything about the situation was distracting, particularly the fact that Aziraphale found he rather liked the feeling. The man really was attractive, and he smelled simply marvellous. Aziraphale, incurable romantic that he was, found himself dreaming of a warm and willing body next to his in other circumstances.
The man, Crowley, was dead to the world. Aziraphale who had found he rather liked him after chatting over glasses of G&T, raised his arm, and draped it round his companion. He might as well be comfortable, he reasoned to himself, as Crowley smiled and snuggled closer.
It was the least that he could do.