Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 4 of 31 First Kisses: Good Omens
Collections:
Good Omens Fics
Stats:
Published:
2019-12-06
Words:
2,408
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
101
Kudos:
1,395
Bookmarks:
153
Hits:
8,514

Home and Other Fires

Summary:

"How long were you intending me to stay?" Aziraphale asked, feeling oddly shy.

Crowley shrugged. "Don't care. Long as you like, makes no difference to me. No reason not to, now. What's the harm?" Too many sentences, his voice too jerky despite his air of nonchalance, just a hint of a nervous hiss. "Look, there's fireplaces all over this place. I know you love a good fire."

Notes:

For kittyknowsthings, for reminding me of how much I love the nesting trope.

What happened to Day 4 of this challenge, you may ask? Scope creep beyond ficlet length, that happened. Expect a repurposed chapter set in a Soho basement gay club in 1975 in my BigBang fic. I intend to open every window on this advent calendar, though, so Cranberries will be opened at a random point in this challenge.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Aziraphale tried to decide where to put Crowley's cup of tea. It was more difficult than it used to be, seeing that Crowley's head was dangling down towards the floor, his spine bent at what seemed like a terribly uncomfortable angle in order to keep his buttocks tucked in the depths of the couch, his long thighs extending up the back and his knees looped over.

What was even more disconcerting than the inhuman bendiness was how nicely Crowley fit the couch in that position. It led to the speculation that he had purchased the chair--no, it was Crowley, he would have had the couch custom made--to exactly the proportions needed to dangle upside down over it, baking his face and chest next to the fire.

Aziraphale sighed and put the cup near Crowley's dangling hand. The demon opened one eye, hissed "Thanksss," and apparently went back to sleep.

That was one of the unconsidered quirks of living with Crowley. He slept more of the time than seemed reasonable, and in more places than seemed possible. Another was the amount of heat Crowley liked. The fire tended to be stoked so high, on top of the central heating, that Aziraphale had reluctantly discarded all his layers one by one until he wore nothing but his shirt sleeves, not even a nice cotton vest underneath. After a few centuries of being fully clad, he felt naked.

The third was that Crowley himself apparently didn't wear a lot of clothes inside. That was probably, Aziraphale told himself irritably, why he needed the fire stoked so hot. Right now, Crowley's thin chest was bare, and like his face extremely flushed by proximity to the fire, his skin reddened and warm looking and--

Aziraphale himself felt like he was on fire a lot of the time. Maybe this whole South Downs thing was a mistake.

"You don't like my flat, do you?" Crowley asked one day, without anything prior leading up to it.

Aziraphale looked up from the dried dog food he was feeding the swans--a small child had lectured him on the wrongs of feeding bread to birds, and he had been mortified and seized with centuries of accumulated guilt--and tried to think of an appropriately tactful answer.

"It's a very impressive showcase for you, dear. Properly demonic."

Crowley made a sound between a snort and a hiss. "You always find a reason to meet somewhere else."

"You don't like your flat," Aziraphale said defensively.

Crowley stared out across the lake, the wind ruffling his short auburn hair. "Perhaps," he said contemplatively, "the thrones are a bit much."

"Perhaps, dear."

"After all, who do I have to impress, these days?" Aziraphale had the distinct impression that Crowley was looking sideways at him, although it was difficult to tell with those closed-in glasses.

"You just have to please yourself, now."

"Hmmph. Let's go back to the bookstore, I'm frozen and I need drinkable coffee." At some point, Crowley had installed a ridiculously expensive and complicated espresso machine in Aziraphale's office. He never seemed to buy coffee beans, but it produced heavenly--no, not heavenly, definitely an earthly pleasure--smelling coffee every time.

Crowley hadn't mentioned his flat again for several weeks, until he asked, "Mind if I borrow some of your things?"

Aziraphale, who had thought he was asleep on the couch, looked up from the book he was rebinding. "My things?"

"That light thing over there." Crowley thrust a casual hand out towards a priceless directoire table lamp. "And that little olive-wood figurine of Auxesia from Aegina, great century, the fifth BCE. And some books."

"Books?"

"Yeah. I think they feel, you know, home-like. So long as I don't have to read them." Crowley frowned. "Can you pick out some of your favourites? It will stop people buying them. And if you want to read them you can always come over."

"I--of course I will, dear boy." Aziraphale felt sentimental tears come to his eyes. Crowley was trying to make that dreadful flat comfortable for him. He should stop avoiding it so much.

But Crowley stopped inviting him over at all, although he kept borrowing things. One day, out of the blue, he announced that he had bought a cottage as a holiday home.

"You can come stay for a while, I suppose," he said, with an air of grudgingly giving into pleading. "Get you out of London for a bit, until you stop seeing angels on every corner. 'S'nice," he added, defending himself against accusations never made. "Near the ocean. And it's pink. Thought I could repaint it black, but apparently there's regulations and stuff. Might have to see what I can do about that. Anyway. Can't expect me to live in a pink house by myself, at least until I get used to it."

"It would be a kindness to come stay," Aziraphale said, thoughtfully.

Crowley made a disgusted face, but Aziraphale could tell he was pleased by the tiny quirk at the edge of that mobile face.

The cottage had been a revelation. More of Aziraphale's favourite things had travelled from the clutter of his bookshop to the shelves and mantlepieces than he remembered Crowley asking for. He knew he had perhaps become a little overenthusiastic in lending Crowley books, but the packed shelves everywhere were an unexpected delight, and he knew some of the books were not his own purchases.

There were cosy chairs and tartan rugs and a general, heady feeling that Crowley had been feathering a nest for Aziraphale, for his personal comfort. It wasn't something that could be spoken, but--

--there were twenty nine different teas in the kitchen, carefully arranged by region and levels of oxidisation and fermentation. A beautiful gramophone as well as a modern sound system. "The softer sounds and crackling are soothing sometimes," Crowley said, shrugging. Real velvety dressing gowns and fluffy slippers and merino scarves n the wardrobes.

"How long were you intending me to stay?" Aziraphale asked, feeling oddly shy.

Crowley shrugged. "Don't care. Long as you like, makes no difference to me. No reason not to, now. What's the harm?" Too many sentences, his voice too jerky despite his air of nonchalance, just a hint of a nervous hiss. "Look, there's fireplaces all over this place. I know you love a good fire."

The harm, Aziraphale suspected, in what it was doing to him to share living space with a demon who clearly felt shirts were optional and tended to stand with one hip jutting out, showing the top of an enticing hip bone. Or drape himself across counters, denim-clad behind perched--"It's a food preparation surface, Crowley, please"--on the counter-top, legs spread, leaning back on his elbows. Or doze spread out across any available surface, including the wall. Or lean halfway across the table staring fixedly at Aziraphale while he ate, like the serpent he was. Crowley was always there, and pretty much half naked all the time, and Aziraphale wasn't sure if the tight jeans or the silk pyjama shorts were more aggravating.

Crowley had also developed a new, and odd, habit of curling around Aziraphale at unexpected times, sliding hands around his waist from behind and leaning a bare chest against him, as Aziraphale made tea, leaning on his shoulder as they watched the bizarrely tedious television he seemed to enjoy so much, tangling half-bare legs with Aziraphale's legs as the angel read and Crowley did something dastardly on his phone.

"What brought all this on?" Aziraphale asked once as Crowley put his head on his lap and wound his arms around Aziraphale's arm. Aziraphale was torn between pushing him away, petting his hair or--no. He could be misunderstanding, mislead by the ache in his own body.

"Snake." Crowley said. "Like to wind around warmth. You're warm, angel. And it's not like anyone will stop us, anymore." He hesitated, and his voice was suddenly vulnerable. "Unless you hate it?"

"No, of course, it's fine," Aziraphale said, and let himself card his fingers through Crowley's hair. Crowley tightened his grip and went to sleep, and Aziraphale resigned himself to a couple of hours of fire raging through him and not being able to concentrate on his reading at all.

The worst of it was that there seemed nothing flirtatious in it at all. Crowley never said anything provocative or tried to kiss him, Except in Aziraphale's secret mind. He just seemed content to be close, and revelling in all the heat, and the fondness--poor darling thing, he must have been starved of affection for thousands of year-- and completely aware of how unbearable it was all becoming to Aziraphale. That every exposed inch of skin, every casually intimate embrace made Aziraphale desperately want to touch and kiss--oh, yes, kiss and kiss--and everything that followed.

Friends. Open friends, without having to hide from the world or each other how much they enjoyed each other, was good. It was wonderful. It was just that Crowley's delicately protruding clavicles were unexpectedly fascinating, and the way his spine curved behind the waistband of his ridiculously tight jeans, and the way that, despite all his boniness, there was a slight soft rounding of his belly right before the trail of auburn hair down to that same waistband.

Six millennia of being uncomfortably aware that this demon creature was literally infernally pretty hadn't prepared Aziraphale as much as he had hoped for living with an accountably affectionate and half-dressed, infernally pretty demon creature. One that kept touching Aziraphale, and gazing at him like he was the most adorable creation in existence. Or snarling irritably at him in a way that also somehow seemed to suggest Aziraphale was the most adorable creation in existence, followed by making him perfect cups of tea. Or driving him across three counties to a book sale, where he would mope and glower and stab at his phone and stay just as long as Aziraphale wanted, then take him out to dinner somewhere lovely he had apparently just found on his phone.

It was bliss, and it was torture. Reward for saving the world and punishment for betraying Heaven, Aziraphale supposed. Trial by hellfire.

So long as they believed he could survive hellfire, he would be fine. And he could survive this. He would.

He sighed, and set his own cup of tea down on a side table, prepared to settle down and read and not at all stare with unabashed craving at an upside-down dozing demon who--

"Surely it can't be good to let your skin get quite so red, Crowley. Move away from the fire."

"It's not too hot. C'mere and see."

Aziraphale hesitated, then moved to the couch. It really wasn't too bad. Warm. Odd, sitting next to Crowley in this position, though. He arranged himself primly.

"But my dear fellow, you are so flushed."

Aziraphale reached out and down and, unthinking, brushed his hand down hot skin, slightly furred with hair. Incredibly, the skin turned even darker, and Crowley said, "Ngk."

Aziraphale pulled his hand down as if he had been burned. "Sorry. I shouldn't have touched you."

"Don't be sorry. Please don't be." Crowley managed to move to a proper sitting position, by way of swinging his legs over Aziraphale's head and across to his lap, revolving the rest of his body with them. It was a distinctly inhuman movement, and one that ended up with him sitting halfway across Aziraphale's lap. "You can touch me. Any time and in any way, angel. Do you hear that?"

"Yes," Aziraphale managed. It was suddenly very hard to speak.

"Angel. Aziraphale. I want--this is probably a bad idea, but you did--angel, promise that whatever I'm about to do, you won't get upset with me and go tearing back to Soho."

"I can't make an open-ended promise like that to a demon."

"Retired demon." Crowley cupped Aziraphale's chin with one hand and turned Aziraphale's face to look at him. "Retired demon who loves you and is going crazy and when did you stop wearing so many clothes, anyway?"

"Ah, yes," Aziraphale said, his vocal cords working automatically while his mind whirled in dizzying circles around the word loves. "It's hot. All the fires."

"The fires? Oh. Is that any reason to subject an innocent demon to your blessed provocative wrists?"

"Provocative wrists?" Aziraphale squeaked. "You don't have a shirt on!"

"The fire's warm!"

"Exactly."

They glared at each other for a moment, then Aziraphale said, "I promise. I--"

The rest of his sentence was lost in Crowley's mouth.

Some minutes later Aziraphale surfaced, discovering he was pressed back into the couch, his shirt somehow unbuttoned, although he couldn't remember either of them doing it, and his skin was trapped against Crowley's bare chest.

"Oh, darling," Aziraphale said.

"Angel." Crowley pressed clinging, hungry little kisses all over the corners of his mouth, his chin.

"I'm not going back to Soho."

"Thank you." Crowley kissed him again, pushing his tongue against Aziraphale's, and oh, it was fire, fire licking through Aziraphale, fire licking down his veins and gathering at the pit of his belly.

"I love you too, Crowley. More than I could ever say."

"Angel. Oh, angel, I've loved you so long, so long." Crowley kissed his eyelids, his ears. "Imagined kissing you so many times, never thought it would be here... in our own nest, in front of our own fire. Not having to be afraid. Just you and me, my angel love."

"I never thought we would have this, either. Oh, you wonderful thing."

"I was beginning to think you were impossible to seduce," grumbled Crowley. "Didn't matter what I wore or what I did, you would pat me on the hand and call me your dear boy. Cold as ice."

"Cold? Oh, Crowley, I've been burning."

"But that's the first time you looked at me like that."

Aziraphale pursed his lips, blushing.

"Oh," said Crowley. "That's the first time I've caught you looking at me with lust." Crowley's mouth drew up into a smug smile. "Oh, I love you."

"You do pose very prettily," Aziraphale said defensively. "Oh, stop smirking and kiss me again."

The flickering light from the fire lit up Crowley's hair and eyes in dancing red and orange for one moment, and then they were kissing again, and the only fire Aziraphale could think of was his own.

Notes:

OMG you guys, I have six pages of comments to catch up on. I love you guys SO MUCH. Please keep them coming, they are my food and drink and air and reason to write, I read and gloat over every one like a dragon on her hoard, and I WILL catch up answering.

Love you so much <3

Series this work belongs to: