perilit

- david tennant

“You haven’t! Not where I could see!”

Crowley frowned, trying to peer past the fog of inebriation into six thousand years of memories.

“Huh,” he said, at length. “S’really been that long?”

Aziraphale nodded, wide-eyed. “Mm. Not since Eden. I… I didn’t even think you could still do it. Thought maybe I— imagined it, or. Or.”

Crowley gaped, wordless noises of offense crackling from his throat. “I— what! Course I can still—! It— it’s what I am! Underneath all this, yeah?” He motioned unsteadily to his body, stretched out on Aziraphale’s familiar backroom sofa. “Doesn’t just— go away!”

The angel leaned back tipsily in his seat, and gestured at Crowley with his wine glass. “Let’s have it, then. Go on.”

“Wh— what— here? Now?” Crowley protested. A hot, sticky anxiety suddenly flooded his veins.

Aziraphale nodded. “Oh, won’t you?”

The prospect of Aziraphale seeing him like that for the first time in six thousand years was, upon consideration, utterly terrifying. He’d be bared to the soul, no sunglasses or saunter to cover up his scorched demonic essence.

But— Aziraphale was looking at him, all fluttery pleading pout, and so Crowley didn’t really have a choice, did he?  

With a sigh, he set down his glass, and, with minimal fanfare, turned into a snake.

Skin and cloth smoothly transformed into shining scales. He hissed a sigh of relief as he shifted; the sensation wasn’t good, exactly, it was always a bit scary doing this, but there was a certain relief to it all the same.

Crowley slithered around a bit on the sofa, and settled into a comfortable position, his coils looped gracefully underneath his angular head. Then he looked up at the angel.

Aziraphale had put his own glass down with one shaking hand, and clapped the other to his mouth. He’d gone stiff and tense, and Crowley immediately thought he’d made a horrible mistake.

“Angel— talk to me— what’s wrong— I’m sssorry, let me change back, I knew I’d—“

“Don’t you dare,” hiccuped Aziraphale, eyes swimming, and as his hand left his face Crowley could see now that his expression was one not of fear, but of intense, rapturous joy. “Come here, oh, you wonderful creature—“

Crowley hesitated, a trembling pile of scale and terror curled up on the brocade throw.

Aziraphale beckoned again. “I must touch your— oh, I mean, if you wouldn’t mind horribly, it’s that you just look so— inviting—“ He averted his eyes now, trailing off, but Crowley got the picture, and rather liked the look of it himself.

So he slithered down from the sofa and across to the angel’s armchair, winding himself obediently up the side of the chair and coming to rest, unbelievably, around Aziraphale’s shoulders. His tail curled happily in Aziraphale’s lap, and before he could even toss off a laconic joke to diffuse the tension he was sure ought to be building up by now, there were soft hands stroking their way down his scales, and all verbal function merrily deserted him.

It felt— incredible. Aziraphale’s well-kept fingers caressed every inch of Crowley’s flexible spine, brushing against his sensitive red underbelly with impossible kindness.

Flicking his tongue out, Crowley could smell the delight bubbling up from every inch of Aziraphale’s corporation. Was the angel always like this? Always so incandescently, purely happy? Crowley’s senses, in human form, were not nearly so attuned, so there was no way of knowing, really— but Crowley really wanted to believe this was a special occasion. That this was something he’d done.

“Worth the wait?” Crowley managed, at some point. Aziraphale was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed in satisfaction as he continued to offer Crowley touch after touch.

Aziraphale’s sea-glass eyes blinked open, met Crowley’s yellow slits hovering inches away.

“Oh, I’d say so,” he said, “you beautiful thing.”

If artists are the backbone of a fandom, then you all are the muscles. Connecting everyone and everything. Spreading fun and whimsy. That’s real neat, I think