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Caress

This gifset was inspiring so here:

He was doing that thing again with his fingertips, slowly stroking himself from his Adam’s apple to his chin.

Aziraphale didn’t mind the staring; he was used to it. Crowley hardly ate anything at their meal times and didn’t speak much. It was usually the angel who filled the gaps in conversation, talking about rare books who found and ordered, complaining about a customer who once mishandled his William Blakes, and his visits from the tax-man.

He wasn’t completely naive. Aziraphale knew what Crowley was doing with that gesture. He had seen him do it many times, for decades, centuries. He never really thought much of it at first, until he caught himself doing it.

It was one evening while he was having a drink with Oscar and as he was reading from his nearly finished draft of Dorian Gray, Aziraphale noticed his expression when he paused in his reading and smiled at him.

“No need to try to make me blush, Ezra, darling,” he had said. “The sherry has beaten you to it, I’m afraid.”

A rush of heat filled Aziraphale’s cheeks as he pulled his fingers away from his neck and cleared his throat. 

“It was just an itch, Oscar,” he said.

“Indeed.”

Aziraphale dabbed his mouth with his serviette as he glanced at Crowley, who was still gazing at him and stroking his neck.

He smiled at him. “Well…what are you in the mood for now?”

Crowley paused in his caressing and his gaze lingered.

Aziraphale tried desperately to avert his eyes from the demon’s lips which were pink and agonizingly inviting.

“Alcohol!” he suddenly exclaimed. He bit his beautiful bottom lip as he clanged his teaspoon against his cup. 

“Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol.”

His mischievous grin made the angel’s heart race, but he nodded and rose from his seat, watching the demon put his lithe fingers into the pockets of his trousers.

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One soft demon gets the extra TLC he so richly deserves.

My dear @thunderheadfred requested Aziraphale braiding Crowley’s hair. You know he’s just gonna take it out and braid it again, and again until Crowley is gooey from relaxation.

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3\3

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aziraphale waking crowley up in the mornings by curling around him and pressing soft kisses to the back of his neck; crowley grumbling in protest even as he presses himself further into aziraphale’s hold. time to wake up, dear boy, aziraphale tells him, between kisses, nuzzling into his hair a little. 

crowley stretches, groans, and collapses back into aziraphale’s arms. don’t wanna. 

yes, you do, aziraphale says, and there’s such fondness in him, such unbearable affection, that crowley has to turn in his hold and bury his face into aziraphale’s chest. you want to get up and come to breakfast with me, i think. i’ll take you somewhere with runny eggs, just like you like. 

s’warm here, crowley answers, but that’s not a no. food is aziraphale’s passion, of course, but crowley can be tempted – oysters in rome, crepes in paris, angel food cake at the ritz – particularly when it’s coming from aziraphale. you’re cosy.

aziraphale smiles against crowley’s temple, pulling him a little closer and rubbing a hand up and down his back. he can’t resist crowley like this, with his defenses down, his limbs loose and heavy with sleep, his face soft and unlined as though a cocoon of blankets and a soft awakening has melted away the last six thousand years, the fear and the hiding, the questions and the fall. 

maybe it did, a little. 

stay here with me, crowley mumbles into aziraphale’s chest, threading his own temptation into it – aziraphale can hear it in his voice, can feel it in the way it tugs, like a hand curling into the dark spaces underneath his ribs. just for a little while. eggs afterwards.

all right, aziraphale agrees, kissing crowley’s forehead, his temple, coaxing crowley’s face upwards – he follows those kisses like a sunflower turning toward the light. a kiss to crowley’s eyelids, terribly gentle against their flutter; a kiss to his cheekbones, his jaw, the bridge of his nose. just for a little while. eggs afterwards. 

when his kisses find crowley’s mouth, crowley sighs, and presses into him, and kisses him back, and it feels like that hand curled under his chest releasing just long enough to find aziraphale’s hand in return, like fingers slotting together, like palms pressed to palms, like the flicker of a pulse in wrists held to wrists. it feels like crowley, giving in; it feels like crowley, taking of. like balance; like finding equilibrium. the eye of the storm. the crest of the sun.

it feels like home.  

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mixing two sketch requests - both ANON - “I’d love to see Crowley kissing Aziraphale’s hand, if you don’t mind” and “I’d love to see the two resting their foreheads against each others″

i thought a little snow would feel refreshing~ and the fancy jackets are dedicated to the dear and saintly @gingerhaole 💙

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Love Stories

Prompt:  what would happen if an absolutely hammered Aziraphale drunk-Summoned Crowley?

Crowley goes too slow, Aziraphale drinks copious amounts of alcohol, and a bookshop is (very nearly) set on fire. Again. 

Love Stories

In a book, a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. When the last ink has spilled, and the page continues on white and blank, it is over. Finished. Done. All that remains is the closing of the book - when one, with a sense of finality, presses the hard front and back together, sealing words and ink within.

Life is not like stories, or books.

You might, perhaps, go on an adventure. Defeat your enemies. Maybe even fall in love. But unlike the stories, there is no neatly printed “happily ever after,” and the book does not close; rather, life simply…goes on. 

After the world had definitively not ended, and Aziraphale and Crowley had, against all odds, avoided destruction at the hands of their respective employers - they’d gone to lunch. There, they’d shared a lovely meal while talking and laughing, their hands resting on the table, a delicate two inches apart. 

They’d finished the meal and strolled out to the Bentley which waited, as if summoned, one tire carelessly perched on the curb. 

Crowley had driven Aziraphale home. 

Outside Aziraphale’s shop, a heavy, awkward silence had descended on the vehicle. Crowley’s fingers were drumming a nervous rhythm on the wheel; and Aziraphale, crushed beneath the impossible weight of six thousand years worth of unspoken sentiment, felt as though a vise was constricting his chest. Because after all that time, how did one even begin going about saying - saying -

At the time, he couldn’t think it, let alone say it.

The angel had stammered, filling the rigid silence with shallow, vague promises.

They’d talk on the phone. Really, they should do lunch again. When? Soon. Very soon. 

After, the silence had, impossibly, grown heavier. Aziraphale, manicured fingers curling over his knees, had looked to Crowley, wanting from the demon something he didn’t know how to begin to ask for.

Because Crowley had said it already - through actions, admittedly, more often than words. But perhaps - maybe that would be enough. It needn’t be anything grand. Something - anything that Aziraphale might use to drag himself out of these depths, to draw in just one single breath of air; enough to wrap-his mind around how to set about feeling out the shape of the words on his lips.

Crowley’s fingers squeezed the steering wheel, and Aziraphale had watched his knuckles pale in the dim light. 

Crowley had tilted his head, a carefree smile pasted crudely on his face and said, “Sure angel. Lunch sounds great.”

Aziraphale exited the car.

Crowley drove away.

And that was that.

The last period, black as a bullet, has marked the text. The rest of the page is white and blank.

It has been two week since Aziraphale got out of Crowley’s car. The story has ended, and yet, inexplicably, life goes on.

Crowley hasn’t visited. And he’s yet to call. Aziraphale sometimes worries, fear tickling the back of his mind as he painstakingly re-orders the bookshop Adam resurrected, that something could have happened to him. That Heaven or Hell have gone after him. 

After the initial spike of fear, the worry usually fades. 

Nothing has happened to Crowley. 

Aziraphale can’t explain how he knows. But he does. It’s a feeling as sure and solid as the leather-bound book in his palms. He would know if something had happened to Crowley. He’s sure of it.

Keep reading

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(please consider Crowley slowly unbuttoning Aziraphale's shirt while they whisper sweet nothings between each other)

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 i just really love this scene (most definitely not just because Aziraphale looks really “nifty” in his glasses xD) so a small sketchy study it is

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You know what I get soft over but rarely see? Aziraphale calling Crowley Anthony.

Crowley is maybe having a mild panic crisis, and Aziraphale just says Anthony in the softest voice while putting his hand on his, and suddenly Crowley is flustered for an entirely different reason.

They kiss for the first time, outside the bookshop after a dinner at the Ritz, and it's "See you tomorrow, Anthony".

Maybe they're being intimate, and between all the words, it's the Anthony that sends him over the edge.

Because I love you Crowley is a testament to six thousand years together, but I love you Anthony is the here, it's the now, it's the we are on our own side and damn all the pain Heaven and Hell brought.

Anthony is his name, the name he picked for himself. Everyone - demon, angel, Antichrist or witch - calls him Crowley, but only his angel mutters his first name almost like a pray.

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(x)

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prompt: hands. alternately, wings. alternately, medieval.

Paris, 1793

Aziraphale is not looking at Crowley’s hands. He’s not doing a lot of things – not thinking how the slim-fitting coat makes him look even longer and leaner than usual, not taking note of the curve of his calf in his stockings, not trying to guess where he’s looking behind those dark glasses. But most of all he’s not looking at Crowley’s hands, at the long, slim fingers, at the lazy, casual grace of the gesture that frees him from his chains.

He is, in fact, so firmly Not Looking at Crowley’s hands that it takes him a moment longer than it should to realize he’s free, and to pull his gaze back to his own wrists, sore where the shackles have rubbed and pinched. He lets out an annoyed little oh and rubs at a tender spot, trying to decide whether this, too, is too frivolous to merit a miracle.

“What’s the matter?” Crowley says. When Aziraphale looks back at him, he hasn’t moved, but now he’s definitely looking at Aziraphale. At his hands.

“Oh,” Aziraphale says, feeling a little flustered. “It’s– the chain, you know. Left a bit of a mark.”

“Left a mark,” Crowley repeats, in a hiss – it shouldn’t be possible to hiss a sentence with no sibilants in it, but he manages it – and gets to his feet. Before Aziraphale can stop him he’s caught Aziraphale’s hand, pushing back the cascading lace of his cuff. Or trying to, anyway – there really is a lot of lace to contend with – and muttering, “What were you thinking, dressed up in all this nonsense–”

He ought to say something back, make some waspish remark about Crowley’s dress sense, something, anything. But Crowley’s hand slides up the underside of his wrist, and he can’t think about anything else, can only gasp and pull his hand away as if burned.

“That hurt?” Crowley says, blessedly misunderstanding.

“No, it’s–” Aziraphale starts, and then realizes he has no other explanation for flinching and backtracks, “Well, a little.”

Crowley looks back down at his wrist, which after all is barely hurt, and makes a sad little moue, and a soft tch sound between his teeth. It occurs to Aziraphale that he’s being made fun of. Probably deservedly – he could have freed himself at any time, and he is inclined to fuss about little inconveniences like this all out of proportion to their severity, but…

Then Crowley touches his wrist again, runs one long finger over the worst of the scrapes, and Aziraphale feels the raw skin heal over and it dawns on him that Crowley isn’t making fun at all.

And that there is something worse than watching Crowley’s hands at a distance, wanting them to touch him and knowing it won’t happen, and it’s this: being offered that touch and turning it away. Pulling his wrist back, out of Crowley’s grip, and saying in a voice that’s barely more than a breath, “Better not.”

“Right,” Crowley says, after a long moment. “You’re right. No telling what sort of trouble I’d be in for.” He clears his throat, and then says in a more normal voice, “Lunch?”

He’s not looking at Crowley’s hands. He’s not. But as they materialize outside the little cafe he suggested, he thinks he sees Crowley reach for his hand again, and then think better of it and draw back, fingers curled.

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Crowley had some stories that are more interesting than those books. For example their own story

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Safe and sound 😊

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…And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

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ineffable husbands + touches

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I think one of the reasons Good Omens hit me like a ton of bricks is that Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship reads to me as such a spot-on depiction of this one particular thing, that’s very hard to put into words but was instantly recognizable to me. It’s the Queer Best Friend Zone of Ambiguity.

And the thing is, if you know this thing then you know it. It’s that friend, of the same gender (or same gender presentation) as you, that really close friend that you’ve known for a long time, that you just really click with, that you have sleepovers and go on vacations with, that you want to be around even when they annoy you, that you think is ever so beautiful and talented and amazing. (Those are totally normal things to think about your friend, right? Right??)

And yes, obviously, people of all sexual orientations fall in love with their friends. But because we live in a heteronormative society, there’s a way in which best friends of the same gender who are maybe also in love with each other can just…get away with living in this indeterminate space for much longer. There are many fewer assumptions that you’re a couple–although there may be some, to which you can always say, if you choose, oh no, we’re just friends, and that will most likely be accepted without question. Of course you’re friends and not a couple who hasn’t realized it yet. Because we live in a society where two people who appear to be of the same gender as each other having lunch together are much more likely to be read as friends, while people of different genders are much more likely to be read as couple, it’s that much easier to sustain the routines of friendship even if one (or both) of you is slowly dying inside because you’ve realized that, yes, you love this person as your friend but you also love them in that other way. The whole world supports the idea that you’re just friends, even it feels increasingly like a fiction to one or both of you.

And, if you’re in the business of self-denial, it is much, much easier to pretend for much longer that you’re friends, just friends, and that sure, you love each other, as friends; you’re not in love with the other person, in a romantic way. You’re just very good friends. There’s nothing wrong with being very close and loving friends, right? And there isn’t!! But it can be a way to cover up the other thing, for other people, or for yourself if you don’t want to see it.

And, if you’ve ever fallen in love with a best friend, you know it can be terrifying. Because of the fear that you’ll damage the friendship if they don’t feel the same way, or that you’ll change the nature of the relationship and it won’t work out and then you will have lost both a best friend and a romantic partner. And in a queer world of chosen families those close friendships can be a real serious lifeline for emotional connection and many other things. There’s a lot of pressure to not fuck up what you have together, as friends, even if you realize you want something else too. The Zone of Ambiguity can look really attractive for all these reasons.

I’ve tried to be very conscientious throughout this post about saying things like “something else” instead of “something more,” because I absolutely don’t believe in some hierarchy of meaningfulness of relationships with romantic love at the top. Maybe you, the person who may or may not be in love with your best friend, believe this too, which is another reason to tell yourself you just love them as a friend, because that’s not a lesser relationship; close friendship is as meaningful as any romantic or sexual relationship; that should be enough, right? It can get very confusing when you try to sort it all out. Staying in the Zone of Ambiguity is much safer.

I think that’s also why I was never bothered by the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale only ever call each other friends. Best friends. Because they are best friends. And in their world that’s transgressive enough! If you see them as close platonic friends, everything about the story still works absolutely just as well as if you see them as lovers or as asexual romantic partners or as anything else you want to.

But if you do see them as best friends who also have some romantic attraction to each other, there is just something that to me feels so agonizingly real and true about the way that relationship plays out. It’s in the way one of them will occasionally get brave or desperate and do something that seems very much like it can only be read as an explicitly romantic gesture, and the other one will haltingly almost half-acknowledge it as such, and then they’ll both get scared and retreat back into the Zone of Ambiguity. It’s in the way that you can choose to read the ending, if you want to, as them deciding to step away from the ambiguity to something defined in a more clearly romantic way, with the knowledge that they both finally feel safe enough to do that and are able to be happy about it. It’s just…so exceptionally well-done and feels real to me in a way that very few more explicit, conventional romances in media do, and it feels like a reflection of something in the queer experience (or at least my queer experience), in a way that goes deeper than the characters’ gender presentation. It’s…idk, it means a lot to me in ways I’m still trying to parse out.

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i finished my digital oil painting of our beautiful non binary angel demon