it's been discussed i think that crowley catching glimpses of aziraphale with his bowtie undone or his sleeves rolled up or, somebody help him, sock garters would really just lay crowley flat out however may i offer
aziraphale catching sight of crowley in braces
it shouldn't be unexpected. it's the 1830s, or the early 1860s, before the fight, or maybe even as late as the 1920s. aziraphale himself wears braces, for pity's sake. but there crowley is, pickled with good scotch and good humour, saying, you don't mind, do you? as he sloughs off first his jacket, and then, as the evening progresses and it becomes clear that he'll be spending the night sleeping off the drink on aziraphale's sofa in the backroom, his waistcoat.
and there they are. braces.
black silk against his dove-grey shirt, stitched with red thread. it seems impossible that aziraphale is seeing them--seeing the way they frame crowley's narrow chest, seeing the way they pull across his shoulders, the way they lead his eyes down to crowley's hips.
his breath catches in his throat. he's staring, knows he's staring, can't stop.
what would happen, aziraphale wonders, if he reached out for those braces? would crowley lean in to let his fingers sweep along the silk, or else pull away? would he let aziraphale trace the line of him all the way down to his hips, feeling the heat of his body beneath them? all the way down to where they attach at the small of crowley's back? would aziraphale be able to hear him breathing, quick and quiet in his ear?
if aziraphale thumbed free the buttons, would crowley let him slip the braces away?
he would. aziraphale knows he would. he can feel it in the way crowley looks at him sometimes when he thinks aziraphale can't see. in the way crowley lingers too long as his elbows sometimes; in the way he steps and circles behind, not just watching, not just orbiting, but protecting. shielding.
aziraphale knows a thing or two about protection. that's why even though he knows crowley would let him--would let him reach out and pull in, to slip those braces off like ribbons on a present and explore the heat and skin beneath, to taste the scotch on his lips and the moan on his tongue--aziraphale won't.
crowley's love is so eager to protect aziraphale, but it won't protect himself. aziraphale's love must do it for him.
it is a strange, uncomfortable thing, to love in safeguards, to confess with defenses and shields.
but as crowley sits back in aziraphale's sofa, grinning lazily, heart as exposed as the strings that hold him together, aziraphale doesn't mind.
and when, after the world doesn't end and life keeps on living and an angel and a demon find themselves on their own side--two hands held behind the same shield, instead of behind opposite ones--crowley will find aziraphale one morning, bright in the sunlight, and grin that i'm tempting you grin.
and he'll be wearing braces.
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