Let's find out what it might be that causes an unexpected complication for our two idiots, shall we?

Lyrics are from "Wake Up" from Julie and The Phantoms

Chapter Two: Wake Up

~oOo~oOo~oOo~

Wake up, wake up, if it's all you do - Look out, look inside of you

It's not what you lost, it's what you'll gain - Raising your voice to the rain

Wake up your dream and make it true - Look out, look inside of you

It's not what you lost, relight that spark - Time to come out of the dark

Wake up

~oOo~oOo~oOo~

A couple of hours, some bottles of wine, an enormous amount of conversation and laughter, and an even more extraordinary amount of secretly-not-so-secret secret pining and longing later, Crowley lay sprawled across his usual spot on the sofa, comfortably crouched in the cushion that had memorised his shape like a baking tin. Aziraphale (after approximately two and a half hours and precisely three bottles of wine) had also exchanged his position in the usual armchair for a place at the other end of the couch and sat next to Crowley now, his side leaned against the backrest, his knees drawn up to his chest, a wine bottle in his hand (they had long abandoned those ridiculously small glasses), laughing happily about something the demon had just said.

Crowley couldn't even remember what it had been. He was transfixed, mesmerised. His cheeks hurt from laughing, but he couldn't keep the smile away that was plastered on his face for all the world, not with the angel's warm toes (wrapped up in thick, comfy, woolly socks) nestled under his own feet, not with the angel's contagious laugh in his ears, not with the adorable rosy flush painting the angel's cheeks, nose and neck. He looked at him, at this picture of carefree happiness, a state he had hardly ever gotten to see, and smiled.

There had been something strange growing in Crowley's chest for a while now, something he was familiar with, yet couldn't immediately grasp. It seemed to be connected to his human corporation, but then, again, it was not just that. It had to do with a longing he'd felt for centuries, a yearning. It wasn't lust, exactly, yet not too far from it either. It was...it was...

It was just there because he was drunk, that's what it was! Period!

Oh, but why did the angel have to be so...so...Aziraphale? It just wasn't fair.

This cute bastard, this infuriatingly adorable, fussy, more than occasionally bitchy, brilliant (yet so very stupid - though that was really not something Crowley was in any position to judge-) beam of heavenly sunshine!
(Not a good thought, as it turned out. You are my sunshine started playing very uninvitedly in his drunk head, and Crowley immediately decided that Aziraphale was never to know how dangerously close those lyrics came to reality. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you - fine. That was just fact. A quite reasonable one, even. But I dreamed I held you in my arms, when I awoke dear, I was mistaken, and I hung my dead and cr- Nope. Demons didn't cry. Never. So neither had Crowley, obviously. Ever. So definitely not. Sniff.)

Anyway, the thing was, Crowley lo-

"Hey!", he exclaimed embarrassingly loudly in order to quieten his own dangerous thoughts. "Azi- zira...ziraphl.." He trailed off, decided to give it up and his uncoordinated vocal cords a break. "Angel", he lulled instead (the only word he would have managed to speak even without any vocal cords at all), "Angel, I'm gonna so..sob..sobb...nah, that's not-...wait, sober up, that's it!", he said triumphantly, getting the blurry letters before his inner eye into the right order.

He didn't wait for the angel to answer, as soon as one of them decided to get rid of the various states of drunkness they had experienced together over the centuries (they had had time to experiment since alcohol had been invented, after all), the other usually followed his lead. Crowley shuddered as the pleasant warmth and less pleasant dizziness left his body, noting out of the corner of his eye that Aziraphale was indeed doing the same. Crowley squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, the few seconds he needed to miracle the dreadful headache and other effects of a hangover away. When he opened them again his gaze fell on -how else could it be- Aziraphale, and he felt his heart drop in his stomach.

Crowley knew what it was, then. And he was...well. Surprised. Not that it was still there. He had known it would still be there, he had simply hoped beyond hope that it wouldn't. Well, now it was, and he knew what it was, and he was surprised. At the same time, he wasn't surprised at all. It made perfect sense. Everything did suddenly make perfect sense.

He'd seen humans do it before, had even served as a means to entice this want, to get them going, so to speak. But he'd never participated, ever, had always known to avoid it, never thought he'd ever want to. The concept did never particularly appeal to him, just seemed rather wet, messy and probably unhygienic. Now, as he couldn't help his eyes flickering down to Aziraphale's lips, he thought he understood. They looked inviting. Plush and soft, the picture of them making thoughts steal into his head, questions about how they would feel pressed against patches of his skin, how they would move against his own.
He had considered how it would be to kiss Aziraphale before. He had considered how it would be to do much more than kiss Aziraphale before, he could admit to that, he was a demon, after all. And that was how he justified this indulgence. He was supposed to do that, wasn't he? Thinking inappropriate thoughts, lust after things he couldn't have, being too greedy to give those dreams up, just because he knew it was wrong of him to have them (wrong because Aziraphle wouldn't want him to, wrong because he would hurt Aziraphale if he ever found out, wrong because he should honour his best friend's privacy and wishes). But he didn't, because he didn't want to, because he was still a demon, because he was too selfish, because he should be proud he was. (No one had to know about the shame he feelt afterwards, the regret about hurting Aziraphale, even if the angel had no idea he did, the promises he made to himself not to do it again, knowing he wouldn't be able to keep a single one.) He was a demon and he was supposed to do the wrong thing.

This didn't feel wrong though. The thought of kissing Aziraphale right here and right now felt impossibly right, and that was what startled him, what made him hesitate. This was not a dream, no fantasy his mind made up in the safe darkness of the night to drive away the loneliness that crept up at him again, one of countless times in his flat. This was real, this was happening, this was out in the open at bright daylight. This was where he couldn't pretend, not in front of Aziraphale, and neither in front of himself. He couldn't pretend to want it for demonic reasons, he couldn't pretend to want it because his nature was programmed for lust and greed and selfishness. He couldn't pretend this was about anything but love. Sinful love, perhaps, consuming, wanting, demanding - but pure at the same time, strong and stubborn, indelible and impossible to deny, grown and flourished through the ages. The kind of love everyone wanted and feared at the same time, the kind poets wrote about even without having ever experienced it, the kind that was utterly, totally, impossibly human, and yet felt holier to him than anything he encountered in his time as an angel.

When Crowley dropped out of his thoughts, Aziraphale was closer. No, he was closer to Aziraphale. Had he moved? He had to have moved. He hadn't noticed he had moved, he-

He looked into Aziraphale's wide eyes staring guilelessly back at him - and had to avert his gaze. He was fucking this up. Royally. Nothing had even begun, really, and he could already tell he was fucking it up. He was too much again, too fast, he just couldn't control himself, always pushing boundaries, always reaching for things he had no right to want in the first place. He was steering directly towards safe ruin and all because he couldn't keep his hands to himself (his heart in his chest, his love in its cage).

The feeling of the cushion shifting made his eyes return to Aziraphale's, the angel's brow wrinkled in a mixture of concern and a sort of astounded curiosity. He was suddenly so close, closer than he should have been, closer than he was supposed to be, and Crowley felt his breath hitch in his throat as he watched Aziraphale lifting his hands towards his face. Was he going to touch him? Oh God, Satan, somebody, please, say he was going to touch him. He would probably discorporate if Aziraphale did, but that was worth the risk.

Halfway through, Aziraphale hesitated, his fingers lingered in the air between them, twitching slightly, then stilled. The angel swallowed and Crowley had a hard time not to follow his example.

"Dear", said Aziraphale gently, his hands slowly retreating to his lap again. "Would you take off your glasses? Please."

Now, Crowley did swallow. So, that was what Aziraphale had been about to do. He didn't feel prepared to lose his armour right now, this barrier that guarded all his secrets, but Aziraphale looked so hopeful and Crowley was physically incapable of denying him, anyway. He reached up and grasped the leg of his self-protection, pulling the dark lenses down to reveal huge monstrous eyes he instantly wanted to hide away again, conceal them from the radiant being in front of him. His hand was shaking and the glasses slipped his sweaty grasp to fall on the floor at their feet. Crowley instantly reached down to pick them up, grateful for the distraction, the discreet opportunity to break eye-contact (this strange spell he didn't know how to escape), but before he could reach them, Aziraphale moved.

The angel dropped to his knees in front of him and Crowley froze. He watched in surprised shock as Aziraphale reached out and carefully took the glasses from the carpet, straightened his back and held them out to Crowley, offering them to him with an encouraging smile curling the corner of his mouth.

Seconds went by and Crowley stared. The clock ticked too loudly in its corner of the backroom, the only indicator that time was indeed going by, that they had not just been frozen in place, Aziraphale kneeling on the ground with his hand humbly stretched out, waiting, Crowley hovering above, silent and motionless.

Then the demon blinked. He startled and closed his mouth that had been slightly agape, shaking himself out of his reverie. He had been staring, when time stood still, now he couldn't look down at the angel at all, kneeling before him like he was serving him. Even more, now that the cogwheels in his head were spinning again, he also started to feel, a sudden surge of prickling heat on his leg. He had planned to cast a fleeting glance at it, but couldn't help his eyes lingering there when he did, glued to the place where the heat was the most intense, where his skin tickled with little shocks of electricity - where Aziraphale had placed his hand. It looked almost casual, the way the angel's fingers curled around his thigh, just above the knee. As if this was nothing out of the ordinary, an every-day-occasion, just an insignificant gesture between two beings that did things like this, had done things like this, repeatedly, frequently, always.

But it was not. It was not, and it was all wrong. It was all wrong, the wrong way around. He should be the one worshipping at the angel's feet, he should be the one devoting himself to tending to Aziraphale's every wish, plastering his skin with loving touches if he'd be allowed to.

And at the same time, he shouldn't. Because they don't do this, they don't touch like this - they don't really touch at all, and they never touch like this. There was this thing they were dancing around, getting closer with every careful step, never arriving. It's not something they get to have. Crowley knew. Aziraphale knew. And yet the angel was on his knees in front of him, touching, and Crowley was lost.

He took the glasses, because what else was he supposed to do? He took the glasses because Aziraphale was waiting, because Aziraphale was expecting him to, because Aziraphale got down on his knees for him to take them back. They remained in the space between them, halfway back to their place in front of Crowley's eyes by pure instinct. He wanted to hide again, knew that he couldn't, couldn't if he tried. Aziraphale was smiling happily and he couldn't. He put the glasses on the coffee table instead.

A few seconds later Aziraphale was back next to him on the couch and Crowley felt he could breathe again for the first time in several minutes. This was better. This was still not how it was supposed to be, but it was better. It wasn't how it was supposed to be because Aziraphale was here, not in his favourite armchair. It wasn't how it was supposed to be because Aziraphale chose closeness instead of the usual carefully preserved distance. It wasn't how it was supposed to be because he could still feel Aziraphale's hand where it had been resting on his leg, heavy and hot.

Too hot. Why did it still feel so hot? He had no time to dwell on the question because Aziraphale chose to speak. (Had it been a choice, though? The breath that escaped his lips in form of Crowley's name could just as well have been an entirely involuntary sound.)

"Crowley. Dear, I-..." He tailed off, lost for words, as it seemed, which was ridiculous, Aziraphale was never lost for words (and fairly eloquent ones at that), he was never- he never-

Aziraphale's eyes dropped lower then, his tongue darted out to wet his lips, and Crowley watched in fascination, tried to burn the picture into his memory- But the picture moved, leaned in closer and closer still, and before he knew what was happening, Aziraphale had closed the distance (or maybe he had, who knew, who cared) and their lips met.

What followed should have been Heaven. Not the literal Heaven, God forbid, the literary Heaven, the poetic Heaven, the Heaven humans dreamed about and hoped for and used in cheesy metaphors to describe moments of perfection.
Instead, Hell broke loose. (Not the literal one, either, but you get it.)

There was warmth, then heat, then more heat, until Crowley thought his mouth must have caught fire. They broke apart with a surprised cry of pain and shock, tumbling blindly backwards, away from each other, out of reach.

This should have been the best moment of Crowley's fucked up millennia lasting life.

This should have been a moment of revelation, the moment he'd been waiting for, the moment his dreams finally came true.

We just tend to forget that nightmares are dreams, too.