Anthony J. Crowley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
anguiform) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bigapplesauce2014-11-18 11:48 pm
anguiform) wrote in bigapplesauce2014-11-18 11:48 pm
Entry tags:
finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world [closed]
The Devil hadn't wanted much with Crowley after he'd returned from dumping Aziraphale back at his bookshop. That, apparently, had merely been to reinforce the terms of their agreement; Crowley did what Lucifer said, and Aziraphale might get strung up and horribly tortured, but he'd be alive at the end of it. He'd had no immediate tasks that He wanted Crowley for, and, satisfied that Crowley had got the message (he had), He'd buggered off. Crowley had cranked up the heat as high as it would go, and crawled into bed to pass out, feeling more miserable than he had in centuries.
He wakes up a day and a half later, according to the fancy digital clock on his nightstand, and he still feels cold.
His flat is a wreck. Crowley spends a moment simply standing in his living room, gazing at what had once been a row of almost obscenely verdant plants, and is now a spill of shattered pottery, spilled dirt, and withered and frost-scorched stalks. One wall has scorchmarks on it, courtesy of his own infernal fires, and he feels an awful twist of guilt somewhere under his diaphragm. Crowley has never had much truck with guilt; it's bloody pointless when you're a demon, but occasionally, and more often as time has gone on, it's shouldered its way in anyway. And he shouldn't, he tells himself firmly. Aziraphale had as good as given him permission, and even if he hadn't, Crowley had saved his life, more or less; he doesn't doubt that Lucifer would simply have killed him if Crowley hadn't acquiesced to his terms.
So guilt, really, is pointless. Pointless.
It doesn't work.
Crowley goes to take a shower.
He turns the water up so hot it probably would scorch a human, but Crowley luxuriates in it, and scrubs himself pink under the spray.
He knows, of course, that he shouldn't go check on Aziraphale. The angel's fine, of course he's fine, and even if he weren't, the Devil is probably watching and the last thing Crowley needs is for Him to see him going to make sure his pet angel is all right like some kind of-- well, like whatever Crowley actually is. Aziraphale's flat and shop are both warded, and if Lucifer wants him for something and can't find him because he's behind a ward, he doesn't imagine that it'll go well for him. But he also knows that channel surfing will only entertain for so long, and so it's not at all to his own surprise that he finds himself, uncomfortably anxious, at Aziraphale's shop some few hours before noon.
There's no reason for the anxiety, he tells himself; he has never been anxious about seeing Aziraphale, but there's something twisting up his insides nevertheless as he slinks into the bookshop, the ever-present layer of dust muffling the closing of the door behind him. The angel is not in immediate evidence, and Crowley slides past the front desk towards the back room, where he suspects he's most likely to be, lifting his voice as he goes. 'Oi, Aziraphale! You here?'
He wakes up a day and a half later, according to the fancy digital clock on his nightstand, and he still feels cold.
His flat is a wreck. Crowley spends a moment simply standing in his living room, gazing at what had once been a row of almost obscenely verdant plants, and is now a spill of shattered pottery, spilled dirt, and withered and frost-scorched stalks. One wall has scorchmarks on it, courtesy of his own infernal fires, and he feels an awful twist of guilt somewhere under his diaphragm. Crowley has never had much truck with guilt; it's bloody pointless when you're a demon, but occasionally, and more often as time has gone on, it's shouldered its way in anyway. And he shouldn't, he tells himself firmly. Aziraphale had as good as given him permission, and even if he hadn't, Crowley had saved his life, more or less; he doesn't doubt that Lucifer would simply have killed him if Crowley hadn't acquiesced to his terms.
So guilt, really, is pointless. Pointless.
It doesn't work.
Crowley goes to take a shower.
He turns the water up so hot it probably would scorch a human, but Crowley luxuriates in it, and scrubs himself pink under the spray.
He knows, of course, that he shouldn't go check on Aziraphale. The angel's fine, of course he's fine, and even if he weren't, the Devil is probably watching and the last thing Crowley needs is for Him to see him going to make sure his pet angel is all right like some kind of-- well, like whatever Crowley actually is. Aziraphale's flat and shop are both warded, and if Lucifer wants him for something and can't find him because he's behind a ward, he doesn't imagine that it'll go well for him. But he also knows that channel surfing will only entertain for so long, and so it's not at all to his own surprise that he finds himself, uncomfortably anxious, at Aziraphale's shop some few hours before noon.
There's no reason for the anxiety, he tells himself; he has never been anxious about seeing Aziraphale, but there's something twisting up his insides nevertheless as he slinks into the bookshop, the ever-present layer of dust muffling the closing of the door behind him. The angel is not in immediate evidence, and Crowley slides past the front desk towards the back room, where he suspects he's most likely to be, lifting his voice as he goes. 'Oi, Aziraphale! You here?'
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'Mmneh,' Crowley says by way of answer, leaning forward jerkily to pour himself another glassful of wine. 'Frankly, I feel like the bloody fourteenth century came to visit.'
But that's what the wine's for. Aziraphale, bless him, has the right idea when it comes to appropriate reactions to trauma. He gulps down half the fresh glass, gritting his teeth. Wine isn't really meant to be drunk like this. He has a notion that it might be better to just switch to tequila.
'And, uh, you're all right.' It can't decide whether or not it wants to be a question.
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They've come this far, surely he can admit that Crowley is his friend.
"I'm all right," he confirms with a subtle nod. He's not, of course, but neither is Crowley. It isn't something they're going to talk about. They don't do that. What would the point even be? They both understood what happened and why it had to happen. There's no sense in rehashing it now.
He sees the way Crowley is downing the wine, rather wastefully, and waves his hand to make the bottle a beautiful eleven year Añejo Tequila. After thousands of years, he knows Crowley's style.
"Let's drink," he says, finishing his wine and changing each of the glasses to shot glasses. As an afterthought he miracles them several slices of lime on a plate. "Let's drink as fast and hard as we bloody can."
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The tequila is just what was needed. None of the sour thoughtfulness of wine, just gorgeous, smokey burn in the back of his throat and all the way down into his belly, up to the tips of his ears with cinnamon and agave. Of course, even for the down and dirty purpose of getting utterly tits-up legless, Aziraphale wouldn't go for a bottle of Jose Cuervo; millionaire's tequila all the way for the angel.
The best part, Crowley thinks, is the warmth of it. Speaking of which, he twists a little on the couch, neck craning up and around for a moment. 'Crank the heat up in here?'
He's pretty sure he isn't actually still physically cold, but there's a definite spiritual chill that's lingered since Lucifer left that needs getting rid of.
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For a few moments he just drinks, one, two, three shots in calm succession. Then he sets the glass down for a moment of respite - he's got a head start on Crowley, may as well go a bit slower - and just gazes numbly at the floor.
"Is he going to..." he starts to ask, impulses betraying his own desire not to talk about this. He sighs and starts to pass a hand over his face, but the mild sting and roughness of his skin is enough to make him pull away again. "What sorts of things does he - I mean, can you-"
He doesn't think he is going to be able to complete any of these questions. He hunches over with loud huff of breath and mutters, "Bugger it," and downs himself another shot. "Not a bloody thing we can do about it, is there?"
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... That is not a productive line of thought, and Crowley grimaces, miracling up a few more shot glasses and filling all of them. Reminiscing about the good old days is not actually useful as a method of escapism; tequila is better. He takes the shots like a pro, one after the other, and chokes on the last one when Aziraphale speaks up, spluttering tequila down the front of his shirt. Wrinkling his nose, he swipes a cuff across his mouth.
He shouldn't be surprised, really, and he sighs and slumps back, eyes on the mostly-empty shotglass between his fingers rather than Aziraphale. 'He won't kill you,' he says dully. 'We can... continue on as we are, as long as I do what He says.'
Crowley knows, logically, that Aziraphale isn't going to blame him for going along with Lucifer, but when he says it like that is just sounds so thoroughly pathetic that his hackles go up. 'I didn't exactly have a choice, all right?' he says defensively. 'If I'd said no he'd've killed you and I'd still have had to be his little minion, so--'
He stops, and sighs, and finishes off the rest of the shot, finally looking up at Aziraphale. 'I don't know what He's planning. I've no doubt that I will as soon as He comes knocking with an errand for me.'
Crowley is not looking forward to that day.
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"I know, dear," he murmurs. What does he say next? 'Thank you' feels absurd, and 'I'm sorry' feels patronizing. He drinks instead.
"Deal with it later," he says, "that's worked out for us before. Most of the time." He pauses for a bout of continuous shots, refilling the glass after each pull. He sets it down heavily with an almost cartoonish "Ahh" and preemptively lowers the shop's lights to about half their usual brightness (which is already rather modest). This done, he curls back against the opposite corner of the couch and stretches his legs out partway (not drunk enough to rest them on Crowley yet).
"To... um..." He lifts his glass and refills it in midair, then pauses trying to think of a proper toast for the occasion. "To drinking," he says finally, decisively, and drinks.
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Shots, Crowley decides, are simply an unnecessary intermediary, and sweeps a hand at the lot of them on the table; a blink later, they've coalesced into a large tumbler, which he fills generously.
Aziraphale's toast makes him snort, and he lifts his glass in turn. 'To... ineffability,' he decides on with a sort of wryly amused bitterness, and drains a good half of it as though it were a pint of lager rather than thousand-dollar tequila.
'Fffffuckitty fuck,' he hisses as soon as he's swallowed, his face rubbering fantastically. 'Whoo! Blimey, that is like being... punched in the throat by a beautiful Mexican.'
Sliding down a little further against the cushions, he lets his head fall back limply. 'Bugger it,' he pronounces. ''S all-- shouldn't be surprising, even, should it?'
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He takes a page out of Crowley's book and miracles himself his own bottle of elderflower gin. Tequila, he thinks, is not his style, and anyway Crowley's pretty well taken ownership. If he's going to drink this heavily, it's going to be some bloody good flower-flavored gin.
"Or did you mean..." He realizes belatedly. "Oh. Well. Er. Shouldn't it?"
He's not entirely certain what's happening in this conversation anymore, but that's all right.
"Ineffability," he mutters, and gives an equally bitter snort before downing a good solid amount of his gin. "Oh goodness." He sets the bottle down unsteadily and curls over, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Like... being punched in the throat," he says with a weak but dogged smile. "By a bloody... fairy kingdom."
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He laughs for far longer than the comment really deserved, shaking his head and pushing his shades up into his hair when he's finished to wipe the moisture from his eyes. Biting back another mouthful of tequila, he waves a hand.
''S like karma, innit? Or, not, not actual karma, but what like English people mean when they say karma. We got off lucky back home; left more or less to our own devices to fanny about up here, 'n then Adam Young to wave his hands and go, "I'll look after you" after we, you know, committed the ultimate treason. Would've been dragged down to Hell an' tortured, y'know, if it weren't for him. Flayed into strips, and then had the strips tortured separately.'
He's gone somewhat off topic here, and he pulls himself back to relevance with a little nose-wrinkle.
'Too lucky to last, must be. 'S just caught up with us here.'
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"Mmmeh," he grunts, unwittingly imitating one of Crowley's many signature noises. "'S... poppycock. Like. Like. Look."
Goodness, he's really starting to feel everything he's had today. It's been very substantial, and he's only now forcing himself to really talk and think, so he supposes it's not that great a surprise.
He leans heavily over the little table and drags his finger in unintelligible patterns, as though he were writing in chalk, nevermind that he's not making any markings whatsoever.
"We're here. Universe bloody... A. No, B. 'Cos, 'cos it's the second one we knew about. So we're here, universe B, but before that we were here, right, universe, um, ah, the first one. Where we did the big bloody thing. The treason thing. And then. Then." He snaps his fingers repeatedly, which he finds to be surprisingly unhelpful given how often humans do it when they're thinking of something. "Rift brings us to universe 2 where it's leaving all its, like a bunch of dead mice, like what a cat leaves around. We're the dead mice. Right. And then in universe... where am I. Universe C. Lucifer. Different Lucifer. Doesn't know anything about that bit what went on over here..."
He jabs his finger helpfully at the point on the table that he's pretty sure represents universe A.
"He comes here, torments us. That's a load of, load of different, you know, unrelated buggerall, dear boy, you're saying there's karma, English karma, whatsit, punishing us in universe B with the Adversary from universe C for things what we'd done in universe A? Rubbish."
Feeling that the point has been made fairly well, he leans back, cradling his bottle in his lap. "We're just... we're bloody unlucky, s'what. We're cursed." He nods knowingly, then knocks back a good deal more of his angry fairy gin.
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'Yeah, but,' he says once Aziraphale finally runs himself out, ''M not saying it's... correlation? Causation? Dunno, one of those. Anyway, 'm not saying He came for the tormenting an' that 'cos He knew. 'S a cosmic thing.'
He breaks off, frowning in thought, and drinks more. Crowley doesn't actually think that they came here by any design, Heavenly or infernal, but it's just one of those things. It justifies his demonic paranoia that you can't just get away with shit forever, despite what his natural optimism might insist. It's a poor match of gut feelings, and he sticks his tongue out at nothing in particular.
'Dunno whether I wouldn't rather have our Satan from back home. This one's so... petty. And, and--' He sloshes upward with the sudden enthusiasm of a thought surfacing, jabbing a finger in Aziraphale's direction, 'The, the brother thing, that is so creepy. Why's he do that? Siblings-- we don't get siblings, tha'ssa human thing; thought he was s'posed to hate humans.'
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He slumps a little, sighing heavily. "Mnrr." This time he definitely notices himself making Crowley noises. Oh dear oh dear. He takes another swig of gin.
"I don't think I want any Satan. I think we'd be much better off without one. That's what I think."
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Except that then Aziraphale's making discontented little noises and slumping into morose reflection; Crowley wrinkles his nose, illogically somewhat annoyed by this.
'Oh yes,' he drawls, expansive with irony. 'If only we could just go back to the Garden before Satan was a thing and nobody knew their arse from their elbow, wouldn't that be better.' He knocks back more tequila. 'I'd be out of a job, f'one. And, and, I like you much better now than you were back in the Beginning. Right stick up your arse.'
He pauses, either for effect or because he's somewhat lost track of where he'd started with that train of thought. He fetches it back after a moment. 'That's the point of Satan; nobody wants him around, but there he is.'
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He stretches his legs out before him, relieving some of the tension in his body. He reaches up to rub tiredly at his face, an automatic, unthinking gesture, then pulls his hand back sharply with a cringe and a hissing intake of breath.
"Oh, bloody-" He grunts, touching his blackened cheek more delicately. He heaves a sigh and leans his head back. "At least when it was on my throat it wasn't quite so... in the way."
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His head is spinning pleasantly by the time he allows himself to breathe again, taking a grateful gulp of the air and enjoying the cool, internal sensation of lungs expanding greedily against his ribcage. He squints at Aziraphale as the angel touches delicate fingers to the ugly burns on his face. He'd rather tried not to focus on them before-- it seemed rude-- but now he observes openly, wincing faintly at the spill of blackened skin from the corner of Aziraphale's eye, in splotches across his right cheekbone like the sporadic touch of frost on a window.
''Zat still hurt?'
There's something-- weirdly comforting? Crowley isn't sure-- about the fact that the only injuries which remain are those done by the Devil. For all the nasty tricks Crowley had pulled out, none of it stuck. It's a selfish sort of comfort, but then, demons are supposed to be selfish, so it's all right.
'You could use, um,' he waves a hand, 'wotsit. Makeup. Foundation. Cover 'em up. Like... teenage girls when they're trying to hide hickeys from their mums.'
It is a truly terrible and inappropriate comparison, and Crowley slides into half-stifled sniggers, putting a hand to his face. 'Aw, fuck, that was awful. I mean, not like that? But point, y'still could.'
1 That's a bloody lie; he feels exactly the same
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"I suppose," he says doubtfully. "Though I... I don't really want to cover them."
He picks at the gin label, frowning moodily to himself.
"They're like. Well. Scars. Body'll heal but I'll know they're there. I will." He says this in a pitiful echo of a remark he once made about paint staining his shirt, though he doesn't remember that just now. He lifts his chin and touches his neck briefly. "This one's still here, underneath. S... s'no point in covering them. They'll go away in their own bloody time." He flaps a hand and takes more of a swig than he expected, coughing a little as the gin burns his throat.
"I imagine he wants me to feel ashamed of them, but I don't," he barrels on. "I don't. 'Cos. 'Cos they're mine. My sign that I survived him. And I won't act like it din't happen."
He takes off his glasses, folds them neatly and sets them on the table. "Er, thanks anyway," he says, because he senses maybe he should.
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It's a bit like the kind of thing Aziraphale used to say, back before the Arrangement when he was still trying his best to believe the propaganda Heaven sold its soldiers, except that this time Aziraphale means it. And it isn't bluster, it's just statement, the angel being stupidly... decent. What is Crowley supposed to do with that? Somehow mockery doesn't have the usual appeal.
He swills back another mouthful of tequila, frowning in contemplation at his glass. 'Like you better when you're being a, a bastard. Sssins sssuit you. 'S what I told Him, you know, that y'were my project. All seven on a good day. Or a bad one.' He sniggers, though it isn't particularly funny.
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"Like you better when you're being less of a bastard," he retorts eventually, a little too late to truly feel like banter. "As if he needs any more reasons to scorn me." This Lucifer is surprisingly tight-arsed about angels behaving properly, for being the originally improper one. He groans softly and leans back against the sofa for a moment.
"Wait." He lifts his head again. "All seven? Crowley, that's a bit harsh, isn't it, I've never been - never..." Oh wait. He trails off. Which one hasn't he done? He knows there's at least one. Envy, or...? Wrath? Well, so much for that. Or does it count when it's wrath against the Adversary? Probably.
He collapses again, grumpily. "Not sure he needed to know about the lust, did he?" he mutters, sloshing his words together. He pats his still too-lean stomach. "Or the gluttony."
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He snorts with actual laughter when Aziraphale confusedly trails off trying to think of which sins he hasn't committed. His wavering finger remains in the air, sketching another vague shape in Aziraphale's direction.
'Didn't sssspecify about the lusst. Oh, bugger.' He pauses, sidetracked briefly by the control he's apparently lost of his sibilants. Well, in for a penny, after all; the goal of this exercise was to get well and truly sozzled. He drains the rest of his glass and uses it to gesture in Aziraphale's direction.
'Or gluttony. 'S not jussst eating too much, you know, gluttony, 's...' he twirls his finger vaguely, 'hedonism 'n that, taking pleasure in food. Basically, right, if you're eating for anything other'n just surviving, eating, like, gruel and, and potatoes or something, which, which we don't need anyway, 's gluttony. Bloody stupid sssin, I always thought. Whassa point in making food taste s'good if they're not s'posed to enjoy it? Not really on a scale with the others, is it?'
He can feel himself sagging slightly; the numb face has spread into the enjoyable weightless sensation of limbs not entirely under one's control. It's not so noticeable just sitting1 here, but he'd go properly to jelly if he tried to stand up, he can tell. He lolls a little further against the back of the couch. 'Anyway,' he pulls himself back to the subject with effort. 'S not like you care about the Devil's good opinion.'
1 It is only in the loosest sense that one could describe what Crowley is currently doing as sitting
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"Uhn." The incredible, mortal-destroying amount of liquor he's imbibed is really starting to weigh him down now. He tries to straighten himself back up but just lolls instead, his head feeling unusually heavy. "D'you- you want another?" he says, meaning bottle. He presses a hand to his face and hisses immediately in pain and irritation. "Bloody he-hhhhrgh." The groan quickly shorts out into a ridiculous little giggle, and he collapses back again. He blinks, bleary-eyed and dazed, over at his shifting, blurring companion, who appears to be melting directly into the couch cushions.
"M'drunk," he announces happily, gesticulating with the gin and nearly splashing some onto himself.
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'Thanksss,' he hisses, when Aziraphale obliges (with some effort, it must be said), and miracles up another bottle of excellent tequila. Crowley lifts it in his direction in a faintly wobbling toast. 'G'on, angel, drink up.'
The wonderful thing about being really quite drunk, Crowley has always thought, is the way the numbness of one's tastebuds allows one to do things like chug straight spirits.
Some time later, Crowley has drunk his way well past the more or less contented state he'd been in after only one bottle and into what is more or less a choleric puddle. His legs have been thrown over Aziraphale's at some point in proceedings, and the angle at which he's slumped down against the arm of the sofa has shoved his chin into his chest. The only reason he's not frowning is because he's not sure he possesses the motor skills to actually do so at the moment.
He shifts, snakily, and prods Aziraphale somewhere in the general vicinity of the torso with his foot. 'Wha're we gonna do?' he asks, staring past the angel at nothing in particular. His voice is weighty with resignation. 'I mean... we're gonna hafta do. Do ssssomethin'. Aren't we? Like... properly. 'ventually.'
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"Wha," he mumbles. "Wh. Where? R'you not comfor'ble?" He looks down at the foot that just nudged him, and rests a hand on it casually, like he doesn't know what else to do. Nice bit of snakeskin there. He moves his hand over it slowly, like one might drunkenly pet a cat.
"I can move," he offers. "Here, let's-" He tries to shift himself over, but that's not going to happen, not with the way everything is swirling and melting around him. He resettles himself, keeping his hand on Crowley's foot as if for balance.
"Ac'shly I... I don't think I can," he says with an echo of a giggle. "What's... oh. Oh. You mean about Lucifer."
Finally caught up there. He ponders it for a moment, frowning deeply, almost pouting, and then waves a hand. "Ahhhhh we'll figure it out later. S'not. S'not somethin' we can... Rome wasn't fixed in a day." Something like that. "Not sober 'nough for it now. Don't wanna be. C'mere." He couldn't get himself over to Crowley, so maybe Crowley will come to him. So stupidly far away. Silly demon.
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Even if Rome wasn't fixed in a day. He frowns. 'Sssnot-- built, innit? Din't need t'be fixed. Well.' That's a philosophical point which is just not worth pursuing at this point. He waves a hand in Aziraphale's direction. 'W'ever.' As if it were the angel who had said that and not himself.
'Y'always say that, 'n, 'n 'n then'sss-- enda the world. I like the world.' On that declaration, his voice ascends into what is nearly a whinge.
Sober Crowley would scoff at what is plainly a request for cuddles, because seriously, demon, etc etc. Many-more-than-just-three sheets to the wind Crowley frowns in consideration, and tries to lever himself up out of the cushions. His legs are still thrown across Aziraphale's midsection, and the cushions just give under his hand when he tries to push off against them.
'Whoah,' he concludes, flopping back as the room rotates around a central axis somewhere just above his head. 'Don't think I can either. Your... bloody couch's ate me.'
He wriggles himself against the cushions and further across Aziraphale, prodding him again with his foot. 'Keep doing that; 'ss nicccce.'
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"Crowley," he mumbles after a long gap. "Y'know I don't hold any'f it against you. Right?"
It's suddenly extremely, vitally important that he make this clear. He leans over, abandoning the foot in favor of clambering over the skinny pile of demon, jostling them both about, and then finally settling in clumsily, half beside and half on top of Crowley. This couch is certainly not built for this kind of thing, but what does that matter. Through great manifestation of will he holds himself up enough to stare intently into Crowley's lovely snaky eyes. "S'not - s'not your fault," he babbles. "I know that, I know you'd never've - if, if-"
Abruptly, talking becomes too great a bother to continue. He flops down heavily, his arm draped over Crowley's chest, his scarred, distantly stinging face pressed into the curve of his neck.
"S'okay," he murmurs.
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'Nnoooo, he protests into it, batting uselessly at Aziraphale's back with a flapping hand. Only one, because his other arm is pinned beneath some part of Aziraphale. 'Don' need... f'giveness,' he mutters. 'I know, you know, we both know, 'sssnot-- doesn' matter.'
Except that his brain, sticky with liquor, is sliding inexorably down the blessed path of recollection, unhelpfully presenting Crowley with a montage of sense memories. The crunch of bones and the scorched-meat ozone smell of flesh under unnatural fire and the stupid openness of Aziraphale's eyes, giving him permission. The awful cannonball of guilt and resignation sitting heavy in his gut with the knowledge that stopping is not an option. Lucifer's eyes on him as he lazed and watched.
With his face pressed into Crowley's neck, Aziraphale can't actually see his expression, but still, Crowley doesn't trust it. He can feel his face doing something, unknown and possibly dubious. The solution is plainly to just me something less expressive.
'M'gonna,' he says, and flaps his hand again in vague illustration. Moments later, he's got no hands to flap, and Aziraphale bumps down slightly atop him as the man-shape shifts smoothly into that of a serpent.
Crowley's usual shake-shape is quite large, nearly as thick around as a man's thigh in the middle, and probably twice as long as the couch. He hisses, drawing excess coils up onto the cushions and squirming under Aziraphale's weight. He doesn't think he's ever actually been drunk in snake-shape before; it's... disconcerting.
'Tha'sss better,' he decides.
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It's nice to see Crowley like this again. He hadn't realized he missed it, but... there's a pang of nostalgia, or something. Been a very long time, and though they've each had many, many shapes since the Beginning, there's something quite nice about the originals. If he could be his proper self now he would, but that wouldn't work very well for numerous reasons.
He reaches out and strokes the top of Crowley's head, his hand moving gently a short ways down the back of him. "Nice t'see the old you, dear boy." Sort of symbolic, he thinks sludgily - whatever situation they're in now, they've still got their history, they're still this, underneath, whatever it is. Oh dear. He lets himself wander with overwrought drunken care away from that mental sinkhole.
He turns onto his back, resting his head on the arm of the sofa, keeping still and slack to allow Crowley to move about as he likes. Much better this way. Now they both fit.
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The room is still tilting lazily and stickily around them, and the numbness of his human extremities has translated into the strange feeling that he's shifting about inside his own skin. He can feel the scales lift, just, as he squirms against the cushions, but its weirdly muted, like he's floating. Aziraphale is pleasantly warm, though, and he hoists his coils around with a very un-snake-like lack of grace, drawing himself around Aziraphale's torso until they're a tangled heap.
'Tassste like a garden,' he mutters, a general observation to the world at large as his tongue flicks out into the air. The floral notes of Aziraphale's fancy gin are much more obvious to his vomeronasal organ than they had been to his human nose. 'Sss bloody-- 'ppropriate, that.'
'Could... eat 'im,' he suggests after some indeterminate length of time, and bares his fangs in illustration. The effect is somewhat ruined by a spray of hissing laughter seconds later.
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"Don' do that," he mumbles. "Get indigg- ingid- indigestion." He laughs as well - it feels strange and good to laugh - and when it dies down he lies in comfortable silence, still petting, thinking he could let himself drift off like this and it would be all right. He wouldn't mind sleeping on purpose, he thinks, just this once.
He ventures to say something else but doesn't make it, only breathing softly. Crowley seems to be into the idea as well, resting heavily on him. Yeah, sleep. Just to extend the temporary contentment. That'd be worth it.