Chapter Text
Early retirement has a wide variety of flavours. A bit like breakfast just before noon. Or idling away the hours clipping the yellowed edges of monstera’s leaves. It tastes like the tranquility of a nap after lunch on a wide bed, or finally moving out of London next to the ocean where the breeze whistles through windows, into empty rooms that hold nothing special.
Where the wind licks over all of Crowley's empty spaces.
He’s finally tired of the routine, of the city and its interminable noises. Of pretending he had everything sorted just because there was money in his bank account and his flat sat in Mayfair– no matter his life was a mess of spinning weekends waking up in a stranger’s bed with his head pulsing and his heart muted. Never getting anything meaningful. As if everyone went after him just for a good time, without a care for how he might've felt after, always tossed to the side when the fun times were over.
Which, whatever.
But Crowley's tired of searching and never finding.
Up ahead, the rolling waves break and flow towards the shoreline, frothing in the shallows. Foam licking gost-white over sand, tracing paths back to the sea that are not for people to follow.
Moving out seaside had felt like a good idea. Before he realised how many things were louder in the humming stillness of the night.
It's the sounds that tear at Crowley. The loud roar of the ocean, and the hushed whispers, the quiet murmurs of water fizzing over the shore.
There's nothing soft in Crowley for them to drown in. There's no one in Crowley's life to silence the shivering noises of the ocean with gentle words or quick kisses. And the wind rustles around him, and brushes at his skin below his loose black shirt, under his dove-grey trousers, present and weighty.
An ersatz version of a lover’s hold.
His toes look pale against the sand.
He sighs.
After all, it's good to enjoy the fragile brightness of a slow twilight. He knows it, after so long of living in fog.
The weather is nice, with that balance of warmth and breeze that stirs your hair, flops the folds of your clothes, while holding you in the heat of the tailend of spring. Despite his half bun, the air tickles strands of red hair loose, kissing his cheeks salt-slick and he's feeling less restrained than he's felt in ages.
Far away, the ocean rolls over, splashing against some rocks to the right that form the craggy lines of sea stacks at the bottom of a cliff.
It's Crowley's favourite spot for sea watching. Held by a shallow cave no one visits, dipping toes in the sea, with the reassurance of a natural roof above his head. A bit of home away from man-made comfort.
When he reaches the place, though, there's loud splashes and clicking noises coming from between the closer sea stacks. Something’s trapped there. And judging by the ruckus of bouncing splashes, it's kind of big.
Crowley rushes in, soaking his clothes to reach the spot where a broken, battered net has caught what seems to be a large fish.
A very large fish.
“Hey, easy, easy.” He sees the fins wagging like crazy, the slippery body tensed when he places hands on the animal to try to find the knot of rope. “I'm just trying to help you.”
Christ, if someone could see him now. Talking to a fish, Hermès trousers deep in algae.
The sundown picks out the glossy spread of the fish’s surface, a shimmering shift of blue-grey, but Crowley isn't knowledgeable enough to know if it's a houndshark or what.
His fingers slip to the animal’s side, brushing on the delicate dents of what he supposes the gills are. Fuck. The poor bastard must be awfully scared with an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing palming it all over.
Crowley can't find the knot. There's no two ways about it, the animal will die if he fails. No, he can't accept that. To die by a bad choice, by curiosity maybe, following some current that brought it here, or perhaps by picking newness.
It's suddenly not only about the fish anymore.
The struggling of the animal is diminishing.
Something clogs in Crowley's throat, ice sluicing down his spine.
“Fuck. No, no!” He's waist deep in sea water, crunching tiny pebbles between his toes. In a second, he decides to submerge to search below the water line, even if his eyes will sting and redden– none of that seems important.
One big gulp of air, and he dives down. The tube-long body of the fish is slowly losing the fight in it. Crowley's heart hammers as if trying to break out of his ribcage. He doesn't know how to swim, Hell be damned, but he still manages to anchor on the rocks below to search for the trapping ropes.
He sees very little.
The water moves with the unrelenting sway of waves, and the colour of it isn't helping. Blurred black lines are the most he can identify, aside from the trapped houndshark– it does appear to be a houndshark indeed.
A heavy roll of water almost knocks him down the next second, and a rushing, long curlicue of white that he barely grasps at with addled eyes, swims past him.
Another houndshark?
Crowley loses his balance entirely.
Shit, the sea will swallow him whole. The adrenaline high of the moment rises to a peak. He's going to drown in half a meter of water. Fuck. He flails, arms fighting the heavy pressure, a chaos of rushing gurgle deafening him while he struggles to push up and breathe.
Why the hell didn't he learn how to fucking swim?
Crowley's heartbeats are a frenzy of knocks.
And then there's a strong, warm pull on his forearm, a broad arm wrapping around his waist. Up, up, steading him on his feet, while Crowley gulps air, and fights the burn of salt on his eyes, tries to search up to run hands over his face until his wet hair is out of the way.
The world tilts fast on its axis.
“Oh, my dear, are you alright?”
Everything falls by the wayside when faced with the shirtless man holding him close. Pressed up on warm skin until the lines of their bodies hold no pockets of space. Blond hair soaked glossy, and blue-grey eyes that hold the depth of a storm in them. There's much to take in– the quivering shake of his own legs at the spread of skin on wet cloth that feels more intimate than anything he's ever experienced, not the least of it – but his eyes fling back out to the ruckus between the sea stacks.
“The fish! It's gonna die if we don't cut the net!”
The man’s arms fall off Crowley, leaving a surge of goosebumps on their trail. Crowley doesn't stop to think of the heat pooling liquid in his belly, on the red-wash on his cheeks.
Of how exposed he feels, soaked to the bone, and heaving air after being rescued in turn.
“Let me help you,” the stranger says, with the same calm flare of a voice. A smile in the flecked shimmer of his eyes that skewers Crowley through for some reason.
And Crowley follows him, drenched and wrung-tight in anxiety. “Just over there.”
The fish has regained a bit of vigour, tugging at the bonds, rocking the water around. But the man spreads a wide palm on its side, whispers, “Stay there girl, you'll be free in no time,” and the animal stills, as if truly comforted.
Crowley gasps. “How–”
The stranger must be a hell of a fisherman to be able to tell the fish’s a girl just by looking at it. Maybe it's a matter of tail fin or dorsal fins, or the shade of grey they are.
Who knows.
“Let me–” The man is still focused on the fish, edging fingers to the side of its body with careful softness, as if trying not to scare the animal too badly. “I believe the knot is underneath her, just below her tail fin.”
Crowley's brows crunch low. “How can you possibly know?”
There's a few soft pulls of rope, before the man inches his wrist lower back there and the lines of black fall to the ocean at last.
“Just experience,” he answers, mouth lifting at a corner. Then his attention swings back to the fish, apparently still in the water, maybe trying to make sense of its– her entrapment and sudden release. “There, off you go petal, and don't come near the shallows again.”
Not a second later, the animal swims away in a bubbling burst of water, fin lost in the ocean.
Crowley stares at the outline of the nearest rock until he slowly realises he's still standing in the middle of the sea, soaked to his knickers, next to an impossible man drawn out of nowhere. Someone who could've been carved in marble. Holy Hell, who would've known fishermen could be so damn striking.
Crowley's sure he's never seen anyone so gorgeous.
“Thanks,” he says, fighting back a running shiver wrecking the stillness of his spine. “For saving us. Both.” He offers a weird hand gesture, because placing palms on the man again so suddenly feels highly dangerous for the steadiness of his heart. For the calmness in his belly. “M Crowley.”
“Az,” he says, still smiling. He reaches for the net and takes it out of the sea. “I'm glad I was close to be of service. Should we get out of the water?”
Crowley nods, splutters a yeah that is entirely inelegant. The whole brunt of Az’s closeness snuffs out the noise, the twitching, restless whisper of the frothing foam. Fuck, he's shirtless. And in the runoff of the rushing worry, Crowley can finally take in the plush roundness padding up over a wide chest, curving over a soft belly, all making him seem soft-looking, though Crowley thinks that's not true at all. No, there's a shaded line on the forearms, on the slope of the shoulder, muscles visible that speak of use, of strength.
He’d felt it when Az lifted him off the ocean floor as if he weighed nothing.
The loud splash of Crowley's feet can't drown the pull to glance at the wet curls of dark blond hair that stick to the scalp while a broad hand runs through them, down to the beautiful line of the nose and the lush swell of a mouth. It feels unreal to find someone so handsome in the middle of a half-forgotten beach. Have him save Crowley's life.
God in Heaven, he's gone all idiot for a pretty face.
Small mercies, Az has trousers, at least. Beige, calves-length, even if Crowley thinks they're just a step above rags. It's surprising to feel his own fingers pricking with the need to reach out and touch all that expanse of skin that gleams with streaming water. Thumb at the waistline to feel the texture change from cloth to skin just where the hip bone tracks up below a fold of flesh.
Crowley swallows, face burning.
Satan’s tits, he's never been this desperate. Probably the six months without his regular, meaningless wham-bams are to blame.
Az’s certainly the least stylish, elegant person Crowley's seen in his life, yards away from any man he's fucked. More shitkicker fashion than sharkish CIO’s.
But Crowley's belly fills with a flopping rise of butterflies with astonishing quickness.
The sand is lush under Crowley's feet, the ground giving him a confidence that had seemed to ebb away while in water. He stares at Az, who tosses the net to a corner of the cave, flicking unruly curls this way and that while considering the length of Crowley quietly.
Who probably looks like a soaked cat.
What does he see in Crowley? Fuck, he wishes he knew. He can see the gentle touch of curiosity, and the warm appraisal of a gaze that's marking up Crowley's bold features. A sweep of seconds on his red hair, a breath on his own startlingly golden eyes, and down, to where he thinks his legs are far too thin and long.
"You just happened to be around, huh?” Crowley wrings the edge of his black shirt of the excess of water just to have something to do.
Az grants him another warm smile. "Yes, I'm a fisherman after all. I'm never far from the shoreline.”
"Kinda odd, a fisherman helping me liberate a trophy. You could've taken it for yourself." Crowley has no idea why he keeps talking. Maybe to stretch their time together before twilight falls quick, unstoppable, and he has to say goodbye to the only interesting thing that's happened to him in ages.
To a man that's ramping up his blood thump with only a few glances.
Az chuckles, eyes crinkling, soft mouth pulling up with his whole face. It's a look that suits him. "Oh no, I would've never done that. It would've been cruelty to deprive a being of life only for sport. I only fish to sustain myself." His voice is rounded with warmth, with a deep care for that gone houndshark between vocals, and Crowley feels unprepared all of a sudden. As if blinking against a wedge of sun still too bright to not blind him.
A sizzle of electricity licks over his spine. He instantly raises his hands. "Sorry, I didn't wanna offend you."
"Oh, you didn't,” Az says, quickly, storm-grey eyes widening as his smile does. “Not to worry.”
Crowley's sure he's never met a man so kind. So unbelievably gentle. Rough around the edges in how he presents himself, Crowley thinks Az is nicer than every single man Crowley's dragged back to his bed in the last twenty years. With their Tom Ford suits and their Aston Martins, all of them pale against the man he has met for only minutes.
Someone that would maybe cup Crowley's nape to kiss him with intention to linger, someone that would thread fingers through his hair to pull without a sting, that would let his warmth seep into Crowley's bones. Would rush soft words against his mouth that would make Crowley crumble beneath him.
A weird, slithering thing clasps a little tighter around the heat in his belly.
What is wrong with him? Seems that the salt-rich breeze is making him stupid. Shit, it's been ages since he got laid.
Just to jostle away from the swelling silence, Crowley thumbs up, says, “I'm going left, are you going left?” Fuck. Shit. He doesn't want to scare Az by being so intense, which has scared partners before. He's just met the man. Crowley sets teeth on his bottom lip, then hastily adds, “I mean, we could walk back together.”
Together .
Crowley wants to swallow down the word with prejudice, bite it in half, maul it so Az doesn't pick up its edges.
It doesn't mean much, doesn't mean anything really, but Crowley's sure he has held it inside for so long that it bursts out fully coated with that silent longing he's dismissed all his life.
Real nice to blow open himself so widely and so quickly. His cheeks flame, and he readies himself for the dry dismissal that he's sure coming being so blatantly needy.
But Az’s soft cheeks paint pink, when he says, “I could walk left.”
Alright. God. Yes.
Crowley nods, feels the smirk pulling at his mouth. He wishes he’d brought his wayfarers to hide the eager vulnerability of his own eyes when they soften at the acceptance.
Breathe in, out.
They set off towards where Crowley's house is a distant white dot.
He walks left of Az, dipping hands into the wet pockets of his trousers, not to brush against the curve of Az’s elbow. Too scared of what his insides will show him, how his skin will jump up.
The ocean rolls and breaks, erupts in noises.
Crowley's is still curious. "You come from Tadfield? I think I haven't seen you before, though I just got here and well–"
Az ‘s throat shuffles up and down when he swallows, says, "Ah, no. I live elsewhere.” Cryptic. Crowley can't blame him. Then he follows, a bit softer, “But I think… I think I've seen you before."
Crowley's brows tip up near his hairline. “You have?”
“Yes, close to the small cave where I found you today,” Az explains. He walks with his eyes set on the ground where their footprints leave ghost-marks gone the next second. As if shying away from staring at Crowley when he's seemed so self assured before.
"Doesn't surprise me,” Crowley replies. His shoulders roll down lax, though he’s starting to feel the gnawing bite of the cold under each slap of cloth on skin. “Done nothing but walking since I got here. Not much to do around, isn't it?"
"Fishing, perhaps.” Az smirks when Crowley flits eyes to him, mischief rounding his cupid’s bow. “Swimming too.”
Crowley hides a shiver in laughter. “Ah, that's two nos for me. Useless on both fronts.”
“And you risked your life for a houndshark?” Az stops on his tracks for a beat before moving again. He lifts eyes back up to Crowley. Huge with awe, surprise maybe, a little fear. Shining entirely blue.
“Please don't tell me again how stupid it was, ‘cause believe me, I know,” Crowley groans. He's been told time and again how reckless he is, how quick to act without thinking. He's been told less charitable things too, about his penchant to always go all in anything he does. Which has proven to be terrible on several occasions.
“It wasn't stupid.” Az’s voice grates low, like a clash of waves, or the thrumming prologue of a storm. It gives Crowley pause enough to watch him dip his clear brows. “It was brave. Kind, too.”
Something in Crowley smolders at the praise. A hidden little kernel that he's never shown anyone, letting it lap at insufficient words said by men who only wanted to get into his knickers. It's gotten thinner, emaciated, because Crowley's refused to let it thrive, give someone else the upper hand on his body, on his heart.
He bites his lip and says nothing, afraid that Az can catch anything on his sentences.
“Why did you move here?” Az asks after a few seconds. “Next to the ocean when you don't swim? You seem more of a…”
"A city bloke?” Crowley isn't offended. Anyone sparing a glance in his direction could say the same. Too soft hands, too pale a face, freckles notwithstanding. “Oh, believe me I am. I needed a change, I guess. To go a bit slower."
"Walk instead of driving?" Az offers, amused.
"Funny you say that because yeah. I haven't walked for fun since Tony Blair was in office."
Az only harrumps, says, "Right, right."
Crowley's house is getting closer and closer, but dusk has shifted into evening with a stroke of dull blue that carries swirls of harsh wind.
Crowley trembles when it soughs around him, flicking his damp clothes, brushing over his forearms and long feet. He must be covered in gooseflesh. It's instinctive to bend his arms, cross them over his chest and think of a glass of wine.
“You’re cold.” It's not a question, but a statement. There's enough light to still see the gorgeous three quarters outline of Az’s face. The tip of his upturned nose, and the serious set of his jaw.
“A bit,” Crowley admits. Difficult to deny it when his nails are digging through cloth, probably cutting reddish half moons on his skin. “There's a reason I sleep with socks even in summer.”
He tries to laugh it off, but Az drops a warm palm over his shoulder, edges closer all lovely bulk and salt aroma. “I… I don't want to seem too forward, but if you allow me, I could hold you to stave off some of the cold? Would that be something you’d be comfortable with?”
Yes. Please, yes.
Crowley wants it.
Not just to stave off the cold, but the noise. To fill the space around him full of nothing of value. Az already has a handful of him, and Crowley can feel the heat-stained soak of his skin where he's pressing on him, unnaturally warm, furnace hot– or maybe that's just Crowley's body chilling beyond limits, as it's its habit.
“Sure,” he says, measured. The plea stays below his tongue. “Yeah, yes. Thanks.”
Az sidles up to him, slipping an arm around his waist, frontal, the other thrown over the line of Crowley's shoulders. It's an encompassing grasp that instantly nudges Az’s entire body into Crowley's proximity, makes him aware of the cartography of him in a slap.
Heat, weight, nearness, salt.
Crowley isn't sure how to process each sensory punch coming from Az, the sinking touch of him, how enveloped he feels by a man that, not being much taller, surrounds him entirely. The hand on his belly is wide enough to palm the entire soft curve of low abdomen, fingers gently pressed on him. Crowley feels instantly warmed, sizzling with it, tiny shivers running up his calves, his spine.
Hiding the hitch of his breath is a struggle, but Crowley tries. Counts to ten, when they start walking again to not trip over his own feet.
Az’s fingers are spread open, and he's fully tilted on Crowley, shielding him from the wild air. And the care of it makes a splash of pink bloom on Crowley's throat, crawl down to his chest. He feels like burning.
"Aren't you cold?” he asks. Az is equally wet, worst, without a shirt, but the temperature of his body runs up to blistering. “I can lend you a shirt once we reach my home. Just a bit further down the coastline… there, see that white building? Not that my shirts will fit you— I’m scrawny, I know."
Mercy, someone please make him shut up. He knows he's babbling.
“I think you're perfect just like you are,” Az answers, face craned away. If he turned, his mouth would breathe the words on the soft jut of Crowley's cheekbone, and just thinking about it, makes his muscles ripple and lock, breath bursting in heat. Then Az’s mouth moves again, a parting of damp pink, “Slender, quite lithe. Not scrawny, I’d say. And do not worry I'm not cold."
Perfect. Crowley's perfect.
He's never been perfect for anyone before.
Crowley wrestles down the noise rising in his throat, and tells himself it means nothing.
Too soon, they arrive at the back entrance of his house, and Az’s arms slip off him. Crowley has to fight off the stay that threatens to pop out of his mouth. Instead, he tries to smirk, angle himself loose.
Relaxed. Fake it till you make it sort of deal.
A shrug of shoulders, and breath that he hopes it doesn't sound at all, as an unhappy, stuttery rush.
"It was nice,” he says. Curses inwardly and follows, “To meet you, I mean. And to not drown– Thanks for saving me back there."
"It was very nice to meet you too,” Az answers, lips curving up, words placid, full of calm roundness. His hair has dried and the curls are now a white-blond tuft, rioting messily, rose-gold at the ends where the last blood of the horizon picks up the tips.
Crowley wishes he could sink fingers deep in them, find out if they're raspy with sand, or slightly damp at the base from the ocean. He determinedly tries to ignore the sloping curve of his bare chest and belly, and that scatter of blond hair spread across his nipples.
It's too much skin so easily offered to view.
And then Az says, “I'll be going then,” and turns.
Gives two steps over the weathered boardwalk.
Three.
Four.
Seeing the back of him, stirs a frantic urgency in Crowley for making him stay.
Idiotic.
He just met him.
But his whole body tips forward.
"Wait, Az!"
Az spins round, still smiling. "Yes, Crowley?"
His name in that mouth makes him shiver.
Fuck it.
"Will you be by the cave tomorrow?"
"I will, near dusk." A pause, then, “Will you come see me?”
Crowley's heart beats in a twirl of need.
"Yeah. I'll be there.”
Crowley walks to the cave every sundown.
By the time he gets there, Az is already splashing on the ocean, feet always deep in the sea.
Always distractingly shirtless.
Crowley starts wondering if the man has any shirt in his wardrobe or if they murdered his family. Not that he's complaining. Definitely not. It has Crowley tightening his bite and fisting his hands when he fixes eyes on that chest, that back, imagining being pinned down by those arms, being held open by the curve of those palms strongly digging into his inner thighs. It doesn't help that his threadbare trousers always hang low enough to offer the shaded divot below that belly hinting at the hip bones, usually wet clinging to the eye-catching bulge at the front. Shaping those strong legs.
Makes Crowley want to buy him a new wardrobe, or just tug him down to the sand to kiss him senseless, airless.
It's all so sexually frustrating Crowley could scream. Because Az never pushes, never slips hands where he shouldn't, doesn't wedge into Crowley's space more than necessary.
It crosses his mind that maybe he just isn't into Crowley. But he's sending a whole lot of mixed signals, with his flushed cheeks each time Crowley brushes a hand across his forearm, or those long seconds where he stands at Crowley's doorstep, delaying the goodbye. Tucking stray lines of hair behind Crowley's ears.
Waiting…
As if he didn't want to leave.
There's been a dozen times when Crowley's wanted to invite him in but chickened out at the end.
Afraid perhaps, of breaking the illusion.
Stupid.
They talk. They share meals Crowley brings with him, something else to do together. With astounding surprise, he realises Az despises avocados and loves tuna. Sushi. The general catalog of fish. Wine causes him to open up his eyes big as saucers as if he’d tasted it for the first time which makes no sense, Az must be forty at least.
It all feels so glimmeringly new next to him.
Above them, the sky is open mauve-gold, incandescent at the borders.
“I keep being told it's supposed to be storm season,” he says, when he arrives at their rendezvous spot. “But there's not one cloud in sight. Oh.”
Today, there's a seal bouncing softly next to Az while he scratches the top of its head before setting it off. It's another weird thing. Crowley has found Az surrounded by animals more than once: a couple of crabs, some seagulls, three or four pelicans and one sea lion that scared the living daylights out of Crowley.
Az gives Crowley a blindingly sweet smile. “I'm glad you could make it, my dear.”
Crowley glosses over the my dear with the stalwart determination of a soldier behind enemy lines. Just to not fall a little deeper, and try to save himself the heartache. He wasn't supposed to rush.
He sets his usual cooler with food next to a rock.
Az must spend a horrid amount of time in the ocean to have the animals so attuned to his presence.
“Who was your friend?” Crowley teases.
“Oh, just a poor fellow that got lost in the currents,” Az says, absentmindedly.
Crowley gives a cut chuffing noise, not at all attractive. But whatever. Az has already seen him spluttering water through his nose. “Right. So, you gave him proper directions?”
They inch closer as every day. And like everyday Crowley feels his own borderlines dissolving when Az nudges his shoulder with the gorgeous roundness of his bare one.
“I did,” Az says, as if it made any sort of sense. Then he adds, a bit quieter, “And you're right about the storm season, but perhaps… the ocean is dissuaded from appearing all forlorn and agitated when there's no reason to be so.”
At their feet, foam soaks the sand. They're tipped together so closely that Az feels as Crowley's own territory, open to chart with mouth and hands and teeth.
But he isn't.
“Well, I'm glad. Otherwise it would've been impossible to come out here.”
To see you.
Crowley hopes Az doesn't pick up the hidden yearning.
Az hums, then turns to face him. Again that dazzling smile froths up wrecking Crowley's heartbeats. “I was thinking that perhaps today, I could show you how to swim.”
Crowley’s whole face scrunches in confusion. “What?”
“Only if you want, of course,” Az says, lifting palms, placating him.
It isn't that the idea isn't appealing. But doing new things is a concept Crowley's chucked down the window ages ago. He's a forty five year old man, who’s idea of a good time up until a month ago was binging Golden Girls, drinking wine when he wasn't having his brain fucked out of his skull.
The sea laps at them, at his ankles. And he sees Az’s hands, wide and pale, stretching towards him. Hears the roll of the combers as if beckoning him.
And Az is there, steady as foundations.
Crowley licks his lips. “What the Hell.” He nods, shakes his head. “Okay. Fine. Guess we're here already. Fuck, promise I won't drown.”
When Az catches his hand, his eyes sparkle and Crowley's belly fills with flimsy butterflies’ wings.
“You're safe with me.”
Az guides them a bit to the left, where the sea stacks dwindle.
Waves run quick, forming in a breath. It feels impossible to swim here. But Az pulls him by the hand – fingers falling so easily in a tight interlock – until the water licks at their waists, and tells Crowley to wait.
Not a minute later, the sea gets tranquil, wet breeze barely an insinuation.
Crowley's almost surprised by how well Az can read the ocean, how he knows it by heart.
Az stands behind him, hands curving round his hips. The whole warmth of his body buffets against Crowley's back. It's difficult to not think about the intimate placing of his thighs, almost brushing on Crowley's, or the lush nearness of his mouth.
Crowley can't think of anything but Az’s breath ruffling the side of his neck. A windfall of hot bursts across his skin as he tells Crowley to inhale.
Exhale.
Close his eyes.
“There you are,” Az whispers. It's a little bit darker than usual or perhaps it's just the hushed baritone of proximity. Thrumming at the edge of his awareness.
Crowley's blood runs like lit with gunpowder. Back on plush chest, arse tucked to a solid pelvis and the voltage-high sensation of Az’s cock crushed on the curve of his buttocks.
Does he feel anything? Is he having his own heart wanting to escape through his throat?
“What should I do?” Crowley sounds dry. Small. Not afraid, but out of his league. In the hands of a man that without a shard of sexual intention has him about to crack.
Crowley's used to sexual overtures. Thrives in them. Going from zero to hundred with a partner is something he excels at.
But he doesn't know what to do in this limbo.
“Just stay still. You have to trust the ocean.” Az’s fingers slip up to his waist, angling to hold the dip of it beneath his white shirt. Despite the glide of water, his skin is warm. “Do you trust it?”
Crowley thinks he's going to crumble. “I… I do.”
“Then tip back, and trust I'll catch you while you float. Do not open your eyes so the salt water doesn't get in them, alright?”
One intake of air, and before he can't think about what he's doing, Crowley leans back, bends his legs and trusts the weight of the water and the sturdiness of Az’s hands to level him enough to float.
The push of the waves sways him slowly, but Crowley's floating with two palms spread beneath him, on waist and shoulderblade. Drifting across the divots of his muscles as he's moved by the arms of the ocean. He swears he can feel each knuckle, the spread of thumbs as if wanting to canvas more of him.
Wishful thinking.
Crowley doesn't open his eyes, too scared of betraying himself wanting more of what's offered. The water surrounds him, tilts him barely, sloshes around and makes him feel weightless, dazed-dreamy, fever-bright with contentment.
He doesn't want to sink. “Shit, I feel like I'm falling.”
Everything smells of salt and ocean-blue, of warm sand, of sunlight on skin.
“I'm here, darling,” Az says, amidst an odd splashing that rocks around them. “I won't let you fall. And… and I won't let the ocean take you, no matter how much it wants you.”
Crowley's heart squeezes. “You think it wants me?”
It comes a bit thready, strained through water. “Very much, I’d say.”
It goes for minutes, until Az’s hands fall away, while he guides Crowley up to his feet once more.
Az’s greyish blue eyes don't stray off Crowley's face when they reach the shore, and Crowley's desperate to find if the array of brows and lips tells a similar story to the one Crowley's knitting inside.
“Thanks,” he says.
The sweet set of Az’s mouth falls open, infinitely red under dusk. “It was my pleasure.”
Crowley's dazed, punched with a sort of airless giddiness the whole way back home. Is he reading all the signs wrong? Should he invite Az over once and for all?
Same as last time, Az’s arms find their way back to curve over Crowley to block a bit of air. A wonderful set of lush skin on shoulders and belly, as if trying to drag Crowley under an enveloping grasp. Melting the stiffness of cold from the flex of his muscles.
If they could stay like this.
Too quickly, they're standing at the back door.
Before Crowley can stutter some half concocted sentence to make Az stay, he's cut off by a question.
“Why did you come here, Crowley?”
There's a scant nudge of space between them, but it feels full with possibilities. Crowley's heart jerks and jumps, while watching Az’s curved face, how his lashes brush on the edge of his cheekbone when he blinks softly.
“I told you.” He stares down to where the wood of the boardwalk is splintering at the edges. “The city… it was all so empty. So– so lonely.”
Az finds Crowley's hand with his own. “And how do you find it here?”
Their fingers fit well together. Crowley focuses there, on his own pointy knuckles and Az’s rounded ones. On the blessed weight of holding someone who's wreathed his way into Crowley's heart so easily.
“Not gonna lie,” he says. “At first, I thought I had made a terrible mistake. Things are all so slow, and the… the spaces were still there.” Crowley breathes. “Hadn’t really realised the sea is a lonely place.”
“It's lonely. The sea, I mean.” Az shuffles closer. His finger rubs between Crowley's forefinger and thumb, over the finely made skin. It makes Crowley's breath run ragged in his throat. Az's voice sounds different, hoarse almost. “That's why it keeps coming back to the shore, just to see if it finds anyone standing there. That's why it wants to draw you in, pull you under.”
“Possessive,” Crowley says, with what he hopes is a fully mischievous smirk, instead of a wobbly smile.
“It is,” Az answers in a bite of answer.
And then he's kissing him.
Az is kissing him.
His mouth lands on Crowley's with the intent of a comber running to shore, crushing the wet plushness of it until their kiss is a pulse of buzzing warmth that Crowley can feel like a running sizzle through his spine. Az’s broad hands catch his naked waist beneath his shirt in unexpected possessiveness, body pressing up on him, suffocating the space in between.
It's the sway of the sea on Crowley's knees and the fire of the sun heating his own skin. It's the rush of a high tide and the quiet peace of a still ocean. It's a hundred things at once, like a kiss has never felt.
Crowley rasps a whine that hooks out from his belly, stuttery with hot arousal, thoughts knocked down entirely. This is all he's ever wanted, heart jumping up.
It's a wet, desperate slide of lips that crushes any breath fighting to fly off. He's caught off guard, but his own hands lift in a spring to finally set, claw in on those shoulders, just to tell Az wordlessly that he needs him closer, needs him entirely. One of Az’s hands trail up to push into the wreck of Crowley's half-bun, destroying it entirely, while the other shifts across his naked skin to catch him tighter like a suggestion of ownership, of unbridled desire that won't be snuffed come morning.
Crowley's mouth opens to let in the hot push of Az’s tongue that tastes warm, of wine and salt, as if drawing out the ocean breeze off him.
An anchor. Az feels like something Crowley desperately needs.
He's already easing his legs open to allow Az to slip a thigh between them where Crowley's throbbing, spasming in unrestrained want.
“Please, come inside with me–” He whines the words out, while his mouth is half smushed on Az’s, “come–”
But the next second, Az startles, jarringly. Eyes haunted, and huge.
“Crowley–” His hands dig into Crowley's waist before they drop. He reels back, falling down the boardwalk with eyes wide and mouth open. “Crowley, I made a terrible mistake. I'm… I'm sorry, I can't. Please don't look after me any longer.”
The second Az turns, the sky cracks with thunder.
Crowley wants to yell after him, run after him, but he's stunned silent, struck still.
His lips pulse, bruised-swollen.
Just like his heart.