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There were times that Crowley would fall asleep at the bookshop, over the years. Over the millennia, really, he would find himself napping within the angel’s presence. It was hard, as a demon, to get a spot that was just right for snoozing and also was relatively, or assuredly safe from danger. Whether humans who still had not gotten over the idea of serpentine eyes (though the advent of colored, novelty contact lenses had helped at least some of the drama therein), or other demons (who did not harbor any specific ill-will towards Crowley in particular, but generally, without fail, harbored their fair share of ill-will in general, and were not picky about upon whom they enacted their wrath. Which is not to say that there weren't their fair share of demons who specifically would have jumped at the opportunity to get the upper hand on Crowley.), or even angels (who would discorporate or smite on sight).
What it came down to was that Crowley, though he enjoyed sleep through the ages and through the many wondrous new inventions and improvements the humans came up with for the task, was often in a position of not wanting to have to let his guard down in case someone or something took the opportunity to attack him. What it came down to, was that over the years, Crowley had learned that sleeping in the presence of a certain angel meant uninterrupted sleep that did not end in inconvenient and traumatic discorporation. It meant safety. It meant that he could let his guard down.
Aziraphale also took this unofficial duty of his very seriously. At first it was an accident, standing guard over his adversary while he slumbered. It started along the lines of wanting to make sure that no one else stumbled upon the demon as he had, and accidentally woke him. Aziraphale reasoned that if someone had woken the demon up he was liable to do... demonic things and harm some innocent human! Better that Aziraphale stand guard to make sure that no one come in harms way. If that also coincidentally meant that Crowley was able to continue sleeping uninterrupted, then perhaps it would mean that he would be more complacent and relaxed than the last time he had seen the demon, uptight and stressed, and clearly needing a reset of some sort.
Once, several times of Guardian Angeling later, Crowley drunkenly let slip that it was comforting, in a way, to be sure that at least the enemy who would always make sure he had a heads up that he was about to meet his demise was the one who could sneak up on him while he was sleeping. Aziraphale was simultaneously pleased by this and devastated (though at the time he couldn't quite put a finger on why) that Crowley was so leery of him while being so trusting with him.
Eventually, though, Crowley and Aziraphale reached a sort of unspoken pattern. It certainly solidified when they were raising the antichrist together, perhaps because with all the duties as Nanny, Crowley often found himself exhausted by the end of a day or a week, and it simply made the most sense to catch some shut-eye with the angel in the vicinity. (Not that, most of the time, Crowley had a choice in the matter. After a certain number of times sleeping in someone else's presence, the body becomes attached, and relaxed when the initial sleepy warning signs go off. A few glasses of wine, a warm hearth, and Crowley's snakey heart was all too ready to drift off to sleep right within the confines of the couch.)
Over the course of their evenings together during which Crowley would drift off, sometimes between words of an argument he was still intent on having (despite having said next to nothing coherent in some time), Aziraphale learned perhaps the most endearing quality of his demon. (And it was "his demon" he had decided. The decision had come sometime around the 12th century, give or take a score or two, when it dawned on Aziraphale that the demon had never done anything too terribly awful, and that all these things that Aziraphale had been wary of for thousands of years had still... not? come to pass. So it was a foregone conclusion at that point that the demon was His demon, and to be Protected. At minimum because it meant that this was a demon he could work with, as opposed to whoever Hell might send in replacement should something happen to Crowley.)
Crowley blepped. At first Aziraphale thought it must have been a trick of the light. Or a bit too much wine. Or something like gravity working in mysterious ways, and leaving the jaw hanging just a little bit lower and the tongue unfurling just a little bit more in the wake of it.
But it happened again. And again. By the fourth time, Aziraphale had been watching for it, and was surprised to see that it happened after the demon had fallen asleep. A gently shift here, like a stretch and an inhale, and then with a sigh the pink forked tongue peeked out between the lips and rested there for the duration.
Aziraphale tried to explain it away. It was because as Crowley rested he became more comfortable and therefore let the hold on his corporation slide and return to something more snake-like. Or it was because as a snake he could smell and piece together information more strongly with his tongue than other senses in his sleep; it was a sentry post of a sort.
He didn't dare to ask Crowley why he did this, afraid that if the demon knew he would make a concerted effort to avoid doing it in the future. (This was a valid concern, and Crowley absolutely would have made an effort to avoid it at all costs. Demons didn't do "cute," as cute was a four-letter word.)
Aziraphale began to anticipate and look forward to the moments when Crowley would drift off to sleep, and his snakeish bits would appear. Curling just a bit more tightly into the pillow or himself, sometimes letting out a little snore that sounded more like a hiss than a proper snore. And, of course, the blep of a pink tongue just peeking out of the mouth.
It took almost a year of this nearly every night before Aziraphale gained the courage to do something that he had wanted to do since he first noticed. He booped the blep. almost instantly the tongue retracted and a crease crossed Crowley's brow, but he relaxed in short order. Aziraphale, suddenly aware of the fact that he had... touched his best friend and adversary's tongue while he was sleeping, blushed and quickly busied himself with something else, anything else, maybe some cocoa would do.
When Crowley woke up this time, Aziraphale very studiously read his book, and watched from the corner of his eye on bated breath as Crowley sat up and rolled his tongue in his mouth pensively. Was he... tasting Aziraphale's fingertip? Was there anything left to taste?
"Aziraphale?" Crowley asked, as if he were pondering some Big Problem.
"Hmm?"
"Did you..?" Words could not describe the initial rush of panic and adrenaline that rushed through Aziraphale at the aborted question. "Ahh, never-mind." Nor the relief he felt in the aftermath of the dismissal.
At that point, Aziraphale promised himself (forbade himself, really, because it was awfully tempting to do it again already) to not touch the blep ever again, lest Crowley find out with certainty that he had done just that.
After the apocalypse that was not, there was a breaking of tradition, and Crowley and Aziraphale settled in together. They grew more comfortable with each other, and with their feelings about each other. Years later, comfortable in domestic bliss, Crowley would wake up to a finger gently running over his lips, up and down, and the strong taste of Angel (Aziraphale, more aptly; a taste of kindness and safe haven, parchment and cocoa, prissiness and grace, and angel all rolled into one) on his tongue.
"Angel?" he would ask blearily, and Aziraphale would reply:
"Did you know that you do the most wonderful thing in your sleep, darling?" Aziraphale’s hand would shift to gently cup Crowley’s cheek.
"Wazzat?"
"You let out the littlest bit of your tongue into the air, and make just a perfect picture of contentment." Aziraphale would beam with love down at Crowley, and, settled into this new life they had, Crowley would not shy away from it quite the same way he might have once done.
"I what?"
"You do; your tongue goes forked, and peeks out just the teeniest bit. I've admired it in you for years."
Crowley would be buffeted by the adoration of an angel, the budding warmth in his own chest at the praise and the reciprocation, but amid all that would be a stark mortification.
"Are you telling me that I... I do that cat thing? I blep?”
"Oh good, you already know the term," Aziraphale would grin, with a little bit of a bastardly glint in his eye. "So you won't be offended when I call it that."