Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2020-07-15
Words:
1,262
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
39
Kudos:
391
Bookmarks:
59
Hits:
2,205

Healing Memories

Summary:

Sometimes Crowley remembers the bookshop fire. Aziraphale helps him out of it.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

It still happens sometimes. Even after a year, after twelve months of love and laughter, a cottage in the South Downs picked out and a hundred nights spent together within it, there come days when the past catches up with Crowley. When the fire comes to consume him again in terror and confusion and pain.

It happens like this: he’s dozing outside, sprawled on the soft grass, and it’s peace. And the sun warms his skin and it’s joy. And then the sun beats down and makes sweat trickle down his face, and suddenly something connects to something else in his brain.

The feel of that trickling sweat sends too many images bolting through his brain. And when he jolts upright, panic has already clouded out his rational thinking, and all he can see is flames - flames everywhere - Aziraphale gone, dead, his shop in ruins - the world ending and my best friend killed, killed, killed -

“Angel!” Crowley chokes, his voice hoarse and inaudible, and staggers to his feet.

Aziraphale isn’t around him. That’s all he can register, and it sets the panic in deeper - they took him, Heaven, they killed him for his betrayal, for loving me - or Hell, it was Hell, they killed him to strike some meaningless blow at the end of time - it’s my fault, it must be my fault, I should have protected him!

He sees the cottage and he doesn’t see it. It’s the bookshop belching flames. He flings himself at the back door and opens it, and inside is something that was peace and quiet and happiness half an hour before and now it’s soot and smoke and screaming.

“Aziraphale!” he cries louder. “Aziraphale!”

It’s not real, and he doesn’t need to breathe, and yet the smoke in his lungs overwhelms him. He collapses to his knees on the carpet. Angel, my angel, come back - I need you - I never told you everything -

A broken sob rips from his throat.

Shouldn’t have left you - never should have left, I love you, I’d have done anything for you, I’d have saved you from this if I’d been here -

And it feels, for that one moment, like the fire is going to swallow him whole. Like it’s going to rise up around him and consume him and leave nothing but brittle bones and ash. For a moment the grief is so great it beats Crowley into helplessness, and he’s certain everything is over.

That’s how it happens. He’s hunched over himself, on his knees, hands wrapped around his head and sobbing when he feels a gentle pressure on his chest.

It should be frightening. This unexpected touch, here as he kneels vulnerable on the floor, should spark some survival instinct and make him flinch away. And yet, before he’s aware of anything else, before he comes to any more realizations, he finds the pressure soothing. He knows it’s the touch of a friend.

“Oh,” he whispers, breath hitching. It’s an involuntary sound. The pressure is a hand; a warm, soft hand resting over his frantically beating heart.

He’s still in the bookshop, but -

But this didn’t happen in the bookshop.

“Crowley,” says a familiar voice, hushed and tender.

That voice - he didn’t hear it in the bookshop either.

“Crowley, my treasure, are you here with me?”

He blinks. The hand is clearer than the smoke and flames around it. He breathes in with a shudder, and the smoke seems to dissipate, while the hand stays solid and in place. He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again, and the fire has receded to the edges of his vision. That gentle hand is still touching him, its thumb slowly stroking over his shirt as though to ground him, to ease him into the present moment.

Crowley looks up, his eyes still filled with tears. Aziraphale kneels before him in a large knit sweater, his hair unblackened, a quiet, loving look written across his features.

“Darling,” he whispers, “are you seeing the bookshop again?”

Another sob rises up and Crowley shuts his eyes again. That look can’t be real. He can’t believe in it, not like this - not when he still can’t remember why the world isn’t burning and Aziraphale isn’t gone. Surely his chances for that sort of look are far behind him? After he abandoned Aziraphale to this inferno, surely -

“Beloved. I’m alive.”

Alive. Alive. He hears it but he doesn’t understand. And yet, the hand doesn’t move, doesn’t leave him empty; it anchors him amid his reeling thoughts. The thumb keeps gently stroking his chest. And after a moment, Crowley realizes he can’t smell the smoke at all anymore.

Alive.

“The fire was over a year ago, Crowley. I’m safe.”

Safe.

The hand draws him closer. Crowley is pulled in helplessly; he still doesn’t look up, but that doesn’t stop Aziraphale from wrapping wide arms around him, holding him so gently, cradling him like something precious. It doesn’t stop Aziraphale from smoothing back his hair with sweet, tender fingers and then kissing the place where it meets his forehead with soft, soft lips. And Crowley finds himself curling tighter into the embrace instead of resisting it. When he’s held like this, other memories begin to come back to him; the universe begins to resolve itself again.

“My Crowley,” Aziraphale murmurs again. “Are you here with me?”

Crowley nods incrementally. “I… I think so.”

“We’re in our cottage. In the South Downs.”

Yes. He remembers that. A new home for both of us, for our own side, a peaceful place far away from the bustle of the city, from the pull to bless and to tempt, a world we can build for ourselves - together, together -

“You were just outside napping.”

Lying on the grass, staring at the sky, feeling safe - safe - not afraid to be defenseless out there, not on my guard - I have an angel to protect me, an angel who never sleeps and who always -

“I love you, darling.”

Loves me.

That’s when Crowley opens his eyes.

Aziraphale is gazing down at him with a tenderness that makes Crowley’s heart crack. He remembers now, everything, he knows it’s all over and the world is right, but the wound has just been scraped raw again - he’s exposed again, vulnerable, and the light of Aziraphale’s love burns so much brighter against that. He gasps at the sweetness of Aziraphale’s smile. The tears keep flowing down his cheeks, silent, overwhelmed, as Aziraphale rocks him back and forth.

“Angel,” Crowley says, and then sighs deeply.

“What do you need, my love?”

Crowley shakes his head. The panic is gone. All he wants is to keep being held, just like this, for the rest of time. “You, angel.”

Aziraphale doesn’t object. He hums in affirmation, in fact, and leans down to kiss Crowley again. On his forehead, on his cheeks, on the side of his head. On his lips with a quiet, unfathomable sort of love.

That’s how it happens. It’s growing more infrequent, these days, but Crowley’s not sure it’ll ever be behind him completely. He may always have times when he wakes up this way - the heat reminding him of the terror he’s seen, the despair, the day he came inches from giving up everything. Those old wounds may never heal up so the scars aren’t visible.

Maybe that’s all right, though. Aziraphale pulls him from his memories every time. He brings Crowley back into his willing arms, and in those arms nothing can really hurt him. Of that he’s absolutely certain.

It’s been a year. They’re mending.

Notes:

Like my content? Find me on tumblr @whatawriterwields!