Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A falling sensation wakes him, one that’s shortly followed by the pain of his head colliding with something hard, and for a long few seconds Crowley settles on the rather embarrassing, but not impossible, notion that he’s fallen out of bed.

It’s happened before, once or twice, that he’ll admit to, but usually after a night of restless dreams or heavy drinking, or on one memorable occasion -- for Aziraphale anyway -- in 1758, a bottle of wine spiked with what turned out to be a rather potent hallucinogenic, and so given his current retirement with a certain angel to what he’ll begrudgingly admit is a rather pretty little cottage in the South Downs, it’s been a while since such a situation has arisen.

The ground beneath his cheek is rough, though, concrete rather than the smooth, well-worn oak of their bedroom floorboards, and the air swirling around him is much too cold for him to be inside the cottage at all. Or outside it, he supposes, given the remarkably mild October evening he remembers walking home on what he hopes is still not too many hours ago.

Opening his eyes doesn’t chase much of the darkness away -- it’s clearly still night where he is or else unlit -- but eventually his eyes adjust enough to make out the dim flickers of small fires not so far away and a golden arc of paint curving along the grey of the concrete beside his face. Earth still, he thinks, not Hell and certainly not Heaven, but still not the cottage or anywhere else he recognises and that’s less than ideal, he’ll admit.

Blearily, he pushes himself up, feeling his head swim with the movement and his arms shake from the effort. He feels like all wind has been knocked rather harshly from his sails, leaving his limbs weak and shapeless without anything to hold them firm. It’s not an entirely unfamiliar sensation, he realises with a sinking feeling, and nor are symbols he finds drawn neatly outside the golden circle he seems to be sitting within.

A summoning.

And it seems he has to suffer the humiliation of arriving at this one not only asleep but clad only in the black silk pyjama bottoms and cotton t-shirt he climbed into bed in not so long ago.

“Fuck’s sake,” he grumbles, pushing himself first to his knees and then climbing a little unsteadily to his feet. The concrete is cold and rough, and he absently finds himself wishing for the fluffy slipper-socks Aziraphale bought for him last autumn after he’d warmed his chilly feet beneath his thigh one too many times. He wishes for his glasses, too, for their protection, and then for this whole summoning to not have happened at all, leaving him curled up under the feathery duvet of their queen-sized bed back home.

Only wishing for things does nothing, and though it never does, nor does snapping his fingers up from the ground, trying to draw a pair of his sunglasses into existence, and that’s more of a problem.

The bare skin of his arms prickles from more than cold as he warily surveys the room outside his circle.

A disused warehouse, he surmises as his eyes adjust, more than likely on a farm of some sort if the trio of rusty tractors lined up along one wall are anything to go by. There’s a trailer attached to the largest of them, its red paint flaking away in places, and aside from a few odds and ends of the mechanical sort stacked up beside a table against the wall opposite and a large pile of what might have once been grain in the corner, very little else of interest.  

More importantly, though, it seems to be deserted, which above all else, is weird.

Cautiously, he turns his attention back to the circle he stands in and the golden symbols that surround it, wondering what has led him to be summoned if not for a person, a human, he’d assume, actively drawing him there. Though Crowley wouldn’t say he’s an expert on summonings, he has much more experience partaking in them than he would like to admit, and every time thus far, he’s found himself being gawked at by book-holding humans in various degrees of panic upon arrival.

They can’t have gone far, he decides, whoever has drawn him there; the haphazard ring of candles surrounding him haven’t been burning all that long given their height, but the fact they’ve gone at all leaves both unease and impatience stirring in his gut in equal measure.

“Helloooo, anyone out there?” he calls towards the half open doorway, shifting from one foot to the other to even out the chill in his soles. “The demon you summoned is waiting for you and they’re running out of patience!”

For a long second, all he gets in reply is the echo of his own voice off the corrugated iron walls and the scream of a fox outside, and then even they dissipate into the night, leaving only the quiet occasional whooshing of cars on a nearby motorway for company. Still half asleep, feeling shaky and sore from the summoning, and suffering from a mood as sour as unripe lemons, Crowley is considering giving the painted ring a frustrated kick just to see what happens when he hears the soft crunch of boots on gravel heading towards him somewhere outside.

Footsteps follow, a single set, soft and surprisingly light, and then a small, mousy haired figure appears in the doorway.

Crowley blinks at her, wondering if she’s stumbled upon him by mistake, but before he can open his mouth to ask her, she’s striding rather purposefully across the concrete floor towards him. The book in her hand is so old it’s bound in what looks to be human skin, and all connotations of her accidental presence vanish out the window faster than ice-cream does on a hot summer’s day.

“You took your time,” she snaps as she heads over towards him, glaring slightly and sounding so unjustly irritated that Crowley feels his hackles rise.

“Me? You’re the one who summoned me here and then vanished!” Ignoring his jibe, she stops just beyond his circle, tipping her head to the side as she looks him over like a spot of Cubism she’s been asked to interpret. Her gaze lingers on his eyes for much longer than a human can usually bear, her expression piqued with interest, and despite being frankly a little unnerved himself by her boldness, Crowley stubbornly refuses to look away. Over the centuries, he’s learnt to be careful with his eyes, shielding from view even when doing so under his current lighting conditions brings up questions of its own. It’s better people assume him perpetually hung-over or suffering from some sort of vision impairment than a monster. He’s learnt that the hard way.

There’s more interest than fear in her eyes, though, and Crowley finds himself wishing for his glasses more for his benefit than hers. They say eyes are the window to the soul, and he feels naked and more than a little vulnerable without the dark lenses to shield his from her view.

“Are you wearing pyjamas?” The unexpectedly mundane question snaps him out of his unease, and Crowley scowls at her across the painted line.

“It’s nighttime,” he grits out, irritated, “I was in bed.”

“My apologies,” she says, eyebrows raised and insincerity dripping from her tone like water from a burst pipe. “You are the demon Crowley?”

“As charged.”

Clearly satisfied, she nods, and then her gaze finally shifts away from him to survey the book in her hands instead. The creak of the ancient binding is loud in the quiet barn, and Crowley shivers involuntarily at the darkness rolling off the pages once they’re open.

Once, not so long ago, Aziraphale had said to him about a certain place feeling loved, and at the time, Crowley really hadn’t understood. Places and things didn’t have feelings, not to others, at least, though he did understand the sentimentality to oneself, his Bently alone was a testament to that. After a long discussion, the closest equivalent they had decided upon for him were churches, though Crowley had never quite been convinced the feeling associated with those buildings wasn’t simply a result of the floors, walls, and ceilings being quite literally out to get him.

Now, though… now, he understands.

There’s hatred rolling off that book in waves, crashing so hard against him it takes an effort for him not to stumble back from its open pages.

There’s power inside, enough he’s sure might prove dangerous in the wrong hands, and unfortunately for him, the lady who holds it currently is giving off the air of having much more understanding of what she’s doing than the teenagers he’s found himself in front of during his most recent summoning adventures.  

Their work had been sloppy, the runes on the floor wrong and their spells easily broken. Last time, Crowley had been able to step straight out of the ring without any negative connotations whatsoever, much to the terror of the crowd of rather drunk university students in front of him. The time before he’d found himself in a garage, stuck in a somewhat functional circle that had stopped him leaving but achieved little else. He’d been a little drunk and rather pissed off about his interrupted lunch date that time, and had ended up shapeshifting his head into its more scaley form and scaring the living daylights out of the trio of teenagers in front of him. They’d scarpered, leaving him to summon a broom to wipe away the chalk markings on the floor from the inside so he could start making his way home.

Aziraphale had tutted when he recalled the whole ordeal over a bottle of wine later that evening, scolding him lightly for terrorising the poor children despite them having been the ones idiotic enough to summon him in the first place, and then ended up giggling along beside him at the stupidity of the whole situation.

The symbols that surround him today are perfect, though, and painted so as not to smudge. Whatever that hateful book they’ve come from is, he doesn’t know, but the runes meticulously copied from inside it are of a magic dark enough that even he can’t read them all.

“Right,” the lady says to herself more than to him, her expression jarringly businesslike as she flicks purposefully through the book until she seems to find the page and then the lines she’s looking for. The next words she speaks sound awkward on her lips, her tongue slipping over syllables not found in any language he’s heard for centuries. A thick discomfort stirs in Crowley’s gut at the sound of them.

“Hey, I think you should stop.”

Though her blue eyes flick up briefly, the words continue to wash over him, clumsy yet rehearsed, until suddenly, they end. The temperature inside his painted ring dips another few degrees as a chill arrives to assault him in their place, a draining iciness like a shower straight from the poles. Though Crowley’s knees attempt to quiver and goosebumps bloom across his skin like a sudden rash, he finds himself almost laughing with relief.

“Is that your plan, demonic death by hypothermia?” he sneers, one eyebrow raised tauntingly with bravado even though his muscles are tensing against the sapping cold.

She looks at him for a moment, her eyes dark with amusement he doesn’t understand, and then turns back to her book and flips purposefully to another page.

Crowley grimaces. An inadvertent shiver ripples through him and he beats down the urge to rub some warmth back into his bare arms. Feeling utterly fed up and suddenly drained, he finds himself longing for the whole situation to be over if only so he can curl back up under his covers with Aziraphale at his side and sleep for a week.

Despite his wishes, she finds her place on the page, and reads another line of those darkened syllables in her high, prim tone. Though the words they form twists unpleasantly inside him, leaving him feeling pried apart at the seams and oddly shaken, this time, nothing else happens.

“Are you sure you read that right?” he asks, taunting her with a raised brow as she surveys him expectantly. Clearly, he’s hit a sore point, as though she doesn’t verbally acknowledge his question at all, a grimace grows on her lips, and she snaps shut the book. Still scowling, she turns to the far wall, and heads to the table beside what he thinks might be a broken plough. It takes Crowley a moment to realise the clutter atop is not part of the farm at all but actually her own. A tin of paint sits pride of place, a stick now half-glinting with gold on top. There’s a glass of shimmering terps, too, the paintbrush still sat inside, and a plastic crate where he supposes she might have got the candles still surrounding him from. The book ends up sat neatly beside a small box he assumes to contain matches, and when she turns to return to him, something much longer is glinting in her hand.

Crowley wonders rather darkly if after the failure of her spell, her next best plan is simply beating him, quite literally, to Hell and back.

“There’s got to be an easier way to get batting practice than summoning a demon,” he cracks cockily as she approaches, the bat held lightly in her hand. Though the joke was admittedly not one of his best, he’d thought it deserved an eyeroll at least, but they lady ignores it in all its entirely as she comes to a halt in front of him. Her toes are inches from the edges of her neatly painted golden circle, her breath so close she’d be risking fogging up the metaphorical walls of his not so metaphorical prison if such possibility existed. It catches him off guard how close she dares stand, looking up to meet his eyes without so much as a flinch. There’s clearly no doubt in her mind about the integrity of his painted cell.

“Apologies in advance for the violence, but it’ll work quicker this way,” she tells him, and then very suddenly, before he’s really had time to process the utter tripe of her insincere apology, she’s stepped forwards, and swung the bat his way.

Though he can’t leave the circle, or he assumes he can’t, at least, it seems the bat has no problem entering, and Crowley hastily brings up a hand to defend himself. He hisses as it collides with his fingers with much more force than he’d thought her capable of given her size, bending the digits in ways they really aren’t meant to go, and he reels backwards as far away as he thinks the painted ring of gold will let him. 

“What was that for?” he snarls, nursing his smarting fingers, and then hastily sidesteps when the bat swings his way again. It misses this time, almost snagging his pyjama shirt as it passes, and bringing with it a swirl of warm, outside air that quickly dissipates into the chill of his circle. Not unexpectedly, she doesn’t grant him the courtesy of an answer, choosing instead to pull the bat back again as she readies for another swing. Frustrated and admittedly, a little concerned by the violent direction the night is taking him in, Crowley tries another miracle, meaning to vanish the bat with a click, but there’s still nothing at his fingertips. His heart hammers a little faster in his chest.

“Look, can we just talk about this?” he tries, standing tall and firm and with his hands raised as though in an offering of peace. “Communicate, you know.”

The next swing comes faster than he expected, and he dodges quickly as he can. He succeeds partially, darting out of the way just in time for it to skim past his ribcage, but panicked and shivery and still shaking from the initial summoning, his bare foot catches on the rough concrete, scuffing at his skin, and sending him stumbling into the edge of his invisible enclosure. 

The solidness of the air above the golden painted ring doesn’t surprise him in the slightest, and neither really does the sensation of fire burning at his hand as he catches himself, but he still can’t help the pained cry that escapes his lips as the sensation rips its way up his arm. It tears through his nerves like molten lava, leaves his neurons singing discordant melodies and frazzled with pain. He can barely keep his knees from buckling in its wake. There’s not a mark on his hand, but the pain is oh so real, and as distracted by that as he is, Crowley misses the telltale whoosh of the bat and the incoming warm air it brings as it swings towards him.

The force behind it is blinding, the strike brimming with anger and determination, and Crowley feels every ounce of it as the glossy metal collides solidly with the very bottom of his ribcage. The impact cracks something inside him, sends him reeling, and this time he does fall to his knees, suddenly gasping and breathless and instinctively doubling over his freshly broken ribs. Wheezing, he presses a shaking hand to his side, wondering what on earth he has gotten himself into.

What on earth is going on with her.

In his distraction, it takes him a second to realise the assault with the bat has stopped, and in its place are words. The sentence is familiar, a repeat of her previous spell, but this time he feels more strength in its tendrils as they wrap around his essence like poisoned ivy strangling an oak, and with a startled gasp, his wings are wrenched into existence. They brush against the invisible walls of his prison as he’s forced to stretch them out and he screams at the burning sensation before managing to draw them to his sides.

“How dare you,” he snarls, drawing himself up to his full height and stretching his black wings as ferociously as he dares. There must have been something in his voice that time as the lady’s eyes widen fractionally under his venomous stare, and she halts for the tiniest of moments before she draws the bat up to her shoulder again.

He screeches, furiously, as she swings it again, and tries knocking it aside with his wing. He’d hoped for her to drop it, but her hands hold firmer than he’d thought she’d be able to, and he wonders, not for the first time but more seriously than before, if there’s something more than a little inhuman about her. Adrenaline surging, he fends off another few hits before finally managing to grab hold of the bat. Shock widens her eyes, and her mouth pops open as though she hadn’t even considered he might eventually be able to do that, but then her eyes cloud over again and a snarl forms on her lips. A firm tug pulls him off balance despite their theoretical difference in strength and weight, sending him stumbling into the invisible walls of his prison. Hand burning and nerves overloaded, his grip on the bat slips and she pulls it furiously back to her shoulder. Still reeling from his collision with the circle wall, Crowley’s only just finding his footing when she swings again. The wind whistles, the bat blurs.

This time, he only has time to lift a wing to shield his head before it hits.

***

Free time had been harder to come by as of late, and as a result, Aziraphale’s memoirs are in total disarray. A lot has happened over the past few years, so there is rather a great deal to write and sort, he will admit, but he supposes most of the cause of his current backlog has been his own distraction. Armageddon had come first, then the deal with Gabriel, and then the Second Coming. In between, he’d found himself in Heaven, and while he had more free time there, a Crowley shaped hole in his life accounting for that, he’d had no earthly paper, and no earthly pens, and very little desire to think back to his earthly life anyway. Doing so was risky. Doing so made his heart hurt and his eyes prickle and a ball of something he couldn’t name sit thick and wet and uncomfortable in his throat.

He hadn’t wanted to think about it, anyway, hadn’t wanted to find himself wondering what Crowley was up to without him, hadn’t wanted to spend so much time worrying if he was okay on his own because of course he was. But he had. Of course he had.

How could he not?

Though he had always planned on returning when the time was right, he’d spent that time convinced Crowley would never be able to forgive him when he did, that his complicated heart had been broken so absolutely that day in the bookshop it would never fit back together, that Crowley would be too hurt to even allow himself to try.  

He’d feared they would be back to the type of partners they’d been centuries before instead at best, acquaintances who didn’t put too much effort into thwarting each other’s plans perhaps, and never again on speaking terms at worst.

Crowley would be entitled to that. Aziraphale wouldn’t have blamed him in the slightest after all he’d put him through, even if that very real possibility had made his stomach churn and his eyes well up and his breathing tighten painfully in his chest.   

But, by some miracle, that hadn’t happened.

Not even nearly.

They’d ended up in a cottage. Retired and thriving. Him reading books he’d yet to find the time to and writing out his memoirs, while Crowley cooked and gardened and now slept warm and comfortable beneath the duvet on his side of the bed one floor above. He was happy now, they both were. Aziraphale could feel it radiating through the floor even as he worked, got the joy of feeling it in Crowley’s essence almost every single minute of every single day.

It had taken a while for them to get there, though, he’ll admit.

There had been such agony in Crowley’s eyes the first time their separate quests to avert the second coming had overlapped that Aziraphale wondered if he would ever be able to forgive himself for causing it, so much heartbreak pooling in his tattered essence that he’d feared Crowley may drown in it before they would get a chance to talk. He hadn’t though, and though Crowley had been understandably furious at first and hurting worse than Aziraphale had ever seen him hurt before, he had listened, and cried, and ultimately forgave, even when Aziraphale knew deep in his heart it would never be deserved. 

They’d gone back to the bookshop after the world had been saved for a second time in as many decades, but there were memories lurking in those shelves now, confusion and pain and heartache and guilt, and after catching Crowley staring as though haunted at that particular spot one time too many, Aziraphale had made a decision.

It wasn’t one Crowley had objected to in the slightest.

When they’d first moved in, the cottage had been close to derelict, abandoned so long ago that the floorboards were rotten and the walls were damp and the ivy clinging to the brick outside had started to overtake one of the upstairs bedrooms.

It was a project, but he thinks that’s maybe what they needed.

A focus, a common goal. Something to work towards together while they talked, and forgave, and slowly, painfully unpacked feelings stifled for too many a millennia to be so easily freed.

It was exhausting. It was painful. It was everything both of them had ever dreamed of.

And eventually, the cottage was too.

A symbol of the lives they chose for themselves. A home, cosy and perfect and entirely theirs, filled with books and belongings and so many plants. Centuries of their shared history they had boxed up together and packed into Crowley’s Bentley. Most of it had come from Aziraphale’s bookshop admittedly, but he always had been the more sentimental, and Crowley had moved around so frequently he’d often had to travel light out of necessity.

Aziraphale thinks there’s something in that, now it’s on his mind, and in the collection of knick-knacks he knows Crowley has started to accumulate over the years they’ve been there. The pin badge Adam had given him which read “Happy Birthday Old Fart!” after a particularly interesting conversation about ages despite neither of them having birthdays. The fuzzy black snake with a familiar red belly handpicked from a nearby antiques shop by Aziraphale when he should have been acquiring a coffee table. The Christmas card drawn by Anathema and Newt’s eldest still taped to the fridge though autumn has since rolled round again. The wiley serpent was one small step from acquiring a scrap book, Aziraphale jokes to himself, unable to contain the fond smile he flicks towards his office ceiling. He’d been meaning to aim it at the glowing essence of the frankly soppy demon sleeping one floor above, only he finds it isn’t there.

The pen faults on the paper, ink blotching from the nib. For a long second, Aziraphale sits very still, letting the emptiness of the cottage wash over him.

 He’s alone, definitely. He certainly wasn’t before.

“Crowley?”

Aziraphale is darting to the stairs before he realises he’s moving, and finds himself running up the steps two at a time until he’s outside their room at the end of the landing. The door is still ajar, just how Crowley tends to leave it when he sleeps. It creaks softly when he opens it further, letting a sharp stream of light into the room and illuminating the undeniably empty bed. The sheets are still pulled up to the feathery pillow dented from Crowley’s sleeping head, and a tent of sorts remains in the blankets as though whoever was inside has simply melted from within.

Despite their currently mostly amicable relationships with their respective head offices, a truce of sorts after they stopped the second coming that ultimately turned out to be good for exactly no one, Aziraphale’s first thought is Heaven, and then Hell, but he realises almost instantly afterwards neither of those guesses are likely to be correct since although Crowley isn’t in their cottage, or anywhere vaguely nearby, he’s certainly still on earth, at least for the time being.

Heart in his throat and legs feeling a little more like jelly than he would like, Aziraphale finds himself collapsing down onto Crowley’s side of the bed and bushes aside the panic stirring deep inside his gut to more collectedly considers his options.

Realistically there are two potential explanations for Crowley’s disappearance, the first being he has simply slithered out of the bed and vanished of his own accord, and the other being that something a little more sinister, and potentially a little more human, has occurred.

Aziraphale knows which explanation he prefers, but he also knows which is ultimately the most likely.

He feels sickened by the thought.

The garden air is a little cool around him as he steps out into the night, and the breeze gentle against his feathers as they unfurl. A deer in the neighbouring field stops to watch as he stretches out joints stiff for so long tucked neatly away in the ethereal plane, mussed feathers bright in the glow of the moon hanging overhead, and then indifferently turns to resume nibbling on the curling greenery of their hedge. Aziraphale turns away too, even though he knows Crowley wouldn’t have liked its antics, and lifts his head to the sky instead.

Crowley’s essence is distant in the breeze, but familiar enough it burns like a beacon through the dark. He takes a moment to focus, draws in a breath, and soars off into the night.

The feeling leads him to a farm just south of Lancaster, to a ramshackle collection of seemingly disused outbuildings on the very edge of a field. Only the night stirs around him when he lands, and the singular set of eyes that watch him as he furls away his wings are those of a fox, but he knows he’s in the right spot.

It doesn’t take long for him to find the right warehouse with Crowley’s essence so bright and bold nearby, and the quiet echoing of voices leads him equally easily to the entrance. Candlelight spills from its open doorway out into the night, an orange dagger casting long shadows on the cracking concrete of the empty farmyard. The fox watches indifferently as he approaches, keeping to the shadows until he’s close enough to peek in through the door.

Inside he finds a lady, short and delicate in stature, and before her, in a golden circle lit by flickering tealights, is his missing demon. He’s blessedly alive and upright and unharmed enough at least to be looking more pissed off than anything else.

Pissed off, and fed up, and like he really would just like to go home.

Aziraphale can grant him that at least.

“I can’t say summoning him here at this time of night was very kind of you,” he says perfectly pleasantly, hands clasped calmly in front of him as he steps into the doorway. The lady startles, nearly dropping the bat she’s holding, and turns to face him so sharply he’s sure she’s risking whiplash. Though he doesn’t dare take his eyes off his captor, Crowley’s shoulders relax fractionally beneath the ratty t-shirt he’d gone to bed in hours before, and a flicker of undeniable relief crosses his expression. “He was asleep.”

Her wide, blue eyes stare at him across the warehouse, utter astonishment smeared across the soft features below. For a long moment she says almost frozen as she is, the bat in one hand and her other outstretched towards his demon, before she seems to regain her composure and shuts her mouth with a snap. The shock is wiped away, schooled back into mild irritation at his interruption. Despite her dainty frame, she doesn’t look intimidated by his presence.

“He was your demon.” Her accusation is painfully candid given the situation, her tone and expression filled with little more than mild intrigue, more suited to a discussion on the ownership of a misplaced ballpoint pen rather than a living, breathing soul.

Internally, Aziraphale’s blood boils.

He cocks his head calmly.  

“Mine?” he asks, icy incredulity arching his brow. He flicks a glance at Crowley, still standing tall as he seems able given the arm he’s holding tight around his ribs as he stonily watches the spectacle outside his prison. “No, not in that sense, at least.”

The twitch of something close to amusement that passes fleetingly across Crowley’s expression goes unnoticed by the lady, as focused on his own approach as she is. Her delicate hands tighten on the handle of her shiny metal baseball bat with every echoing step, and she raises it threateningly when he reaches the halfway mark between them. It glints in the candlelight, the orange flame reflecting brightly off the dented fractals of its surface in the otherwise dimly lit room. Her lips twist fearsomely.

“Stay back. He’s mine now.”

Aziraphale tips his head and stops where he is, now only a few meters away from both her and Crowley, and raises his hands placatingly. Up close, the hardness in her blue eyes is more apparent, a ruthlessness unforgiving as polished steel or sharpened stone set in features that could otherwise be described as delicate, and he understands there’s threat, not to him, but to someone at least, rippling through her smaller form. Though he makes no further move to approach, her bat stays primed, the muscles in her lithe arms pulled taut like the ropes of a trebuchet filled and ready to fly.

Stealing a quick glance away, Aziraphale searches out Crowley’s wary, yellow eyes out of the corner of his own. Though his head stays fixed towards her, and the caution doesn’t leave his expression, Crowley does flick his eyes back in return to catch his briefly. The hold, for a fraction of a second, searching, questioning, and Aziraphale finds his unspoken concern answered by a nod so small it’s barely an inclination of Crowley’s head. Though clearly meant to be reassuring, the gesture and the flicker of a smile that goes with it ring truer of exhaustion and pain and faux bravado. Though he’s come out the other end, he’s been through the wringer over the short half hour he’s been missing, and Aziraphale is more than aware.

There’s a smudge of blood his head, and a protective hunch of his shoulders towards the side his arm remains curled around. The fingers of the hand that brace it are no doubt broken, bent and bruised and swollen, and he cannot help but supress a wince. Up close, he notices Crowley’s left wing is drooping awkwardly, the tips of his usually pristine primaries are grey from resting on the dusty concrete beneath, and the ebony feathers of his forewing above are ruffled and broken and bent. It doesn’t make a genius of him to figure out why.

How dare she.

“You broke his wing,” he growls, the pleasantries having long since fallen at the wayside, and though the lady’s eyes widen a little, she seems otherwise unfazed.

“Why do you care? He’s just a demon.”

“And you think you’re better than him? You and that bat?”

She blanches a little at his tone, clearly taken aback by the sudden fury burning behind his still quiet words, but regroups quickly. Her grip tightens. The bat glints gold behind her head.

“Stay back. He’s mine. I won’t warn you again.” There’s a snarl to her tone, threat in her eyes, but Aziraphale merely raises a brow and steps forwards all the same. His hands stay clasped down by his waist, fingers neatly folded.

“Oh, I’m not playing games either, I assure you.”

A fraction of a second passes, Aziraphale waiting, holding her gaze while the lady clearly contemplates her options, and then, very abruptly, she darts towards him, the bat swinging out from behind her as she lurches. The metal glints in the candlelight, moving faster than he’d thought it could given her size and weight. There’s enough force behind it the air whips and whistles as it slices through, but he’s ready enough that a flick of his hand sends her tumbling backwards through the air. Screams echo before she’s landed, a pair, Aziraphale realises belatedly, her own, high pitched and more of a startled yelp than anything else, and Crowley’s lower in tenor and much more withheld, but echoing awfully with none of the pain held in hers.

Snapping his head around, he finds Crowley kneeling at the boundary of his golden prison, his eyes closed and the skin beside them pinched in pain as he cradles his arm to his chest. It takes him barely a heartbeat to realise his poor best friend had instinctively tried to leap to his defence, only to find the ring of golden runes presented more than just a physical blockade. Anger burns hotly in his gut at the unnecessary violence of it all.

Across the room, the lady lands a little harder than she naturally would, rolling, once, twice, upon impact until she skids to stop on her side on the grimy concrete. The bat rolls further away, skittering noisily over the rough floor, until it clatters into the leg of a table pushed against the far wall and disappears into the shadow below. 

Good riddance.

Though she’d hit the floor hard, she’s scrambling up again quickly, her hair wild as she stumbles towards the table with more urgency than balance.

“The book, Angel!” Crowley shouts as she runs from where he’s still staggering to his own feet, eyes wide and panicked and one hand extended indicatively towards the table. There’s an electric lamp there, cool white light spilling from the LED to illuminate a collection of clutter in general much more modern than anything else in the room. A box of candles, a tin of paint, a stick sitting on top with one end stained a familiar shade of gold. Said book sits a little way away, its cover dark as night and its pages yellow and dogeared with age. Whether she had been heading for that as Crowley had suggested or for her bat, Aziraphale doesn’t quite know, but he has her pushed up against the corrugated iron of the wall before she has the chance to let them find out.

“What are you?!” she snarls furiously, glaring at him through her hair as she struggles fruitlessly against his hold. Aziraphale shoots her a withering glare as he makes his way over to the table.

“An enemy you didn’t want to make.”

Up close, the age of the book is more apparent, as is the rather disturbing fact that the cover appears to be made of some sort of flesh stained so dark it seems to steal the too-white light spilling from the LED of the lamp from the air around it. Aziraphale dithers a little before picking it up. When he does, the ancient binding tingles uncomfortably in his grip. A defence mechanism of sorts, he thinks, and though unlikely made with his own kind in mind, angels and demons are ultimately built from very similar clays, even if there is a rather important difference when it comes to the firing. Still, he can only guess what it would feel like to Crowley.

“Put that down!”

“Where did you get this?” Inside the flesh-bound covers the pages are filled with text written in centuries old English and illustrated with runes from longer ago than he thought he’d see again. The parchment prickles beneath his finger as he runs it across the text. “This is dark. This is dangerous.”

“I’m warning you, that is mine!”

Aziraphale pays her no regard other than wondering a little darkly how she feels she’s in a position to be making threats as he turns another few pages. There had been a time when he’d unequivocally blamed all threads of evil left upon the earth on those residing deep below, but as he flicks a little further inside the book, he’s reminded once again that even the inventions of seasoned demons could be mere fairground games compared to the utter atrocities capable of the worst of human minds.

There’s a hatred penned inside the pages, fear and passion leaving a darkness in its wake powerful enough to be apparent even to him. Across the room, Crowley is starting to look a little sickened, so he closes the pages a snap. He’s seen enough anyway.

“No. This shouldn’t exist,” he says decisively almost to himself, and he supposes the lady must have managed to figure out at least partially what that implies as she thrashes desperately against his hold.  The book thrums uncomfortably in his hands, almost as though it knows what’s coming next.

“Hey, don’t you dare, you have not right! That book is mine!”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you understand the dangers of what you were working with.”

“I assure you I do.”

Aziraphale shoots her a troubled glare. 

“I wouldn’t say that is anything to brag about, my dear.” 

The thud of the book hitting the concrete echoes off the iron walls and draws a shout of protest from the lady. The impact disturbs dust and flecks of wood and long dried leaves, clearing a ring on the floor and leaving flecks of grey clouding the air around the lightless cover. It hasn’t had the time to settle before a flick of his wrist sends a candle skittering over from the circle. A sound not unakin to screaming escapes the pages as they catch.

“No!”

“This stops now. Do you understand?” Aziraphale says as the books beside him, turning to the lady still pinned to the wall as she writhes against his grip. Orange fights through the darkness to throw the desperation ravaging her face into sharp relief, reflecting off her eyes as she glares daggers at him across the room. “Do you understand!”

Despite her obvious fury, she pales as he shouts, and after a few long seconds, finally nods. He lets her drop, and though she hits the floor hard, she’s up again quickly. This time there’s caution written into her expression beside her fury. Though her eyes flick to the book curling on the floor under the heat of the flames, she makes no move to get to it. Aziraphale wonders if she knows the pages inside will be little more than ash by now, or if she’s just more worried he’ll be sending her somewhere worse than up against a wall if she even dares to try. He could, if he so wanted to, but he’s an angel, so as much as he wants to punish her for what she’s done, he doesn’t.

“I will know if you try anything like this again,” he warns darkly instead, clasping his hands again and holding her gaze until she lets hers drop. “Now avaunt! Be gone!”

The lady scarpers without another word. She’s limping a little and he can’t help but think that serves her right. Though Crowley droops in his circle the second she’s out of sight, Aziraphale holds back a soothing tut as he suspects coddling is very much the opposite of what Crowley wants right now.

“Perhaps avaunt isn’t as well-known as it used to be,” he muses instead of her apparent confusion, and Crowley lets out a tight snort as he wraps his arms around himself.

“I’m not sure it was ever a much spoken word beside by you, angel.”

Aziraphale hums, gives the smouldering cover and ashy pages now littering the concrete an investigative nudge with the toe of his shoe, and then after waves it away before heading over to the circle.

“Still, she got the message. Hopefully she won’t try anything of the sort again.”

“Doubt it. You can be pretty scary when you want to be.” There’s a note of pride sitting amongst the weary, slightly wheezy tones of Crowley’s voice, and Aziraphale feels his cheeks burn.

“I was given a flaming sword for a reason, you know,” he huffs, and redirects his attention to the runes on the floor.

After checking no traps have been laid, he waves away the paint, sending gold flecks flaking up into the air and dissipating into the night. Visibly, nothing changes, there had been nothing to see of the wall that had kept Crowley contained and the painted circle stays just that, but Crowley himself sags in such instantaneous relief he has no doubt whatsoever the spell is broken. The wall of black behind him vanishes with a hiss as he draws his injured wings away.

His movements are more than a little uncoordinated as he stumbles with understandable determination through the boundary of his prison, and Aziraphale darts forward to steady him as though on instinct. His arm feels awfully chilled as he holds it tight, and trembles lightly with fine tremors of cold and exhaustion Aziraphale had failed to notice through the dark.

“Bit of a flipside, isn’t it, me rescuing you?” he notes lightly, forcing a chuckle and giving the pyjama clad arm in his a squeeze even as his heart is sitting tight and painful in his chest. Crowley hums grimly, unconsciously tightening the arm he holds around his ribs.

“Let’s not make a habit of it.”

“No, let’s not. You don’t look like you overly enjoyed it.”

Worn as he is, Crowley gives him a withering look. His blown yellow eyes glint in the light of the candles that surround the painted circle, the skin beside them pinched in pain beneath his nonchalantly cocked brows. He looks so very done, so cold and tired and pained, and in true Crowly fashion, like he’s trying so very hard not to let any of it show.

Aziraphale’s heart aches for him.  

He tries not to let that show either. 

“Come on then,” he says softly instead, waving out the candles with his free hand, and taking a better grip of Crowley’s icy arm with the other. “Let’s get you home.”

Chapter Text

The garden is dark when they land, and the grass and earth below is soft with autumn rain beneath Aziraphale’s shoes. The lights have been left on inside the cottage, and their orange glow emanates through the glass of the kitchen window and the drawn drapes of the dining room to leave long shadows stretching towards them across the lawn. Aziraphale pays his forgetfulness little heed. He’d had more important matters to attend. 

A hurting demon. A resulting ache in his chest. He’s tired from the long flight too, and weary with the mental effort of having to pilot the both of them home.

Crowley himself is worn enough his knees give out immediately upon landing, and though Aziraphale tries to steady him with the hand still wrapped around his upper arm, his slight form is remarkably heavy and they end up tumbling to the dewy grass in a tangle of limbs all the same. Pulled sideways as he is, it’s only at a sacrifice of his dignity that he avoids landing on poor Cowley and ends up rolling to a stop in a heap of his own amongst the few apples that had dared to collect beneath the tree.

Crowley will undoubtedly be having words, though perhaps another night.

His essence ebbs so low right now, a candle in the dark opposed to the bonfire it’s always been.

A groan echoes from his general direction, and Aziraphale turns his head towards his friend and finds him propping himself up on his elbow beside the rosebush looking even more rumpled than he had before. There are leaves in his hair, just as he realises there are in his own, and a smudge of something dark across his jaw only just visible in the yellow glow emanating through their cottage windows. He’ll definitely be needing a fresh set of pyjamas now, if there had been a chance he didn’t before.

“Apologies for the landing, my dear, I know that probably wasn’t what you needed after the evening you’ve had.”

There’s a grunt of acknowledgement from across the lawn, and he half expects a nonchalant complaint briming with faux bravado to follow, but then instead there’s a cough, rough and wheezy and wet enough Aziraphale cannot help but frown.

“Crowley? Are you quite alright?”

Crowley winces as he pushes himself up on one shaking hand, the other staying wrapped around his ribs, and then coughs again. This time, it leaves a trail of dark on his lips just visible in the moonlight, and Aziraphale supposes that answers his question entirely.

He can’t help but stare.

“Oh dear.”

Crowley grunts in apparent agreement, and then manages a wheezy inhale.

“Fancy fixing my lung before I discorporate, angel?” he rasps, trying for nonchalance and falling just a little short. The eyebrow he has cocked toward the mussed red of his hair is dark against his pallid skin. Aziraphale thinks his own might have been dancing towards his hairline too, the middles pulled together in concern, but he refuses to fuss even as he clambers to his feet because he knows that won’t be what Crowley wants.

“Oh, yes, I should think so. Only we should probably go inside first, it’s mighty cold out here. Can you walk?”

Crowley shoots him a withering glare in answer despite himself, but he does take the hand Aziraphale offers to help him to his feet and does little to resist the supporting arm that curls around his waist. It’s a sign of just how wretched he feels that he leans into his side when Aziraphale pulls his arm over his shoulder to steady him as they head into the cottage.

They end up in the kitchen, it’s closest to the door. Despite his objection to being carried, Crowley’s legs are quaking like those of a newborn foal by the time Aziraphale has him settled in a chair pulled out from their breakfast table. His skin is pasty in the overhead lights, and his breaths are ragged and wheezy and harsh. When he coughs a frankly alarming amount up blood joins the darkness already staining the palm of his battered left hand.

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale repeats, frowning, and then sets about righting what he can.

***

As it turns out, fixing Crowley’s corporation isn’t all that difficult this time around. Gently healing a few broken ribs and a punctured lung settles his desperate rattling wheezes into calmer albeit still restrained breaths, and carefully patching the rather impressive tear in his liver stops his slide towards discorporation via blood loss. The pair of fractured fingers on his left hand align perfectly with a careful miracle, before another tender handwave has the vivid purple and red bruises fading beneath his shirt. Instantly, Crowley sucks in a shaking breath of relief so much deeper than he had been able to before, his chest expanding evenly and easily. A little more of the tension ebbs out of his expression, and Aziraphale understands it must have been pretty unpleasant to have spent the past few hours drowning on his own blood.

He’s still awfully pale, though, his usually pallid skin a sickly grey, and so Aziraphale summons another small miracle to help his bone marrow along with replacing the blood he’s lost over the course of his adventure.

“There, that should have you feeling tip-top again soon.”

“Thanks,” Crowley mutters, sounding equal parts grateful and exhausted as he flexes out the broken fingers Aziraphale has oh so carefully repaired. “Mm, I still feel like I need to sleep for a week.”

“Yes, I’d imagine some rest will help, those summoning circles are a beast at the best of times. Though, Crowley, I do think I should have a look at your wing before you do? You were holding it awfully gingerly before.”

As much of an understatement as that is, Crowley grimaces, his expression twisting in a way that suggests he’d very much hoped Aziraphale hadn’t had the time to notice that in the chaos of the evening.

“Nah,” he tries, dismissively. “Not much you can do to fix that, anyway.”

“Well, no,” Aziraphale begrudgingly admits. “But I can at least make sure everything’s in place for it to heal while you sleep. Unless you particularly want to heal it now?”

As he had expected him to, Crowley shakes his head looking utterly exhausted by the suggestion, but still seems about to argue all the same until Aziraphale puts a hand on his forearm and squeezes gently. The skin under his hand is icy despite the mild air of their kitchen, and he fights the urge to rub a little of his warmth into Crowley’s bony arm. He should have brought him a jumper or blanket, he realises belatedly, even if now is no longer the time.

“I’ll be quick, and then I promise we can get you back tucked up in bed, hot water bottle included. Please, my dear?”

“Fine,” Crowley hisses, defeated, and then, after a long, tired sigh, slowly turns himself to sit sideways on the chair. Aziraphale briefly busies himself moving his chair and a rogue plant pot out of the way before returning.

“There you go, you’ve got space.” 

Crowley nods, a weary bop of his head, and then suddenly the room is filled with a wall of dark, iridescent feathers and Crowley is gasping for breath all over again.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale gasps, a sharpness stabbing in his own chest as his hand instinctively goes to ghost Crowley’s left wing. Where the right is held high to avoid knocking into the island counter, the left droops unnaturally, the tips of his dark primaries resting awkwardly against the red tiles of their kitchen floor despite Crowley’s best efforts to hold them aloft. Further up the wing holds the reminder why, and Aziraphale finds his gaze drawn to the nasty looking bend in the leading edge of the wing where he would imagine both the ulna and radius are broken beneath the ruffed black covets above. “It’s alright, let it rest, I’ve got it.”

Shaking from both the strain of holding up the injured wing when he’s already so exhausted and the pain it’s no doubt causing him, Crowley does let his wing drop until Aziraphale’s hands are taking most of its weight. He shifts it to one, carefully holding the wrist joint steady, and uses his other hand to carefully inspect the break. Despite the lightness of his touch, the whole wing twitches in his hands and Crowley sucks in a raged breath.

“You can’t fix it,” he repeats, his voice rough and exhausted, and although Aziraphale knows he can’t, he so badly wants to do just that. This isn’t the first time either of them has broken a wing, Aziraphale himself holds that title, much to Crowley’s panic at the time, but it is the first time under such needlessly violent circumstances. He thinks this is the first time one of them has suffered from an injury that has left the bones quite so displaced, too. 

“I can’t leave it like this either,” he says softly, heart aching. “It’ll heal wrong.”

Implication understood, Crowley huffs out a breath that sounds a little too close to a sob for Aziraphale’s liking, but then folds his arms on top of the table and leans forwards to rest his head against them. He looks utterly exhausted and completely resigned in a way Aziraphale can do very little to help.

“Go on then, angel, do your worst.”

Aziraphale swallows down his instinctive protest.

“I think you’re being very brave,” he croons instead, giving Crowley’s unaffected shoulder a gentle squeeze, and is at least rewarded by a weary, slightly wet snort from beneath the crop of mussed red hair. 

“Just get on with it.”

There’s an eyeroll audible beneath the weariness and pain, and Aziraphale finds a weak smile on his lips before the reality of the task returns to him.

“I’ll let you know before I move anything, okay?” he says, and Crowley nods into his arms.

Crowley remains worryingly stoic as Aziraphale oh so gently investigates the damage the bat’s assault has left behind, his fingers feeling out the breaks and displaced fragments of bone under the thin layer of rapidly bruising skin. The usually pristinely preened black coverts on top are ruffled and bent, a few broken off entirely from the impact of the bat, leaving dark, sharp sheaths sticking out from the skin. They’ll need plucking, the remaining feathers smoothing back into the neat, regular rows Crowley takes more pride in than Aziraphale ever bothers to with his own, but that can wait for another day.

“Do you think you can sit up a bit? I won’t be able to get the angle right like this. That’s perfect. Now, I know this will hurt but please try to hold still,” he warns gently, and then raises a hand back to the wing.

The stoic silence ends abruptly as Aziraphale starts realigning the fractured bones, holding them in place with miracled splints to keep things steady until Crowley is feeling well enough to heal them himself, but unable to mend them properly as he had for Crowley’s fingers and ribs not so long ago. He tries to be quick, but he wants his work to be right lest Crowley have to suffer further later, and so by the end of what have been a truly awful few minutes even for him, Crowley is shaking and pale and looks so close to passing out, Aziraphale gets a hand at the ready in case he goes.

“I’m so sorry, it’s done now, it’s done,” he murmurs as tenderly as one comforting a small child crying in the night or a fearful animal in a trap. Beneath his waistcoat, his heart is aching for him to rub comfortingly at his friend’s arm or shoulder, to hold him close and take away all the pain he can, but he refrains. He isn’t sure Crowley will want him touching him any more right now, and until Crowley himself indicates that he is ready, he will respect that.

“That sucked,” Crowley agrees shakily a few ragged breaths later, his voice ruined and raspy and wet. Though he hadn’t been screaming, exactly, the held back yells and cries that have left it in such a state still ring in Aziraphale’s ears as clear as church bells on a calm summer night, echoing hauntingly and likely remaining so for a while yet. He clears his throat before continuing. “It… it does feel a bit better now, though,” he adds, glancing up with blown yellow eyes, and though Aziraphale isn’t sure whether poor Crowley has said that just to bring him, of all people, a modicum of comfort or not, the wing does hold its shape better when he gently releases it. The tips of his primaries no longer ruffle against the tiles under their own weight before they’re pulled back out of the physical plane. 

Aziraphale nods and tries for a smile.

“That’s good,” he says, though it sounds brittle even to his own ears. “Now, let’s get you back to bed, shall we?”

It’s a testament to his exhaustion that Crowley’s asleep the second his head hits the pillow. He’d been drooping long before that; getting him up the stairs safely on legs quivering as a newborn deer’s had required a minor miracle, and Crowley had been almost unable to hold himself upright as he sat on the side of the bed while Aziraphale cleaned the grime off his feet with a wave of his hand and sorted him a fresh set of pyjamas.

He feels shaky himself by the end of it, worn emotionally, physically, and ethereally, and after tucking Crowley in with the promised hot water bottle and shutting the door behind him, he ends up leaning back against the wall that separates them right there on the landing. His spine presses against the brick between them as he stares off into the middle distance, the night playing over and over in his mind. It isn’t long before fear has him moving back to the bedroom and he takes up guard sat on top of the covers on his side of the bed, watching as the duvet on the other side moves gently in sync with his friend’s slow, sleepy breathing. 

***

Though Crowley had wished to sleep for a week, Aziraphale gives him only three days before gently stirring him with an offered cup of tea. Neither his colour nor the weary ebb of his essence have improved all that much despite the rest and the gentle healing miracles he’s been sending his way, and he still seems awfully cold beneath the blankets. Tea will help, he decides, warmth and fluids. It’s been keeping the British going for centuries. 

Crowley shakes his head at the offer though, still half asleep as he mutters a soft refusal into his pillow, and then gingerly rolls over in the bed and plants his temple firmly against Aziraphale’s hip. Dark red locks spread untamed over the fabric, a vivid contrast against the cream of Aziraphale’s trousers. Their usual style is mussed from the bedding and the strands are unusually greasy even after three days asleep, but that isn’t why Aziraphale can’t help but stiffen at the contact.

It's only a fraction of a second that passes before he relaxes, a moment so brief that it would have undoubtedly been missed had Crowley been anyone but himself, but then his lips purse in confusion at the gesture.

“Angel?”

There’s still a heaviness beside the confusion in Crowley’s eyes when they open and blearily seek out Aziraphale’s, a battle-worn weariness that even three days of sleep cannot fade, but the yellow has at least receded to his irises leaving the more human whites visible once again. While Aziraphale truly doesn’t mind their natural snake-like appearance and would never request for Crowley to hide them on his behalf, he’s relieved Crowley seems to have at least recovered the strength to regain proper control of his corporation. The yellow irises shine in the low mid-morning light filtering through the drawn curtains, blinking owlishly up at him from beneath a set of furrowed brows.

“What are you doing sitting up there?” Crowley mumbles sleepily, clearly confused. His voice is rough with disuse, but the edge of raw pain that had been burning in it the other night has thankfully gone. He looks relaxed and content beside the confusion, entirely at ease pressed up against him as he is, and Aziraphale risks carding a hand into his familiar hair. Almost instantly he’s rewarded by contented hum against his thigh as Crowley presses his head into his hand.

“Nothing, my dear, I thought you might want space, is all,” he explains softly, and he can see in Crowley’s expression just how long it takes for him to understand his hesitance. A flicker of confusion passes first, then pain, and sympathy, before fond frustration settles. His forehead is cold when he rolls it further into Aziraphale’s hip, pressing his face into the darkness of his trousers, but it warms something in Aziraphale’s chest all the same.

“Space is overrated. Have you been here this whole time?”

“Nearly.”

He more feels the resulting chuckle through the fingers still scratching at Crowley’s scalp than hears it with Crowley face pressed into his hip the way it is, and can’t help but frown at the laughter.

“Well, what if someone took you again?” he defends. His tone is perhaps a little prim, offended by the amusement Crowley finds in his concern, and Crowley only huffs another soft laugh against his thigh before reaching out to grab him around the waist in a determined but rather sleep-addled attempt to pull him somehow closer than they already are.

“Guardian of the sleeping snake,” he hisses, and though Aziraphale can’t help but huff a little irritably and roll his eyes at the joke, he still finds his fingers sliding down from Crowley’s fiery hair to gently trail lazy circles over the familiar knobbles of his spine across his upper back. A hum of approval, long and drowsy escapes the mound of blankets at his side before a sigh of cool, contented air brushes against his hip.

“Mmm, perfect.”

Even as his breaths slip into a comfortable rhythm so slow and sleepy Aziraphale can’t be sure Crowley hasn’t drifted off again, his arm stays looped around Aziraphale’s waist. It’s a lazy sort of hug, but a hug Aziraphale still treasures more than anything after all the years of the restricted sort of friendship they’d shared before. He's always aware that had a small, not quite human boy and his not quite canine dog not very nearly ended then saved the world not so long ago, that restricted friendship might have been all they’d ever get. Recent events have shown him just how fragile the life they now share is too.

So, though he had been trying to wake Crowley not so long ago, he lets him sleep again for the moment, enjoying the peace in his form and the easiness of his sleepy breathing and the solidness of him pressed against his side. He still feels cold even for him, an icy mound beneath his blankets in place of his usual mild chill, and his essence is still so weak Aziraphale doubts he could mend a chip in his teacup let along his own still injured wing, but he seems content and well in himself at least, and for now, that’s more than enough. 

He sits there in silence, doing nothing but not bored, content himself too, until the sleepy demon finally wakes himself a little more and loudly clears his throat. One yellow eye finds Aziraphale’s from deep inside the cosiness of the bedding, the eyebrow above it piqued.

“Angel,” he starts, still sounding groggy from his sleep despite the fact they don’t really need to drink, “did you say there was tea?” 

The cup of English Breakfast is still perfectly warm despite the time that’s passed since Aziraphale placed it there, and soft appreciation grows on Crowley’s lips as even that first sip soothes his throat. His eyes close contently as he swallows, head resting back against the pillows now propped behind him, and despite the goosebumps are growing on the exposed skin of his arms and the bags beneath his eyes, he looks relaxed and comfortable and entirely at ease.

For three days Aziraphale had worried the unnecessary and entirely underserved violence of the summoning might have hit Crowley harder than it seems to have, that the utter violation of being taken from his own bed while he slept would have left some sort of trauma in its wake, but it seems as ever, Crowley has taken it within his stride.

Still, he’s certain neither of them is eager for a repeat, and he finds himself absently wondering if wards to prevent such summonings exist, and whether Crowley knows and simply hadn’t felt the need to install such protection when they moved in. He’ll have to ask him, when he finds a moment. There are books, if not, but he rather feels something does need doing one way or another. 

“Where’s yours?” The question startles him from his thoughts, and Aziraphale finds Crowley’s tipped his head on his pillow and fixed those yellow eyes on him. Now he’s fully awake, they’re bright and alive, gold in the morning sunlight peeking through their curtains as they question him. It takes him a moment to realise he’s referring to the tea.  

“Oh, um-” he starts, wracking his brain, but before he can think of a better explanation than the truth, Crowley’s eyes have rolled in heavy disapproval and the fingers of the hand not already occupied with his own mug have purposefully snapped.

It’s a lazy gesture, one he’s no doubt made time and time and time again, one Aziraphale has seen countless times over millennia, but this time something inside him fails, and instead of the tea he assumes Crowley was trying to bring him, a small mug’s worth of lukewarm water and an empty teabag appear in the air in front of him and instantly splash down onto the bedsheets in a soggy sort of mess.

It's almost comical in its execution.

“Oh,” Crowley says, looking briefly both stunned by the malfunction and uncharacteristically shaken by all it seems to have taken out of him before he tries to school it all away. “Well, they do say it’s the thought that counts.”

“Indeed,” Aziraphale agrees distractedly, frowning first at the mess and then rather more softly at his friend, “though as I do think that hardly counts as resting.” Trying to ignore the discomfort fluttering deep in his chest, he gives Crowley’s arm a comforting sort of squeeze despite his reprimand, and then easily waves away the mess with a snap of his own. A wave second draws a ready-brewed mug of his own from the ether despite the taste lest Crowley try again. “Give yourself a bit of a break, my dear, you did go through quite the wringer just the other day.”

Crowley hums a little noncommittally as he leans back into his pillows but at least doesn’t protest the suggestion. His hands stay curled around the warmth of his mug, pale against the dark ceramic.

“You hate summoned tea,” he mutters instead, raising a red brow over his tired eyes. It gets lost in the hair falling haphazardly over his forehead, the style long forgotten now Crowley seems not to be putting in the effort to keep it there.

This time, it’s Aziraphale who can’t bring himself to disagree.

“I oppose to you wearing yourself out when you’re already tired even more,” he chides lightly, raising a brow of his own, and then rather pointedly takes a sip. The tea tastes tinny on his tongue, a flimsy approximation of the real thing, and though he isn’t quite sure what his expression does in response, the amused smirk that graces Crowley’s lips make the taste more than worth it.

“Are you sure, Angel?”

“Well. Perhaps that is a closer battle than I remembered.”

There’s a chuckle beside him, and then the gentle huff a fond sort of sigh as he valiantly takes another sip.

“Anyway, enough about me, how are you feeling, today? You do seem rather brighter this morning."

A vibrant brow gets raised his way over a raised mug of tea, the yellow eyes beneath rolling at his concern.

“I’m fine, Angel,” Crowley drawls, leaning back into his pillows and looking altogether a little offended he could be considered anything but even though his essence is still little more than a honey-coloured glow beside him. Aziraphale is sure he’d have flapped a hand dismissively too, had both not been firmly curled around the warmth of his mug. “A little tired, but nothing another nap can’t solve. It’s hardly the first time that has happened.”

“I suppose not.” Aziraphale agrees, a little tentatively. “Still, I’m sorry she hurt you.”

A strand of Crowley’s hair slips as he tips his head in a soft, dismissive sort of shake. 

“Not your fault. I’d have fared much worse without your help.”

Aziraphale hums, not disagreeably as what Crowley had said was true enough even though there would have been so much more he could have done to help had he been there sooner, and then sighs into his tea. Little whirlpools form on the surface as the swirls the mug.

“She broke your wing, Crowley.”

Crowley’s tea pauses on its way to his lips for just long enough for Aziraphale to wonder if he’s made a mistake before he takes the sip and then nods. A pinch of confusion rests between his dark brows when he glances over.

“I am aware.”

“How?” he can’t help but ask.

A casual sort of shrug comes with the reply, one sided but unfazed.

“Stronger than she looked.”

“What do you think she wanted?”

This time, Crowly thinks for a moment before replying.

“The usual, I suppose,” he muses, sipping his tea and looking decidedly unconcerned. “I am a demon, after all, you know, creature of Hell, bringer of all things evil. Bit of an occupational hazard, summonings. Though she was surprisingly composed. Usually there’s more screaming. And fewer bats.”   

Though he’s grimacing a little at the memory he still looks a whole deal less disturbed than Aziraphale feels. He half-heartedly wonders if his lack of experience in the summonings department is throwing off his gauge of what Crowley normally has to go through, but somehow, he knows that’s just an excuse.  

“Nasty little psychopath,” he mutters decisively, frowning at his mug, and he isn’t sure if it’s the words himself or the venom he puts behind them, but Crowley snorts in surprise beside him and promptly chokes on his tea.

“That wasn’t a very angelic of you, angel,” he rasps, laughing even as he coughs. Aziraphale pushes him up on his pillows and gently pats him on the back. Wrinkles of amusement still carve the skin beside his eyes when he relaxes back into his pillows, and though that’s undoubtedly a good thing, Aziraphale still finds his cheeks warming.

“Well, she wasn’t a very nice person,” he argues primly, taking a decisive sip of tea and then glaring at it when the taste reminds him how it was, or more importantly, wasn’t, brewed. “Still, it’s over now, and she can’t do it again. I bunt the book.”

Though he really doesn’t mean for it to, a little dejection slips into his tone, and he thinks his eyebrows may have pulled together at the loss. Crowley clicks his tongue consolingly.

“Well, it wasn’t a very nice book.”

“It was probably for the best,” Aziraphale agrees. “We wouldn’t want it falling into the hands of anyone else again at any rate.”

“Certainly not.” Crowley scoffs beside him, letting out a dark bubble of laugh void of actual humour altogether. Aziraphale glances up in time to see his brows arch emphatically over his brows before the expression vanishes behind his mug as he takes another long swig. A thoughtful twist of his lips takes its place when he lowers it, and he cocks his head as he swirls the remaining dregs. “How long was I out?”

“Three days.”

A disapproving grunt slips free into the room.

“No wonder I’m still tired.”

“You could go back to sleep?” Aziraphale suggests a little guiltily. “There’s no reason you can’t rest a little more. I only woke you because you looked like you could use the tea.”

Though he does look like he needs it, still dark eyed and weary boned, Crowley shakes his head at the suggestion and then tips back the mug to decisively down the rest of his tea.

“Nah. I need to shower. Besides, the apple trees will be going soft if I leave them too much longer. Don’t want them wasting the fruit just because the weather’s changing.”

“I suppose not,” Aziraphale concedes, still a little guiltily, frowning at his friend over his still half-filled mug. His hair still looks awfully vibrant against his skin, but his eyes are bright above their bruised lids, glowing gold in the sunlight edging through their curtains.

The bedframe creaks in protest as he shifts his weight towards the edge, leaning over to deposit his empty mug on the table and then shuffling over to swing his legs over the side in one smooth movement. A shiver immediately finds him once he’s out of the warm confines of the duvet, but as Crowley isn’t wrong and the seasons really are on the move, Aziraphale tries not to read too much into it.

He takes that as his cue to follow in his demon’s lead instead.  

Back to normality they go.

Chapter Text

Though Crowley had clearly wished for normality, a flimsy approximation initially finds them in its place.

Despite the October chill, he heads out to his garden that afternoon just as he’d intended, and tends to his plants just as nature changing with the seasons dictates. Beneath a sky dappled with whisps of cirrus clouds, the autumn is painting a rainbow rich in reds and oranges over the softer greens of the summer. The darkening leaves that cling amongst the apples blow softly in the breeze that whip their fallen comrades around the too-long lawn like thrown confetti.

Like the leaves, Crowley’s hair dances in the gentle breeze, soft and unstyled for the moment. It falls into his eyes every so often, and there’s a smudge of mud on his forehead from where he keeps bushing it back. His hands are filthy too, the sleeves of his turtleneck pushed back to keep them clean, and though he’s using his left arm carefully so as not to disturb the broken wing behind and his work is much more manual than miracle as a result of his diminished essence, he looks content and entirely at ease, just as he so often does when he’s working his garden.

There had been beans and carrots that summer in the patch out back, sugar snap peas climbing up canes in a pot beside the door. A winter harvest of potatoes and sprouting broccoli are still to come, and sprouts will be there for Christmas.

Aziraphale watches him carefully tame the rosemary bushes lining their front lawn through his office window, sitting at his desk under the guise of working on his memoirs though he hasn’t taken his eyes off the work outside for a good half hour.

“All in order?” he calls, when he hears the door open and lilting footsteps make their way into the kitchen. There’s the sound of something heavy being placed on the counter, the drum of water in the sink, and then more taping on the wood of the floor as Crowley slinks through to the office. He’s still got mud on his forehead when he leans against the frame, looking tired but happy, and his cheeks are lightly flushed from cool autumn air.

“Of course, though you knew that already.” He nods past Aziraphale to the window and smiles at the blush Aziraphale knows brightens his cheeks. “I brought in some carrots. The broccoli isn’t quite ready.”

“Perfect, my dear, I’m sure they’ll be lovely as always. And the broccoli too when it’s done.” 

“Bloody disobedient.”

“Don’t stress them, we’re in no rush.”

Aziraphale reaches up and gently wipes the mud from his forehead. He finds the skin there cool beneath his touch. There’s mud caught in Crowley’s nailbeds when he flaps him away, and more trapped in the creases of his skin.

“Look at the state of you,” he tuts teasingly, taking hold of one of Crowley’s chilly hands before it transfers its mud to any of his clothes and giving it a squeeze. “Go bathe, it’ll warm you right up again too. Maybe I’ll cook a crumble while you’re soaking,” he considers after a second in which Crowley hums in apparent agreement. “There’s only so long before the rest of the apples drop.”

Crowley chuckles darkly as he presses a parting kiss to Aziraphale’s brow.

“Nahh,” he drawls, as he heads towards the stairs, “they wouldn’t dare.”

***

They do eat crumble that evening, warm and sweet and spiced with cinnamon, shared at the kitchen table as the dusky sky gives way to the stars. It isn’t dinner, per se, but since neither of them require the sustenance, it doesn’t matter. They pop open a bottle of one of their better reds afterwards, lounge together on the sofa and giddy themselves on quality wine and even better company.

Eventually, the evening tires.

Aziraphale settles into a comfortable silence, too tipsy to read and too content to bother to do anything about it. Crowley falls asleep beside him, curled beneath a blanket and snoring gently against his shoulder. In some past life Aziraphale would have worried about the drool staining his pale waistcoat with the remnants of the bottle they shared, but things have long since changed. They can repair the wool another day.  

They’ll have forever, after all.

***

The pan is bubbling. The extractor fan whirrs.

In the noise of the kitchen, Aziraphale feels more than hears Crowley come up behind him, a warming essence still weaker than normal but as familiar as his own, and so doesn’t startle when the lithe weight wraps his arms around his waist and hooks a chin over his shoulder. The knife pauses in his hand as damp red hair tickles his temple, smelling of sandalwood shampoo and citrusy body wash and Crowley himself beneath it all. Aziraphale breathes it in, tipping his head into the embrace just in time for an intrigued hum to brush against his cheekbone. 

“You’re making stew.”

“Cobbler,” he corrects absently, leaning back into the embrace and feeling Crowley solid and soaked with warmth straight from the shower behind him. “The one with the cheese scones on top.”

Crowley hums approvingly, the sound long and low and content as it vibrates against his ear, and a proud warmth tickles in his chest at his success. Though Crowley will likely never be a lover of food in the same way he is, the past few years of living together have managed to give him a little more appreciation of the meals they shared than before, and Aziraphale knew before he started this was one of Crowley’s favourites.

After his day in the garden, malaise had followed, and even after a good night’s sleep and a day of little more than restoratively lounging on the sofa beneath a mound of blankets, weariness still hangs heavy in his posture like sodden curtains clinging beside a broken window. The cobbler would help, he’d thought, warm and filling and comforting in only the way human food could be.

“Would you like a hand? I know how much you like it when I cook,” Crowley offers softly. While true, he stalls for a fraction of a second, and Crowley, either sensing Aziraphale’s reluctance through his tightening muscles or a micro-expression he didn’t mean to pull or simply through knowing him like the palm of his own hand gives him a comforting squeeze.

Though normally he would be more than happy to wander back off to his books or paper, or simply sit at the table across the kitchen and watch as Crowley constructed a labour of love just for him, he’s more than aware of the weary weight around his neck and chill starting to radiate through the layers of clothes between them once again. The dark circles are still evident under Crowley’s eyes when he turns in his arms to meet them, but his expression is oozing with soft resolve. 

“Let me finish the chopping, at least,” he proposes gently, and Crowley grunts but doesn’t argue. He leans against the counter rather than heading off to sit back down, pokes occasionally at the onions sauteing on the stove and after a while, and prattles easily on about his plans for the garden for the coming months. Aziraphale listens while he works, and then when Crowley finally bats him away, sits down at the small round table over by the far wall.

Warmth fills the kitchen, rich aromas follow. Crowley plays with herbs and seasoning and stock as he watches, chatting lazily and adding splashes of wine and Worcestershire sauce and mushroom ketchup to taste. It’s familiar and comforting, a scene edging so close to normality Aziraphale can almost taste it. He just hopes it won’t be long before they fully make it back.    

***

Despite the discomfort the rumpled feathers must have been causing, three more days pass before Aziraphale finds himself leaning over ebony wings splayed wide open upon their bedspread. They’re dark against the cloth below, and now cleaned and neatened, glossy as ever as they shine in the overhead light. The fluffy coverts higher up are silky soft beneath his fingers as he teases them back into the perfectly neat rows they’d been in little under a week ago.

Beneath the feathers, Crowley lays face down upon the bedspread, his head pillowed on his arms and his expression tucked against the darkness of the duvet. Though he’d stayed quiet but tense through the preening of his injured wing no matter how careful Aziraphale had tried to be, his breathing is now even and regular, slow and lazy with sleep. He’d drifted off not long after Aziraphale started on the other, lulled by tender fingers just as he had been known to be before. He sleeps soundly as Aziraphale works, and though there are bruises darkening the skin of that wing too, his careful fingers are light enough that Crowley stirs not once beneath his touch.

His own heart thrums angrily in his chest as he works, caught in the callous assault that left fractured bones still yet to heal and feathers so broken he’d had little choice but to pluck. He tries not to heed the vivid bruising dark as night and furious as a howling storm beneath the feathers as he works, and tries not to wonder how many swings of the bat Crowley had suffered before the one that caused the true damage hit.

Despite his internal turmoil, his hands stay soft enough Crowley stays asleep beneath him. His breathing comes in gentle puffs, not an ounce of tension is left in his wiry form. He’s totally at ease despite how vulnerable he could be seen to be right now.

Even after the feathers have been long since straightened, Aziraphale finds his hands reluctant to leave the fluffy coverts. They linger longingly, teasing gently because there’s utter peace in the sleeping form beneath him and he fears that will fade if he stops.

***

Aziraphale’s never much liked the ocean, the uninterrupted vastness is more akin to heaven’s pearly hallways than anywhere else on earth, but Crowley’s always enjoyed a trip. After seeing the cramped passageways and crowded spaces of hell himself not so long ago, he can at least now understand what draws his friend to the shores.

Their beach of choice is just under an hour’s drive from their cottage, or a little more than half when Crowley is behind the wheel. It’s a wild little thing, with sand down near the sea and stones higher up. Dunes bridge the space between fields and beach, the grass that grows there often dancing in the brisk ocean breeze. Despite the natural beauty, it’s seldom trod by anyone aside themselves. It’s peaceful and perfect.

A sense of something a bordering normality fills the car as Crowley drives them there. 

After days inside the cottage, aiming for recuperation and falling somewhat flat, the expedition comes like a breath of fresh air, and Crowley turns to the sea when he climbs from the car and smiles as bright as the sun for what feels like the first time in days.

They end up down beside the sea, their shoes leaving few prints on the drying sand of the outgoing tide. It crunches softly with every step as small particles jostle for position beneath their weights. The ocean crashes rhythmically over the top, sending rocks skittering forwards before drawing them back in a show of power and beauty and perpetuality if ever Aziraphale had to name one.

Though paddling itself has obviously never been Crowley’s thing, he lets the tips of the waves lap at his boots as he walks, the wash shining the leather as he plays a game of risk with a being even more powerful than himself. It’s a game he’s never going to win, and Aziraphale can’t help but laugh when he finally darts past with a soft cry of protest, having finally flown a little too close to the sun and soaked his jeans on the splash of a wave just a fraction larger than all the others.  

It’s his own fault, and Aziraphale tells him so, but he dries him off all the same.

They end up a little further up the beach after that, hand in hand and faces to the sun. Crowley watches the waves crash while Aziraphale searches the first lengths of pebbles for amber because it’s something he enjoys even though he never had much luck. Normality reigns, for a short while at least.

They revel in it.

They head back much too soon.  

When they return to the car, Aziraphale finds a set of keys thrown his way. They jingle in the air, flash as they catch the sun. There’s no explanation, he doesn’t ask for one. He gets behind the wheel without protest, lets the seat slide forward to accommodate his shorter legs, and once Crowley is in beside him, starts the car to take them home.

The heating is on and warm before they’ve left the little car park. Crowley’s poking at the buttons on the stereo not long after.

“This why I prefer it when you drive,” Aziraphale complains after letting him fiddle with the channels for just a little longer than he usually would. Despite the heating, his skin is cold when Aziraphale good-naturedly slaps his hand away.

“The Bentley prefers it when I drive too, you’re practically torturing it with these speeds,” Crowley snips amicably beneath his breath, though he’s already curling up into his seat to make himself comfortable for the drive.

Aziraphale almost offers him the wheel, and then decides better of it.

“You gave me the keys, so I think this is just as much your fault as it is mine,” he teases primly instead, and Crowley humphs beside him, knees tucked up to his chest like a lanky pretzel, and then gives the stereo one last prod.

The car settles on Queen, doesn’t it always, and they settle into a companiable silence.

***

There are wings spread in the kitchen again, ebony against the ivory walls.

Aziraphale didn’t think he’d get to see them again so soon, and almost wishes that had been the case. He watches silently as Crowley stretches them carefully, the silky, dark feathers of his right rustling near silently with the movement as he works out the kinks in his muscles in a way he can’t seems to bring himself to with the left. He holds that one gingerly, keeping it tucked closer to his body like that of an injured bird, and only spreads it open to match its partner when Aziraphale prompts him to. He chooses not to mention the wince his friend can’t seem to hold back with the movement, nor the flinch as he runs his fingers so carefully over the injury he’s near ghosting the downy coverts on the wing’s surface.

The alignment of both the ulna and radius still feels good, he’s pleased to note as he carefully inspects the wing, the splints he put on holding well, but it doesn’t take him long to figure out why the wing is still causing Crowley pain. Despite his help with the alignment and the splinting to hold things steady over the past few weeks, it seems the wing isn’t healing, not the fractured bones themselves nor the angry bruising mottling the once pale skin either.

Confusion and unease stir in his gut, and it takes all the acting skills he’s learnt over the past six millennia to keep his voice and breathing steady.

“You haven’t tried to miracle it along yet, have you?” he asks, though he thinks he already knows the answer. Crowley confirms his guess with a small shake of his head.

“Been too tired. I haven’t tried anything since the tea.”

Aziraphale nods silently, entirely unsure if that’s a consolation or not, and gently brushes a few of the newly disturbed feathers back into place. He isn’t sure, and assumes Crowley isn’t either, how long it takes a broken wing to heal without the help of occult of ethereal forces to help it along, but he’s worried they’re going to have to find out. He doesn’t want to.

More importantly, they shouldn’t have to.

“You… you don’t think anything’s wrong, don’t you?” he asks.  

He can almost hear the eyeroll Crowley gives him in reply.

“You worry too much, angel,” he scoffs softly, but Aziraphale can’t help but wonder if he does.

***

Rain patters against the windows as their nightly fire flickers in the grate. It lights the lounge with its soft glow, casting strange shadows onto the red brick of the walls, and throwing out the comforting warmth only a real fire can. On the side cabinet, a vinyl spins lazily on the deck. Soft ELO spills out of speakers Crowley never wired in.

Aziraphale sits on the sofa, Crowley’s tucked beside him. Despite the lazy day they’ve had, he’s half asleep already, sprawled in an easy tangle of limbs over more of the sofa than could really be considered fair. One of his arms rests over the back cushions, his hand mere inches from Aziraphale’s shoulder, while his other holds a glass of red wine so loosely Aziraphale would be worried for the sake of the carpet if he didn’t already know miracles worked a miracle on stains. Casually, he rests a hand on the knee of the leg spilling over his own, absentmindedly rubbing soft circles through the silky pyjamas as he watches Crowley’s other foot drumming out a lazy beat into the air.

Theres a certain softness to the moment, an intimate peace so close to normal that even Aziraphale’s own worries are quieter than they’ve been in recent days. He drinks it up, revelling in every second he gets to spend with Crowley pressed against his side because there’s not a single one of them he would ever take for granted.

There had been a time when eternity had loomed long and lonely after the inevitable apocalypse that turned out not to be, now he doesn’t feel even such a timescale with Crowley at his side could ever be enough.

***

There’s frost on the ground one morning and it persist for a week. The sky is grey. The trees are finally bare besides the apples. The temperature in the cottage drops just a fraction compared to the chill outside, and though Aziraphale isn’t bothered by the change, it’s enough Crowley seems to suffer. His mood drops, his energy levels dip a little more, and even lighting a fire in the grate seems to do little to bring him any warmth.

“Do you fancy a walk?” Aziraphale tries one afternoon when the sun is shining with surprising warmth for the time of year and the sky is brilliantly blue overhead, and though Crowley nods after a moment of consideration and heads upstairs to dress, Aziraphale soon finds himself doubting the sense of his suggestion.

“Are you feeling quite alright, my dear?” he asks as he watches Crowley throwing peas into the pond in the park with more ought than enthusiasm. The ducks give him a wide berth despite the food. They always do. “You look a little pale.”

Though he is indeed looking rather pasty in the sun and is all but huddled inside the thickest of his winter coats, Crowley huffs a soft snort of a laugh beside him and throws another handful of peas into the water below. The light glints off his glasses. His lips are curled into a teasing grin.

“I’m a creature of Hell, angel, not much sunlight down there.”

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale agrees, feeling his brows furrow because although Crowley isn’t wrong there, something aside from his usual demonic seasonal depression undeniably is. He thinks at least some of that must have shown on his expression, because there’s a sigh beside him, and then a chilly hand takes his.

“I feel fine,” Crowley appeases softly, giving his fingers a squeeze. “Just a little tired perhaps, but you know how the winter is.”

While he does to an extent, Aziraphale nods uncertainly enough Crowley’s eyes rolls behind his glasses.  

“Look, would I lie to you?” he asks in a game not quite literally as old as time but close enough, and while the answer is no, never in all but the words he speaks aloud just as it always is, Aziraphale doesn’t think he feels quite as comforted as he should.

“Yes. You are a demon, you know,” he plays along regardless, and catches Crowley’s eye out of the corner of his own with so much faux distrust he snorts.

***

“Bond?” Aziraphale asks, one rainy afternoon as he pokes the fire into life inside the grate. Crowley hums approvingly from where he’d been watching from the sofa, and dutifully heads off and selects a disk from the collection. He puts it on while Aziraphale pops a pan of corn, and then sets it playing once the snack is ready and they’re curled around each other and the bowl on the couch. Despite the mug of coffee he’s drunk while the popcorn readied and the obvious effort he makes to stay awake, he’s snoring softly before the title sequence ends, and Aziraphale is left to watch the film alone.

“Come to bed with me?” Crowley asks blearily into his shoulder when the credits roll, his yellow eyes vibrant against their bruised sockets even half-lidded as sleep as they are. Aziraphale does without a protest, waving away the cold playing beneath the sheets as Crowley changes into his pyjamas. A warmth that has little to do with the temperature of their bed grows in his own chest at the appreciative sign that slips from Crowley’s lips as he climbs below the heated sheets and curls up against his side.

Though he doesn’t sleep himself and was never expecting to, he’s content for the moment, running a tender hand over the familiar contours his friend’s spine and watching the peace pull all the tension from worn face as he rests. One of Crowley’s hand’s keeps the duvet tight against his chin to hold in the heat while he pouts into his pillow. The other stays fisted in the soft fabric of Aziraphale’s own tartan pyjamas tight enough Aziraphale doesn’t think he could pull himself free even if he wanted to.

That part of it he doesn’t mind at all.

***

“I think I might make an apple crumble for pudding.”

“Again?” Crowley asks from where he’s lounging on the sofa in the living room, his head on a cushion on the arm and body lost beneath the blanket usual draped over the arm. 

“Well, look at the tree.”

Though he doesn’t look, it would be impossible given his current position, Crowley’s expression twists in a way that makes Aziraphale think he would regret the still drooping branches of the apple trees if he didn’t know fruits they provided made him quite so happy.

“You know they’d last forever if you wanted them to,” he says from where he lays, a little pointedly.  

“And you know they wouldn’t be the same,” Aziraphale replies. 

Though he tries to dissuade Crowley from following him to the garden when he goes out to collect the fruits, he may as well be trying to convince the earth to stop its eternal spin for all the effect he has. He watches Crowley potter around the garden while he’s picking the apples, contently pulling the dead leaves from the hosters and very clearly trying not to shiver even though he’s huddled in his coat. Absently, he wonders whether it had been the heat or his heart that stopped Crowley shrugging off hat waved into existence and pulled onto his head before they’d left.

They don’t stay out for long, and though he looks happy and content when they make it back inside, Crowley still makes a beeline for the table and curls up in the chair closest to the radiator while Aziraphale starts dealing with his fruit. He refuses a bath to chase away the shivers, shakes his head at the suggestion of a nap even though his eyes are drooping and bruised, but looks so utterly relieved when the radiator turns itself up a notch beside him Aziraphale can’t help but worry.

***

The telly in the lounge is on when Aziraphale comes through from his office in search of tea, an episode of Golen Girls echoing through to the hall. The curtains are open, the volume isn’t exactly low. On the sofa, Crowley’s head is tipped so awkwardly into the cushions as he dozes, Aziraphale is almost certain he never meant to fall asleep at all.

That happens so often nowadays, exhaustion running through him like graphite through a pencil, and he isn’t quite sure what to think. 

Sighing uneasily, he crosses the room, and gently straitens Crowley’s neck so he doesn’t wake with a crick and then drapes another blanket over top because he looks like he needs it. He tucks it in tight around narrow shoulders shuddering with cold despite the warmth of the cottage and then finds the remote to turn down the volume a little so it doesn’t disturb him while he rests. The curtains rattle quietly as he draws them closed. The lights click off with a snap.

Throughout it all, Crowley doesn’t stir.

***

Hope comes with the morning sun of a clear-skied day, in the form of Crowley surfacing hours earlier than he has in the week gone by. Aziraphale almost lets it grow. He listens to the footsteps playing on the hardwood floor above with interest, and so is ready and waiting when pale feet and dark pyjamas appear on the top step of the stairs and start to descend. Their tread is heavy, Crowley's hand is on the banister.

That fragile hope vanishes in a heartbeat.

Unusually, he skips the kitchen once he’s down and beelines for the sofa, flopping heavily onto the cushions and curling up with his head on Aziraphale’s knees. Not only does he still look exhausted, his eyes dark and bruised and his posture heavy, but he suddenly seems so utterly despondent that Aziraphale can’t help but run a comforting hand through his hair. Subtly, or what he hopes is subtly, he rests the back of his hand on Crowley forehead as it passes, feeling for fever but of course finding nothing of the sort.

In 6000 years of existence neither of them have caught so much of a sniffle. He wonders if that’s why the currently malaise of his friend is bothering him so.

“I thought I might pop to the bookshop today,” he begins quietly, when Crowley seems unlikely to start a conversation on his own, still softly carding his hand through that fiery hair. “There are a couple of books I wanted to fetch.”

A hum lilted with vague interest brushes against his knees.  

“You could come if you like. A trip in the Bentley. You might enjoy it, getting out for a bit.”

A second passes, of consideration, perhaps, before Crowley sighs and rolls his head. Though his refusal definitely makes things easier, giving him time to hunt down the books he thinks he might need without interruption or question, he can’t help the bubble of concern that builds in his gut at the knowledge Crowley clearly doesn’t feel well enough to want to join him.

“Are you sure? I hate to leave you alone when you’re unwell.”

That gets him a snort, and Crowley finally sits up. His brow is raised in vague amusement, lost in the fiery red falling unstyled over his forehead.

“I’m not a Victorian maiden about to kick it from consumption.”

“I know you’re not,” Aziraphale agrees, but the reluctance must still show on his face as Crowley rolls his eyes and pushes him away with a kiss.

“Go angel, I’m just tired. I’ll probably just spend the day sleeping anyway.”

Though he isn’t sure Crowley’s argument is quite as comforting as he’d intended, logic has him nodding all the same.

“Fine,” he concedes, “but do allow me to get you some tea before I go.”

Once Crowley is settled, tucked up beneath a tartan throw with a steaming mug and the TV remote, Aziraphale leaves him to it. The roads are familiar as they pass by, the route well driven by them both, but they seem just a little longer without a certain demon at his side. As daft as it might sound to some, he thinks the Bentley might be moping too.

“Look, the quicker we go, the quicker I can get back to him,” he reasons as they drag through Chiddingfold, and the Bentley whines but does allow the accelerator to depress a little more beneath his foot.

When Aziraphale arrives back at the cottage with the most relevant books of his collection hurriedly packed in the boxes stuffed in the back of the Bentley, the interior lights are off. There’s not a glow in any of the windows or filtering through green frosted glass of the front door, no orange flicker in the living room that might suggest Crowley has lit a fire to chase away the autumn chill. Behind the darkened glass, the curtains are open, yet to be drawn against the night.

Though only early evening, the late Autumn sun has long since set, and Aziraphale feels a thrum of worry deep inside his chest as he wonders why Crowley seems to have spent the past few hours sitting in the dark, and then belatedly, if he’s still in there at all.

The gravel crunches beneath his feet as he hurries up the path, the books in the car forgotten.

There’s a chill inside the cottage, Aziraphale finds when he opens the door, a nip in the air he feels despite have just come in from outside, but also a distinctive aura lapping at his own from the direction of the living room. He tries to reign in his pounding heart.

Though Crowley’s eyelids flutter softly as he lights the lamp in the hall and then the one in the corner of the lounge, he doesn’t wake, and remains deeply asleep even as Aziraphale gently runs a hand through his hair. The other he presses to Crowley’s cheek, now a fraction sharper than he knows it used to be, and tuts at the chill he finds there. He throws yet another blanket over the top of the nest he’d watched Crowley settling himself into all those hours ago, feeling worry stirring painfully in his stomach.

You were meant to be okay, he thinks as he lights a fire in the grate and sets it roaring with enough heart to quickly chase the autumn chill from the cottage. He’s not sure if he’s more upset with himself for leaving Crowley alone for so long when he very clearly couldn’t handle it or Crowley for saying he’d be okay when he very clearly wouldn’t.

It’s a crackle of a freshly burning log that wakes Crowley a little while later, and he startles upright quickly enough he very nearly topples off the sofa muddled up in his nest of blankets as he is.

“It’s okay, the guard is up.” Golden eyes still blown with terror find his own, staring like a deer in the headlights for a long second until comprehension slowly filters through the daze of sleep, and then they blink. Crowley shakily slumps back down against the cushions as the adrenalin ebbs. Confusion takes its place on his expression, and he blinks again, first at Aziraphale, and then at the darkness outside the window, before he closes his eyes with a grunt and rubs a hand over his face. Aziraphale doesn’t think he looks any better than he had that morning, despite the whole day of sleep, and a sharpness clenches in his chest.

“Find what you needed?” Crowley slurs in greeting. Sleep hangs heavy in his tone, but at least he sounds a little less miserable than he had when he’d first come down that morning. Aziraphale crosses the room from his armchair and perches on the arm of the sofa at Crowley’s head instead. His hand finds the vibrant hair as though on instinct, carding through the sleep mussed strands.

“Possibly. I brought a few books home. They’re still in the car.”

Crowley hums, a noise deep in the back of his throat Aziraphale guesses was intending to convey faux disapproval but comes across more as a purr. His head is pressing into Aziraphale’s hand, tipping back on his pillows exposing his long throat, and despite the frown in his lips, the tension collected beside his closed eyes is ebbing away like a receding tide.

“I know,” he complains, aiming for petulant, and missing entirely. “I can hear the suspension crying for help from here.”

Aziraphale tuts good naturedly and fails to keep the fond smile off his lips.

“No, you can’t. It’s just a spot of light reading. You’re being dramatic.”

“’m never dramatic,” Crowley protests, and then sighs into his pillow.

“Let me know if you want a hand getting them out,” he offers, and Aziraphale nods and thanks him dearly even though they both know he’ll be asleep again long before that can happen and runs his hand even deeper into Crowley’s hair. There’s not an ounce of tension beside those yellow eyes as the flutter closed again, and the soft smile remains on Crowley’s lips long after sleep finds him once again.

Aziraphale can’t find it in his heart to move.

***

Despite the offer, the books remain in the car, seemingly forgotten, on Crowley’s part at least, and despite the concern that they seem to have so easily slipped his mind, Aziraphale finds himself relieved. Though secrecy wasn’t really his intention, Crowley still doesn’t take kindly to the topic of his recent malaise, and it simply seems kinder to save them both the confrontation.

The books live in the car. Aziraphale researches during the nights Crowley now always sleeps and the daytime naps he suddenly cannot help but take.

Soon, books settle in pairs beside the sofa and their bed, the fiction he reads aloud to Crowley just as he always has now accompanied by research he switches to when he inevitably dozes off. Though the demon has always favoured the lesser of the seven sins, sleep finds him so unintentionally now, and despite all the rest he’s getting, the dark bruises never leave the skin beneath his sunken eyes.

Aziraphale can’t help but worry if he’s feeling okay beside the obvious malaise. Crowley snaps at him when he asks.

Though that does nothing to stem his worry, Aziraphale doesn’t dare to ask again.

***

Aziraphale is making soup at the time the echoing thud crashes through from the bedroom above and he startles violently enough both the nutmeg itself and the tiny grater it had come with slip from his fingers into the simmering pot below. They sink in tandem as the china rattles quietly in the cupboard.

“Crowley?”

Mildly concerned when he receives no response, Aziraphale flicks off the stove with a wave of his hand. The upstairs is quiet, the bathroom empty. The bedroom door is still ajar just how he left it, and swings open easily when he pushes on it. He’d expected to find a shelf hand fallen, either through its own failing or as a victim of Crowley’s increasingly frustrated moods, only, when he enters the room, he finds it’s Crowley himself on the floor beside the bed, sprawled with arms and legs akimbo as though he’d put no effort into catching himself at all.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale repeats, alarmed, and falls to his knees beside his friend. Crowley doesn’t stir at either the call of his name or the thud of Aziraphale joining him on the carpet, remaining so motionless Aziraphale presses shaking fingers to the pulse point on the side of his neck almost on instinct. As it so often is now days, the skin there is cold even for Crowley, but the pulse he finds thrumming below is reassuringly steady, if a little fast.

“Oh, my dear, did you faint?” he asks in disbelief, aware such a question is realistically rhetorical, and busies himself gently rearranging Crowley so his limbs aren’t quite so twisted and head is pillowed safely in his lap. Despite his height, Aziraphale finds himself able to lift Crowley’s unconscious form with relative ease, and he finds himself suddenly aware of just how slight he has become over the recent weeks.

Though Crowley has always been slender, all slinky hips and seductively sharp angles, he now can only be described as thin, undeniably underweight beneath the jumpers and blankets and dressing gowns he’s been huddling inside despite the fact that shouldn’t be possible at all.

He looks frail.

He looks ill.

The tired bruises beneath his eyes don’t help. Aziraphale sucks in a shaky breath as he realises just how dark they’ve become against the unhealthy pallor of his skin.

It’s then that two things happen almost simultaneously. The first is that Crowley stirs in his lap, finally coming to of his own accord with a roll of his head and a weak, unintelligible groan, and the second is that Aziraphale finally realises something is undeniably, terrifyingly wrong. His heart starts a staccato rhythm inside his chest, racing in panic as though in competition with Crowley’s own.

“What’s happened?” Crowley asks confusedly, his voice raspy and weak and wrong, and although Aziraphale thinks his question only relates to the moment, to why he’s on the floor beside their bed, he knows his own answer does not.

“I don’t know, my dear,” he breathes softly, feeling shaky and sick but trying not to let it show as he gently runs his thumb over Crowley’s too sharp cheekbone. “I just don’t know.”

Chapter Text

Though the fainting spell was corelation rather than causation, it still feels like the tipping point, and in the days that follow, Aziraphale can only watch as the tentative grip Crowley had retained on his health over the past few weeks slips and he spirals into a sharp decline. It’s as though the side of his sinking ship had finally dipped beneath the waves, the efforts of their battle to bail finally overwhelmed.  

Though the shift in Aziraphale’s own perspective only seeks to highlights the changes as they come, and the ones he’d missed before, Crowley remains firmly on the other tack. He’d waved off Aziraphale’s concern the day he’d woken on the bedroom floor, blamed it on too much wine and too little sleep even though they both knew full well that was a lie, and had utterly refused to discuss the notion that anything aside from the usual winter malaise is wrong since. 

He starts to roll his eyes when Aziraphale arrives with blankets and hot water bottles, snaps when he asks perhaps a little too frequently if he would like anything to eat, and stubbornly ignores the shake of his hands as he holds his tea and how winded he suddenly gets on the stairs.

The illness becomes the elephant in the room.

Aziraphale doesn’t know what to do to help.

***

Three days later, Aziraphale finds the sofa empty when he returns from a trip to the apple trees and seconds later stumbles across its previous inhabitant propped against the wall on the way to the kitchen. His legs sprawl over the carpet like those of a marionette cut from its strings, and his arms hang limp at his sides. Aziraphale can hear his laboured breathing before he’s even crossed the room.

“Crowley?”

Exhausted yellow eyes flutter open to meet his as he crouches down and gently takes hold of Crowley’s wrist. The pulse he finds is fluttery and rapid beneath his fingertips, the skin icy. His palm is damp with a cold sweat when Aziraphale shifts his grip to hold it, and he can count all the tendons in Crowley’s hand as those bony fingers move to curl reciprocally around his own.

“Talk to me, please,” he all but begs, holding those sunken yellow eyes as they watch him from a face so much paler than it has any right to be. He gives the hand he holds a squeeze, brings it to his lips as Crowley lets out an utterly humourless breath of a laugh. 

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me what’s wrong. I want to help, and I can’t if I don’t know what’s going on. Please don’t shut me out any longer.”  

A second passes before Crowley sighs, deflating a little more against the wall. The sound is heavy with dejection and shaky with the fear he’s bottled up for much too long. 

“Got dizzy,” he finally admits, “I keep getting dizzy. I feel weak, all the time, and cold, and I don’t know why. Its… I’m just so damn tired of it.”

His voice cracks, and he looks away.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale sighs. He squeezes Crowley hand tight, and finds his other resting softly on his narrow forearm, his thumb rubbing soft circles over the icy skin. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry you’re feeling poorly.”

“Not poorly, just… I don’t know.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale nods. It’s a lie and both of them know it, but he doesn’t have the heart to call him out. Squeezing Crowley’s arm again, he tries for a comforting smile and hopes he succeeds. “I don’t know if it’ll help, but I’ve been reading. About summonings--”

Despite the bleakness, a snort, weak and wet, interrupts him. Yellow eyes find his again, a dark humour lighting them a little brighter than before.  

“I know. You’re not exactly subtle.”

“And not particularly successful,” he admits, dejectedly. “I don’t even know if you feeling quite so rotten is even to do with that. I’ve been looking for some sort of summoning sickness, but I can’t find anything. I was thinking of asking Anathema if she’d heard of anything similar.”

He half expects Crowley to swat away the idea with a sneer and a tremoring hand, but the suggestion is met with little more than weary apathy. Aziraphale wonders if that’s just a testament to how awful he’s truly feeling.

“Knock yourself out. It’s not like it can hurt.”

“Thank you, my dear.” He tips his head, tries to find an encouraging sort of smile. “Your colour’s looking a little better, do you think you can make it to the sofa if I help?”

An exhausted grimace flits across Crowley’s lips. 

“Perhaps.”

“Let’s try, you’ll be more comfortable there. I won’t let you fall.” 

After a weary, resigned sort of nod gets sent his way, he wraps an arm tight around his friend’s waist, and gently helps him to his feet. While always thin, Crowley’s now little more than skin and bone pressed against his side, his wiry muscles wasted by whatever is making him quite so ill. He helps him to the sofa, trying not to think about how much of Crowley’s slight weight he has to take or how laboured even that short walk leaves his breathing, and settles him down on the cushions.

“Here,” he says, busying himself with the blankets and cocooning Crowley tight. A gentle miracle heats the air inside. “You sit tight. I’ll light the fire, and make us some cocoa, and then we can try to figure things out a bit.”  

Crowley nods, though he looks a little sceptical at the suggestion. Admittedly, Aziraphale doesn’t know what they’re meant to be figuring out either, but at least whatever it is they need to fix, they’re now on the case together.

***

There are deep bruises beneath Crowley’s eyes even while he sleeps, and though Aziraphale hates to have to rouse him when he’s so clearly needing the rest, he also doesn’t want him to wake while he is gone and find himself alone. He sits him up against the pillows once his ochre eyes have focused and passes him a mug filled with milky, too sweet tea.

“I’m going to pop out for a bit,” he says while Crowley sips and visibly fights a grimace at the taste, “Just to the shops, I’ll be back soon.”

Crowley nods without question, looking much too worn for curiosity, and Aziraphale finds upset and relief stirring in his gut in equal measure. 

He waits for the tea to be finished and to settle in Crowley’s stomach, and then helps him bury himself back below the duvet. It doesn’t take long for him to drop back off. 

Though lies still don’t come easily to him, small white fibs that have become a more familiar sin over the past few weeks, and so it doesn’t hurt quite as much as it would have before when Aziraphale bypasses the Bentley and heads out the gate instead. He tries not to think too much of the apples littering the grass beside the trees as he heads off down the road just far enough that Crowley is unlikely to notice when he disappears.

Knowing he’s not being watched is harder without Crowley at his side, and teleporting in broad daylight is risky at best and plain stupid at worst, but given what he thinks could be at stake, he’s willing to take the risk.

He looks left, then right, then disappears into the night.

***

“Where did you go yesterday?” Crowley asks the next afternoon, his voice breathless from effort but audible enough so close to Aziraphale’s ear. His more mobile right arm is looped over Aziraphale’s shoulders for support. Aziraphale’s own is around Crowley’s increasingly narrow waist. The stairwell isn’t really wide enough for both of them to make their way down side by side the way they are, but Crowley’s no longer strong enough to safely manage the decent alone.

“The shops, remember?”

A grunt puffs against his ear as he guides them down another step.

“You didn’t get more of those awful protein shakes, did you?”

Aziraphale finds himself frowning at the question, thinking back to his first attempt at supplementing Crowley’s diet and the expression of utter revulsion his friend had pulled at the taste. He’d declared them a decisive no despite the goodness packed within, and Aziraphale had reluctantly agreed, if only because Crowley had threatened to tip the next one on his head if he offered them again. Obviously, there are none, nor any other shopping for that matter, and he supposes some of that train of thought must have flitted across his expression because Crowley coughs a breathless laugh against his neck.

“You’re an awful liar, angel.” His yellow eyes glint in the overhead light when Aziraphale takes an eye off the stairs to glance his way, and his eyebrow is cocked pointedly enough he decides not to try again. Aziraphale sighs as he helps him down the last tread of the stairs. The flat ground between there and the sofa had been easy enough only the day before, but now Crowley’s legs threaten to buckle with every step.

“I went back to the farm,” he admits quietly when the journey is over, as he gently lowers Crowley onto the sofa. Though he’s exhausted from the stairs, he pushes himself up on the cushion the instant he’s free to do so, allowing Aziraphale full view of the worry and undeniable anger pulled tight over his expression. His sunken eyes are burning with more fire than Aziraphale has seen in months.

“You did what?” His words come out as a snarl furious enough Aziraphale might once have flinched away. “How could you do sssomething so-”

“There was no one there anyway,” Aziraphale interrupts tiredly before poor Crowley can waste any more of his precious energy on pointless rage. Frustration hardens his own tone, though aimed more at himself and the situation at large than Crowley himself.  “And nothing of any use. The circle’s broken properly, I checked. It isn’t that.”

A conflicted mix of relief and disappointment and something else Aziraphale can’t quite decipher crosses Crowley’s expression as the fury melts away, and then all of a sudden, he just looks resigned, and ill, and so very tired. His too narrow shoulders all but collapse in on themselves as he deflates into the sofa cushions, and he scrubs a shaking hand over his face. His left arm rests still in his lap.

“Apologies for shouting,” he sighs brokenly, looking so utterly done. “You were just trying to help.”

Aziraphale nods, shrugs a little in his own more restrained show of frustration.

“It’s okay,” he sighs, even though it really isn’t. “You’re not feeling well. I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have lied about where I was going.”

Crowley hums noncommittedly beside him.

“That’s more the sort of thing my sort would do,” he agrees, one brow raised, and despite the hardness of his words and his deadpan expression, Aziraphale knows him well enough to know he’s teasing.   

“And I think apologising for shouting is more what you’d expect from one of mine.”

“Soundsss like a shitty excuse for a demon if you ask me,” Crowley allows, and Aziraphale gives him a laugh as he settles into his own place on the sofa because he knows it’s what Crowley wants.

“Well, I guess that fits well with a not quite perfect angel he’s sharing a cottage with. What are we watching?” he asks, as he layers blankets on blankets around them and warms the hot water bottle tucked inside for good measure. There’s a shrug against him, one armed enough that Aziraphale knows the determination with which his friend had pushed himself up hadn’t done his still unhealed wing an ounce of good, but in the end it is Crowley who makes a selection. He defiantly battles through two full episodes of golden girls before he succumbs to yet another nap.

***

Aziraphale cooks while Crowley sleeps, he often does. Soups and stews, simple broths on the days his near negligible appetite refuses anything more substantial. He makes porridge or scrambled eggs for breakfast most days, offers cocoa when he thinks Crowley can handle it and juices full of sugar and vitamins when he cannot. Crowley’s stopped scowling at the sugar-sweet tea nowadays, and Aziraphale can’t decide if he’s relieved by that or not.

It’s a bitter victory, at the very least.

There’s an easy chicken stew on the stove that night, dumplings ready to go on top. He serves two bowls and carries them through to the lounge, props Crowley up on the sofa when he struggles to get upright by himself, and then settles both their bowls upon their knees. The spoon shakes in Crowley’s hand, and the bowl never empties even though Aziraphale can see he’s tried.

That night, Aziraphale carries him up to bed for the first time, a weight so slight in his arms it’s not a surprise Crowley’s legs had buckled when he stood. The room is quiet as they ready for the night, tension hanging in the air like a band pulled taught enough to snap. Aziraphale’s heart drums a worried staccato against his ribs as he wonders how long before it does.

***

Though soft miracles have been keeping him clean a while now, Aziraphale still finds himself carrying Crowley to the bathroom one afternoon. He sits him on the closed lid of the toilet while he finishes filling the tub with water hot enough to steam, keeping a careful eye out in case he topples while he gets undressed. The bubbles fluff under the drum of water, a luxury Aziraphale will never understand, but a tired smile pulls at Crowley’s lips when he sees them rise.

“Bubblesss, really, angel?” he teases, one eyebrow raised at the extravagance, and Aziraphale blushes a little but shrugs.

“Don’t pretend you don’t like them, my dear,” he chides softly, one hand in the tub as he checks the water temperature one last time. “I’ve known you long enough to know exactly how you like your baths drawn.”

The plumbing gurgles as he shuts off the tap, and then the room is quiet enough they can hear the bubbles softly popping against the edges of the tub. Crowley says very little as Aziraphale helps him finish undressing, nor as he gently slips one arm beneath around his shoulders and another beneath his knees and lifts him the few short strides needed to cross the room. 

His eyes slip closed in utter bliss the second Aziraphale lowers his ravaged body below the rippling warmth of the water and a hum of appreciation escapes his lips as he sinks deep into the tub. With so much of him covered by the bubbles only his face and the vibrant fire of his hair is visible, and despite the dark circles beneath his sunken eyes and the sharpness of his cheekbones, Aziraphale wonders if for just a moment they can pretend everything is going to be okay. For the first time in weeks, he thinks Crowley looks truly comfortable too.

As Crowley sloshes softly, Aziraphale sinks down to sit on the floor beside the tub. He leans against the side, and watches quietly, revelling in the peace in Crowley’s expression and the absence of the taut lines that had taken up near-permanent residence beside his eyes. He doesn’t think Crowley is in pain, he says he’s not, at least, but the constant chill neither of them can shift and the stress and confusion and worry of whatever is going on are wearing on him more than he will ever admit. 

“My shampoo is behind the mirror,” Crowley says eventually, eyes closed and his expression lax, and tips his head right back to submerge the very front of his fringe beneath the water. He sounds tired, and Aziraphale feels that in himself too as he pulls himself back to feet and makes his way over to the basin. There’s a catch at the side of the mirror, one that when pulled, will let the reflective pane swing open to reveal the cupboard hidden within, but he finds his hand pausing on the cold metal when he finds it.

Though mirrors are not something he finds himself looking in often, especially distracted as of late, he isn’t unfamiliar with his own appearance. Blue eyes, white, untameable hair. His face is rounder than most, his cheeks soft and his teeth neatly lined behind a smile usually wide and welcoming. The features he finds there are familiar as they have been for the last 6000 years, but there’s a difference there now he can’t help but stop and stare at when he sees it.

Though Aziraphale has become heartbreakingly accustomed to the visible effects of the illness ravaging Crowley’s corporation, he had yet to notice the effect it had been having on his own. He’s been feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders for a while now, but he hadn’t realised it was so obvious to see. He wonders absently if Crowley has noticed the circles beneath his eyes and the haunted look within. He hopes more than anything he hasn’t.

“Angel?” Crowley says from behind him, and Aziraphale quickly repurposes the hand he’d found rubbing at the darkened skin. He finds his friend peeking over the side of the bath when he turns, shampoo now in hand, his eyes concerned and his damp brows pulling together in a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, my dear. I was just getting the shampoo,” he says, showing the bottle and forcing a smile, and though Crowley’s frown deepens, he doesn’t press the issue.

With a little help, he sits himself up against the edge of the tub when Aziraphale offers to wash his hair, leaning back into his hands while he lathers soapsuds into a sandalwood scented cloud bright against the fiery strands, and humming appreciatively when he moves on to gently scratching at his scalp. His eyes close, his expression slackens. He looks so utterly at ease Aziraphale never wants the moment to have to end even though it’s inevitable it will.

After rinsing, conditioner comes next, insisted on by Crowley despite the fact he hasn’t left the cottage in weeks, and by the time that is applied and smoothed through from root to tip and then rinsed back out again, Crowley’s struggling to stay upright, and goosebumps are littering the soft skin of his upper arms. Aziraphale lowers him back below the water even though it’ll return the soapsuds to his hair, and after a moment’s thought, gently heats the bath a little more.

***

There’s a saying that says no news is good news, but Aziraphale wants to disagree. Nine days pass between the phone call in which Aziraphale explains his worries to Anathema and the day she returns his call, and in that time, the severity of the situation has only made itself oh so much more apparent.

Crowley’s asleep when she phones, though he so often is it isn’t a surprise. He can barely make it through a chapter of a book or an episode of something easy and plotless on Netflix now, and their trips downstairs are more for a change of scenery in the moments in between his naps than anything else. Meals are a struggle; his appetite has fled. Even his essence is weary and worn, his fire barely a lantern in the night.

“Why not, she just wants to help?” Aziraphale snaps when Crowley refuses her suggestion that she visit because for all the effort she’s putting into her reading, she’s getting just as far as he is. There’s frustration in his tone, and he knows it isn’t helpful or fair on Crowley but he’s so tired and stressed and just plain scared he can’t help that it slips its way in there. Crowley’s tucked up in bed beneath layers upon layers of blankets, and slumped against his pillows because even sitting up under his own steam is too much for him nowadays. Despite the jumpers, his skin will be icy to the touch and littered with goosebumps. Aziraphale is certain he’d be shivering almost constantly nowadays had he had the energy to spare.

“Because I don’t want her here!” Crowley bites back, though Aziraphale wonders if ‘but I don’t want her seeing me like this’ would have been truer words. He’d understand if they were, at least from Crowley’s point of view. There’s more fire in his tone than Aziraphale has heard for a while and the yellows of his eyes widen slightly in his fury, but even as he glares, he’s sinking back into his pillows breathing hard.

There’s so little of his strength left now, it’s slipping away like sand from a torn paper bag no matter how hard they tried to sustain it, and Aziraphale doesn’t know what else he can do to help.

It hurts, so damn much, to see him like this, to watch him suffer and feel as helpless as he does, but even that pales into nothing in comparison to the utter agony that infiltrates his chest in those dreadful moments when he dares to question what might happen next. 

“But you’re dying, Crowley,” he snaps in reply before he can stop himself, feeling furious and broken and worn to the very core all at once. “You’re dying, and I don’t know what else to do to help!”

For a second afterwards, Crowley just stares, sunken eyes wide in surprise, and then he shrugs his emotional shield back into place. The heavy roll of yellow eyes he gets grates at him more than he thinks it should.

“It’s jussst paperwork,” Crowley says, shrugging weakly against his pillows with more bravado than rings true, and while what he’s saying wouldn’t be wrong based on past experience, Aziraphale worries that with his essence still so weak, discorporation won’t be what happens next. He doesn’t know if Crowley has considered such an alternative, if he’d even want to, but he can’t help the words that slip past his lips.

“But what if it isn’t this time?” he demands, his voice cracking and wet despite him being the logical one, his usual composure a perfect ying to Crowley’s emotional yang. “What if there isn’t enough of you left to make it back?”

“You’re just being sssilly, angel,” Crowley scoffs incredulously. There’s a cold look in his eyes as he leans back into his pillow with an air of finality, but as good as an act it is, 6000 years of companionship mean even as upset as he is Aziraphale doesn’t miss the uncertainty buried miles deep within his tone.

***

Though he doesn’t make an effort to pinpoint exactly when it happened, Aziraphale realises one day that their trips downstairs have stopped. The grate sits ready in the living room. The mound of blankets remains pooled on the sofa. A conscious decision was never made and Crowley never outright refused a trip, but he supposes as the illness progressed, the times when Crowley had looked awake enough for him to offer, or felt well enough to ask himself, had drifted further and further apart until they ceased to exist at all.

He hasn’t been out of bed in days, scarcely sits propped up against the headboard anymore because even that tires him out.

His corporation is utterly exhausted. His true form is, too.

“Read to me,” he frequently prompts during those precious slivers of time when he’s awake, often poking at Aziraphale’s hip as he curls frozen and sharp against his side. Every time Aziraphale honours his wishes, always swaps his research for the fiction they’d decided upon together and holds him close while he reads, but despite his effort and the hope in his heart, Crowley’s usually drifted off again before they’ve made it much further than another page.

He tries not to mind; Crowley’s corporation needs the rest, and he needs all the time for his own reading he can get.

The pile of discarded books is growing at his bedside, but so far, he has found little of use within their pages. He finds himself wishing almost every night for that awful book, certain a spell from within its pages remains responsible for Crowley’s deteriorating health, but there’s nothing he can do to bring it back now.

He just hopes Crowley’s life isn’t going to be the price they have to pay.

***

There’s rain battering at the window the evening Aziraphale glances down from his research to find a set of blown yellow orbs blinking blearily up at him. Though he says nothing, tries not to react as his heart accelerates in his throat like a rocket at take-off, a frown still grows on Crowley’s weary expression, and those bruised lids narrow around his too-bright eyes.

“Angel?” His voice comes out as a rasp, his throat dry from sleep and pooling with confusion. Apprehension hangs there too, buried so deeply behind Crowley’s characteristically stoic resilience that only Aziraphale would hear its presence.

“Your eyes, my love. They’re yellow.” Despite the hesitant mess of his explanation, Crowley seems to understand what he means. A frown is pulling at his lips as he blinks, once in confusion, and then again more purposefully, and then he looks back up to Aziraphale expectantly. Desperation riddles his expression, burning in his still golden eyes. Though he hates to have to, hates what it means, Aziraphale slowly shakes his head. He rubs a hand against Crowley’s back, wishing he could find the words to bring him even a modicum of reassurance but unable to simply because he knows such words do not exist.

“Do you fancy going downstairs? I could light a fire,” he tries instead for lack of anything else to say despite the fact it’s been a more than a week since they last ventured down. Not unexpectedly, Crowley shakes his head at his distraction. His silence is deafening, his fear palpable even though he would never admit it’s there.

There’s an ache in Aziraphale’s throat as he carefully shifts in the bed to join his friend beneath the mounds of blankets. It doesn’t abate when he pulls his icy form tightly to his chest. A head presses hard into the curve of his throat and a pair of wiry arms come up to embrace him back, all bony wrists and pointy elbows but holding him with more strength than he would have thought Crowley capable of and an utter desperation he understands entirely.

Pressed so close there’s nothing more than the fabric of their shirts and Crowley’s jumpers between them, he can feel every beat of Crowley’s heart against his own, and each wet exhale of his wheezy breathing tickles oh so softly against his skin. Though the rest of his body is gaunt, Crowley’s hair still burns like wildfire over the pillows of the bed they now call theirs, a beacon of familiarity in the cruelness of the night. Aziraphale buries himself it its familiar scent as he holds a form thinner than he’d ever thought it could be with more care than he ever dreamed would be allowed. It seems so cruel their winding paths had taken quite so long to truly align when they’d danced together on the earth for all this time.

“I love you,” he whispers that fiery hair, and his heart throbs a discordant agony in his throat when those same, now familiar, words are whispered oh so weakly back to him.

***

Crowley’s corporation is failing; Aziraphale knows the signs.

Beneath the sheets, his legs and ankles are so swollen with water his kidneys can no longer remove that his socks leave red indents in his skin, and in place of the papery white of before, his skin has now taken on a sickly yellow tinge as his liver stops filtering the toxins from his blood. His temperature fluctuates hour by hour, swinging wildly between an icy chill and burning fever as his body loses all control over itself.

In the past few days, he’s started coughing, dryly, at first, weakly, but then frothy blood starts darkening his lips if he lays flat for too long and it scares the living daylights out of both of them. An hour of frantic reading at his bedside teaches Aziraphale it’s likely the result of his weakened heart no longer pumping with the strength it needs to keep his blood from pooling in his lungs, and he feels his own grind to a halt within his chest. Crowley’s suffocating in his sleep, drowning in his own blood, and though Aziraphale can whip it away with a wave of his hand now he knows to do so, there’s no miracle he can perform to solve the problem truly at large.

He’d know. He’s tried before.

“I’m ssscared,” Crowley admits quietly on Monday afternoon as Aziraphale starts shifting him higher on his mound of pillows after a particularly vicious coughing fit. There’s blood on his blue-tinged lips, contrasting horrifyingly with his yellowed skin, but it’s the vulnerability in his eyes that stabs at Aziraphale’s heart the most. This isn’t his Crowley anymore, his extravagant, energetic, wild best friend who sauntered around London and drove his beloved Bentley at ridiculous speeds without a care, who introduced him to the human wonders of plays and concerts and alcoholic breakfasts at the Ritz, who taunted angels and demons even when he shouldn’t, and who saved him from so, so much on so many countless occasions. He hates to admit it, but the illness, whatever it is, has slowly stolen him away.

He hates for the day when it steals what little they have left, too.

Plastering on a comforting smile, he waves away the blood on Crowley’s skin and siphons all he can from his lungs, and then shifts his hand and climbs back into the bed beside him. Much too weak to sit up on his own, Crowley slumps against his side, a bony, frozen thing he wraps both his arms around and holds tight as he dares, wishing more than anything that doing so with enough valour would convince whoever is doing this separation is unconceivable. After a second, Crowley’s head nuzzles softly into the crook of his neck like the piece of a well-crafted jigsaw puzzle created just for him. He leans his own head back on top, the picture, for the time being, complete.

“You don’t need to be scared,” he murmurs softly, tenderly, running a hand comfortingly up and down his friend’s arm and fighting down the urge to cry. “I’m here, my dear, and there’s still time.”

***

As there so often is, there’s a book in Aziraphale’s hands as a night passes into day, but his eyes haven’t touched a page for the past three hours. He should be reading, but as the days have passed and nothing new had shown up in the many pages that passed before him, a frightening resignation has set in. Now, he frequently finds himself watching Crowley as he sleeps instead, waiting for the flicker of his eyes or the hitch of his breathing as he wakes so as not to miss a second of that precious time. Though he hates to see his friend suffering, Aziraphale still revels in those fleeting moments they still share simply because he just doesn’t know how many they have left.

A cough so week it can barely be called that leaves Crowley’s lungs despite his height on the pillows, and those hateful little lines pull tight beside his eyes. Even sleep doesn’t provide him respite any more, his pain creeping in around the edges of his dreams. Swallowing back the lump he finds in his throat, Aziraphale cups his friend’s cheek gently and whispers soft miracles into the room. The tension in Crowley’s expression abates a little as those magic words, but it doesn’t leave completely. It never does any more. It’s yet another failing on Aziraphale’s part, another way he could have done better for his dying friend, and he shakily runs his thumb softly across the papery skin pulled tight over too-sharp cheekbone, trying to smooth out those hated lines just a little more.

As focused as he is, he almost jumps when Crowley’s lashes flutter unexpectedly against his skin. It’s been a while since he’s woken so easily.

Crowley’s golden eyes don’t focus immediately when they blink their way open, blearily seeking him out for longer than they should have to before vague comprehension settles on his expression. His blue-tinged lips are so dry they crack when he opens them, and his voice carries no more strength than the puff of a languid winter breeze when he questioningly rasps out Aziraphale’s name. Confusion haunts him more and more these days, fever and illness and hypoxia wreaking havoc on his once brilliant brain.

Aziraphale takes his hand, makes sure he knows he’s not alone.

“Yes, that’s it, it’s just me. I’m sorry I woke you, my love.” He gives the icy, skeletal hand a comforting squeeze so gentle so as not to hurt he’s almost applying no pressure at all. There’s a nod of acknowledgement as Crowley swallows reflexively, dry tongue working, and then his weakened lungs choke up a couple of coughs that are at least drier than all the rest. Aziraphale sooths him gently as he waits for his wheezy breathing to stabilise as much as he thinks it’s going to. Each rattling inhale is so strained now, the effort they take him leaving the tendons in his neck pulled taut like rails beneath his skin, but there’s so little left he can do to help besides keep him warm and comfortable as best he can. Crowley coughs again, and Aziraphale grimaces at the sound.  

“Your throat seems awfully dry, my dear, would you be able to drink some tea if I get you some?”

A long second passes before Crowley’s head tips in the barest inclination of a nod on the pillow as he accepts the offer, and Aziraphale brushes back his fiery hair encouragingly before he tears himself away to make it. Though he doubts Crowley will remember the interaction when he carries the cup up to him, it’s the thought that counts, and he hopes even a few sips of the tea will help to bring comfort to his friend’s parched throat.

Utterly exhausted, he holds his head in his hands as the kettle boils, taking the precious moment away from the books and research and caretaking to grieve entirely by himself before the whistle of the kettle will signify his time is up, and he’ll go back to his duty of bringing Crowley every modicum of comfort he can when the world is treating his quite so hideously.

How much time he has left where he is now, Aziraphale doesn’t know, but he doubts it can be long. He wonders how many more hours can pass before his hasty trips away halt altogether, until he can no longer bare to leave his best friend’s bedside lest he have to leave this worldly plane alone.

He’ll know when it happens, whether he’s in the room or not. Crowley’s essence has been burning warm as a fire and bright as the sun beside him for millennia now. It’s unmistakable, familiar as his own, a feeling sharp as a pine, comforting as cinnamon buns fresh out of the oven on a cold winter’s day and wild as a box of fireworks launched high into the sky on new year. The aura of it is still the same, still irrevocably and unmistakenly Crowley, but it’s weak now, flickering in the dark like a candle burnt to the base, valiantly drinking up the last few droplets of its molten wax before it wavers out completely. Fighting back tears, he breathes in that fading scent, wondering what will truly ground him to this planet when it is no longer there, and then he stops.

With Crowley so close by, it takes him a moment to home in on the other scent, to grasp its trail as distant and dispersed and disguised by the original it is.

“Oh!” he breathes as he turns towards it, ending up face to the window, looking out onto the apple trees now bare of the last of their fruits in search of answers even though he can tell the essence is far enough away even he has no hope of seeing it through the glass. “That’s… that would explain it!”

Tea suddenly forgotten and heart in his throat, Aziraphale leans back against the countertop and presses his hands to his lips. “Yes, yes that… Oh, my poor love, no wonder you’ve been suffering so. We can fix this though. I can… well, I’d best get a wiggle on. No time like the present.”

Behind him, the kettle whistles, but Aziraphale waves it away with his hand as he hurries from the room, stopping at his office first to snatch a sheet of his paper from his drawers and a pen from the pot on his desk. The note he writes is quick and to the point, and once complete and signed, folded twice in half. It sits neatly upright like a tent of years ago when he darts upstairs to place it on Crowley’s bedside table, hopefully in his line of sight if he wakes and wonders why he’s been left alone.

For the moment, though, he’s asleep again, papery eyelids closed and wheezy breathing shallow but reassuringly even. Aziraphale hopes he remains that way until he returns.

“I’ll be back soon, my dear,” he says, brushing back his friend’s fever-sodden fringe and pressing a parting kiss to his brow. “Rest well until then.”

***

Crowley doesn’t stir as Aziraphale leaves the room, which is definitely for the best, and there’s no sound of him waking as he returns to his office for one last thing and then collects his shoes from the cupboard in the hall. He closes the door quietly behind him, locks it shut, and then walks a few hundred meters down the road as he’s almost certain it’s going to make what he’s about to do easier.

The night is drawing in outside despite the early hour, and there’s the distinctive nip of incoming snow in the air. With his attention turned so solely inwards over the past few weeks, so focused on his life inside the little cottage, on his books and research and keeping Crowley comfortable, he’s surprised to realise how much the seasons have moved on. The frozen leaves crunch under his shoes as he walks, and the air smells of damp and cold and a bonfire burning in the distance. Down in the village nestled in neighbouring valley, he thinks he can just about see the colourful spots of decorative lights as the humans prepare for a Christmas he hadn’t even considered was on its way.

Despite the distractions, it’s easier to focus on the other essence this far out, distinctly Crowley’s in nature, and yet simultaneously so not him Aziraphale wonders how he hadn’t noticed it’s infiltration before. It’s warped slightly, twisted and wrong in ways he can’t quite explain but can feel all the same. It’s like looking at a waxwork, at a well-made reproduction of the original that’s oh so convincing at a glance but is so clearly flawed when you peek below the surface.  

Except, that analogy is wrong, Aziraphale realises as he hurries down the road, or not quite right at least, because while the feeling is correct, the second essence isn’t a just a fancy reproduction of his friend’s. It’s the original, the very power he lived off, just tainted now, poisoned by whoever has had the understanding and power and downright gall to steal it. He’s certain he knows who.

Without it, Crowley’s miracles had had nothing left to draw from, his pot of energy empty, and his corporation had begun to starve despite the food Aziraphale kept making and the naps Crowley would take. Though human in appearance and functional to a near perfect level, the bodies they wear are not made to be sustained by purely human means alone.

Even if they were, Aziraphale wonder what would happen Crowley’s mind if his whatever powered him deep inside was sucked dry. He realises, belatedly, that maybe the confusion behind his eyes for the past few days hadn’t been entirely down to the fever and his failing body after all.

Aziraphale can only hope he’s figured it out in time.

Shaking himself back to the moment, he checks on the strength of the two essences, both Crowley’s weakened ebb now flickering in the distance, and that of his parasitic twin, and decides he’s gone far enough. He stops right there in the street, dusts off his coat to ready himself, and then, grabbing hold of those oh so familiar tendrils, vanishes with a quiet pop into the night.

Chapter Text

There’s a piano in the corner. For some reason that’s what catches Aziraphale’s attention first. The cover is closed, there’s dust on top. The sofas pushed up against the walls are mismatched but cosy looking, and there’s a fluffy blanket draped over one arm. The books and boardgames on a shelf beside it are interspaced by ornaments and trinkets and photos, some of friends, he’d guess, some family, but most with a familiar face smiling right back at him from somewhere in the shot. Though numerous, the plants on the windowsill are dead and dry, and Aziraphale can’t help but think of the ones back at the cottage, drooping themselves after weeks spared from Crowley’s devoted if frightening attention.

Turning on the spot to take it all in, he’s struck by the normality of it all, the quaintness of the room, though he’s as certain as he is the sun will rise that this house is hers. Pine prickles as he stands there, the sickening sensation of fireworks dances down from the floor above. Even had the lights been off and BBC news not playing on the TV in the corner, he’d know she was home. He hasn’t felt Crowley’s essence burning so ferociously in months, even if what he’s feeling is no longer truly his.

The floorboards creak as he makes his way through to the hall, past a stand with keys in a bowl and shoes wedged below and into a kitchen not all that dissimilar from their own. The cabinets are oak, the worktop is made of a dark sort of stone. There’s a blue kitchen aid mixer in the corner, sitting beside a toaster that would have been shiny had it not been for the dust gathered on top. Flies buzz noisily near the sink, feasting off long abandoned dishes piled high, and the fruit in the bowl on the counter looks to have gone untouched for nearly as long.

“What the Dickins…” he starts, looking around and wondering how a house so clearly inhabited can look quite so uncared for as of late, only to trail off as footsteps echo down from the floor above. They’re light and nimble, hurried as they make their way down the stairs and urgent as they head straight for her kitchen once down as though their owner knows he’s there. He wonders idly how as he waits, wonders if she’d heard his footsteps cross the hall, or if she can feel his presence ebbing through the floorboards just as he can hers.

Crowley certainly could have, but just how much of what he had has transferred to her, he isn’t all that sure.

His mind drifts back to the bat in her hand, to the awful bend in Crowley’s wing, and very suddenly, he understands just how she had the strength to put it there.

He feels sickened by the thought.

Furious at the violation.

Though he stands neat and prim and proper as he waits, there’s fire deep inside him, smouldering furiously after months of watching his best friend suffer through more than he ever should and weeks of heartbreak thinking this could be it for him, and it only fuels when her petite form finally arrives in the doorway.

It isn’t a surprise, he’d known she was coming, but such ferocity still lights inside him at the sight of her that the sword flickers into fire in his hand without his intentional instruction for it to do so.

Its orange flame flickers off the countertop and the darkened windowpanes and her wild eyes as they narrow at him across the room, and very suddenly, even though there’s utter fury inside him and an agony in his fragile, fractured heart, he can’t help but stop and stare as he takes in her appearance. Very suddenly he understands why the house he’s found himself in looks quite the way it does.

“I knew it would be you,” she snarls, a strange lilt to her plummy tone and about as much composure as a child on a cancelled Christmas morning. “I knew you’d meddle.”

Her clothes are rumpled and stained, and her hair, while clean, is uncared for and tangled awfully. A strand of it falls across her face as he watches, and she brushes it roughly back with the palm of one twitching hand. There’s something manic to the motion, a similar twist upon her lips. Her blue eyes shine much too bright in the dim overhead light, burning with infinitely more than just the fury he knows rages on inside his own.

He can’t say he’s surprised.

There’s only so much energy a human form is made to hold, and Aziraphale would bet his bookshop this is more. Had things been different, he might have cared more about what that means for her. Instead, his eyes narrow across the well-worn table in the centre of her kitchen.

“So, you are aware of what you’re doing.”

Even faced with his still smouldering sword, the lady’s lip contracts into something of a smirk as she tips her head once in candid agreement.

“Your pet demon is dying.”

“And you’re doing quite the opposite, I take it.”

Her smile is much too wide as she lets out an unhinged bubble of a laugh that echoes off the tiled floor.

“There’s such power within,” she crows delightedly, her blue eyes wide and manically bright. Her hands raise, fingers curling in excited fists around nothing but the thick, cool air of her kitchen. “I can feel it burning.”

Aziraphale hums, distaste playing at the edges of his fury.

“Yes, well, I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing. Any chance I can persuade you to just… give it back?”

Though he’d expected a sneer, or anger, the lady pays his suggestion little heed. Even across the room he can feel her almost thrumming as she embodies more demonic energy than he thinks a human form has ever held before. What would ultimately happen to her had nature was left to run her course, he doesn’t know, but given the pent-up fire cramped behind her eyes and derange rolling off her in waves, he can’t think it would be anything good.

Deep in his heart, he can’t help but think that would serve her right.

Across the room, the lady’s expression darkens.

“There’s such evil on this planet,” she says with such ferocity a speck of spittle settles on her lips. There’s a sudden wrath burning fiercely across her delicate features as uncontrollable as a wildfire on a windy day, twisting and prying at the speckles of humanity that remain. “Demons, rapists, murderers. Politicians. It’s dying, you know, the earth. All those greenhouse gasses. Global warming, at its finest. And what is being done about any of it? Nothing!”

Aziraphale narrows his eyes, understanding all of that but struggling to see how either of them fits into the equation.

“Crowley isn’t the problem,” he says, impatience stirring in his gut.

“No,” the lady acknowledges surprisingly easily, her head tipping jerkily in agreement. “But he can be the solution. There was so little I could do to help.”

She trails off pointedly, watching like he’s a specimen in a petri dish, and then laughing with delight as understanding hits. It crashes over him like the wave that had soaked Crowley’s trousers all those weeks ago, an icy blow he wasn’t expecting but cannot even try to avoid. There’s nobility in her intentions, an understandable passion burning deep within her narrow, trembling frame. The world is indeed failing in some senses, there seems more bad than good some days, the news a rolling reel of misery and disappointment, but taking things into her own hands in such a way could never be the solution. You can’t rid the world of murderers by murdering, and peace is rarely the result of violence. What she’s planning on doing isn’t the solution, but a part of him knows he still couldn’t allow her to continue even if it was.

She’s killing his best friend after all, and there’s very little he wouldn’t do to save him.

He gives her a choice, though, in the end. Lets her decide how it is she wants to end things as much as his fractured, vengeful heart desires otherwise, and doesn’t flinch when she throws it right back at him. There’s disbelief on her lips as she laughs in his face, passion and desire and possession as she claims to own a power she never will, and solidity on his own as he accepts what it is he’s going to have to do.

He isn’t all that sure which of them starts it, who broke the stalemate played across her kitchen, but suddenly the sword is raised and alight in his hand and the table has been shoved hard against his gut with nothing but a delicate wave. The power she’d put behind it doesn’t surprise him exactly, and nor does the way with which she’d sent it at him, but it does hurt, more than he’d expected it to, much more than the bruise left beneath his waistcoat, and confirms that while she may look harmless, he is battling all but his best friend himself for all intents and purposes.

A chill goes through him at the revelation, but even with that and the table still pushed against his stomach, the flock of kitchen knives she sends his way next are little more than an inconvenience. He turns them into paper planes with a flick of his free hand and leaves them soaring discordant trails overhead as he shoves the table back her way before she can do anything else. There’s enough force behind it it’s knocked her down before she can even raise her hands to catch it.   

The wall on the far side of the room cracks as the table crashes into it, a fracture in the plasterboard running right along its midline, and the unwashed dishes and long abandoned clutter that had previously been atop clatters to the tiled floor like victims of a poorly executed tablecloth trick.

Ceramic shatters against tiles, silverware scatters. The lady ends up under the table itself, and instead of crawling out chooses to wave the table upwards and away, crashing it into her dresser on the other side of the room and taking out a light fitting in the process. Aziraphale ducks as the previous survivors of the table’s journey go flying, and then ultimately turns the lot of it to confetti instead of risking his eye being taken out by a rogue utensil.

Glass from the dresser doors rains upon the tiles. The plates and ornaments inside smash and topple and break once more against the floor. In the midst of it all, the table lands rather neatly on its legs, the sole survivor in the carnage of broken dishes and fractured chairs. For one irrational second, Aziraphale finds himself frowning at the state of her kitchen, before he returns his focus to the lady charging at him from across the room. There’s a wooden chair leg brandished in her hand, and he briefly wonders how she thought that appropriate against his flaming sword, but then it turns to a bat made of sleek black metal that glints in the single surviving overhead light.

The gleam in her eyes tells him her choice of weapon is very much not a coincidence. 

His sword burns a little brighter as he lunches forwards to match her swing. 

The ringing clang of metal on flaming metal reverberates throughout the kitchen as the sword and bat collide with the force only capable of two celestial beings.

Or one celestial being and a human powered by the essence of another, he mentally corrects as he aims another blow. He swings hard and fast, and she returns the same, before a wave of one of his hands has her tumbling back across the kitchen. She lands in a heap, rolls backwards heels over head until she collides with the closed door of her fridge in a tangle with the remainder of a chair. The wood snaps as she stands with a frenzied cry, and the bat returns itself to her hand from the rubble.

She sends a chair his way, and then another, and while he’s distracted, makes her way back across the room. There’s blood in her hair, Aziraphale notices as he blocks a swing, dripping down in a sticky stream to pool along her jaw. The next swipe he makes finds its target, but only just, catching her shoulder and singing a bloodied burn in the fabric of her rumpled t-shirt. A ragged cry leaves her lips, part fury, part pain, before she swings at him with such ferocity he’s forced to dart backwards out of her reach for the sake of his ribs.

Blood from her arm drips down her pale skin to flick off her fingers as she waves a set of pans his way, and it darkens her hand as she charges in frustration when a wave of his own sets them neatly back upon the stove. Her hands catch his shoulders, and his back collides with kitchen cabinets as he stumbles under her added metaphysical weight. His head knocks hard against the corner of a unit, and stars dance in his eyes as he kicks her away, sending her to the floor and rolling over the tiles.

The sword is still in his hand, and he lunges for her, only to miss as she rolls away while simultaneously sending her KitchenAid mixer soaring through the air. He diverts it with a wave, sends it crashing into the tiled backsplash behind the stove. Another has her crashing into the fridge with enough force it topples with a bang. The door opens at the impact, freeing the rotting food inside.

An apple squelches beneath her foot as she takes a step his way, pulp spilling over the tiles in a slimy sort of mess. The juices squidge between her bare toes as she darts towards him once again, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She swings at him again, and in his distraction he only just gets the sword between them in time to catch the blow that comes directly for his head.

A shower of sparks rain down between them as metal collides with flaming metal, and a crack as loud and angry as a clap of thunder echoes off the tiles. This time, their weapons lock, the sword burning a line deep into the metal of the bat which manages to keep its form more through her force of will than anything else. The dark steel glows red as heat transfers from the flames. Aziraphale’s arms strain from the force she’s putting against the bat as she tries determined to drive the weapons down towards his head.

It’s almost interesting, he thinks, feeling all her strength, all of Crowley’s strength really, pushing on him as it is. Though they have known each other for millennia, and been technically enemies for much of that, it had never occurred to either of them to pit their raw strengths up against each other. Even now as he stands against her, he couldn’t have said who was more powerful, simply because power in itself is not as easily defined as one would think. They both have their strength of course, and different skills with which to play, but that would never make either of them better than the other.

But while Aziraphale isn’t stronger, exactly, than the utter beast wielding his best friend’s strength, he is so much more experienced. He was created as a protector, a guardian, and the flaming sword feels right at home in his hand. Besides, he has a demon to save.

The ringing scape of metal on metal fills the air as he twists and pushes and their weapons break apart, and then there’s the quiet swoosh as his cuts through the air to strike her stomach with a sizzle. His shoulder screams as her bat cracks down upon it in his sword’s sudden absence, but she’s screaming too, a bloodcurdling cry of ferocity and pain that echoes around the remnants of her kitchen.

The bat falls to the floor with a clatter as her hands instinctively curl around her wound. Blood spills through her fingers, red staining her shirt and dripping free to land in glistening droplets on the tiles. For a fraction of a second, they both stare.

“Look what you’ve done,” she snarls, and then before he can get his sword back up to swing again, she’s charged at him and grabbed him firmly by the lapels. His head hits the wall with a thud as she throws him hard against it, and before he’s had time to fight back, his feet are off the floor and their bodies are pressed tight together. One of her hands is curled around his throat. Her other holds his wrist up against the cabinet beside his head, leaving the sword smouldering into the once perfectly oiled wood.

The bitterness of burning fills the air as the hand around his throat squeezes painfully, and a manic glee lights in her eyes. Though his body doesn’t need the air, the sensation is awfully uncomfortable, and he still finds himself scrabbling desperately against her hold, pushing weakly with his throbbing, half numb arm and trying furiously to drive enough of his knee between them to force her body back. Fear does not describe the emotion he’s feeling now, there is little she can do to cause his true form any real harm after all, but he will admit discorporation is becoming a definite possibility if she plays her cards right as temporarily immobilised as he is, and he simply does not have the time for that.

More importantly, he’s certain Crowley doesn’t have the time.

Focusing on that, Aziraphale steels his thoughts, heals his broken shoulder, and tries again to get his foot against her gut.  

***

But unbeknownst to Aziraphale, back at the cottage, things are already changing.

For the first time in days, Crowley wakes under his own steam. Though he doesn’t feel better, exactly, he no longer feels as dangerously close to slipping away to whatever came next as he had before. A little of the fog has dissipated in his head, leaving his thoughts clearer than they’ve been in days, weeks even, and when he draws in a breath, he finds he can do so deeply and easily and without choking on the fluid that’s been trying to drown him in his sleep for longer than he’d like.

He's still utterly exhausted deep into his aching bones, feeling as though a dozen elephants have trampled across his soul and then tap-danced their way back home again, but there’s strength inside him he doesn’t remember having for a while. Even his broken wing isn’t pulling quite so sorely on his shoulder anymore.  

“‘ziraphale?” he calls blearily, because Aziraphale is always there, has been a constant at his bedside for the past few days or weeks or however long has passed since he fell ill with a comforting smile on his lips but anguish in his eyes, and he deserves more than anyone to hear the good news.

But the room stays silent. Aziraphale isn’t there. Crowley can feel the hollow where his essence should be, can tell though he’s still on earth, he isn’t nearby.

There is a note, though, he realises belatedly through his confusion, folded into a little tent and sitting pride of place in the centre of his bedside table.

He couldn’t miss it, and he supposes that’s the point.

Reaching out an arm more skeletal than it has any right to be, he takes the note in shaking fingers, and then drags himself up a little higher on his pillows to read it. Flicking on his bedside light reveals Aziraphale’s copperplate script, the cursive neat as ever but the dark ink smudged over the off-white page as though it had been written in a hurry. It takes Crowley’s eyes a few of his thundering heartbeats to focus.

My darling Crowley,

I hope with all my heart you do not wake while I am away, but if you do, please know I now understand what has occurred to make you so very unwell and have only gone to put things right. Please rest, my dear, and don't worry, I'll be back soon.

All my love,

Aziraphale.

“Oh, angel, no.” A sense of dread washes over him, icy tingles playing down his spine. His joints are stiff with disuse as he climbs from the bed with more urgency than coordination, and his muscles shake from the effort of holding even his own slight body weight as he stands. He has to steady himself on the bedside cabinet for a second once he’s up as his head swims infuriatingly, but even as he does so, his heart is beating oh so fiercely in his chest.

It’s only then he realises he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing, what exactly Aziraphale is trying to fix or where he’s gone either. He doesn’t know what’s been making him so very ill the past few weeks, truly hadn’t even known anything was quite as wrong as it had turned out to be before it had been too late, but whatever it was he’s sure as he is the earth still spins Aziraphale must have worked it out correctly.

He certainly wouldn’t be upright if he hadn’t.

“Fuck. Fuck, what are you doing, Aziraphale?” he hisses, voice raw and ruined, and runs a shaking hand through his hair. It’s mussed and a little tangled around the back from where he’s been laying on it, but soft and clean and otherwise tamed with miracles much more tender than his own. An ache forms in his chest beside the rising panic.

This time, his balance holds as he pushes himself away from the table, and he stumbles towards the stairs and the answers he hopes reside in the office on the floor below. There are socks on his feet, he realises as he hurries down as fast as he dares, loose but thick and warm, and a jumper much too soft and large to be his own pulled on over the top of his pyjamas.

He remembers the cold that had caught him like a vice all those months ago, how deep into his very being those icy tendrils had buried themselves despite Aziraphale’s valiant battles to keep him warm. He remembers the comfort of hot water bottles at his side, the eternal fires in the grate. He remembers being curled up in bed, frozen and weak and ill but held tight in his best friend’s arms and feeling just a little better than he would have done without him at his side.

The door to Aziraphale’s office is open when he reaches it. The lights inside are off. He pays the dark little heed, heads in all the same and spends a few seconds mentally ransacking the room while the breaths he shouldn’t need to take heave in and out of lungs stronger than they’ve been in weeks. There are stacks of books on the desk, more discarded on the floor. He vaguely recalls a discussion on their presence in the Bentley, remembers offering his assistance moving them inside and then later deciding better of it because Aziraphale hadn’t mentioned his trip again. His illness had been the elephant in the room back then.

He understands why. He shouldn’t have snapped.

After decades at the disposal of down below, admissions of vulnerability don’t come easily to him, and by the time he’d been able to admit anything was unduly wrong, a paralysing fear of the coming unknown was residing in his initial discomfort’s place.

Guilt stirs in his gut. It’s dwarfed by the worry still washing over him in waves, and even that is a ripple in a pond compared to the tsunami of utter terror that hits him when he notices the open dresser in the corner of the room.

Despite the note, all possibility of him sitting put until Aziraphale returns vanishes in a heartbeat. Adrenaline and fear have it racing. Whatever his best friend has risked himself to do keeps it strong.

His hand doesn’t shake as he raises it.

His clothes appear when he snaps.

Though he still feels worn to the bone and his corporation remains more than a little wrecked, his returning energy smoulders brightly in his core.

It’s a little harder to grasp Aziraphale’s essence through the distraction of his office where his sensation of warm, rich cocoa and well worn, much loved books and marshmallows toasted over an open fire clings like the sweethearts growing in the hedges down their lane, but he finds it eventually and holds on tight.

He raises his hand again, and then, before he can put any more thought into his plan than acknowledging quite how furious a certain angel is going to be with him when he arrives, his fingers have snapped, and the office is vacant once again.

Though he lands on his feet, he hits the floor hard. His knees throb from their impact with the tiles he finds himself on, and his palms skitter over broken ceramic and a rogue teaspoon as he throws them out to catch himself before he can collapse entirely to the floor. His head is spinning. His limbs are shaking. He realises very quickly how little either of those things matter.

There are broken lights above him, battered oak cabinets with ruined doors hanging from their hinges to his sides. In front of him sits a table made of well-worn wood decades old but sturdy enough it’s held its own despite the utter destruction that surrounds it. There’s blood on the tiles, and long-rotten apples rolling amongst the porcelain devastation on the floor.

Across the room, Aziraphale’s eyes are blown wide as they meet his, his expression such a kaleidoscope of emotions Crowley’s sure his name would be spilling from his lips followed by a tirade of surprise and joy and relief and frustration and panic had he been able to say anything at all. There’s a hand around his throat, cutting off his airways. It’s holding him up against a wall with such vigour his feet are no longer on the ground and his face has turned an alarming shade of red. Fury rages in Crowley’s gut, smouldering like the missing sword now quite rapidly setting the wooden door of a kitchen cupboard alight.

Neither Aziraphale, nor the lady pinning him there, seems to care. They’d been much too focused on their fight he supposes, and now they’re much too focused on him.

“You!” the lady exclaims viciously, still pinning Aziraphale up against the wall, and while he can’t quite tell if she’s more angered or stunned by his presence, she certainly doesn’t look at all happy to see him. She doesn’t look at all human either, and while he isn’t exactly surprised, it is a little unnerving to see such power and venom carved onto her once delicate features. The composure she’d had before has long since been ravaged away by his own power still raging from inside her, and had she not been holding his best friend up against a wall by his throat, he thinks maybe he’d have felt a little sorry for her.

“Oh, yeah, ciao,” Crowley grunts through his dizziness, giving her little wave and as nonchalant a grin as he can manage while picking himself up from the floor. “Not dying any more, by the way.”

One of her blue eyes bulges furiously, and she looks about to say something, but by then Aziraphale’s regained enough of his senses to seize her distraction like a bull by the horns and plant his foot against her gut. She cries out in surprise as he kicks her back with enough force to send her crashing into the table on the other side of her kitchen. The hardwood top shatters beneath her with an almighty crunch, and she ends up on the tiles in a heap amongst the debris of splintered chairs and once-fine china.

Without her hold Aziraphale drops to the floor too, landing on his feet more or less and catching himself on the counter with the hand he still has wrapped around the handle of his sword. His other goes to his throat, now a painful-looking, mottled red angry against the soft pastels of his bowtie, but his wide blue eyes are all on Crowley.

“Crowley,” he rasps, and there’s so much raw emotion packed into those two short syllables Crowley’s sure their breathless quality comes from more than just the damage to his windpipe. His eyes are much too bright in the single remaining overhead bulb as he stares though the chaos, and for one awful fraction of a second, Crowley thinks he might be about to cry, but then there’s the sound of cracking woodwork and the sliding of shattered ceramic on the floor, and they both turn to that instead.

The sword is bright in his angel’s hand as the rubble stirs, an orange beacon flickering in the otherwise dimly lit room and throwing the worry suddenly victorious on the battlefield of Aziraphale’s expression into sharp relief. His brow is furrowed, his blue eyes are burning bright with so much and all at once.

“Just stay back, please, my dear,” he half commands, half begs so softly and with such desperation Crowley would have struggled to find the heart to argue with him had he even had the opportunity before his angel turned away.

He watches as Aziraphale crosses the room, and though guilt stirs in his hammering heart and righteous demands he follow suit, he finds himself taking a stumbling sidestep to hold the countertop instead. His knees are shaking, his head is spinning, and as much as he wants to help and is more than ready to do just that at the first sign his angel needs him, he’s all too aware he’d almost certainly be more liability than help if he were to get involved beforehand. The last thing he wants is for his distraction, or his own faulty miracle, to be the reason Aziraphale gets hurt, and it catches him how much he’s grown that he even vaguely accepts that.

The thing is though, Aziraphale is already injured, even if it is just a ring of discolouration around his throat, and it’s already his fault.

He’d tell his angel to stop if he thought he’d listen, would stop him himself if he thought he could. He wants so badly to fight the battle that is his simply because he’d give anything for it not to fall onto Aziraphale’s shoulders, but he’s barely standing as it is, and his pot of miracles is drained to drops by his journey to wherever it is they’ve ended up.

The lady looks worn too as she extracts herself from the wreckage of her dining table, is noticeably bloodied and pale and wounded when she stumbles free, and for the first time since he arrived Crowley truly understands why he’s there. A drop of red finds the tiles as she steadies herself, slipping through her fingers from a scorched sort of wound on her abdomen, but her expression stays focused and fierce. Her hand doesn’t shake as she takes a chair leg from the wreckage below her. 

Only, the stolen miracle doesn’t fire as he suspects she wants it to.

Unlike Aziraphale’s, the sword in her hands isn’t burning, but given the pattern of rings and knots flecked upon its somewhat patchy surface, Crowley thinks it would probably catch alight quite easily if presented with a spark. A smirk nearly finds his lips despite the situation as she glares furiously at her faulty weapon as though it’s to blame, but then she swings it rather brutally towards Aziraphale’s bruising neck, and Crowley doesn’t think any of it is at all funny anymore.

A twist of horror flashes in his stomach as the sword sails through the air, and he has to fight the instinctive urge to intervene even as Aziraphale is raising his own weapon in easy defence. There’s the dulled sort of clang of metal on something close enough as Aziraphale effortlessly knocks away her hit, and then another as she defends his swing towards her ribs. It’s immediately apparent how much slower her movements are than his, how her coordination is off as she is hunches over the wound across her stomach, but her expression is twisted fiercely and her movements are filled with the utter desperation of someone who has nothing left to lose and he knows that makes her dangerous.

He watches with his heart in his throat as Aziraphale deflects more of her hits in between his own attacks, longs to help as she forces him backwards through the ruined kitchen in a blur of clashing metal and roaring flames. Though her next swing is caught on a sword that leaves hers smouldering, Aziraphale stumbles under the ferocity she puts behind it. His foot catches on the wreckage of a chair as Crowley watches, and though his balance is only lost for a fraction of a second, it’s a fraction of a second in which she takes the opportunity to swing her sword his way. Aziraphale’s blue eyes are wide in alarm. Crowley thinks his own probably are too. His hand raises as though on instinct.

A cry echoes off the tiles as the lady hits the floor, and though Crowley had meant his panicked wave to send her crashing into the far wall, the result of his faulty miracle still gives Aziraphale the times he needs to find his balance. The whole ordeal leaves him shaking and nauseous from more than just the overexertion, but Aziraphale has regained the upper hand and the worry running havoc in his gut eases just a fraction.

The lady rolls rather smartly to her feet, and then a series of clangs fills the air as the weapons collide a few more times in short succession. Blood drips onto the tiles as she fights, and the smell of scorched wood joins the acrid mix of copper and burnt varnish hanging heavy in the air. Sparks fly as she’s forced back across the room, stumbling over chair legs and shattered plates and the remnants of a stand mixer, before the blade finally hits in a glancing blow that has the lady lettings out a roar of pain and trying very hard to take Aziraphale out with her microwave in retaliation. Crowley ducks to save his own head as the miracle misfires, bouncing the appliance off the wall just behind him and very nearly hitting him on the shoulder as it tumbles back to the ground. White plastic scatters upon impact, and the door pops open with a ding muted against the clashing of swords to release the somehow intact glass plate into the utter wreckage of the kitchen.

“Careful!” Aziraphale admonishes, distracted, as microwave fragments scatter over the tiles. The plate rolls a near perfect circle through the chaos to land back at Crowley’s feet. He stoops to pick it up as Aziraphale easily defends a badly executed strike at his ribs.

“Oh yes, because that was entirely my fault,” Crowley mutters as he frisbees the plate at her head for lack of anything more useful to do. The plate smashes upon impact, and she glares his way with burning fury. Aziraphale shoots a longsuffering sort of look his way too, and then uses her distraction to his own advantage as he resumes his battle.  

It doesn't last long after that, though with her dripping blood over the tiles the way it is, it was never going to. Her movements are weakening, her aim is off. She’s still burning with a passion as furious as Hell itself as she fights, but there’s only so much that can do to help.  

He can feel things will be ending soon for her either way in the form of a warmth swelling deep inside him, a strength returning to his legs, and for a few seconds, he’s so focused on that, and on her weapon and its repeated swings towards Aziraphale that he almost misses the moment Aziraphale’s hits her.

After all they’ve been through in the months that have passed since the night he stood in a circle made of painted gold, it feels so anticlimactic that it ends so quickly he’d almost have missed it had he blinked.

She falls to the floor amongst the apples. Her tattered jeans are ruined with a darkening red. There’s fury in her cry and fire in her eyes as she glares up from the tiles with all the passion and venom and ferocity of a cobra coiled and poised to strike, but she isn’t getting up. Crowley can't help but notice quite how small she looks in his angel’s shadow.

There’s blood on his clothing too, and bruising mottling the skin of his throat, but Crowley finds his gaze drawn instead to the hardness burning inside his best friend’s eyes, and the sense of duty written over his expression as plain as ink upon a page. It faulters briefly as he watches, as though for a fraction of a second, he too has seen how powerless she is curled before his shoes, but then the moment passes, and his blue eyes harden once again, and orange flashes off the shiny countertop as he brings the sword down once more.

This time it crashes loudly against the tiles, rebounds off the vacant floor. The cavern Crowley had opened with a panicked wave closes soundlessly a fraction of a heartbeat later, trapping the fading echoes of the lady’s screaming as she falls inside, but he doesn’t get to see it.

A failing breath shudders from his lungs.

Aziraphale’s shout comes as though through water when he yells.

And perhaps, if he’d had a moment to consider it, Crowley might have admitted he had underestimated the energy needed for that particular feat even if he’d still do it all over again just to save Aziraphale the pain, but as it happens, he doesn’t.

A breath shudders from his lungs.

His knees buckle like autumn reeds.  

His head is spinning and he cannot see, and for a truly awful moment he feels so utterly awful, so close to collapse even with the pair of arms that suddenly surround him, he’s almost certain he’s miscalculated terribly, but then a dam inside him crumbles, and wave of something larger than he knew he’d lost crashes through him with all the force of a too full tributary joining the rush towards the sea.

In its wake, even as someone guides him gently to the floor, he feels warm.  

***

The garden is dark when they land, the grass is crisp beneath his shoes. The lights have been left on inside the cottage this time too, and their orange glow emanates through the glass of the kitchen window and the drawn drapes of the dining room to leave long shadows stretching towards them across the lawn. Like before, Aziraphale is at his side, his hand around his upper arm as he tries to hold him steady.

His white hair glows like a halo in the moon.

His hold is firm as though determined not to let him fall again.

But this time, Crowley doesn’t need it.

While his knees still quake from the landing, they do not buckle, and while he stumbles to catch his footing, he does not need his friend to keep from falling. Even the shiver that passes through his form comes of nothing more sinister than the chill of the frigid winter air, the icy tendrils that had bedded deep inside his soul for months nothing more than a memory. 

The grass is frosty beneath him. Each breath casts a new cloud into the darkness of the night. 

Overhead, the moon shines a brilliant white in the clear winter sky, illuminating the frozen garden and the empty fields and the fallen apples that rest beneath his tree. 

Crowley can't even remember the last time he was out here. 

So much of it has changed since then.

"My garden," he cannot help but say, looking around at the bare branches and the wilted leaves and the climbing plants well overdue their autumn trim. The hand still on his arm squeezes gently, a gesture now just as much of comfort as of worry. 

"Don't worry, my dear, you can fix it in the spring," Aziraphale says beside him, voice small and tight and sad, and then with a gentle tug, starts to lead him in the direction of the cottage. 

The lights are bright inside, the air is unusually warm.

It takes Crowley a moment to realise that had been entirely for his own benefit back when his corporation had been failing so, and his heart clenches tightly in a complicated wave of love and hurt and adoration all rolled into one.  

He's aware of the eyes that follow him as he kicks off his boots and discards his jacket on a chair, watching like they can’t quite believe he’s really there, like they’re worried he’s going to collapse to the carpet any second too, or fall apart without a moment’s notice.

But Crowley really does feel, if not well, then certainly at least like he’s going to be.

His heart is steady in his chest.

His head isn’t spinning any more.

There’s warmth and strength inside him, a burning deep within his core he hadn’t even realised was there to miss until it had all but gone.

It feels so natural for it to be back, and thus it's with an absent minded, natural sort of wave with which he flicks on the living room light as he passes. It’s a tiny miracle given all he can do and all he's done before, all he knows he’ll do again, but from the look on his angel’s face, he may as well have just summoned him the world. 

"I'm okay," he says just as he had back in her kitchen as they’d held each other on the shattered tiles, insists all too gently because that’s what Aziraphale needs, and Aziraphale nods, his eyes wide and his lips pressed so tightly together Crowley fears they may never come undone, and then he lets out a shaky breath and his expression crumples all at once. 

"Oh, angel," Crowley says, and he's at him in an instant, drawing him tight into his arms and holding him like he’s never letting go again. Aziraphale’s head droops to rest boneless upon his shoulder. His heart is throbbing with such intensity Crowley can feel it pounding through the clothes now caught between them. He remembers feeling it doing just the same all those awful weeks ago on the day he’d woken with yellow eyes and too little strength to change them back. It hurts to think how much has changed since then.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” Aziraphale gasps into his hair, and his voice is wet and shaky and utterly, awfully raw. “I thought...” He breaks off and shakes his head even as it rests against Crowley’s shoulder as though what he’d meant to say had been just too much to bear, and then lets out another shuddering breath. It’s a hair’s width from a sob, a sound of such utter grief and shock and heartbreak that Crowley’s own heart feels like it’s been crushed right there and then inside his chest.

He’s been through such hell during the past few weeks, had felt cold and sick and rotten for months before, but none of what he’s suffered comes close to the utter agony he feels to have Aziraphale breaking apart right within his arms and knowing there’s nothing he can do to help him.

He’d seen the concern that had grown in his eyes as he’d spent weeks reading at his bedside, had seen the pain in his expression as his condition had deteriorated, and had felt the grief radiating off every inch of his being as things have seemed to start to slip towards the end. A fog of confusion clouds the few memories he’s managed to retain of the latter days of his illness, but throughout them all Aziraphale had been a steadfast presence at his side, comfort on his lips and love in all he did even with that awful grief pooling within eyes.

He’d looked so broken by the end, even though he’d tried so hard to hide it.

He still looks broken now.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Crowley breathes into the mussed white atop his head, holding him tight as can as he struggles with the force of all that’s finally broken free after so long spent bottled up inside. He’d meant it to be comforting, but Aziraphale sniffs against him and shakes his head against his shoulder. For an awful second, Crowley thinks he’s about to protest, to brush aside his concern because it wasn’t him that had had been so awfully ill even if emotionally he’s had to deal with so much more, but then, thankfully, he doesn’t.

His eyes are red and raw and swollen when he peels back to pass a frown his way, puffy from the quietly shed tears still loitering on his cheeks even as they roll beneath his furrowed brow.

“It wasn’t your fault, Crowley,” he sniffs, and his exasperation is apparent even through the wetness of his voice. Crowley lets his hand rub slow comfort over Aziraphale’s spine just Aziraphale has been doing over his own for months. It’s an easy gesture, simple and soothing, and one he cannot bear to believe had been beyond them for millennia. It seems so natural now.

“I never said it was,” he agrees candidly, giving a small, causal sort of shrug even though his heart is still aching in his chest. A stuttered beat passes as Aziraphale weighs that up, and then a brittle approximation of a laugh rather suddenly breaks free from his lungs. It’s so fragile, so wet and broken at its very core it’s little more than a choked huff, but its genuine at least.

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” he agrees weakly, simply, a little sadly, at the understanding that despite all they’ve had to go through, this time at least it had been neither of them to blame. It’s a humbling thought, and Crowley feels a little shaken by it too, but then Aziraphale sniffs and suddenly coughs out a shaky sort of scoff and shakes his head again. His hand looks to be trembling as he harshly wipes at eyes suddenly averted, more forceful with what Crowley belatedly realises to be embarrassment than it has any right to be.

“Oh, dear me. I’m being so silly.”

Crowley’s own is soft and steady as he catches a rogue droplet left upon his chin and gentle as he tilts it up to meet his gaze again. Aziraphale’s eyes follow, holding his own in surprise.

“Nothing regarding your emotions could ever be considered silly, Angel.”

“I’ve made an awful mess of your shirt.”

Crowley sighs, not in disagreement but disapproving of the sniffled, self-depriving dictation all the same. His thumb traces the salty trail upset has left upon his angel’s cheek as blue eyes older than time itself hold his own. Where once before they’d shone with a brilliance as bright as day, utter exhaustion now dampens their familiar hue, leaving them bare and open and raw like those of survivors standing in the moments of harried quiet found in the wreckage of a just passed storm. That haunted look he’s hated a thousand times over the past few months still sits like lead inside, holding tight beside the hurt and pain and the residuals of that inwardly turned frustration, but now in the wake of all that’s past, he now hopes it can at least slowly fade with time.

He can rebuild. They both can.

And Crowley will never be more grateful for that.

His thumb is soft as it passes over Aziraphale’s cheekbone, tender as it invades personal space he’d one day feared it never could again, but his gaze holds firmly to that fragile blue.

“Thank you.”

The habitual frown on his angel’s lips faulters, a brief confusion clouding his features and furrowing his brows before it passes by like the quickest of storms.

“Whatever for?” he chuckles in response to Crowley’s own sincerity, though Crowley can tell from the discomfort twisting his expression even as he tries to hide it the meaning of his words is ringing clear as a tolling bell between them. Truth be told, he should have said them sooner, but as they’d sat curled together on the chaos of her kitchen floor, Aziraphale holding him tight as he alternated between fussing and berating and fussing all over again, the obvious had so easily slipped his mind.

“For everything,” he pushes, soft and firm and unwilling to let such importance go unsaid, holding his gaze with a burning, desperate intensity because Aziraphale deserves nothing more than to understand. Who knows where he would have ended up without him, how much worse he would have had to suffer through without him at his side. For a fraction of a second, Aziraphale looks so close to arguing, so shocked by Crowley saying what he has deserved to hear all along, but then the fight drains as quickly as it surged, and he shakes his head instead.

Very suddenly, he just looks awfully sad.

“You don't need to thank me, Crowley,” he says quietly, expression open and honest and painfully raw. “All I ever wanted was for you to be okay.”

His fingers are still tremoring lightly as they raise to gently rest against the bone of his too sharp cheek, soft as they brush the bruises he knows still haunt the papery skin beneath his eyes. A look of displeasure twists on his lips, a frown Crowley know he himself would have been wearing himself not so long ago as his hand ghosted the now healed discolouration beneath his best friend’s collar, and one he still hates to see there even though he knows will soon be fading from Aziraphale’s, too. Letting out a sigh, Crowley takes the roaming fingers in his own, feeling the familiar warmth of his soft skin, and squeezes gently.

There’s strength in his grip, no tremor in his hands. Outside the window, soft flakes of snow are falling gentle and unproblematic, lit bright by the moon against the backdrop of a sky now glowing with the first subtle hints of dawn. 

“I am okay,” he promises, earnest but simple and finally honest. “Or at the very least, I will be.”