Chapter Text
The thatched roof is the first thing Aziraphale sees, bright in the rapidly fading twilight. It is burning so gloriously, it can be seen from the empty encampment where the small patrol of British Army soldiers, 2nd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment have been staying the last week, Aziraphale on site as their medic.
The explosion can be heard for miles in every direction. But what happens next is only for Aziraphale.
The pain is immediate, a sharp tug in his chest behind his heart that then lances through his nervous system and sends him to his knees. Oh, the agony is exquisite and foreign, not his, not his at all, and tastes vaguely of ozone and sulfur. Aziraphale gasps aloud, not from any physical pain, but from the chilling fingers of fear that work their way down his spine at the realization: Crowley’s soul is calling for him. And he is hurt. Dreadfully.
Thousands of eyes flash open on the metaphysical plane, searching, searching, there. Oh. Oh, God. The eyes shut and Aziraphale’s hands fly to his mouth, human eyes going wide as he stares ahead, drawn to the black smoke curling towards the darkening sky above. Crowley’s aura is close, far too close, in fact. Just there, in the distance, waves of pain make their steady way to Aziraphale from the rapidly burning farmhouse the patrol had gone off to investigate after learning information of rebels from an informant.
Aziraphale didn’t know. He didn’t know it had been Crowley’s rebels.
He pulls a hand from his mouth and snaps his fingers, body tearing through time and space in an instant. A quick displacement miracle shouldn’t alert Heaven. They can’t be watching his miracles that closely.
The tableau is horrific.
Bodies scatter the ground surrounding the blazing home. Two he recognizes from his Battalion (and Aziraphale allows himself to feel the grief for a moment, sending out a quick prayer that they will make it into Heaven), but the rest are rebels. A little over a dozen men, blood dripping sluggishly from bodies that will never again send that same blood through their veins, lie torn asunder in the earth.
Panic seizes Aziraphale’s breath from him. They attacked at dusk, when the men were resting and unaware, and killed them. They never had a chance.
Suddenly, Aziraphale is running without a thought to do so.
“Crowley!” He shouts, the sound disappearing in the air as soon as the name leaves his lips. “Crowley! It’s me, it’s Aziraphale!” He scans the faces of the dead bodies as he passes them, panic ratcheting up into his throat. He’s not here. He’s not here. But he can feel him. He has to be. Where is he? Where is he? Crowley. Crowley--
He almost misses it, almost misses the choked, watery exhale of his name, mangled and wrong in that voice he would know anywhere. “Zira…phale…?”
Aziraphale skids to a stop, turns towards the sound and takes off in the general direction he heard Crowley’s voice, calling back, “Crowley! I’m here, my dear. Where are you? I can’t find you! Please, Crowley, I’m here!” He passes more bodies and oh dear Lord, they’re all so young, round faces bruised and filthy. Their clothes are just that: clothes. Not uniforms. Not the mighty army the British have been insisting the dangerous terrorists are.
He sees a shaky hand rise above a small pile of bodies just in front of the door to the farmhouse, barely discernible in the near dark, black blood dripping from those long, beautiful fingers. He runs towards the hand and frets, casting about for a way to wriggle Crowley out from under the men he’s wedged beneath. He can barely see Crowley under there; just a sliver of a lanky hip, a foot here, a hand there, half of an angular jaw, one perfectly fiery eye peaking up at him. He’s so enmeshed within the dead, he blends in completely; just another body to add to the pile.
There must be a question in his eyes or maybe Crowley just wanted to volunteer the information, but that shaky, lovely, voice mutters, “I hid m’self. Under the bodies. Thought I’d be harder to see. They were pokin’ them. Making sure they were really dead.” He laughs and it sounds punched from him, a painful action. “Missed me, though.” Half of a wry grin stretches across that achingly familiar face.
The words hit like a physical blow in Aziraphale’s chest and he staggers back a step in horror. Crowley sounds…he sounds almost proud, he realizes. Proud that he had the wherewithal to hide under his dead comrades, dead friends, so as to not be discovered still alive. Proud that he outsmarted the heinous ambush. Proud that he was still breathing.
“Crowley…” voice gone to a whisper. He swallows and shakes his head, regarding the bodies atop the demon, deliberating on how best to untangle all that dead weight. His voice is more steady when he says, “Let me uncover you. Just lie still, won’t be but a moment.”
Aziraphale picks a body and tugs, preternatural strength easing what should be an arduous process tenfold. He drops the body gently off to the side, turning back for the next one, but stopping short. He lets out a relieved breath; ah, yes, there’s that long leg, still intact and attached to the form of his demon. An emotion Aziraphale can’t name rises up in his shoulders, tingling down to his fingers. He shakes his hands out and gets back to the task at hand. One body down, four more to go.
He makes quick work of the mass, slowly revealing pieces of a body he’s known as long as he’s known his own: a second, gloriously long leg, wrapped in cheap, loose black trousers; two arms (still there, still intact) and the appropriate amount of hands and fingers required; the long, lithe expanse of a torso, slightly more concave than usual (has he gotten even skinnier?); those shoulders bloom into view, stretching the thin material of the dark linen shirt he’s wearing. At long last, all of Crowley’s jawline catches the rising moonlight and the roaring fire; a ragged gasp escapes blood-spattered lips, the last body finally displaced from across his chest.
Aziraphale lets out his own caught breath, not having realized he’d stopped breathing to begin with. “There you are, my dear,” he says softly, kneeling beside Crowley with a small smile. “Much better, hm?” He doesn’t wait for a response, already scanning Crowley’s body for injuries with eyes and hands, talking in what he hopes is an untroubled way when he finds the material of the dark shirt wet and clinging to his skin, a gaping hole that sinks inwards like a sucking cenote. “Oh, what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” He says, lightly, voice only trembling a little. “Here, let me get you out of this so we can get a better look.”
His hands fumble with the buttons of Crowley’s shirt, fingers not as dexterous as they usually are against the slickness of the material, and he feels a hand of panic closing over his windpipe, breaths coming way too fast (and he doesn’t need to breathe, does he? So why is he having such trouble now? These lungs shouldn’t be shuddering in this chest and this body’s vision is impeccable, it shouldn’t be darkening at the edges, and oh. Oh, dear, these hands really aren’t doing what he’s telling them to do, are they? He’ll never get to the wounds in time and Crowley will die, Crowley will die, right here, bleed out in his arms, just within reach. Always too slow, too slow, too slow for Crowley--)
“Angel!” Crowley’s voice is a shout and Aziraphale can tell that this wasn’t the first time the demon had called out for him. A damp hand touches his jaw and gently urges his head up to catch his eyes, and oh, that face (that beautiful, gorgeous, alive, face) is crumpled in concern. “Hey, c’mon. Easy. Just take a few breaths for me.” Crowley tries on a lopsided smile, but it tilts a little too far to the left, stretching down into more of a grimace.
Aziraphale gives a quick shake of his head, Crowley’s hand following the movement, and stares, uncomprehendingly, into golden irises. “I don’t...I,” he opens and closes his mouth a few times, feeling Crowley’s thumb move up and down with the movement where it’s rubbing a gentle pattern into his cheek, ice-cold, wet fingertips pressed delicately to the underside of his jaw. “I don’t need to breathe.” He says, finally, the words much too difficult to conjure up.
Crowley huffs a laugh and it looks like it pains him to do so. A surge of sharp empathy carves Aziraphale in two and he lurches forward on instinct, eyes widening. “Oh, Crowley. Good Lord, you must be in such pain. Let me help you, please,” he implores, eyes keeping steady contact with Crowley’s.
Crowley’s face goes through a complicated array of emotions, shuddering between concern, fear, pain, anger, and finally landing on a carefully neutral expression that Aziraphale can’t puzzle out. “‘m alright, angel. You can go back to your battalion. Sure they’re missin’ you, after what we did to ‘em.” He grins and his teeth are stained crimson.
It feels as though someone has reached inside Aziraphale’s ribcage and pulled and pulled until finally something snapped. He hardens his jaw and levels the demon with a fierce look. “I am not leaving you. That is unconscionable and completely out of the question. I won’t leave you here like this, I won’t let you die--” Aziraphale’s throat inexplicably stutters around the last word and he chokes for a moment trying to find a way to continue speaking.
Before he can get his vocal chords to respond again, (and good gracious that’s, what, the third time tonight his useless body has failed to respond to him? What good is a corporation if it doesn’t do as it’s told) Crowley’s voice rises up to meet him halfway, “I’m not actually dying, angel,” he coughs, wetly, and oh no, there’s more of that dark crimson on his lips now. “Just discorporated.”
“Well, Hell’s pretty busy right now,” he says, immediately, sensibly. Yes. Yes, this is what his voice is supposed to sound like. Controlled, regimented, steady. “What with all the fighting and death. Who knows when you’ll get another body. I’m not letting you go back there for God only knows how long.” Aziraphale takes a slow breath, suddenly determined. He sits up, Crowley’s hand sliding away from his cheek. “I’m going to save you.”
Aziraphale doesn’t wait for a response, just gets to work on those stubborn buttons again. He’s pleased to see his hands obeying him (finally, bless it) and peels away the sticky shirt to reveal the ivory skin beneath.
Oh, it is so much worse than he had imagined.
Lord above, there are so many wounds. A bullet hole oozes darkly from just above the left clavicle. Another deep gouge is carved from Crowley’s ribs, a graze that could have been so much worse if he hadn’t dodged in time. Black bruises mar the thin, trembling chest, spanning across the skin above his ribs (broken ribs, at least 4 by the looks of it. How hard did the bodies collapse on him? How fast? Did he even have a chance? Oh, God, they never had a chance). And oh, dear Lord, his stomach. A gut shot, a nasty one, nearly ripping the demon in two.
Crowley laughs weakly, tries to shift away from the wandering hands, grinning; he’s aiming for dashing and suave and falling just short of wretched. “Woah now, angel. At least buy me a drink first.”
Aziraphale huffs, exorbitantly fond, and says, “Oh, hush, you silly old serpent. And quit your squirming about, I’m trying to examine you.” And he tries so hard to sound annoyed and properly put out but his voice breaks over the words and his lips tremble and he knows he can’t hide what his eyes are doing, not with Crowley’s own eyes, a bright flame in the firelight, watching him so carefully, shining with sympathy. And that’s rich, isn’t it? Crowley trying to make Aziraphale feel better when he’s the one bleeding out into the dirt. It isn’t fair. Aziraphale sniffs, willing back the sudden swell of tears crowding the back of his throat. He has to stay calm and composed for his demon. He can’t break down until he knows the danger has passed.
Aziraphale leans back, taking the thick leather band from around his wrist and tying his hair back out of his face, a quick, practiced motion he’s done many times. Crowley watches him, something dancing in his eyes, something that isn’t the fire burning behind them. It makes Aziraphale feel warm in the very core of him.
Aziraphale, on instinct, goes to press healing miracles into the demon’s skin, but then snatches his hand away before he can, eyes widening. "Oh. Um, I’m being audited,” he says, apropos of nothing. “I fear...hm. I may have to do this the human way. At least, at first.”
Crowley raises an eyebrow at that, opening his mouth as if to say something (probably to reply, with all the snark he can contain inside that lithe body: The human way, Aziraphale? Oh, what a burden. It's not like you ever do anything the human way. I know how much this is going to pain you. I’m so sorry to be such an inconvenience--), but he never gets the chance to.
Aziraphale, in the span of two breaths (if a demon and an angel subscribed to such silly, human notions as breathing), has slung off his tan overcoat and is pressing it unyieldingly into the largest and most troublesome of the wounds.
The response is immediate, urgent, and sickening.
Crowley’s back arches fully off the ground, an anguished howl ripping from the depths of him and hurtling towards the tops of the trees. Aziraphale leaves one, sturdy hand on the coat, pressing down as hard as he can, and leans forward to take the demon’s shoulder with the now free hand, wrangling his writhing body back to the ground.
“Crowley!” He shouts, insistently. “Crowley, you can’t move. You must stay as still as you can.” He watches Crowley suck in his cheek and bite down, eyes clenched shut against the world, stomach swooping nauseatingly at the way the demon stills his body in waves. (He is too good at that, Aziraphale thinks. How many times has he had to do this same thing, swallow back his pain, his misery, for the convenience of others? And how many times have I missed it?) Aziraphale nods in approval, even if the other can’t see it, slowly removing his hand from Crowley’s shoulder, replacing it on his abdomen to double the pressure being applied. “Yes, that’s it. Good. Very good.”
Crowley shudders, throat bobbing. Oh, he must be in such terrible pain. Aziraphale feels so dreadful about what he has to do next. “I probably should have given you some warning. That’s my fault, dear. I promise to broadcast my every move from here on, alright?”
Crowley nods, eyes still closed. He takes a few, slow breaths, before opening his eyes and focusing on Aziraphale. His gaze roves over Aziraphale’s face, shoulders, chest, before settling on his hair, tied back as it is now. “You look good like this, angel. Fit. I like the,” and he waves a hand about, as if he can paint the compliment into existence with his gesticulations. “The hair. Didn’t say it b’fore.” His tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, like he’s tasting the shape of the words before he says them. “Thought I’d say it now. Now that I’m, ya know.” He gestures to himself vaguely.
Aziraphale’s heart lurches at that (and isn’t that such a funny phrase? He never thought hearts actually did that until now, thought it was only something that happened in romances and other silly such things, but now he knows that they can, that they do) and he glares down at Crowley, hands tightening where he presses the cloth against the largest wound on the demon’s abdomen, desperately trying to stop the blood from spilling anymore. “You are not dying,” he intones, vehemently. “Do not say that. You’re fine. You are fine. Yes? I’ve got you.”
Crowley moans, wincing in pain from the pressure. “You–you’ve got me?” he stammers, and his voice sounds so weak, so small. Has he ever sounded like this before?
Aziraphale swallows and then smiles in a way he hopes is reassuring, eyes roving over the demon’s face. A strand of hair has fallen into Crowley’s eyes, plastered wet with sweat to his forehead. He starts to move a hand to brush it away and hesitates, unsure if the intimate touch would be appreciated or wanted. He meets Crowley’s eyes, struck with sudden gratefulness they aren’t covered as they always are, and finds a gentle warmth staring back at him. The demon nods, a short, curt nod, and waits. Aziraphale takes a breath as he reaches shaking fingers up to carefully move the scarlet strand away from Crowley’s eyes. His hand lingers, fingers aching with need, not wanting the contact to end. Slowly, he follows the strand up into the tangled mess atop the demon’s head, and lets it stay there. Crowley’s eyes flutter shut for a moment and he leans into it, almost imperceptibly. “Of course, dear boy.” He murmurs, quietly, not wanting to break the spell of this moment. Crowley’s eyes snap open, watching him with rapt attention, never straying too far. “I’m here. Always here.”
Crowley nods, eyes gone wide and Aziraphale can just barely make out the streaks of red his fingers left behind in the crimson locks. He clears his throat and pulls his hand away, bending his head to watch the spurting around his trembling fingers. His face feels tacky and stiff from the dried blood where Crowley’s tender fingers held him. "I'm going to apply more pressure, dear. You are still bleeding far too rapidly."
He keeps his head tilted down but flicks his eyes up to check for Crowley's approval. He gets eye contact and a very slight nod. The angel takes a slow breath, looks back down, and presses.
Crowley whimpers and a hand flies up to his mouth, sharp teeth sinking into a knuckle to muffle the sound. Aziraphale's stomach swoops. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "So sorry, dearest." Crowley says nothing, trembling.
After a few long moments, Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand from his mouth and presses it beside his own, their fingers tangling as he commands, urgently. "Put pressure on it, dear boy, I need my hands." Crowley makes a confused sort of noise, eyes glazed and staring up at the sky, hand still slack around Aziraphale's.
"The stars 'r out, angel." His tongue sounds heavy and thick in his mouth.
Aziraphale reaches up to grasp Crowley's chin, pulling his head down to get a good look at him. "Crowley, listen to me. This is important. Put pressure on your wound. I need my hands to miracle a few things. I'll only be a moment."
Crowley swallows and Aziraphale can feel the movement of his throat against his fingers. He nods, eyes clearing just a bit. "Yeah, okay 'Ziraphale, got it." He lays his other hand over Aziraphale’s and, for a moment, it feels like they're just holding hands, not collectively holding Crowley's blood inside his body.
Aziraphale slowly takes his hands away, reluctant to let go, and watches with approval as Crowley presses down insistently, gasping in pain. Aziraphale rolls up the sleeves of the white button down up to the elbow, quickly and efficiently, revealing the smooth, tanned skin of his forearms. Once done, he holds up his hands and makes complicated patterns in the air, pulling from the ether a warm bowl of water, alcohol, a needle and thread, bandages, a pair of scissors, and a clean towel to lay everything on. He sets them each down gingerly, arranging them precisely, before turning back to Crowley. His grip is weakening, blood loss making his fingers slacken, face pale and eyes wide and locked on Aziraphale. He looks terrified.
"Can I help you, dear?" He murmurs, reaching for Crowley's hands, fingers curling around them. He watches Crowley nod and gently presses their four hands down into the coat, eyes staring into one another's. The silence stretches thin and fragile between them, neither willing to break it.
It takes some time to get the wound to stop weeping.
It is finally, properly dark, the farmhouse burnt down to embers behind them, when Aziraphale pries the sopping, ruined coat away from the coagulated mess on Crowley’s abdomen. He watches it with pursed lips, unhappy with what he sees. It is far worse than it had looked with all the blood blocking his view. Deep, devastating, wretched.
There is a large, fist-sized hole blown through the flesh of Crowley's abdomen, and through it, Aziraphale can spot significant damage to his internal organs; his liver is shredded, stomach and left kidney ripped in multiple places, and there, just barely visible through the blood and viscera and leaking, mixture of fluids, is the bleached white of bone. His spine, Aziraphale notes with alarm, he has been shot through to his spine.
The damage is too grave for human medicine to cure. Crowley should be dead, and if he was human he very well would be. Nothing short of a miracle will save him now.
Crowley is making a low, pained, wheezing sort of noise, chest jerking spasmodically with his labored breaths. He's trembling and his eyes aren't focusing on anything, though he's still staring up at the stars. He's going into shock.
"'Ziraphale?" His voice is so soft, choked, that Aziraphale almost doesn't hear it. "You know I made 'em, right?"
He leans over Crowley's body to better listen. He's not quite sure what Crowley is on about. "What's that then, dear?"
Crowley swallows a few times like he's trying to unstick his throat. "The stars, angel. I made 'em."
Aziraphale smiles softly at that and glances up at Crowley, before looking back down at his hands, blotting the inside of the wound with a clean towel he miracled out of the air to get a better view of the damage. "Yes, dearest. I recall. I was there, remember?"
Crowley makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. "Ah. Er, right. Well. I was wrong. Back then." He turns his head very slowly to look up at Aziraphale, a smile suddenly stretching his sheet-white cheeks.
"You're gorgeous. Not the stars."
Aziraphale doesn't have the opportunity to decipher how he feels about that because just as quickly as it came, the smile warbles and disappears, chased away by the most horrible, wracking coughs Aziraphale has ever heard. Crowley doesn't have the energy to lift his hands to his mouth to cover it and, as such, Aziraphale gets a perfectly uninhibited view of the viscous blood that fills his mouth and trickles down his chin.
Aziraphale, nauseatingly panicked, reaches for the twisted, lead-filled hole in Crowley's stomach. "I'm so sorry, Crowley. This next bit will hurt."
Crowley rasps, throat sore from the coughing fit. He sounds slightly more sober than he did a moment ago when he says, "Don' worry 'bout me, angel. Isn't the worst pain 've ever been in."
Sharp claws wrap around Aziraphale's heart and pierce him, tugging downward, trying to rip him apart from sternum to stomach. Yes, of course. The Fall. How silly of him.
Without further preamble, Aziraphale summons all the angelic will inside himself, calling it to his hands. He presses his fingertips inside the gaping wound tearing his dear friend in two, pushing in, in, in, until half of both hands are tucked inside the demon's body. He tells Crowley he's going to mend his liver, first, and then begins.
Crowley can't hold back the scream this time, as pieces of his flesh mend together in quick, unnatural ways. His legs jerk, weakly, torso twisting to get away, but Aziraphale is able to quickly shift up and straddle Crowley's thighs, using his body weight to hold the squirming demon down. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he murmurs, unable to stop the apologies from spilling from his lips, tears gathering and pressing behind his eyes, aching to escape. "I'm so sorry, my dear. Oh, my sweet, dear boy. I'm so sorry."
Crowley gasps in surprise, a hand darting out to grasp Aziraphale’s wrist. The touch of Crowley's long fingers wrapped around his wrist, the feel of his skin pressed against his own, sends electricity tingling from the point of contact down into his fingertips and back up into his shoulder, spreading like a rampant fire throughout his chest. Aziraphale has to stifle a whimper at the sensation, fingers shaking from the intensity. The miracle continues its important work, but Aziraphale looks away, searching for those sunflower eyes. He finds them and sees a question in Crowley's pain-ravaged eyes. He nods in answer (What question he's answering, he doesn't rightly know. But he gives the affirmative response all the same.), awash with nerves and hoping he doesn't appear as jittery as he feels. He must get something across because Crowley relaxes the grip but doesn’t remove his hand. Aziraphale looks back down at the task at hand, giving his fingers a small, quick smile.
When Crowley's liver appears mostly intact again and functioning as well as it can with the rest of the damage, Aziraphale moves on to the stomach and kidney, finding bullets still lodged in the soft tissue. (Good Lord. Oh God. Multiple bullets. At least three just here. Just how many times was his poor, precious dear shot?) He carefully miracles the metal and shrapnel up out of Crowley's corporation, blindly grabbing a Hirtz compass from the air (with the hand not held in that gentle, grounding, transcendent grasp) to pull the pieces out as soon as they're in view. Crowley groans and shudders throughout, the feel of the foreign objects shifting inside his corporation no doubt uncomfortable and strange.
Aziraphale takes a steadying breath, realizing he hasn't been breathing and not remembering when he stopped. He rubs the gathering sweat from his forehead against his shoulder, allowing them both a moment of rest. Their shared breaths are loud in the silence. His fingers are still buried to the second knuckle inside the wet, charred heat of the demon's cavernous corporation, yet the touch to his wrist somehow feels more intimate; a tenderness he can feel on his tongue, in his teeth, between his shoulders. It aches, but it's a lovely ache.
By the time Aziraphale is moving on to work on the connective tissues between the newly functioning organs, Crowley, blessedly, has started to fade, the pain and exhaustion dragging him under. He is whimpering, eyes drooping against his will, a soft pleading note to his voice as he calls for him (“Angel--”; his heart, oh his treacherous heart, tightens, aches, reaches). His fingers, gently encircling Aziraphale’s wrist, slacken, becoming less of a grip and more of a caress.
Aziraphale, who has been carefully watching Crowley’s fight with consciousness (Not death, he thinks, fiercely. He’s fine, just exhausted. He’s alive and alive he will stay. Aziraphale will make sure of it. There is no other option.), digs his knees into the dirt and tilts forward from his perch (Oh, Lord, don’t think about how you’re sitting on his lap. Don’t think about it.). “Crowley,” his voice is soft, keeping the quiet of the air around them sacred. “It’s alright, dearest one. You can sleep now. I’ll be right here.” He watches Crowley’s face relax into something almost restful as he finally gives in, the encouragement from Aziraphale being the final push he needs. His eyes fall closed and those long eyelashes kiss those pale, white cheeks. He yearns to follow the butterfly kisses with his own.
“You are safe, dear heart.” He whispers, barely a breath. Something dislodges in his chest and flings itself violently at his ribcage, blood pounding in his ears, as he says these last words; they are far too close to the terrifying truth. But Crowley doesn’t react, truly asleep now.
Aziraphale attempts to catch his breath, feeling lightheaded. He may be overdoing it on miracles. He looks down to where his fingers disappear inside the demon. No, he can’t stop. There is still far too much work to be done. He rolls his shoulders, sinks deeper inside that precious corporation, and begins to mend it back to rights.
Aziraphale takes his time, anointed with the holiness of his demon on his skin. He pulls the blood vessels back together with his fingers, creates new blood in his palm and urges it to enter his bloodstream, to pump, pump, pump, beatifically up to that divine heart. Once the blood has been dealt with, he ties the threads of ligaments back to Crowley’s stomach, paints the shape of the abdominal tendons into the curvature of his spine, shaping from the mound of mangled flesh the glorious muscles that do the magical work of keeping everything inside, moving, working.
His holy light is filling the cup of Crowley’s body and he is remade in Aziraphale’s image. He recreates the body of this darling creature, feeling blasphemous and divine at once. She has no place here. She is not a part of this sacred act of love. She could never love her creatures as Aziraphale loves this one, blessed, infuriating, maddeningly beautiful one.
What feels like hours later, as Aziraphale is repairing the soft tissue between muscles, Crowley starts to stir. His legs shift under Aziraphale and the angel looks up with a start, eyes locking on the demon’s face. He feels heat rise from the base of his throat up to his cheeks as he remembers their scattered conversation from before. How much does Crowley remember? (How much will he pretend to have forgotten?)
Crowley groans, a sound pulled from the depths of him, eyes slowly fanning open. His gaze wanders the air, not landing for long on any one particular thing until his warm, honey-gold eyes slide across the broad expanse of Aziraphale's chest. His eyes wander down, and Aziraphale knows what he sees: Crowley, prone on the ground; Aziraphale, straddling his lap; two strong hands pressed to his abdomen, the thick fingers dipping inside the now much smaller chasm where he took the brunt of the damage (damage he should have never taken, an ambush Aziraphale should have thwarted, a massacre that never should have happened); and, most revealing, the long, elegant fingers of Crowley's left hand, curved delicately around the angel's right wrist. The fingers tighten their grip, not painfully, but…possessively.
Aziraphale waits with bated breath, not sure what to expect. Crowley's eyes slowly trail up Aziraphale’s body, starting from the place where their hands touch; they follow the naked swell of Aziraphale’s forearm, snaking up a muscular bicep before crossing to an exposed clavicle. The eyes bounce up to the angel's chin, lingering on the stubble of his jaw, sliding across the ridge of his nose, before finally (oh, finally), landing on Aziraphale's own blue eyes. He can't help the shaky smile, nervous as he is, but still delighted as ever to see those gorgeous amber depths. He tries to inject as much fondness, as much care, as he can into his words. "Hello, my dearest boy." (My darling love).
The eyes seem to smile, even though the mouth doesn't move from its grim line. "Aziraphale. Been busy?" His voice is pitched low from disuse, the words struggling past the rawness of his throat (Oh, how loud he had screamed. And the twice with Aziraphale may not have been the only. His poor, long-suffering dear), but Aziraphale could cry from delight at the familiar cadence. It's teasing, light, flirtatious in that way Crowley always is; he sounds more like himself than he has all night.
Aziraphale holds back a sob of relief, a shout of transcendent joy, a hysterical laugh of triumph (a whimper of heartbreak as he realizes they aren't going to talk about it, they aren't going to mention the stars; they never really talk, do they?). He holds back every emotion warring for release in his tumultuous chest and throat and instead, raises one, well-kept eyebrow. "Well, yes dear. I imagine I would be, considering a reckless serpent has gone and gotten himself nearly torn in two, this evening."
Crowley doesn't take that the way Aziraphale had hoped. His eyes lose their sparkle, face falling flat, body going rigid.
“We tried to surrender, Aziraphale,” he says, tone severe, insistent. Aziraphale has taken up needle and thread and is now slowly hand stitching the hole-punched opening in Crowley’s stomach closed (he's tired, so tired, too tired to finish closing this wound, but this he can do. He can offer his steady hands and his body and his heart to this magnificent being beneath him, offer himself as a holy healer and wholly heal him), hand still glowing faintly with divine influence in the dark. Crowley hisses, flinching at the tug of skin knitting back together, hand flexing gently on Aziraphale’s wrist (he’s been so gentle this entire time, has been so careful not to hurt, and that thought alone nearly rends Aziraphale’s broken pieces apart because he hasn’t repaid the favor, has he? Every touch he’s given has hurt; every moment, every word, every breath has wrought agony and misery. All Aziraphale’s hands have caused is torment). “Had our hands up ‘n’ everythin’. And they shot us.” He shudders, whether from the memory or from Aziraphale’s ministrations, he doesn’t know. “They shot us, anyway. How is that the side of good and righteousness?” He stares up at Aziraphale, a challenge flashing in his eyes, and for a moment it's like the pain is a distant memory, the lines of his face pulled taut in anger at the injustice rather than in anguish.
Aziraphale swallows, eyes skittering away from Crowley’s to focus on his hands sewing the wound in front of him. He tries to pretend that’s why he looks away rather than the truth, which is that he can’t look at Crowley right now. He can’t face what he’s done. “I don’t know,” he whispers, achingly honest. “I don’t know, Crowley. I…I didn’t know it would be like this. I was just…following orders.”
Crowley still sounds angry, but his voice is more controlled now. “So were they.”
Aziraphale can’t hide the flinch at that. Crowley is gracious enough to pretend like he doesn’t notice.
They lapse into a long silence, the only sounds the wet squelching of tissue coming together and blood finding its way home, hand glowing as he runs gentle fingertips across the smaller wounds littering that porcelain skin, hoping he has enough grace left inside himself to perform these tiny miracles. (The gash in his right side (the same place where Jesus was stabbed by the Romans, amen, amen, amen), blood long since coagulated and dried and beginning to scab over, reopens as Aziraphale pulls Crowley's blood cells from the air and dirt and wills them back inside. He rubs a gentle thumb over the gash and watches with satisfaction as the skin knits back together easily. He slides his hand up to Crowley's left clavicle, palm never leaving that perfect skin, and wills the bullet to exit the body, collecting it in his hand and tossing it to the side when it obeys him. Aziraphale presses gentle healing into the skin where the bullet entered and the hole closes, beautiful. Beautiful.)
Just when Aziraphale isn’t sure he can stand the silence any longer, Crowley’s voice (oh, how has he gone so long without this voice? He almost lost it. He vows to never spend so long without that rumbling, low timbre again) rises gently and carefully. “Why did ya do it, angel?”
Aziraphale frowns in concentration as he begins filling the chalice of Crowley's body with much needed wine-dark blood, half-distracted as he answers. “Why did I join the 2nd Battalion? You know why, Crowley. Heaven insisted I lend a hand or two, and the occasional prayer, to the ‘Good ole Catholic boys of England’ and I absolutely could not refuse a direct order from Gabriel--”
Crowley cuts him off, “No, no. Not that.” Aziraphale looks up at that, perplexed. Crowley swallows and he watches the bob of his Adam’s apple, wanting suddenly (ridiculously, wildly) to lean forward and kiss the rigid notch of his throat. “Um, the. The thing. In St. James’ Park. 1862.”
Aziraphale feels cold understanding wash down his spine. “Ah.” He says, body rigid. “Yes. 1862.”
Crowley closes his eyes, like he can’t look at Aziraphale while talking about this. (Like he can’t look at Aziraphale, period, and why would he, after everything he’s done, everything he’s said: ‘Do you know what trouble I'd be in if... if they knew I'd been... fraternizing?’; ‘We may have both started off as angels, but you are fallen.’; ‘I'm not bringing you a suicide pill, Crowley.’; actually, he still stands by that last. Especially after this terrible scare. He will not allow Crowley to destroy himself. ‘Out of the question.’)
Crowley keeps his voice steady, his eyes still maddeningly closed. “I just want to know, Aziraphale. Whatever I did, whatever...whatever made you not trust me. I’ll fix it, just tell me.”
Aziraphale feels like he’s been stabbed, somewhere in the vicinity of his left kidney, perhaps, with the location of the blinding ache as any indication. He stammers, finding all words in the English language, or any of the many human languages really, having been taken from him. Plucked right out of his celestial consciousness and disappeared, like magic. Poof. Alakazam.
“What?” he says, finally, intelligently. And then immediately, idiotically, inconceivably, follows that up with, “Fix it?”
Crowley sighs and opens his eyes (oh, how they shine luminously in the light of the waxing moon), staring at the top of Aziraphale’s head, expression as blank as Aziraphale’s ever seen it. “Forget it, angel. Forget I said anything. ‘s alright.”
Aziraphale blinks, once, and then twice, and then increasingly more aggressive, as if there’s a particularly annoying eyelash stuck in his eyeball that he can’t dislodge. He blinks rapidly for a moment before forcibly stopping himself, mouth opening and closing like a fish as he fights for the right words.
Finally, he blurts out, “I trust you.”
Blast. He could smack himself if he had a free hand to do so.
But it seems like it might have been the right thing to say. Or at least, a thing to say. Definitely better than “what” and miles better than his mindless repetition. In any case, Crowley was looking at him now, really looking at him, into his eyes. And his face didn’t appear to be quite so blank anymore, some unnamed emotion making a slow journey across the pale, tension-lined countenance.
“You...you do.” Crowley doesn’t say it like a question, but it isn’t quite a statement of fact, either. It’s something in between the two, something far more tender and fragile than either.
Aziraphale tilts his head to the side, consideringly. “Well. Yes. Indubitably.”
Crowley splutters, eyes brightening with mirth. “Indubitably? Indubitably! Angel! Who says fucking indubitably anymore? That hasn’t been popular since the 16th century! At least.”
Laughter bubbles up in his chest to match the playful shift in mood between them. Aziraphale can’t help it. Crowley’s laughter is contagious. “Well, I say it, dear one. That should at least count for something.”
Crowley’s laughter rises and falls from him, a beautiful symphony of sound that, for the first time this evening, means joy instead of pain. Aziraphale is wont to do anything but watch.
“Satan’s flaming bollocks, Aziraphale. You should really update your vocabulary to something in the neighborhood of, oh, I don’t know, this century?” The words are teasing, light, and Aziraphale feels the tension he was holding in his shoulders and back slowly ease away; not gone completely, but easier to carry. A lot of things are easier to carry with Crowley around to bear some of the load.
“I’ll have you know, I very much like my vocabulary. I think it makes me sound rather proper and put together.” He wiggles his shoulders, putting emphasis on the put together. He always wants to appear put together, for Crowley. He has missed the mark by a mile today, covered as he is in blood and sweat and mud. But, he thinks saving the demon’s life has to count for something. Maybe appearances can take a backseat for the time being.
“You mean posh,” Crowley corrects, eyes dancing, cheeks brightening and blooming forth with color, indicating sufficient blood flow and oh. That means-- Aziraphale glances down in delight, filled with equal parts relief and transcendent joy at the welcome sight of perfectly blood flushed, unblemished skin, flat and taut and dipping alluringly towards the waistband of Crowley’s trousers (and nope, no. He is not thinking about that. He is not thinking about how alluring Crowley’s abdomen looks right now, not when mere hours ago he was shot full of lead and tumbling rapidly downwards into painful discorporation and buckets of paperwork and an indeterminate (perhaps permanent) stint in Hell. No. He will not think about Crowley in that manner. Not now. (Not ever.)).
Aziraphale clears his throat, hoping his own suddenly warm cheeks are imperceptible in the dark and do not give away his rancid, reprehensible thoughts. “Yes. Quite.” He nods down to Crowley’s stomach, realizing with a start that his hands are still pressed so intimately to the demon’s skin. He jerks them away, clearing his throat. “It appears I’ve healed the worst of it. Should give you a good head start for the rest of it. I believe it just leaves the ribs left, but I’m afraid I’m quite tapped out, tonight, dear boy. Do you think you could handle it?”
Crowley’s eyes, still locked on Aziraphale’s face, dim, just a little. He nods, laughter dying on his lips as quickly as it came. “Yeah, angel,” he says, impossibly softly, and Aziraphale feels the ache of the words settle in the concave valley of his sternum, taking up residence there, with a mailing address, perhaps, so the original home of the ache can write to it, occasionally. “I got it. You good to…?”
Crowley gestures, and Aziraphale isn’t sure what that means, isn’t sure what any of this means, for them, for their Arrangement, for the future, however long they have left in this immortal life spent hurtling ever faster towards the inevitable (ineffable) Armageddon. But he nods, anyway, smiling the smile he reserves for Crowley and his books, and pats his own chest gently, right over his rapidly beating heart. “Yes, dearest. I’m all set. Here, let me help you.”
He wraps an arm tenderly around the thin shoulders, holding his other hand out for Crowley to take. He does, a grateful smile tucked into his chest, as Aziraphale bodily lifts him, as gently as he can, to his feet. He disguises the hiss of pain at the last minute, but Aziraphale feels the tension in his body all the same, and the festering pit of grief and self-contempt rages in triumph at yet another atrocity he’s committed to add to the pile of horrific things he’s done to his demon, too many of which were accomplished tonight.
“Well,” he says, trying so hard to sound bright and cheerful in this dark, bloody clearing surrounded by the slow-rotting bodies of Crowley’s friends, and the charred remains of the home he’d been occupying with them. “If that’s all. I...I should get going. Are you…” And, Aziraphale realizes, he doesn’t know how he was going to end that sentence. (“Are you going to be okay? Are you in any pain? Are you sad, angry, horrified? Of the British Royal Army? Of the death of your comrades? Of me. Oh, you should be horrified of me. I’m the worst of them all. Older than time and the Earth and still doomed to make the same mistakes, over and over and over again. How can you stand to be near me? Such a bright star as yourself. You burn so beautifully, always too far away to touch. And I, boxed up in my bookshop with my archaic vocabulary and archaic habits, am condemned to extinction, rendered obsolete, in the absence of you. Can’t you see, Crowley, I am nothing without you. Oh, how I wish I could burn with you, my starlight. But, this is how it must be. You are too good a thing to lose. And I cannot be the thing that causes you to be lost.”)
Crowley leans down to catch Aziraphale’s eye, hands shoved into the front of his pockets, shirt still hanging open and loose about his shoulders. He looks mortally young like this; soft, auburn locks wayward and curled, caressing his forehead like a tender kiss; all that cream-coloured skin twinkling incandescently, smooth and clean and blessedly whole; jaw sharp as a knife, but mouth blunt as a warm blanket, soft and comforting; and those eyes, oh, Aziraphale could look into those eyes for ages, for an eternity. He would never tire of the ever-shifting amber depths that are so easy to get lost in; those eyes could consume him whole, burn through him and leave him hollowed out and he would thank them. He has never felt as holy as he does now, washed in the blood that should never have been spilt from the body of the one being in existence with the power to unmake him completely. He may be a miserable excuse of an angel, but this he can be. He can be holy for him.
“Angel, I...I wanna say...thank you.” Crowley sounds unsure, but he keeps his eyes on Aziraphale. This, the holy creature thinks, is important. “So, uh. Yeah. Thank you.”
Aziraphale smiles, and the holy light inside him must be glowing brightly enough to be seen from space, to be seen from Heaven. “Whatever for, my dear boy?”
Crowley shrugs, smile a fraction of what Aziraphale’s is, but more lovely than all the stars in the sky. “For everything. All of it. Thank you.” And Aziraphale gets the feeling that the Serpent of Eden is hinting at more than just the events of this evening. He is thanking Aziraphale for much more than the healing of a few bullet wounds. He is wholly unworthy of the thanks freely given, of the implied (but never spoken) forgiveness. He attempts to accept it graciously.
“Anytime, my dear boy,” he says, a tenderness he can’t tame creeping into his voice. “Always, yes?”
He feels it in his soul when Crowley’s smile grows, and his heart does a full somersault in his chest, a bone-deep longing to crawl inside that smile and never leave, curl up like a cat in front of a roaring hearth and sleep away the frigid winter months. He aches to live alongside the dip of his hip bone, the arch of his foot, the curve of his rib; needs to be as closely intertwined as the bodies Crowley hid beneath in existential, breathless fear, awaiting his salvation or swift death. If he is close, so close, always close, maybe he can keep this demon’s light shining just a little while longer, still.
“Yeah, angel. Always.”