Work Text:
After the apocalypse Aziraphale’s taken to sleeping, sometimes, when he feels like it. He doesn’t do it properly like Crowley, with a bed and all the trimmings. He just sets his book aside, lays his head down on the desk and surrenders to human instinct.
He knows sloth’s a sin - but it’s a harmless one, a beneficent one. He deserves some rest after six thousand years of doing Her works; surely She will understand. It’s peaceful. It passes the time. There are too many books, suddenly, and too much world to keep track of. He is exhausted as no angel should be; quantities of divine light seem to have fizzled out of him in the last week. There’s a coolness in its stead, a gloaming that doesn’t let up. He wonders if he can have Fallen already, without knowing it. The thought makes him vaguely apprehensive. He would’ve received a notice from Above, surely.
So it is that he stumbles out of his study one morning, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and nearly upends the serpent before he sees him coiled inside the now-boiling teapot. Crowley’s made himself a nest of Darjeeling leaves. The angel’s so glad to see him, he‘s not even miffed over the waste of tea.
“Crowley!” he exclaims, smiling like an idiot. Has it really been only three weeks since that day at the Ritz?
Crowley flicks his tail from side to side, but doesn’t stir.
“I’m sorry, my dear. You startled me. Did I hurt you, with the water?”
Silence. It’s as if Crowley hasn’t heard him.
“Crowley?”
No response, except for a furious hissing. If it weren’t for the bright eyes and the infernal energy coming off the snake, Aziraphale would start to doubt that this was Crowley at all.
Aziraphale peers down at the teapot. Crowley doesn’t look injured, and yet. Yet, he’s never known him to clam up like this. There’s something wrong, and if it turns out Hastur or Asmodeus were involved in hurting Crowley, Aziraphale will personally drench them in holy water, Dukes of Hell or not.
“Stay for coffee, at least,” says Aziraphale gently. Can’t very well go around leaving demons alone to wreak havoc inside his bookshop, after all. It’s the principle of the thing.
Crowley hesitates, and hisses fretfully. Still, he slithers the distance between them, draping himself along Aziraphale’s shoulders like a scarf and winding around his torso. The heft of him is obscurely comforting. Then the brown coils tighten around Aziraphale and squeeze the breath from his lungs.
Aziraphale glares. “Crowley, for Someone’s sake. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”
Another panicked hiss; the snake shifts. Aziraphale is left with an armful of human-demon, all flyaway hair and haunted eyes. His suit’s rumpled; there’s a tightness to his jaw. He moves like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Don’t ask me to talk, angel. I don’t — don’t need your blesssed help.”
As lies go, it’s pitiful. Crowley’s gripping Aziraphale’s back hard enough to leave claw marks; he’s buried his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s arm. His breathing’s harsh and rapid, his colour high against the tawny skin.
“Alright, my dear. We won’t talk, then.” It’s as soothing as he can manage, which isn’t very. How can he comfort Crowley properly, when he’s going all to pieces like this... well. Clearly, Crowley’s going to pieces too. It’s a dizzying thought, like imagining Heaven itself crashing down around his ears. Everything about Crowley, from his suits to his watch to his studied nonchalance, normally looks like something out of those science-fiction films: steel edges, dark clean-angled elegance and not a hair out of place. Even his car manages it, despite being seventy years old. His schemes have been ahead of his time for centuries: who else would have thought of credit card fees? But here he is, disintegrating under Aziraphale’s very nose. Does it take the world almost ending to show Aziraphale how fragile their friendship is and how much he depends on it, even now? If Crowley falls apart, Aziraphale won’t follow, but it will be a near thing.
Crowley consents to being nose-led to the lounge and cosseted by degrees, although he remains strangely still and silent, perhaps as a defence mechanism for whatever it is he doesn’t want to — or can’t — admit.
Crowley’s legs go sprawling over the side of the couch. His head ends up pillowed on Aziraphale’s stomach. His muscles relax fractionally when Aziraphale’s fingers find their way into his hair and smooth out the tangles with gentle, languid strokes. He massages the demon’s scalp and his temples with essential oils dug out of some cupboard or other and heated with a minor miracle.
Aziraphale breathes in the scents: cedar, lavender, and rosemary. Even though he doesn’t have to, it feels... better than almost anything else, just now. Scent on the inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He unfurls his wings, wriggles forward and — ahhh, that’s more like it — stretches them luxuriously for the first time in years, unmindful of the back of the couch.
“Better, my dear?” he asks, pouring untold tenderness into four syllables.
“Mmmm. Warmer,” slurs Crowley. He gives a sigh that’s almost a moan and buries his face in Aziraphale’s chest. He’s still avoiding Aziraphale’s eyes, but it’s a start. In response, Aziraphale tugs him closer, throat too tight to form words.
How foolish he’s been, not to think about the possibility of losing Crowley; how ridiculous, too, to break into tears over this particular task. He’s an angel - it’s his job to love people and he can’t even manage to take care of his own personal Enemy, who he’s known for six thousand years, without crumbling like a soggy Digestive biscuit. He should be able to read Crowley’s mind like - like that. Like a snap of the fingers. Humans are easier. They shouldn’t be, but they are. All you’ve got to do is brush against their minds, skim the relevant information off the top, then spread love like a balm. But demons are immune to that particular method. He’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way, the human way. The epiphany sparks something in him, some star-glitter of hope. Aziraphale’s been divinely commanded to spread love and charity, and he will fulfil that edict if it bloody well discorporates him, acedia be damned. He was created to be useful; if nothing else, he can be that.
He pulls himself together, wipes his eyes and puts the kettle on properly (sweet tea for himself, coffee for Crowley). Normally he’d ply the demon with liquor and they’d get sozzled, but it’s early morning in November and given the state Crowley’s in now, he rather thinks something lighter is called for. He doesn’t even reach for the packet of chocolate rounds. Food’s lost its savour in the last few days, along with most everything else.
Looking after the demon helps Aziraphale feel better, too: keeps his hands occupied, gives him something to focus on besides that terrible yawing grey of time passing. How do humans endure it?
Silence reigns for the next forty-five minutes, most of which Aziraphale spends with his arms around Crowley. Neither of them are in any fit state to move, in any case. At length Crowley mumbles something into Aziraphale’s coat. It sounds like, “Read to me, angel.”
Aziraphale is only too happy to comply. He goes to the bookshelf and looks for the most mawkish literature he can find. Ah, first-edition Gibran. That should do the trick. Besides, it’s a bestseller (both Heaven and Hell claimed credit for bestseller lists), it suits his mood, and it’s guaranteed to infuriate the demon. Something perverse in him wants to goad Crowley into reacting.
“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.” He lets the words roll around his tongue, not quite like a prayer but like a devotional song. “Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning...”
Now Crowley’s looking up, a little colour in his cheeks from the coffee.
“‘ve you gone sentimental in your old age?”
“Just a pre-emptive strike, my dear,” says Aziraphale smugly. “Spreading the Lord’s word to the invalid. Planting a few seeds of doubt.”
Crowley snorts and plucks the Gibran from his hands, miracles it somewhere, probably behind a shelf. “Seeds of boredom’s more like it. Or burning resentment. Very demonic. Or are the invalids meant to keel over and go Upstairs right there and then?”
“Something like that,” says Aziraphale faintly.
“Oh. I’m hardly an invalid, angel.” But he looks shamefaced. “About before, Aziraphale. I... it’s... complicated, all right. I couldn’t sleep last night. It’s...”
It’s the whole blue-green earth nearly tilting to a halt, Alpha Centauri and the stars gone, the Milky Way flowing down the gutter. It’s the waiting for a note from Heaven that never comes, it’s endless cups of tea just to stave off the chill...
“Aziraphale? Angel.” Crowley’s hands are on his now. Aziraphale becomes aware that he can’t look up. The bookshop’s too full, every surface jewel-bright with tomes. The weight of all that knowledge is bearing down on him, as though he’s trapped in a catacomb. If he opens his eyes it will crush him like a scarab beetle.
“I know,” he says hoarsely, at last. “Everything was about to end, and then it...”
“Didn’t,” finishes Crowley. “‘S all still here, isn’t it. So, since we’re both wrecks, angel, can I tempt you to a holiday? On Earth, I mean,” he adds hastily, “not... you know. Unless you want. I hear Mercury’s warm this time of year.”
Aziraphale smiles, and beams when Crowley gives a lopsided grin in return. “America will do just fine, dearest. We can drop in on Warlock along the way. Explain a thing or two to him.”
“Yeah,” says Crowley. “Poor kid. Our agents scarred him for life, I reckon.”
“Our agents? I beg your pardon!”
“Oh, come off it, you’re not telling me Francis wasn’t chasing the dragon. Brother Snail and Sister Slug? He would’ve grown up to be a hippie!”
“Those are yours, Crowley.”
Crowley smirks. “My point exactly.“
“You,” says Aziraphale fondly, “are insufferable.”
FIN