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Aziraphale had tried his best to avoid being included in that demon hunting mission but, since he'd been living on earth for the last two millennia, he had no choice but to be the team guide. As a matter of fact, unlike the other angels, Aziraphale wasn't even wearing his armour.
However, it seemed that none of the seven angels that were with him had any intention of following his lead, bossing the principality around and excluding him from any decisions.
“That's the demons’ den, judging from the evil stench,” one of the heavenly soldiers said, wrinkling his nose.
“We'll proceed with our plan: our assaulting team will just burst in from all the sides and smite whatever filthy demon is in front of us until…”
“Ehm,” Aziraphale interrupted, “in my opinion it would be probably better for you to lure them outside since there are a considerable number of humans still inside.”
One angel scoffed: “They're certainly sinners or already corrupted by the demonic influence.”
“Well, we don't know that for sure,” the principality insisted, “and the humans deserve the benefit of the do-”
“No,” the chief sternly claimed while pulling his sword out of the sheath. “It will be God’s job to judge and sort their souls, if needed.”
Aziraphale raised his hands but, seeing everyone else getting ready for the battle, he kept quiet.
Then, all the seven heavenly soldiers barged into the house, yelling and smithing with their holy power whatever was moving and, in the blink of an eye, cries and screams filled that place. Aziraphale slipped inside too and started shielding with a miracle some of the humans holes up in a dark corner behind a table.
“Mommy!!!
Blood froze into the principality’s veins when he heard that cry and saw a little kid rushing into the middle of the battlefield to reach his mother on the other side of the room.
One of the angels, started by the high-pitched cry, turned around with their glowing spear pointed towards the scared child.
Aziraphale rushed over and covered the kid.
A sharp stabbing pain erupted in the right side of his chest, making him gasp like a fish out of water.
Since moving away was probably even more dangerous than moving, the principality hugged the kid and curled up over him.
Aziraphale muttered with broken gasps to reassure the kid: “-things… ...will… b-b-… fine…”
“...they are running away!” The principality heard a heavenly soldier shouting over his ringing ears,
“Let's follow and finally smite them!!”
An angel passed by Aziraphale and, without saying a word, they carelessly retrieved the spear, soaked in blood, before running out from the house.
The principality barely uttered a broken sound, too busy with keeping breathing and not crushing the poor kid with his corporation.
Seeing the principality trying to raise up, the humans rushed to his help.
Despite his own excruciating pain and difficulties in breathing, when Aziraphale saw the kid reunited with his mother, a warm smile appeared on his pallid lips.
While the humans confabulated, the angel tried to fix his own corporation but it seemed a miracle was just out of reach each time he tried, probably due to the blood loss and the heavy breathing.
Meanwhile, the little kid came closer to the principality and said: “Don’t worry, uncle, everything will be fine. My snake friend will help you.”
The child proudly showed his wooden snake toy in his hand: it was covered by black and red scale with two yellow glass eyes.
Another smile bloomed on the angelic lips: it really resembled Crawley’s snake form, just a lot smaller than the original.
At that moment he was wishing the demon was at his time because he wanted to see him one last time before being buried for at least fifty years under a mountain of paperwork to explain his “interference” during the mission and to compile all the “request forms” for a new corporation.
A darkness was starting to fall upon his eyes but the little snake. Surprisingly, it seemed to be shining brighter and brighter until, with a little pop, a black clothed figure with flaming hair appeared next to the kid.
“So, what's up?” Crawley asked the child with a grin, “Do you fancy some sweets?”
The kid just pointed at the wounded principality: “Can you fix him?”
In less of a heartbeat, the demon was at Aziraphale, trying to heal him.
“What the fuck happened here???” the demon swore when he found out that something was preventing into helping him.
The principality tried to reprimand him for his language but he was definitely too out of breath for that.
“This uncle was hurt because a white-wing-human-pigeon was angry with me,” the kid explained. “This uncle had already tried your ‘scrunching-face trick’ you do when you're hurt but it didn't work”.
Crawley blessed under his breath and snapped his fingers once.
Aziraphale felt his own power surging within himself and was finally able to heal the wound.
While he was finally able to catch his breath, the angel heard the demon mutter under his breath something like “only a dick would use a miracle to block someone’s healing”.
Even if Aziraphale was enjoying the company, he was concerned about the humans' and the demon's wellbeing.
“You'd better leave before my… ehm, colleagues come back,” he said in a sad tone, “I’m sorry.”
The humans scurried away almost immediately, just taking some of their belongings, and the kid followed them after a thanks and a little wave to both the angel and the demon.
Crawley lingered a bit longer and, after looking at the angel from head to toe a couple of times, he asked: “Are you really fine?”
The angel nodded: “I'm completely healed. I would have discorporated if it wasn't for you.”
To Aziraphale’s regret, that was the closest thing to a “thank you” they could share in that situation.
If the demon noticed the principality hadn't said a word about his mental state, he didn't voice that. However, he sniffed a couple of times before patting the principality’s shoulder and disappearing into a dark alleyway.
Aziraphale began to wait for the angelic team to come back to lead them to the closer portal to heaven.
However, none of the seven heavenly soldiers arrived in two hours: only a piece of parchment was miracled there with a short message.
“Principality Aziraphale,
all demons in that den were neutralized.
The heavenly team is already back in heaven due to an unexpected malfunction to their corporations.
You may continue your other assignments.”
Aziraphale was smiling after reading once again the words “unexpected malfunction” imagining well what a certain demon had done, when a crimson head popped out from a window.
“Soooo,” Crawley inquiried, "do you have some free time for dinner?”
“Only if you let me offer you some wine,” the angel accepted with a warm smile.