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It’s like sitting in an airport, Crowley says, forehead pressed hard against Aziraphale’s collarbone, hands curled into fists. Sitting in an airport, minding your own business, and everything is going on around you but you don’t really notice because it’s constant, it’s always, it’s—it’s all the time.
So you sit there and you focus on your book or your mobile or what have you, until suddenly the loudspeaker announces your destination. Albuquerque? you ask the bloke sitting next to you, did she say Albuquerque? But he doesn’t answer, and you don’t know how much time you’ve got left, if you can pop into the loo or buy a pack of gum, or if by next blink you’re already strapped in, on some plane hurtling into the atmosphere, engines roaring, air pressure strangling, compressing you back into your seat and you try and try to make your ears pop but you can’t, you can’t, and you just wish it would tear you to pieces but it doesn’t and it won’t and—and—
Crowley always tells this story with Albuquerque in it. What happened in Albuquerque? Aziraphale asks once, but Crowley doesn’t say.
It must be lonely in those airports, always waiting, never getting anywhere he actually wants to go. Always trying to focus on anything other than the inevitable crescendo of noise and the inescapable crush of pressure. Always trying to avoid the oncoming pain—and it’s always oncoming.
Aziraphale tries to be there with him, but he knows he isn’t, he can’t be, not really. He can’t anchor Crowley to the ground. Can’t keep the flights from taking off.
He can only wait for Crowley to land, helpless as an empty-handed attendant outside of baggage claim, and try to put him back together out of the wreckage.
*
The afternoon is bright and beautiful, and London is alive with it: the breeze, the birds, the music spilling out of open doors and into the streets. The current of the crowded pavements sweeps Aziraphale through Soho, meandering and exploratory; he lets himself be moved.
It’s amazing, all the things one can discover. It’s amazing, how it all survives.
Aziraphale makes his usual rounds, pops into this shop or that on whatever whim, picking up anything that catches his eye. Black pepper parmesan popcorn, delicate chocolates, that organic fair-trade super-duper-double-extra-dark roast coffee Crowley likes to drink while pretending he hasn’t dumped half a cup of sugar into it. Another book or two he doesn’t need but can’t resist. A pair of socks with darling little chilli peppers on them Crowley will scoff about but wear to threads.
He still hasn’t quite gotten used to looking at the city like this, rose-tinted and fond. None of this should exist at all; all of it exists wonderfully.
Eventually the rhythm of the city rambles out of Soho and into Mayfair, and Aziraphale slips out of the hustle and bustle and into the lobby of an extremely expensive, extremely fashionable block of flats. He takes the lift up to a floor somewhere just past the penthouse, into a space that’s not quite real at all.
He doesn’t bother to ring the serpent-shaped doorbell. He lets himself inside—and stops.
*
You’re a demon, Aziraphale said, the first time he’d seen him like this. Discomfort made him sound careless; he couldn’t afford to be caring. The heat of Venice was positively baking that summer, and the water loud and stinking outside the windows. Can’t you just miracle it away?
Crowley was little more than a curl of shoulder blades wrapped in white linen, tucked into the corner. I’m a demon, he said, throat thick. That’s the whole point.
*
The flat is dark.
The flat is always a little dark—a bit of gloom comes naturally to both its inhabitant and its poured concrete walls. But this darkness is deeper, more absolute: deliberate.
Black blinds have been drawn shut over the expansive windows. Even the skylights have been shuttered, leaving only a single thin window in the atrium in a concession to the plants. Shadows gather heavily in the corners of all the rooms, curling ominously around the slab of a desk and cloaking the statues, stretching down the hall.
Crowley’s mobile is on the desk, abandoned. Aziraphale’s heart sinks.
He slips off his shoes right there in the doorway, bracing himself carefully against the wall so as not to make a racket with the bags in his hands. He pads down to the kitchen in socked feet, puts the bags right into the pristine refrigerator without bothering to unpack anything. It will all keep.
A glass of water is filled with the tap turned on to no more than a drizzle; a frozen flannel is taken from the freezer. These are insufficient weapons, laughable in the face of the danger, but they’re all Aziraphale has.
The hallway leading down to the bedroom is a gaping maw of dread. Aziraphale takes a deep breath, steeling himself against what he already knows he’ll find, and steps into the black.
Crowley needs him.
*
It had been a nice night. Aziraphale thought it’d been a nice night.
But when he looked over, Crowley’s face was caught in a grimace, brow furrowed hard above his sunglasses, and his hands were tense around the arms of his chair, knuckles long gone white. It might have looked like rage, if one didn’t know better. It might have looked like damnation.
Aziraphale knew better.
Crowley, he said gently.
Don’t, Crowley snapped. In the pit below, the orchestra swelled to its crescendo; the soprano hit the high note, piercing, unrelenting. Just—don’t.
*
It takes a long moment for Aziraphale’s eyes to adjust to the pitch-dark of Crowley’s room, to make out the low shape of the bed and the faint lump on top of it. He waits until he’s sure of the limits of the mattress, the bedside table, before he ventures in.
Laid out flat on his back, covered only in the sheet with the rest of the blankets shoved haphazardly off the end and Aziraphale’s pillow smashed over his forehead and eyes, Crowley looks more like a body laid out in a morgue than he does himself. Ironic, Aziraphale thinks, because there’s something to be said for a cold refrigeration unit that Crowley would probably appreciate when he’s like this.
There’s one bony hand thrown out into the sheet, fabric clenched into the fist. Aziraphale carefully sets the glass of water onto the table before he reaches out, skating gently over the wrist.
Crowley’s cool to the touch, but most definitely alive. His toes curl under the sheet, responding to Aziraphale’s fingertips—alive, and regretfully not asleep.
Hello, darling, Aziraphale whispers. Have you taken anything?
There’s a long pause before Crowley manages to breathe the words. Maxed out.
Aziraphale grimaces. It’s too early in the day for him to have taken three doses since morning—he must have woken up with the pain, or he might have even been suffering since last night and just not said anything, or he might be overmedicating out of desperation. It doesn’t matter, really; it only matters that it’s a bad one, and it’ll be another twenty-four hours before Aziraphale can give him anything else.
Human medication isn’t really the sort of thing angels and demons generally get on with. Their bodies resist bangs and cuts and bruises. Their bodies heal themselves, most often before they even realise there’s an injury.
But there’s no helping Crowley with miracles and magic. Aziraphale’s tried.
It doesn’t help. Sometimes, it makes it worse.
So there’s only this: paracetamol, if Crowley takes it early enough. Naproxen, if he doesn’t. Aspirin, if that’s all there is, although it isn’t Crowley’s preference, for reasons Aziraphale has never been able to suss out.
After that, there’s nothing but time. Time, and a handful of old-fashioned rituals and remedies that amount to little more than a prayer for even a scrap of relief.
God doesn’t answer Crowley’s prayers. She doesn’t answer Aziraphale’s either.
Aziraphale allows himself one moment, just one breath—his jaw clenches, he swallows hard, he thinks about that sword again—and then he brushes his fingertips over Crowley’s wrist again, gentle as anything: a reassurance, a comfort, however poor. I’ve got water, then, and a frozen flannel. Can you come up for a moment?
Another pause, but slowly, very slowly, Crowley’s other hand emerges to shift the pillow on his face out of the way. A silicone straw appears silently in the glass, allowing him to take a sip of cool water without having to raise himself up too far. When he lays back, the flannel goes over his forehead; Crowley reaches up to help guide it, settling it more over one eyebrow than the other.
There’s a brief flash of yellow, Crowley squinting out at him through the dark, but then it’s gone.
Hurts, he says.
He sounds so small and defeated, that one word burbling up like it’s out of Crowley’s control. Aziraphale would raise his sword again a thousand times to spare him this, to spare him even a moment of this, but there’s nothing he can do.
Helpless, he presses his fingers to Crowley’s temples, hoping the cold of the flannel is something at least. I know.
*
Chronic migraine affects six million people in Britain, Crowley whispered to him through the black, as though the numbers made any difference. A hundred and ninety thousand migraine events occur every day.
Does it help, Aziraphale asked, to know you’re not alone?
Crowley was quiet for a long time. Then he slipped his hand into Aziraphale’s and said, it didn’t used to.
*
Aziraphale settles on the floor next to the bed, waiting as the frozen flannel melts, sending water trickling down Crowley’s face, into his hair. Each flannel only has a lifespan of about ten minutes if Aziraphale doesn’t miracle it, and he knows Crowley doesn’t want it miracled; he’s using it as something of a countdown.
Sure enough, after about ten minutes Crowley’s hand flops out of the bed, onto Aziraphale’s shoulder. It’s wet; he’s moved the flannel away. Aziraphale banishes it back to the freezer with a thought.
What did you do today? Crowley croaks.
Aziraphale shifts a little so he can make out the white of Crowley’s face, half-hidden away again under a pillow. He takes that wet, floppy hand in his and kisses the palm, despite how clammy it is. Opened the bookshop for half an hour, he says quietly. Read for a while, some modern take on Pride and Prejudice with zombies in, you’d have liked it. Then someone ruined it by implying they’d be back to purchase that old copy of Dracula, you know the one—
There’s a faint huff from the bed, an almost-laugh that’s more breath than anything else. The one I accidentally cursed to bite in 1953, I remember.
Exactly. So of course I had to close up early and prevent anything dangerous from happening, and the zombie book had made me a bit thirsty so I went down to the café with those two baristas who haven’t decided yet whether to snog in the back and had a few cups of cocoa and then had to choose between a lovely bit of coffee cake and a raspberry tart, but I finished the zombie book in the end. Tawdry stuff, you know how those books are.
What’s holding up the decision?
On the coffee cake?
On the snogging.
Oh. I’m afraid neither of them really know, but I’m sure they’ll get to it soon. They both have the closing shift on Thursday evening.
We should pop by. Maybe put them in a certain mood.
I’m sure we’d only be interrupting, my dear, Aziraphale says, in a tone that says he’s not nearly done describing his day, if Crowley will let him get on with it. The damp fingers in his own squeeze contritely; Aziraphale bends again to kiss them, one by one. It isn’t an apology, but he accepts it anyway.
Go on, then, Crowley says, once his fingers have been kissed and a smile has wormed its way back into his exhausted voice. After the café?
Aziraphale tells him about the stroll through Soho, about the gourmet popcorn he’d gotten with thoughts of a Bond movie night in mind, about the super-duper-extra dark roast he’d snagged for Crowley. He doesn’t say anything about the chocolates, not tonight; those will be a mood for a different kind of night altogether. He says something about the socks, but doesn’t mention the chilli peppers.
Crowley deserves a nice surprise, sometimes.
Their hands tangle at the edge of the bed while Aziraphale whispers, loose and relaxed, and he could almost believe that this is nothing more than a normal moment of intimacy, a normal moment of quiet comfort in a cotton-wrapped afternoon.
Sounds like you had a nice day, angel, Crowley says then, and Aziraphale’s heart aches anew.
He doesn’t have to ask about Crowley’s day. He knows that most of it has been spent right here. Tied to the airport, strapped into the plane, hurtling, compressed and straining, into the ether. No matter where Crowley is, no matter what he does, that flight will always find him.
Instead Aziraphale kisses the fingers again, and the palm, and the wrist, and says, What do you think about a shower?
*
I don’t need to talk, Aziraphale said. It was snowing outside, peaceful and soft; Crowley said the sound of it hurt. I’m happy to sit here with you in the quiet.
I’m not, Crowley huffed back. I’m bored. I’m so bored, and there’s nothing in my head but the pain. There was a rustle in the bedclothes, the sound of a body trying to find a more comfortable position—one that could never be found. His voice cracked, and something inside Aziraphale did too. I just need there to be something else, all right? Talk to me.
Are you certain it won’t hurt you more?
There was a long silence, and then Crowley said, with all the weight of the choice making his breath sound thin and stretched, Please just talk to me, angel.
*
Movement, in a migraine, is something of a ballet: every shift of muscle must be accounted for, every jolt of joints. It looks small, and stilted, and incredibly delicate, but Aziraphale knows it takes some tremendous power for Crowley to move out of the bed, across the floor, into the bath.
Aziraphale doesn’t see in the dark as well as Crowley does, but he knows this bathroom as well as he knows his own. The long vanity with its fashionably obnoxious vessel sinks, the enormous shower and standing tub, the secret panel that hides the incredibly fluffy towels and a wide array of hair products. He knows how to turn on the complicated taps (by miracle, obviously) and what setting to put the shower spray on: as hard as it will go.
There is, somewhere, a little bamboo bench that Aziraphale could put into the shower for Crowley to sit on, but he doesn’t bother. Instead he just slips the t-shirt off over Crowley’s head—gently, gently, those bony shoulders, that soft belly begging to be soothed—and the pajama bottoms down, and helps Crowley fold himself down into a pretzel on the shower floor.
All right, darling?
Crowley doesn’t answer right away, his head bent so far toward his knees that he’s nearly halved himself. The spray of the shower aims right along the back of his neck, and slowly, slowly, slowly, he lifts his head up into it, until it’s pounding, more or less, at his brow.
S’good, angel. Thanks.
He hates when Crowley’s like this. Soft, in that weak, vulnerable way, fragile as bird bones. It’s—it’s not a choice Crowley’s making, to be like that, not the way Crowley sometimes chooses to be soft and fragile in the early morning hours when it’s just the two of them in bed, or when they’re out to dinner somewhere and Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand over the tablecloth. It’s forced upon him, a betrayal of his own body, holding all that personality hostage inside him.
It makes Aziraphale furious.
To see Crowley like this, robbed of himself. To offer whispers and frozen flannels and darkness, and to have nothing else to offer. To know that Crowley accepts help, allows it, but he doesn’t really want it.
To know that Crowley is too tired, after six thousand years, to be angry on his own behalf.
Aziraphale watches him for a moment or two more, taking in the little rolls of his tummy tucked into the angle of his body, the lax flop of his hands across his knees. His feet are so white against the black tiled floor; Aziraphale wishes he could take them into his hands. Protect them. Protect him.
But Crowley will be there for a while, and he’s fine, for now—if he is thirsty, he can drink. If he needs to pee, he can pee. If he’s too cold, or if he’s too warm, the tap can be changed without him having to stand.
Aziraphale slips out of the bathroom, then, and heads back to the kitchen to finish unpacking the shop. Popcorn they’ll eat together another day. Coffee Crowley drinks even though he doesn’t enjoy it because the caffeine might hold a migraine at bay. Chocolates, which Aziraphale will eat by himself, because sometimes it’s a trigger. Tastes better like this, Crowley will say, kissing Aziraphale deeply, chasing the lingering sweetness on his tongue. It’ll be a lie, but Aziraphale will let him tell it.
Aziraphale keeps the fury in his chest, bright and burning. He keeps it, and lets it blaze, and never lets so much as a spark get loose.
He must be careful, after all.
Crowley has no kindling left but his bones.
*
What’s the point of the Arrangement, Aziraphale argued, if you won’t let me lend a hand in times like this?
Crowley’s face was pale and drawn under his sunglasses. Mouth set. Teeth grinding. It’s fine. Just a quick temptation across the Channel.
I don’t mind, Aziraphale kept on. I’ve not got anything on until the end of next week. He could see the pain settling already along Crowley’s temples, the way his eyes pinched against the light even beneath his sunglasses, but Crowley was shaking his head.
If I begged off every time, I’d be—I wouldn’t—I’d be nothing, angel. I’d be nothing but the pain. There’d be nothing else left, all right? So just let me do my job. Let me go.
There was nothing left to be said. Aziraphale let him go.
*
Crowley is still on the floor of the shower when Aziraphale comes back to the bathroom, though he’s changed position, turning around onto his knees so the spray of the water will hit his back. His forehead is pressed hard against the tiled wall, and although Aziraphale can’t see it, it takes him less than a minute to hear it: the hitch in Crowley’s breath. The choke at the back of his throat.
The sob, swallowed down.
Aziraphale stops himself. Breathes for a moment, in, two, three, four, out, two, three, four. He waits until his heart is slow and steady; he waits until his breath is calm and even.
He waits until the bonfire in his chest is contained, and then he goes to Crowley.
All right, darling, all right. Come on.
If getting Crowley into the shower was a ballet, getting him out is a battle: slick skin like muddy riverbanks, rickety joints like slapdash guard posts. The hollows at his collarbones like trenches, dug in deep as gashes; his thin white hands like skeletons, picked clean. He’s less coordinated now, less fragile than floundering, hunching over himself like there’s a mortal wound somewhere deep inside where no one else can see.
It’s fine, Crowley croaks, even with his eyes closed. Aziraphale takes a towel to him, patting the water off slowly and carefully; he wipes Crowley’s cheeks dry again and again. It’s fine.
It isn’t, but they both already know that. That’s not what Crowley really means anyway.
The gorge rises in each of their throats at the hurt, at the panic, at the pain, at the terrible unfairness of it. At the endlessness of it. At the unchangeability of it. The fire burns in Aziraphale’s chest, and for a moment, Crowley is too close to the heat.
Slowly, together, they force it down, and when Aziraphale breathes next, audible and deliberate, Crowley breathes with him.
In, two, three, four, five. Setting aside anger, setting aside grief. Out, two, three, four, five. This isn’t about what Aziraphale feels; it’s about what Crowley needs. In, two, three, four, five. This isn’t about the choices Crowley has been robbed of. Out, two, three, four, five.
It’s about honouring what choices Crowley has left to make.
There was a time when Aziraphale hadn’t known. There was a time when Crowley bore these moments alone. There was a time—for centuries and centuries—when Crowley had offered up nothing more than wan smiles and poor excuses, when he wouldn’t have dared to utter words like hurts. When he had trusted no one. Chosen no one.
He’s chosen Aziraphale.
Aziraphale rubs Crowley dry, gentle and hushed and tender, and thinks this feels more like grace than anything She has ever offered.
*
Are you sure? Is there anything—
No, I’m fine. See you later, angel.
Now that Aziraphale knew it was there, it was easier to see the struggle in Crowley: the grimace behind his dark glasses, the tension in his jaw, in his hands. The smaller, slower way he moved, like he was still braced against the noise of the crowds, even though it had gone half-midnight.
Crowley had said he’s used to it now. The pain, the vertigo, the nausea, the sensitivity. He’d said, Dunno. You can get used to anything, I s’pose.
Aziraphale can’t. He’ll never get used to it.
He won’t.
He doesn’t.
*
Back in the bed, Crowley lets Aziraphale tuck him under the sheets and folds, naked, onto his side. One hand stretches out to the middle, palm up, fingers curled in invitation. Aziraphale makes sure the ice pack—a longer, more substantial cold, now that Crowley’s had a shower—is in place, and then he strips down to his vest and pants and carefully slides into bed next to him.
Crowley’s hand instantly finds one of his, and hangs on.
He’s a little warmer to the touch now, and he settles into the bed heavily, sighing with relief. Aziraphale’s not sure if it’s the shower or the—the other thing, in the bathroom, just a moment ago—but Crowley’s sprawl lacks tension, lacks so much of that innate defensiveness he usually carries.
Aziraphale wants to ask him about that moment, back there. If he’d made a mistake, putting Crowley in the shower. If he’d messed up. If he feels any better; if Aziraphale made it worse.
He doesn’t. It’s easier for them both that way.
Instead he brushes the damp hair off Crowley’s forehead and traces his fingers down along the line of the ice pack, waiting until Crowley makes a soft sound in his throat and pushes his head harder toward Aziraphale’s hand. It’s the spot right above the peak of the eyebrow, centring right at the supraorbital ridge and stretching along the line of the temple. It’s a familiar place—it’s where the migraine almost always sits.
Aziraphale presses into that spot with his thumb, hard, and Crowley groans.
Feels good, angel.
Mm. Aziraphale keeps the pressure constant and heavy, careful to watch Crowley’s expression for grimaces or winces, but his face stays still, maybe even starts to go a little slack. His thumb aches a little under the strain, but it doesn’t matter. Aziraphale presses and presses and presses. He’d press forever if Crowley asked him to.
*
Coffee too early, or too late. Chocolate. Seafood. Dairy. Alcohol too, more often than not, though he never lets that stop him.
Changes in the weather patterns: rain that rolls in too fast, that sits and waits and dumps pressure into the atmosphere. A cold front, a warm front. Air conditioned buildings in the heat of summer; the blast of heat at doorways in the dead of winter.
Going up too many stairs at once, or running, or bending down and standing up again too many times in a row. Sex, sometimes. Anytime he feels his heart rate jumping, feels it begin to settle too strongly in his throat. He moves slow and slinky when he can, trying to be relaxed and easy. Cool, he’d say, and he could almost be believed.
Driving at night, all those tiny pinpricks in the dark. Fluorescent lights. Blue lights. Flashing lights. Sudden lights. Sudden noises, or prolonged ones, pitches too high, drums too loud. The movie soundtracks that explode across the screen, leaving him flinching in his seat.
Too many nights without sleep, or too many days stuck in a dream. Disruptions, nightmares, too many blankets in the bed, too few blankets on his feet. A crick in his neck. An ache in his shoulders. A pain in his teeth.
Rebound headaches. Headaches from taking too many medications at once, like a hangover. Headaches that build on headaches, that dig in, that layer over until he can’t tell when one ends and another begins.
Stress, as if that isn’t salt in the wound. Anxiety, coiling tighter and tighter in his chest. Crying, not that he ever does that anyway. Every innocent, painless moment coloured with the knowledge that it won’t last. It’ll never last.
Sunshine.
That one was the worst, Aziraphale always thought. A snake that couldn’t bask without fear. A man that couldn’t tip his face up and let the sun wash over him.
Crowley, consigned forever to the dark, and in more ways than one.
*
The night drapes itself around them, lending a sort of velvety solidity to the darkness of the flat. The quiet deepens and expands. When Aziraphale finally lets his hand fall away, Crowley’s eyes are shut, but Aziraphale can tell he’s not asleep. Not yet.
Do you think, Crowley whispers. His mouth closes again, then opens and closes once more, like he’s feeling out of the shape of a secret, deciding how it tastes on his tongue. Do you think if I were—different.
It isn’t really a question. Aziraphale wishes Crowley wouldn’t ask it.
Do you think, he starts again, his voice half-muffled into his pillowcase the way it had been muffled into the shower tiles, into the fabric of the bath towel. Do you think if I, I, I don’t know. If I ate better, took up yoga. Cut back on coffee. Gave up drinking. Got the Botox like everyone says I should.
One of his eyes flashes through the dark, the tapetum lucidum turning the yellow into a strange reflective blue-gold-violet.
You’ve always said you wouldn’t consider the Botox, Aziraphale deflects. That’s true—something about bodily autonomy, about bodily dignity. Privately, Aziraphale doesn’t understand why, if there’s a chance it could help, but Crowley has always just shaken his head and said he should be allowed to draw the line somewhere.
Crowley draws a line around this conversation now.
I could do things differently, he says. If I were different, if I were— the word stops, thorned, in this throat, before he chokes it out— do you think, wouldn’t it be better if I were—good?
Would it be better if Crowley took up yoga? Maybe. Would it be better if Crowley gave up coffee? Maybe. If he got the Botox, the piercings, if he forced himself to eat leafy greens and salmon, if he tracked macronutrients and micronutrients and precipitation and humidity and weather patterns, if he timed his sleep and never indulged in a lie in, if he stopped drinking wine or he started drinking green tea, if he went to therapy or got a dog or started meditating, if he took this supplement or stopped that one, if he wore a monitor and never let his heart beat fast, if he swallowed pill after pill, if he shot up injection after injection, if he bared himself to masseuses and chiropractors and specialists—
—if he prayed harder, if he asked Her forgiveness, if he burnt his feet on the floors of Her cathedrals and confessed his sins without a single question left inside him, our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy will be done—
—if he dissected everything he’d done before it started and everything he’d done all the way through until it stopped and lived his days on eggshells, in airports, thinking that if he could only pay attention, if he could watch the flight patterns carefully enough, consistently enough, unceasingly enough, he might one day find what he’s looking for—
—the blame.
So that’s the real answer, then: maybe. If he were someone else entirely, maybe. If he changed himself from his soul to his wings to his bones, maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe Crowley would be able to pick up this thing in his own two hands, bloody and throbbing. Or maybe he would find nothing, and he would have to stand there with all that nothing to fill his pleading hands. In the end it wouldn’t matter, because Crowley would only look at whatever he held and say, this is my fault. It always has been.
Aziraphale gathers Crowley up, shushes him with soothing words, lets Crowley press his forehead against his collarbone so hard it hurts, strokes his back when the breath in his chest goes unsteady. The ice pack, abandoned, falls to the floor.
No, darling, he whispers into Crowley’s hair, and the answer is a double-edged sword, cutting them both deeply, darkly. I think it’s just a thing that happens, sometimes.
Then why? Crowley asks, hot against Aziraphale’s skin. It’s always been questions, for Crowley. Why am I like this, if not because I’m—if it’s not because I’m—
Maybe it is. Aziraphale doesn’t know.
The doubt of it itches beneath his breastbone, in the insides of his elbows. He doesn’t know anything about demonic bodies and corporations and punishments and consequences; he doesn’t know anything about forgiveness and holiness and grace. He doesn’t know anything about the unchangeable nature of Crowley’s eyes or the way he licks his lips to smell something better or whether the snake printed on his jaw is a tattoo or a brand.
It just is what it is. But it’s not a punishment, Crowley, Aziraphale says instead.
Crowley blinks up at him through the dark. His eyes reflect through salt-water.
Isn’t it?
Maybe. Aziraphale doesn’t know.
All Aziraphale knows is this: his heart is a flaming sword, and he would raise himself against Her and all Her angels in order to protect Crowley. He would bathe himself in Holy Water and Hellfire, fight in the streets of London and in the fields of Megiddo, embattle himself against Her every plot and every plan, every divine edict and every profane curse, in order to protect Crowley from every hurt and harm.
Aziraphale is a Principality. He is formed from love itself, a warrior in protection of it, and his love is here: on their own side.
Maybe he can’t do anything about the throbbing in Crowley’s head, but the crack in his heart—Aziraphale can do something for that.
He holds Crowley closer, presses a kiss to his brow, and says, It’s not. I know.
*
They surveyed the valley around them, the great ark being built on the ridge. All around them, children ran alongside animals, dodging the hands of chastising parents.
They stood surrounded by the dead.
How kind, Crawley said dryly, not even trying to hide what he thought of it.
His disdain had hurt, a bit, mostly because Aziraphale had barely been managing to keep his own discomfort at bay. He brushed past it, trying to steady himself on Heaven’s doctrine, reaching for faith again and again. You can’t judge the Almighty, Crawley. God’s plans are—
Are you going to say ineffable?
*
A migraine is, in the end, about blood.
It starts as a spark somewhere deep in the brain, sending messages down the nerves like crackling flames racing toward an accelerant. The blood begins to pump and pool, to centre itself, to focus itself; blood vessels narrow and expand, constrict and contract and then flood, pulsing and pounding.
The battle inside Crowley’s head is a massacre, drenched in ichor; Crowley is the casualty.
The firestorm in Aziraphale’s chest begs for him to join the fray, but he knows he can’t win the peace for Crowley. Instead he offers reinforcements: the slow circling of a palm against the middle of Crowley’s back, the gentle brushing of fingers through shower-damp hair beneath the ice pack. The sticky press of bare skin against bare skin. The steady rise and fall of Aziraphale’s lungs, of his heart, giving Crowley guidance to match his own to.
The migraine may have the field, but Aziraphale knows it’s him Crowley’s looking for: something else to feel, to focus on.
An hour passes, maybe more. The blaze inside Aziraphale burns itself down, bit by bit, soothed by the feeling of Crowley alive in his arms, by the labyrinth of nerves and veins compacted under muscle, around bone, by the weight of him, solid and real. Each quiet snuffle and touch of fingertips over an elbow or hip has burnt the bonfire down into something more manageable, until Aziraphale’s left with only heat and embers: he is with you. He is going to be all right.
He’s going to be all right.
Aziraphale is half-drunk on the sensation of Crowley in his arms and half-asleep on the comfort of it when Crowley begins to shift, twisting himself, suddenly restless. Angel, he murmurs. Angel.
I’m here, Aziraphale answers, dragging one hand up the length of Crowley’s spine to cup the back of his neck, the back of his head. The bramblebush mess of his hair. How are you feeling?
Crowley shifts again, all hips and ribs moving against Aziraphale, but he doesn’t shift away. It’s more deliberate than that, like the worry of a finger pad over a nail. Chasing sensation.
Dunno, he finally says, voice muffled into Aziraphale’s skin, into the worn cotton of his vest. Is there water?
There is, still as icy cold as if Aziraphale had just poured it. He helps Crowley to sip slowly at the silicone straw again, then helps him settle back, brushing his hands down the sides of Crowley’s waist to soothe him down against the sheets. He offers up the ice pack again, and that too would be frozen fresh if Crowley wanted it, but he doesn’t.
Just you, angel. Just you.
Aziraphale can do that.
He slips back under the covers, settles himself close to Crowley, one hand rubbing a slow soothing circle over his belly. Not close enough, apparently; Crowley wiggles his nose, the most like-himself move he’s made all evening, and turns into Aziraphale a bit, twisting his hips to sling one of his legs over Aziraphale’s.
One of Aziraphale’s hands curls instinctively around Crowley’s waist; the other slides down to catch Crowley’s thigh, to help him find his place, and Crowley makes a noise that isn’t quite a groan, isn’t quite a whimper. Isn’t quite not, though, either.
Oh, Aziraphale thinks, eyes darting up to Crowley’s face again.
Crowley’s eyes are open, heavy-lidded and fat-pupiled. Watching him. Hi, he says, quiet and still a little small, but clearer, more definitive. He seems, suddenly, more inside his own body than he’s been all evening, and then he rolls his hips in a short, jerky motion—his muscles are probably stiff and sore, from laying down too long, but Aziraphale understands.
Hello, Aziraphale answers, and slips his hand between Crowley’s legs.
He keeps his hand gentle, of course, barely brushing along the soft skin of Crowley’s thighs up to his cock. He’s not hard, obviously; instead the softness of him feels somehow more naked than naked usually feels. It’s a little touch, and it could be nothing, if Aziraphale’s misread—just a graze, a glancing moment on his way to touching other places—but Crowley doesn’t pull away.
Instead he sighs, turns a little deeper into Aziraphale’s chest, and shifts his hips again to allow a better angle.
Aziraphale cups his hand over Crowley’s cock, fingertips gentle on his balls where they sit beneath. A bit of comfort, a bit of closeness. It could stop there, too, with no more than a steady warmth and a protective hand, but the next time Crowley exhales, it’s a long, drawn-out sigh from an open mouth. A sound of anticipation, and relief.
Please, he says, slumping with his head against Aziraphale’s chest again. His eyes close; his mouth is a hot, damp spot against Aziraphale’s vest. Just—want to feel you, angel. Want to feel something else.
Aziraphale moves his hand until his fingers can cradle only the soft length of Crowley’s cock. All right, he says. We’ll take it slow, darling, and you’ll tell me if—
Yeah, Crowley breathes, his own hand closing around a fistful of Aziraphale’s shirt. I’ll tell you.
*
Is something the matter? Aziraphale asked, too deep in Petronius’s cups to be any more discreet. Oyster shells littered the table. You’ve been grumpy all day, you know.
Crowley sighed, ran a hand over his face. Nothing, ’m fine. Too much wine, I think. Too much of Emperor Caligula. He looked up, caught Aziraphale’s eye with a crooked smile. I really am fine.
*
Against Aziraphale’s palm, Crowley is slow to thicken; his hips don’t jump, his stomach doesn’t twitch. Aziraphale is patient anyway, moving his fingers gently over the delicate skin of his cock, encouraging it to grow, to harden. Encouraging blood to move away from the pulsing ache above his eyes and into his cock. He teases at the head a bit, until Crowley starts to squirm, and then the base, drawing the length of him to attention. He’s still not entirely hard by the time Aziraphale wraps his hand back around him, but it’s enough.
Just breathe, Aziraphale says, pressing a kiss to Crowley’s temple. Just breathe.
Crowley breathes.
Aziraphale touches him as gently as he can, keeping his pace measured and unhurried. He doesn’t bother with the fancy twists over Crowley’s head, doesn’t bother with teasing at his foreskin, with complicated pacing. It’s just a slow, even drag, down to the base and then up again, slick with lubricant from a well-placed miracle, again and again and again.
Angel, Crowley says, loose-limbed against his chest. Angel.
He keeps on, listening to Crowley’s heart rate, to his breath, cautious of the strain it would cause if he were gasping for air, if his heart were beating furiously in his chest. He wants to keep it as peaceful as he can, muted and mild instead of intense and mind-blowing. He wants to take his time, as much time as he can, to draw the blood down and down and down.
It’s not really about sex, this. Aziraphale knows that.
It’s not really about desire and lust, about want and need. This isn’t the desperate roll in the sheets they sometimes find themselves in, pushing and pulling at one another; this isn’t the laughing, teasing glory of exploration on the sofa, over the desk, in Aziraphale’s armchair back at the bookshop. Aziraphale isn’t even hard. Doesn’t feel like he wants to be.
It’s a strange thing, to have sex without it feeling sexual, but it’s intimate, and it’s tender, and Aziraphale holds Crowley closer and moves his hand with all the love he can muster.
The tension curls, wire-thin and fragile, around Crowley’s muscles. Aziraphale can feel him start to shift against him, his thighs starting to push, his shoulders starting to stretch.
Just breathe, Aziraphale reminds him. Breathe, Crowley.
Crowley breathes.
Slow. Steady. Even. Aziraphale strokes, fucking his hand over Crowley’s cock, gathering the first drops of precome at the tip to smooth back down his length. Crowley makes a noise, kitten-soft in the back of his throat, hips shifting, but Aziraphale doesn’t give in. He just presses his nose down into Crowley’s hair, his lips moving against the flush of his headache, and keeps going. Slow. Steady. Even.
Just breathe, he says. I’ve got you.
Crowley breathes, and somewhere against Aziraphale’s chest, he hears back, I know.
When he comes, there’s no soaring into flight, no explosion of fireworks, no electrical arc to wipe his mind and trail sparks down his limbs. It’s a gasp and a clench and a stutter of hips, a shiver in Aziraphale’s arms, a spill into his hand. It’s as small and steady as Aziraphale’s touch had been, just a flash of pleasure and release, and Aziraphale strokes him through it, whispering against him, there you are, come on, darling, let it go.
Crowley lets go, and trembles through to the end.
*
You don’t have to do this, you know, Crowley said, somewhere around Aziraphale’s stomach. His hand was rough around the hem of Aziraphale’s jumper, tugging a little, like he was trying to convince himself to let go. I’m fine on my own.
I know. Aziraphale touched carefully—he was learning how to touch, like this—searching out the place right above Crowley’s left eyebrow where the migraine lived, pressing on it. You don’t have to be, though. You can just consider me a side effect.
*
Time drifts, for a while.
Crowley’s loose-limbed and clumsy in the aftermath, but he clings a little too, like he wants to feel Aziraphale against him. Aziraphale tidies everything up with a thought and settles next to him for a while, soothing circles over his belly, over his chest, over his thighs, encouraging the last dregs of tightness to ease away.
They sleep, a little, Aziraphale thinks. Or he does, at least. He’s less sure about Crowley, but Crowley stays quiet and still in his arms and doesn’t protest the little huffs of breath that must be blowing into his ear.
When Aziraphale looks up again, Crowley’s watching him.
Feeling any better? he asks.
Mm, Crowley hums, a bit, and he leans in to press a careful kiss to Aziraphale’s mouth.
He doesn’t say thank you, but Aziraphale hears it anyway.
Once the sun has properly set they get out of bed together, meandering slowly down the hall toward the kitchen. Aziraphale leaves all the lights off and lets Crowley lead the way, steadying himself with one hand flat on the wall, stretching stiff muscles and joints along the way. He makes toast for them both in the dark, smearing peanut butter onto it over Crowley’s protests—the protein, darling, you haven’t eaten all day—and substituting cups of tea with glasses of soda—tea is a diuretic and you know that.
You’re a monster, Crowley tells him, halfway through his toast and Coke. One of those horrible eldritch angel things they always talk about in horror films.
Aziraphale smiles, kisses his forehead. Eat your toast, he says, and I won’t have to be.
They sit together at the table for a while, even after the toast is done and even though Crowley keeps pressing the heel of his palm back into that spot above his eye on occasion, where the migraine is still sitting a little. Aziraphale squashes his urge to rush Crowley back to bed and instead hands him a fresh ice pack, tells him about the chocolates waiting in the fridge, gives him the chilli pepper socks. Crowley laughs that soft, huffing laugh he has during a migraine and puts them on, telling Aziraphale that he will never wear them again under any circumstances.
He looks at Aziraphale with those blue-gold-violet eyes though, brilliant and soft in the dark, and Aziraphale knows he will.
They do make it back to bed after a while, and Crowley curls himself back under the covers, resting his head on Aziraphale’s chest. The migraine is picking back up again; Aziraphale can tell in the way he moves, in the way he blinks just a little too often, keeping his eyes closed a little too long. Exhaustion is wearing him thin, and when Aziraphale cups the back of his head there’s a little hiccough, a noise that could be something else, until Aziraphale’s hand stroking through his hair eventually soothes it away.
There’d been a time, once, when Crowley had managed all this alone, and then there’d been a time when he’d waved Aziraphale away. There’d been a time when he’d apologised, voice thick and disappointed in himself, for being bad company. You’re a demon, Aziraphale had told him, forgiveness and the relief of a joke steady in the touch of his hand, you’re always bad company.
Now Crowley only exhales, and says, Will you stay with me?
Yes, Aziraphale says. I’ll stay.
*
Crowley will wake.
He will wake, and he will grimace at the idea of sunlight. He will wake, and he will wish he hadn’t. He will wake, and it will still hurt: the spot above his left eyebrow, pulsing and pounding, the clench of his jaw, his fist, the cramping in his shoulders. His feet will be cold.
But there will be something else too: hands, touching him, brushing his hair away from his forehead so gently he can barely breathe; legs, brushing up against his own, inviting him to tangle his feet in their calves. The soft, faraway whisper of nonsense and encouragement and confessions that still haven’t gotten old.
None of this will solve anything. None of this will relieve anything.
But it will still happen, and it will still take Crowley’s breath away, washing it back out to sea with the wave of overwhelming love.
You can get used to anything, he’d said once, but so far he still hasn’t gotten used to this.
Crowley will wake, but he will not wake alone.
*