Chapter Text
Demons didn’t do touch. Touch was a four letter word in Hell, mainly because demons could not spell, but also because touch meant nothing good. There was no soft brush of fingertips, no arm slung across a shoulder, not even a damned fist bump Downstairs (though there were fist bumps Downstairs, if you catch my drift.).
There was burning, and branding, and disembowelment. There was the firm grasp of cold, clammy palms around your windpipe, crushing the life out of you. There was the sting of whips across your back if you slipped up- and not in the fun way.
If you discorporated halfway, they would expedite the body-acquisition process especially for you- and do it all over again. Fun times.
Physical contact meant that you had done something very, very wrong. If a demon was allowed a personal Heaven, they’d pick a room where everyone stood 5 feet apart at all times, or better yet, there was no one else at all.
Crowley was no stranger to touch- none of the Fallen were. Most of their memories had been wiped, a small kindness She had given them (the only kindness She had allowed them). They didn’t know who they had been, what they’d lost, who’d they lost.
But fragments of memory occasionally drifted to Crowley- fragments so hazy he wasn’t sure if they were real memories, or delusions by his grief-stricken, sick mind. Memories of holy light constantly warming him up from the inside, both his corporeal form and his True form. The giggling of the other angels as their True forms brushed against each other, a little ticklish. His fellow Starmaker elbowing him playfully, no real bite to it.
But the memory that stuck out the most, the one that he found himself distracted by most often, was that of his wing brushing against a head of soft curls, an angel tucked into his side.
He was sure that one was invented- it had to be. It just had to. It seemed too good to be true, something that fit his deepest, most guilty fantasies so perfectly. If it was something cooked up to soothe him during his most pain-filled, dazed, vulnerable moments- well. That was just another way his own mind had failed him to add to the pile.
It was the type of memory that scattered the instant you focused on it a bit too hard, mocking you as it flitted just beyond the realms of recollection. He chased after it whenever it swam back into his subconscious, but to no avail- he couldn’t remember the context, or the angel themselves.
It didn’t help that it only popped up on his radar when he was at his very, very lowest. Chained to a wall and left to rot for a few decades, or when he was being given the first-class treatment by Hell’s finest torturers for a job poorly done. He had nowhere to run to, nowhere to glean the slightest bit of comfort from. Not while they managed to make him feel so small and helpless.
So all he could do was look inwards for that sorely needed warmth.
He had to. Or he would have let Hell break him.
He cursed that memory, that delusion, every time it flitted away from him. But without it, he would be a husk of a demon- and he knew it. The icy sting of Hell’s cursed shackles biting into his bones seemed oh-so-far away, as long as he clung to those wisps of memory, that warm body tucked against his without any ill-intentions.
Demon’s didn’t have many possessions they could call their own- but that fantasy was his most precious one.
—————————
Angels, however, did do touch. And by God, did Aziraphale wish they didn’t. He could only take another slap to his back or a too-sharp-to-be-friendly elbow to his side without well and truly losing his mind.
Heaven was, by all accounts, a very cold and lonely place. Angels largely kept to themselves- especially after the Fall. Wouldn’t do to get too close to someone, only to risk losing them to Downstairs for all eternity.
The stark white, endless halls and total lack of furniture didn’t help, either. Aziraphale would suggest adding some soft armchairs, maybe a few beanbags here and there- but he knew what happened to angels that had one too many “helpful suggestions‘.
Well, one specific angel. An angel he wasn’t quite sure was a figment of his imagination- he didn’t show up on any records, nor did Aziraphale even know his name.
Heaven’s bureaucracy was irritating at best. So of course everything from that long ago would be lost to a sea of unfiled loose-leaves and grumpy referrals to other departments, till Aziraphale ended up right where he started.
He didn’t even know why he was so fixated on an angel who may or may not have Fallen, that he may or may not have met years prior. If pressed by his superiors on why exactly he was so adamant to find some mention of that nameless angel, he could only answer with a smile (bordering on a grimace) and a shrug.
It was just…that smile. That brilliant, joyful smile. The smile of someone truly proud of their work, someone who believed in their work. So unlike all of his other superiors, somehow still untouched by the cynicism that naturally came with learning about what Her Plan was barreling towards- how useless their efforts were. Oh, you would never hear Aziraphale admit the faint stirrings of doubt he felt when he thought about it too hard, none of them would let the faintest peep of dissatisfaction out.
But it was there. Regardless how hard he ignored it, how hard he ignored how he ignored it.
And yet, even when Aziraphale had broken the news, palms wringing and wings a-flutter all the while, he hadn’t shut off. The shutters hadn’t closed, the smile remained just as bright.
It felt like feeling Her warmth for the first time. It felt like his petulantly-shut eyes had been opened.
It felt like blasphemy.
When the stars streaked across the sky for the first time, Aziraphale felt their glowing trails burn themselves into his eyes- if he closed them, he knew he’d see just that behind those eyelids for the next few millennia. So the inevitable byproduct of burning ash settling over his robes barely fazed him.
What did faze him, however, was the prompt rustle of wings above his head. Aziraphale fought the urge to whip his head around, and instead gracefully turned his neck to stare, mouth agape, at the redhead.
Like a proper angel.
He was met with warm brown eyes staring fixedly ahead, eyes crinkled at the corners (and if Aziraphale wanted to trace those wrinkles, worship those creases, well, that was between him and Her alone.)
It was a small thing. The ash and sparks were honestly barely a hindrance to his celestial form, and Aziraphale could miracle it away faster than it could land. But the fact that someone cared. The fact that he noticed, and deemed this unassuming, random cherub worthy of shelter, wasn’t small at all.
So when the angel pulled him against his side without a care, wing still wrapped firmly around him, of course he went without complaint.
Of course, just a small while later, was the Fall- and all the horrors that unfolded after. Aziraphale hoped against hope, sent every prayer he could muster without sounding too desperate, too empathetic- but to no avail. That tumble of flaming curls would never grace Heaven’s halls again.
—————————
When Crowley saw that achingly familiar shock of curls perched on the Garden wall, it was as if he was in a trance. He found himself in serpent form and halfway up the wall before he’d even connected the sight back to the memory he loathed so much, before he’d even thought to consider the consequences of confronting an angel after what he’d done.
He expected to find himself smitten and sent straight Downstairs before he could say “Whoops.” He expected to be reduced to nothing more than a smear of ash and a plume of smoke.
He did not expect the angel’s eyes to widen in recognition, before turning his thousand-yard gaze back to the humans struggling their way up the sandy hill.
He did not expect him to be a bundle of nerves rather than an avenging angel, oh-so-similar to those foggy memories that had morphed into more of a klaxon blaring into his ears.
And he did not expect a wing held firmly above him, rain sliding off and plopping down in heavy drops.