Chapter Text
Aziraphale’s back hurt as he stood up from where he’d been reading at his desk for the past four hours. It was only a small ache, but it startled him so much that he almost fell over. He was an Angel. He didn’t get aches. His body functioned perfectly at all times, exactly the way he needed in any given situation.
Yet here he was, reflexively pressing a hand to his lumbar vertebrae. Rubbing didn’t do any good, but moving his hips in a rather undignified way did seem to click things back in place. He straightened up, relieved. Only to press a hand to his neck as it twinged. Pain bloomed through the side of his upper body and his joints cracked loudly as he tilted his head.
...
“Do you ever feel as if your corporeal vessel is… wearing down?” he asked that evening, when Crowley had draped himself over one of his chairs with a glass of wine.
"Are you implying that I cannot hold my liquor?" The demon raised a disdainful eyebrow above his glasses.
"No! Well, I mean..." Aziraphale allowed himself a small smile. "That too, perhaps. But, you know, in general. We've had these bodies for a long time now, haven't we?"
"I guess." Crowley looked himself up and down. "I've had no complaints so far."
"You never feel any... pain?" Aziraphale asked, studying Crowley's face to detect if he was going to evade the question.
"Sure I do." Crowley chuckled. "Holy ground burns like... well... Hell!"
Aziraphale winced, pushing away the feeling of guilt at the memory. "Yes, but… I mean when you're not doing anything in particular. Just like a human would get a headache, or a muscle ache, or anything like that."
"Of course not. I'm a demon."
"I see." Aziraphale stared at his own glass of wine for a long moment, but then snapped out of his musings. "You are a demon. Did you do something when you were using my body? Something that could give me... that could cause sore muscles?"
Crowley spat out his wine. "Like what?!"
Aziraphale shrugged. "I don't know. Something demonic? A special kind of... dance?"
"Speaking of dancing..." Crowley's frown melted into a smirk. "I've heard rumours..."
…
The ensuing conversation distracted Aziraphale sufficiently to forget about the strange pain. However, two days later, as he went out for an afternoon walk in the park and some ice cream—hoping, just a little, that Crowley might have had the same idea—he was disappointed not only by his friend’s absence, but also by the fact that his right hip started hurting before he was even halfway back to his bookshop.
These things had never happened before. Was his vessel really starting to wear down after all this time? Or was it something else? Something that had happened while they were working to prevent Armageddon, something he’d completely failed to notice at the time?
He found himself flopping onto his sofa as soon as he came home, rubbing the sore hip, but once the pain abided he went in search of a mirror. There were some wrinkles on his face, weren’t there? But those had always been there. They were supposed to make him look respectable. And he’d never really had any reason to count them. Did humans do that, in order to keep track before they started buying all those fancy creams and serums? Probably not; ‘looking old’ was, no doubt, as arbitrary as any other of their appearance-based judgements.
And it didn’t do them any good to give it too much thought, either. Aziraphale figured a good meal would get him back on track, feeling absolutely tickety-boo. It was rather a nice idea anyway. So he took a deep breath, turned away from the mirror, and made his way to the small charming Chinese restaurant not far from his shop.
He ordered wontons for starters and then the duck, which was always particularly delicious here. Juicy and perfectly balanced between savoury and sweet.
But as the wontons arrived, his appetite seemed to drain away. He wanted to eat them, they smelled great, but whenever he took a bite it felt as if he was chewing on cardboard.
Perhaps his body was so filled with anticipation for the duck that it didn’t want to spend time on anything else, then—though that would definitely be a first. However, he wished he had cancelled his order as soon as they put the main course on the table. The wonderful aromas made him queasy. The very thought of lifting his fork to his lips made his throat constrict.
Now he was really worried.
And it was such a horrible waste. Aziraphale apologised profusely as he got up and paid for the still-steaming dish, hoping the staff could eat it instead.
The waiter just smiled at him sympathetically. “You must be coming down with something.”
And indeed, he must, but he really, really shouldn’t be.
…
The next morning, Aziraphale was relieved to find he could eat breakfast. He kept the shop closed and searched his books for any mention of illnesses in celestial beings until long past lunchtime. He even bothered taking out his glasses, even though no one could see him. It was as if they did make the letters a little sharper today, as if they slowed down the blooming of the faint headache that…
Hang on. A headache now?
This was really getting ridiculous.
…
The headache got so bad that he found himself standing in line at Boots. He honestly had no idea if a painkiller would even work on him, but if he was experiencing human pains, surely what he needed was a human cure? Even if it only alleviated the throbbing in his temples a tiny bit, he’d be grateful.
What would not help, at all, would be the door opening behind him and Gabriel walking in. So of course that was exactly what happened.
“Aziraphale,” he said, fake salesman-smile firmly in place. To think this guy was an angel, and someone like Crowley was a demon…
“Gabriel,” Aziraphale replied coolly.
“Studying human medicine, then? Surely nothing is wrong?”
Aziraphale frowned. “Why are you here?”
“Oh, just checking in on you. You know, now that you’re not really… affiliated with Heaven anymore… I happened to see you enter this establishment just now, so I wondered, what would a fellow angel ever need a pharmacy for?”
Definitely not making his headache any better. Aziraphale shrugged. “They’ve got all kinds of things here. Look, lozenges. They’ve got the strawberry ones!”
“I see. So you’re not ill? Not in pain?”
Aziraphale studied him for a moment. “Why? Are you?” Was this happening to other angels as well?
“Of course not.” Gabriel grinned. “We angels don’t experience pain, am I right? You’d have to have behaved very… un-angelic to be punished like that.”
Aziraphale barely suppressed a gasp. Surely he didn’t mean…
“How can I help you, sir?” the young pharmacist enquired in a politely cheerful voice.
Aziraphale paused, glancing at Gabriel from the corner of his eye.
“I… I would like to buy a packet of condoms.” He beamed at the young woman.
To his disappointment, that statement didn’t make Gabriel disappear.
“Clever,” the angel commented. “Making the humans think you’re one of them.”
Aziraphale put as much derision into his expression as he was able to. “Oh no. That’s not what’s happening at all.”
Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. “No?”
“No. I intend to use them.”
For a moment Gabriel froze, and then he scoffed and turned around, no doubt on his way to report to Head Office that Aziraphale definitely couldn’t be saved.
…
So… Pain as punishment. How very human. What did it mean, exactly? Had Head Office just flicked on the “ageing” button for Aziraphale’s vessel, or was it something more? Something like a curse? That honestly sounded more like the kind of thing Crowley’s side—well, no, no longer Crowley’s side—the kind of thing Hell would come up with. Maybe Aziraphale should ask him about it? But no, that would be silly. It was probably nothing. Heaven was just trying to scare Aziraphale after ‘he’ had given them a fright stepping into the Hellfire. And, with the aid of a little ibuprofen, those small aches passed quickly. It was really nothing to make a fuss about.