Chapter Text
Aziraphale looked the most beautiful when he slept. Not that he slept often. It was a very rare thing when he did, and even rarer for Crowley to bear witness to it, but sometime even ineffable plans can move in one’s favor from time to time.
The first time was in Rome. After having their meal of oysters, the two felt comfortable enough with each other to make it an almost regular thing while they were stationed in the region for various reasons. Both sides wanted them to be in the area for the next few hundred years, so they decided to make the best of it.
There was a tentative unspoken yet mutual understanding that they would wait it out together on and off, which was why Crowley knew the whereabouts of Aziraphale’s domus.
It was on the smaller size compared to his wealthier, more affluent neighbors, but it was beautifully decorated inside. Nothing pleased Crowley more than tracing their scaled toes over the complex colorful mosaics that made up the floors of the angel’s home. Somewhere along the road of time, Aziraphale had learned the art of tile work and masonry. While the Angel didn’t have the same knack for art like Crowley did, the angel did have a talented love for color and patterns.
It was not unusual for Aziraphale to call on Crowley’s insulae either, which was a style of apartments that the majority of Rome’s working class lived in. If the angel was in the area, he would make it a point to pop in, inviting the demon to his latest food find, much like he had done on this day.
“How do you feel about flamingo?” Aziraphale asked as he took a seat next to the demon, who had figured out their fashion out better by now.
Crowley was wearing a dark grey woolen stola, and a black palla edged in red. It was pinned in place with the same snake brooch from before, but the silver laurel leaf crown was gone, replaced by a wealth of fiery curls pinned back and sewn into place of the latest fashion. She favored to keep her strange yet artfully crafted tinted glasses as well.
“Very odd birds, in my opinion. They can stand in near boiling salt water, and even dunk their heads in it to drink it, all while being perfectly fine while the rest turns to fish stew.” Crowley said, helping herself to more wine.
“I really don’t want to know how you came to find that out.” Aziraphale said after a moment.
“What about them?” Crowley prompted so that the angel didn’t get stuck on that information or its origin. It involved mishaps with volcanos.
“Oh, yes, I’ve discovered a lovely little place that specializes in them.”
“What? Eating them? Whatever for?” Crowley asked, appalled. Humans really had to put anything in their mouths and chew on it at least once.
“Apparently, their tongues are especially tasty.” Aziraphale said, making Crowley wonder how long the angel could skirt Falling. Sometimes eating human food didn’t seem very angelic to the demon. The humans could be quite cruel about process.
Crowley had left China, and hadn’t returned after attending a dinner party featuring the Emperor’s Old Bones. The giant carp’s sides has been filleted so it hung off of its body in strips. This had been done so finely that the fish was still alive when its sides were then flash fried in oil. The fish had been eaten alive like this.
Crowley had not eaten human food in centuries due to this. The demon had also made sure that anyone who had eaten the fish had gotten violently ill.
“Holy hell, I don’t want to know how they found that out.” Crowley grumbling into her wine. “I’m not hungry, but we can still go if you like. I’ll stick to wine.”
And she did, a lot of it. Aziraphale ended up carrying her back to his domus, dismissing his servants for the rest of the evening as soon as the pair were comfortable. All his servants were freed slaves who were well paid, so they were tended to immediately before leaving the angel and demon on their own.
“Where are we now?” Crowley attempted sitting up, but thought better of it when she lost the war with gravity.
“My place. You’ve really done yourself in this time, my dear.” Aziraphale slurred, not too far behind in his own cups.
“I’sssss fine. Just sleep it off.” Crowley hissed.
“What’s it like?” Aziraphale asked.
“What?”
“Sleeping?”
“You’ve never tried it? Not once in 4,000 years?” Crowley managed this time to sit up enough to stare at the angel.
“Can’t remember. I might have at some point or another, but it didn’t take.” Aziraphale tried to recall, but gave up soon enough because connecting things together was rather hard at the moment.
“Give it a go.”
“But that will leave me defenseless.”
“No, it won’t. I’ll be here.”
“B-but you’re a demon.”
“Yeah? Your point?”
Aziraphale could make his brain come up with anything further so he gave up. The angel laid down like he had seen so many humans do so for millennia.
“Now what?” Aziraphale asked after a few moments of studious silence.
“You stop thinking, and it just kind of happens.” Crowley shrugged, “Humans count...things. Why don’t you try that?”
“It’s not working.” Aziraphale sighed after counting a few hundred oysters.
“Lemme try something.” Crowley said, reaching over to tap the angel’s forehead as she thought ‘SLEEP’. Crowley hadn’t expected it to work, but down Aziraphale went, like a sack of snoring potatoes.
“Hope he doesn’t remember that part.” Crowley grimaced. Aziraphale’s natural built-in angelic defenses must truly not view her as a threat for that mental command to have worked. That could be a very good or very bad thing if Aziraphale ever became aware of it.
Snapping the flames that lit the room out, Crowley got comfortable next to, but not touching, Aziraphale. If the bed expanded itself to accommodate the pair in this endeavor, all the more the merrier.
Crowley was finding it hard to sleep though, a light seeping in past her lids. Irritated that she had missed a light, Crowley impatiently snapped at it to put it out. It remained aglow, despite all her best attempts. If anything, it got brighter.
Opening her eyes, Crowley quickly discovered the source. Deep in slumber, Aziraphale’s Grace seeped into his skin’s surface and hair, shining like bound starlight. Crowley quickly snapped heavy tapestries in place to cover the room from top to bottom, layering with her own wards over the angel’s own. They couldn’t risk anyone noticing a light that couldn't be reproduced by fire, or be so easily explained away.
“Oh, angel...” Crowley sighed, inching in as close as she dared. The Grace wasn’t being directed to do anything, like smite the demon, so it just rested on the surface of the angel’s skin and hair.
This near to such neutral Grace, it reminded Crowley of what Heaven used to feel like to her. There was a warmth coming off of Aziraphale, so achingly familiar to the demon.
Crowley had not idea what made her do such a thing, but she reached out to run her thin fingers through shining hair.
There should have been consequences to this, terrible dire consequences. Ones that should have had Aziraphale waking up to a smudge of demon, but that didn’t happen.
Instead, Aziraphale’s Grace clung to the tips of Crowley’s fingertips like moonshine dew, and the demon was filled with what had been carved out of all the Fallen. Crowley’s felt God’s love again vicariously through Aziraphale’s Grace.
It was like being outside of a music hall to press your ear up to a wall. One still heard and felt the music, but it was nowhere as intense as being in the midst of it. Crowley could faintly hear the background of celestial harmonies again as well, of angels singing to one another.
She wept. It was all she could really think to do.
Throwing caution to the wind, Crowley wrapped herself as closely as she could around Aziraphale, resting their foreheads together. Despite her best efforts to resist, Crowley fell asleep, lulled into it on angel song.
They both woke the next day with vicious hangovers. Crowley remembered very little of the night before, Aziraphale even less. That being said, Crowley remembered enough to want Aziraphale to fall asleep again.
That would prove to be not an easy thing to do. Over 500 years later, Crowley somehow managed it with the help of King Arthur.
The Battle of Camlann had been brutal, King Arthur cut down by Sir Mordred. Aziraphale had not been there, but only because he had been ordered to locate the absent queen, Guinevere.
It all ended in misery and death, the dream that had been an ideal Camelot going along with them. Aziraphale had not taken it well, the angel a shell of himself by the time Crowley came across him in some nameless tavern at a crossroad.
“Go away.” Aziraphale said in greeting.
“That’s not very nice.” Crowley greeted back, taking a seat next to the rather inebriated angel who was using a wall to prop himself up.
“Go away!” Aziraphale said with more force this time, and the demon almost did. The angel was pissed off, that a very sure thing, the demon feeling the tavern fill with power, but Aziraphale was covered in dirt, dressed in rags stained with blood and God knows what else.
Crowley sat down next to Aziraphale anyway, helping himself to wine. He then waited.
“You smell terrible.” Crowley pointed out in a pleasant conversational tone.
“That’s because I’m covered in shit like everyone else.” Aziraphale grumbled.
“You needn’t be.” Crowley said, finally tipping the full glass of mess inside the angel over.
“I should have been there.” The angel said as he wept into his cup.
“There is no way you could have known. He ordered you to go. You did as you were told.” Crowley tried to reason with the depressed celestial, but nothing seemed to be working. Aziraphale was simply beside himself with grief.
“You know none of it was your fault.” Crowley said instead of leaving. “You have to know that, right?”
As gently as the words were spoken, they still broke the angel, Aziraphale curling in on himself as he wept, his wings emerging from the Between where they were usually kept. Crowley sent all the humans far away from them while he did. It would not do anyone well to come across an angel while they were grieving. Not with all of Aziraphale’s eyes open.
The stone beneath their feet split from the noises coming from the angel, even Crowley having to take a few steps back as Aziraphale cried out in Enochian to God. The demon gave Aziraphale space, the holiest of waters rolling down his cheeks in streams to drip off his chin. It fell like rain from his wings, a golden pool forming at Aziraphale’s feet. The ground was consecrated wherever those droplets landed, something new being created from a deep loss.
Somewhere in England, there is a tiny spring of golden tinted water, hidden under what the locals think is a burial mound. A drop of this water placed to any wound will heal the flesh without scarring. If it were drank, a human could live for a very long time, longer than most.
By the time Aziraphale was done lamenting, the tavern was in ruin all around them, turned to rumble. All that was left standing was Crowley who offered his hand to help the angel up.
“You need a bath.” Was all Crowley said, the angel grateful for it.
“I am rather filthy.” Aziraphale croaked out of his raw throat, looking down at himself. He looked about ready to fall over. “It also looks like I’ve made quite a mess of things here.”
“It will be fine. I’m sure they’ll find some gold while cleaning up. It will be more than enough to comfortably start a new life somewhere else.”
That got a little smile out of Aziraphale, much to Crowley’s relief. “How fortuitous.”
“Quite.” Crowley said, offering his hand again to the angel who took it without much thought. “Come with me.”
The demon transported them to one of his favorite places, one that he kept secret and protected.
“Where are we?” Aziraphale asked, looking around to not recognize the terrain, which was a rarity for him. They were at the edge of a stunning body of water, cradling by low green mountains. It was a shade of aquamarine blue rarely seen, and had tantalizing wisps of steam coming off of its surface.
“Does it matter?” Crowley said offhandedly as he undressed himself and then Aziraphale. His movements and touches to the angel’s skin could only be described as reverent. The demon took Aziraphale’s hand again to lead him into the soothing waters of the hot spring.
Summoning up a clothe, Crowley bathed Aziraphale, wiping the residue of battle and sorrow off of his skin.
“Why do they create such beautiful things only to ruin them?” Aziraphale eventually asked no one in particular. It didn’t sound like he was expecting an answer.
“It’s just what they do, angel.” Crowley was not their mother so he answered the angel.
“I wish love didn’t hurt.“ Aziraphale sighed.
“Oh, but that’s how you know that is was there, that you felt it at all.” Crowley told him as he gently tilted the angel’s head back so that he could rid it of the grit there. “Don’t start crying again. I don’t need you consecrating the entire body of water we’re both in.”
That got a weak chuckle from the angel, Aziraphale unfurling his wings when Crowley tapped the space that was between them when they were present on this plane of reality.
“Always a mess. I swear the only time they get groomed is when you let them slip out around me.” Crowley grumbled as he made quick work of them. “I’m beginning to think you do it intentionally so you don’t have to groom them yourself, you lazy shit.”
“I think that would make me a clever shit.” Was said by a rather smugly content angel.
“Clever or lazy, you’re still shit when it comes to your wings.” Crowley was going to demand a grooming in return when he was done, but Aziraphale appeared about ready to pass out all on his own.
Shaking his head at the angel, Crowley led them out of the water, ignoring their clothing, or lack thereof. Aziraphale’s rags were more fit for burning than ever to be worn again, and his own had disappeared as per usual as soon as they left his body.
Crowley had a small hiding place near the water’s edge so he took them there. There would be a fire already burning in the hearth, and a soft bed piled high with even softer furs. There would be intricate wards in place to hide them from both Heaven and Hell for a time.
“I feel old. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before.” Aziraphale said, climbing into the bed without any prompting from Crowley. The demon burrowed underneath the furs beside him, the two turning on their sides so that they could face each other.
“You’re just tired. Heartbreak can really take it out of you.” Crowley said quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the crackling fire. “Believe me, I would know.”
“I’m sorry.” Was all Aziraphale could think to say. The demon never spoke lightly or often about his Fall.
“Don’t be. I don’t think I would have met you if I hadn’t, not properly anyway. I’d take you over Heaven any day of the week.” Crowley said before he could stop himself. To his own surprise, he meant every word of it, but that didn’t mean Aziraphale needed to here them. Only his wonderfully odd angel would ever apologize to a demon, and pry such statements out of one.
No backpedaling was needed though, no crisis to advert, Aziraphale’s eyelids fluttering shut as soon as Crowley finished his sentence. The demon let the fire go out, Aziraphale’s Grace the only thing he needed to keep him sated and warm. He wouldn’t get to experience it again for little over a thousand years.
The year 1666 would stand out in both their minds, though for very different reasons.
The Great Fire of London was doing its best to imitate Hell. Inside the old Roman city wall, inner city of London reminded Crowley of it as he ran down its streets, darting in and off of structures being consumed by fire. His infernal nature made him immune to the heat, and he didn’t need to breathe so the only issue with smoke was that it made it difficult for Crowley to navigate his way out of structure once he was in.
Shoreditch was gone, burnt to a crisp. Holbein, and Southwark too, but Crowley had already been through them. He couldn’t put the fire out without Hell or Heaven noticing, but he could search for survivors.
The free city of Westminster was under siege by the fire. Crowley would go there next, but first he had to check on something. He was sensing Aziraphale where he should most definitely not be, which was at the very center of this fiery maelstrom at Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
The church was lit like a Roman candle, thanks to all the wooden scaffolding that had once sheathed it. Plans for the church’s restoration were literally going up in flames, all the wood surrounding the church aiding the inferno. No being should be in that pyre, and yet, Crowley could sense the angel inside. Kicking in the doors, Crowley ran in. The church was in ruin, the blessed nature of it gone, something that Crowley’s feet were quite grateful for.
“Aziraphale! Aziraphale! Where are you, you stupid angel!” Crowley yelled, running down the aisles. He found the angel soon enough in the church’s rotunda, sitting beneath the unburned cross. Aziraphale was not alone though, his two pairs of wings out and curved around several street children who clung onto the angel for dear life.
His eyes closed in concentration, Aziraphale was intensely praying, keeping the fire and smoke at bay from him, the children, and the cross. It was taking everything from the angel to keep the children alive and breathing, all while battling the fire at its center. Crowley sensed some sort of true holy relic in the cross, possibly a splinter of the Cross, or something Jesus looked at funny. Whatever it was, Aziraphale was using it to fuel multiple simultaneous miracles, but he was at his limit. If he used a miracle to teleport out now, he could risk losing the children.
“You clever angel.” Crowley said, snapping his fingers to stop time. It was the break the angel so desperately needed, Aziraphale easily gathering the street urchins up in his arms. He gave Crowley a grateful look before taking off like a comet. The demon followed immediately after, the church’s innards no longer being propped up by multiple miracles. Clear of the church, Crowley restarted time to watch the roof cave in.
Exhausted and reeking of smoke, Crowley winged it the Tower to watch London burn. The White Tower’s curtain walls protected it, leaving it unscathed while the fire burned almost everything else within the old city’s limits to ash, the Roman wall creating a boundary of sorts for it.
“I don’t suppose this is your doing, foul fiend?” Was a question that made Crowley look over and up, watching as Aziraphale flew in to land gracefully beside the demon.
“No, angel. This was caused by many contributing factors, but Hell wasn’t one of them.” Crowley sighed out, not even having it in him right now for mock outage. He was too tapped out to do anything else, but sit there.
So Crowley startled badly when Aziraphale took his seat behind him, the angel’s arm around his waist keeping the demon in place. Aziraphale’s legs bracketed his own, black feathers cushioning the angel’s chest as Aziraphale wrapped his many wings around them both. Crowley could feel soft curls laced with feathers being pressed up to his cheek, Aziraphale resting his head on the demon’s shoulder.
It took him a moment, but Crowley soon realized that the angel had fallen asleep on him. The demon also soon found out that Aziraphale was stronger than him, Crowley held in place for now. What they were doing wasn’t safe, the demon tapping down panic as he thought it over. Pulling his wings back into the ether of the Between, the demon pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them so that he was hidden by Aziraphale’s dual set of wings.
Unconsciously, Aziraphale’s wings cocooned them in tighter, nothing visible of Crowley left if any angel unexpectedly popped in. Without his wings in the way, the demon‘s was pulled flush to Aziraphale’s chest, immovable arms locking him more firmly into place.
Not that he was complaining, Aziraphale’s Grace being coaxed to the surface. It was one thing to cuddle up to the angel when he slept. It was another thing entirely to have the angel cuddled up with him. It felt like being in the heart of a star as opposed to merely skimming its surfaces.
Crowley knew that he wasn’t going to able to remain conscious for much longer like this, not with this much pleasure running though him, this divine ecstasy. He was Aziraphale’s nexus, and though they both came from the same original stock, Crowley’s wiring couldn’t handle what was flowing through the angel anymore, at least not for long periods of times.
It was worth it though, every second being held like this pure bliss for Crowley.
“Sleep in peace, my angel.”