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Crowley was bored. He’d been taken off his most recent temptation with no explanation of how he’d messed it up, and the angel hadn’t talked to him since he’d given the holy water to the demon, so he was bored. Well and truly bored.
He shouted at his plants for a while, until they were so straight he thought they might snap, and he’d checked every single one of them for spots. None.
So very bored.
Which is why, when there was a knock at the door, Crowley may have gotten up from his unceremonious slump slightly quicker than usual, and skipped the usual saunter in favour of getting to the door quickly.
It must be the angel. About damn time.
He opened the door, eyes widening at the sight of Hastur and Ligur, hell’s least favourite dukes, standing at the doorway with matching grins.
“Ligur, Hastur, hi! Come in, come in!” He was sweating and hoping they wouldn’t notice.
What the fuck do they want?
The two demons stepped inside, peering around slightly.
“You, uh, want anything? Tea?”
“No. This ain’t social, Crowley.” Hastur told him,
“Right, yeah, no, I didn’t think so.” He gulped slightly, “So..what do you want?”
“Got our hands on somethin’ of the angelses.” Ligur smiled slightly. Crowley wanted to run away.
“We need to test it out.” Hastur was smiling too, “only problem is, it don’t work in hell.”
“What’s it do?” He asked, dreading the answer.
“It makes demons…docile.”
“Docile?”
“Looser. Tired. Easier to kill. It already works on angels, ‘parently”
“-and you want to test it on a demon?” He was looking for an exit now.
“Not a demon. You.” Hastur had a maniacally excited look in his eye.
“I’m not going to go down without a fight, you know that, right?”
“We’d expect nothing less.” A needle materialised in Ligur’s hand.
Crowley leapt at him, knocking the weapon out of his hand. He hopped back off, getting a punch in the face from Hastur,
“You’ll regret that, you bastard.”
He hit him twice before he got his bearings and hit him back, toppling him and his glass coffee table into the floor.
The flaw in his plan, however, was not paying attention to both demons at all times. He realised this, as a sharp pain shot through his ankles.
“I’m leaving a beacon.”
“We weren’t told to do that.”
“We’re demons. That’s what we do.”
“Not to other demons!”
“We’re not doing it. Whatever an angel does when they find the beacon, is up to them.”
“Fine. Let’s go. It works.”
Hastur. Rat bastard.
Darkness surged into Crowley’s vision, and he was swept to sleep.
-
Aziraphale was in his bookshop when he felt something change. Something he hadn’t felt in a long while.
A beacon.
What another angel should need so desperately, he had no idea. But he knew he’d be in line for punishment if he didn’t go. It was absolutely not because he was curious.
He thought about the signal, narrowed in on it, and then enacted a miracle to get there.
Whatever the angel was expecting, it was not this.
There was glass all over the floor, a clear sign of a struggle, and a holy beacon lying next to the door.
But more worrying than all of this was the demon passed out on the floor, bleeding from the glass with a developing black eye.
Aziraphale immediately deactivated the beacon, miracled the glass away, and turned his attention to Crowley.
The wounds were superficial, and quickly dealt with.
Aziraphale had no idea how to wake him up, and was still slightly angry with him from the holy water debacle (and also kind of wanted to do this) so he whispered an apology, and slapped the demon across the face. Hard, but not enough to cause any damage.
Crowley jolted awake. Aziraphale prepared for a lecture on why you shouldn’t slap people, but it didn’t come.
Instead, the demon was smiling at the angel, seeming genuinely happy to see him.
“Heey.”
“Hello, Crowley. I’m sorry for hitting you. I was worried.”
“I don’t care, ‘ziraphale.”
The angel noticed how sluggish he looked. The smile was still there, and he knew something was wrong.
“Are you alright?”
“Hmm.” He nodded.
“They didn’t…do anything?”
Crowley gasped, “who?!”
“Whoever broke in!”
“someone broke in?” He looked distressed, but still hazy.
“Yes. Now Crowley, I need you to focus.”
“Anything for you, angel.”
Aziraphale slotted that away for a later conversation, “Right. Now tell me, who came here before me?”
“Oh! I know that one! Hastur n Ligur.”
“Right. And they’re why you’re like this?”
“Mmhmm. I’m docile.”
“You’re..”
“Dooooocile, angel.”
“Alright. What does that mean?”
“Easier to kill.”
Aziraphale’s heart just about broke at the thought, and he shook his head.
“Yes, well, that may be, but I have no intentions of killing you. Not today, at least.”
There was that smile again.
“You’re brilliant. You know that, right?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re the most brilliant-est being I’ve ever met.”
The sincerity in the statement was disarming. Aziraphale had no idea what to say.
Luckily, he didn’t have to. The demon was already wrapping his long limbs around him, squeezing him tightly.
Aziraphale miracled the two of them into the bedroom, seeing no reason to sleep on the floor. Crowley simply adjusted his grip and sighed contentedly, nuzzling deeper into the angel’s stomach, eyes drifting shut.
Suddenly, the demon started.
“Angel.”
“Yes, dear?”
“I promise I won’t kill myself. I’d never do that to you.”
“I know, darling. I know.” He ran his fingers through Crowley’s hair, and watched as the beautiful demon slowly lost his grip on consciousness.
The angel planted a kiss onto Crowley’s forehead. “Sweet dreams, my brilliant demon.”