Chapter Text
Thunder rumbles in the distance as the rain breaks free of the sky, pattering down on the Bentley’s windshield as Crowley pulls down familiar streets to park in front of the bookshop. Something nags at the back of his mind as he slips from the car, and for a moment he stares at the building.
The bookshop is quiet and dark, which is rather odd, he thinks. He struggles to remember if Aziraphale said he was going anywhere; the angel has always been quick to tell Crowley of his plans to leave in the past, if an assignment pulls him away, so the demon will keep an eye on his shop and his precious books in his absence. Why an angel of all things would trust a demon with his precious things is another matter entirely, but the point is, Aziraphale usually tells him if he won’t be around if the demon comes prowling by.
Aziraphale has given him no such warning, and the bookshop seems… empty.
Not empty, of course; there are far too many books still inside. He can see them through the windows, despite the darkness of the interior of the shop. But the shop still feels rather empty; not aglow with the angel’s presence, no mess of fluffy white curls in the background as the angel putters around inside, no customers milling about having the audacity to even think about buying a book…
It all seems so dull. Lifeless. Empty.
A quick wave of his hand unlocks the doors before he touches them to push them open. The fact the doors are locked isn’t all that worrisome; the sign in the door does read ‘closed’ so of course the shop is locked up, but that’s never been an issue for Crowley.
He strides inside. A wave of wrong washes over him immediately; this shop is dark, quiet, and empty, and it really shouldn’t be. He snaps his fingers and the doors close behind him. It feels a little too much how it did the day the world failed to end, he thinks—when smoke and fire flooded his senses, the bookshop was burning to nothing, and Crowley was too late.
A shiver flits down his spine, unwarranted and unwanted. Everything is perfectly fine, of course. They tricked Heaven and Hell. Aziraphale probably just popped across the border or something for some food; he’s been known to do so when he gets peckish, after all. A flighty one sometimes, his angel is. Everything is perfectly fine.
He just failed to mention his sudden departure to Crowley, is all. Which is perfectly alright; the angel certainly doesn’t need to tell Crowley of his every whim. Just because they’ve spent the past month since the little Armageddon-that-couldn’t painfully codependent and nigh-inseparable… well, that’s just what happens when the world fails to end and you’re free for the first time in the entirety of your long, immortal lives.
No reason to worry.
Everything is fine.
His tongue pokes out from his mouth, forked and tasting. He doesn’t scent anything out of the ordinary, at least. Dusty pages, old books, cinnamon and vanilla, a hint of honey, and under everything, a hint of ozone and petrichor. The bookshop and the angel. The shop smells like it always does.
Not a single hint of smoke or flames.
“Angel? You here?”
Silence answers him.
He prowls through the shelves, looking this way and that, for anything out of the ordinary. Everything looks perfectly normal, same as the last time he was here, which was just yesterday. Yesterday. What could have possibly happened? What sudden desire struck Aziraphale and left him fleeing the shop to follow whatever whims flitted through his mind? Was it crepes again?
Or something more sinister…
A hiss slips through his teeth.
“Angel, I swear if you’re reading in the back again…”
Sometimes Aziraphale gets caught up in the backroom reading for days on end. He likes to tease Crowley about sleeping his life away some days, but the angel can be just as bad at forgetting the passage of time and losing himself to his earthly whims. Or perhaps he’s in the small kitchenette fixing himself a spot of tea, and just hasn’t heard Crowley. And has forgotten to turn the lights on. Or let his warmth seep through the shop.
Fuck.
Crowley isn’t worrying about the angel. Everything is fine.
Even so, he spreads his senses outward, letting his essence pool around him and leak through the air. It swirls inside the bookshop, stretching outward like a thick, oppressive blanket, filling a space usually occupied by a warm, sunny presence like the angel’s. There’s a small pool of burning brightness upstairs: Aziraphale.
His breath leaves him in a rush, relief cooling something dark and frantic inside of him. Aziraphale is here; he is fine. Everything is fine. Of course it is; no need to worry.
He’s only been upstairs a handful of times. The flat above the bookshop is Aziraphale’s private place, more than the shop itself, and he doesn’t sleep himself so the bedroom has other uses. He does have a bed in it, mostly for appearances or perhaps a sense of normalcy among a life of humanity, or to read on when he gets tired of sitting in his chair. On rare occasions, the bed has been filled by a demon sleeping off whatever ails him—too much alcohol when he doesn’t want to miracle it away, a hidden hurt where he’s in a quiet mood, or an obvious hurt like that time his feet were burned from walking through a church and Aziraphale patched him up. Mostly the bedroom is used to store books the angel doesn’t trust on the shelves below, where customers can drool over them and attempt to buy them, the heathens that they are.
The existence of a bed isn’t new to Crowley, but the angel laying in it? Well, that’s definitely odd.
Aziraphale doesn’t sleep. Yet fluffy white curls adorn the top of a pillow and Aziraphale looks perfectly peaceful there, atop the covers, like he just toppled over and that was that. His chest rises and falls slowly, rhythmically, and for a moment the sight is mesmerising.
The angel is so… peaceful, perfect, and vulnerable in front of him. So unbothered by the world around him. Relaxed.
But Aziraphale doesn’t sleep.
He’s never slept, not once, to Crowley’s knowledge. Nights are for reading; there’s too much to do to simply close one’s eyes and drift away. Crowley enjoys sleeping his time away, but it’s never been something Aziraphale has seemed even remotely interested in, so the sight of him like this now…
A tendril of fear slithers around his heart.
Crowley steps toward the bed, slowly, movements uncertain. The image before him is too peaceful, juxtaposed against the fear beginning to fill him, blood pounding in his ears. He raises a hand, lightly prodding the angel’s limp elbow—afraid to touch him, but afraid to do nothing. “Oi, angel.”
Nothing. Aziraphale remains unaware of the world around him. Peaceful. Relaxed. Wrong.
Crowley hisses and snags the angel’s shoulder, fingers biting into the flesh beneath the clothing in a way which would be bruising on anyone else. He gives the angel a shake, jerking the slack face into motion as his head lolls left, then right. “Wake up. Hey. Angel. Aziraphale!”
Nothing. Just stillness and silence.
Aziraphale doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t sleep.
Crowley isn’t panicking. It’s a ridiculous thought, panicking over a sleeping, peaceful angel. But Aziraphale is sleeping.
He just saw Aziraphale yesterday afternoon. Crowley finally slinked out of the bookshop after two solid weeks of basically living there, to spend the most amount of time away from Aziraphale as he had since their trials. He told Aziraphale he would be back in a couple of days, probably. Aziraphale hadn’t questioned why he wanted to leave. Mind how you go, his angel said, and that was that. Crowley went back to his flat in Mayfair and took care of his plants. Sat around in his chair, watching stupid reality TV.
Giving Aziraphale space felt too much like drowning. He made it roughly 22 hours before he couldn’t take it anymore, and jumped back in his car to head to the bookshop.
Aziraphale was perfectly fine yesterday. Said something about catching up on his reading, and Crowley piled in the Bentley and left. The angel wasn’t hurt when he left, so why is he sleeping now?
His tongue flicks out, tasting the air again. This room smells more like petrichor and ozone, with a touch of honey and vanilla. Very Aziraphale. The scent of the sleeping angel lingers heavy in the room, drowning out other scents, but even so Crowley doesn’t smell or taste anything alarming. No underlying scent of brimstone or sulphur, so no demon has been here except himself. Scenting other angels might prove slightly difficult since they all smell a bit like ozone, but after visiting Heaven for Aziraphale’s trial he’s certain he could pick that bastard Gabriel out immediately, having dedicated that scent to some primal fury in the back of his mind.
There aren’t any signs of a struggle anywhere. Aziraphale doesn’t appear hurt; his clothes are slightly wrinkled from apparently sleeping, but they aren’t torn and there is no blood or golden ichor. Crowley Looks at him briefly; his True Form appears how it always has, Bright and warm. The problem isn’t there. No injuries, no signs of a struggle, no underlying scent of an enemy…
It looks, for all intents and purposes, like Aziraphale simply laid down and took a nap.
Except the angel doesn’t sleep.
Crowley exhales sharply, sitting on the edge of the bed after a second of deliberation. They are certainly closer, after the failure of Armageddon and their trials, but this is Aziraphale’s private room and the angel is quite vulnerable in front of him. Some primal part of Crowley feels pride at this fact. Perhaps honour. Pride at the fact Aziraphale is in front of him, allowing himself to be so vulnerable in front of him.
Except this is most likely not voluntary. Rage fills in the spots of former pride; someone did this, he thinks, and left Aziraphale here vulnerable and alone. Anything could have happened.
That tendril of fear sharpens, tightens.
Panic creeps along the edges.
He reaches out, resting a hand on the side of the angel’s slack face. Aziraphale is warm and thrumming with his usual presence. Relief ebbs through him briefly, tempering his fear, before he sighs and slides his hand up. His fingers pry an eyelid up and he waves his other hand in front of that unseeing gaze.
Dormant pupils, moving slightly as they do like humans’ when they are in REM sleep. Normal. He lets the eyelid drop back down, blessing under his breath.
“Aziraphale, what the Hell is wrong with you? Why are you asleep? Can you even hear me…?”
Of course, Aziraphale says nothing. He does nothing. Doesn’t even acknowledge his eyelid being raised. Doesn’t acknowledge Crowley at all.
He eyes Aziraphale’s True Form again. Still looks okay. He just… doesn’t seem to notice Crowley. And isn’t waking up. And is sleeping in the first place.
“Ngk.”
He snaps his fingers in front of Aziraphale’s face, willing consciousness back into the still being. At first there’s no sound, his fingers trembling a little too much to properly snap, and he snarls to himself before trying again. This time they do snap. “Wake up, Aziraphale.”
The miracle settles over the angel.
Aziraphale doesn’t even stir.
Panic sets in, hard and fast. He springs to his feet. “Someone did this to you. I’ll… I’ll kill them. Was it that bastard, Gabriel?”
“Shut your stupid mouth,” Gabriel said in Heaven, “and die already.”
Rage ebbs through him. It’s at least better than the cold panic. The burning heat flooding through him sprints his limbs into movement and he paces the length of the bed prowling agitatedly, gaze forever focused on the still angel on the bed.
It can’t have been Gabriel. He doesn’t smell that bastard anywhere and he doesn’t sense any other angelic presences other than Aziraphale here. That’s not to say Gabriel couldn’t have outsourced whatever it was, though; the angels are good at outsourcing.
He prowls, torn between leaving to hunt down and destroy whoever or whatever did this… and staying here with Aziraphale.
Aziraphale is… vulnerable. He’s not awake, and he’s always awake, and none of this is right.
Fear bleeds to terror, snuffing out the flames of his rage.
What if he never wakes up?
He jerks toward the door. “I’llbeback,” he says as one breath, “I'llberightbackangel.”
Book Girl is a witch; surely she can wake him.