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Aziraphale was exhausted.
He shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t even say he’s exhausted. He was a Principality; a Guardian. He wasn’t supposed to get exhausted. But, oh, he felt two seconds away from falling over, and for once the prospect of sleeping didn’t perturb him.
The Apocalypse was just a few years away, he was working as a gardener/godfather at the Dowling residence, and Heaven has had him running around London performing miracle after miracle, blessing after blessing, for reasons he hasn’t even been made aware of. Aziraphale was tired and achy and, as blasphemous as it may be to even think, quite sick of being led on what felt like a wild goose chase. And on top of it all, Gabriel recently insisted on extra long reports about basically anything and everything regarding the human race.
Had it not been Heaven commanding him, Aziraphale would think he was being pranked.
Aziraphale sighed and pulled off his glasses, running a hand over his face. Lord, his eyes hurt. And his back. If he focused hard enough he was sure even his toes were hurting. His head was throbbing from overexerting himself with miracles and day to day work. Every part of him was sore and tired, his mind especially. He dropped his hand and glared at the paper in front of him. He could hardly make out the words of his report at this point.
Aziraphale allowed himself another few seconds of pouting before putting his glasses back on and getting back to work.
---
Crowley stepped into the bookshop, unannounced as always, and was confused to find it dark. Extremely dark. The curtains were pulled back and not a single light was on.
“Hellooo?” he called, shutting the door behind him. “Angel? You in here?”
“In here, dear,” came Aziraphale’s voice from the back.
Crowley followed the sound of it, silently glad demons could see well in the dark. “Why in Heaven are all the lights out?” He finally found the room Aziraphale was in, the angel hunched over a desk, a small candle lit next to him.
Aziraphale glanced at him, then gestured to the candle. “I have this.”
Crowley rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. Why are literally all the lights except your one candle out?” he amended overdramatically.
Aziraphale took off his glasses and pinched between his eyes. “Just have a slight headache is all.” He looked up at Crowley with a strained smile. “Did you need something?”
“Just wanted to see if you wanted some lunch,” Crowley said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “That new place you wanted to try just opened up. Figured you’d be blowing up my voicemail about it already.”
Something sad crossed Aziraphale’s face. He slumped further into the chair he was in. “Oh, I’d love to dear, really, but I’m afraid I’m not feeling all that up to it. Not very hungry at the moment either.”
Okay, now he knew something was wrong.
Crowley stepped forward with narrowed eyes. “You’re not hungry? Why? Are you sick? Cursed?” He held up a peace sign. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Aziraphale pushed his hand away with an annoyed look. “Oh, please, I’m fine. Just a tad tired is all.”
“Tired? Since when do you get tired?”
“Since Gabriel has me writing novel length reports,” Aziraphale replied, glaring at the papers in front of him. “I haven’t the foggiest idea why, but it’s what he’s told me to do. And I still have to be the gardener for Dowling’s, and teach young Warlock about being inherently good, and Heaven has me zipping across London doing a whole number of blessings and miracles.”
Oh, now he was going on a rant. Crowley opened his mouth, then closed it. Aziraphale looked frazzled and just all around miserable, and most likely was a breath away from dropping. Better to just let him get it out of his system.
“And, just the other day, one of my tenants, Maggie, said she had a family emergency and wouldn’t be able to look after her shop, but that she still needed the money, so I offered to work it for a bit. And now any free time I have outside of being a gardener, godfather, angel, and record shop cashier—which is actually very difficult when you don’t know about anything new in regards to music produced in the last one hundred years—is spent doing these ridiculous reports that I’m sure Gabriel doesn’t even read, which I shouldn’t even say, since he’s the Supreme Archangel, and I’m not supposed to question Heaven’s orders or reasoning, but It’s just—! I’m just...” He sighed and leaned back in his chair, shoulders sagging. “I’m tired.”
Crowley frowned. “Right. Okay. You’re going to sleep.”
Aziraphale gave him a bewildered look. “What? No. Did you not just hear all the things I have to do? I don’t have time to sleep, nor do I even need it. I’m an angel.”
“You’re an angel that’s running himself ragged. And you and I both know Gabriel is just doing this to get under your skin.” He held up a hand when Aziraphale opened his mouth to argue. “Ah ah! I don’t want to hear it. Give me a list of whatever blessings you have and what your reports are about. I’ll handle it.”
Aziraphale’s gaze softened. “Crowley—”
“Part of the Arrangement,” Crowley said quickly. “Nothing else. I mean, can’t really stop the Apocalypse with you passing out if Warlock so much as blinks at you.”
Aziraphale pouted, soft look vanishing. “I am not going to pass out.”
“Pretty sure you’ll pass out if you stand up too fast right now.”
Aziraphale frowned and stood up quickly, just to prove a point. He swayed for a moment, but caught himself on his desk. “See? As I said, I’m fine.”
“Mhm. You also said you’re tired.” Crowley pulled off his glasses and sighed. “Aziraphale. Seriously. Just take a nap or something. You look terrible.”
Crowley could see the moment he started getting through to the angel. Aziraphale’s brow furrowed, gaze drifting back to the papers. “But Gabriel said—”
“Gabriel will probably get bored of this after another few days,” Crowley said. He grabbed Aziraphale’s sleeve and pulled him out of the room, slowing down when the angel stumbled. He led Aziraphale toward the sofa, carefully weaving him through the dark shop. “I’ll deal with the reports and whatever blessings need to be done.”
Aziraphale’s frown deepened as he was pushed down onto the couch. “But Maggie’s shop—”
“Will be fine for one day.” Crowley snapped his fingers, throwing a tartan blanket over Aziraphale’s head. “I'll pay her myself if it gets you to sleep.”
Aziraphale yanked the blanket off his head. He glared at Crowley for a long moment, then looked at the blanket. He sighed and deflated, toeing off his house loafers. “Fine. If it’ll get you to stop fretting about, I’ll sleep.”
“I am not fretting,” Crowley hissed.
Aziraphale gave him an unimpressed look, but didn’t say anything further about it. He waved a hand and miracled a pillow at the end of the sofa. “Only for an hour. Two at most. If I’m not up by then—”
Crowley rolled his eyes and walked back toward the room with the candle. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll wake you up.” He absolutely would not.
There was the sound of fingers snapping. “The list is on the desk,” Aziraphale called. “And I’m serious! Don’t let me sleep too long.”
“Goodnight, Angel.”
All he got in reply was a huff.
---
Aziraphale was asleep before he could even situate the blanket over himself properly. When he woke up fifteen hours later, he was tucked in and felt better than he had in months. He couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at how much time he lost.
And if Crowley woke up a few hours after him from where he fell asleep in the chair to find the same blanket draped over him, tucked carefully around his shoulders, no one else had to know.