Work Text:
Prompt: Sick Day
"Oh, dear," Aziraphale murmured, taking in the sight on his doorstep.
Crowley stood shivering on the threshold, arms wrapped tightly around himself, teeth chattering loud enough to make Aziraphale wince. His skin was pale and his lips were nearly tinged with blue, and his nails were digging so hard into his shoulders that it looked painful. His clothes were sopping wet, though still so tight that they clung to his frame, making him look impossibly thin and small.
"Hi," he croaked out.
"Come in, dear boy!" Aziraphale cried out, shaking his head with exasperation and immediately ushering the demon inside, huffing with fond ridicule. "Oh, you're absolutely soaked —," He turned Crowley around after closing the door and cupped his face in his palms, sending a miracle of warmth through his body, making him shudder as his clothes miraculously became dry.
"Urgh," the demon mumbled, his cheeks, which were practically blue, pinkening once more. "Sorry, d-don't mean to int-intrude," he gritted out through a clenched jaw. As if he ever could. "S'just really — bloody — cold."
Aziraphale observed Crowley with sympathy; the stark paleness in his cheekbones contrasting the darkness of his sunglasses, the way his hands trembled as he dragged them down his face. The angel huffed a little with a mixture of exasperation and gentle worry, moving forward without even thinking about it and hooking a hand around Crowley's waist; the demon let out a strangled, surprised little noise, but he pressed into Aziraphale's touch with his entire body.
"What're you doin', angel?" His voice was husky.
"Getting you to get nice and warmed up, my dear," Aziraphale responded primly, and then began to lead Crowley over to the couch nestled in the corner of the bookshop, ignoring the demon's weak, half-hearted protests. He gently maneuvered Crowley down to the cushions, slipping his hand from the small of the demon's back to ease down his shoulders, getting him to relax.
Prompt: Forgive
"It's just — it's ridiculous, is what it is, he's always been ridiculous but this is ridiculous —,"
Crowley paced in circles around the circular carpet in the bookshop, wearing the fabric ragged as his snarled out the jumbling of ranting anger that flooded from the cracks in his heart to the seam of his sneering lips. The pain in his eyes was hidden well behind in sunglasses, and behind him, Muriel was sitting up straight in one of Aziraphale's favorite chairs, hands folded primly in their lap, brows furrowed as they listened to him intently.
Aziraphale had been there, earlier that day.
Ridiculous. It had been ridiculous.
He had — it wasn't for Crowley, he hadn't come back for Crowley, not that that was absolutely what the demon had hoped and dreamed when he had first felt that angelic presence touch the edge of his own once more as Aziraphale stepped back onto Earth. He had only come to inform them that the Second Coming was — well, coming, and it was ridiculous, and it was —
“Forgive him.”
Muriel's voice was soft and filled with an angelic sort of wisdom. They had stood, and their hand rested to squeeze Crowley’s shoulder gently. The demon lifted his head even as he hunched further in on himself, pacing coming to a stop as his shoulders slumped in defeat.
“It’s not that easy,” he croaked out, feeling so pathetically small and even more pathetically broken.
“I know,” they said, their voice calm and steady, and Crowley seized to that, letting it anchor him, letting Muriel's words keep him tied to solid ground as he started to drift out into tumultuous waves. “Do it anyway.”
Prompt: Ache
"One of those days, then, my dear?" Aziraphale murmured in his ear; Crowley hadn't even heard him move close. He couldn't answer besides the most tentative of nods, and even that sent utter agony pounding from his skull to his eyes to the back of his goddamn neck, and everything hurt —
"Shh, shh, my darling, my dear," Aziraphale whispered, and Crowley blinked at sudden wetness on his cheeks. He's been crying out in pain, and as he opened his eyes again, the light streaming in from the windows was too much.
"Too bright," he whimpered, screwing his eyes shut and whining as it sent pulses of pain behind his eyelids. "Too — s'too —,"
"There we are," Aziraphale whispered alongside a deft snap of his fingers, and Crowley's body went fully lax in the angel's arms as they were plunged into darkness, save for the very light, near-imperceptible glow around Aziraphale's form.
"M'sorry," he whined through his teeth, but the angel only tutted fondly.
"Hush, my dear," he murmured. "What would help you right now?"
"I dunno," Crowley whimpered, feeling so very weak but not even able to care through the haze of pain. "Just hurts."
"I know, dearest. I'm so very sorry." Aziraphale cupped the back of his head in his warm palm, carding through his hair in a way that was so very, very gentle. "We're just going to go back to sleep, hm? You're going to drink some water for me first if you can, and then we're just going to go to sleep, alright?"
"'Kay," Crowley rasped, not having the wherewithal to argue even if he wanted to. He felt the press of a cup against his lips and allowed them to part weakly, trembling from head to toe and whimpering as Aziraphale tipped the cold water down his throat. He swallowed feebly, and Aziraphale helped him along with his palm firmly holding up the demon's head, allowing him to breathe and drink at the same time.
"Is that better?" Aziraphale whispered. Crowley nodded, minisculely, and began to, mercifully, relax.
Prompt: Light
Aziraphale paused in his reading aloud as he heard a sudden snuffling snore from where Crowley had snuggled up into his side where they were lying in their bed, against the many pillows. He placed the novel (Frankenstein, one of his favorites that even the demon appreciated) on the nightstand, and paused for a moment before turning out the light.
The lamp's warmth was bathing Crowley's sleeping form in a beautiful halo of light, making his red hair shine and his freckles almost shimmer. He looked even more breathtakingly beautiful than usual, and Aziraphale allowed himself a few moments to adore him openly (without having to listen to his usual complaints about it), before he bent down and pressed a kiss to Crowley's forehead.
"Let there be darkness," the angel murmured, and out went the light as he gathered Crowley fully in his arms and drifted off to the gentle sound of his breathing.
Prompt: Wrinkle
Aziraphale's eyes crinkled up at the edges when he smiled.
It was one of those things that Crowley had always noticed, but had never been able — or had never allowed himself, was perhaps a more honest way of putting it — to appreciate, to observe, to adore. And that, he thought, was an unspeakable transgression.
Things were different now, however, and of the best parts of their side with their cottage in the South Downs and their newfound peace away from everything but one another and their love, was that they were able now to adore those little, otherwise insignificant things about each other.
And while Aziraphale cherished Crowley's eyes (something that had taken the demon a good while to truly believe), and his hair that was slowly beginning to streak with grey, and the crooked way he smiled when he laughed . . . Crowley couldn't help but abandon every demonic scrap of himself to openly adore Aziraphale's halo of blonde hair; the soft curves of his angelic body; and the wrinkles that framed his eyes as he smiled with joy, making him look as if he were glowing.
Prompt: Halo
"She gave me my halo back," Aziraphale said conversationally one morning, as he brewed morning tea in a kettle and Crowley baked scones beside him, forked tongue sticking out slightly in concentration. "Did I ever tell you that, Crowley?"
"Don't think so," Crowley mused in response, casual and flippant as he crushed raspberries underneath his palm, tossing them into the dry ingredients. "But it makes sense, eh?"
"I suppose so," Aziraphale sighed out, frowning slightly; he turned to the demon, catching sight, for a moment, of his serpentine golden eyes. Tentatively, he cleared his throat, pausing in steeping the tea bags to murmur out a question. "Did She . . .?"
"Nah," Crowley interrupted, this time with a more forced casualty to his tone. "Nope. M' lucky I kept my wings, I think. Ish."
"I see," the angel murmured; Crowley's hands had slowed slightly in their fervency of his baking, a sign of his edge of discomfort, and guilt twisted at Aziraphale's chest. "I'm sorry, dear," he added on, wringing his hands anxiously, but Crowley just shook his head.
"What for, angel?" The demon laughed — a genuine one, all teeth and crooked smiles. "It was always a headache, anyway. Quit lookin' all sad, yeah? I don't need a halo; I got enough of an angel with you, Aziraphale."
And then he flicked a bit of raspberry-and-lemon-flavored scone batter at Aziraphale's cheek, and as he laughed at the affronted look on the angel's face, the light streaming in through the stained glass over the kitchen sink almost did cast a ring of light gleaming around his head.
Prompt: Charcoal
The first time Aziraphale had lit a fire in the cottage fireplace had been the last even before the first log had even finished burning.
He had only meant to put his feet up and relax on the couch with a good novel and some tea whilst waiting for Crowley to come back inside from where he was tending to his garden. He hadn't thought about years ago at his bookshop, and he hadn't remembered to consider Crowley's snappish insistence that all of his candles there be destroyed; he had been distracted, you see, with a good cup of tea and a better book, and he had lit the fire with a snap of his fingers without a second thought about it.
But when Crowley had burst in only a few moments later, Aziraphale was all too quick to put the fire out again with a desperate wave of his hand, and with a devastated sort of guilt squirming at his insides at the raw and utter terror in Crowley's eyes.
"Angel," the demon gasped out, as the door swung open and nearly banged against the counter; he was dirty, hands covered in soil, weeds and mud clinging to his boots, but none of that seemed to be registering at all with him as he whipped his head back and forth, tongue sliding out from between his lips, nostrils flaring.
"Crowley —," Aziraphale started, the realization still not registering, until the demon cut him off.
"There's fire," Crowley growled out urgently, though his shoulders had slumped slightly in relief upon seeing Aziraphale, whole and okay. "I can smell smoke, I can smell charcoal, I can tassste it, there's — something, it's — it's burning —,"
"Oh, my dear, I'm ever so sorry," Aziraphale gasped, guilt twisting in his stomach as his eyes went wide. He extinguished the fire and the smoky charcoal smell immediately, rushing to Crowley's side where the demon had frozen in the doorway, his golden eyes red and glistening.
"I lit the fireplace," he confessed remorsefully, distress making his heart flip in his chest. "I apologize sincerely, Crowley; I wasn't thinking."
Crowley stared at him for a long, long moment, and then, with a strangled sort of whimper, he folded into Aziraphale's arms, burying his face in the angel's shoulder and wrapping his hands around the small of his back.
"Don't apologize, you idiot," he rasped out. "M' just glad you're okay."
"I am," Aziraphale whispered in affirmation, lifting up a hand to stroke through the demon's hair; "and I will apologize, for I feel that I need to. Will you forgive me, my dear?"
Crowley snorted — a wet sort of half-laugh. "Yeah, angel," he mumbled, the tension slowly seeping from him along with the taste of smoke in his mouth as he let out a shuddering sigh, and then a deep inhale as he breathed Aziraphale in. "I forgive you."