Archive of Our Own

“Begone, foul beast!”

The Righteous cry rang through the air, and lightning cracked. Crowley dodged, but even his inhuman speed wasn’t enough. The bolt of holy energy sizzled past his ear, sucking the breath from his lungs as pain seared up his arm, sizzling up his neck, across his back, down to his toes. Too slow. Too slow. All these years of surviving and it came down to just a couple of angels on a back alley street.

“That’s done it,” the voice said from behind him. “Hurry now, we have work to do.”

The ground came up to meet him as pain consumed the rest of his consciousness.

~

Present Day

Aziraphale was in that church. Crowley didn’t know everything, but he did usually know where Aziraphale was, and right now, Aziraphale was in that church.

Also in that church, Crowley was quite certain, were several human double agents and a pile of books. Foolish angel. Crowley would have hidden all his spy flicks and adventure novels a decade ago if he’d known it would come to this.

He swung open the door to the Bentley and set himself down on the cobbles of the courtyard. Even through his shoes, his feet tingled. And this was only the courtyard. Blast Aziraphale and his harebrained plans.

The tight scars on his arm twinged warningly, as they liked to do whenever he so much as looked in the direction of a church.

It’s a bad idea, they told him. The likes of you don’t go in places like that.

But Crowley long ago had gotten used to ignoring pain. A demon didn’t live to six thousand years old by changing plans just because they involved pain. So what if this pain was going to be self-inflicted? So what if the only person who would know if he turned around now was himself? So what if the only casualty of him leaving would be one angelic corporation and a pile of books?

Crowley didn’t even consider leaving.

The tingling got worse as he approached the door, the scars on his arm throbbing sharply with each step.

We warned you, they said. You could have avoided this.

He could have. But that wasn’t the way Crowley wanted to live his life.

The humans already had Aziraphale at gunpoint by the time Crowley made it inside. Oh well. Pros and cons to that. Pros were things like how easy it would be convince Aziraphale to leave with him, now that his precious secret agents had betrayed him. Cons, well, they had a gun.

Oh yeah, and Crowley’s feet felt like they were burning from the bottom up, a sharp, poisonous pain like no other. He tried to keep from skipping up the aisle like a fool, but he couldn’t help a hop here and there, and here, and there, trying to keep the holy ground from burning any more of him than he absolutely had to.

The humans thought it was too late for them to escape. The humans thought they had this in the bag.

The humans did not reckon on their fabled Anthony J. Crowley being an honest to Satan demon who not only didn’t much care if they lived or died, but also was ready to be out of this church five minutes ago.

In the scheme of difficult things Crowley had done in the last three minutes, redirecting an incoming missile to hit the church didn’t even rank top ten. Sparing himself, Aziraphale, and the books was a bit more difficult, but only because his left arm felt like it was attempting to fall off his body, and he had to make a quick twist to catch the satchel of books in a hand that was actually capable of holding it.

And then he was standing with Aziraphale, and the Bentley, and no one else, under the stars on a London night.

Aziraphale looked...pleased...to see him. That was probably what gave Crowley the bravery to offer him a lift home.

He wasn’t sure why Aziraphale invited him into the bookshop, but that was never an offer Crowley was going to pass up. They hadn’t spoken in nearly a century. Who knew when he would get another chance?

The shop had changed. Aziraphale had had seven more decades to settle in, seventy years to acquire books and pile them up in wobbly stacks in the corners, seventy years of dust on the shelves. The bookshop looked more...established...than it had at Crowley’s last visit. Every wall fairly oozed Aziraphale’s essence.

Crowley wanted to bask in it forever.

It wasn’t until they were sitting down and Aziraphale had poured tea and looked at Crowley with a furrow in his brow and asked what do you need that Crowley realized he was cradling his left arm against his chest like it was broken. He dropped it, barely suppressing a shudder at the shooting pain that the motion sent up through his shoulder.

“Tea,” he said. “Tea is great.”

Aziraphale frowned harder. “Crowley, you’re injured.”

“Nah,” Crowley said. “I’m fine. Takes more than a church falling on me to get through my defenses.” He saw an opportunity and took it. “Wait, you didn’t get hurt, did you?”

Aziraphale waved a hand. “I’m perfectly fine. Excellent, even. Ah. Anyway. No, I was quite...protected. But you’re in pain.”

Crowley would have liked to deny it again, but it was a fight he knew he would lose. “It’s not much worse than usual.”

It was, actually, the pain that usually only flared occasionally now worse than ever. It occurred to him to be worried. He’d already left the church, after all. It’s not like the bookshop was holy.

Aziraphale’s eyebrows shot up. “Much?”

“I’m fine,” Crowley insisted. “Here, tea. You like tea. Drink tea.” Sharp ribbons of pain were running up his arm, and now that his attention was drawn to it, his feet hurt too, a dull burn that sank deep into the soles and radiated towards his ankles. That certainly wasn’t a good sign.

But he was awake, and lucid, and even capable of fending off Aziraphale’s nosiness, so it could be worse. Hardly the worst holy burns he’d ever received.

He was holding his arm again, he realized, pressing it against his chest as if keeping it still would prevent the horrid spasming pains from repeating. He hadn’t even noticed himself doing it. That was bad. Crowley always knew where his body was and what it was doing. It was like his whole thing.

He held his breath and made himself release the arm back to his side.

When the wave of agony passed, Aziraphale was looking very decidedly at him, and not at his tea like Crowley had told him to.

“Crowley, what is it?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Crowley snapped. “It’s not like I walk into churches every day!”

“Oh.” Aziraphale seemed briefly taken aback. Then he stood up. “Well, then what happened to your arm? You didn’t brush it against the doorway or anything, did you?”

“No,” Crowley said grouchily. He’d never told Aziraphale about those particular scars. They didn’t much talk about their scars. He knew Aziraphale had them too, places that got stiff when it rained or stung in the wrong presence, but he didn’t know exactly where. Or how they had come about.

H is arm throbbed. We told you, the scars seemed to say. You didn’t belong in there. Now you’ll have to explain it to him.

“No I won’t,” he mumbled mutinously.

The sofa shifted as Aziraphale sat down. “Is it just the arm?”

“Feet too,” Crowley admitted. Maybe that would divert Aziraphale’s attention. “It’ll pass.”

“I’m sure it will,” Aziraphale agreed. “But perhaps we can make it pass a little sooner.”

Crowley grunted.

“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice was serious. “I would like to help you. May I?”

Crowley snuck a glance at the angel and found himself very suddenly staring into a pair of very intent and very earnest blue eyes. He swallowed and quickly looked away again.

“I guess.”

He felt Aziraphale light up. “Oh, good. So tell me, how exactly does it hurt?”

“Burns,” Crowley said shortly.

“Your feet? Or your arm?”

“Feet.”

“That makes sense, they were by far the closest to all that consecrated ground.” Aziraphale hummed. “Well, let’s see them then.”

Crowley blinked. “My feet?”

“What did you think I was talking about, your nose? Yes, your feet.” Aziraphale stood up. “You lie yourself down here. I’m just going to get a few things.” He trotted off.

Crowley considered his options. He could leave, he supposed. Slink off to go lick his wounds in private, like a proper wild animal. Problem was, he didn’t really want to. He’d only just gotten invited back into Aziraphale’s life, and he wasn’t a big fan of slipping right out again.

Problem was, the only other option he saw himself with was to let Aziraphale...help...him.

Crowley didn’t usually accept help. Easiest time to backstab someone was when you were helping them. Easiest way to learn someone’s secrets was to help them. Allowing help meant letting your guard down, and Crowley’s guard never came down.

He looked at himself, and the way he’d been slowly reclining further and further back into the sofa throughout the entire thought process. Well. Never came fully down, perhaps. There were situations where Crowley’s guard might be...lowered.

And he supposed on some level he didn’t really think Aziraphale was looking to backstab him.

Funny what thousands of years of contact might do to your patterns.

Wincing, he pulled his feet up on the sofa and twisted himself to lie along the length of it. His arm had come up to his chest again, and he spent a moment screwing up his courage to move it away before realizing that by accepting Aziraphale’s offer to lie down, he was, in effect, admitting that the problem existed.

Fuck it. All or nothing.

Besides, if “death by angel” was how he was going to go out, better this version of it than any other.

It did feel good to have his feet up. Felt good to let his arm rest cradled against his torso, unmoving. Felt good to relax, a bit. He slipped his sunglasses off and set them on the table. If he was doing this, he might as well do it fully.

Aziraphale returned, bearing what looked like quite a heavy bowl and some cloths. He set them on the coffee table.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s have a look.”

Then he lifted Crowley’s shoe-covered feet, sat down in their spot on the sofa, and set the feet back down in his lap.

Crowley stared.

Apparently not noticing Crowley’s surprise, Aziraphale unlaced Crowley’s boots and slipped them off.

Crowley winced. The feeling of leather sliding along the sole of his foot was not pleasant given current circumstances.

“I know, I know,” Aziraphale murmured, as if he’d seen. “But we can’t mend it if we don’t know what we’re working with.”

“Yeah,” Crowley managed, momentarily overcome by the gentleness in Aziraphale’s tone. “Go on, angel.”

That of all things made Aziraphale pause and look over at him, an oddly wondering look on his face. They locked eyes for a moment.

Then Aziraphale said, “Very well,” and began to remove Crowley’s socks.

“Yes, they’re burned,” he said a moment later, and cool fingers took hold of Crowley’s right foot, adjusting it within the light. “You might have expected this, Crowley, churches aren’t exactly known for being everyday spaces.”

“I did expect it,” Crowley argued, a bit breathless at the angel’s firm, gentle touch. “I told you I’m fine.”

“You are not,” Aziraphale argued, and reached over to the table to bring out a damp cloth. “This will draw some of the heat out, and then we’ll have to bandage these if you want them to heal properly.”

Crowley wanted to protest the fussing, but the touch of the cool cloth sent relief coursing up his legs and soaking through the rest of his body, and Aziraphale was still holding Crowley’s feet in his lap so very gently, and it was far, far too late to back out now.

So instead he sank deeper into the cushions of the sofa as his burning feet were cooled by cloth after cloth, as Aziraphale patted them dry and spread salve on them, gently at first and then massaging it in more firmly, as Aziraphale’s fingers sliding over muscle seemed to rub out more and more of the holy pain, dissipating it into the skin and then the air, until the sizzling pain was gone and left behind it only a sort of rawness that Crowley, oddly, felt might heal.

He started to zone out somewhere around the bandages, mesmerized by Aziraphale’s careful wrapping, not too tight, not too loose. The angel’s patience was exquisite. He hadn’t rushed a single step, hadn’t shown a hint of annoyance, just bit by bit worked his way through until Crowley felt...better.

Aziraphale set down the second bandaged foot and turned toward Crowley.

“Now,” he said.

Crowley blinked back from the edge of a nap. “Hmmmm?”

“Your feet are certainly better. Now we can do your arm.”

Crowley came fully awake. “Oh, no, it’s fine. No need.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale sounded a bit pleading. “Just let me see?”

Crowley felt his shoulders hunch. He didn’t want Aziraphale to see. He didn’t want Aziraphale to ask. He didn’t want to have to relive yet again that close call that haunted his dreams.

But as he tensed, the pain returned, shooting up and down, hurting worse, probably, than it had since the scars were fresh. With that going on, he supposed, he wasn’t going to avoid the memory very well anyway. And Aziraphale had been able to help with the feet.

“Didn’t touch the church,” he said shortly, sitting up and trying to shrug off his jacket. “‘S not from the church. Just…”

It was rather hard to remove a jacket without moving your left arm, he was finding. He sighed and miracled both jacket and shirt far enough off to free the arm. It looked the same as always, a bit inflamed, perhaps, but otherwise just a normal arm, with a mass of bright, pale scar along the outside of the upper part.

Aziraphale turned fully toward him, eyes tracing the scars. “Crowley…”

“Hurts around holy stuff,” Crowley said, not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “I never went into a church with it before.”

“So you think perhaps the church made it react worse than usual,” Aziraphale finished.

Crowley nodded tightly, waiting for the question, bracing himself for the well-meaning curiosity.

“Well, it doesn’t look burned the same way,” Aziraphale said. “So I’m not sure I can do the same thing I did for your feet. How does it hurt?”

Crowley blinked. That wasn’t what he had been expecting.

“It’s sharp,” he said finally. “But it aches. And kind of…” he waved his second hand hand up and down the arm. “Radiates, sort of.”

Aziraphale nodded thoughtfully. “That sounds most unpleasant.”

Crowley shrugged, and winced.

“Well, there’s nothing here for me to dress,” Aziraphale said. “So I think the only option here is to massage it out.”

Crowley miracled his shirt and coat back on. “ Massage- what is this, some kind of spa day?”

“It worked on your feet,” Aziraphale pointed out. “And I can hardly let you go home in this state.”

“This state- angel, I’ll be fine! It’s just a bit annoyed, that’s all, it’ll be better in an hour.”

“It’s already been two hours,” Aziraphale said primly. “And you’re hardly better yet. Come, just let’s try.”

It wasn’t fair, Crowley thought, that the angel could be so gentle while he was being stubborn. If it was a fight this would be fine. Crowley could win a fight. But instead it was only him, fighting with himself and losing on the angel’s dilapidated sofa, while Aziraphale gazed at him so softly and his arm throbbed worse than it had in centuries.

Satan, it did hurt. He didn’t think it had hurt this much since the injury itself, like an evening in a church had awakened long-healed neural pathways that carried pain signals. He remembered that time, remembered it every day, even when he tried not to. Especially when he tried not to. It was one of the only times in his life when he had thought he would die.

But he hadn’t. Maybe this was some way of checking whether he was worth that second chance.

“Oh, fine,” he grumbled. “Sure. Just-” he swallowed- “be careful, will you?”

The last few words came out far more frightened than grouchy. He hoped Aziraphale hadn’t noticed.

“Of course,” Aziraphale said, in a tone like he was soothing a frightened animal. Crowley resented how it made something in his chest settle.

C rowley freed his arm once again from its layers of sleeves.

The first touch was agony, and Crowley very nearly fled. The second hurt almost more, but it carried an undercurrent of relief that he found himself leaning into, almost begging to feel it again. The third sent shooting pain arcing up his arm, and he snatched it away, gasping.

Aziraphale’s voice, very softly. “I know. I am sorry.” A pause. “May I try again?”

For a moment, Crowley stayed where he was. Then he nodded and leaned closer.

~

Aziraphale’s hands were cool. That was the main thing he noticed, outside of his own pain. No matter how long he worked, Aziraphale’s hands were cool, and dry, and soft.

They had started by sitting next to each other, but somewhere along the line he had migrated to lying facedown in Aziraphale’s lap, his arm bent under and alongside him as Aziraphale’s hands poked and prodded and rubbed it from shoulder to elbow. It hurt, it hurt terribly, but Crowley felt like it was better, somehow, than when they’d started. The poisonous feeling of holy pain, which had begun to seep its way up to his shoulder, was receding back to his upper arm, and he no longer felt like crying out when he moved it.

Aziraphale’s fingers dug a particularly tender spot and he yelped.

Aziraphale stopped pushing and Crowley took the break gratefully, drawing in several settling breaths. As he did, he felt Aziraphale almost idly tracing his fingers over Crowley’s shoulder, down the arm, circling the scars. After a moment Crowley realized he was very carefully avoiding them.

“You can touch them,” he said. His voice sounded rough.

Aziraphale’s fingers stilled. “I don’t need to.”

“I know.” Crowley cleared his throat. “But. You can. If you want.”

Slowly, clearly hesitantly, the fingers traced over the edge of roughened skin. Crowley tensed on instinct, but the pain was no worse than it had been before. Aziraphale paused anyway.

“Keep going,” Crowley said.

He wasn’t sure why. He had no reason to want this, except that Aziraphale’s hands had already brought him such relief this evening. Except that he had never once showed this to anyone, and now the one person he shared with had spent hours with his scars and never worsened the pain. It was his blasted curiosity again, always pushing until he found the edge of what was acceptable. He wanted to find out how far this could go. How long until it turned wrong again.

Aziraphale’s fingers moved again, touching the scar proper this time and, boldly, running right up the middle of it. Crowley shivered, but the pain didn’t worsen. He almost wondered if it felt a bit better.

Aziraphale stopped again.

“It’s fine,” Crowley said. “I’m fine.”

Aziraphale hummed, and his fingers traced the scar again, around and around and up and down and over. It tingled, the skin unused to touch. Crowley tried to avoid touching it, himself.

He mostly tried to avoid even looking at it.

But Aziraphale continued, and Crowley found that it was all right, actually. No new pain flared from the angel’s touch. Aziraphale didn’t suddenly stop and push him away, muttering some reason or other why they had to end the evening. He didn’t seem to have any questions at all.

Crowley wondered how any being could be so outrageously considerate.

Eventually Aziraphale stopped, having apparently explored the entire scar, and rested his palm over it instead. Crowley soaked in the feeling, the heavy weight of Aziraphale’s hand settling the remnants of the tingling.

“How far up does it still hurt?” Aziraphale asked finally, removing his hand.

Crowley sighed. “Shoulder.”

“I see.”

Aziraphale began at the shoulder again, working downward, pushing the ache away from Crowley’s core and out. Crowley gasped again at the change in sensation, but either Aziraphale understood his cues now or he simply didn’t notice. Crowley found he preferred it that way. It was easier to tolerate the pain when he wasn’t also trying to avoid worrying Aziraphale.

Several more minutes passed. Aziraphale worked his way across the back of Crowley’s shoulder and began to move down the arm again.

“They smited me,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale’s fingers stuttered, digging deep into the muscle of Crowley’s bicep. “What?”

“The scars,” Crowley clarified, though he wasn’t sure why he had even brought it up. “A couple of angels. Smited me.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed. “Crowley.”

“I think they thought they’d killed me,” Crowley admitted, apparently unable to stop talking now that he’d decided to begin. “Or they wouldn’t have stopped.”

Aziraphale didn’t speak, but Crowley heard a catch in his breathing. He almost felt bad for bringing it up, but the relief of saying out loud what he had felt in his bones for so long was so overwhelming he couldn’t feel much else. It was easier, somehow, to hear Aziraphale’s reaction and realize he might not have been overreacting all these years.

“I am glad they did,” Aziraphale said finally, so quietly that Crowley barely heard him.

Crowley sat with that for a moment, turning the words over in his head. It was both so very expected and simultaneously a revelation of epic proportions. Aziraphale didn’t make big declarations of friendship. Neither of them did. If you asked Aziraphale – or Crowley – they weren’t even friends at all.

But the angel had just admitted that he was glad Crowley had lived even when the patterns of how their world worked should have killed him. Against everything that told him otherwise.

“Yeah,” he said, grateful for the sofa cushions he could hide his face against. “Me too.”

Silence returned. Aziraphale’s hands took up their movement again, a little more aimless, as if it were more habit than direction that drove them. Crowley lay with it for a while longer, appreciating the way it made his chest feel calmer.

“They almost managed,” he said after a while, unable to keep the memories to himself any longer.

Aziraphale breathed in sharply, and his hands tightened on Crowley again.

“Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what dead looks like,” Crowley continued bitterly. “Only reason I lived was they were in too much of a hurry to do more than glance.”

“But you survived,” Aziraphale said softly.

“Yeah,” Crowley said, memories of long months of pain and hiding and misery cropping up before his eyes. “I survived. But it fucking hurt.” He blew out a breath and felt something quiver inside him. “It hurt, Aziraphale.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice cracked on his name, and that was apparently the last straw for Crowley’s self control. He’d been chipping away at it all evening, first by coming into the bookshop, then by letting Aziraphale fuss over him, and finally by purposely dredging up one of the worst parts of his life. And that wasn’t even counting the far more human problems of the bomb and the church and the spies with guns. Normally he would be able to stuff even this much feeling away, push it into a bag he never had to open.

Normally he wasn’t lying in the lap of the only person he’d ever trusted, being genuinely listened to for the first time in decades.

W hatever the exact reason, in that moment, on Aziraphale’s sofa, Crowley began to cry.

It was a quiet thing, sniffles and tears and a few shakes he wasn’t able to hold back. He might have been embarrassed by it, but rather than stiffening up or even patting him awkwardly like Crowley had seen Aziraphale do with crying children, he reached down and gathered Crowley up in his arms, holding him against his chest like...like something precious. Something valued.

The realization brought on new tears. It was strange, he didn’t usually cry. It wasn’t a very demonic thing to do, unless used as a manipulation tactic. But in this particular moment it was like the human instincts of the corporation had taken over and left him with no way to express himself except...this.

He never wanted to move away.

He didn’t cry for long. The tears dried up as quietly as they had started, and he was left in Aziraphale’s arms, face buried in Aziraphale’s shoulder, left arm tucked between them and aching slightly.

“I am so…” Aziraphale whispered finally. “Crowley. I am so sorry.”

“Not your fault, angel.” Never Aziraphale’s fault.

“But I-” Aziraphale hesitated. “Crowley, I have carried out smitings before.”

Crowley shifted, and his arm twinged. Very well then. He tucked himself back against Aziraphale’s chest. “Against demons, though?”

“Well, no."

“Did you do it for fun? Did you look at the poor bugger and think ah yes, looks like a smiting target to me?”

“No!”

Crowley lifted his good shoulder in a half shrug. “Carrying out orders, angel. We’ve both done it. I’ve inflicted plenty of suffering on humans in my day.”

“I suppose.” Aziraphale’s arms tightened around him. “I am still sorry. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Yeah.” Crowley swallowed. “Me too.”

Aziraphale smoothed his hands along Crowley’s back, slow and soothing.

“I’m here now though,” Crowley added finally. He wasn’t sure whether he was talking more to himself or to Aziraphale.

“You are,” Aziraphale agreed. He sighed. “How is your arm?”

Crowley reluctantly pulled back. “Better.”

He could see Aziraphale relax. “Good.”

Crowley rolled to the side to sit on his own. The movement sent pain up his arm again, and he winced. Aziraphale narrowed his eyes.

Crowley rolled his own eyes. “I said better.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that at least.” Aziraphale visibly pulled himself together and stood up. “I think it is the time of night for wine.”

Crowley allowed himself a moment to marvel. Decades apart and then Crowley immediately had a meltdown on Aziraphale’s sofa and the angel still wanted to share wine. He would almost wonder if it was a pain-induced hallucination if the pain hadn’t already fully faded into nothing more than a faint background buzz.

“Wine,” he said. “Yeah, wine is good.”

They had wine. They talked...about nothing in particular. Crowley let his arm rest on his chest, where it still wanted to be. It ached and stung, but nothing like the throbbing of earlier in the evening. He would heal. He always did.

It was far into the morning when Aziraphale corked the bottle and stretched. “I had better put those books away,” he said. “Since it seems they will be remaining in my possession.”

As dismissals went, it was a gentle one. Crowley nodded and slid himself up and off the sofa.

“Sure thing,” he said, and hesitated. It felt like there was more to say, more to acknowledge or appreciate or plan. But he couldn’t find what it was.

Aziraphale stood as well, and his eyes sought out Crowley’s. “We ought to get lunch sometime, you know,” he said almost casually, as if promises of a future meeting weren’t the only thing Crowley was hoping to hear in this moment. “I’m sure there are lots of new places since we last tried one. Would you be interested?”

Would he be interested? Crowley could fairly say he wanted nothing else. He wouldn’t mind staying near Aziraphale forever. Eighty years was nothing in the scheme of the world, but somehow, looking back, it felt like an eternity. And here he was, being thrown a lifeline, a promise of less than eighty years this time.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just tell me a place.”

It was too much, too honest, too downright effusive for how their plans were supposed to be made. But it was so much less than he was feeling that it felt like hardly anything.

Aziraphale’s smile lit up his vision. “I will, then.”

“I’ll be off, I guess.”

“Yes, yes, all right.”

It wasn’t much of a farewell, Crowley thought as he ducked out the door. But the meaning hadn’t been in Aziraphale’s words. It was in that smile.

Lingering pain snaked along his left arm as he brought it up to the wheel of the Bentley, but that was all right. The night’s adventure might have temporarily worsened some scars, but those others, the scars of loneliness and fear and danger…

Those were healing, for the first time in forever.