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You got him to come back to yours. You got him to come back to yours and you're still surprised, not that there were any other good choices. Not that there have been any good choices all day, or all week, or the last eleven years or the last sodding six thousand. But you got him to come back to yours, and it's a good choice, because letting him out of your sight right now might just finish breaking you.
He wakes you up in Mayfair, a gentle nudge and you realize you're slumped on his shoulder, his hand in yours as you blearily sit up and you missed it--your hands tangled together, and maybe you grabbed at him blindly like you've been doing--like you've been stopping yourself doing--since the Beginning, or maybe he reached for you in that quiet calm way like he hasn't been doing since the Beginning and you don't know, but when he pulls you up by that hand, still clasped in yours, you think you might start to have a clue.
Maybe it's a good thing you're too tired to hyperventilate properly.
It's definitely a good thing the lift is working. He tugs you into it and props you up, steering you like you'd just killed several bottles of truly wretched liquor (he's got practice, you think, almost-remembering Inquisitions and genocides and Crusades that have your name stamped on them in some filing cabinet in Dagon's office).
No. You're not thinking about that. The world didn't end today and "Hell's gonna be pissed."
"Heaven's not any happier, my dear," he says, and he's steering you toward the door and oh, shit, did you say that out loud? "Key?"
"Key?"
"For the door. Unless you want me to miracle it open. It seemed rude to do so without asking."
"Oh, that key." You wave at the doorbell snake. It nods once and the door clicks open.
"Oh, I say, that's handy."
"'ll do it for you, too, angel. Only ever had to ask." The bench inside the door is stark and uncomfortable and stylish. You chose it specifically to be stark and uncomfortable and stylish. It shouldn't look so very appealing right now.
"Whoop, mind how you go!" he says cheerfully, catching you before you sit down, and before you can even explain that you meant to sit down he's pulling you farther into the flat. "My dear, bath or bed?"
"Mmm?"
"Crowley? Bath or bed, I said. I expect you want a few hours' sleep, my dear, but you're very, very sooty, aren't you, and I will miracle you clean if you like but you do go on about it just not being the same."
You stare at him for a moment trying to see him properly, then yank off your sunglasses to stare at him some more. It doesn't help as much as you thought--he's all dim and maybe he's as tired as you are, for all his cheerful babble.
Useful meaning is starting to filter through, but it's taking its own sweet time about it.
"Very well. Bed then. I will wake you up in time for a wash, I promise."
Bed sounds brilliant, actually. You take a breath to tell him so--
Smoke. Smoke and burned paper and burned rubber and burned you, overwhelming your nose and wrong wrong, not here, not now not him keep the smoke away from him--
"My dear, are you quite all right?"
"BATH," you say, past the smoke, past the hammering in your chest. Water puts out fire.
"Of course, love," your angel says, and starts steering you toward the back. His hand is warm in yours, and you're afraid you might be clutching slightly but if he's not going to say anything neither are you.
The bath is stark as always, spare and dark and even turning the lights on does little to dispel the gloom.
"Oh. You don't have a tub." He sounds disappointed, and it hurts more than you would've guessed.
There's a ridiculously opulent shower, you want to protest. It's amazing and has variable sprays from three directions and it's almost a full-body massage.
It comes out, "Shower," with a wave.
"Certainly," he says. "May I...?" His hands are at your lapels, a question on his face.
The angel--the only angel who matters, who has ever, ever mattered--is in your bathroom offering to undress you. You will remember this moment forever except for the part where you're having to fight to hold onto it right now.
Some of that must have been recognizable assent. His hands, his hands made of caring and sunshine and binding glue and papercuts, are at your collar and slipping your jacket back off your shoulders, pulling your scarf over your head. He starts working on your waistcoat buttons.
It's not as though this is even the first time, you think desperately. He's pulled you out of the hole of your own despair often enough over the years--decades, centuries, millennia it's been and he finds you when you're at your worst. He brings light and strength with his blunt businesslike hands and the cleansing of water for your dirt and bruises. You rescue him from danger and he rescues you from you and the world keeps spinning.
Except when it didn't, of course. He's got your waistcoat unbuttoned and is tugging your shirt up, like he's done with uniforms and togas and robes and rags, ready to cleanse and heal and he died today and you stop him with a choke, grabbing his hands just to hold onto them because the world didn't end today except that it did.
You're caught again in that feeling of being untethered--of careening wildly through space, bereft of your center of gravity. No lodestone, no guiding star, just a frantically spinning compass needle and disaster straight ahead. A comet heading straight for the sun, flaming into nothing as it goes.
"Crowley?" He says, turning his hands in yours to hold on, firm in the face of your panicked clutching. "Crowley, dear. What is it? Do you need me to stop?"
It's you, you think, really really you, you died but you're here and-- but you can't smell him, you can't focus in on him when all you can smell is smoke still.
"Don't stop. I can't smell you. Too much smoke."
"You are very, very um... fragrant, yes, dear," he says. His hands--kind and blunt and clean except where he wears your soot--hold tighter still to yours. "If you need to hold on for a bit that's fine, of course, but if you want to shower I will have to have my hands eventually. Unless you want to just go in clothed, I suppose. But I... I could miracle you out of them, if you prefer, although it might be wiser not to attract any extra attention tonight with frivolous miracles--"
There's a weird hollow sound echoing off the tile work and you realize you're laughing. It's him, it really is, nobody else could possibly be as kind and fussy and distracted as he is all at once. "It's you."
"Of course it is, my dearest boy. I'm right here." The tile is cold through your jeans and somehow you've ended up on your knees, and he is kneeling with you, still holding your hands. He tips forward and rests his forehead in your hair and you want to tell him to stop, you'll get him dirty, he shouldn't even be touching you--
But he feels like sunlight, like heat for the snake of you and salve for all the raw parts and maybe you can just orbit him for a moment, feeling secure in his gravity.
"I'm right here," he says again, lips by your ear and breath ghosting across your skin. "I came back to you. And you were here for me when I did. You did so beautifully, Crowley, you fought so hard, and I think things are going to get difficult, I know, but you'll feel ever so much better if you're clean and get some rest, love." He's babbling still, he must be so tired too but his words are soaking to the core of you and it's rain after the drought of you and you can't bring yourself to make him stop saying nice things, not now, not after everything.
You don't care about the world, you think, not really, you don't care about the War and never did. But you'd fight Heaven to keep this one silly angel safe and you'd fight Hell to make sure you never had to face him in the final battle.
And there's still too much smoke.
"I could--I think I could hold onto you forever," he says into your hair, words falling onto your skin with the sharp spark of blessings. "Oh, you deserve so much better than me! I said so many things to wound you, my dear, and I let my fear entirely get the better of me--"
"Nobody better, angel," you say into his shoulder. Your hands don't want to unclench, knotted and painful and desperate as you try to open them.
He soothes them, somehow, wrapping warmth around them and letting them go. "Here, now--almost there. You'll feel so much better. May I--May I help you off with your shirt?"
Your shirt smells like smoke. "Yes," you say.
His hands move to your waist and tug off your shirt, he throws it into the corner with a sigh. The air on your skin is cool and fresh and just that is so much better, even while you're shivering.
He doesn't miss the shivering. "I'm going to turn on the water, my dear, and get it warm for you." He stands, shedding his jacket and waistcoat and hanging them carefully on the hook, then walking into the shower itself.
You should start on your trousers, probably. It will be easier to shower if you do. Your angel is quite right about not tossing miracles about willy-nilly and you have tried to peel out of wet skinny jeans the mortal way precisely once. It's maybe for the best if you never attempt it again, especially on the wrong side of too many tragedies and too many miracles and too much wine--
"Crowley?"
"Hmm?"
"How exactly do you make this monstrosity work? I'm sorry to have to ask but if this is what's on offer I can give you a sponge bath in the kitchen sink."
It's almost worth laughing, if you weren't so tired. "Center... Center knob for water. Temperature--" you wave vaguely with your left hand, then your right when you say "Spray control."
He grumbles something about pipe organs, but soon water is flowing and soon after that steam is rising.
It almost feels like you might survive all this, for a second, until you remember that you betrayed Hell.
"Come on, up you get," Aziraphale fusses. His voice is warm and his hands are warm and he's rolled up his sleeves to jolly you along like he always does when you crash like this and you lost him today, you're going to lose him again because Hell will not forgive--
"Ow!" A sharp pain in your shoulder and you turn to see he's bloody pinched you.
"Stop that. We're going to get you clean and let you get some sleep and then tomorrow, well, we'll face tomorrow as it comes. Trousers."
"Trousers?"
"They're also very burnt, dear. Do you need help getting them off? I am not above finding out if you own any scissors."
Do you own any scissors? You can't actually remember if you own any scissors and while you're trying to recall you're suddenly standing, cool air and warm steam kissing your skin.
You glance over and your trousers are tossed with your shirt off to the side. "How... how did you--?"
"Crowley, you're very distractible right now, aren't you? Come along. Under the water. You'll feel so much better."
You will, you know. You can still smell smoke, still see soot on your skin even as he steers you into the water and ohhh, that's, that's-- You grab at the wall when your knees wobble under the onslaught of hot steam and hot water sluicing over your skin. His hands are on you, holding you up. "You'll get wet."
"I daresay I'll dry," he answers, his voice alone dry enough for the desert. "You stopped time for me, I can take a little damp."
You'll get water on him--you'll get soot on him, you'll get you on him and you try one last time. "I've already gotten you dirty--"
"Nothing that won't clean, my dear boy. Hold still--I know one of these things in here has to be soap."
Next thing you know there's the sweet, sharp smell of lemon soap and there's skin on your skin, rubbing into the damp and the dirt and the hurt of you with clean and care. It's an old dance, and you relax into it despite yourself; he shouldn't do it, he shouldn't ever and he does, every time, he brings water and soap and care and holiness, the only holiness you can have now that doesn't burn.
He pulls soap up into your hair, strong fingers working the smoke out, and you shiver, remember the only time he didn't come. (The only time you asked for more holiness than this.)
"It had to be water," you mumble, and somehow in all this you're now speaking into his shoulder, face buried in his shirt-fabric.
"I'm sorry, love?" he says through the soap and the spray and his face is right at your ear. "This is somewhat less messy with a bathtub, but needs must."
A glob of suds splats down from your hair and you can see it grey and streaky while you try to recapture your thought.
"Water," you say. "It had to be water, holy water."
He freezes, then takes a breath and goes on, shaking himself for all the world like he's settling his wings. "No Holy Water today," he says sternly. "No Holy Water near you, not ever again. I won't have it."
No, not that, it's that all water is a little bit holy, you think, it cleans and cleanses and refreshes. It carries away the dirt of us--
"Face," he says, nudging you upright and you close your eyes tightly because you know the steps of this old waltz, even if you've never been this close to him for it before. The dance is almost over, and you won't be able to be this close again, maybe not ever.
Water slides off you, taking the last of the soap with it, and the spray shuts off. You're left leaning heavily on a very bedraggled angel, shivering again in the cool air.
"Almost done, my dear," he says, and there's a fluffy towel scrubbing at your hair and down your back. He's shifting you to get at the front of you and you could almost cry at the loss of touch from where you'd been leaning on him.
You can see his shirt sticking to him with water and traces of suds, same for his trousers. "You're soaked," you mutter, following the gaze down to see perfect pink toes. "And barefoot."
"Nonsense," he says briskly, waving his hand. The towel flaps and suddenly he's fluffy and dry again. "Nothing to be concerned about."
"Hehe. Cheater."
"I think you're about dry," he says. "And it is definitely time for bed, for you." He's got an arm around you, steering you through the flat.
"Not!" you choke, seeing the Ligur-mess still in the office doorway, "Not that one!"
"Oh. Oh, my." He peers down at the unfortunate puddle and swings wide. "Oh, No. Step away from it, please. You're not to go anywhere near it. Is it the next door, your bedroom?"
You nod, or you think you nod. He seems to understand and you're a tiny bit preoccupied with the sight of his toes and with not falling over and the bed might just be the most beautiful thing you've seen in your life.
(Ridiculous, of course. You have a list of the most beautiful things you've seen in your life, and they start with a pink-toed angel fretting on a wall and end with a fussy angel at the end of the world and have a million prim and kind and hungry and mildly bastardish angels in between. A bed--even a bed you want so much--isn't a patch on that.)
"Down you go," he says, pulling back the bed clothes and setting you gently down. He never asked about night clothes, you think, as the cool sheets hit your skin. Then again, he's done this often enough that it probably doesn't matter.
You swing your legs up into the bed, helped by warm clean hands. He settles you in and smiles brightly. "There you are, dear, get some rest. But I don't think we have much time. I'll wake you in a few hours."
You'd have sworn you weren't up to fast movement. You'd have sworn you weren't up to moving at all, frankly, but his wrist is in your hand almost without thought. "Stay."
"Oh, my dear boy, surely you want to sleep for a bit," he says, flustered.
"Don't go." You're not sure exactly how long you need him to stay, just that you definitely need him to stay. There's things in this world that you want and then there's letting him out of your sight ever again. You can already see book store flames raising up behind your eyes. "Don't want to be alone."
"Dearest, are you sure? I wouldn't like to keep you from getting sleep." But he's already moving around to the other side of the bed, shaking off your wrist and lifting up the covers.
As soon as he's in, you grab his arm again and pull it tight around you. "Need to know you're here." Comes out as more of a growl than you wanted, but he doesn't seem to mind, shifting close and curling in behind you.
There's a moment of silence, and then he simply says, "Of course." Fingers come around to comb through your hair, rub softly at your temples.
You're still basking in his warmth, the angelic radiance and the earthly weight of him, when the world finally stops.
***
"Crowley."
"Mmmphff." You're pretty sure this isn't the first time he's said your name.
"Crowley, dear. I think I have to insist. There's a lot to be done, and I can't do it alone." There are fingers in your hair, again--still, for all you know.
You haven't slept so well in at least a century. Maybe you can convince him to stay over forever.
"You know they're not going to let it lie," Aziraphale says, almost like he heard that thought.
"Did I say that out loud?" you say out loud without meaning to.
"Say what dear? And please open your eyes."
You open your eyes. You close your eyes. "Bright."
"Yes. Dawn, I'm afraid, and that is definitely the lark, not the nightingale."
"Nnnnggh." It's too early for Shakespeare. It's way too early Romeo and Juliet. Especially if you're going to die today. You pull a pillow over your head. Hell does not forgive.
"I've been thinking on Agnes' prophecy," Aziraphale muses. "I think--I believe--that if we're canny and careful, we might just survive this."
"That's going to be some trick." You lift the pillow. "What are you thinking, angel?"
"Your body is quite nice, you know." Aziraphale is wearing his utter bastard smile. "I want to wear it."
"Did you start watching horror movies while I wasn't paying attention?" Your mouth moves on autopilot but you're barely halfway through the sentence before you understand exactly what he means and he's right. He's not just right, he's brilliant.
This just might work out after all.