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It was raining, and Aziraphale’s wing had darted out instinctually the second the first drop began to fall, accompanied by a flick of the wrist and a “I’m sure the humans won’t notice.”
“You know, we’re not that far from shelter,” Crowley pointed out with a raised eyebrow. “I’ve got a residence about half a mile away.”
“I know,” Aziraphale puffed up his chest in a way that indicated he absolutely had not known. “I thought it would be a kind gesture nonetheless.”
“Well you would, wouldn’t you.” The tension hung in the air for a second before Crowley smiled, sauntering away from Aziraphale’s cover towards what he hoped was the right direction. Rain beat down against Crowley’s clothing, soaking through the layers of cloth and drawing heat away from his skin.
Crowley had been entirely correct - his house wasn’t especially far. It didn’t take long to arrive, which meant the weather was just as miserable as it had been when they set off. The sound of rain was loud against the thatched roofing, echoing in the slightly cramped house. It had a fireplace, and with a simple click of fingers, the cold coals relit themselves into something warm and roaring.
With a simple motion, Aziraphale dried himself off, and turned to Crowley, expecting the same from him. Instead, the demon shed his outer jacket, laying it near the fire.
“Is that necessary?” Aziraphale asked.
“I prefer doing things the human way,” Crowley responded, his tone carefully moderated. “It feels only fair.”
The angel tilted his head slightly. “How so?”
“We were sent to essentially live among them.” Crowley shrugged, pulling his underlayer off. “Think that means it isn’t right to skip all the tricky parts.”
Aziraphale was saved from having to articulate a response by the slight gasp that fell out of his mouth.
Crowley frowned slightly, glancing over his shoulder towards Aziraphale as he reached for a dry piece of clothing. “Is something wro-”
A look of realisation fell across the demon’s face as he hastily pulled the shirt on, and suddenly his back was no longer visible. It was out of sight, and yet Aziraphale couldn’t scrub the harsh imagery from his mind. It wasn’t an open wound, that much the angel could establish, and yet the pair of ragged lines running down Crowley’s back seemed angry, raw. As though it was still unhealed, marring the skin with scar tissue seemingly unwilling to mend, tearing gaps in the flesh with the absence of what was meant to be. Aziraphale continued to stare despite the absence of the actual sight.
“What?” Crowley snapped, forcing Aziraphale’s gaze upwards towards making eye contact.
“Crowley-” Aziraphale breathed, certain that a look of pity must’ve fallen across his face from the way the demon scowled at him.
“You got something to say?” He spoke, his movements harsher and less domestic as he folded his shirt over a rack. “Remembered that I’m a demon again?”
“That you’re a demon?” Aziraphale frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Crowley paused, the aggression seeming to freeze in place for a moment. “You don’t know?”
Aziraphale shook his head. “Should I?”
Crowley sank down into a chair near the fireplace (Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure when that had appeared), his emotions seeming to drain out of him as he rubbed a hand against his forehead.
“Look, it’s not unique - all demons have it.”
“All demons have it?”
“Yeah,” Crowley shrugged. “It’s just a thing.”
“A thing?” Aziraphale continued to repeat, slightly tilting his head towards Crowley. “Seems like more than just a thing.”
“I got it when I Fell.” Aziraphale’s expression must’ve visibly frozen, because Crowley gave a bitter laugh when the angel gave no verbal response. “Yeah. Weren’t expecting that answer, were you?”
“I-” Aziraphale scrambled to find a response. “I didn’t think-”
“No. You didn’t.”
Crowley’s words had an undertone of harshness that sounded wrong in his mouth. For the first time in a long time, Aziraphale was reminded that he was speaking to a demon, one of the Fallen.
“What was it like?”
The question clearly caught Crowley off guard, and for a moment he just stared at Aziraphale like he’d grown a second head. He frowned, as though studying the angel for indications of insincerity. When Crowley eventually spoke, the words were blunt.
“It hurt.”
Somewhere in that tone was a raw vulnerability that Aziraphale hadn’t quite seen before. Part of him wanted to shy away from it, and yet much more of him wanted to draw closer.
“It was like you were burning,” Crowley eventually continued. “And you’re blind, and as you fall it feels like they’re tearing you apart, atom by atom. They pull the grace out of your heart, and the exit wounds won’t close no matter how much you will them to.”
Crowley inhaled sharply, briefly gesturing at another chair for Aziraphale to take a seat. The angel took it.
“Everything you thought you knew is gone, even the most basal facts of your creation. It’s like a rug’s been pulled from under your feet and you can’t find the ground, all while your flesh is melting into something unrecognisable. They tear your wings out and the wound never truly heals, and you try to open them again, only for the searing pain of something new to emerge from the gaps. It never feels like you, so you keep the wings hidden only for the wound to remain, like a permanent marker or brand. Reminding you that you’re Fallen.”
For a brief moment, they made eye contact, and it’s almost like Crowley’s both completely absent from the conversation, but also inextricably stuck in the moment.
“You try to forget, but you can’t. You repress it, only for it to come flooding back everytime you glance in the mirror. You can’t escape it, and I tried, oh God I tried-”
All of a sudden, Aziraphale wrapped the demon in a hug. The gesture clearly caught him off guard, yet after a moment, Crowley sank into the comfort, shaking slightly into Aziraphale’s arms. The demon would later swear that he wasn’t crying, just still damp from the rain.
The angel would smile, and let Crowley’s insistances go unchallenged.
It was easier that way.