lunchbreaks | rp with me!

Earth was littered with bodies of angels, of demons, and humans alike. The blood had rained from the heavens and covered the grounds such that nothing would grow and no one could tell at a glance who was wounded and who had just been showered upon. The seas had boiled and marine life had choked, had floated upwards and coated most of the surface.

There Aziraphale had stood, in front leading an army of men, when finally the clouds parted and the Earth swelled and God and Satan came to take his call.

Well, not specifically his call, but that is precisely how it felt at the time.

They called for a truce, and the Almighty had stood as a figure, small as a human but glowing with absolute heavenly radiance, and shook one large, red hand that was bigger than her whole body.

Exhausted, relieved, Aziraphale hobbled over to a familiar-looking suit of armor, and leaned up against it, loosing his sword to the ground.

Crowley didn'tlike War. He didn't like it for a multitude of reasons----not the least of which is that he was an incredible coward. But now, watching Aziraphale leading armies, it was a different sort of cowardice. A fear of watching his best friend die, of watching something horrible happen to him and being unable to do anything about it.

It wasn't easy. Hellfire in the hands of humans was vicious, though. Many of them, inspired by the news and the other humans, threw it at the angels without a second thought. Thousands of them, brandishing fire. And when he was with the fire-brandishing humans he couldn't be anywhere near Aziraphale. When Aziraphale was blessing the rainclouds he couldn't be anywhere near him either. All he could do was fight, and worry.

Try to do what Aziraphale would do. He watched as a blessed rain approached. It wouldn't hurt any of humanity, but as that column of water came down, it would destroy him instantly.

"Is that your armor?"

Hastur. Of course he would find Crowley here. Crowley held out the flamethrower, but it was useless against the demon.

"I should have known. They said the humans started fighting back. Only you would cause them to rise up. Traitor!" Hastur swung with his crowbar, hitting Crowley squarely in the stomach, the force of which was mostly taken by the armor. He struck again, this time in the leg, which wasn't covered with any sort of protection. Hastur twisted, and a curse ran through it, hitting Crowley in the thigh. Pain ran through him, the kind that you only get from the deeper levels of Hell.

"It's not only me this time, Hastur," Crowley hissed back. No, not just him. He had Aziraphale. He had the blessings of angels on his side. The blessed raincloud approached, and Crowley gave a solid kick, sending the demon back into it. He hobbled away at top speed, as fast as he could move with the curse radiating through his leg. He ran, ran as fast as he could, but his leg hurt too much, he wasn't moving fast enough, the rain was coming too quickly---

And suddenly, just like that, it stopped. The rainclouds, the fire. The angels and demons stopped. Crowley limped towards where they were all looking. Something was happening. A truce?

Oh, Crowley didn't trust truces. He'd tempted too many generals to break them during times of war.

"Aziraphale?" he called out as his friend approached him.

"Crowley," Aziraphale responds, hands reaching out for his armor and lifting his visor, thinking better of it and instead lifting the whole helmet, dropping it to the ground. "Are you hurt?" he asks, clutching his face, because he can't tell at all. Aziraphale is covered in blood, though most of it not his own. He'd miracled away all the water on him in case any of it was holy, which was just as well because he was smearing blood into Crowley's lovely hair.

"We have to get you inside somewhere," he says, ignoring all the humans around him who are confused whether or not it's over, or who are nervously celebrating and hugging each other. Someone falls to their knees to pray, and others stop to mourn their dead.

Eventually, they come into agreement that it's over, and that they were spared from judgment. Aziraphale wants to yell at the top of his lungs that that's not how it works, but he's too exhausted at the moment and manages just to roll his eyes instead.

Uriel comes on over with a sneer on his face, looking mighty holier-than-thou, and despite how he is feeling at present, Aziraphale whips around and takes the sword up again, assuming a fighting stance and standing bodily between him and Crowley. Seems as if he didn't trust generals during times of truce, either.

"You've chosen unwisely, Aziraphale. Heaven won't look kindly on this."

"Heaven decided not to look too kindly on Earth either," Aziraphale responds, one eye shut because blood has trickled down with the sweat from his brow.

"Your judgment is coming," he says, and then turns to Crowley. "Don't forget that yours is, as well, demon."

As soon as Uriel is gone, Aziraphale relaxes his position. "He's always so disdainful."

"Seem a great bit of fun, your lot," Crowley says. One thing is for certain. The War might be over for the moment, but the angels will be coming back for Aziraphale. Maybe Crowley----probably not Crowley---definitely Aziraphale. And Crowley has to stop them. He picks back up his flamethrower.

He lets out a noise of pain, gripping his leg and dropping the weapon. This could be bad, it could be very bad. He wants to tell Aziraphale he's fine, that it's nothing, but Hastur never let anything be nothing. He always liked to make things as bad as possible. He straightens up, trying to push it down. Can't let Aziraphale see it, not right now. Crowley can imagine it's fine and it will be fine until he's ready to deal with it.

"Is it over like that?" he says through gritted teeth. "Just like that? Shake hands, bugger off? Act like it's just---that that's it? All these people dead and that's it?"

"I don't know," he says, "I don't know." God works in mysterious ways, but Aziraphale can't even conjure up the strength to comfort himself with those words. "But let's get you inside now, please, Crowley."

He, very belatedly, noticed that Crowley is lying to him about his pain, and attempts to find where it is he's hurt. He discovers he can't tell where it is, but unlike with Anathema's bike, he knows exactly how Crowley is supposed to be, and so very easily performs a restorative miracle. Once he's sat Crowley inside, he'll have to come back out and do a few more of them, make sure everyone alive is in working condition.

Honestly, he can't believe it's over just like that either, and with so many dead. It's like they don't even care, like everyone around them was just a pawn. Aziraphale has never felt more faithless than in this moment, and focuses in on Crowley because he doesn't want to look back at all the carnage behind them; he seems to be on the verge of collapse.

Another rain starts, to wash this all away. It isn't blessed, since there are a few demons who get hit with it and haven't melted, but Aziraphale instinctually unfolds his wings from his back, and lifts one gingerly over Crowley's head.

Crowley feels the miracle, feels the muscle and fracture to the bone mend instantly. Aziraphale has always been excellent with restorative spells like this, in the times that Crowley has needed them. Some of the pain is healed instantly, but when he puts weight on his leg, he feels whatever Hastur has done to him is deeper than just a wound. A demonic curse of some sort. Pity the other demon went into a cloud full of blessed rainwater. It would have taken an actual miracle for Hastur to have survived.

He leans against Aziraphale as the wing goes over his head. The angel looks tired, shaken. And, really, very dirty. It would take no more than a little miracle to clean him up, to make things at least look right, but it would take a lot more to make things better. All the same, he waves his hand over him, removing the blood, the damage from his suit. Restoring something to him.

"Ineffable Plan," Crowley says. "The Plan. We can't have been a part of it."

"Damn the plan, Crowley," he says in a panic, voice breaking. Even though they've won, or at least, they've drawn, he can't help but feel the loss. It's bedlam around them, and he's stood by all this time as people have died around him in the most horrific, terrible of ways. The young have died before ever really living, and some people just lead miserable lives all the way through, and he abided by all of it for the Plan.

He hardly thinks it was worth it, at the moment.

Aziraphale puts his arm around Crowley, turns his face into his shoulder, and lets his cries be muffled by the armor. He has never felt his faith slip quite like this before, and he doesn't know presently which direction to place his anger.

He has to pull himself together, partially because the two of them are technically sort of supposed to be the leaders of the human army, but as people disperse to take shelter from the rain, he lets himself take a little longer than a moment.

Oh, God.

But there are many things Crowley can do. He can stop time, he can unwrite mistakes, he can fix broken bones, he can create hell on a motorway. But right now, as he puts his arm around Aziraphale's shoulder and he cries into his shoulder, he can't help his friend. Can't fix whatever has broken within him over this situation. There's too much that has been lost.

"Let's get away from here," he says, moving to press his lips against Aziraphale's hair. "Just during the rain. Go somewhere else. We'll be right back."

Aziraphale nods against him and pulls away, wiping his tears. How could this have happened? How could this have been the plan?

He follows Crowley, somewhere indoors, hopefully where he can get a tea and calm his nerves for a moment before they have to return outside. And he appreciates how soft Crowley is with him in this moment; were he less distraught, he would reciprocate in kind, maybe offer some of those kisses he'd promised.

But not right now.

There are wounded in the airbase, mainly soldiers though people of all creeds and backgrounds had showed. Aziraphale straightens himself up and goes around to heal people, though his heart aches to not be able to stay with them just a little longer before having to move on to the next makeshift stretcher. "We can fix this," he says to Crowley, but looking at nothing in particular.

Crowley wants to counter with his usual bravado. And how would we do that, angel? he might say. What universe could we fix something this terrible? But he looks at Aziraphale, his Aziraphale, and he can't bring himself to pull him down like that. He can't hurt him, and he won't.

He can't stop time long enough to give Aziraphale a reprieve. He can't pull them away for more than a moment, and that isn't fair. But there is somewhere they can go, somewhere that he knows won't be touched by all of this.

"We'll come back to heal them," he says. "Show them where to rebuild. I can...set up a few good words with some celebrities. But you, you need to get away."

He offers the angel his hand. Transport miracles aren't Crowley's favorite. He's not very good at them, and they tend to take a bit out of him, but if he works at it, he can be anywhere he needs to in just a thought. It's how he's appeared in the nick of time to save Aziraphale a few times in the past. And right now, it's going to teleport them both a few miles away, to Crowley's flat. The one place that wouldn't be touched by this. The demons wouldn't go there, Crowley wasn't in. The angels wouldn't go there, too many demonic curses on it. It was a hole in the middle of the world, sitting vacant. A place to hide, just for a minute. A place for the angel to rest.

"No, Crowley, we can't, we have to go--" but the words die in his throat and his hands are all bloody again. He smears a little of it on his face as he wipes his tears, and he looks about to give up. But he goes to wash his hands in the kitchen sink, even though Heaven isn't counting his miracles anymore.

When he's done, he doesn't know what to do with his hands, so he marches over and starts to undo the armor he'd laced Crowley into not a few hours ago, before all this mess. He can't believe it hadn't even lasted that long, just a few short hours and everything had gotten upturned.

"We did the right thing," he says, lifting pieces of the armor over his head.

That isn't a question, because it would've been worse if they hadn't intervened. He holds on to that to comfort him, and once Crowley is no longer covered in metal, Aziraphale loops arms around him and holds onto him, too.

Crowley allows Aziraphale to take off the armor because, well, he never really wanted to be in it to begin with. He's not a soldier, he barely knows how to fight anything. He fell into the demon gig, he didn't want to fight. And now here he is, a fighter for the human race. Suppose it was always going to be this way.

He wraps his arms around Aziraphale. How do you restore faith to an angel that has lost it? How does a demon restore an angel's faith? Crowley held onto his own sort of faith in an awkward kind of way, but he never kept very good care of it. Now he needs it more than ever.

"You saved the world," he says. "You do realize that, don't you?"

"We did, didn't we?" he says. face still in Crowley's shoulder. And then he shifts so they're face to face, and hugs him properly. "It's still here," he realizes.

Then, very quietly, he says: "You're still here." His lip trembles a little as he thinks about it, Crowley having stayed here with him instead of having run away. And it was all his idea, to stay and fight, even though they both know he's not a fighter, not like Aziraphale was. He won't say so, but Crowley was just too good for Hell.

"Thank you," he finally says, feeling just a little bit more pulled together, a little more color coming back into his cheeks.

"Nowhere else in the universe I'd rather be, angel," Crowley replies. It's true, now that he thinks about it. He wouldn't go anywhere if Aziraphale couldn't go with him. It would be like losing part of himself. A big part, the better part. The part that cares and cries and wants things to go right. Crowley likes that part of himself, the Aziraphale part.

And Crowley doesn't correct the angel. Doesn't correct him when he says 'we', even though from Crowley's perspective, it's really Aziraphale who saved the world. Aziraphale who made it better. Truces can be broken, but Aziraphale's goodness won't be.

"And the world's not going anywhere either, as long as we have say in it," he adds.

Aziraphale feels love coming back to him as if having just woken up and regaining his sensations. It warms him and soothes him, and abate his nervous tears. He puffs a laugh into Crowley's collar, feeling ever so slightly ridiculous, and with hands on his chest, pushes up just the slightest to look at him.

"Yes," he says, face softly settling into a small smile that could melt icecaps. "This world is ours now, for protecting." There's something about saying that the world is theirs that somehow hearkens to but is totally unlike when they decided to godparent for Warlock. Something about this seems more whole in a way, like it had been written since they were each assigned to Earth outside the Garden when only two humans even existed.

"There," he says, by way of trying to make the angel feel better. "That's good, right. We've got it. Well, you. I just sort of...supervise."

He looks down at Aziraphale, and the way he smiles. It's genuine, less pained. Protectors of Earth. He seems to like that, and it's a title that Crowley wouldn't lie if he said he didn't mind it so much. He'd be rubbish at it, of course. Drunk half the time and not at all competent at any other part of it, but he'd certainly try.

"The question becomes----what about us?" he says. "My side will want a trial. A traitor, they'd see me as. Double traitor. Can there be a double traitor?"

"Right," he says, completely having put that lovely conversation with Uriel totally out of his mind. "I don't know. They got their war, and no one won it. The only thing I know for sure is that they won't be too happy about us like this," he says. "Together." The best they can hope for is reassignment. At worst, well-- at worst they'll be destroyed, utterly and completely. There won't be anything left.

"Wait, your side get trials?" he asks, lifting his head up. "I can't believe we don't have trials," he says, as if he wasn't already aware that Crowley's fall had been without actual merit and he hadn't been allowed to defend himself.

It was a lot of rules, being an angel.

Anyway, upstairs won't exactly take his call, so that plan's out. They could always run again, but then what's to stop them from rallying the troops and trying to destroy Earth one more time?

"--The prophecy," he interjects.

"Sort of trials, they're not exactly what you'd call fair," Crowley says, taking a step back from Aziraphale to finish removing his armor. He feels more like himself out of it. His leg aches, and he puts weight on it experimentally. No good. He's going to have to talk to Aziraphale about it. He's going to have to handle it before maggots crawl out of his muscle or he starts to turn into sand or whatever Hastur had planned up for him. Later.

"Oh, no, don't tell me there's another prophecy," Crowley says, tossing one of the gauntlets aside. "What is it this time? More War? Great big phantasmic opera in the sky? Rehash of American Idol?"

"American what? No, nothing of the sort. It said, "When all is fated and all is done... ye must choose your faces wisely." And then he racks his brain for the rest. "For ye will soon be playing with fire," or something.

Then he gets distracted once Crowley's taken off all his armor. "Lord, is there something wrong with your leg? It's looking a bit swollen, I could've sworn I just set that, can I take a look at it?" His healing powers are usually pretty good, he can't imagine why they wouldn't work.

Crowley considers lying for one whole second. He's pretty good at lying, and they're in such a state right now that he's pretty sure that Aziraphale would believe him if he lied. Aziraphale has caught him on a number of lies over the many centuries, but right now, he's pretty sure he'd get away with it.

But how could he lie to Aziraphale now? All they really have is each other.

"When Hastur hit me," he says, wincing as he touches his thigh. "He didn't just hit me, he---threw something at me. I don't know. A curse, probably. Something demonic. Something that can't just be restored with a miracle. It's never that easy, not with someone like Hastur. He likes his curses old and boring and awful."

"Oh, damn Hastur! I mean bless Hastur -- something, may Hastur have died a particularly painful death!" Aziraphale says, frustrated as he says it and honestly, he didn't even really mean it. He doesn't wish anyone a painful death.

"Well, let us have a look at it anyway," he suggests. "You're going to have to remove your trousers for this," he says, and he really was hoping that he'd never have to tell Crowley to remove his trousers in an apologetic voice. He can't believe that Crowley was trying to hide this from him, but at the same time, his heart hurts a little thinking about it, knowing full well it's because he needed a moment.

Had Crowley imagined a moment in which Aziraphale was asking him to remove his trousers----and he has, of course, but he'd never admit it aloud no matter how much wine he'd drank---he would never have wanted it to be in such a medicinal and clinical situation. Injured by a bloody demon and he has to have his leg looked at. Great, that.

"All right, all right," he says, fumbling a bit with his belt. "It's probably something basic, he's not one for imagination. Think---flesh-eating, limb-rotting. The sort of turn-you-into-stone nonsense that demons are known for. He doesn't step out of the box, Hastur. And if he did, it wouldn't be tough to break it. Probably just a simple ritual to counteract it."

He hopes. It's all a hope. Hastur is boring, but dangerous. He was a Duke of Hell, after all.

He pulls his trousers off, to reveal a black spot growing beneath the skin on his thigh. Something unpleasant brewing there.

"Oof," Aziraphale says, and pulls a handkerchief to breathe into because the smell is just, classic Hastur. "Usually I'd get rid of this kind of thing with a couple blessings, but I don't think you'd stand up to an exorcism," he says. "Not to worry, I think I remember what to do," he says, voice muffled.

He goes to get a little salt, but then he remembers that Crowley doesn't keep books and so Aziraphale has no idea where he keeps the salt. Obviously, he's supposed to keep it next to all the occult books.

"Is your salt in one of the kitchen cabinets?" he asks, taking a wild guess because neither of them cook and Crowley hardly even eats when they go out. He also manages to find a bottle of wine will rummaging around, and pours them both a glass; they'll need it to get over the part where Aziraphale is going to try and get the last remaining bit of a Duke of Hell out of Crowley.

"What are you going to do?" Crowley says, finally dropping into one of the stools nearby. Salt, wine? Is this an exorcism? Crowley doesn't know. All he knows is that he hurts, and he's supposed to be the one taking care of Aziraphale right now, which only makes the whole situation that much worse.

He clicks his fingers, and a cabinet full of spices opens up, all of them purchased sometime in the 1970s, none of them bad. Crowley purchased most of the food in this house around that time, but none of it has spoiled. He doesn't bother cooking or taking care of anything here. This place is more like a pit stop and somewhere to house his beloved plants.

"It can't be as bad as it looks," he says. "Really, Hastur's not that...I mean, he can be, but he's not all that good at cursing."

"Well it looks pretty terrible," Aziraphale says. "And it smells worse, Goodness." No, he hands Crowley a glass and then drinks a large gulp of wine for courage, then sets to work, having also gotten a knife which he is holding under his sleeve because obviously Crowley won't notice it and panic.

"Come out," he tries, bestowing a little angelic grace on Crowley in a ring around the wound, hoping it's enough to draw out the poison towards the middle. "I'm going to have to cut a hole in your leg, I'll patch it up later, do be a love," he murmurs all at once, handing Crowley one of his pillows in which to bite down on while he does so.

for sauntered_downward / cw: graphic violence

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