WARNINGS: Graphic depiction of injury, mentions of torture

A/N: It would appear that this fandom peaked in about 2006, but hopefully there are still a few of you around to read this! Please let me know what you think in a review. The second chapter is already written and the third is almost done, so you (hopefully) won't have to worry about my usual erratic update schedule.

Enjoy! (And I'm sorry)

Aziraphale didn't know what he thought would happen after the Apocalypse.

He and Crowley rode in the newly-restored Bentley back to his newly-restored (if not quite to its original condition) book shop. They barely spoke. It seemed the stress of the whole affair had finally caught up with them; each had been forced to call on powers they hadn't known they possessed, after all, and it takes a hell—or a heaven—of a lot of work to prevent the Antichrist from tearing apart the Earth. This in itself wasn't too concerning.

No, what struck him as odd was when Crowley pulled to a stop at the curb in front of his shop (he had been driving quite prudently, too, Aziraphale noted with surprise) and snapped his fingers to open just the passenger side door.

The angel stared. "Aren't you coming in?"

"Why would I?"

"Well," he sputtered, "don't you want a drink?" Crowley always wanted a drink. It was just one of those irrefutable facts of the universe, like the laws of physics and hot chocolate tasting better when it was snowing. Surely that would be especially true after the past week's events.

"No, actually, I should be getting back." Something about the demon's manner was off. Maybe it was the way he kept two hands rigidly on the steering wheel, even when his charred sunglasses began sliding down his nose.

Aziraphale reluctantly exited the car. He had been rather enjoying their teamwork of late, and he couldn't deny that Crowley's casual dismissal stung. "Back to where? Hell? Surely not after all the—"

"No, no no no. No." Crowley cut over him. "Just… back to my apartment. You know. The plants."

"Oh."

And just like that he drove off, leaving the battered angel standing on the sidewalk.

"Well," Aziraphale muttered to himself, "I need a drink."

It was two months before he saw Crowley again.

Strangely enthused by the flow of bibliophile humans who seemed so interested in his thoughts on books, Aziraphale had decided to keep his shop habitable for customers. Thus this particular evening, which also brought the first big storm of autumn, found him balanced on a sturdy stepladder, dusting.

There was a BANG outside the shuttered windows which nearly startled him off-balance. It was strangely similar to the noise one hears when there is suddenly something where before there was nothing. Then again, it could have been a stray cat knocking the lids off some bins.

This theory was shortly disproved when the door was flung open to reveal an extremely soggy demon.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale exclaimed.

Crowley said nothing, but instead crumpled to the floor.

The angel felt an uncharacteristic stab of panic as he jumped from the ladder to examine his friend. Crowley's expensive, well-tailored suit was shredded and scorched. Two long slits down the back looked like the sort left by the sudden appearance of a very large set of wings. Stripes of welts covered what Aziraphale could see of his friend's hands and wrists and even snaked up his neck to his jaw. The ever-present sunglasses were nowhere to be seen, leaving the demon's yellow eyes exposed as they rolled back into his head.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale said with more urgency, pulling the demon onto his back. "Crowley, what happened?"

Crowley sat up with a yelp. Finally his wide, slit-pupiled eyes focused on Aziraphale and he gathered a fistful of the angel's shirt. "Hell—punissshment for—for Hassstor and Ligur—Adam—" His voice dropped to a raspy whisper. "Wings! They—my wingsss—Azssiraphale—" At this point words failed him and he could only gape at the angel. His forked tongue writhed, serpentine.

"Crowley, your wings? What happened to your wings? What did they do?"

Clutching the angel with both hands now, Crowley squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. After a few seconds of intense effort his wings sprang into being.

Or, wing.

One steel-grey feathered appendage dangled at an odd angle from the right side of Crowley's back. His left side sported a bloody stump where the wing had been torn as though by a careless child playing with a dragonfly.

Aziraphale's eyes blazed with celestial fire fueled by intense, righteous rage. "YOUR SIDE DID THIS TO YOU?" he demanded, his speech carrying the weight of a thousand voices and his clothing whipped by an otherwise invisible wind. "THIS IS BARBARIC."

Crowley, in contrast, only sank further towards the floor. He squinted up at the divine light radiating from his friend. "Please," he begged softly, and the sight flooded Aziraphale with sorrow and fright. His fierce halo faded as Crowley clawed his way towards full consciousness. "Please. Help me." It was the first coherent thing he had said.

Swallowing hard, the angel gathered the demon in his arms. "I will."

This turned out to be even more difficult than originally anticipated.

First came the unpleasant task of finishing what had already been done: pulling shards of shattered bone from the wound, trimming tissue, and so on. This was accomplished by draping Crowley rather haphazardly over a foot stool with access to a wide range of alcohol. Even in his thoroughly drunk state, he groaned each time Aziraphale so much as looked at his injury. It didn't help that his other wing would flick out and send books and furniture flying with every twinge of pain.

"All right," Aziraphale finally panted, rocking back onto his heels. His sweater was stained with blackish blood up to the elbows. "That's the bad bit done. You can sober up now while I bandage it."

"No," Crowley said thickly. When he stood to fetch more supplies Aziraphale had to agree with him; the demon was shaking with the effort of staying conscious. His heart clenched.

"I'll be back in a second. Hold on, my dear."

Crowley grunted and brought a bottle unsteadily to his lips. By the time Aziraphale returned, arms full of bandages, he had nearly drained it. The angel gestured and Crowley's shirt disappeared.

"If you're trying to undresssss me, angel," the demon half-slurred, half-hissed, "you can just asssssk."

Aziraphale would be lying if he said he had never thought about doing just that. He couldn't quite figure out whether the lying or the thinking about it was a worse sin, but what he knew for sure was that engaging in debauchery with a demon was the worst of the three.

Fortunately, he'd had centuries to come to terms with the idea.

"Maybe later," he said grimly, relying on Crowley's drunkenness to pass it off as a joke. "Come on, you're going to have to sit up for me to bandage your back."

"That'sss not the besssst idea."

"Crowley." He knelt down and tipped up the demon's chin. The yellow eyes met his icy blue ones—glazed with drink and pain, unfocused, confused. Frightened. Aziraphale softened his gaze.

"If I ssssit up," Crowley whispered seriously, and didn't finish his warning because his eyes slid shut and his body went limp. Aziraphale gently lowered his head and let out a shaky breath.

"All right then old boy," he said, though which of them he was talking to was anyone's guess. "Now's the time. No time like the present. Ahem. Got to do this now." Gingerly, he unrolled a section of bandage and crossed it over the wound on Crowley's back.

Crowley shuddered and groaned but did not wake up.

It took nearly an hour of carefully nudging Crowley back and forth, and by the time it was done Aziraphale had drunk himself stupid and sobered up three times from the sheer stress of it, but finally the demon's back was securely bandaged.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale poked at his shoulder. "Crowley, it's over. Please wake up now."

He didn't move.

Sighing, he scooped his arms under his friend, careful not to jostle him too much. Aziraphale was generally opposed to using his angelic powers for anything less than emergencies and assignments, but it didn't seem like cheating somehow when he poured a little divine strength into lifting Crowley like a baby.

The thing was, they were supposed to be enemies. Even after the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, they were technically on opposite sides of the great cosmic chess game. That didn't change the fact that seeing Crowley in this condition—and put there by his own side, no less—caused a very real ache in Aziraphale's chest. The usually suave demon was a shaking, tortured mess and it made him want to cry.

In the flat he kept above the shop, there was one neat bedroom. Aziraphale used it on the rare occasions he wanted to sleep for a few days (this usually meant that Crowley had done something particularly demonic or embarrassing and he wanted to get away from him for a while). Now, he carried Crowley up the stairs and through the doorway of the dimly-lit room. Rain still splattered against the window pane as he lowered the demon onto the bedspread.

"There you are, my dear," Aziraphale murmured. His hand stretched out, unbidden, to stroke a lock of dark hair off of Crowley's forehead. "I wish I could do more."

Crowley sighed in his sleep and turned his face into the pillow. Aziraphale watched him for a few moments (Minutes? Hours?) to make sure that he was settled before pulling a blanket from the back of a rocking chair and draping it over his friend's legs. With one last long glance over his shoulder, he shut the door softly behind him.

He needed to find more alcohol before he could even begin to think about this properly.