Thank you so much for all the kind comments! They really cheered me on when i was writing this. I hope you'll like the update!

"I have to go."

Aziraphale stopped and looked over his shoulder, a sudden, unexplained, weight settling in his stomach as he saw that Crowley had stopped just inside the door. "What?"

"I have to go. Now. It was nice hanging with you, angel."

The words had a hint of finality in them that prompted Aziraphale to reach out a hand and grab Crowley's sleeve. "Why all of a sudden…?"

Things had been going fine with a dinner, wine, and the promise of further drinking and conversation late into the night. Like they used to. It's what they did. They did not make vague excuses and leave at the last minute. Not anymore.

"You know how it is. Demonic duties and what-not. I can't hang around an angel all the time, what would people think?" Crowley gave a wave of his hand and a sneer, and Aziraphale felt himself tense at the orchestrated way of it all, of the way Crowley's left hand was clenched into a fist, of the way his brow was slightly too pinched, and his mouth too stiff at the edges.

"We can work something out. Just stay a few minutes and—"

Crowley's nose flared and he shook his head minutely, turning on the spot. "I'll call you later. Stay safe."

And then he was alone.

Aziraphale ambled into the back room and put the kettle on as he tried to convince himself that he didn't feel alone and slightly abandoned. If he had expected too much then that was his own fault, Crowley was a demon after all and if he didn't want to spend time with Aziraphale then that was perfectly reasonable.

The kettle started boiling and Aziraphale filled one cup. He glanced back to the door and frowned at the other's sudden departure; the unease no longer possible to ignore. Crowley wasn't just a demon, Crowley was Crowley.

It wasn't until he took his first sip of tea that he stopped dead with the cup to his lips; breathing deeply through his nose. How could he have missed the smell?! Sulfur.

"Oh no. Oh no, no no."

Aziraphale put the cup down and took a step towards the door, and then he was running; sprinting outside and down the road. He flagged down the closest taxi and got in, urging the driver to go faster and making sure to miracle all the stop-lights in their way to turn green.

Hell had made its move. Hell had finally made its move and Crowley was not going to face it alone.

Aziraphale sprinted from the taxi and up the stairs to Crowley's apartment—the sight of the Bentley parked halfway up the curb outside only serving to spur him on—not stopping until he stood outside Crowley's door.

He nudged it open.

"Crowley? I'm sorry, but I had to come over." The sound of his own voice was swallowed in the eerie silence of the apartment; the kind of quietness that came when someone was trying too hard not to make a noise. "Crowley? Are you in here?"

As soon as he crossed the threshold the hint of sulfur he had caught earlier almost became overpowering. Aziraphale frowned as, beneath it, he caught a whiff of something burning.

He turned a corner and stopped dead. There Crowley was; lying in the middle of the room; pinned to the floor like an insect.

The source of the burnt smell became obvious as Aziraphale took in the sight of something long and burning sticking out of Crowley's shoulder—the blisters having spread over his back where the fabric of his normally pristine suits had burnt away.

Aziraphale took an instinctive step towards him. "Crowley!"

"You stay right there, angel!"

It wasn't until that moment that Aziraphale noticed the two other occupants in the room. The one that had spoken, and was currently standing over Crowley, he recognized as the demon called Hastur. The other figure was even more familiar. "Michael?!"

"Hello Aziraphale. Nice of you to join us." The smile on her face looked like something she had seen once and tried to mimic from memory. "Thank you for your contribution."

"What? I didn't—" That's when he recognized the sword in his friend's shoulder. "Oh. Oh no, Crowley."

His flaming sword that he hadn't seen in millennia was currently embedded deep in Crowley's shoulder; the wound smoking lightly as small flames licked up and down the blade. The sword that had been his responsibility.

Crowley had yet to even acknowledge that he was in the room. Aziraphale felt cold fear grip him; was he already too late?

Michael took a step forward and gestured down at the unmoving demon, a smile on her face. "Do you want to finish it off?"

The relief to hear that Crowley was still alive made him stutter. "I—I can't—I can't do that to my— to a living creature. Whatever their nature."

"I told you he wouldn't do it." Hastur spat out, delivering a kick to Crowley's side that made Aziraphale take a small step forward.

"You are saying you refuse to follow orders?" Aziraphale could hear the anger simmering beneath the words as Michael spoke, even as her smile refused to leave her face. "To smite a demon?"

Aziraphale drew in an unnecessary breath to steady himself and squared his shoulders. "...Yes."

"No. Az—phle." The weak voice could be heard clearly through the sudden silence in the room following Aziraphale's outspoken refusal. Aziraphale snapped his gaze down at Crowley, who was stirring ever so slightly, and felt an unfamiliar sense of grief at hearing his friend sound so hurt and lost. "Azzzzi...phle."

Michael turned her nose up as she sneered down at Crowley. "Disgusting."

"I told you to be quiet." Hastur looked away from Aziraphale with a snarl and focused his attention on Crowley who had just barely raised his head; his unfocused eyes searching the room. Hastur's foot connected with the side of Crowley's face.

"You, step away from him." Aziraphale felt the grief transform into rage; sudden enough to surprise him and more intense than he could ever remember feeling. "Now!"

Aziraphale drew himself to his full height and allowed his voice to boom across the room.

All of a sudden he wasn't the timid, kindly bookshop owner in tartan anymore but the Angel of the Eastern Gate.

"Step back." There was no arguing the authority and cheer power radiating off Aziraphale in that moment. Even Michael took a step back with wide eyes.

Aziraphale seized the opportunity.

He reached Crowley in the blink of an eye and his sudden movement made Hastur take a stumbling step back as well; leaving them a good couple of meters of free space.

Crowley sucked in a breath and raised a clearly broken hand to gesture towards the sword. "T—take it."

"What?! I can't just—"

"Take it." Crowley repeated, before uttering a word Aziraphale had only heard from the demon a handful of times before. "Please."

Aziraphale grabbed the hilt of the sword without further hesitation, steeling himself before starting to pull it up as carefully as possible.

He could see Crowley pressing his jaw together as tightly as it would go, but he wasn't able to suppress the scream as the burning sword was dragged from his shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, dear."

Over Crowley's scream, Aziraphale could hear Michael's voice, "Stop him!"

Aziraphale raised the sword in front of him; blood steaming off it in dark tendrils as the flames grew bigger in time with his anger. He could barely recognize his own voice as he said, "You stay away."

Hastur froze, eyes fixed on the sword, before glancing down at the trembling Crowley and back up. "You are alone against two of us, what are you hoping to achieve with this?"

"Two ag—against two, asshole," Crowley croaked out as he slowly struggled to his feet with a liberal use of profanity and blood dripping from the smoking wound. Aziraphale had to keep himself from reaching out to help.

Hastur laughed. "You are barely able to stand up."

"But he is standing." Aziraphale did his best to keep the relief from infecting his tone of voice, keeping it as demanding as he was able. "And we've worked together since the beginning of time. What do you two have?"

Michael had completely discarded her smiles by this point. "Since the beginning of—you snake."

"No, that's him." Aziraphale nodded in Crowley's direction who stretched his mouth into a slightly too-wide smirk—fangs showing.

Michael opened her mouth, closed it again, before saying—in a voice containing all the imagined authority of the self-righteous. "You wouldn't dare go against an arch—"

"I've missed this." Aziraphale cut her off, hefting the flaming sword in his hand. "I can't wait to try it out."

Crowley straightened up as much as he could with his left arm hanging uselessly at his side, fixing a smile on his face. "Don't chop them up too much, Az. I still have some holy water left after Ligur that I really wanna use."

Crowley raised his broken hand and suddenly he was holding a small container; the item popping into existence in his trembling hold.

Aziraphale could hear the strain in Crowley's voice as he spoke and prayed that neither of the other two beings in the room would pick up on it. Considering Hastur's instinctive step back and how Michael's gaze never left Aziraphale's sword, he doubted that they had noticed.

Michael had an expression that was admiringly close to concern on her face and if the situation had been even a little less serious, then Aziraphale would have taken great satisfaction in putting it there. Michael's mouth stretched back into its mockery of a smile. "You will hear from me again."

"I'm counting on it." Aziraphale angled the sword towards her. "Now scram!"

Hastur hissed with his eyes on Crowley. "We will finish this later."

"Yeah, yeah." Crowley waved the container in his hand, a forcefully bored expression on his face.

Suddenly they were alone in the room.

Crowley sank to his knees before Aziraphale had time to do more than let go of the sword; the flames immediately going out as soon as it left his hand. He heard Crowley's knees hitting the floor with a painful thud and turned in time to see the container fall from Crowley's slack hand. He instinctively kicked it to the side and away from where Crowley promptly slumped to the side.

Aziraphale rushed forward and caught him before his head could hit the floor and lowered him down the rest of the way as gently as he could, making sure to place him on his least injured side, and cushioning his head on his lap. "How are you doing, dear?"

Crowley slowly curled into a loose ball, not removing his head from Aziraphale's lap. "Just peachy."

"You should be able to heal the wound now."

"Yeah, just—just give me a second."

Aziraphale waited a tense minute before Crowley groaned slumped down. "I don't have enough energy left for it," Crowley admitted through gritted teeth. "Miracling that up," Crowley nodded towards the container on the ground beside him, "used up the last of my energy."

Aziraphale found his eyes stuck on the seemingly innocent bottle, wishing it was further away from his friend. "What is that? Is it… You know? Really…?"

Crowley wheezed out a laugh before wincing and raising his broken right hand to grab at his shoulder. "It's a bottle of shampoo."

"A bottle of—Your lies are going to kill you one day!" Aziraphale couldn't keep in his incredulous laugh at that as he glanced down at the brave and brilliant being on his lap, even half dead and barely conscious he had managed to outwit a duke from Hell and an archangel. Aziraphale placed a hand on Crowley's head and stroked it through his hair.

Crowley closed his eyes and gracefully did not comment on the affectionate gesture. "But not today."

"Not today," Aziraphale repeated with a smile. "Do you want me to help with the healing?"

Crowley opened his mouth, hesitated, before giving a small nod. "Yeah. That would actually be great."

Aziraphale gave a short nod in response before extending his hands; willing the burns to heal. A soft glow spread from his hands, slowly enveloping Crowley's panting form. Before his eyes he saw the burns scab over and disappear, the wound in his shoulder slowly starting to close. He also saw Crowley screwing his eyes shut with a frown, his shaking getting worse, feet starting to scramble over the floor in search of purchase, his head falling from Aziraphale's lap as he went rigid. Crowley's eyes were panicked as they found Aziraphale's.

Aziraphale drew back with a start, both physically and spiritually, his healing light leaving Crowley in an instant. "What?"

"I—I can't—" Crowley almost looked worse than before as he shook on the floor. "Too much divinity."

"Oh. I'm so sorry, dear!" Aziraphale felt like an idiot. He hadn't even stopped to consider what divine healing could do to a wounded demon.

"No, no. I—I'm fine," Crowley said before repeating, "I'm fine," stripping the words of all their credibility.

"You are clearly not fine." Aziraphale put his hands on his hips to keep them from touching Crowley again and risk causing more harm. The sudden distance between them felt endless. "Come on, can you stand?"

"Yes." Crowley managed to get his hands beneath him, shaking with effort and pain before suddenly slumping back down. "No."

Aziraphale graciously decided not to mention the whine in his voice.

"Do you think it's safe if I touch you?"

Crowley lay painting a second before answering, "As long as you don't do any of your mumbo-jumbo it should be fine."

"Tell me if it hurts." Aziraphale looked over Crowley's form and frowned at the burns and the blood. "Hurts more than it already does, I mean.

"Yeah, yeah."

Aziraphale bent down and looped and arm around Crowley's middle, muttering apologies under his breath as he helped hoisting him to his feet. "Where to?"

Crowley groaned and leaned heavily on Aziraphale. "Your couch?"

"That is a bit far right now, I think." Aziraphale's heart squeezed at the implication that Crowley's first instinct for rest and safety was his bookshop. "Let's get you patched up first. Do you have something soft here you can lie on?"

"I have a bed through that door." Crowley nodded towards a door to the right.

"Righty-o."

They started to walk, or shuffle, in its direction. They managed to make it about halfway before Crowley tripped on his own feet and Aziraphale instinctively adjusted his grip around Cowley's back to help steady him. The scream of pain almost made Aziraphale drop his friend. Crowley raised a trembling hand and swatted at Aziraphale's hand holding him around the back. Panic in his voice as he gritted out, "Let go! Let go, let go!"

Aziraphale let his arm drop down immediately, not daring to try and catch him as Crowley immediately dropped back to the floor without the support. He helplessly looked down at Crowley's pale form. "What's wrong?!"

Crowley took a couple of having breaths with eyes squeezed shut, sitting bent over his knees. "It's… It's my wings."

"Your wings?" Aziraphale asked with wide eyes.

"It's okay, it's not that ba—"

Aziraphale interrupted him—too rattled to allow Crowley to minimize his wounds right now. "Why didn't you say something?"

"There's nothing you can do." Crowley frowned where he sat, eyes avoiding Aziraphale's.

"That doesn't mean I can't help." Aziraphale tried to figure out what Crowley could mean by It's my wings. Had Hastur and Michael done something to them? What could have happened to make Crowley react like this—even when the wings were hidden from this plane of reality?

"That's exactly what it means. Just give me a minute." Crowley slowly eased himself the rest of the way down, until he was lying on the floor, and curled up.

"Are you going to lie here? On the floor?"

"Yeah," Crowley said in a voice that could only be described as a whine. "Can you get me a pillow or something?"

Aziraphale couldn't contain the small huff of exasperation; at least he had enough energy to act like a child. He walked to the door which Crowley had said led to the bedroom and found himself in a room almost solely occupied by a grand bed covered in pillows. Even as he shook his head at the sinful luxury of it all, he still made sure to pick out the softest looking pillow before walking back out.

He sat down beside Crowley's still form, edging the pillow under the other's head.

"Can you take them out for me? Your wings?"

Crowley tilted his head to the side and glanced up at him. "What? Why?"

"I'll do what I can to help."

Crowley hesitated. "No healing."

"No healing," Aziraphale agreed. He had no intention of being the cause for more harm to his friend.

Crowley nodded and tipped himself onto his front with a grunt. Aziraphale winced as the wound in Crowley's shoulder came into full view.

The sight of them made Aziraphale suck in an involuntary breath.

"Oh, dear. I'm so sorry."

"It's—it's not your fault." Crowley shook his head. "I can just heal them when I have enough energy. You don't have to…"

"No. Let me."

Aziraphale reached out a careful hand and started plucking out burnt feathers, trying not to dwell on the heat that was still radiating off the wings.

Crowley kept silent through the process, seemingly focusing on breathing through the pain and not twitching too much at each pull of his feathers. Aziraphale finished with the left wing and started on the right as the minutes ticked by, wishing for something to distract himself from the carnage of his friend's wings—he could feel his own ache in sympathy.

"You okay?"

"Me? Shouldn't you worry about yourself right now?"

"I'll be fine. They let me off easy."

"…What?"

Crowley looked over at him and repeated himself, slower this time, "I'm just glad they let me off easy."

"You call that easy?"

"Yes?"

Aziraphale removed his hand from Crowley's wing as to not accidentally tear out any healthy feathers. "I can't believe you!"

"What did I do?!" Crowley cast a look over his shoulder with an exasperated look on his face.

"For someone so smart you are unbelievable stupid sometimes." Aziraphale forced himself to relax. "Now hold still."

"Why are you angry?"

"I'm not. I'm worried. Please be more careful with yourself, and—" Aziraphale hesitated with his fingers around a burnt and bent feather, hesitating. "And please trust me more."

The response was instantaneous and offended. "I trust you!"

"You didn't tell me about this." Aziraphale did his best to keep his voice calm and without emotion, it still almost got stuck on the last two words, "You left."

Crowley's voice was quiet as he answered, "I tried to protect you."

"You don't think the feeling is mutual?" The questions was put before Aziraphale had time to stop it.

Crowley didn't answer that and he kept his head turned away so Aziraphale had no way of seeing the expression on his face. The silence enveloped them as Aziraphale focused on plucking out the last of the ruined feathers.

As Aziraphale pulled the last one free, he found that he didn't want to let go of the wings in front of him. He hesitated a second before starting to card his fingers through them, trying to flatten the ruffled ones and brushing out soot and blood. At first he could sense Crowley tensing up, but then he gradually relaxed until he suddenly broke the silence with a quiet voice. "Do you think they'll be back again?"

"Yes."

Crowley frowned and glanced over his shoulder at Aziraphale. It was a look he had mostly seen out of the corner of his eye over the millennia, when Crowley though he wasn't looking; it was worry. Worry for him.

"I'll be fine," Aziraphale said as he made a conscious effort not to stop his hands carding through the soft feathers. How could Crowley possibly be worried about him at a moment like this? "I'm more worried about you."

"I can take care of myself. They got lucky this time." Crowley turned back around again, hanging his head. "But now Heaven knows you went against them. For real."

Aziraphale was quiet, too fixated on the regret in Crowley's voice, and before he could interject Crowley continued, "Even before all this they were going to burn you."

"I guess so…" Aziraphale trailed off as he combed his hands through the feathers of Crowley's right wing. "I don't regret coming here. I don't regret saving you."

"You should," Crowley said with sadness in his voice, but Aziraphale could see the way his shoulders relaxed at the insurance.

"You know, I've seen what Hell looks like now. I won't let them take you." Aziraphale thought back to the darkness, the screaming, the anger and hatred and panic of it all. He though back to the leers of the creatures who were supposed to be on Crowley's side as they filled a tub with his doom. "There's no way I'll allow that to be your eternity."

Crowley was quiet for a long time at that before he cleared his throat. "Same, Angel. Same."

This was more open honesty than either of them were used to, and Aziraphale found himself gently patting Crowley's left wing. "I'm done."

"...Thanks." Crowley slumped forward slightly, hunching over his knees as Aziraphale inched around him to sit facing him on the floor. He was fully prepared to sit in silence until Crowley had regained enough energy to heal himself, but the other surprised him as he spoke, "It—it reminded me of the fall, you know."

Aziraphale hesitated. This wasn't something they ever talked about, except now they did. He kept his eyes on Crowley's expression as he asked, "Do you mean the… the burning?"

"Yeah…"

"I'm so sorry."

"It's okay. It was a long time ago." But Crowley's thick throat and tense shoulders told him that it wasn't okay, and that it wasn't that long ago, not in any way that counted.

Aziraphale chose his words carefully. "It's horrible what was done to you, but it wasn't your fault. Not really"

The indifferent on Crowley's face was too controlled as he gave a small shrug, wincing as the action tugged at his shoulder. "I was the one asking questions."

"I can't believe it's ever wrong to simply ask questions."

"We weren't designed for it."

"But a lot of us did, so apparently we were. Otherwise it was a pretty bad design, if it's so easily ignored."

Crowley looked at him with a small smile and wide eyes. "Is that heresy on your lips, Angel?"

Aziraphale felt a smile of his own spread over his face at the sight of his friend's delight. "Of course not! You have the capacity to change and that's a wonderful thing. Just because you no longer fit your old frame doesn't mean you have to force yourself into a new one."

"What about you then? If you go around questioning things, do you really fit into your old frame?" Crowley cast a quick look up towards the ceiling—towards the heavens, "Or the frame the Big Shot wants?"

"I don't believe we would be created with the capability for change if we weren't supposed to use it in some way. To better ourselves," Aziraphale said with conviction, trying to convince both Crowley and himself.

The concern was back in Crowley's eyes. "But you see what happened to me."

"Haven't the whole Apocalypse business been proof enough that Heaven and Hell are just two sides of the same coin? Maybe your fall wasn't so much a punishment as it was… being sorted to be with those whose ideas aligned more with yours?"

"Oh, believe me, it was a punishment."

"I'm sorry. I know it wasn't good. Or fair."

"Whatever." Crowley shook his head slightly as if to clear it. "I think I have enough energy to heal myself now."

Aziraphale clapped his hands together. "That's great!"

Crowley closed his eyes and within seconds the wound in his shoulder started to close; rapidly stitching itself up into nothingness. Aziraphale could see the tension bleed out of him as the pain disappeared; the relief evident in his long exhale.

Crowley got up from the floor, as graceful as ever. He looked down at Aziraphale with a pointedly disinterested look. "I need a shower. Will you stay? Just for a while."

The question missed the casual mark by a fairly large margin, but Aziraphale was used to playing along. "I was going to," Aziraphale said with a smile. How could Crowley ever think that he would leave him like this? He would have to work on that. "For as long as you'd like."

Crowley nodded and turned away. But not fast enough to completely hide the smile that spread over his face.

I'm so glad someone wanted to read my self-indulgent short fic about these lovable idiots!

I hope you enjoyed the story to the end :)