Disclaimer: I own very little.
A/N: This was originally written and posted on my LiveJournal in September, but somehow I forgot to put it up here. ' This plot angel had been bothering me ever since I heard a radio documentary about Hiroshima in August until I finally got it out.
Very implied A/C, dark content.
Ruins
1945
"Angel!" shouted Crowley, desperately looking around for a familiar from. "Angel!"
There was no response to his cries. Frustrated, he started to make his way through the ruined city, invisible to humans, ignoring them with a vague feeling of uneasiness as he hurried forward. He had no time, he told himself. He had to focus on finding the one he was looking for if he wanted to find them.
Tuning his senses to detecting the one presence he sought, he walked on. Everywhere the Horsepeople had left their marks, he noticed. Ruins, corpses, badly injured humans desperately calling for help. Starting to feel vaguely ill, he then broke into a run, hoping to cover more area that way as he climbed over what had once been buildings.
Suddenly he saw somebody he hadn't expected to ever see again. A fair form, clad in a robe that once had been of the purest white and gold but that was now tarnished with dust, soot, and blood alike, was kneeling on the ground next to an unmoving human child. The usually so very clean, almost white hair was now tangled and matted with blood, the formerly bright eyes clouded over as the being looked down at the child with an expression of ultimate despair.
As Crowley approached, the other being looked up with haunted, teary eyes. For a moment they stared at each other, both tense, prepared to fight.
The angel was exhausted, Crowley realized. Who knew how many he had healed – or failed to heal – already. With some luck, he could even win him despite the difference in their power levels. He could win and perhaps even kill this exhausted, weakened being.
To take to Hell the remains of the archangel Raphael would give him power above anything he had ever imagined. Asmodeus, in particular, would give him anything he ever thought to ask for. The rumour had he had never truly forgiven Raphael for sealing him away like that.
After another moment of staring at one another, he turned his gaze away, starting to walk into another direction. This was not the angel he was looking for.
He saw other angels, too, all busy with something or the other. Whenever one of them noticed him, they would tense, prepared to fight, but never attack. They had no energy to spare. Each of them was pushed to their very limit by choice.
It might, he though, have been a bad idea to come there. He was definitely the only demon around for miles. This gathering of angels was giving off such a strong feeling of Divine Presence that no other infernal being dared to approach, fearing the power of such a collection of Heavenly warriors.
Had any of them been brave enough to actually come there, Crowley thought, they would have lost all their fears. These angels were in no condition to fight. They just helped humans, helped them until they were completely out of energy and collapsed, and even then they forced themselves to get up and go on.
These weren't even believers. He doubted there was a handful of Christians among the people the angels had saved or tried to save. Nobody had ordered them down here; they had all come of their own accord, by choice. To save what could be saved even when everything seemed lost.
Like that angel. That stupid, idiotic angel.
He had to find him…
Coming close to the area where the angel's last known place of residence was supposed to be located, Crowley was becoming somewhat desperate. Just before he started to dig into the rubble of what had once been the angel's home, though, he noticed something on the ground next to his foot.
It was a hand. A familiar hand at that. Pale, slightly plump, with well-manicured nails… and ink stains on the fingers, too, from a leaking fountain pen, a fountain pen the angel had refused to part from no matter what.
It might have been just a coincidence, but Crowley vaguely recalled giving the angel the pen himself.
Overcome with mad hope, he crouched and reached for the hand. It was half buried under soot-blackened debris but appeared by some miracle somewhat unharmed. The angel was just caught, Crowley told himself. He'd clear away all the mess and get the angel free. Grasping on the hand, he sought for a sign, any sign, of life.
To his great shock the hand came loose, neatly cut at the wrist.
Aziraphale sighed and brushed aside a sweaty lock of hair. He was dirty and exhausted, but he didn't care. This was not the time to worry about himself, surely.
When the house had collapsed on him he had almost thought his corporation had come to the end of its road. However, fortunately – if it could be called fortunate – only his arm and shoulder had been stuck under the rubble. After a lot of wriggling, he'd managed to figure out that his arm probably should be able to slide out of the trap created by the debris. He didn't have a chance to test his theory, however, as his hand could not slide through the small opening around his wrist.
He could hear people's cries from the outside. This helped him reach a decision. Removing the rubble would tax his powers too much, taking what could be used to help humans. Just one little miracle, though, and some healing perhaps…
He managed to make it quick but not painless. The sting was better than being stuck, though, he figured as he started to heal his arm before he lost too much blood and got discorporated. Getting thrown back to Heaven wouldn't help anyone, least of all the poor people in need of help.
The way to the door was blocked, but he managed to get out through a window. He'd barely had the time to step out, however, as he heard somebody calling his name. Looking up, he saw a vaguely familiar form.
"Anakiel!" he exclaimed. "What brings you here?"
"This disaster, naturally," the other angel said. "Like countless other angels. We all want to help."
"As do I," sighed Aziraphale, glancing around. "Why do such things have to happen? What is the meaning of this?"
"I don't know," replied Anakiel darkly, wiping a lock of blond hair from his eyes. "But hopefully, this will teach humans the true horror of war."
"It's nice to hope," Aziraphale muttered. "But humans, I've come to notice, are very, very slow in learning such things."
Working together, they healed what little they could, performed small miracles, not wanting to waste their energy yet not wanting to neglect anybody they could indeed help. All around them other angels were performing the same tasks, working until they collapsed in exhaustion.
Many of them were openly crying. Only humans, Aziraphale thought, only humans could make an angel cry.
Anakiel, though, was surprisingly calm. Even when faced with the most horrible terrors he didn't bat an eyelid, simply helping as much as he could. Aziraphale could only admire his calmness. He was on the verge of crying himself, and his remaining hand trembled whenever he set it, unseen, over a human's injuries, trying to be of help if his strength only would allow him to be so.
Suddenly, they heard a voice crying out to them in Japanese. "Divine angels!" called somebody. "Divine angels, help!"
Aziraphale and Anakiel glanced at each other. There were some people who could indeed see angels even when they attempted to be invisible, but they were extremely rare. To run into one in such a place and situation was very unexpected.
"How can we be of help?" asked Aziraphale, hurrying towards the woman who had called for them. "Is there anything we could heal?"
"Please, do heal my baby," the woman replied, holding a small bundle in her arms. She seemed mostly uninjured herself aside from a few little burns and scratches, which made Aziraphale hopeful. If she was in such a good condition, surely her child could be healed as well.
"Of course we will," Anakiel replied. "What is wrong with your child?"
"He has a wound on his head," she said. "The house collapsed on us. It's not that bad, but it's bleeding, and I'm worried…"
"But of course." Anakiel reached out his hands. "Will you let me hold him so that I can heal him?" Aziraphale, for his part, was quite glad in the inside. Neither of them had much energy left. A small scrape shouldn't be too much, though.
The woman held the child out to them hopefully. Before taking it into his own arms Anakiel drew aside the blanket hiding the child's face. When he saw it, though, he suddenly screamed, his former calmness gone. Aziraphale, too, looked at the child, and felt ill.
There was no face. The child's whole head had been smashed, becoming only a mess of blood and various other things Aziraphale would rather not identify.
The woman gave them a confused look, and it wasn't until now that Aziraphale saw the glint of madness in his eyes. Apparently Anakiel hadn't been the only one shocked by the sight. Then, she drew her child close and turned around, wandering away in an aimless search.
Anakiel, however, didn't stop screaming.
2006
There was a documentary on TV. Crowley watched it with little interest. They made their best to tell the watchers of the true horrors of the day, but they couldn't do justice to the real situation. Crowley, though, had been there. He had seen – and heard and smelled, too – all those humans, all the dead, all the injured, all the shocked.
And the angels, too.
He still remembered finding Aziraphale that day. An angelic scream had alerted him. Running to the place he had found Aziraphale trying in vain to calm down another angel, who had a look of absolute horror on his face. His attempts had been in vain, however, and finally Aziraphale had just appointed an exhausted healer to take the angel – Anakiel? – back to Heaven. Then, despite Crowley's insistence he should just rest, and get his hand healed for Somebody's sake, he had continued helping humans. In the end the angel had collapsed like so many others of his kind, and it had been up to Crowley to take him somewhere safe to rest.
Afterwards, it had taken the angel months to stop having nightmares regularly. Even later, they would occasionally come to haunt him, especially around certain dates. And, although Crowley would have never admitted it, the demon wasn't entirely safe from night-terrors, either.
Aziraphale looked rather worse for the wear when he came back from Heaven. Crowley was waiting for him with a cup of steaming tea, a plate of cookies, and a pair of open arms. Although he wasn't usually one for overly affectionate gestures, he knew that sometimes they were needed.
Going against his usual nature, Aziraphale ignored the other offerings and went straight for Crowley's arms. The demon accepted him wordlessly, closing his arms around the other being. "Any news?" he asked quietly, drawing the angel closer to himself.
Aziraphale shook his head, silent. After a moment, he finally spoke.
"Anakiel is still screaming," said Aziraphale, his voice muffled by Crowley's shirt. "Even Raphael has given up hope that he will ever stop."
Crowley nodded slowly, not having expected anything else.
Trust humans to find a way to destroy an angel's sanity.