Commission fic for tkolako. Hope you enjoy!
Ten Is An Unlucky Number
A Good Omens Fanfic
Aziraphale was worried. He hadn't seen Crowley for several days now, and yesterday they were supposed to have met at the park. At the time, he had put it up to the demon having to do something for work, but now, when Crowley still hadn't contacted him to explain why he was late or apologize or anything, Aziraphale was genuinely starting to get worried.
So, he closed his bookshop for the afternoon and went over to the demon's flat, taking several busses and taxis to make sure that there was no possibility of anyone following him from his shop. One could never be too careful.
Aziraphale knocked on the door to the flat and when Crowley didn't answer, his trepidation only grew.
"Crowley?" he called, hoping that there would be an answer on the other side of the door.
There wasn't.
Right then.
"Okay, Crowley, if you're in there, I'm coming in," Aziraphale called and miracled the lock open before pushing inside, shutting the door quietly behind him. It felt wrong to invade the demon's privacy like this, but at the same time, his concern outweighed any sense of propriety he had.
"Crowley?" he called again as he stepped further into the flat.
He saw nothing. In fact, the place was pretty void of…well, a lot of things. There was some art, a couple books sitting by the couch, a television, but Crowley didn't have a lot of things, not like Aziraphale whose walls were literally covered in books and other curios.
There was still no answer to his call and Aziraphale began to wonder if maybe Crowley had simply been sent away on some sort of mission and had just been unable to call or had forgotten. Maybe he hadn't thought of it anyway—maybe he'd forgotten their meeting all together. Aziraphale supposed it could happen. The demon was often side-tracked and he wasn't really the type to keep a planner.
But then he heard something from the back of the flat and stopped, frowning.
"Crowley?"
The sound came again, in the form of a wretched wet coughing. Aziraphale's eyes widened, standing like a deer in the headlights, before he hurried toward the sound, finding the door to Crowley's bedroom cracked.
Aziraphale knocked slightly. "Crowley? It's me—Aziraphale. Are…are you quite all right?"
Another wet cough sounded and Aziraphale bit his lip. "Do you mind if I come in?"
"S'fine, angel," the croak sounded.
Aziraphale pushed the door open and nearly gasped at the sight.
Crowley was lying in the center of his big bed, flat on his back, blankets pulled up under his arms, looking absolutely miserable. His cheeks were flushed with fever, the red standing out sharply on his cheekbones against his pale skin, his lank red hair shocking against his brow, several strands stuck with fever sweat. And what was even worse were the coughs that suddenly burst from deep in Crowley's chest, forcing him to curl up, fist covering his mouth.
"My dear!" Aziraphale cried, rushing forward. "Whatever is the matter? What has happened? How are you…?" he stopped rambling, realizing it wouldn't really do much to help his friend.
Crowley blinked his cloudy golden snake eyes as he looked up balefully at Aziraphale. The dark circles under his eyes were deep purple and made him look like he'd been punched in the nose. Aziraphale winced just looking at his condition.
"Sorry I didn't come yesterday, woke up like this," Crowley mumbled. "Was gonna call but…too tired to get out of bed."
Aziraphale sat carefully beside him. "By my dear boy, how did this happen so quickly?"
Crowley coughed again and stared tiredly up at him. "It's that time again, angel. You know. The curse."
"The cur—oh!" Aziraphale exclaimed, suddenly recalling, and feeling terrible about forgetting the whole situation.
A couple centuries ago, Crowley had gotten on the wrong side of some witch who had been trying to plague a village. He and Aziraphale had stopped her, but unbeknownst to the angel at the time, she had cursed Crowley—who had been much more involved in her actual take-down—to get sick every ten years, for ten days. (She apparently had a thing about the number ten.) At first, Aziraphale hadn't known, for decades, Crowley had suffered through the illness that came on very suddenly, and then dropped just as suddenly once the ten days were up, but one time he'd found him collapsed in a small village, and had worriedly carried him to an inn to care for him, wondering what had happened to make the demon so sick. When Crowley had been coherent enough to explain, he had told Aziraphale that it had been because of that blasted witch they had stopped. Aziraphale had been furious that Crowley hadn't told him this whole time, and after that had tried to make it a point to remember when exactly it was.
After all, it was on the tenth of October. It wasn't that hard to remember. And yet, it had slipped from Aziraphale's mind. He felt terrible about it, but obviously not as terrible as Crowley was feeling right now.
"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale told him with a sigh. "I'm so sorry! I should have remembered."
"s'okay," Crowley mumbled before breaking into another coughing fit that forced him to curl up, clutching his chest.
"It's not though, you're not, oh dear. What can I do?" Aziraphale dithered. "Tea! How would you like some tea? I'll go make some right now."
He didn't know whether Crowley had tea in his kitchen, but it didn't really matter because it was there right where Aziraphale expected it to be. He put the kettle on and boiled the water, and then got the tea out and puts lots of honey and lemon into it (also right where he would have expected it to be).
He came back into the room, bearing a tray with the tea for the sick demon who struggled to sit up as Aziraphale put the tray on the side table.
"Oh, let me, dear," he said and helped Crowley to sit, propping him up with extra pillows before settling the cup of tea into his hands.
"Thanks," Crowley croaked. He sipped the tea, swallowing painfully but only managed about half of it before he began to sag and shiver. "Cold."
"Do you have extra blankets?" Aziraphale asked.
"Dunno, maybe the closet if anywhere?" Crowley nodded to the closet as Aziraphale took the cup away from him and he sank back into the bed. The angel went to fetch extra blankets (right where he expected them to be—quite a few of which were tartan) and settled them over the demon. Crowley still shivered and coughed again, a small moan of pain escaping him as he clutched his already sore chest. Aziraphale pressed his lips together and frowned. He knew from experience that it was only going to get worse from here.
And he was going to need some supplies.
"My dear, do you mind if I run out for just a moment? I'm going to pick up a few things for you. I'll be back as soon as possible," he said.
Crowley muttered something before curling up from another coughing fit and Aziraphale patted his back through the blankets before leaving the flat and hurrying to the corner store.
He got everything he could think of that he would need and rushed back.
"Right then," he said as he settled in. "We'll get you through this, Crowley. We always do."
Crowley gave a pained sigh and settled in as well.
Two days and counting.
The worst of it started on the third day when Crowley began to cough blood. Aziraphale always hated this part the most, especially after the time he had spent in the hospitals during the rise of the Spanish Influenza. And it was so hard to see Crowley suffer through this. The coughing obviously was the worst, causing the demon to wheeze in pain, straining both his chest and his throat unforgivably. Aziraphale plied him with as much tea as he could get down Crowley, the honey the only thing that really seemed to soothe.
He'd also bought some of that vaporizing rub to see if that might help ease Crowley's coughing.
"Let me try it," Aziraphale nearly begged as Crowley gasped after a long coughing fit. The angel gently dabbed some blood from his lips and then wiped his fevered brow with a cool cloth he kept close to the bedside along with a bowl of clean water.
Crowley groaned, but was really too weak to put up much of a protest so Aziraphale simply turned down his blankets and carefully opened the demon's pajama top. Crowley shivered and whimpered a protest at the sudden burst of cold air but Aziraphale simply shushed him, sitting on the side of the bed as he opened the pot of salve before dipping his fingers into it and beginning to rub it onto Crowley's chest.
The demon's breath hitched, making him cough again, and he squirmed at the uncomfortable sensation.
"Just relax, Crowley," Aziraphale pleaded as he began to rub his fingers in soothing circles around Crowley's chest. He could feel the tense muscles and knew that loosening them up would help ease some of the demon's discomfort a little at least. And if the cream could help ease his coughing, then perhaps the massage might actually do some good.
As his fingers sought out all the taut muscles, Aziraphale finally began to feel Crowley's chest loosen and with it, his breathing ease slightly. He hummed a bit as the demon's eyes closed, trying to soothe his friend into sleep and, amazingly, seemed to be succeeding.
He knew it wasn't over yet, but a small reprieve was better than nothing.
By the sixth day, the vapor rub was no longer doing anything to help. Crowley might have stopped coughing blood for now but he now simply had a dry cough that would not stop. It was so violent that the demon had cracked a couple ribs already from the stress, and no matter how much Aziraphale tried, he couldn't ease the coughing. Not with tea, or the vaporizing cream or anything.
Crowley was nearly delirious with fever, unable to keep from coughing every other minute and was in miserable pain; chest, lungs and throat all wrecked. Not to mention the fact that he was still shivering uncontrollably with chills, which didn't help his painfully tight muscles or his cracked ribs.
Finally, Aziraphale couldn't stand another second and crawled into the bed alongside the demon. Crowley flailed slightly as Aziraphale gently positioned him between his legs and back against his chest, but as soon as he settled the demon against him, Crowley instantly sank into his warmth, letting out a small whimper while huddling closer against Aziraphale, latching onto him with long fingers weakened by the illness.
"There, there, my dear," Aziraphale murmured, rocking the demon slightly like a child as he reached down and picked up the blankets, pulling them over Crowley's lap again and pulling one up around his shoulders. "Just try to relax as much as possible. I know it's hard, but there's only a few more days left now."
Crowley coughed weakly and burrowed closer, slumping under the blankets before he coughed again and hissed in pain. "Ten is an unlucky number," he croaked miserably.
Aziraphale nodded as he rested his chin on top of Crowley's head and let his hands slip under the demon's arms to try and massage the rubber-band tight muscles of his chest again, carefully avoiding Crowley's injured ribs. The demon whimpered, coughing again, but Aziraphale didn't stop, simply continued the soothing circles until the demon fell into some semblance of sleep.
By the ninth day, Crowley barely had the strength to wake up. It was odd, considering his demonic body didn't need sustenance to live, but he seemed to be wasting away under Aziraphale's very eyes. It was all part of the curse, Aziraphale knew, but the demon was so pale and thin, the dark circles under his eyes so sunken they looked painful, that it seemed unreal. Aziraphale doubted, as always, that Crowley would even make a recovery.
So, he continued to try and ease his coughing with the vaporizing rub, massaging it into his chest as he tried to loosen Crowley's muscles, still taking care of the spots where ribs had literally cracked under the strain of coughing so much. He wiped the blood from his pale lips that Crowley was still coughing up, lungs sounding wet to Aziraphale's worried and tentative ears. There never seemed to be enough blankets to keep the chill away, and Crowley shivered despite the fact the fever raged on, bringing up the demon's temperature even past what would be considered normal for a fiend of Hell.
And Aziraphale continued to nurse him through it. It was all he could do. He made tea, and tried to get Crowley to drink it. Made broth, and tried to get Crowley to drink that, though it got harder and harder by the day as Crowley became less and less aware of his surroundings. He eventually seemed to be able to do nothing but shiver under the blankets as the mysterious curse sickness raged through his body, a cruel punishment that Crowley hadn't even deserved.
The final day, Aziraphale did the only thing he could to offer comfort to his friend and held him in a comforting embrace. Crowley merely curled against his chest, coughing weakly every once in a while, seeming too exhausted to even hack up a lung anymore, like he had been doing for the last nine days.
Aziraphale soothed Crowley's lank hair off of his damp forehead. He rubbed his back through the multiple blankets. He cooled his brow with the cloth and he wondered if there would ever be a way to break this curse.
He had tried looking when he had first found out about it, but there really wasn't a lot of actually useful information about curses to be found. He supposed that perhaps he could try to find another witch with good intentions to break the curse, but there was a lack of real witches in the world these days. Kind of died out after the witch trials for obvious reasons. Aziraphale was determined though. Every time he had sat through these episodes with Crowley, he had renewed his determination not to have to do it again, and yet, every ten years it was the same thing. Crowley deathly ill, without even the ability to escape the sickness with the release of death, and Aziraphale watching over him, unable to find anything to help, even though he always looked through every resource he had at the time.
There was just no luck.
Maybe Crowley was right. Maybe ten was just an unlucky number for him.
Crowley whimpered in his sleep as he let out a hoarse cough, stirring slightly in Aziraphale's arms.
The angel shushed him and pulled the blankets tighter, settling back against the headboard of the bed with the demon propped against him. He glanced over at the clock on the side table, and sighed heavily.
Twelve more hours to go.
Crowley woke groggily, blinking a cursed blurriness from his eyes without much success. Everything hurt. His chest, his throat, his head. His eyes too if he could just get them opened—maybe he wouldn't bother. Really, his whole body hurt, and he felt weaker than a drowned kitten, bless it. What the Heaven had brought him to this state…
Oh, right.
The Curse.
Crowley cursed the Curse internally, but…if he was awake, then it must be over. He didn't feel the urge to cough anymore. Nor did he feel the bone deep ache of fever or the chills. In fact, he was actually rather warm. Quite a bit more warm that he usually was, if he were being honest. There were multiple blankets wrapping him up, he could tell that from the weight even though he still refused to open his eyes. He did crack one open and frowned. Tartan? Did he even own anything tartan?
Oh, well, of course there was tartan. He had his caretaker to thank for that, no doubt.
And that caretaker was…
"I know you're awake, dear. Can you open your eyes at all?"
The coaxing voice came from above his head and Crowley finally managed to find the strength to open his eyes all the way and crane his neck back with a grunt of pain as tortured muscles protested even that small movement.
A halo of blond hair and a blue-eyed smile looked down at him as he blinked. "There you are, Crowley. How are you feeling?"
Crowley wet his lips but his tongue was very dry. He cleared his throat slightly which also made him wince. "Th-thirsty," he rasped honestly.
"Why, of course you must be," Aziraphale said matter-of-factly and reached over to the bedside table for a glass of water which he held to Crowley's lips. The demon drank thirstily and Aziraphale had to eventually pull the glass away before he spilled it all over the blankets.
"Easy. Just a little at a time. You're still on the mend," Aziraphale said.
Crowley grumbled and sighed, slumping back. Just the act of drinking water had seemed like a very big effort.
"What day's it?" he mumbled.
Aziraphale glanced over at the clock. "Er…I believe the 20th. It's been ten days, I know that. Otherwise you wouldn't be up."
Crowley grunted. "Really hate the number ten, 'Zira," he mumbled.
"I know, dear," the angel replied with a kind sigh. "So do I. One of these days we'll figure out a way to break this curse. I promise. I won't stop until I find it."
"Don't know why it keeps happening," Crowley said. "Witch is dead after all. Didn't think curses lasted after witches are dead."
"I don't know a lot about it, I'm afraid," Aziraphale said truthfully. "What I do know is that for as long as this is going on, I will be there to look after you. Just, in the future, dear, all you have to do is call. You know that."
"Yeah, I know," Crowley said, and craned his head again to look up at the angel. "Thanks."
Aziraphale smiled as he looked down at him and pulled the blankets around him tighter again. "Of course, my dear."
Crowley, still exhausted, didn't even care how it looked that a demon was snuggled up against an angel. He huddled back into the blankets, pressed against Aziraphale's side and closed his eyes, falling back into an exhausted sleep.