Mae Govannen!
I don't have much to say save for the fact that this is my first Good Omens fic, so I hope it worked!
DISCLAIMER: I own none of these gorgeous characters
Story title is taken from the song I'll be Your Mirror by The Velvet Underground
Namarïe!
If one were to tell you to picture an angel, no doubt your mind would instantly conjure up the image of a sweet faced, kindly figure with a ring like a Fruit Loop hanging over its head of golden curls. Something like the generic beings one saw emblazoned on the fronts of cheap Get-Well-Soon! cards- round faces shining with pleasant smiles, and wings of delicate goose down.
This could not be further from the truth.
Angels could be just as cruel as demons and other various assorted kinds of unsavoury hell-spawn.
They were quite a lot bastard and the smallest bit of nice. Smug, arrogant, stuck-up, pompous know-it-all arseholes, and Crowley hated all of them.
Well, save for Aziraphale, but he had to admit that his angel did resemble the greeting card variety rather more closely than the other kind. Crowley wasn't sure if that made Aziraphale a bad angel or not.
Because he was good. By far the best of all Heaven's strutting braggarts, but... did that make him the best angel, or the worst?
Probably a question that only God Herself would know the answer to- and Crowley felt his skin break out in a rash of obsidian scales at the thought of daring to ask Her. After all... questions had been the cause of his rather painful plunge down into the charming sulphur pits of Hell.
Nah. Better not risk it.
It wasn't like they needed more trouble. They had been lucky- managing to stop both Armageddon and the following wrath of their respective head offices. They were being left alone. Crowley had moved into the bookshop with the angel on Aziraphale's insistence, and nothing else had gone wrong.
Yet.
It would be safer for both of us if we stick together, the angel had said, twisting his hands together while glancing at the door nervously. After all, if they come for us again... He had shivered and trailed off.
Crowley couldn't argue with that. And if he was being honest, he didn't really want to be alone if... when Hell came for him.
Maybe he just didn't want to be alone.
Who's moving then? was all he had asked.
Aziraphale had crossed his arms stubbornly. I am NOT abandoning my bookshop. Besides, if Hell does come after you, no demon can enter here without my permission.
Crowley had grinned at the thought. You had me at Hell.
So that was where he found himself that rainy Sunday afternoon- pacing the shelves, debating the pros and cons of life with Aziraphale, and glaring at his plants merely for the sake of watching them tremble.
Ah, who was he kidding? He had never been able to sour himself against the fussy, anxious angel... it certainly wouldn't work now.
It probably made him a bad demon. Or a good one. Did being shit at your job as an ambassador of Hell make you a good demon or a bad demon?
It was too much like the angel conundrum.
Honestly, all thinking about it really did was serve to give him a nasty headache, and that was one thing he could definitely do without.
Crowley wasn't sure what kind of things he'd imagined to be in store for him today, but it had probably included trying to dissuade people from buying any of the books while Aziraphale was out acquiring yet more for the already groaning shelves. Satan only knew why it was called a bookshop if the angel hardly ever sold anything.
Whatever it was, he certainly hadn't expected for Aziraphale to return home early and soaking wet, with his sodden wings dragging behind him. It looked like he didn't even have the strength remaining to send them back into the Other Plane.
Their beautiful, snowy primaries were dirty from where they had been pulled over the ground, feathers ruffled.
He looked in a right state. And sounded quite out of breath.
He also proceeded to fall into Crowley's arms and hide his face in the crook of the demon's neck- who froze, unsure of what to do. This was far from Aziraphale's usual behaviour.
"Uh..." he managed at last, resting his head atop the angel's pale hair. "Rough day?"
What exactly did one do when faced with an armful of waterlogged angel? Crowley hoped that Aziraphale couldn't feel the racing of his heart.
"You could say that..." mumbled Aziraphale, tiredly.
Crowley freed a hand and plucked a cluster of torn leaves from between those white feathers, only to receive a face-full of them.
"Nhffffffffffffff!" said Crowley, freeing both hands and waving them furiously to try and push them away. In doing this, he was forced to take a step back from the angel. "Pfff!" He spat a downy feather from his mouth. It tasted like an old pillow.
"Oh! Oh, I am sorry!" said Aziraphale, sounding rather anxious. "It's just that... well..."
"You're ticklish. I know," said Crowley, amused now. " 'S not really something I forget. Usually." He raised his eyebrows at the angel, grinning. Aziraphale blushed, then tried his level best to hide it.
It didn't work.
"Why're you wet, anyway?" Crowley snapped his fingers, summoning a fluffy grey towel from the bathroom in the back of the shop. He slung it over the angel's shoulders. "And your wings... didn't people, y'know... well, didn't they see them?"
"I'm not a complete amateur," huffed Aziraphale irritably. Ah, he was feeling better already- back to his fussy self. As if in agreement, both wings vanished in a soft flash of golden light. "I simply got tired, is all."
"Why?"
"I was stressed!" said Aziraphale, a bit louder than was probably necessary and helplessly indignant. "I kept thinking that Gabriel or one of the others would show up in my footsteps to follow me."
"Angel, you spat Hellfire at them, they'll leave you alone."
"You spat Hellfire at them," sniped Aziraphale. "All I did was take a bath."
"I thought y' said it was a nice bath?"
"It was."
"Then why are you complaining?"
Aziraphale sighed and passed a shaking hand over his face. Crowley's heart (or what was left of it) ached. He knew how the angel felt. Hell, he felt the same every time the bookshop door swung shut behind him as he stepped out onto the street.
The fear of things lurking in the shadows. The smudges at the corner of your eyes.
It didn't help that snakes were famously known for their poor eyesight, and so by example, neither did Crowley.
He couldn't even see his stars. Just an occasional blur, so distant that it might as well be a bolt of velvet cloth with smudges on it. It hurt. Often.
Sometimes he wondered if She had done it to him on purpose when She had cast him out. Away from the stars he had loved so dearly...
"I'm sorry." Aziraphale pulled the towel tighter about himself. "I'm being silly."
" 'S not silly, angel," said Crowley quietly. " 'S normal. PTSD, the humans call it. I think."
"Oh, do they?" asked Aziraphale, sounding tired once more. "Well, I suppose I mustn't be surprised. They do so love to label things. It is simply exhausting."
Crowley agreed with this.
Aziraphale didn't struggle as the demon lead him to an armchair and sat him down. Nor when Crowley took it upon himself to lounge on said chair's arm. The angel sniffed, looking down at his drenched coat with a rather mournful expression, until Crowley rolled his eyes and used a miracle to wring it dry.
"Cocoa or tea?" he asked, and watched his angel's face light up.
"Oh, tea, please, dear. If you don't mind."
"Yeah, yeah, fine, I'll put the kettle on." Crowley sauntered into the small kitchenette hidden at the back of the shop. He was fishing for a teabag when a though occurred to him. "They can't enter here, can they?"
"Can who?" asked Aziraphale, leaning around the back of the armchair to look at him.
"Angels."
"Um... sadly yes, they can." Aziraphale fidgeted with the corner of the towel before folding it neatly and draping it over the coffee table. "They are not like demons... I can't keep them out."
"Oh joy," muttered Crowley, glaring at the kettle as it let out a hair-raising whistle. It stilled and he sloshed the angel-winged mug full of scalding water. The scent of earl grey steamed up the air.
"You do things with so little finesse, dear," said Aziraphale with a sigh that would have sounded judgemental if it hadn't been so full of affection.
Crowley pulled a face before halting just out of reach with the teacup. Aziraphale tried to snatch it from him, but Crowley jerked it out of the way. He wiggled it teasingly, repeating the manoeuvre when the angel attempted another acquisition.
"Apologise."
Aziraphale scowled at him. "You see, it's things like this that remind me of what you are."
Crowley grinned devilishly. "An annoying friend?"
"A demon," said Aziraphale primly, crossing his arms.
Crowley rolled his slit-pupil eyes, passing the mug to the angel with a show of false reluctance. Outside, the storm raged on- rain drumming the glass as the sky blackened slowly to night.
"You staying up late again?"
Aziraphale took a sip of his tea and let out a sigh of contentment. Then he nodded. "I need to catalogue that box from last week-"
"I don't need 'n explanation, angel," said Crowley quickly with a wave of his hand. And a rather large yawn. "You won't mind... 'f I go to bed?"
"Not at all!" Aziraphale patted his arm. "You do look exhausted, dear boy. I'll try not to wake you up if I come upstairs later."
"Nmmmh," muttered Crowley in agreement, before heading for the back stairs. " 'Night, angel."
"Goodnight," said Aziraphale, with a small smile that made Crowley's traitorous heart stutter in his chest. The angel raised a hand in a silly little half-wave, curled in the chair with his steaming tea and the warm glow of the bookshop lights around him.
He really looked ethereal.
Crowley shook his head and took the stairs two at a time, needing to get away before he said something stupid. And it was true- he was tired. The Armageddon That Wasn't had taken a lot out of him. More than he would like to admit.
He was pretty sure Aziraphale knew. He was just too kind to say anything.
The room at the top of the stairs was much the same as the shop downstairs. Wood paneling, a small assortment of bookshelves, one of Crowley's plants sitting happily on the small window's sill, untouched by the storm.
"Don't think you're off the hook," the demon said to it gruffly, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it over the chair by the window. "T'morrow... well. We'll see then, eh?"
The plant didn't so much as quiver a leaf. He'd gone soft. That must be it.
The bed was big, a double, and the blankets were all a pale shade of cream- frame a deep mottled mahogany.
Crowley didn't even bother to pull them back- he just collapsed with a groan and darkness rose up behind his eyelids like he was Falling anew.
When he awoke sometime later, dazed and with a raging thirst, it was to warm fingers carding through his hair. The motions were regular, relaxed.
Crowley lifted his head blearily, for a moment unsure of what was up or down. He had to squint to make out Aziraphale's face, reading glasses perched on his nose.
"Water?" asked the angel, passing the glass that had been waiting on the cabinet. It was cool and sweet and Crowley felt it soothe his dry throat.
"Ngh," he slurred. "Wh'ss the time?"
"Around midnight, I believe." Aziraphale took the glass back, settling it safely on the cabinet once again. "Go back to sleep, dear boy, you look terribly confused."
" 'S what h'ppns..." Crowley muttered, laying his head back down. His body was pressed up against the angel's, he realised, unconsciously seeking contact. Hell, this was embarrassing... usually he managed to keep to his side of the bed.
But Aziraphale said nothing against it, and then his fingers were back in Crowley's hair, gently carding through the ginger locks, fingers soft on his scalp.
It honestly felt far too good. Fuck, he could get used to this.
" 'mm you never d'n tha' before..." he managed, feeling like he should give Aziraphale a chance to pull away.
"Oh, shush," was all the angel said in reply, eyes never leaving his book. "Go to sleep, you silly demon."
"'M not silly," protested Crowley, voice fading as he felt the tug of oblivion once again. Then Aziraphale brushed a thumb over the shell of his ear and set all his nerve endings on fire.
"NGK!"
"Shh." The angel didn't move as Crowley snuggled closer, hiding his face in Aziraphale's side. "Sleep."
"Mmmnnf," agreed the demon, and when he finally drifted off, it was to the sound of his angel humming a soft, sweet tune, in time to the rain pattering outside. Both of them warm within the lamplit bookshop, exactly where they were supposed to be.
Together.