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NOT Arrangements-verse (though I'm working on that too). But in my world, Aziraphale and Crowley exist to fix things, or at least bugger them up in more interesting ways, and after 5x18 and 5x19, things needed fixing. So.
Title: Celestial Red Cross
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Good Omens, Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Castiel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Gabriel. God. Crowley/Aziraphale as always implied.
Summary: Crowley'd warned Aziraphale about picking up strays, but when he saw the battered angel, well ... he could hardly have been expected to just leave him there, could he? Which seemed to give a certain Someone ideas ...
Wordcount: 3948
SPOILERS: SPN up to 5x19
Disclaimer: Not mine
A/N: Crowley is GO, not SPN for this one. *shrugs*
Gradually, though, he became aware of something in his surroundings, became aware of a world beyond himself. A world where voices ebbed and flowed, rising and falling very near beside him. Very near. Dangerously near. Dimly, memory floating around the wound in his center, the voices became the phantom shadow of blades, and the hatred in his brothers' eyes, and fear built inside him.
Slowly, grabbing hold of what shreds of will he had left, Castiel pushed aside the waves of exhaustion, the battered demands of body and Grace, and bullied himself upwards, towards the surface, towards a world more material than that he had drowned himself in. Slowly, because it hurt, but many things had hurt him in their time, and one more would not stop him now.
Slowly, warily, as his sense of self firmed, he drifted back into his vessel, keeping himself very still, and opened his eyes and ears.
The voices resolved themselves first.
"You didn't think telling me that the little bugger had stabbed you might be a good plan, angel?" A low, vehement voice, slightly muffled, from below and off to one side. As Castiel reconnected with Jimmy's body, he realised that was because he was on a bed, which put the speaker either sitting or kneeling on the floor. He didn't turn his head to look. Not yet. He didn't want to draw attention to his awareness just yet.
"It wasn't really that important, dearest," came a second voice, calm and strained, and faintly amused. "His wound was much more serious, after all. This little scratch could keep, surely."
"Little scratch!!" the first voice rose, high and incredulous. "That was an angel-killing blade, angel! If he'd managed to stab instead of slice, you wouldn't be bloody here right now!"
"But he did slice, dear. And I'm surprised he managed that much, quite frankly. Poor dear could hardly stand, let alone swing. No, his need was far greater than mine, my dearest. Bleeding is relatively easy to handle. Grace falling from a ruptured vessel is just slightly more serious, don't you think?"
Castiel blinked, as he realised they were talking about him. These two ... not humans, to know so much, but they had apparently ... they had healed him ... That made no sense, but ...
"I don't care if his bloody soul was hanging out his chest! He stabbed you, angel! You should have left him to bloody rot, is what you should have done, and come let me fix you. If I'd known before I healed him what he'd done, what you bloody didn't tell me he'd done, didn't show me ..."
"Which is why I didn't tell you, Crowley," the second voice interrupted primly, then softened, warmed. "My dear, it wasn't his fault. What he did is no more than you have done to me, many times. Remember? All those times when I startled you while you were hurt? That time in Haiti, when you almost took the head off my corporation? Or in Mesopotamia, when you accidentally gutted me? Or ..."
"Shut up, I get the point, angel!" the first voice, Crowley, cut in, pained and angry. Castiel, recognising it at last, allowed his head to turn, very slowly, to take in the scene.
The demon knelt in front of a chair. Not the human demon who bore the name, but an older one. One of the Fallen. His dark head was bowed, golden eyes viciously focused as he leaned over the seated form of his companion. An angel. Undeniably an angel. The chubby human body could barely hide the Grace shining within it, the rich warm echo of creation. The angel smiled down at the top of Crowley's head, serene, only wincing now and then as demonic hands moved over the bloody tear in his stomach.
The wound Castiel had put there.
He didn't remember it. Not really. Not this angel. After the banishment seal had taken effect, after he had been torn through space and spat back out, his vessel opened and his Grace spilling, he'd barely had time to disarm one of his disorientated opponents before the others were on him. And after that ... he had simply struck out at anything that came too close. Vaguely, he might have realised that there had been more than he thought, vaguely he might have counted the bodies moving around him and realising there had been more than the four he had pulled with him, but it hadn't particularly mattered to him at the time. He had simply determined to keep going until they killed him, and however many came against him, that was how many he would fight.
He did remember the last of them, a little. His sight had not been human, then, barely tied to the material world at all, his Grace seeping and carrying him with it, so he hadn't registered the angel as a body, exactly. Only as light and beauty and Grace, leaning close, reaching towards him. He'd struck out, barely even feeling his arm move, and as he'd fallen he'd dimly registered that the angel still lived to destroy him.
The angel should have destroyed him.
"My dear, you know I'm fine, don't you?" the angel asked, very gently, reaching up to stroke the demon's hair lightly. Crowley growled at him sub-vocally, focused on his hands and the flow of energy through them, focused on easing torn flesh back together and wiping spilled blood away. He didn't look up at his companion, but some of the vehemence faded from his movements.
"'Course you're alright, angel," he muttered darkly. "I'm not that bad. I'd be better, of course, if you hadn't made me use up so much energy on the little bugger over there, but since you did ..."
"I couldn't leave him, dearest," the angel explained earnestly, hands smoothing and stroking, soothing. "I couldn't leave him lying there. He'd have died, my dear. Someone else might have come along and hurt him, or he might simply have ... I couldn't leave him, Crowley. I couldn't."
The demon looked up at that, looked up to meet the angel's eyes, face twisting through emotions before settling on a faint, almost fond exasperation. "Aziraphale, you idiot," he said, shaking his head, carefully, so as not to dislodge the hands still tangled in his hair. "Angel, what have I told you, about picking up strays?"
The angel frowned benevolently at him. "He's hardly a cat, dearest!" he reproached. Crowley just grimaced.
"No, he's not a cat. He's worse that a cat. He's a bloody angel, angel! He's a bloody angel, and he could have killed you! The bloody Apocalypse is on us, you idiot! He could have been anyone. He could have killed you. He still bloody might!"
Aziraphale ... Castiel recognised that name, vaguely. Not enough to remember the angel, but enough to know he'd at least heard of him before now. And that he'd had a reason for hearing of him.
Aziraphale smiled, a rich little curl of humour. "No, he won't," he said, laughingly. "You won't let him, will you, my dearest?" He smiled, leaned down to press a little kiss to the top of Crowley's head, wincing faintly as he pulled on the recently healed wound. "Besides, my dear. I don't think he's in any state to be killing anyone, do you?"
Crowley growled again, pushing the angel back as he stood, settling Aziraphale carefully against the back of the chair, and stretching until his spine popped audibly. The angel grinned up at him, and Castiel, watching, could almost have sworn he was admiring the view as it went past, the way Dean sometimes admired women walking by. But he didn't examine the thought too closely. He had far too many other things to be confused about as it was.
Time to do something about that, maybe.
He stirred deliberately, a slow shift of aching muscle, the movement serving two purposes. The first, to let him know what condition his vessel was in, how much freedom he had to move at all. And the second, to let them know he was awake, and watching them.
The second he began to move, Crowley's head snapped around, golden eyes locking on him viciously, and the demon all but leapt in front of the angel, shielding Aziraphale from Castiel's view. While Castiel blinked at the sudden movement, the other angel leaned around behind Crowley's back, wrapping his hands around the demon's hips to shift him slightly out of the way, and proceeded to beam cheerfully in Castiel's direction.
"My dear!" Aziraphale beamed. "You're awake!"
"No, you think?" Crowley muttered darkly, and tried to maneuver himself back in front of the angel. Aziraphale, without seeming to notice at all, shoved him back. Castiel blinked at them.
"I ..." he started, or tried to. It devolved very quickly into a cough that ripped through his damaged chest, shaking body and Grace alike, a strange, stretching sensation that frightened him for no very good reason. Crowley, almost unwillingly, propelled in part by two very pushy angelic hands, moved forwards to try and help him.
On pure instinct, Castiel flinched away, and all three of them froze.
"My dear," Aziraphale said after a moment, cautiously. "My dear, you've had a rough time of it lately, I know. But we won't hurt you, my dear. I promise. No harm will come to you here."
"Says you," Crowley growled again, then winced as Aziraphale did something Castiel couldn't see. "Oh, fine. I promise too. But if you hurt him again, mind, I'll bloody fillet you myself, you little bastard, so don't go getting ideas ..."
"Crowley!" Aziraphale cut in, shocked. The demon ignored him, glaring unrepentantly at Castiel.
Who shook his head very carefully, and tried to pull his voice back. "I ..." he rasped, cautiously and painfully. "I do not ... I do not intend you ... harm." His chest spasmed warningly, and he shut his mouth hurriedly, concentrating on breathing. This body was becoming more and more his, and he himself becoming more and more prey to its whims. In the times between fear for the world, and Dean, and Sam, he was sometimes worried about that. The more it happened, the more bound to his human vessel he became, the less he would be able to help them.
If he was able to help anyone at all.
"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale murmured, very quietly, watching him. "My dear, you couldn't harm a fly right now, I know. Don't worry. Give us a little time, we can fix that. Let us get our strength back, we can help."
Crowley grimaced. "Or we might," he clarified hurriedly. "We might, if you can promise not to turn around and smite us once we do. Neither Heaven or Hell are very fond of us right now, and I, at least, am not prepared to just fix up any old angel and wait for them to betray us!" He glared at Aziraphale behind him, arms crossed defensively. The angel shook his head up at him in exasperation.
Castiel, though, didn't care about the implied threat. He was more interested in something else. "You ..." he murmured. Quietly, since it seemed to help. "You are not with Heaven? Or Hell?" He wasn't surprised Crowley's allegiances were not exactly where they should be, but the angel ...
Aziraphale smiled at him gently. "No, dear. I'm afraid not. I'm sorry. Crowley and I ... well, we have found a better side to put our faith in."
"I wouldn't say that," Crowley interrupted softly. "I wouldn't call humanity better, angel. Just ... bad in more interesting ways, maybe."
The angel smiled at him. "If you say so, dear."
Castiel stared. "You ... have chosen humanity's side?" he asked again. Just to be sure. They blinked at him, and Crowley groaned in tired resignation.
"Oh, here it comes," he groused. "Here it bloody comes. Yes, angel, we've picked the mud men! Yes, we've gone native. Yes, we're insane, tainted, dirty, whatever the hel ... whatever you want to call it. Six thousand years bloody stuck down here, you can't blame us, you bastard!" He stabbed a finger at Castiel, glowering fiercely, but there was something tired behind it, something worn. "You lot, all but bloody ignoring us, leaving us to fend for ourselves, asking us to guide them wherever you bloody fancied them, you can't blame us for ending up pitying them more than you! You can't!"
He cut off as Aziraphale tugged at him, as the angel levered himself half out of his chair, face twisting in pain, to grab hold of the demon and pull him back, pull him down. "Crowley!" he snapped as he fell back, grunting as his back hit the chair, gasping as his wound pulled. "Crowley, dear! Hush!"
Crowley did, immediately, ignoring Castiel completely as he dropped to his knees beside Aziraphale, muttering angrily as he slapped palms back over the wound, harshly enough that the angel went white. Crowley blanched a little himself, and his next motion was gentler, a faint whisper of power and Grace into the damaged flesh, a soothing pulse of the kind of power no Fallen should command, no demon should own. But Crowley did. He owned it and he used it, and his face when he pressed it to his angel's stomach was drawn, his expression pained as he pressed a gentle kiss through cloth to the wound, and buried his face against Aziraphale.
Aziraphale stroked his hair again, fingers tangling carefully, pulling in soft censure, soothing in quiet compassion. He whispered something too quiet for Castiel to hear, murmured almost silently to the demon knelt before him, holding him gently.
"This is gonna go badly, angel," Crowley said quietly, mostly muffled. "Bloody Apocalypse, should never have brought him here. Bring the whole lot down on us. Again. This is going to go badly, you idiot. Bloody idiot."
Aziraphale smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, dearest. I don't think that will happen, but I am sorry. I simply ... couldn't leave him."
And Castiel had to speak at that. He had to. It had been a long time since someone had cared enough to stand by him, and he couldn't let it go. "You don't have to worry," he said, very quietly, but they both froze, looking over at him, blinking a bit at the pain in his expression, the bright, almost helpless hope. The hope Castiel couldn't stop, couldn't help. "I won't tell anyone," he explained, gently. "I won't lead them here. I ... I can't."
They blinked at him, looked at each other for a second. "My dear?" Aziraphale asked, warily. "What do you mean?"
Castiel smiled sadly. "The angels who attacked me," he started softly. "They were Heaven's. I am not ... I have chosen another side myself." He smiled a little at their expressions, and nodded. "If you are tainted, so am I, and with much less excuse. I have only been among humans for just over a year."
They didn't say anything for a second. A long second, ticking by as they stared at him in twin, mutual bewilderment, and then ... then Crowley shook his head with a wry grin, and looked up to meet Castiel's gaze. "Infectious little buggers, aren't they?" he laughed, suddenly, powerfully cheerful. Castiel blinked at him.
"Ye ... Yes?" he tried, warily, and frowned when they beamed at him in unison. Frowned when Aziraphale nudged Crowley until the demon stood, and held up a hand almost imperiously to be helped to his own feet. Frowned when they came over to the bed, leaning beside him, and reached down to rest a hand each on his arm. "Ah ...?"
Aziraphale smiled at him. "I knew I was right to help you, my dear!" he beamed. "I thought to myself, that looks like a smart one. That looks like someone who'll understand why this little Apocalypse thing is a bad idea ..."
Crowley snorted. "You did in your eye, angel! You saw someone hurt but alive, and couldn't bloody help yourself, that's what happened. He could have been Michael himself come to smite us, and you'd have bloody helped him anyway ..."
A sudden, powerful gust of wind rattled the room, and presumably the house around it, though Castiel hadn't seen it to know. A gust of wind, and a pulse of power. Vast and constrained, dizzying.
An archangel's power.
The three of them looked at each other. Slowly, almost blankly, eyes meeting in slow dread.
"You just had to say it, didn't you, dearest?" Aziraphale whispered. "You just had to say it."
Crowley growled at him faintly, but he looked rather too green to pull off intimidation. "Sssshut up, angel. Shut up."
Someone knocked on the door. A quiet little rap, completely at odds with the soft power all but booming on the edges of their senses. Almost gentle. They looked at each other some more.
"I'll go," Crowley said at last. He didn't look at all happy about suggesting it. "You two are hurt, you should ..."
"It's an archangel," Castiel hissed at him, trying to lever himself up. "None of us stand a chance anyway. They're probably after me, I'll ... let me ..." His chest spasmed again, the cough knocking him back onto the bed, and Aziraphale simply placed one hand over Castiel's heart, blue eyes shining with compassion, and shook his head.
"Perhaps you're right, dearest," the angel said softly, turning to look at Crowley, to linger desperately over his face. But there was steel in Aziraphale's eyes, in his voice, that Castiel hadn't seen in a long while. "Since they're being polite, perhaps you could just see what they want?"
Crowley nodded mutely, still deathly pale. "Yeah. See what they want. That's a good plan." He shook his head, reaching out to catch his angel's hand briefly, to just squeeze it, then ... pulled back, slowly, almost mechanically, and moved to the door. Aziraphale pushed Castiel gently down as he tried to stop him, not even looking at the other angel, and watched him go, his expression something Castiel couldn't name.
Crowley didn't look back. He disappeared beyond the bedroom door, moving slowly, warily, steadily, his footsteps moving through the house, and then there was a click as he opened the front door.
And then ... silence. A very big, pervasive silence, rolling through the house from Crowley back to them, a vast, spreading presence, big, bigger than an archangel, bigger than any angel, flooding their awareness for an endless, aching time ...
Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, it disappeared, vanished, like a wave going back out to sea, and in its wake both angels gasped desperately. Shuddered, lost and helpless, and Castiel almost didn't notice what had happened, almost missed it against the sheer loss of that pressure, that Presence. He almost missed the ease in his chest, the sweetness of the breath, the wholeness of the motion. He almost missed it.
The door opened. The door opened again, revealing a pale, strained Crowley leaning heavily on the door-frame, his arms wrapped around another figure, a still, motionless form still pulsing faintly with an archangel's Grace.
Crowley looked down at an unconscious Gabriel, back up at them as they stared at him, and shrugged awkwardly.
"Apparently we've been drafted, angel," the demon said distantly. "The Big Guy ... the Big Guy ... apparently He thinks we make a pretty good celestial Red Cross, or something. Supposed to ... to look after these guys, or whatever." He stopped, blinking to himself, eyes distant and staring at the ceiling. "Um. Could someone ... could one of you take him, maybe? I think ... I think I need to sit down ..." And he sort of folded, not even waiting for them to move, the body in his arms spilling across the floor as he crumpled.
Castiel stared, even as Aziraphale rushed over to his demon, even as the other angel propped Crowley against the wall and carefully gathered the unconscious archangel back up. Castiel stared, at them, at Gabriel, at the wall and the ceiling that had caught Crowley's interest so. He stared, ignoring Aziraphale's fuss, until he had to ask.
"Was that ..." he tried. "Was that ...?"
Crowley blinked at him slowly, and nodded shakily. "Been resurrecting people again, apparently," he whispered, stunned. "Dead angels. Buddy over there." He nodded at Gabriel. "Brought him back. Wants us ... wants us to look out for him, for a bit. You too. Wants us to ..." He stopped, stuttered, his head rolling to look at his angel helplessly. He reached out, hand shaking as if palsied. "Angel," he whispered. Aziraphale rushed to him.
"Hush, dearest," the angel whispered, a little desperately. "Hush dear, you're fine, it's fine. You're alright ..."
"It was Him," the demon whispered, blankly. "Haven't been near Him since the Fall, angel. Not supposed to be near him. Bloody demon, should have been ... He should have ... should have ..."
"He didn't," Aziraphale muttered, fiercely, taking Crowley's face between his hands and pressing close, until he was all the demon could see, until he was all but kissing him, lips pressed softly to lips and whispering desperately. "He didn't, dearest, you're safe, you're fine, He didn't hurt you, you're here, you're fine ..."
Castiel looked at them blankly, a rush of sound in his ears, his Grace beating on the inside of his head. "He said He wouldn't help," he managed, confusion and pain and hope all tangling together. "Joshua told us. He said He wouldn't help. Why would He ... why?"
Crowley rolled his head out of his angel's grasp to look at him, golden eyes blown and shocked, looking as bad as Castiel himself probably did. Maybe worse. "Search me," the demon muttered. "Should have blasted me on sight. Search me. Who knows what He's thinking?"
Sprawled on the floor, still unconscious, Gabriel groaned faintly, twitching uneasily at his rest. All three of them stared at him.
"You said ..." Castiel started, cautiously, watching the archangel. "You said He resurrected Gabriel? Recently?"
Crowley blinked, nodded. "Someone must've ... never thought I'd seen an archangel go down, must've been ... had to be ..."
"Lucifer," Castiel rasped. "Gabriel must have chosen ... chosen a side and ..."
"And so did He," Aziraphale finished, wonderingly. "Perhaps He was waiting for the right time? For ... For someone to make the right choice ..."
Crowley blinked, shaking himself, closing his eyes until he could open them without them being more black than gold. "Or maybe He just doesn't like archangel's blowing holes in other archangels, and didn't want to lose the sneaky bastard just yet," he growled, pulling himself back and upright. Physically and mentally. "Bloody Ineffable Plan, who knows? Who bloody knows? Best not to think about it. Best to just ... to just ..."
"Do our jobs?" Aziraphale asked softly, smiling at Crowley. The demon grimaced, but nodded.
"Got drafted by the bloody Big Guy Himself, angel," he muttered. "I've been terrified enough for one evening. I'm not inclined to argue. He said fix 'em, the pair of 'em. Look out for 'em. You and me, angel."
Aziraphale smiled at that. Smiled at Crowley, and then at Castiel, and then at the archangel spread at their feet. He smiled, brightly and laughingly while they stared at him, and nodded. "Well then," he said. "Best get to it, hadn't we?"
Castiel nodded distantly. He wasn't inclined to argue either. After all that, he just wasn't inclined to argue.
Contd: Exercises in Patience
Title: Celestial Red Cross
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Good Omens, Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Castiel, Crowley, Aziraphale, Gabriel. God. Crowley/Aziraphale as always implied.
Summary: Crowley'd warned Aziraphale about picking up strays, but when he saw the battered angel, well ... he could hardly have been expected to just leave him there, could he? Which seemed to give a certain Someone ideas ...
Wordcount: 3948
SPOILERS: SPN up to 5x19
Disclaimer: Not mine
A/N: Crowley is GO, not SPN for this one. *shrugs*
Celestial Red Cross
Castiel woke slowly. Painfully. Or he thought he did. For a long while, the boundary of awareness was indistinct, swathed in the bright, stretched ache that filled him, the bubbling uprush of Grace and the pained pulse of torn human flesh. Vessel and Grace, both of them pounded against each other, drowning the bewildered soul they held between them, and for the longest time he simply drifted, battered and confused and content to wait until his world had quieted itself around him.Gradually, though, he became aware of something in his surroundings, became aware of a world beyond himself. A world where voices ebbed and flowed, rising and falling very near beside him. Very near. Dangerously near. Dimly, memory floating around the wound in his center, the voices became the phantom shadow of blades, and the hatred in his brothers' eyes, and fear built inside him.
Slowly, grabbing hold of what shreds of will he had left, Castiel pushed aside the waves of exhaustion, the battered demands of body and Grace, and bullied himself upwards, towards the surface, towards a world more material than that he had drowned himself in. Slowly, because it hurt, but many things had hurt him in their time, and one more would not stop him now.
Slowly, warily, as his sense of self firmed, he drifted back into his vessel, keeping himself very still, and opened his eyes and ears.
The voices resolved themselves first.
"You didn't think telling me that the little bugger had stabbed you might be a good plan, angel?" A low, vehement voice, slightly muffled, from below and off to one side. As Castiel reconnected with Jimmy's body, he realised that was because he was on a bed, which put the speaker either sitting or kneeling on the floor. He didn't turn his head to look. Not yet. He didn't want to draw attention to his awareness just yet.
"It wasn't really that important, dearest," came a second voice, calm and strained, and faintly amused. "His wound was much more serious, after all. This little scratch could keep, surely."
"Little scratch!!" the first voice rose, high and incredulous. "That was an angel-killing blade, angel! If he'd managed to stab instead of slice, you wouldn't be bloody here right now!"
"But he did slice, dear. And I'm surprised he managed that much, quite frankly. Poor dear could hardly stand, let alone swing. No, his need was far greater than mine, my dearest. Bleeding is relatively easy to handle. Grace falling from a ruptured vessel is just slightly more serious, don't you think?"
Castiel blinked, as he realised they were talking about him. These two ... not humans, to know so much, but they had apparently ... they had healed him ... That made no sense, but ...
"I don't care if his bloody soul was hanging out his chest! He stabbed you, angel! You should have left him to bloody rot, is what you should have done, and come let me fix you. If I'd known before I healed him what he'd done, what you bloody didn't tell me he'd done, didn't show me ..."
"Which is why I didn't tell you, Crowley," the second voice interrupted primly, then softened, warmed. "My dear, it wasn't his fault. What he did is no more than you have done to me, many times. Remember? All those times when I startled you while you were hurt? That time in Haiti, when you almost took the head off my corporation? Or in Mesopotamia, when you accidentally gutted me? Or ..."
"Shut up, I get the point, angel!" the first voice, Crowley, cut in, pained and angry. Castiel, recognising it at last, allowed his head to turn, very slowly, to take in the scene.
The demon knelt in front of a chair. Not the human demon who bore the name, but an older one. One of the Fallen. His dark head was bowed, golden eyes viciously focused as he leaned over the seated form of his companion. An angel. Undeniably an angel. The chubby human body could barely hide the Grace shining within it, the rich warm echo of creation. The angel smiled down at the top of Crowley's head, serene, only wincing now and then as demonic hands moved over the bloody tear in his stomach.
The wound Castiel had put there.
He didn't remember it. Not really. Not this angel. After the banishment seal had taken effect, after he had been torn through space and spat back out, his vessel opened and his Grace spilling, he'd barely had time to disarm one of his disorientated opponents before the others were on him. And after that ... he had simply struck out at anything that came too close. Vaguely, he might have realised that there had been more than he thought, vaguely he might have counted the bodies moving around him and realising there had been more than the four he had pulled with him, but it hadn't particularly mattered to him at the time. He had simply determined to keep going until they killed him, and however many came against him, that was how many he would fight.
He did remember the last of them, a little. His sight had not been human, then, barely tied to the material world at all, his Grace seeping and carrying him with it, so he hadn't registered the angel as a body, exactly. Only as light and beauty and Grace, leaning close, reaching towards him. He'd struck out, barely even feeling his arm move, and as he'd fallen he'd dimly registered that the angel still lived to destroy him.
The angel should have destroyed him.
"My dear, you know I'm fine, don't you?" the angel asked, very gently, reaching up to stroke the demon's hair lightly. Crowley growled at him sub-vocally, focused on his hands and the flow of energy through them, focused on easing torn flesh back together and wiping spilled blood away. He didn't look up at his companion, but some of the vehemence faded from his movements.
"'Course you're alright, angel," he muttered darkly. "I'm not that bad. I'd be better, of course, if you hadn't made me use up so much energy on the little bugger over there, but since you did ..."
"I couldn't leave him, dearest," the angel explained earnestly, hands smoothing and stroking, soothing. "I couldn't leave him lying there. He'd have died, my dear. Someone else might have come along and hurt him, or he might simply have ... I couldn't leave him, Crowley. I couldn't."
The demon looked up at that, looked up to meet the angel's eyes, face twisting through emotions before settling on a faint, almost fond exasperation. "Aziraphale, you idiot," he said, shaking his head, carefully, so as not to dislodge the hands still tangled in his hair. "Angel, what have I told you, about picking up strays?"
The angel frowned benevolently at him. "He's hardly a cat, dearest!" he reproached. Crowley just grimaced.
"No, he's not a cat. He's worse that a cat. He's a bloody angel, angel! He's a bloody angel, and he could have killed you! The bloody Apocalypse is on us, you idiot! He could have been anyone. He could have killed you. He still bloody might!"
Aziraphale ... Castiel recognised that name, vaguely. Not enough to remember the angel, but enough to know he'd at least heard of him before now. And that he'd had a reason for hearing of him.
Aziraphale smiled, a rich little curl of humour. "No, he won't," he said, laughingly. "You won't let him, will you, my dearest?" He smiled, leaned down to press a little kiss to the top of Crowley's head, wincing faintly as he pulled on the recently healed wound. "Besides, my dear. I don't think he's in any state to be killing anyone, do you?"
Crowley growled again, pushing the angel back as he stood, settling Aziraphale carefully against the back of the chair, and stretching until his spine popped audibly. The angel grinned up at him, and Castiel, watching, could almost have sworn he was admiring the view as it went past, the way Dean sometimes admired women walking by. But he didn't examine the thought too closely. He had far too many other things to be confused about as it was.
Time to do something about that, maybe.
He stirred deliberately, a slow shift of aching muscle, the movement serving two purposes. The first, to let him know what condition his vessel was in, how much freedom he had to move at all. And the second, to let them know he was awake, and watching them.
The second he began to move, Crowley's head snapped around, golden eyes locking on him viciously, and the demon all but leapt in front of the angel, shielding Aziraphale from Castiel's view. While Castiel blinked at the sudden movement, the other angel leaned around behind Crowley's back, wrapping his hands around the demon's hips to shift him slightly out of the way, and proceeded to beam cheerfully in Castiel's direction.
"My dear!" Aziraphale beamed. "You're awake!"
"No, you think?" Crowley muttered darkly, and tried to maneuver himself back in front of the angel. Aziraphale, without seeming to notice at all, shoved him back. Castiel blinked at them.
"I ..." he started, or tried to. It devolved very quickly into a cough that ripped through his damaged chest, shaking body and Grace alike, a strange, stretching sensation that frightened him for no very good reason. Crowley, almost unwillingly, propelled in part by two very pushy angelic hands, moved forwards to try and help him.
On pure instinct, Castiel flinched away, and all three of them froze.
"My dear," Aziraphale said after a moment, cautiously. "My dear, you've had a rough time of it lately, I know. But we won't hurt you, my dear. I promise. No harm will come to you here."
"Says you," Crowley growled again, then winced as Aziraphale did something Castiel couldn't see. "Oh, fine. I promise too. But if you hurt him again, mind, I'll bloody fillet you myself, you little bastard, so don't go getting ideas ..."
"Crowley!" Aziraphale cut in, shocked. The demon ignored him, glaring unrepentantly at Castiel.
Who shook his head very carefully, and tried to pull his voice back. "I ..." he rasped, cautiously and painfully. "I do not ... I do not intend you ... harm." His chest spasmed warningly, and he shut his mouth hurriedly, concentrating on breathing. This body was becoming more and more his, and he himself becoming more and more prey to its whims. In the times between fear for the world, and Dean, and Sam, he was sometimes worried about that. The more it happened, the more bound to his human vessel he became, the less he would be able to help them.
If he was able to help anyone at all.
"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale murmured, very quietly, watching him. "My dear, you couldn't harm a fly right now, I know. Don't worry. Give us a little time, we can fix that. Let us get our strength back, we can help."
Crowley grimaced. "Or we might," he clarified hurriedly. "We might, if you can promise not to turn around and smite us once we do. Neither Heaven or Hell are very fond of us right now, and I, at least, am not prepared to just fix up any old angel and wait for them to betray us!" He glared at Aziraphale behind him, arms crossed defensively. The angel shook his head up at him in exasperation.
Castiel, though, didn't care about the implied threat. He was more interested in something else. "You ..." he murmured. Quietly, since it seemed to help. "You are not with Heaven? Or Hell?" He wasn't surprised Crowley's allegiances were not exactly where they should be, but the angel ...
Aziraphale smiled at him gently. "No, dear. I'm afraid not. I'm sorry. Crowley and I ... well, we have found a better side to put our faith in."
"I wouldn't say that," Crowley interrupted softly. "I wouldn't call humanity better, angel. Just ... bad in more interesting ways, maybe."
The angel smiled at him. "If you say so, dear."
Castiel stared. "You ... have chosen humanity's side?" he asked again. Just to be sure. They blinked at him, and Crowley groaned in tired resignation.
"Oh, here it comes," he groused. "Here it bloody comes. Yes, angel, we've picked the mud men! Yes, we've gone native. Yes, we're insane, tainted, dirty, whatever the hel ... whatever you want to call it. Six thousand years bloody stuck down here, you can't blame us, you bastard!" He stabbed a finger at Castiel, glowering fiercely, but there was something tired behind it, something worn. "You lot, all but bloody ignoring us, leaving us to fend for ourselves, asking us to guide them wherever you bloody fancied them, you can't blame us for ending up pitying them more than you! You can't!"
He cut off as Aziraphale tugged at him, as the angel levered himself half out of his chair, face twisting in pain, to grab hold of the demon and pull him back, pull him down. "Crowley!" he snapped as he fell back, grunting as his back hit the chair, gasping as his wound pulled. "Crowley, dear! Hush!"
Crowley did, immediately, ignoring Castiel completely as he dropped to his knees beside Aziraphale, muttering angrily as he slapped palms back over the wound, harshly enough that the angel went white. Crowley blanched a little himself, and his next motion was gentler, a faint whisper of power and Grace into the damaged flesh, a soothing pulse of the kind of power no Fallen should command, no demon should own. But Crowley did. He owned it and he used it, and his face when he pressed it to his angel's stomach was drawn, his expression pained as he pressed a gentle kiss through cloth to the wound, and buried his face against Aziraphale.
Aziraphale stroked his hair again, fingers tangling carefully, pulling in soft censure, soothing in quiet compassion. He whispered something too quiet for Castiel to hear, murmured almost silently to the demon knelt before him, holding him gently.
"This is gonna go badly, angel," Crowley said quietly, mostly muffled. "Bloody Apocalypse, should never have brought him here. Bring the whole lot down on us. Again. This is going to go badly, you idiot. Bloody idiot."
Aziraphale smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, dearest. I don't think that will happen, but I am sorry. I simply ... couldn't leave him."
And Castiel had to speak at that. He had to. It had been a long time since someone had cared enough to stand by him, and he couldn't let it go. "You don't have to worry," he said, very quietly, but they both froze, looking over at him, blinking a bit at the pain in his expression, the bright, almost helpless hope. The hope Castiel couldn't stop, couldn't help. "I won't tell anyone," he explained, gently. "I won't lead them here. I ... I can't."
They blinked at him, looked at each other for a second. "My dear?" Aziraphale asked, warily. "What do you mean?"
Castiel smiled sadly. "The angels who attacked me," he started softly. "They were Heaven's. I am not ... I have chosen another side myself." He smiled a little at their expressions, and nodded. "If you are tainted, so am I, and with much less excuse. I have only been among humans for just over a year."
They didn't say anything for a second. A long second, ticking by as they stared at him in twin, mutual bewilderment, and then ... then Crowley shook his head with a wry grin, and looked up to meet Castiel's gaze. "Infectious little buggers, aren't they?" he laughed, suddenly, powerfully cheerful. Castiel blinked at him.
"Ye ... Yes?" he tried, warily, and frowned when they beamed at him in unison. Frowned when Aziraphale nudged Crowley until the demon stood, and held up a hand almost imperiously to be helped to his own feet. Frowned when they came over to the bed, leaning beside him, and reached down to rest a hand each on his arm. "Ah ...?"
Aziraphale smiled at him. "I knew I was right to help you, my dear!" he beamed. "I thought to myself, that looks like a smart one. That looks like someone who'll understand why this little Apocalypse thing is a bad idea ..."
Crowley snorted. "You did in your eye, angel! You saw someone hurt but alive, and couldn't bloody help yourself, that's what happened. He could have been Michael himself come to smite us, and you'd have bloody helped him anyway ..."
A sudden, powerful gust of wind rattled the room, and presumably the house around it, though Castiel hadn't seen it to know. A gust of wind, and a pulse of power. Vast and constrained, dizzying.
An archangel's power.
The three of them looked at each other. Slowly, almost blankly, eyes meeting in slow dread.
"You just had to say it, didn't you, dearest?" Aziraphale whispered. "You just had to say it."
Crowley growled at him faintly, but he looked rather too green to pull off intimidation. "Sssshut up, angel. Shut up."
Someone knocked on the door. A quiet little rap, completely at odds with the soft power all but booming on the edges of their senses. Almost gentle. They looked at each other some more.
"I'll go," Crowley said at last. He didn't look at all happy about suggesting it. "You two are hurt, you should ..."
"It's an archangel," Castiel hissed at him, trying to lever himself up. "None of us stand a chance anyway. They're probably after me, I'll ... let me ..." His chest spasmed again, the cough knocking him back onto the bed, and Aziraphale simply placed one hand over Castiel's heart, blue eyes shining with compassion, and shook his head.
"Perhaps you're right, dearest," the angel said softly, turning to look at Crowley, to linger desperately over his face. But there was steel in Aziraphale's eyes, in his voice, that Castiel hadn't seen in a long while. "Since they're being polite, perhaps you could just see what they want?"
Crowley nodded mutely, still deathly pale. "Yeah. See what they want. That's a good plan." He shook his head, reaching out to catch his angel's hand briefly, to just squeeze it, then ... pulled back, slowly, almost mechanically, and moved to the door. Aziraphale pushed Castiel gently down as he tried to stop him, not even looking at the other angel, and watched him go, his expression something Castiel couldn't name.
Crowley didn't look back. He disappeared beyond the bedroom door, moving slowly, warily, steadily, his footsteps moving through the house, and then there was a click as he opened the front door.
And then ... silence. A very big, pervasive silence, rolling through the house from Crowley back to them, a vast, spreading presence, big, bigger than an archangel, bigger than any angel, flooding their awareness for an endless, aching time ...
Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, it disappeared, vanished, like a wave going back out to sea, and in its wake both angels gasped desperately. Shuddered, lost and helpless, and Castiel almost didn't notice what had happened, almost missed it against the sheer loss of that pressure, that Presence. He almost missed the ease in his chest, the sweetness of the breath, the wholeness of the motion. He almost missed it.
The door opened. The door opened again, revealing a pale, strained Crowley leaning heavily on the door-frame, his arms wrapped around another figure, a still, motionless form still pulsing faintly with an archangel's Grace.
Crowley looked down at an unconscious Gabriel, back up at them as they stared at him, and shrugged awkwardly.
"Apparently we've been drafted, angel," the demon said distantly. "The Big Guy ... the Big Guy ... apparently He thinks we make a pretty good celestial Red Cross, or something. Supposed to ... to look after these guys, or whatever." He stopped, blinking to himself, eyes distant and staring at the ceiling. "Um. Could someone ... could one of you take him, maybe? I think ... I think I need to sit down ..." And he sort of folded, not even waiting for them to move, the body in his arms spilling across the floor as he crumpled.
Castiel stared, even as Aziraphale rushed over to his demon, even as the other angel propped Crowley against the wall and carefully gathered the unconscious archangel back up. Castiel stared, at them, at Gabriel, at the wall and the ceiling that had caught Crowley's interest so. He stared, ignoring Aziraphale's fuss, until he had to ask.
"Was that ..." he tried. "Was that ...?"
Crowley blinked at him slowly, and nodded shakily. "Been resurrecting people again, apparently," he whispered, stunned. "Dead angels. Buddy over there." He nodded at Gabriel. "Brought him back. Wants us ... wants us to look out for him, for a bit. You too. Wants us to ..." He stopped, stuttered, his head rolling to look at his angel helplessly. He reached out, hand shaking as if palsied. "Angel," he whispered. Aziraphale rushed to him.
"Hush, dearest," the angel whispered, a little desperately. "Hush dear, you're fine, it's fine. You're alright ..."
"It was Him," the demon whispered, blankly. "Haven't been near Him since the Fall, angel. Not supposed to be near him. Bloody demon, should have been ... He should have ... should have ..."
"He didn't," Aziraphale muttered, fiercely, taking Crowley's face between his hands and pressing close, until he was all the demon could see, until he was all but kissing him, lips pressed softly to lips and whispering desperately. "He didn't, dearest, you're safe, you're fine, He didn't hurt you, you're here, you're fine ..."
Castiel looked at them blankly, a rush of sound in his ears, his Grace beating on the inside of his head. "He said He wouldn't help," he managed, confusion and pain and hope all tangling together. "Joshua told us. He said He wouldn't help. Why would He ... why?"
Crowley rolled his head out of his angel's grasp to look at him, golden eyes blown and shocked, looking as bad as Castiel himself probably did. Maybe worse. "Search me," the demon muttered. "Should have blasted me on sight. Search me. Who knows what He's thinking?"
Sprawled on the floor, still unconscious, Gabriel groaned faintly, twitching uneasily at his rest. All three of them stared at him.
"You said ..." Castiel started, cautiously, watching the archangel. "You said He resurrected Gabriel? Recently?"
Crowley blinked, nodded. "Someone must've ... never thought I'd seen an archangel go down, must've been ... had to be ..."
"Lucifer," Castiel rasped. "Gabriel must have chosen ... chosen a side and ..."
"And so did He," Aziraphale finished, wonderingly. "Perhaps He was waiting for the right time? For ... For someone to make the right choice ..."
Crowley blinked, shaking himself, closing his eyes until he could open them without them being more black than gold. "Or maybe He just doesn't like archangel's blowing holes in other archangels, and didn't want to lose the sneaky bastard just yet," he growled, pulling himself back and upright. Physically and mentally. "Bloody Ineffable Plan, who knows? Who bloody knows? Best not to think about it. Best to just ... to just ..."
"Do our jobs?" Aziraphale asked softly, smiling at Crowley. The demon grimaced, but nodded.
"Got drafted by the bloody Big Guy Himself, angel," he muttered. "I've been terrified enough for one evening. I'm not inclined to argue. He said fix 'em, the pair of 'em. Look out for 'em. You and me, angel."
Aziraphale smiled at that. Smiled at Crowley, and then at Castiel, and then at the archangel spread at their feet. He smiled, brightly and laughingly while they stared at him, and nodded. "Well then," he said. "Best get to it, hadn't we?"
Castiel nodded distantly. He wasn't inclined to argue either. After all that, he just wasn't inclined to argue.
Contd: Exercises in Patience
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