Good Omens Ficlet

[icarus_chained]

For three_tree , who wanted some H/C with Crowley as the H.

Title:  Tremors
Rating:  PG-13
Fandom:  Good Omens
Continuity:  Pre-GO, I think, but probably not by long ...
Characters/Pairings:  Aziraphale/Crowley
Summary:  Aziraphale didn't know how he'd managed to find Crowley
Wordcount:  520
Warnings:  Crowley whump
Disclaimer:  Not mine

Tremors

Aziraphale didn't know how he'd managed to find Crowley. He hadn't even known the demon was there to be found. They hadn't seen each other in a while, which happened, occasionally, given that they'd been down here for something close to five and a half thousand years and one couldn't spend all one's time on top of someone ... He'd thought the demon was busy, tempting or wiling or some other wicked thing, somewhere safely out of Aziraphale's reach where he wouldn't have to deal with it. Unless it was important, but Crowley usually told him about those. It was the Arrangement. Crowley had just been ... somewhere else. Aziraphale hadn't realised he was waiting to be found.

Maybe Crowley hadn't realised it either. Maybe he hadn't wanted it. The old Serpent, following who knew what instincts, had pulled himself to a safe, dank space, and curled there to lick his wounds. Curled there to wait out the pain until it went away. Curled there until the angelic poison in his system ran its course. Because, perhaps, he had nowhere else to go. Because demons tended to kill each other for showing weakness, and the humans were currently in a superstitious phase and tended to react badly to bleeding people with wings, and angels had done this to him in the first place, and Crowley had ... had nowhere else to go, and crawled unseen, by pure instinct, to hide beneath Aziraphale's house and curl up around his pain.

And that ... There was a tremor in his hands, now. A quiver, not of fear but of some deep current of rage, and Aziraphale didn't quite know what to do with it. Didn't quite understand what had caused it. There was a tremor in his hands, had been since he had pried that bloodied bundle of feathers and pain from its nest, ever since he had pulled a hissing, feverish Crowley up into the light as gently as he possibly could. Ever since the demon had struggled against him, desperate and sly despite the clouding in his eyes, and sagged against him when he realised who Aziraphale was. Since then. Aziraphale's hands had shaken.

They shook now, too. While he carefully tucked dark, sweat-soaked hair back from golden eyes. As he ignored the tiny flinches every time Crowley surfaced enough to register his touch, the tiny quivers of fear. As he smiled at the way his demon leaned slightly into the curve of his palm when he was aware enough to know who touched him, but not enough to be ashamed of it. As he poured as much power as he dared into the healing of a demon's wound, and silently worked out a hundred thousand lies to hide that action from Above, and regretted not a one. As he held the demon close, while Crowley climbed laboriously back to health and grumbled shame-facedly at him, and felt a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with fever. His hands shook.

He didn't know how he'd managed to find Crowley. But ... he was glad that he had. Very ... very glad.