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ernestVerse: Ohtori
Pairings: Crowley/Aziraphale
Characters: Crowley, Aziraphale, Hastur
Minor characters: Adam Young, Dog, Warlock Dowling
Word Count: 1020
Warnings: Suicide attempt, presumed death, non-graphic violence, The Swords Of Hatred
Crowley’s hand closes around Aziraphale’s wrist just in time, and he holds on tight for Somebody’s sake. This isn’t fingers twined in hope and goodbye while the ground opens up for the Morning Star. That was simple compared to this: one grand gesture versus two scared and lonely people who don’t know what they can do for each other.
“Just let me go.” Aziraphale doesn’t scream or beg, his voice too deadened to even sound resigned to the Fall. “Please. It hurts so much.”
He braces his feet and tries to pull Aziraphale back from the edge. Carefully now, don’t want to unbalance them both. “No. I won’t let you go. I know you’re hurting, Aziraphale, I may not remember everything about Heaven but I know how constricting it can be, probably better than anyone else here. But Aziraphale – I remember what happens next if you flirt with gravity.”
Aziraphale gulps in a breath and turns to look at him, eyes wide. Or he starts to twist his torso and Crowley has to lean with the motion, nearly falling himself. He snaps open his dark wings as a counterbalance and this time Aziraphale allows himself to be pulled to steadier ground.
“Gabriel and the Host are still my brothers,” he says once they’re both safe. After that glance that almost ended them he hasn’t looked at Crowley *once*, choosing instead to stare at his own hands splayed out on the flagstones.
All Crowley wants to do is hold fast to Aziraphale and let him feel protected, but since he can’t do that he can’t bear to look at the angel either. He looks up and out at the stars, back in time to before that light began its journey. “Yes,” he says. “And heaven knows you love them.”
“I wish I didn’t, sometimes. It might be easier to leave.”
“Not your fault, angel. You’re made for love and you’re so incredibly willing to forgive. I think it’s *amazing*. Not your fault that even people who love each other can do terrible things.”
*
Crowley’s sunglasses flash like Anthy’s when he most needs to hide something of himself, but with the pitiless darkness of Hellfire. It’s what his superiors expect him to want others to see, so it’s what he shows when he doesn’t have the energy to Be Yourself.
Aziraphale as Anthy prepares a poisoned meal and at the end he sighs with such obvious delight that Crowley tries a whole bunch too and gets so sick he almost dies.
In one cycle Adam is Mikage and Dog is Mamiya, and they make things happen how various people think they *should* have happened.
In one cycle Adam and Warlock are Touga and Nanami, one brother getting the training and attention intended for the more "powerful" one.
Akio sees Crowley’s Bentley and the next time round it’s the Car of Seduction and Crowley doesn’t *quite* remember, but seeing it makes him feel hunted.
*
In one of the Very Very Bad cycles, Crowley is Anthy and Aziraphale is Utena, and they don't even get CLOSE to the Tadfield airbase, because the bookshop fire *is* the final duel and instead of being freed from his coffin, Crowley just has to watch Aziraphale pierced by Shadwell's "exorcism" swords and turned into a pillar of flame before disappearing, and he has no hope that he's out there somewhere.
So he turns to Hastur with absolute horror and emptiness in his eyes, and Hastur's just comforts him like "shh, shh, it's alright, you don't need to think about that angel ever again," and Crowley half-convinces himself that Aziraphale was the enemy instead of someone dear to him and when the NEXT cycle rolls around it takes him a lot longer to even begin to trust Aziraphale (trust that he won't disappear)
Later if he ever recollects those two cycles and how he curled into Hastur's chest and sobbed, he just feels sick to his stomach.
*
Crowley wakes with a wet face and he can’t tell if it’s from tears or blood, his own or someone else’s, a flask of holy water or a pool of boiling sulfur. It hardly matters when they all hurt the same; all make him a mess, just a fucking wreck. He knows he’s dwelling on things that probably never even happened, or not like that, and that no angel would ever look at a pitiful creature like himself with anything but disdain, but then why does he feel like that cloudwreathed face has meant something important to him?
A flash of lightning and – “Aziraphale!” he chokes out. The world is waking and as it hones its blade on its anger it gets harder to breathe, but here at least is something soft to hold onto. It will hurt that much more to return to the reality of making himself small for the sake of people who need something to despise. “Are you really here?”
“Not sure, never done this before.” His insubstantial eyes are unfocused and this is because he can’t see Crowley at all, can only guess based on his voice. “I’m not really anywhere, yet,” he says with an apologetic little laugh, but Crowley knows that’s not true.
They’re both stuck in their own separate coffins so even if they were right next to each other there’d still be all that unendurable pain and all that reckless idealism, two crossed swords that could never be marshalled to assert the same things.
All the same, Crowley wants; he can’t remember *ever* wanting like this. And he reaches out; he can’t remember the last time he reached for someone either, but there’s nothing there, not even air, so his lungs heave to fill the sudden vacuum.
He knows that if they *do* meet again Aziraphale won’t remember a damn thing. Lucky bastard, he always *was* able to retreat to his bookshop and block out anything that threatened to upend his careful worldview.
Crowley wakes, face wet for no reason but a dream he can’t remember. It’s time to get ready for the day, because the Apple Groom is needed.