Crowley hits the ground hard, so hard he is actually driven into earth by a few inches. It sends his vision tunnelling inward in black and white flashes, his sunglasses snapping under the impact, the bridge cutting into his skin; he can see, faintly, when he opens his eyes again, the red of blood tracking its way down the side of his nose. Fuck, he's thinking, fuckfuckfuck, I'm dead, and Aziraphale's probably dead too, what the hell kind of demon am I?

But no further blows come, no remonstrance from the Devil nor any promise to teach him what it is to obey his master.

Instead, absurdly, as Crowley lies with his face in the dirt and his head ringing, there comes the great clap of wings, angelic wings, too loud to be anything else, and the sudden whoomph of displaced air, and the crack of a blow landing, and Aziraphale's voice, cold and ringing with the many dimensions he occupies outside of this one-- chiding the Devil for daring to strike Crowley? Oh, shit.

He wants to punch Aziraphale in the face himself, somewhere between the urge to laugh hysterically and weep from fear, but he does neither. All he can do, serpent that he is, cursed from the beginning to crawl on his belly in the dirt, is roll out of the way and snap up to stare, petrified and unbelieving, at the sight of Aziraphale with his wings out, squaring up to the Devil with his fists up like he expects a fair fucking fight by Queensbury rules.