moral responses in reaction to questions of survivability [closed]

[anguiform]

It takes Crowley perhaps half an hour to wear out his panic into a sort of indignant fury that has him pacing the length and breadth of his flat in agitation. The angel's fine, or more or less fine; he's not dead, at any rate, and that's more than most could say after a sodding fistfight with the Devil. Crowley had laid him out on his bed, attempting the awkward job of arranging his wings under him (which, with wings a good eleven feet long from root to tip, is bloody difficult) and perfunctorily stripped him to make sure there weren't any vital wounds under his clothes. There'd been more bruising, blossoming spectacularly all over Aziraphale's stomach and chest, but nothing worse. His inspection carried out, he'd miracled him a pair of pyjamas, and then lurked by the bedside for a while. It was bizarre to see him asleep, though; unlike Crowley, who was terribly fond of sleep, Aziraphale had rarely seen the attraction, certainly not when Crowley was around and awake himself. He looked... not quite like himself, unconscious, the tics of expression and awareness that made him look like Aziraphale gone, leaving just a face that might have belonged to anyone.

And now, all Crowley has to do is wait for the irredeemable idiot to wake up. He recognises, distantly, that the jittering energy that's fuelling his trammelled irritation has sprung from his terror at the thought that Aziraphale might have actually died, but it's a lot easier to be annoyed than it is to worry. Crowley isn't especially comfortable with that kind of worrying, nor any of the associated feelings it carries with it, all the more because they lead inevitably down the path that now Lucifer is very likely going to have some kind of vendetta against Aziraphale for daring to lay hands upon His person, and that is the last thing they bloody need. And there'll likely be little point in Crowley trying to play agreeable and fly under the Devil's radar, after what Aziraphale had said.

'Bugger,' he mutters, as he paces down the shiny hardwood-floored corridor between lounge and bedroom. 'Bugger, bugger, bugger and bollocks, of all the stupid times to decide to play the bloody hero, the idiot. When he wakes up, I am going to murder him myself. And if he's got any idea of repeating that little performance, I'll do it again.'

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[bibliophale]

When consciousness finally seeps its way back in, the first thing Aziraphale notices is wow that is quite a lot of pain. Everything hurts. Muscles, bones, his entire face and head, his wings are a slightly duller agony than before, but agony nonetheless; he doubts he can even move. He doesn't try it, instead parting his lips, which are dry and cracked, and letting his eyes open very slightly. First he thinks I don't have my glasses, but then he remembers he doesn't need those to see, and it's just that his vision is all blurry. Ugh.

But he's alive. He is very much alive.

And... where? Unfamiliar territory. Certainly not his flat, and not his shop. His mind reaches out gingerly and he feels Crowley's presence, comfortingly enough, so this must be his place. They both made it out of the park then. Good.

There are several things he has to do, such as see to the aftermath, find Daine, and find Gabriel, not necessarily in that order. But he'll need to move first, and that still doesn't seem to be something his body is quite ready to do.

Can he speak? He tries it and at first can only make a little death-rattle of a noise. He swallows once, oh dear goodness that is excruciating, and tries again. This time he manages to say something that sounds a bit more like "Crowley?"

He can practically feel Crowley's immense agitation in the air, but it doesn't matter. At this point Aziraphale would be happy just to see his smarmy demon face.

[anguiform]

In the middle of his pacing and grousing, Crowley feels Aziraphale's sudden questing consciousness more than he hears his voice, considering how pathetic and choked it is. He's not normally that sensitive¹, but considering how highly strung he's feeling just at the moment, not to mention how focussed his thoughts are on the angel, it's not exactly surprising.

Still, when he becomes aware that Aziraphale is a) conscious, and b) mentally prodding his metaphysical surroundings in search of Crowley, he experiences a brief and paralysing conflict regarding how to respond. Part of his brain wants to thoroughly wallop Aziraphale for being such an idiot. Another (entirely embarrassing) part wants to curl around him and ensure he never does something like that again. The majority of his brain is strung somewhere between the two extremes, which makes actually deciding on a course of action rather difficult.

He compromises by sidling down the corridor into the bedroom as coolly as he can, despite the fact that he can practically feel the air around him vibrating with his internal tension. Crowley's bedroom, in deference to what is apparently stylish in 2013, involves a lot of polished, shiny hardwood and solidly-coloured upholstery. The sheets on his bed are a creatively named shade of black that Ikea claims is slightly different from pure black. It is a room in which Aziraphale looks entirely out of place, and something just under Crowley's lungs lurches at the sight of him, pathetically laid out over the mattress.

'Good bloody timing,' he grumbles, leaning awkwardly against the doorjamb. 'Next time, try and remember that you've got a sword before you get beaten half to death, eh?'

¹ Sensitivity, after all, is not a demonic thing, as Aziraphale has made clear more than once.

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale manages a weak smile at the sight of him, and the apt reminder. "Right," he says, his body creaking uncomfortably as he tries to prop himself up. Oof. He manages to get back on his elbows, though his shoulders aren't too happy about it, to say nothing of the roots of his wings. His face contorts briefly before he finishes, "Well, with any luck, next time I'll have a bit more of a plan. I mean it all happened so fast, strategy wasn't exactly forefront on my mind."

He feels oddly tense with Crowley standing across the room, or bereft, as though Crowley had been beside him and is no longer. Possibly some half-dream he had. He allows himself to lean back again, grunting and shifting his wings carefully out from under him, letting them flop limply along the (mercifully oversized) bed. The way they fan around him is a bit grotesque, broken up as they are. His wings have never looked as nice as Crowley's, but now they're both beyond wrecked.

"Are you all right?" he asks after a moment, looking up at the ceiling.

[anguiform]

'Am I all right?'

Crowley's voice only squeaks a little, and in a thoughtless instant he's stridden over to the bedside, hands up in a flailing, impotent gesture that doesn't go anywhere. His hands clench and unclench in a weird aborted instinct to strike or clutch at something, but in the end all he can do is throw them down at his sides. He laughs scornfully, and only a little hysterically.

'Says the one who got bludgeoned and choked and stepped on by the Devil. Of course I'm-- all right, angel.'

Crowley pauses for a moment to breathe heavily, and then more of Aziraphale's words catch up with him, and he twitches. 'And there will not be a "next time"! I don't care what kind of stupid, I, I don't know, stupid angelic pretensions about fighting evil you've got, I will bloody well sit on you if I have to.'

[bibliophale]

"Well I..." Aziraphale makes a vague gesture of his own, though it is rather lifeless, and his arm is soon dropped back at his side. As Crowley lists off the indignities he suffered at the icy hand and foot of the Adversary, he finds himself avoiding eye contact, gazing dully at the wall. He mumbles, "I just wanted to be sure."

At the subsequent outburst, he looks back, surprised by the vehemence. "But I-" he sputters, trying to lift himself up again to better protest. "I can't just let him - what if he hurts more people? What if he tries to-" He can't quite make himself vocalize what he's afraid of, settling instead for a tongue-tied series of noises while his eyes flick up and down Crowley. Finally he sets his jaw, frowning up at the demon. "I won't let him use you for whatever bloody schemes he cooks up. You know he's not your Satan, he's - I think he's Gabriel's. They feel sort of the same, don't they?

"Anyway that doesn't matter." He forces himself further upright with a rather undignified partial flap of one of his wings, bracing himself against pillows and headboard. "He was right about one thing, in a funny way; there's no more Arrangement, no more Above and Below. He doesn't have the right to-" He shakes his head angrily, feeling himself getting worked up again. He's too tired to get properly worked up, so he lands somewhere between the impotent frustration of a school teacher who cannot seem to make himself understood and the unfocused rage of a pedantic male nerd.

"You said yourself that we have free will now," he says coldly, distantly alarmed at himself for accepting what had previously terrified him. "You never were his servant, and you certainly aren't now."

[anguiform]

'It doesn't matter what right he has or doesn't have!' Crowley explodes, unable to quite help himself. 'I wasn't out there grovelling because I thought it was my place, or, or-- whatever, I was doing it because I didn't want either of us to get killed! And you're right, He's not our Satan, but all that means is that I don't know what He's going to do, which is not, you know, actually a good thing!'

He's not sure when he started shouting, but he's definitely shouting now. 'We can't just-- we can't fight Him like that, neither of us is anything like strong enough to try a, a, fucking barroom brawl with the Devil, we're not bloody Raphael. We have to, we have to be sneaky, and-- I mean, if he's got ideas about herding up humans like sheep, obviously that's way out of line, but there are ways to do these things!'

Crowley's knees bounce off the mattress as if to punctuate his words, which is when he notices that he's hit the bed, as if there's some unconscious part of himself magnetised towards Aziraphale. Suddenly awkward, half kneeling on the mattress, in the ragged right angle carved out between Aziraphale's wing and his side, he pulls his mouth to the side, nose wrinkling.

'You could have died,' he says eventually, much more quietly. 'Like, properly died.'

He hopes he won't be forced to articulate how legitimately terrifying that thought had been.

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale stares at Crowley in surprise and, progressively, utter bafflement as he goes on, the volume and vigor of his speech rising and then plateauing and dying altogether. He's not quite seen Crowley like this before, or at least not in a very long while. Certainly not over something like this.

"I... I couldn't just..." His voice dies out, unable to continue the argument. It's a matter of compromise, and neither of them is willing; Aziraphale won't stand by sneaking around while humans are rounded up for ritual sacrifice - Crowley won't openly defy the Devil. Each option makes better sense to he who suggested it, and in fact this is what they've always done, worked together to cancel each other out, only this time the stakes are blood-chillingly different.

"I know," he says softly. He can't quite articulate how frightened he'd been at the possibility, any more than he can look at Crowley right now, though a part of him desperately wants to. After a moment, not wanting to push the issue but not wanting to give way either, he says, "I do not intend to die. But I do intend to stop him. However I can."

[anguiform]

'Angel,' Crowley says, in a tone that would usually be wheedling, insinuating, but now falls squarely in the realm of desperate, and he reaches out to clutch Aziraphale's arm, his first concession to touch. He wrinkles his nose, attempting to silently imbue his vocal cords with a little more firmness. It doesn't entirely work.

'Pride,' he chides weakly, trying for humour and falling flat even to his own ears. 'That's a sin, remember. You're not bloody... John Wayne.'

He's annoyed at Aziraphale for his stupid stubbornness, and he's annoyed at himself for his utter failure to deal with it in a reasonable fashion, and accordingly, after a moment, Crowley simply groans and folds in half over his own knees. His forehead ends up resting on one of Aziraphale's shinbones, and Crowley groans again, loud and eloquent.

'Ugh.'

He presses his forehead against Aziraphale's leg, hands coming up to grip on either side. 'You know I'm on your side,' he mutters, half muffled by pyjama trousers, 'Or, well, whatever, you know. Our side. But it's no use getting yourself killed trying to be a hero. I couldn't-- mmeh.'

[bibliophale]

"S'not pride," Aziraphale protests, vaguely affronted. "It's - it's my responsibility to - when I'm the only one who can - oh."

This, with a startled blink, as Crowley winds up pressed against his leg, and comes close, a second time, to articulating what neither of them will articulate.

"Neither could I," Aziraphale points out with an arched eyebrow. "When he hit you, I thought-" Well. Anything could have happened, really. "I didn't have time to wait and see what he might do to you. I had to act."

He hesitates, feeling supremely awkward, then leans forward, a minimal action requiring a great amount of effort. He extends a hand and sifts it carefully through Crowley's hair.¹

"I'm all right," he says, gently, after a long and faintly uncomfortable moment. "Er. I will be, at any rate."

He supposes Crowley must have got him here, and into these rather nice pajamas, and patched him up enough that he can manage as much movement and conversation as he is currently managing. It might be too much to thank him for it though, so he just... slooowly retracts his hand, feeling very awkward indeed.

¹ Were they not terrifically bad at this sort of thing, and also operating on centuries of habitual looking the other way, this would be the absolutely ideal time for Aziraphale to say something along the lines of "I love you, stupid." But to assume that might actually happen in a remotely audible, conscious manner, could not be anything other than the most wishful of thinking.

[anguiform]

Crowley squeezes his eyes shut, feeling the weave of the fabric pressed against his forehead, Aziraphale's sharp shinbone underneath, and shakes his head. He's not disagreeing with anything in particular, just... overwhelmed. He's not had any chance to mentally prepare himself for this, and he has no idea what to do.

'Nnneh,' he says, half muffled, when Aziraphale slides an awkward hand into his hair. It feels nice, but Crowley has never really experienced that particular sensation in connection to comfort. Receiving comfort in general is weird and uncomfortable, almost more uncomfortable than the near-admission on both their parts that they don't know what they'd do if the other one got killed. That's fair enough, Crowley thinks; he doesn't want Aziraphale to die in the same way he didn't want the world to get blown up. Only common sense, and hardly worth dwelling on. Aziraphale petting his hair like he's a fainting maiden in a bad Hallmark movie, that's something else entirely.

Wrinkling his nose, he pulls himself up and swipes his hair out of his face. 'Will be, huh,' he repeats, vaguely scornful. The last time he'd seen Aziraphale in this bad a shape-- well, he's not sure when that might have been. There was that time in Tell es-Sweyhat. Or when they'd run into each other in El Tajín back before the Arrangement and given each other a proper walloping. It doesn't matter, really. Point is it's been a blessed while.

'Next time, we plan, all right?' It isn't really a question. 'There's other powers in this city too, loathe as I might be to throw my lot in with some of them.'

[bibliophale]

"Well of course," he says in regards to the first thing. "I'd always rather have a plan, I mean, if we'd had time this time, I'd have planned. Only now I don't know where he's gone, and when he'll show his face again. I wonder if Gabriel knows." He frowns thoughtfully. "Do you suppose he might be from Gabriel's universe? They felt sort of... similarly unfamiliar. And he didn't look the part, like Gabriel doesn't."

He shrugs, and oh dear, that was a mistake. He winces sharply and reaches up to grip at one of his shoulders, massaging the muscle gingerly.

"He didn't fight fair," he mutters, thinking of his poor mangled wings.

[anguiform]

'Of course he didn't fight fair,' Crowley snorts, nose wrinkling, 'he's the Devil.' In case Aziraphale had missed that. It seems even odds that he might've, given his behaviour thus far. Crowley's overall opinion of Aziraphale's intellect has not been greatly improved by this encounter.

The sharp intake of breath and sudden attention paid to his shoulder does not escape Crowley's attention, and he huffs, waving a dismissive sort of hand at Aziraphale. 'Oh, turn over.'

His tone is impatient, as if it were a bothersome trifle that's distracting Crowley from more important matters, but Aziraphale does as he's asked regardless. Crowley is faintly surprised, and then faintly alarmed at what that must say about the amount of pain Aziraphale is in, that he should comply so easily. Faintly stymied, he regards the angel's sprawled form.

'Uh, are you ok if I sit on you, or should I... not do that?'

All this being considerate, it makes him itch.

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale's not interested in arguing that or any point; he turns because he knows Crowley wants to help him, and he needs the help, and he's too tired to pretend he doesn't.

"Should be all right," he murmurs, though he wants to protest. He feels so very small and pathetic - stooping to let a demon climb atop him, and not in some sort of mutually undiscussed... 'physical arrangement'. But these are petty, old-fashioned feelings. Getting easier to ignore now.

He lets out a slightly uncomfortable grunt as Crowley's weight shifts on top of him, but otherwise remains still.

[anguiform]

Crowley wrinkles his nose as he swings himself astride Aziraphale, pausing to settle and let Aziraphale get used to his weight. Nursing is so very not in Crowley's bailiwick, but Aziraphale is a mess and Crowley's the one who's here right now, so that's the way it's going to be.

The angel's wings spread out around him, the tips trailing off the bed, which Crowley had made wider so they wouldn't have to bend unnecessarily, tawny brown and umber. He'd more or less healed the breaks at the park, but they're still painful to look at, feathers all crushed and mangled. The nape of Aziraphale's neck, bared in front of him, is unmarred, but the necrotic-looking darkness of the... frostbite, whatever it is, rings around all the way to behind his ears. Crowley gnaws his lip, and decides not to focus on that.

'You're a bloody mess,' he mutters, laying hands on Aziraphale's back, palms flat and fingers spread out. Under the skin, along with the wings, have appeared broad bands of muscle that aren't normally there, and Crowley grunts a little as he focusses on knitting them back together, the places where they've been torn entirely from the bone, or simply from connecting sinews.

If these were regular injuries, Crowley would have no problem healing them with a thought and a click of the fingers, but these are stubborn and resistant. Hurts done by a Power, and one from a different universe, at that. Crowley huffs, and then clicks his tongue when something occurs to him. Wow, well done, forgetting about that until now, sometimes he's just as stupid as the angel.

'Actually, you know what, this is better,' he says, and his hands heat for a moment as he gives Aziraphale the occult equivalent of a generous dose of morphine. Crowley can still go about fixing what he can, but at least Aziraphale won't be in pain as he does it.

[has_a_horn]

It takes longer than he's been hoping for before he's done protecting his home and his people after Lucifer decides to drop by. When he's finally done there, he's not done yet. Lucifer had been seriously injured by Aziraphale, so he's betting that Aziraphale isn't very well at all, at the moment. Even if he is from another universe, Gabriel doesn't want to lose anymore angels. He's gotten used to the idea of Aziraphale and Crowley being around. It would be a shame to lose him before he even got to know him properly.

He steps outside of his building, checks over the sigil, and then locks the door for good measure before he seeks out Aziraphale. Somewhere in the ROMAC apartment building...and now that he feels him out, he can tell that he's definitely not doing well. Anywhere ROMAC isn't exactly someplace he wants to be, but that doesn't matter at the moment. He better hurry.

In the next moment, he's walking towards the bed where Aziraphale is lying. God, what had Lucifer done to him? He's never doubted his brother's cruelty, but it's always a shock to see the results laid out for him like this. His wings look like Lucifer had tried to tear them off. He wonders if that's something that Lucifer has done before, and promptly feels ill.

"I'm here to help," he says quickly, announcing himself in hopes that Crowley won't go on the defensive, then pushes Crowley away from his angel. "Off, off, it's very sweet, but I can do better. Get off."

Once Crowley manages to get off of the bed, Gabriel takes his place and starts working. "Aziraphale. I see you've met my brother." He sets his hands down at Aziraphale's back, feeling out the damage there first. There's a lot of it. He sighs sadly and starts working on repairing the muscle structures. It won't go quickly, but it should go far quicker than anything Crowley could manage.

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale breathes out slowly as Crowley lays his hands down. Crowley's never healed him before. He's healed occasionally, reviving birds and so forth for Aziraphale's benefit, but it's never like this. It feels a little improper receiving such care from a demon, but they've passed enough boundaries at this point (after all he did just punch Satan in the face) that what's the difference?

And it is nice. He knows, of course, that there is goodness lurking in the demon, but it's nice to be on the receiving end.

"I know," he murmurs when Crowley remarks on his condition. He draws a breath through his teeth, feeling all of Crowley's work acutely - and then Crowley gives him that glorious dose of relief, numbing him to the pain.

"Oh," he breathes. "Much better, thank you." He hesitates, and then says, with far greater intent, "Thank you, Crowley."

Which is when the intrusion occurs. He starts, though he can't exactly move, at the new presence and the voice. He looks up, wide-eyed, as Gabriel practically shoves Crowley away from him.

"Wait-" he protests faintly, but Gabriel is already getting to work, and there is a notable improvement. He sighs, only somewhat mollified.

His brother. He feels his gut clench at the memory of Lucifer using that term with him.

"Then he is from your world," he says. "I'd suspected as much." Now that they've been joined, he'd much rather be upright and able to face them and converse properly, instead of stuck lying on his face. He twists his head up as much as he can to get a look at the Archangel. "Was it you he was going to see? Did he harm you?"