Chapter Text
Aziraphale looked like shit.
Crowley paused just inside the shop door, studying his angel. Everything had seemed fine when he left for a drive earlier. Aziraphale had been happily digging through a box of new books, cup of tea going cold on his desk, expression full of joy.
It wasn’t full of joy now. He was curled up in his armchair, skin a horrible grey color, trembling hands clamped around a book.
“Angel?” Crowley slammed the door and crossed the shop in a few quick strides. He crouched down beside the chair and touched Aziraphale’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Hmm?” Aziraphale asked weakly. Glassy eyes flicked to him, then wandered back to the book. “Oh. Hello, Crowley. How was your drive?”
“Drive was fine, but you’re not.” Heart racing, Crowley cradled his angel’s sweaty face in both hands. Aziraphale was barely breathing, eyes fluttering open and closed. “Are you sick? What happened?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Feel a bit odd, that’s all. A touch dizzy.” Aziraphale’s voice was weak, vague. His eyes closed for a moment, then drifted open again. “I’ll, um…I’ll be fine, Crowley. Sure it’s just…”
“Just what?” Crowley looked around the shop, desperate to understand. Everything in here looked fine and the wards were intact, so Aziraphale hadn’t been attacked. He, unlike Crowley, rarely slept. So he probably wasn’t overtired. Which just left sick. “Did you have a bunch of customers or anything? Anyone who might have been wearing something, dunno…cursed, maybe?”
“Hmm? Don’t…don’t be so silly, Crowley.” Aziraphale pawed at Crowley’s hands, pushing them away, and gripped one arm of the chair. He tried to stand, failed, and slumped back. “M’n’angel. Don’t you think I’d, um…curse?”
“Actually no, you try not to do that,” Crowley answered, the sarcasm an automatic response to rising terror. What the fuck had happened to his angel? Crowley should have been here to stop it. Not out on some stupid drive. “Come on. Can you think of anything that happened, something that might have slipped your mind?”
Aziraphale gave a grumpy look, then shifted again. He clutched his book tighter and tried to stand. “I’d know. If there was a curse. You’re just…fussing…”
He pushed up, trembling, then went completely grey and fell forward. Crowley lunged to catch him, and Aziraphale’s limp body crashed into his chest.
“Angel! Angel!” Gasping, Crowley cradled his best friend, nudged him, shook him. Aziraphale just slumped in his arms, motionless. “Aziraphale!”
Oh, Somebody, what had happened to him? Crowley scooped Aziraphale off the floor and moved him to the sofa, then hurriedly loosened his bow tie. Hands shaking, he fumbled with the first few buttons of the baby blue shirt. Then unbuttoned the waistcoat for good measure.
Okay. He was pretty sure that was step one for first aid. What else was he supposed to do?
Nothing came to mind. Crowley knelt beside the sofa and lifted Aziraphale’s hand, massaged it. “Aziraphale. Aziraphale, can you hear me? Come on, I need you to wake up.”
No response. Chest barely rising and falling, slow uneven breaths. Skin grey-white. Mouth hanging open with drool trickling from one corner.
“Aziraphale!” Crowley jostled him again, trying to shake him awake. He’d never seen an angel pass out before, hadn’t even known it was possible. Although…
The fourteenth century, that shitty little French village with the weird cultists. He and Aziraphale had been sent there on the same mission—to get rid of the cult. Hell didn’t like them because they were scaring people into praying more, Heaven didn’t like them because they were cultists.
Aziraphale barely got in the village before he’d gone grey like this, dizzy and unsteady. The cultists had cursed the entire fence line, generating a circle of malevolent occult power. Crowley had kicked Aziraphale out of the village for his own good, then taken care of the cult. Both of them claimed credit.
Curse, then? He twisted and looked around the shop, examining the wards again. They were still intact, the metaphysical planes untarnished by any demonic energy except his own.
So whatever was causing this, it was Hellish and dangerous, but not demonic. Must be human-related, maybe a cursed object like he’d guessed. Something new, something that Aziraphale had been near for hours…
Slowly, Crowley turned. He stared at the fallen book on the floor, heart racing. It was from the new collection that Aziraphale had just picked up from another old bookshop, one that had failed and closed down. If the book was cursed…
It would have just made the humans who owed it unlucky. But a powerful curse could kill an angel, especially if said angel was in close proximity to it for ages.
With a sharp hiss of breath, Crowley lunged to grab the book. He ran a hand across the cover, closed his eyes, and focused. Yep. He could feel the curse now that he was searching for it, although it wouldn’t affect him.
Aziraphale, though, had probably been holding the damn thing for hours, unaware that it was poisoning him. He’d just dismissed the toxic effects as “feeling a bit odd” and then gone back to reading.
“Gah, angel!” Crowley scrambled across the shop to one of the warded lockboxes that Aziraphale kept in case of magical objects. Usually they held stuff for rituals and wards. Well, and whatever weird stuff the angel collected because he thought it was interesting.
Crowley flung a lockbox open and hissed at the sight of a blessed amulet, something they’d used to set up stronger wards against Hell. He slammed that lockbox closed and flipped open the next, which contained some sort of bottled purple liquid.
Whatever. That worked. He shoved the book in, closed the lockbox, and rushed back to his angel.
“Wake up. Come on, wake up.” Crowley dropped to his knees beside the sofa again, rubbed Aziraphale’s hand briskly. “Come on, no more curse. Angel. Aziraphale.”
Still nothing. Gulping, Crowley checked Aziraphale’s pulse. Weak and thready, corporation barely working. Without knowing anything about the curse itself, it was impossible to say what might happen.
But Aziraphale didn’t have any actual damage, not even on the metaphysical planes. It wasn’t a matter of contamination, not like how consecrated ground affected Crowley. Aziraphale was just sick.
“Oh, you fucking idiot, why didn’t you call me when you started feeling this bad?” Crowley muttered, pressing the back of his hand to Aziraphale’s cheek. Cold. Oh, Someone, he was so cold.
Trembling with worry, Crowley gently scooped his angel off the sofa and carried him upstairs. The sofa was okay for naps and stuff, but Aziraphale would be more comfortable in bed.
“Here we go, easy.” He settled Aziraphale in their big bed, eased his head back to the pillows. “Okay, there. Gonna take care of you, I promise.”
Oh shit, should have pulled the blankets back first. Hissing with irritation, Crowley snapped his fingers and miracled the blankets into place, thick and warm across Aziraphale’s shivering body. Okay. That was that.
Crowley jumped up and stormed away, digging his mobile from a pocket. “Call Book Girl,” he instructed sharply. The phone rang. And rang. And rang. “Come on, come on, pick up.”
Finally, a click and then, “Uh, hi! It’s nice to hear from you. What’s up?”
“Hey, no time for pleasantries. Aziraphale’s really sick.” Crowley paced back and forth beside the bed, raking a hand through his hair. “He bought some stupid cursed book and spent all day reading the damn thing. He passed out, I dunno…ten minutes ago?”
“Hmm, that’s not good,” Anathema said.
“I know it’s not fucking good!” Shit. Crowley closed his eyes and growled, furious at himself. He needed Anathema’s help, couldn’t afford to rip her head off. She might hang up on him, and then they’d be screwed. “Sorry. I just… I’m really worried. I don’t know what to do.”
“Is he injured? Did the book burn his hands or wound him on the celestial plane?”
“No. No, but he’s really cold and grey. Barely breathing. Pulse is weak.” His own breaths coming too fast, Crowley spun around to study his angel. What else did he need to tell her? “Um, there’s no metaphysical damage. He’s just really sick.”
“Okay, that’s a good sign,” Anathema said, sounding more confident now. Hopefully that was real confidence, not an act. “There shouldn’t be any permanent damage, then. I think you’re just gonna need to wait.”
“Just wait? Wait for what?” Frustration burned through Crowley, an inferno that threatened to blaze out of control. “He’s sick, I need to do something!”
“Seriously, there’s nothing you can do. It’s like…a human illness, okay? I can stop by later to check on him, but if there’s no metaphysical injury, he should recover on his own. Just stay near him.”
“Yes, all right,” Crowley snapped. He stormed alongside the bed, quaking. “Can you come down? Just to make sure? I can’t lose him, I can’t risk…”
“I’ll leave right now, okay?” Anathema sounded worried now. “Are you sure you’re gonna be all right? You sound like you’re about to have a panic attack.”
“M’ fine.” Legs going weak, Crowley mashed the mobile screen to end the call. His head roared, an increasing noise that drowned out everything other than his labored breaths and the rapid thud of his heart.
He grabbed the edge of a bookshelf and hung his head, struggling to breathe. But his throat was closing off, like there was smoke, like he was breathing in lungfuls of smoke while racing through the shop, twisting and screaming… Aziraphale! Where the Heaven are you, you idiot? I can’t find you!
“Nonono.” He raked a hand viciously through his hair, dragging his nails across his scalp. He couldn’t afford a flashback, not now. He needed to take care of Aziraphale.
Trembling, Crowley rushed back to his angel’s side. He sat on the edge of the bed and lifted the limp hand, showered it with kisses. “Come on, Aziraphale. Come on, wake up. Please wake up.”
Nothing. Crowley rocked back, looking around the bookshop with desperation clawing at him. No smoke, there was no smoke, it wasn’t on fire…
And Aziraphale was right here. But oh, Somebody, he was so grey. No color in his skin. Still drooling, beads of it trickling down his cheek and dripping to the pillows. Sweat glistening on his forehead. Breaths so shallow they were barely noticable.
“Aziraphale, come on!” Crowley grabbed his arms and shook him, gasping for breath. “Aziraphale, wake up! You have to wake up, come on!”
Panicking wasn’t doing any good, and neither was shaking Aziraphale. Crowley kissed his brow in apology and fixed his blankets, hands trembling. Anathema wasn’t an expert on angels, but she knew loads about the occult. And if she said Aziraphale would be fine…
“Nnnnh, fuck.” Crowley gathered Aziraphale’s hand again, staring down into the eerily still face. “You gotta wake up for me, okay? I won’t be able to believe you’ll be fine until you wake up. Some optimist I am, huh?”
But he couldn’t be optimistic when his best friend was so sick.