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The surgery had been unexpected.
Aziraphale had waited in A&E for hours since receiving news of the accident. There hadn’t been anything else to do, his mind unable to focus on the book one of their friends had handed him. A gift from a local shop, purchased on the way. There had been several people who had breezed in and out, some who had been willing to wait an hour or two with him.
He didn’t blame them for giving up. He wasn’t very good company.
He hoped no one blamed him for that, though the guilt gnawing at him was far more basic. His was the guilt of an alpha letting down his omega. His was the guilt of not having been there to protect his friend, partner, mate. The driver of the taxi Crowley was in had been fine, brought in minutes behind his mate but sitting up and speaking and, thus, wheeled into the waiting area until he could be seen. Had anyone realised just who Aziraphale was, they likely wouldn’t have allowed the driver to speak so candidly or at least would’ve kept them separated.
Hadn’t seen the other car coming. Just driving along, taking the omega to a bookshop in Soho.
Another source of guilt. Crowley had been coming to him. A surprise of some sort or he would’ve brought his own beloved car, Aziraphale unable to imagine ever getting into the Bentley again without Crowley being behind the driver’s seat.
His sweet bundle of barely-masked anxieties always seemed so… so cool behind that wheel, and Aziraphale knew it was simply because he was happy. He loved his car. He loved to drive.
God in Heaven, what if he never drove again? What if he couldn’t walk? What if he couldn’t feed himself?
What if he never awoke?
Aziraphale swatted that question away with a stubbornness Crowley would’ve smirked at, made some quip about stereotypical alphas. When he awoke, as he had to, Aziraphale would let him make all the snide anti-alpha comments he wanted to make. Aziraphale would let him do or say anything he could do or say so long as he awoke.
Please, he prayed, willing the physicians and their assistants to be keen. Crowley would absolutely despise dying in a wreck when he hadn’t even been driving. His reckless beloved.
Eventually, the ticking clock on the wall lulled him to a fitful sleep. He dreamt of sly golden eyes, tussled ginger locks, and snapped awake when his subconscious supplied some sort of nonsensical, garbled noise he had probably made when the speeding driver had careened into the taxi. He loved Crowley’s foolish noises, but not like that.
He didn’t sleep again.
Beep… beep… beep… beep…
Fucking alarm.
When he tried to move his arm, he felt a tugging against his palm that stung. What sort of terrible alarm had his husband concocted this time? He couldn’t even turn it off, his hand falling to his chest on an unhappy grunt.
The sound faded when he drifted off again.
Beep… beep… beep… beep…
He grumbled something when that alarm woke him yet again, but this time he smelled something delicious. Heavenly, even. Bourbon biscuits, faint black tea - it made his mouth water, and his eyes cracked open.
It was so fucking bright, he immediately shut them again.
“-ley?” he heard, fainter than the incessant beeping. Though his curiosity stirred, it and the noise weren’t enough to keep him awake long.
“It’s a good sign, Mr. Fell.”
Aziraphale hummed, hands clasped around the one of Crowley’s not currently pinned by an IV line. He was barely paying the doctor any mind, attention solidly on the ghostly pale omega. The stark white sheets didn’t suit him, made him seem washed out. His ginger hair looked too dark, his freckles blotches instead of the stars Aziraphale often compared them to.
He was also drugged beyond belief, a broken leg and dislocated hip the worst of exterior injuries beyond scratches from too much glass. Internally, he’d had bleeding and bruises. He no longer had a gallbladder, apparently, but he was alive.
Alive and awake, very bleary eyes cracking open. They stared at him, Aziraphale staring back. Crowley blinked very slowly. “Shturn’f fuckin’ ‘larm.”
“It isn’t an alarm,” Aziraphale managed, holding back relieved tears. “It’s your heartbeat, silly thing.”
“Mnghfrsh.”
That one was indecipherable, but Aziraphale let a few tears fall when his mate drifted back off. His Crowley was still in there, right as rain.
The next time golden eyes opened, they narrowed. They stared at their joined hands for a very long time before Crowley weakly tugged away. Aziraphale’s heart turned to dust. “Crowley…”
“M’married,” he muttered.
The dust stirred. “I know.”
“Then you… yooou… you shhhhouldn’t hold m’hand. Hu’band wouldn’t like it.”
Confused, worried about his mental state, Aziraphale blinked at him. “Crowley… I am your husband.”
Golden eyes went wide and so round, jaw falling slack. “You? Yer… Mine?”
“Yes, you silly boy.” Though Aziraphale clasped his hands and just barely resisted the urge to squirm under such shocked scrutiny. His omega had never found him lacking before now, but he was also very drugged, so it would surely make sense that he might believe he deserved better somehow or-
“I got to… to marry n’angel?”
“What?”
Very sleepy, very drugged, Crowley managed a sloppy smirk. “I married a gorgeousss angel. Yup. G’night.”
Suddenly he was asleep again, though this time Aziraphale could only laugh. His ridiculous mate was going to be alright. Everything was going to be just fine.