(Untitled)

[a_fell]

It's late when he arrives upstairs, so his knock is quiet and hesitant. When there's no answer, he opens the door (it might have been locked, but that is easily circumvented) to find Crowley sound asleep on top of the bedclothes

Comments

[aj_crawley]

Small mercies: there's no window in the room, no sunlight to slant across the bed, slowly creeping up the mattress until it shines through sleeping eyelids. There's only the dimmed lamplight, warmer and more forgiving than the day.

In here, it could be any time at all.

But it isn't; it's morning, and some things are as regular and predictable as the hidden sunrise itself. Although the room is perfectly warm, Crowley huffs silently in unconscious complaint, hunching slightly in something that isn't quite a shiver. Her bare feet curl against the blanket.

After a moment, she reaches out, hand questing instinctively - plaintively - across the bedclothes. Almost entirely insensible or no, Crowley's still a demon, and this much she knows without even needing to be aware: there's an angel in the room.

[aj_crawley]

"I'm fine," she repeats. "I'm really - "

Her voice cracks again, and that's enough excuse to turn away for a moment - to clear her throat, and reach for the glass of water that's suddenly sitting on the bedside table.

Aziraphael wants to know if there's anything he can do.

[a_fell]

He can't resist it any longer; he reaches out and gently brushes the strand of hair away. His hand lingers a little longer than absolutely necessary, perhaps.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to," he says, and it feels like he's walking a long distance on very thin ice. It's more difficult to say than he would have thought.

"I'll leave, if you prefer. I'd rather not, though."

He could use any number of terms to describe Crowley right now, but 'fine' is not one of them.

[aj_crawley]

"What's to tell?" she says; a challenge, or it would be, were not all the belligerence drained out of her after last night.

Regardless, it's barely out before she interrupts herself with, "But no. You don't, er, you don't have to leave."

[a_fell]

"Thank you," he says, and manages to keep the automatic wince at her first comment to a minimum.

He readjusts his position on the bed; when he settles, he's just a few inches closer.

[aj_crawley]

Crowley doesn't move - not closer, but not away, either. Instead, she just stares down into her glass of water, because she knows if she looks up (because she caught the wince out of the corner of her eye) -

He's looking at her like that.

After a moment, it occurs to her to answer Aziraphael with a rough shrug of her shoulders.

[a_fell]

"Crowley," he says after a few moments' silence.

"What is it? Something isn't right, and I don't - I don't know what to do."

[aj_crawley]

First, she finishes her water. Leans over to place it back on the bedside table. A droplet trickles down the outside of the glass and seeps into the grain of the wood. Her eyes land on her sunglasses, and for the briefest of moments her fingers twitch toward them.

Sitting back (sunglasses-less, throat less dry), she says, "Sometimes, I think you forget what I am."

[a_fell]

Aziraphael starts to respond, then stops.

"I suppose that I don't think about it much, no. You're Crowley, and most of the time the details don't matter."

[aj_crawley]

"And what - "

Now she looks at him. Her eyes aren't hard, or angry, but -

(And yet, hesitation. Hard to get the words out.)

"What sort of demon would let themselves be made to feel   ashamed for - for this?"

[a_fell]

Again, he hesitates before speaking.

"I can't imagine that anyone who'd lived through several thousand years on Earth could just brush it off," he says.

"I don't like it that you have to do these things, and I can't imagine that I ever will. But I don't feel that you're somehow to blame for it, and I don't want you to feel that, either."

Improbably, he smiles, though it's very weak.

"You used to remind me; it's not personal. It's horrible, but it's only business. It's not the important part."

[aj_crawley]

"You always say that." Close, dangerously close to a snap, but there's a thin note of distress in her voice. "You always say that, Aziraphael, but then sometimes you - I swear you look at me like you're hurt."

[a_fell]

He looks stricken.

"I don't like sitting by while you're hurt in - in the line of duty, so to speak. It isn't directed at you; I'm sorry if it looks that way." His eyes drift down to their hands again, and he drags them back to Crowley's.

"I thought not mentioning it would help, but it doesn't seem to. I get so worried, and then you come back and we try to pretend that you haven't been hurt, and I just want to--"

He's squeezing Crowley's hand rather tightly now, and makes a conscious effort to loosen his grip.

[aj_crawley]

"Don't be so - " she jerks her hand from his, "fucking melodramatic. 'Hurt in the line of duty'."

Her hand, free now, clenches on her knee; her voice is harsh.

"It's nothing. Alright? It's nothing."

[a_fell]

"If it's nothing, why won't you ever let us talk about where you've been afterward?" he asks, and tries to conceal his distress when she jerks her hand away.

"What are you doing up here alone, drinking yourself into a stupor? I know I can't change what happens to you, but if I had the opportunity, I might have a chance of changing what happens after."

[aj_crawley]

Crowley looks up at him, an expression of profound disbelief on her face.

"Are you serious? You want to have conversations about it? You want a play-by-play?"