Ineffable Omens (Crowley x Aziraphale)

What You Deserve

Being an angel with absolutely zero responsibilities, no need to sleep or eat or anything of the kind, Aziraphale could get away with doing absolutely nothing for a week. Which was what he did. In the scale of things, a week was very quick for him. He sat there on the floor of his bookshop, with his blanket and empty cocoa cup, simply staring off into space and thinking. No matter how he looked at it, he didn't understand how Crowley could have done that. How Crowley could have hit him. He was missing something.

Or he had terribly misjudged his friend. Crowley was just another demon, with no care for anyone else, and he should have given up on him a while ago. But no, that wasn't who Aziraphale was. That wasn't what an angel did. He knew there was good in Crowley, which was why it hurt so much when Crowley hurt him the way he did. It wasn't the first time they had fought—being stuck together for 6,000 years, some major fights are bound to break out, but Crowley had never, ever, physically hurt him. They both said things—things they didn't mean—but this was new. Aziraphale didn't know what to think.

So he sat there, numb, trying to understand what was going on. His eyes lingered on the phone, wondering if he should give Crowley a call, but he never did. What was the point. By the end of the week, he had decided it was simply time to move on from Crowley. He had more, better things to do than to ponder over his ex-best friend. So Aziraphale sat up, and he got on with his life.

Crowley had worse ways of coping. He moped around his manor for days, eating nothing at all and then binge-eating to numb the pain. At times he would succumb to fits of anger and throw his possessions around, wrecking his hole place. He, at one point, ran into a bookstore and started yelling at people until he eventually got dragged out. He went to bars and drank until he passed out. He took the Bentley out for drives over a hundred—one twenty—miles per hour. He needed some sort of punishment for what he did to Aziraphale.

So he found Gabriel. It wasn't hard to track down the archangel. He was out on one of his runs in this awful jogging gear. Really, the whole grey and white scheme didn't flatter him, especially when it came to sweatpants and baggy sweatshirts.

"Hey jackass!" Crowley shouted at the archangel, flipping him off once he got his attention.

"Crowley?" Gabriel asked, stopping running and squinting to make sure he was seeing correctly. "Is that you?"

"Yeah it is, dickwad. What's up?"

"What are you doing here, Demon?" Gabriel asked, rolling his eyes and Crowley strolled toward him.

"I was just wondering why the fuck you would think it was okay to wear those sweatpants in public."

"They're comfy!" Gabriel said defensively.

"No, they're fucking ugly," Crowley said, throwing a punch, which Gabriel blocked with ease.

"Oh, so you came here for an ass-kicking?" Gabriel asked. "Fine." He kneed Crowley in the stomach, followed by a punch, causing the demon to buckle over in pain. This was the reaction he was going for, however, and he let Gabriel beat the shit out of him. He fought back a little, but he didn't really care. He pretty much laid there on the ground while Gabriel kicked him and punched him. Gabriel finally got bored and left Crowley lying there, broken and bruised.

Crowley laid there for a good long while. It felt good to finally get what he deserved. His sunglasses lay cracked and broken on the ground next to him, and he scooped them up as he stood up, limping away from the spot of his beating. His nose was broken and bleeding, and his lip was split open. He definitely felt a few cracked ribs, but nothing a little miracle wouldn't fix. He didn't fix it, though. He deserved it.

He got back in his Bentley and drove home, passing Aziraphale's bookshop on the way home. There was an alternate, faster route he could have taken, but he was drawn back to the bookshop. He parked by the curb and sat there several minutes, torn between knocking on the door or just driving away. He had to apologize, though. He couldn't just leave things the way they were.

Limping up to Aziraphale's bookshop, he knocked on the door.

"We're closed!" Aziraphale called from inside.

Crowley almost melted, tears coming to his eyes when he heard Aziraphale's voice. Aziraphale. His angel. Who he had hurt. Who he had hit. How could he have been so stupid?

"Azi," he called out weakly before his courage died out.

He waited there a few moments before Aziraphale finally opened the door. "I don't want to talk," he said, though his face registered some form of shock at the appearance of his friend ... bloody and bruised.

"I know, I know, I don't expect you to want to see me—"

"No, I don't. Please, go away."

"Azira, I'm sorry—"

"No!" Aziraphale snapped. "You don't get to just take it back, okay? I don't care about your apology, I don't care about you! I should have known from the start you were just another ... just another lousy demon. I wish I had never been your friend. You were ... you were the one person I thought would never hurt me. I was wrong about you, Crowley. I'm sorry I trusted you. Now please, go!" Aziraphale closed the door, leaving Crowley alone in the cold. Now, God decided to make it rain, and it poured down on Crowley.

That was it. Crowley got what he deserved. Standing alone, broken, bloody, and bruise, drenched out in the cold by the pouring rain.