Let The Games Begin - Good Omens

Chapter Eight

Crowley had lost track of the time. His head dangled, blood coated his whole body, and not only was his leg broken, but along with countless other bones. He was dangling by his wrists, chained to the ceiling. His feet barely dragged on the ground and his body swayed with every rough movement.

Crowley couldn't see much, either. His vision had gone blurry, not that it mattered though because Crowley was sure even if he was able to see, his brain would have been so damaged that he wouldn't be able to register what he was seeing.

He was doing this for Aziraphale. That's what he kept telling himself every time another angel came up and beat the ever-loving shit out of him. Gabriel had said he wanted the angels to practice with Crowley, so he assumed he would be given some sort of a chance.

He was wrong. Gabriel had literally strung Crowley in the middle of the room and told the angels to go at it. He had set some rules, of course, but primarily only to make sure Crowley stayed alive as long as possible.

Crowley had questioned how this helped the angels and Gabriel said that Crowley was their reward. When Crowley questioned him even further, he said that each time an angel one of their practice matches- their reward was that they'd get to hit Crowley a couple times.

Crowley thought it was ridiculous- but he didn't have a choice. He just remained limp, trying not to move in case he would hurt himself even more. Although when sudden shouting filled the room, Crowley managed to lift his head.

"Gabriel, you son of a bitch!"

Crowley recognized the voice instantly. Aziraphale. Even though Crowley's eyes wouldn't focus completely, he could see the outline of his friend not too far away.

Gabriel and the rest of the angels in the room stopped short.

"How did you get in here?! You're human!" Gabriel snapped.

"Well... now that you mention it- I just walked in here. You need some better security," Aziraphale said, puzzled.

Crowley struggled to keep his head up, but Aziraphale eventually locked eyes with him. As soon as Crowley knew Aziraphale had spotted him, he let his head fall back down. He just didn't have the energy to hold his head up.

"Crowley!" Aziraphale shouted.

Crowley could hear the heavy thuds of footsteps, but then they were quickly cut off when Aziraphale let out some sort of grunt. Crowley snapped his head back up and saw that Gabriel had grabbed Aziraphale, preventing him from getting to Crowley.

"Let go of me, Gabriel!" Aziraphale shouted, fighting against his captors' grip.

"He did this to himself, Aziraphale! It's time for you to drop the act and come back to Heaven! Crowley agreed to give us his full cooperation!" Gabriel tightened his grip on Aziraphale.

The rest of the angels in the room didn't quite know what to do. They all just stood around, watching awkwardly. Some began to move in to help, but stopped before they actually got anywhere near Gabriel and Aziraphale.

"Just let him go, Gabriel!" Aziraphale strained to speak as Gabriel's arm pressed against his throat.

"What are you going to do, Aziraphale? Remember, you're just human!" Gabriel teased, having the audacity to smile.

"Well sometimes, human isn't such a bad thing to be!" Aziraphale yelled. "Just... just let him go!"

As Aziraphale shouted, Crowley found himself being blinded. He thought he was passing out, maybe even dying, but when he looked up and saw that the explosion of light was coming from Aziraphale, he was stunned.

The perfect, stainless windows of Heaven suddenly shattered, sending glass everywhere. Most of the angels made a run for it, teleporting or flying off or whatever it is that they do. Their main goal was to just get away from Aziraphale.

When the light had disappeared, Crowley noticed that Gabriel had left too. Crowley and Aziraphale were the only ones in the room. Aziraphale just sort of stood still, his mouth hanging partially open and his eyes frozen. He quickly snapped out of it.

"Crowley!" He called out, sprinting over to where Crowley was hanging.

"Aziraphale... wha- what just happened?" Crowley stammered. "I thought we were human,"

Aziraphale paid no attention to Crowley's questions, but instead made the chains around his wrists disappear. Crowley knew he couldn't hold his own weight, so when the chains disappeared he felt his body collapse.

But Aziraphale was there to catch him.

Aziraphale and Crowley slumped down to the floor, both still in shock over what had just happened.

"Az-" Crowley couldn't even get his whole name out before Aziraphale pulled Crowley close and wrapped his arms around him.

Crowley didn't need to fight back- he found no reason to. Sure, Crowley wasn't the biggest fan of affection but he needed this. He wrapped his arms around Aziraphale and rested his head on his shoulder. Just when Crowley was starting to enjoy the moment, Aziraphale pushed him off and glared at him.

"You idiot!" He yelled. "Why would you give them your cooperation?! You could have been killed!" Aziraphale grabbed Crowley's wrist, which was definitely broken.

Crowley yelled out, but then Aziraphale hovered his hand over the bones and began to heal his arm.

"Well, they said they would leave you alone if I helped them out-"

Aziraphale grabbed Crowley's other arm and caused him to yelp again. Crowley had never seen someone use healing magic so angrily before.

"They already were leaving us alone, Crowley! Why did you go and pester them?!" Aziraphale snapped, moving his hand along Crowley's leg, letting all of the bones grow back into place.

The pain slowly began to disappear. "Well, they were going to make you fall,"

Aziraphale stopped in shock. "What?"

"I got this dream... Gabriel was going to make you fall," Crowley explained, "So I stepped in and made sure that didn't happen,"

"You trusted Gabriel?!"

"I didn't have much of a choice here, Angel! I wasn't going to risk them turning you back just so they could send you to Hell!" Crowley was starting to get worked up.

"Why does it matter to you so much, Crowley?" Aziraphale scoffed.

"Because I love you!" Crowley blurted out.

Aziraphale laughed. "Well... yes, dear, I know that. I could sense it ever since the day on the wall. I suspect I love you as well, given that we've known each other for over 6,000 years-"

"That's not what I meant," Crowley almost choked on his words.

Aziraphale looked up and looked at Crowley. His expression was unreadable, was he mad? Understanding? Crowley couldn't place it. Without really knowing what he was doing, Crowley leaned forward and kissed the angel on the lips.

He immediately pulled back and looked away, not wanting to see what Aziraphale's expression looked like now. In a perfect world, Aziraphale would kiss Crowley back and-

"It was stupid for you to sacrifice yourself like this," Aziraphale had just gone back to healing up Crowley's injuries.

Was Aziraphale just going to ignore what I just did?

It appears Crowley was also going to ignore it. "You got your powers back, then?"

Aziraphale nodded. "I guess when it came down to saving you... something just exploded. I don't really understand it, but who knows. Maybe The Almighty is on our side,"

"Angel?"

"Yes?"

"You realize how fucked we are right now?" Crowley said.

Aziraphale looked up and couldn't help but smile. "At least we're fucked together, right?" 

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