Hung the Moon

Palliative, But Beautiful

He awoke with Anathema crouched over him. Studying his face as if she were one breath away from prying his eyelids open, she looked like an ancient Egyptian surgeon about to cover him in leeches.

"Aziraphale!" She cried when he stirred. "God, you scared me. Better now?" She asked, helping him sit up. He was so disoriented that he let her do so.

Better? The concept felt cruel and foreign. He doubted he'd ever feel whole again, not after the dreadful confirmation of his worst fears. But Anathema looked so worried that he said: "Yes, dear girl. I'll be fine."

Was I truly created to destroy the one I love most? Would the Lord be so cruel, to name me after this unholy task? What have I done to deserve this?

He understood now how Crowley's questions had doomed him to Fall. Somehow, he knew it would be his fate too. Not for the wailing pleas of a desperate angel, the why why why directed at She who had made him. No. No matter what Crowley believed about the worth of demons. He knew that striking down his beloved would wreath him in flames and burn away his Grace.

In a way, it was a comfort. He welcomed it as though he were the one stood with his arms open, waiting for a fatal blow.

Anathema clearly did not accept his lies about his mood. He clambered back into his chair. At that moment he felt every one of his years the way an elderly, exhausted human might. Granted, he'd fought, healed, and now this with only brief moments of respite.

"I'm going to cook us all some dinner," Anathema said, firm. "I'll call Newt and have him help out." He didn't protest.

"Angel, I found the dog. He was under the b- "

"I'm going to have to take up the sword again, aren't I?"

Crowley stopped just past the door, his bare feet chilled by the cut stones of the patio. The warmth of Anathema's cooking leeched away, leaving him shivering on the outside and bereft on the inside. It reminded him of the kind of odd emotional state he felt prone to lately, the kind that made him stand in a flower bed at midnight and sob.

Aziraphale sat at the table on the patio, faced away from him. Surrounded by cheerful striped patterns and a daffodil centerpiece Crowley had grown himself, Aziraphale still managed to look like the embodiment of melancholy. His bowed shoulders and the way he had his head leaned on his hand as if he were too weary to keep it up otherwise gave away his torment.

"Angel?"

Instead of responding, Aziraphale turned to him. For a moment, Zira had a look on his face no angel should ever have: the look of a man consumed by questions, yet suffering in utter silence. No answers forthcoming, when even God Herself had chosen to not do him even the courtesy of a hello. The way Crowley felt so often. The feeling that made him feel hollow and tenuous like a shade.

But before he could say anything more, Zira's expression changed. Something about it froze him in place. The beatific way hopelessness became adoration held him fast. Joy in humans enlivened Crowley, but angelic joy shone in a way no mortal feeling could.

Zira got up and walked towards him. Crowley felt rather like he'd stumbled into a fairy tale, only to find a unicorn approaching him with its mane alight with spirit-fire.

Zira reached out to cup his cheek and Crowley lit up with the pleasure-pain of Love. The sheer depth struck him dumb as it was wont to do, like bone-needles through leather, like bubbles in a glass of frightfully expensive Cristal Rose. "Pay no attention to me, my dear," Zira said.

Crowley's vision went all funny as he saw the mundane and the ethereal at the same time, held still as if he'd been commanded to be.

Zira looked as he always did, on the one hand. A sweet, middle-aged man with charming eccentricities that included dressing well (but entirely out of fashion), kindly, clear gaze and flawless skin that nonetheless had been blessed with smile-lines and crinkly crow's feet.