hey everyone , 😭 neil gaiman answered my ask on tumblr i'm literally freaking out,,

posting these on ao3 too, so don't worry if you see it on both sites <3

It's time I contribute to the plethora of crowley sick fics the fandom has— probably because everyone loves to see the hardened callous character be softer around the edges!

alternate universe where Crowley does NOT live in his car for 4 years like a fycking idiot

enjoy :)

cw // sickness (briefly, not graphic)

The first rule from six of this detailed and well-thought out guide to not falling in love with your adversary turned best friend is to fail.

With that out of the way, the second rule is quiet simple. Become evil— or rather, whatever your adversary hates most. So, a demon. But according to who you asked, Aziraphale felt quite disdained to the assumption that he hated Demons over anything else in the universe.

Unfortunately for Crowley, being evil had never come easy.  Noah's Arc, Jesus' trip around the world, Job with his blameless goats and blameless children, stopping that girl, Elspeth, from offing herself... Crowley's memory becomes a bit hazy here— asking for holy water, which from certain perspectives could be seen as a good deed— killing a demon must've been a good deed. Or Demon(s). But then Aziraphale's books in that church, and the list goes on and on and on, not even mentioning all of the good he did stopping the end of the world.

There were definitely moments of evil— mostly and almost entirely taking place when he was sick.

Angels can't get sick. Well, no, they can. They're never sick for more than the half of a half second that a bacteria touches their corporation because it's burned away like the impure thing it is before the Angel even noticed.

Demons lack all that holy power required to burn a small single cell organism into ash, exchanging that for... unholy power? Crowley had never cared to check the actual terminology, but all of his unholy power couldn't burn anything impure from his body, or the whole purpose of the 'Demon' thing would be defeated.

It was most effective in the 14th century, when Beelzebub gave him the most important task of all— to spread the plague (and general misery).

Crowley locked himself in his room, determined to sleep through the plague— starting before it had even begun— entirely on... accident, of course. It was all going well for a few hundred years, not waking up other than having to use the bathroom once, ignoring everyone and everything on Earth including the Arrangement.

His corporation caught up with him after those years, and he woke with a cough, a runny nose, and tangled hair past his feet and streaming off the edges of his bed.

Something wasn't right, and despite his nose mostly blocking the smell, death lingered in every corner of his room, thick like smoke and as potent as... death, he mused.

It must've been 1350, according to his ability to tell where the Earth is ticking in the grand scheme of things. Rather convenient for someone who takes naps longer than a human lifespan.

He had half a mind to get up and go for a quick run, the ache in his abandoned joints begging for movement. Crowley rolls onto his stomach, gripping the metal railing of his headboard and stretching out his joints as far as they'd go, popping into place with a grunt.

The third rule is to avoid your adversary as much as possible. Getting comfy and fraternizing with them isn't going to be very helpful, especially if you—

There's a knock at the door. Crowley mumbles to himself under the blanket, most likely a complaint and least likely a welcome to come on in, and yet the person knocking tries the door handle anyways.

Crowley should get up. Protect himself. It could be Hastur— he'd never liked Crowley, definitely wasn't going to start now— or a priest ready to exercise him again, which would account for the sudden holiness entering the room.

But no priest was this holy.

Crowley peeks over the edge of the blanket, eyes barely opening. "Mm—'Ngel?"

"Crowley!" Aziraphale's voice. He must be dreaming. "Crowley, where the heaven have you—"

Crowley can feel someone stepping on his hair, and Aziraphale sighs indignantly. "Really? I know you like longer hair but this is just—"

"'Zira—" Crowley's voice catches in his throat with a harsh fit of coughs, dry as a desert in August. Well, to be expected, when you haven't spoken in several hundred years.

There's a warm hand on his back, coaxing him to sit upright. He lets himself be moved, unable to fight the strange peace that coincidentally entered the room at the same time as the angel did.

"How long have you been asleep?" Aziraphale asks as his coughs subside and he falls against the headboard again.

Aziraphale reaches out to press his palm flat again Crowley's forehead. Crowley shrinks away from it, and when the hand— entirely too hot to be touching him— encroaches on him again, he grabs Aziraphale's wrist, giving up all of the strength in his body to make his grip tight as he can. To send a message, he hopes.

He's an angel, like the rest.

"Cr-"

"Stop," He croaks. "You're— 'S too hot."

Rule 3.5, scribbled on after the plague was over, he'd finished the guide back in the 1100s, it was bound to be missing things that hadn't had the chance to happen yet.

Rule 3.5– Don't let your adversary see you weak. Nor take care of you.

And in bright red ink and double underlined: VERY IMPORTANT!!

"Well, that's your fault," Aziraphale said, wrenching his arm away rather harshly. "You're sick. And being sick makes you have a fever."

"Noo," Crowley whined, pulling the blanket over him again. "I run hot. 'M a dem'n. Your stupid— stupid angel-ness is burning me."

"Stop squirming," His voice, still as soft as ever, manages to be demanding in a guilting way. Crowley listens and stills against the mattress.

Aziraphale's hand returns, he mutters something about how Crowley's burning up, and his fingers are carding through his hair, brushing gingerly across his scalp. Crowley could fall asleep like this, and he almost does until the contact abruptly ends.

He lets out a small sigh at the loss, which Aziraphale pretends not to notice for Crowley's sake, and begins collecting his hair from the floor, smoothing it into one long, ratted mass.

"Let's get this mess taken care of first," Aziraphale says. "You'll have to get up for a moment, you're laying on some of it."

Crowley wrestled against his fatigue enough to scoop the rest of his hair to the side and sit forward. Aziraphale has a pair of silver scissors— it would've taken a miracle to find any in the mess of Crowley's room anyways— and a comb.

Sitting behind him, Aziraphale begins to lop off the 140 feet of hair he'd grown in three hundred years, sizzling and dissolving as soon as it disconnected from his corporation.

Crowley wobbles in his upright position, eyes closed and sniffling every few moments. He doesn't know how much Aziraphale's cutting off, but he hopes he'll remember that he does indeed like it long.

"Down to your waist, dear," He says, far closer to his ear than he'd been expecting, and he thinks his fever goes up a few degrees.

"You must've read my mind," Crowley says. His brain feels like it's filled with cotton still, but he's managing it.

They're both silent as Aziraphale combs his hair, reviving some of the curls he usually sustains.

Crowley can feel the tension in the air— Aziraphale's too close, he's never this... well, friendly. He's an angel, he's genetically engineered to be kind (supposedly), but they've never agreed upon the label of 'friends'.

So, there's something Aziraphale wants to say to him. It's dancing on his lips like that one angel on the head of a pin. Stuck in his throat just like Crowley's words were earlier.

And when he thinks about it, panic seizes Crowley's chest. He always poked and prodded at Aziraphale, to get him to admit they weren't just visiting each other for convenience, that they had some sort of connection, but now that he might actually, really say it, Crowley suddenly wants nothing more. He needed it, he realized. It wasn't a game anymore.

Instead, Aziraphale parts his lips and says, "I could— I could slap you right now."

Crowley blanks. Huh? "What?"

"You—" He sniffs. "You're so selfish."

Crowley spins when he hears it. "Angel, are you crying?"

"What?" Aziraphale hadn't noticed.

"What's wrong?" He asks, twisting to fully face him.

"No one had seen you for three hundred years, Crowley," He looks down at the brush in his hands, pressing against the teeth with his fingers. "Everyone thought— everyone thought you had died."

"That's nothing to cry about," Crowley pulls his sleeve over a thumb and wipes the angel's tears away. "Just would've been some time to get another body... Would've been right back to cause panic and misery."

Aziraphale pushes his hand away. "No! Not even Hell had heard from you! Not discorporated— dead, Crowley, properly destroyed!"

He's still blanking, really, as the guilt and shame tears away at his soul, he scrambled to find words. But Crowley had never been able to resist the urge to test Aziraphale's obedience to heaven. "It's not— I don't— why would it matter? I'm your enemy. You want me dead."

"For once in your existence, stop! You always— you're always trying to push me over the edge— what do you want!? To say that I— To say that we—Do you really want that, Crowley? I- I can't— just stop!" Aziraphale cries. His voice quiets after a few heavy breaths. "This is serious, Crowley."

Rule 3.5.2 (Scribbled in the same red ink as last rule's footnote), reads simply: Don't give them a break. Never let up.

"Wouldn't want to deal with all that paperwork," Crowley offers, following Aziraphale's eyes something akin to a sopping wet cat you've found on your front porch. "Obviously, if I were dead, there'd be loads of it. Backed up all the way upstairs, I assume."

Aziraphale's eyes shine, and not from the sunlight poking through the windows. Crowley barely can maintain eye contact (it's proper to, as a demon), until the angel looks away with a smile nearly undetected.

"Of course," He nods. "I-I do hate paperwork."

Crowley smiles, about to retort something funny that Aziraphale would like, and Crowley would laugh just because he is. But instead he sneezes into his sleeve. And suddenly feels very lightheaded. He should throw Aziraphale out.

But it would be alright, Crowley thinks tentatively. And Aziraphale wouldn't appreciate being thrown out very much at all.

Rule 4 was written in blue pen ink, on a significantly more yellowed page taped to the bottom of Crowley's guide. The original paper published in the 1100s, was ripped in half after rule 3.5.2 for reasons of keeping up with history...

Rule 4: Don't save the world with him.

Well.

Rule 5: Cut communication after failing to complete rule 4.

Unfortunate, since Crowley had been (secretly) living in his car for the last three years. After that Pandemic that pestilence thought up as his 'big return from retirement', Crowley had been stuck away from Aziraphale, left with phone calls and simply imagining being able yo watch him eat or read books.

Crowley had tried his best to stay away from any type of sickness since his three hundred year nap, and the subsequent morning after.

It started, like that morning, with a rough awakening, a fit of coughing and a knock on his door. He sat up so fast in the front car seat that he hit his head on the roof with a dull thud.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale's voice comes through quite muffled from outside.

Crowley huffs and cranks his window down painfully slowly. "Wh-hah— what?"

"Why are you sleeping in your car?" The door opens with a soft click, and then Aziraphale is sitting where Crowley's legs were just stretched out.

"Just... fell asleep on accident," He shrugs, ignoring the embarrassed heat rising to his cheeks.

"Oh. Well, I have some news," Aziraphale absolutely beams at him, twisting his hands together in front of him excitedly. "It's rather exciting! Today, as I was leaving the bookshop— get ready for this— I—"

Crowley sniffs, eyebrows raised, actually somewhat intrigued. But Aziraphale's smile is fading and he looks suspiciously worried.

"Are you alright, dear?" He asks.

Crowley sobers up— what a shocking question. "Yes. Of course. Go on, you were leaving the bookshop."

Aziraphale crosses his arms across his chest indignantly. "I know you're a demon, but I didn't expect you to lie to me."

Crowley icks at the way he's able to separate the two so easily. Like being a demon hasn't unforgivingly cemented the guidelines of his existence the moment he hit the steaming sulphur wells.

"Just an accident, Angel," Crowley waved. "Sleeping in your car isn't easy on the sinuses."

Aziraphale cocks an eyebrow at his made up fact, but seemingly decides to drop it, "Just... Go home, Crowley. Get some real sleep. Oh— eat some soup. I hear it does wonders for humans."

His heart aches. Home.

"Yeah. Sure. I'll go home."

Whether or not Aziraphale believes that lie remains to be seen— the angel is currently stepping out of the Bentley the way he came, leaning down one more time to pass unwanted advice towards Crowley's general direction.

"Perhaps miracle up some medicine while you're at it," He says, while Crowley coughs into his sleeve. "It's rather helpful."

When he's gone, Crowley wonders what happened after he left the bookshop that morning.

Rule 5.5 reads as follows: donsh ltnt th angl kne

The e trails down the page into rule 6.

If it were translated from the chicken scratch that it is... Don't let the angel know you live in your car. Crowley was very close to passing out when he wrote it— forgive him.

In the midst of his rolling around like a rat in a bowl of oil (this is a joke that only certain people understand), he mumbles incoherent prayers to Her, to Aziraphale, anyone who will listen to his eternal complaining about how terrible it is to be a demon, live in your car, and on top of it all, become ill. How he must've been cursed by Satan himself, hunted by Hell and loathed by Heaven, not belonging anywhere, the most wanted man on Earth.

Rather self-important, if you think about it. Crowley wasn't the most wanted man on earth. In fact, he wasn't even a man.

But he hurt like a man. His joints and stomach and lungs and throat hurt like a man.

Aziraphale shows up at some point, having answered a prayer... chattering something-something, Crowley's car in the same spot— Crowley in the same spot, not at his flat, living in his Bentley.

"How'd you figure it out?" He mutters, Aziraphale's forearms under his armpits, lifting him with concerning ease. "How? You know... How?"

"If you're going to talk nonsense, I'd rather you not talk at all," The angel sighs. "You sound awful, no offense."

"Well. Not fair." Crowley stumbles out of the drivers seat into Aziraphale's grip. "Not one."

"Crowley, be quiet, dearest."

He struggles to get the demon into the passenger seat, when he falls sideways into the wheel. "Oh."

It works out in the end, though, as most things do, Aziraphale sits tentatively behind the wheel with a slight sheen of sweat across his forehead. Crowley is leaned up against the window, breathing through his mouth quite loud and whispering something.

"I'm taking you home."

Crowley hacks out a few painful laughs, apparently there's something funny that Aziraphale has yet to notice, because he's feeling rather pissed at the moment.

"Angel." Crowley's voice fogs against the window. Aziraphale pointedly doesn't look at him. So he says again, "Angel."

"What? What is it?" He sounds exasperated, driving at a neat 30 miles an hour.

"I'm—" Crowley sneezes. His gaze refocuses onto Aziraphale's face, his eyes are shining. "I'm already here." Aziraphale ignores him, not well, he's turning red like a tomato.

He's more silent than not by the time the bookshop approaches in their view. Aziraphale is manhandling him into the store as quickly as possible, a light miracle that no one pays any attention in their direction.

"Oh, just let go," Crowley whines. "I can stand on my own."

Aziraphale smiles rather menacingly and drops him, Crowley crumpling to the bookshop floor like a sack of pears (Aziraphale likes pears). He groans from the ground. "Angel...."

"I thought you said you could stand on your own."

Crowley picks himself up onto his elbows shakily, his voice weak and dry. "You're making it very hard to love you right now."

Aziraphale blushes properly. Crowley speaking nonsense again. But somehow he feels less inclined to leave him in a heap on the floor. "Come on, the couch is more suited for this kind of behavior, dear."

Crowley sleeps for a few days. Aziraphale really doesn't mind— It's a good excuse to keep the shop closed, but it didn't hurt that keeping Crowley around gave him that nice, content warmth in his chest every time he walks past the couch.

Nothing lasts forever. Crowley heals, despite everything, and Aziraphale decides to spare him the embarrassment he loathes so, and forget that Crowley had admitted to living in his car. If Crowley had wanted to live with Aziraphale, he would've said so, no?

And as Crowley steps out of the door, actually not remembering what he'd done after he got to the shop, hides his face behind glasses. The bentley is purring, waiting for him. Well. If Aziraphale had wanted him to move in, he would've asked.

So the guide goes on.

Rule 6: Let him leave.

"I forgive you."

Not too hard, Crowley thinks.

"Don't bother."

~*~

thanks for reading :) glad to be BACK ‼️