Archive of Our Own ^beta

Church fires weren’t something that happened very often. 

Which was a bit strange, in Crowley’s opinion, what with how vehemently people were for and against them; it was like government buildings, which were burnt all the time. But — unlike in previous centuries, he supposed — in Mayfair, not many fires were called in that had started at churches, or at least, not many that the department he worked at were directed to put out and rescue. 

But apparently, some smarmy, slimy bloke (Hastur, Crowley had heard on the police radios on their way there, blaring through the streets in the bright red truck and all hollering at each other over the sound of the radios) had flicked a cigarette onto nearby church grounds, because a local one, called Saint Mary’s, had phoned 999 when a fire had started in the garden out front, and had crept inside before any of the few womens’ groups meeting there had noticed.

Anthony J. Crowley had been a firefighter for most of his life; he had been an abandoned foster child up until he had aged out of the system, always tossed around from house to house but never settling anywhere because of his abrasive, antagonistic personality and his tendency to get into constant trouble (probably because no one ever gave him love and attention or made him feel wanted and important, or whatever his therapist from a few years ago had said), and had immediately been shipped off to a poor old community college by the county the moment he turned eighteen. 

That had turned out to be one of the best things that had ever happened to him, though — he had met his best friend, Bealz, and they had both gone on to do public service to get through college as first responders-in-training, and then they had done their apprenticeships together, all eighteen months. Bealz was older than him by a few years, and had been a paramedic first, before realizing they didn’t have the temperament to deal with people like that, and preferred to stomp on fires until they were smoldering, crying embers wishing they had never dealt with Bealz’s four-foot-nine, spiky-ball-of-uncontrollable-rage self.

The two of them had been in the field together on the Mayfair Fire Department (fondly nicknamed the ‘department from Hell’ because of how many absolute cunts worked in it, especially since Bealz had become the chief two years prior and ruled with an iron fucking fist of absolute and utter tolerance for jackassery) for almost sixteen years and were still going strong, from Crowley’s first fire at a bookshop in Soho to this church that was honestly quite boring and tame compared to some of the flames they had fought through together. 

But of course, thinking such a thing was, as everyone knew, a fucking jinx.

Everyone had been deployed, since the fire had been rapidly spreading and there had been a lot of people trapped inside the nave of the church; they had gotten most of them out on arrival, and Crowley was the last one inside, mask strapped over his face but askew to one side from where he had tripped over a fallen beam and legs trembling as he shoved his way through the smoldering pews. He was doing one last sweep-through, making sure no one was left trapped, and a plank of burning wood had fallen and smacked across his face; he had been fine, save for a gash over his face and a crack in his helmet, but he had been forced to tear it off when the shards had prodded at his scalp, as well as his shattered goggles. Fully exposing him to the elements that did not belong in a house of God.

He swore healthily under his breath as smoke billowed up in his face, and his eyes watered and burned; he had had an emergency mask in his suit that he was holding over his face, but the ashy smoke still made his eyes water and his heart burn. His lungs worked to try and force him to breathe, but he held his breath as he fought through the smoldering wooden beams, ignoring the pain in his leg and his head, and his wrist that was slightly bent in a direction it shouldn’t be from where it had caught his fall. Crowley was glad for once when a spray of water passed over him for a moment, and the embers cracked and popped; outside, they were getting somewhere, and it showed him where the exit was.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who said it) Crowley’s escape was halted abruptly as he heard a sudden cry for help somewhere to the left. His head swiveled upward, his mask slipping from his hand; there was still someone in the church, and he was a firefighter who had taken an oath, and he was going to help them.

He fought his way roughly through the smoky debris, grabbing his emergency knife from his deep coat pocket and slicing through soggy, burnt wood, muttering a sarcastic prayer under his breath for the further destruction. He kicked through the remains of the ground with heavy boots and stormed through, bravely fighting his way through the remaining patches of flame and the billowing smoke all around him, coughing and throbbing with pure adrenaline that fought to mask his pain.

He found the source of the noise quickly — a young girl who had gone to the loo and was trapped — and hoisted her up in a bridal carry despite how his arms trembled and his wrist cried out in protest. She thanked him in a garbled, hoarse voice, clinging tightly around his neck, and he just shushed her in just as hoarse of a voice, sweat coursing down his entire body, coughs fighting at his lungs. He stumbled his way out of the salvaged remains of the church, delivering the girl to the EMTs waiting in the lot filled with flashing red and blue; she was thankfully uninjured, they told him, just suffering from smoke inhalation. He wheezed out a thank-you, and watched from the sidelines as she was reunited with the friends she had been in with, at some Bible study group. 

Crowley glanced back at the church, his breath wheezing and rasping. It was only smoldering, now, the cross still standing high. It would be beautiful, under other circumstances; the billowing smoke painting the sky a deep purple, dulling the half-moon that was beginning to fade into sight as the late spring evening peeled away to night.

He coughed, and wheezed, and blinked the smoke from his eyes, and then jumped a little as Bealz appeared out of nowhere at his side, their signature broken-glass drawl coiling in his ear. 

“Whatsza matter with you?” They grunted, and stalked around him, narrowing their eyes. They smelt of smoke, but were uninjured, thank Satan. They had been on the duty of putting out the fire before it could begin to rage; it was now only embers, most of the building entirely salvaged, save for most of the inside. They were good at their job, and buildings were rarely left unstanding. They were also frustratingly good at reading Crowley, after decades of the pair being friends, and their dark near-black eyes flitted up to his head, then down to his wrist. They frowned. 

“Go get checked out, you dick.”

“M’fine, fuck off,” Crowley muttered petulantly, but Bealz was having none of it; the two had been fighting fires alongside each other for years, they always knew when the other was in pain and would bully them into getting help for it each and every time. Predictably, Bealz just scoffed, and grabbed his uninjured wrist, dragging him towards the nearest ambulance in the lot.

“Go, you wanker,” they hissed, their voice buzzing in their frustration, something that Crowley would always cave to. “I hafta go’n make sure the damn interns ain’t startin’ any firez, so let yourszelf get taken care of, you sztupid arsze.”

Crowley snapped right back at them, but it was half-hearted with how dizzy and disoriented he had become, being marched across the lot with smoke still thick in his lungs. He sulkily plunked himself down on the edge of the open ambulance, reluctantly tugging his heavy overcoat and gloves off and clutching his wrist close, coughing into the crook of his elbow and frowning through coughs at the smudge of blood that rubbed from the gash in his head to his dirty, pale skin. He was good at his job, and rarely found himself injured; it was always a bit of an annoyance when it happened, made him feel like a hack. And dealing with EMTs was always — 

“Hello, there,” said a sudden soft, gentle voice, cutting across his sulky musings. The voice was strangely a perfect fit for an EMT, Crowley thought vaguely;  soothing and kind and whatnot, things he was not, which was why he was a firefighter. A hand tapped on the side of the ambulance, a loud tip tip tip suggesting some sort of ring. “How can I help you, dear?”

Crowley turned to face the voice, ready to snap and tell whoever it was to not patronize him — he really did hate dealing with EMTs, always so condescending and talking about hospitals and A&Es and recklessness — but immediately short-circuited, as if a fire had burst into life within him, and the words died on his tongue. He found himself suddenly very amenable to being called dear by an overbearing paramedic, because said overbearing paramedic happened to be the most gorgeous angel he had ever seen.

(Maybe it was the smoke inhalation, or maybe it was Crowley’s upbringing influencing his mental health and making him have abrupt and high levels of desperate attachment, or maybe it was the sudden uproarious fire in his pulsing heart that even the most experienced of first responders could not dream of putting out — but he couldn’t help but feel a brief spike of panicked relief in his chest as his eyes flitted down to where the paramedic was pulling white gloves onto his hands to cover thick fingers, showing the outline of a ring not as a wedding band, but as a sentiment on his pinky finger.

Pull yourself together, Anthony, he thought helplessly, but still, his gaze continued to linger, until his eyes met the gorgeous man’s gaze in front of him, so soft and warm and kind that it was all-consuming; smoke and fire weaving through the fabric of Crowley’s soul, turning him to ashes that were swept away by the wind.)

The EMT was a handsome older bloke, with soft, curly blonde-white hair and warm blue eyes that were soft and crinkled at the edges. His cheeks were round and flushed with red, and he looked rather frazzled, but in a way that somehow looked so utterly gorgeous. White gloves were pulled tightly over his hands, contrasting the dark color of his uniform, and spectacles balanced on his nose, slightly fogged from the smoke nearby, though they were, for the most part, out of range from the smoldering church.

“Hi.” Crowley, who was caked in grime and smoke and debris and who was wearing a dirty, unwashed firefighter’s suit and who was barely able to speak in a voice louder than a raspy, hoarse croak, thought that perhaps he had died and gone to Heaven. Would’ve believed it, too, with this angel before him, if the adrenaline wasn’t starting to wear off, giving way to dull, throbbing pain in his skull. “M’Crowley,” he introduced himself, rather stupidly. “Anthony Crowley.”

(Crowley did not believe in true love. Crowley did not believe in love, at all, not really. Crowley had been in his field long enough to know that love brought you only pain when your better half inevitably kicked it and left you alone and for the worse from it. Crowley had never had someone love him, from his childhood to now, not in that way, at least; every ex he had ever had had been the one to leave him, or to cheat, or to betray, and hookups meant nothing, and he was not important or kind or good enough to be —

Crowley did not believe in love.

And yet Crowley, looking at this angel, was falling into the very thing he had sworn away.)

“Pleasure to meet you, Anthony, even under the circumstances; my name is Fell, Aziraphale Fell.” The EMT’s — Aziraphale’s — smile practically glowed (adding to the angel theory), and Crowley’s head spun, not just from the smoke inhalation and ebbing adrenaline. Aziraphale half-crouched to be on his level, deep blue eyes scanning the muscular firefighter in a way that made him feel hypnotized. 

“Ooh, that looks like a nasty sprain, dear; perhaps a very small fracture.” The paramedic immediately began to fuss, examining the sweaty redhead’s wrist with deft, broad, gloved hands. A fond little smile twitched at his lips at the sight of Crowley’s dirt-caked painted black nails, but he made no comment. “And your poor head . . .” Aziraphale touched one light hand to the firefighter’s forehead, examining the gash with gloved fingers; Crowley jerked with an instinctive hiss. He hadn’t even noticed the blood caking half of his reddened, sweaty face until Aziraphale drew his glove away and the white latex fingers were bloodied.

“Anything else in pain?” Aziraphale pressed insistently, switching out the bloodied glove for another. Crowley said nothing, scowling in silence, but when Aziraphale repeated himself, calm and patient — clearly used to sullen patients who felt like they couldn’t possibly be taken care of, not without it being a humiliating sacrifice — he gestured with a noncommittal mumble to his left leg that he had fallen on, muttering something about how it had all happened; the EMT thanked him, and leaned to feel along it. When Crowley only winced a little, he drew back up.

“I am going to conduct a quick examination, to be sure that nothing else is further injured,” he explained, calm and steady; anchoring. “Would you look straight ahead for me, Anthony?” 

Crowley obeyed with only some reluctance as the paramedic did the routine check-over of flashing a light in his eyes and asking him to follow it, checking his temperature, testing his hearing with a little beeping device; he was very thorough, the firefighter thought dryly. Most EMTs were quick and snappy, wanting to get onto the real patients, not the ones with a sprained wrist and smoky lungs. He had never had the pleasure of making this one’s acquaintance before (that he could remember off the top of his head, at least, but he was sure that unless he had been practically dying, he would have remembered this fucking angel, wouldn’t he?).  

“Take a deep breath in for me,” Aziraphale instructed, placing his stethoscope on Crowley’s back and pressing lightly. The firefighter obeyed, and exhaled when the paramedic told him to; he caught a light, concerned hum from Aziraphale, but then the paramedic withdrew, hanging the stethoscope back around his neck and going back to observing the wound in his head, white gloves pressing against the bruised skin and making Crowley hiss.

“I’m ever so sorry, my dear boy,” Aziraphale apologized kindly, his voice so very gentle and so very soft, soothing Crowley even as the pain in his lungs burned and his breaths wheezed; he remedied this by holding his breath, listening dazedly as the EMT continued. “It must hurt greatly. I do not believe a hospital will be required, however!”, he added in a light chirp, which was a merciful relief. 

Crowley had been to them sparingly over the years, the worst of which had been a few pretty bad burn scars on his shoulder, as well as specifically three years ago when he had fallen from a caved-in ceiling, and his leg had snapped in two; it had nearly been the end of his career, and even thinking of it now — trapped in a bed, immobile and heaving with frantic breaths, terrified out of his mind — made his belly swoop uncomfortably. The paramedic then had been kind, at least, not dissimilar to Aziraphale; Crowley’s memory of it was hazy, however, because of how much it had fucking hurt, and how he had been so convinced that he was going to die until Bealz had grabbed his face in their hands before he went into surgery and told him to stop being so weepy and that he would be fine, and then they had visited every day and let him hold their hand because as much of a bitch as they were, they were the closest thing to love — not the kind he craved, but love nonetheless — that Crowley had.

“Only a very minor fracture, some contusions, and this nasty cut on you — and a bit of smoke inhalation, but I’m sure you are familiar with that, yes?” Aziraphale smiled, and, as cliché as it was, it felt contagious, making Crowley’s lips twitch upward. “I’ll get you out of here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Anthony.”

“Right,” Crowley responded raspily, his throat tickling and dry as he desperately tried to breathe in tiny sips of air, and then he coughed — and then again, and again, until he was hacking and heaving, gasping for breath. Aziraphale was standing beside him immediately, pressing an oxygen mask over his face and urging him to breathe, and he accepted it gratefully; that, at least, was a common procedure for a seasoned firefighter such as himself. Even if it felt as humiliating as everything else — that was the worst part of the firefighter gig, how often he encountered paramedics, and it was why he had tried to tone down his recklessness over the years, because he hated being treated by condescending pricks who pronounced his name wrong and stared at his eyes and treated him like a fucking toddler. 

At least Aziraphale seemed . . . kind. 

(Not to mention how gorgeous he was, but Crowley was absolutely not thinking about that.)

The EMT guided him to breathe for a few long minutes with a hand to his back, rubbing up and down over his braces and the sweat-soaked shirt beneath, reassuring and soothing him; Crowley couldn’t help but sigh, rather wistfully, as the broad hand drew away along with the oxygen mask. 

“Let me know if you need any more, Anthony,” Aziraphale said kindly; the firefighter did not bother correcting him to say that he usually went by his last name, because he liked the way the paramedic said it, so smooth and thick, like molasses on his tongue. Crowley nodded affirmatively, and Aziraphale patted his shoulder for praise before leaning to re-inspect Crowley’s wrist. “I’ll just put a quick splint on this, yes?” He prompted.

Crowley nodded dazedly, his heart thundering in his chest. Simply from the stress of it all, surely — though, he hadn’t gotten this worked up over an injury or a fire in years. He had reddened burn scars along his shoulders and waist that seemed to have been more of a breeze than this little cut and fracture were, what with how it was making his entire being turn to a mushy, confused puddle. Such a strange feeling, it was — the feeling he got in his chest when he looked at Aziraphale. He wasn’t quite sure whether or not he liked it. 

“Just a few days you’ll have to keep this on; it’s not too serious, you were very lucky,” Aziraphale told him as he began to measure the length of the splint along Crowley’s thin wrist; Crowley hissed slightly, wincing and grinding his teeth fiercely, and Aziraphale clicked his tongue, disapproving and concerned, and he momentarily halted his ministrations, but kept Crowley’s wrist in his warm, broad hands. Fleetingly, the firefighter couldn’t help but wonder what the paramedic’s hands would feel like without the barrier of his white gloves.

“Anthony.”

“Nnnyeah?” His voice was tense, spoken through gritted teeth and a raw throat.

“Tell me about yourself.” Aziraphale’s voice, in contrast, was calm and soothing, and Crowley seized to it, panicked by all of these new feelings that he hated rising up within his chest, threatening his fragile, peaceful existence as someone who had been hurt and small, but who was now strong, overcoming. His head spun.

“Guh, ngk — what?”

“To distract yourself from the pain, dear boy,” Aziraphale explained, his voice still so very calm in a way that younger Crowley may have found to be infuriating. He took Crowley’s wrist in strong hands. “I am about to set it, and it will hurt. Talk to me, Anthony.” His voice was stern, almost commanding, even still soothing and warm and kind, and Crowley whined, deep in his throat, the sound humiliating in and of itself. He looked a mess, he looked pathetic, and Aziraphale was — well, the best Crowley could do was be strong — 

“I can handle a little painnuhagh — agh, fuck —!” 

Crowley yelped as Aziraphale maneuvered his wrist straight, a very undignified noise indeed for a fire-fighting menace such as himself, and the paramedic sighed through his nose, his gloved hands tightly holding Crowley's hand in place even as he instinctively tried to squirm away. "Humor me, then," he said, still gentle and kind but with that same pressing edge to it.

"I — I — I've been a firssst resssponder ffor fift— no, no sssixteen years," the redhead ground out bravely, not putting up any more of a fight, the hissing speech impediment that he was usually so good at controlling slipping through momentarily from the pain; mercifully, Aziraphale said nothing about it as he stabilized Crowley's wrist with steady hands. "M'not usually — not usually injured on th'job, sss'not m'jam, dunno what happened here — fuck, ffffuck," he cut off with a string of swears as Aziraphale began to wrap his wrist tightly.

"Almost done, Anthony, almost done, you’re doing very well," Aziraphale assured him, and Crowley whined again — quite an undignified sound, indeed. "What is your tattoo from, my dear?" He prompted after a moment, his voice almost urgent, still pressing, but still kind, gentle, and soothing, keeping Crowley's spinning head from spiraling too far.

"My —?" Crowley startled as he realized that his shirt sleeves were short enough to expose his coiled serpent tattoo, inked in bold over his flushed, freckled shoulder. He breathed out a rasping chuckle. "Drunken night out. Don't regret it, though. I love it; s'prolly m'favorite thing 'bout meself, it is." He had gotten it touched up on recently; it had begun to fade, what with how rough-and-tumble Crowley's life was, and he had added the streak of red down the middle coils, almost like a flame, or a cutting slice of an apple.

He exhaled a calmer breath of relief as Aziraphale finished setting his wrist and moved down to inspect his bruised leg in full; the paramedic rolled up the firefighter's trousers, half-kneeling, and Crowley had to force himself to not look at him and his gorgeous mess of blonde hair, suddenly hot and sweaty for reasons besides the fire he had just stumbled out of.

"You like snakes, then?" Aziraphale asked, as he inspected Crowley's bruised leg with gloved fingers roving over the skin, making him shiver; the redhead stared just past him, cheeks hot, pulled-back hair falling a little over his face.

"Love 'em," he rasped out, swallowing tightly, his mouth and throat dry from the smoke. He gazed up and over the paramedic, glancing around the field; at the couple of ambulances that were departing for the nearby hospital (mostly for bad smoke inhalation that couldn't be solved with a couple breaths of oxygen) and a girl with a gash in her leg too thick to be sutured on-scene. Bealz, ordering around the firefighters under their charge that weren't like Crowley and out of commission, was surveying the damage of the church, and shot Crowley a lopsided grin; he gave an eye roll back, though his heart really wasn't in it, because Bealz's nagging had gotten him to meet this blue-eyed angel.

At the thought of Aziraphale, Crowley cleared his throat and added on: "Crawly little buggers, aren't they? Cute, really. They get a bad rap."

"Ah, yes," Aziraphale hummed in agreement, prepping some sort of ointment for the bruises and nodding seriously at Crowley's words. "The whole apple in the Garden of Eden business. Quite silly; Eve made her own choices, there."

"Exactly — an’, an’ if God really didn’t want ‘em to eat it, it shoulda got put somewhere like the moon, y’know?” Crowley insisted, enthused. He paused, wondering if that had been something the angel here took offense to. “You Catholic?" He questioned; he couldn't help but be curious (it had always been a bad trait of his, he had been told), as it would certainly be a shame, being called onto the scene of a church fire in that position. After a moment, he realized how blunt that had been, and winced, his mouth tugging into a grimace; there was another thing everyone had always hated about him, how aversed he was to societal language rules thanks to being tossed around between foster homes like a ragdoll as a kid, not that that was any excuse. "Sorry, m'bad, personal question."

But Aziraphale seemed entirely unfazed, applying the bruise ointment deftly to Crowley's leg and smoothing it delicately along his skin. "Not at all," he responded pleasantly, with a small, dazzling smile thrown in the firefighter's direction that sent him absolutely reeling once more, especially as the paramedic sat back on his haunches and his thighs shifted as he stood, accenting his curves that Crowley wanted to sink into — but rather than make a fool of himself, the redhead forced himself to listen as Aziraphale continued.

"Rather, I used to be; not so much anymore, however." His smile turned slightly tense, then. "You understand, yes?"

"Yeah, I do. That obvious, huh?" Crowley grinned rather sheepishly, shooting a sidelong glance back up at the church's steeple, a little wary. Being thrown around as he was, the little bastard kid he had been had naturally latched onto . . . not a religion, per se, but at least the presence of a God, to keep him from losing all hope. But by around fourteen years old — and at his thirty-something-ith fucking home — he had come to terms with the fact that God, whoever They were, did not answer. Not to him, at least.

"Perhaps," Aziraphale hummed, and moved upward, once again scrutinizing the gash on Crowley's forehead; it wasn't too bad, not very deep, it had just bled a lot, and was a bit too wide to go with only butterfly strips. Crowley fidgeted, feeling as if he were at an impasse, and ventured to talk again.

"So, eh, Aziraphale —," He prided himself on getting the name to roll off his tongue correctly even with his faint hint of a Scottish accent — "tell me about yoursel—,"

But whatever he had been attempting there — flirting, or genuine connection, or just a goddamn distraction because for Satan's sake he was not a person who could sit still — was put at a halt as the redhead choked on his words and broke out into another bout of smoky, rough coughs, hacking up his throat and his lungs that still curdled with faint poison. He wheezed, and Aziraphale was, yet again, at his side in an instant, rubbing a hand along Crowley's back and pressing the other to the redhead's dirt-smudged, bloodied face, slotting the oxygen mask over his nose and cracked lips as he heaved and fought for breath.

His head was spinning, his ears ringing and making everything throb and pulse as he wheezed for breath, but over it all, Aziraphale was talking — his voice was quiet, but somehow reassuring, spoken slowly, thick molasses spooning through Crowley's ears and oozing down his ribs and the length of his heart, smoothing over the fire in his chest and stifling the flames until they burst from within him.

Aziraphale was talking, and it was soothing, and calming, and anchoring, and Crowley managed to begin to breathe again, grounded in the soothing broad hand pressing against his back and the suction of the mask held firmly against his face, pushing oxygen into his lungs and making his heart beat again even as it skipped at the sound of an angel's soft voice.

"Thank you ever so much for inquiring, dear boy," Aziraphale was saying, clearly offering his soft, gentle voice as a lifeline for Crowley to cling to when he was able to hear the soothing murmur of it over his wheezing breaths; "I admit that I can be very passionate about my work first and foremost, but outside of that, I enjoy books, particularly old novels, and watching them be transformed in theatre — you do not seem like the Shakespeare type, Anthony, but I’m sure I could change your mind . . ."

Crowley let out a deep, shaky exhale as, after a few minutes of Aziraphale talking to him softly and guiding him to breathe, the mask was drawn away from his face. He winced as he circled back to earth, the adrenaline having begun to wear off in earnest and making his head throb.

"Hurtsss a bit," he mumbled dazedly, dizzy from the oxygen rush as he pawed at his forehead, wiping away sweat and grime with the back of his palm, staring up at the paramedic. Aziraphale tutted at his actions, drawing the redhead's wrists into his broad, gloved hands and gently placing them down in his lap, patting the tops of Crowley's hands reassuringly.

"Yes, dear, I know," he soothed, his voice so very calm and soft, making Crowley's head go hazy for reasons other than his injuries. "Now, I am going to wipe off and sterilize your wound before bandaging it. You will need stitches, only three or so but possibly more." Aziraphale bent a little to meet Crowley's eyes, which were a golden yellow, marred with a pupil deformity that he had been born with; the EMT did not flinch away from them as people were sometimes known to do, and Crowley felt impossibly more safe and comfortable with him. "I am qualified to give sutures, should you give consent; otherwise, you'd have to go to the A&E, or even the hospital."

"Nuh, don' wanna do that," Crowley muttered, rather petulantly, squirming under Aziraphale's heavy gaze.

"I have your permission to do it in the field, then, dear?" Aziraphale pressed.

"Yeah, yeah, g'head." Crowley watched the paramedic through blurry eyes, wishing vaguely that he had his sunglasses that he wore when not on call to hide the freakishness of his colomba; though, he supposed, this angelic fellow who had not even flinched at them was an EMT — perhaps he knew of the rare, demonic disorder.

That was one of the bits Crowley loved most about his job, besides how much he got to save people; he could cover his face, and be a mask of a hero to the people he rescued, without them having to see the nasty bits of him.

(He somehow had a feeling that Aziraphale wouldn't mind the nasty bits. But that was a ridiculous thought, a silly notion. That was what he told himself, to get his head back on straight.

He was being ridiculous. Foolish. What else was new?)

Aziraphale continued to talk amiably and about nothing at all as he withdrew a sterilization kit from the back of the ambulance and began to gently and carefully wipe the dirt and grime and blood from Crowley's face, practically holding his cheeks in his hands as he dabbed cautiously at the gash in his forehead. He then moved up to clean the wound in earnest with peroxide and antiseptic, allowing Crowley to whimper and hiss without commenting on it at all; after cleaning it, he applied numbing cream, and began to expertly suture.

“This is quite a nasty gash,” he informed the firefighter as he spoke, “but worry not; it should heal perfectly fine, I predict it will barely even leave a scar!” He patted Crowley’s cheek in a way that should feel condescending, but instead felt warm and kind, almost like acceptance. “Your handsome face will be no worse for the wear, dear boy.”

Crowley, dazed, went entirely still, his mouth hanging open just slightly. His head spun for reasons other than smoke inhalation. 

He thinks I’m handsome? 

The most gorgeous, stunning, fucking angelic man I’ve ever seen in my whole sodding life thinks I’m handsome?

Christ, Crowley didn’t think he would be back to properly functioning for days after this. He wondered if the paramedic was feeling the same, or if Aziraphale treated all of his patients with this compassion and kindness and flattery, to get them to be more calm as he worked. That was it, surely. He was imagining the look in Aziraphale’s eye when he looked at him. He was entirely making up the flirtatious edge to the EMT’s last spoken sentence. He was being ridiculous. Utterly, utterly ridiculous. 

This was definitely not a thing, and Crowley did not believe in love — especially not love at first sight nonsense.

(And even if he changed his mind on that, there was no way that this put-together, kind, gorgeous man didn’t already have at least ten suitors waiting on hand and foot; he was too good for Crowley, anyway.

And then, in the back of his mind, he thought that just maybe, in the midst of all of Aziraphale’s ramblings when he had had the oxygen mask pressed to Crowley’s face, he just might have said something about living alone in a bookshop.

Well, even if so, the other points still stood pat. Crowley was being ridiculous.

Your handsome face will be no worse for the wear, dear boy . . .)

art by tanpopomugishu!

Aziraphale finished up the sutures neatly and quickly before applying bandages to Crowley’s forehead, humming as he worked, dabbing at the edges of the wound before taping a thick bandage over it. “You are very brave, you know, Anthony,” he murmured, the way he spoke his name wrapping around Crowley like a flame that soothed rather than destroyed. “I know you must hear it every day, but you truly are; walking right into fire, staring down the smoky shadow of death, risking yourself for others . . . it truly is the most brave and selfless thing a person can do.” He spoke so earnestly, so honestly, and Crowley swallowed tightly, his mouth suddenly dry again.

“Ehhh,” he mumbled in a weak response. His face was flushed and red, despite how chilly it really was now that he was out of the fire — which was barely smoking anymore, having been fully put out by Bealz and the other firefighters still in the field. The lot had been mostly cleared, with several of the girls and one firefighter being transported to the local hospital — nothing severe, just not minor enough as a cut or a sprained wrist to be set in the field. Now that everything had died down, it didn’t seem like a challenge, and it didn't seem brave. Maybe he just had a hero complex, or something. “M’really . . . not.”

(Or maybe he just couldn’t accept praise. That was definitely a thing.

And a thing that Aziraphale picked up on very fast.)

“Ah, self-deprecating.” Aziraphale nodded very seriously, smiling and huffing through his nose as he closed up his suture kit. “I majored in psych for a while, you know; you would be a very interesting test subject, indeed.” He was teasing, and Crowley grinned; this felt familiar, and it felt good, and, strangely, it felt right. 

“Oh, really?” He mused with some amusement. “You gonna diagnose me by the book, eh? ‘Cause I already got all that. Attachment styles, Freudian bullshit, trauma, yada yada. Psychiatrists love me.” Mostly ‘cause of how much money the ‘care’ system threw at them trying to fix me, he thought, but after so many decades of being semi-okay, the thought just made him smirk.

“I’m sure.” Aziraphale hummed, almost thoughtfully, and fixed his warm blue gaze on Crowley once more. How could a gaze be blue, but also be warm?, Crowley wondered, rather dazed — not that he was complaining. But Aziraphale’s next words made him sit up, his own eyes going a bit wide, his heart beating so fast it fluttered against the side of his ribs, he swore it.

“But, truly, dear boy. You know, I own a bookshop — a bit of a family relic, my grandfather founded it, A. Z. Fell and Co., don’t ask what the Co. stands for because no one quite knows — and about, oh, fifteen, sixteen years ago, it caught fire. Would most certainly have burnt down if it was not for first responders such as you. And then I would never have gone into paramedics, wanting to be half as brave and essential as you all. You are so very brave, Anthony.”

Crowley blinked, not truly registering anything that the angelic, innocent-looking man had said except for the stuff about the bookshop. He blinked again, asymmetrically. His head was spinning. 

Oh, it couldn’t possibly . . . there was just no way. That would absolutely be so fucking ridiculous. Plot convenient, much?

There was just no way. He shouldn’t even bother asking.

“Bookshop in — in Soho?” He croaked, a bubbling laugh of bewilderment in his voice. Maybe there was a God — They were certainly having enjoyment with playing around with the red strings of fucking fate, and the idea of some clandestine thing that Crowley had been too wounded to ever believe in.

“As — as a matter of fact, it — it is, how did you . . .?” Aziraphale trailed off, his hands freezing in place, his entire body going still as his eyes widened almost comically. “Oh, goodness,” he breathed out, and this really was absolutely so very cliché and ridiculous that it almost made Crowley want to break out into song and dance like a fucking Disney princess, “it was you, Anthony?”

“That — that was my first real fire,” Crowley rasped out, a grin splitting his face as disbelief and giddiness bubbled up inside him. “Oh my fucking God,” he uttered, entirely disregarding that they were technically still on consecrated ground, or something adjacent; “I remember you, now.”

It was all coming rushing back to him in a blur of memories that had been piled on top of over the years, nearly forgotten, but now, he could not believe the idiocy of himself to not realize. He remembered that first call to the fire station when he had still been fresh out of uni and too big for his boots; he remembered the chief hollering at them to hurry as they scrambled into their suits and stampeded to the blaring truck waiting outside; he remembered the sound of the siren, the tires squealing against the asphalt as they had come to a rough half outside of a burning bookshop that lit the streets of Soho with flames that licked towards the sky. 

He remembered being ordered to stay back and watch, and to learn (he wasn’t technically allowed to be in fires yet), and he had found himself being bustled around the people clustered around a blonde man weeping into his hands, looking so utterly destroyed, so utterly distraught, that Crowley had momentarily been reminded of how much he had seen it in himself as a child — so much so that he had nearly questioned himself, for the first time, with whether or not this was the path meant for him.

He remembered how the crowds had been ushered away aggressively by Bealz and his fellow firefighters-in-training, leaving only the man who refused to move until Crowley — who had been fully suited up in his firefighter’s suit, awkward and too big for his britches but evidently conveying enough authority to be taken somewhat seriously — took him by the shoulders and steered him to sit trembling with a shock blanket on the edge of an ambulance. He had not spoken, not once, ignoring the EMTs and keeping his gaze fixed on the ground. Crowley hadn’t even been able to see his eyes.

“You’ll be alright,” he remembered assuring. His words were muffled, because he had been an idiot new recruit who had fixed his oxygen mask and helmet to cover his entire face, not yet knowing the protocol of the station for going out in the field and not wanting to piss of the chief on his first day — which, looking back, had been utterly ridiculous, because the mask, which had not been fucking necessary at all, had been sticking out and making him look like a sick patient who had gotten into the program on sympathy points, but that was neither here nor there. “See?” He had gestured towards the smoldering building being doused in water. “They’re puttin’ it out already.”

“But,” the blonde man had croaked out at last, his voice weak and tiny. He had raised a hand, pointing shakily. “My — my books.”

“Well . . .” Crowley remembered hesitating, then, unable to quite settle on what to say for comfort; he wasn’t the best at it, but he could try. He remembered squaring his shoulders, speaking boldly through the thick mask covering his face and making him look so fucking ridiculous. “Some of ‘em may be a little messed up, tha’ss true, but . . . but not all of ‘em, yeah? And — and you’re alright, tha’ss what matters, and . . . and you’re more important than your books. We’ll rescue plenty of ‘em, though, alright? It’ll be okay. Promise.”

He remembered how the blonde had looked up at him, and smiled sadly through his tears. His eyes were a bright, striking blue; so very warm. 

He must have been knowing that Crowley was lying through his teeth, at least somewhat; maybe he had already predicted that half of the bookshop was in disrepair, and most of his books had been burnt through, and would have to be painstakingly recollected over the next sixteen years, and even then he would be nowhere close to what he had once had. But even still, he smiled, and he nodded, even as he cried.

“Thank you, dear boy,” he had whispered, grateful and kind even as his voice broke in two.

Thank you, dear boy.

Crowley remembered how he had been called away not a moment later, before he had even had a chance to respond, Bealz dragging him to stare at the bigger hose and watch as they unrolled it and began to spray out the flames in earnest, having made certain no one else was inside — and by the time he had looked back for the bookshop’s blonde owner, he was already with paramedics, and Crowley was surely nothing but a fleeting thought to him.

He had not recognized Aziraphale as the gorgeous, angelic EMT splinting his wrist and stitching his forehead sixteen years later until now; the blonde had looked so wrecked and miserable and utterly distraught when his bookshop had been burning before his eyes, but Crowley cursed himself for not remembering that same glowing smile the moment he saw it again — when Aziraphale had smiled at him so brightly despite the circumstances and had said thank you, dear boy, and Crowley had known he had done the right thing in choosing to go down this path. 

“I never did see your face,” Aziraphale marveled, after they sat in stunned silence for several minutes, staring dazedly at each other as though lost in another plane of reality altogether. His voice was thick, emotional, and he stroked a hand over Crowley’s cheek as he tucked away the bandages and antiseptics; he had tugged off his gloves, and his skin was so very warm and soothing, the ring on his pinky finger golden and shining, a similar color to Crowley’s eyes. “You truly are so very handsome, if I may say so. I always imagined you to be. And you are just as kind as you were back then, my dear Anthony.”

My dear Anthony. 

(Lord, Satan, or Someone, this angel was going to be the end of him, Crowley swore it.)

The redhead scoffed at his words, but an enormous grin was still splitting his face, accenting the blush high in his sharp cheekbones. He sat up straighter, his braces tugging against his chest; his firefighter’s pants bagged around his knees, and he found himself wishing for his more usual tighter pair of sinful obsidian jeans. “You’re still pretty,” he half-teased, adopting the same flirtatious edge that was definitely there and he had a fleeting feeling that he wasn’t being ridiculous but that thought alone was ridiculous, “though I liked the grandpa clothes better than the scrubs.”

He remembered the tartan bow tie that the shaken blonde man outside the bookshop had been wearing; how funny it had been, because he couldn’t remember the last time he saw someone wearing tartan; how he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head, but how he had never returned to the bookshop — on principle, at first because he had had a partner at the time Lucian, who had cheated on him two years later, and then because he had been too put off by the idea of relationships and the fake ideology of love to search for anything other than hookups. Besides, Crowley wasn’t about to fall in love with some random gorgeous, innocent bookkeeper — especially not now that he was the EMT who had just patched him up. That was embarrassing. It was cliché. It was ridiculous. 

“Still pretty, though,” Crowley repeated, and, oh, he was so fucked. 

“Believe me, dear boy, that is still very much my style; I am not one for change,” Aziraphale assured him. “Unfortunately, the uniform — these are not scrubs, my dear — is mandatory,” he added on, with the cheekiest little smile that made Crowley positively fucking blush, because he was so fucked. 

“Why — eh, erm, ngk, why’d you go into paramedics, then?” Crowley shot a quick glance around to be sure that Aziraphale was not needed elsewhere — he didn’t want to keep anyone from getting care because of a ridiculous crush — which he was not, there were plenty of spare EMTs around even with the critical cases having been rushed out, though Aziraphale Fell was surely the only angel, before expanding. “I mean, you — you are, er — you were? — a bookseller, right? Book . . . keeper?”

“Bookkeeper is probably more accurate,” Aziraphale chuckled, with a little inside joke that Crowley smiled at nonetheless. “But, yes; I had gone to school prior, university where I studied the medical field and graduated, degrees for both physical health and psychological. I never pursued a career, however, due to my grandfather’s untimely passing; the bookshop would have gone to my brother Gabriel, who surely would have sold it, and trashed the books, and — well.” He looked utterly scandalized, and Crowley’s lips twitched upward, his face starting to hurt; he never smiled this much, especially not after being injured on the job. 

“I watched after the shop for a decade or so.” That would put him only a little older than Crowley himself, the redhead thought privately, storing that information away in his drawer for ridiculous thoughts. “But after the fire, I was . . . oh, you could say I was inspired. By you, I know now.” His smile glowed, and Crowley felt like a flower given sun for the first time after a long stretch of gloomy rain. “First responders are so very important, you see, and I suppose I . . . wanted to be someone that important.” Aziraphale’s smile turned sheepish, and Crowley’s heart did a little stuttering motion in his chest. 

You are, he wanted to say, wanted to scream; you are, you are, you’re a goddamn angel is what you are, and I bloody hate you for making me think that at all, but you are. A bloody fucking angel. Wanker. But all of that felt a little too passionate and aggressive for what was technically their first real meeting. 

“You’re brave, too, y’know,” was what Crowley settled on saying, after a quiet pause that was only semi-awkward. “You — you don’t like change, but you did it anyway. To help people. S’brave. And you’re . . . nice. That takes . . . bravery. Ngk. Nngyeah.”

"Oh — oh, well thank you, dear boy, thank you truly." Aziraphale practically glowed at the praise, beaming bright as anything, and Crowley's cheeks warmed, embarrassment making him hot. He preened, however, at the angel's next words; he had never understood what it meant to have your heart flutter until now. "For everything, really; I never did get to thank the brave lad who told me it would all be alright and gave me hope for my shop. It did more than you know."

"Ehh, I didn't do much of nothin'," Crowley muttered, kicking his feet in a way that was humiliatingly bashful. Aziraphale let out a huff, as if he were affronted, and frowned slightly as he moved about, fiddling with the clasps of the oxygen mask.

"Anthony, without your reassurance, I surely would have fallen apart right there and then," he stated firmly. "Those around me were not much there to comfort; they were there for the show of it, the novelty. The silly chap who never sells books, finally having to let them all go. I was devastated, truly. Many of them were my grandfather's. However, the few words you spoke to me gave me a bit of hope for my shop, yes, but also for people being good, and being caring — being brave enough to be those things. You . . . you have an impact, Anthony, and a great one. I have not forgotten you, nor the ones who saved my shop that day. As I've said, it is why I am where I am." Aziraphale lifted his piercing, warm blue gaze to meet Crowley's startled gold, and he smiled at him; a newly-developed Pavlovian reaction of sorts, Crowley's lips immediately lifted upward alongside the blonde's.

"As I've said," Aziraphale said, "I wanted to be as important as someone like you. As brave, as caring, as kind."

"Nrghhh," Crowley groaned, turning his face away, his cheeks positively flaming. The irony was not lost on him. "Not. M'not." He had been told he was the opposite of such things for so very long; it was difficult to think otherwise, about himself. But while Bealz had embraced being savagely biting and snappish, Crowley never had; he had always, despite how much he rejected it and would not admit it, been kind.

(Aziraphale thought he was important. Aziraphale thought he was brave. Aziraphale thought he was caring. Aziraphale thought he was kind.) 

Aziraphale opened his mouth again — presumably to argue with the strange amiability they had found, here in the back of an ambulance, near the salvaged building of a burnt church, exchanging conversation like old mates — but was interrupted as Fire Chief Bealz walked up to the both of them with their signature swagger, grinning toothily at Aziraphale, who smiled nervously back.

"Pleasure to see you again, Chief Bealz," he offered, and Crowley was suddenly smacked in the face with the sudden series of realizations that not only had Aziraphale quite literally been working the same field as him for at least the past decade, but he had also been one of the paramedics who had been in the fucking ambulance with him and Bealz when he had broken his bloody leg two years ago. 

Oh, he was such a moron, it was almost laughable.

(He remembered it only vaguely, as he had been in so much pain, but he did remember the masked, blonde-haired and blue-eyed EMT who had let him hold his hand as hard as he had needed to with no complaints; who had soothed him and had distracted him, just as he had done earlier, by talking his ear off; who had promised him that everything would be alright as he had wheeled Crowley off to the doctors that would take him to emergency surgery. He remembered it, now that it was important, now that hazy memories were interlocking together.

Red strings of fate had always seemed like such a fantasy, before now.)

"Fell, the feeling'sz mutual." Bealz tipped their head towards Crowley, cocking a slit brow. Their face was slick with sweat, but besides that, they did not look at all worse for the wear. Crowley scowled petulantly, and their grin widened. "Crowley, are you gonna tell me what I need to know, or are you gonna be your uszual arsze self and get yourszelf more hurt?" They drawled, and Crowley's face heated. He opened his mouth — fully prepared to cuss them out, they would never pull rank on him — but Aziraphale placed a hand on Crowley's shoulder, and he closed it again, allowing him to take over.

"He has a sprained wrist, which bordered on a minor fracture," the paramedic explained calmly and kindly, "and a gash in his forehead; some bruising on his left leg. He suffered minor smoke inhalation that is being remedied gradually by oxygen. I set the wrist in a splint and sutured the head wound; upon examination and upon Anthony's explanation of how it occured, it requires no head scans, though if he suffers from any dizziness or fainting spells, I would go to an A&E immediately, to be safe." Crowley avoided Bealz's eye as they smirked at him and mouthed Anthony?, keeping his attention focused on Aziraphale as the EMT continued patiently. 

"He should be all good to go and right as rain in a few minutes — unless, as you suggest, he is being obtuse with me and hiding real medical issues. Which I am sure is something he would never do, yes?" There was a threat there, so very thinly veiled, and Crowley clenched his jaw so tight his teeth ached, his heart doing that ridiculous fluttering thing again as if there were a bird trapped in his ribcage.

"Right," Bealz agreed sarcastically and dryly with a hearty roll of their eyes, crossing their arms over their chest, shaking out their spiky black hair. "How long till the wrist heals?" They entirely ignored Crowley, who spoke first, in a very whiny voice — possibly explaining why it was such a common occurrence for paramedics to speak to him like one.

"Two days, ‘jus the two, Bea, I ssswear it."

Aziraphale chuckled, and Crowley pouted. "Up to a week, but around four days," the paramedic corrected, the redhead letting out a petulant noise at having been lightly reprimanded. "Just as with the sutures, if anything starts to feel worse or in pain, I would go to an A&E; the sutures should fall out on their own in a few days, but if they do not, I would recommend going to one for that as well." He squeezed down on Crowley's shoulder lightly; "You will let the Chief here know if you're in any additional pain, won't you, dear boy?" 

His voice was that same sweet, thick molasses, and Crowley's mind went to that same hazy place, his mouth going dry. "Yeah," he mumbled, "I will."

"Good." Aziraphale nodded, satisfied, and patted the firefighter's shoulder warmly before drawing away, turning his attention back to the short, spiky-haired chief. "Anything else I can do for you, Chief Bealz, or will that be all?" 

"Nah, I've got everything I need." They smirked again at Crowley, blinking innocent lamb eyes at him (which he supposed was meant to be a mockery of how he looked at Aziraphale, something he stubbornly ignored in favor of glaring back), and then turned away, calling over their shoulder: "We're rollin' out as soon as the police finiszh takin' witness sztatements, an' as soon as you're done, so, y'know, make it sznappy."

Crowley grumbled to himself, then turned to grumble at Aziraphale, his face hot and as red as the string that had been connecting them for nearly two decades. "What'd ya throw me under the damn bus for?" He complained, but the EMT only chuckled, busying himself by cleaning his hands and adjusting his spectacles, his back half-turned to the pouting firefighter — which should be an oxymoron, but whatever, Crowley was a whiny bitch when he was flustered, he wasn’t a life-saving hunk all the time.

"Well," Aziraphale responded with dignity, "I would rather meet again under different circumstances, my dear boy; not find myself treating your wrist again because you were daft about it."

Crowley blinked. Once. Twice. His mouth parted slightly, and his eyes widened almost comically.

(The red string on his heart tugged, the end of it sparking, and beginning to smolder with the barest hint of a flame; a flame of hope, that perhaps he was not being so ridiculous after all.)

"You —," He tried, then swallowed tightly, his throat going dry, his breaths skipping. "You'd — you'd like to, to —?"

"Oh, dear, I'm so very, very sorry if I am being presumptuous!" Aziraphale's voice was suddenly frantic and panicked, and his eyes had gone wide, deep pools of captivating sky. He took a step back, wringing his hands together, glancing down regretfully at his uniform and shaking his head as if in horror at his own actions. "This has been so very unprofessional of me, I apologize so very deeply, I —,"

"No!" Crowley burst out loudly, but the word caught in the dryness of his throat; he choked, and wheezed, and then suddenly he was coughing again. Despite the circumstances, Aziraphale was there once more in an instant, pressing the oxygen mask to the firefighter's face with deft, quick hands, urging Crowley to sit up and to breathe slowly with the added help of the oxygen. Crowley leaned into the paramedic's hands, feeling wrapped in the warmth of him, and he breathed, encouraged by Aziraphale's gentle words and gentler hands.

"What I meant t'say wasss," he slurred, once the mask had been cautiously drawn away and he tipped his head back to meet Aziraphale's gaze once more (his heart fluttering wildly as he realized just how close they were), "I . . . I'd like to. Meet again. Outside th'field. Maybe, eh, I — I could see your bookshop for reals this time, or, eh, we could — ngk — er — coffee?" Crowley finished lamely, his face burning red hot, and then hotter still as Aziraphale beamed. 

"Of course, I would feel so priviliged to your company!" He responded eagerly, and would've opened his mouth to say more, if he was not abruptly called for by another paramedic across the lot, who just needed someone qualified to help with sutures — no need to send someone unnecessarily to deal with the hecticness of the A&E, after all. Aziraphale's entire demeanor shifted as he snapped his gloves back on and straightened, and Crowley felt rather in awe upon watching him. 

He looked like an angel, because he was one.

"Ever so sorry, dear boy, I must depart," he apologized, with all the fervor and dramatics of a lover leaving for war. "However, perhaps you could stop by the bookshop; we could exchange a glass or two, yes? I presume you have a preferred way of contact?"

"Ngk — yes, yeah, hold on a sec —," Frantically, Crowley yanked a pen from Aziraphale's pocket without even thinking about it and scribbled his cell phone number down on the bandage wrappings that had been discarded beside him, and shoved the paper back into Aziraphale's hand. "Here's my — my mobile," he mumbled, almost ashamed; it had been a while, since he had done this, because Anthony Crowley did not believe in love, or soulmates, or red strings, and yet here he was, tied up in a knot of crimson. "If y'want." He coughed, once, and Aziraphale smiled sympathetically and kindly at him.

"I most certainly do, dear boy," he said, with such tenderness that the firefighter nearly cried. Big, strong, unbreakable Crowley; and yet here he was, reduced to mush at there mere feeling of an emotion that felt like something he had never believed in. "And I will send my intern over — Adam Young, he's very good," Aziraphale continued, more brightly. "To help you with the oxygen mask — though it's more for him than for you, I'm sure, after so many years you could probably do it better than I. But just keep breathing through it for a bit until the smoke fully clears out, and you'll be right as rain; though, be sure to remember what I said about any pain and the A&E."

"I will," Crowley promised, actually promised — when was the last time he had done that, and meant it? — and smiled lopsidedly at Aziraphale with a shine in his golden eyes that the paramedic had still not blinked twice at, because he was an angel, and — "I will, angel." You're my angel, he thought to himself, and I go so fast, I know I do, s'what everyone's always said, s'why I don't believe in love, but maybe this could be okay. 

Aziraphale did not comment on the use of the endearment, only smiled wider — and then, after a slight moment of hesitation, he leaned down slowly and pressed a gentle kiss over the covered wound on Crowley's forehead, his hand taking a moment to caress the redhead's cheek in a broad, warm palm. Crowley breathed, really and truly breathed, and he felt so very comfortable in a way that had been foreign to him for his entire life; he thought that there might've been tension from his fucking childhood that slid from his body at the warmth of the angel's touch. 

"You've done ever so well, dear boy," Aziraphale said to him, so very kindly, so very gently, pulling away but allowing his hand to linger as Crowley leaned into it compulsively. "You've been so very brave. You can rest now, dear; and I will see you again soon, yes?"

"Yeah," Crowley mumbled, overwhelmed and bewildered and ever so in love because that had to be the ridiculous feeling bursting from his chest, the bird taking flight from his ribcage, the nightingale singing into smoke and flame. "Yeah. Yes. Definitely."

"Goodbye, Anthony." Aziraphale gave him one last smile before turning and walking away; he did not look back, fully refocused on his task at hand, but Crowley did not look away once. The red string between them twanged and trembled, and Crowley held it with shaking hands, his heart seeming to pulse in his chest for the very first time. 

Once Aziraphale had ducked into the other ambulance, and his young intern Adam had offered Crowley some further assistance that he hadn't needed with the oxygen machine (not that he had been paying attention whatsoever, his mind lost in wondering how someone could possibly look so goddamn good and fucking angelic in a fucking EMT's uniform that was basically scrubs, Crowley didn't care what he said), the firefighter had dazedly wandered back over to the huge red truck he had arrived in, favoring his right leg as he sat down heavily and rubbed his hands over his face, avoiding his bandaged forehead. He humored Bealz, who mocked him relentlessly for a solid ten minutes as the crew began to drive back to the station; he was discharged for the next few days on account of his wrist, and didn't even complain, which did get the Chief instead of his best friend on his arse for real.

"Seriously, do I gotta whack ya on the back of th'head?" They demanded, when Crowley just nodded amicably after being told to go home and began exchanging his braces and baggy firefighter's pants for the clothes kept in his locker. "Did that bloke put ya under a szpell or szomething?"

"Or something," Crowley echoed, and Bealz just muttered something about him needing a head CT because there had to be brain damage if he was being as dreamy-eyed as a teenager in love, and he went red at the l-word, and they laughed, whacked him on the back, and declared that the only thing wrong with him was that, to quote them exactly: he had fallen all the way to Hell for a bloody paramedic. 

A kindhearted paramedic, who had called him dear and who had been along his red string of fate for longer than he had ever known and who thought he was handsome and important and brave and kind. 

By the time Crowley stumbled home, into the flat that he lived in alone save for his plants and his low-maintenance pet snake Crawly (the appearance of which, a red-bellied black snake, matched the tattoo coiling down his bare shoulder), and fought his way through a shower while struggling to not get his bandages, splint, or leg wet before falling into bed, his phone had buzzed. Once, twice, three times.

The redhead grinned, and marked the contact as Angel, and drooped away into sleep with the promise of planning an outing for coffee in the morning, dreaming of the entanglement of crimson he found himself in, a sacreficial lamb at a burning altar of a church with a white-winged, blue-eyed angel holding his hands and reminding him to breathe — lighting the flame in his chest of not only hope, but love, that had been long since blown out, but was being breathed back to life by kindness, and by believing in the possibility of it for the first time.

Perhaps Crowley was still being ridiculous. Perhaps this was all some fantastical dream in and of itself. Perhaps he was making things up, was having an episode, was doing too much recreational activities and had convinced himself that he could love and be loved.

Or perhaps . . . he could. Simple as that.

And perhaps, though he had believed the opposite for so long, and rightfully so . . . the red string of fate, of love, was within his grasp; or perhaps, he had been tangled up in it even before he had known it was there.

Hello, my dear Anthony, Aziraphale had said; I do hope I was not too straightforward earlier. I admit that I truly did cross a professional boundary; however, should these feelings that have long alluded me save for the man who spoke to me that day at my bookshop that I now know to be you, be shared by you, I should hope perhaps that misstep can be overlooked. And then, texted less like someone in the nineteenth century — I meant it, when I said I would like to see you again. 

All Crowley had managed to get out in response was a very misspelled, poorly-punctuated, 'me to angel, and don't worry, ur forgivn,-mak plans tmrw?:)' before his eyelids that had been heavy all day were allowed to droop closed — but for the aforementioned angel smiling with as much warmth could be contained in a thousand suns on the other side, it was so much more than enough, for he too had rekindled a fire that he had not even known was there deep in his heart. 

They would nurse each others' flames, and heal each other when they burned, and nothing would ever feel so right.