It starts with the pair fighting like their angelic or demonic counterparts, but still protecting the other. Crowley moving a fight farther away from Aziraphale’s team. Aziraphale killing a group of demons planning Crowley’s death. When Crowley dies for the first time, the angel can’t help the enraged scream that claws its way from his throat. In his distress, a demon is able to drive a sword into his back. Both of their bodies fighting to rebuild. With their non-corporeal forms waiting in the in between, they attempt to talk. There’s still other beings milling about rebuilding themselves, but for the first time, in centuries, they can speak. After such a long time, going without speaking to the other was the torture which is why they started kill one another.

It started as a demon and angel changing their minds and fighting for what they really ‘believed’ in after rebelling for so long. Instead of staying away from fights, they start sparking them. Instead of following, they’re leading. They want to be at the center of the worst battles. The more gruesome the death, the longer their bodies need to regenerate.

One fateful night, a battle rages on and on. Aziraphale has been brutally cut down. Crowley has slowed in his own fighting, trying to take in more damage. He’s timing their deaths so that they die at the same moment. His head swings to the right when he hears his angel’s choking on his own blood. Aziraphale had been successful in loosing to the demons before him. Crowley’s hit hard in the side and takes an arrow to the back. On the ground, waiting for death, he hears his angel call out.

“Please. I can’t do it myself.”

Even with his eyes bleary from tears, Crowley can see the knife held in Aziraphale’s hand. He can’t be asking what he thinks he’s asking. The demon hears his pleas. There are many impossible things. This morning, Crowley would’ve sworn that killing Aziraphale himself was one of those impossible things, but now, as he hears his pained gasps; he forces his body to crawl.

When he sees his eyes, his real eyes, up close after so long, time stands still. Later, they’d wonder if he had actually stopped it. The angel’s barely has a voice left, but he uses it to apologize. Apologize for asking his lover to kill him. If it’s a mercy to oneself, but not to another, then is it really mercy at all? Crowley shakes his head hard. No, this wasn’t killing his lover. This was releasing him from his pain. They’d see each other soon. This he says to convince himself before reaching for Aziraphale’s hand that’s holding his blade.

A second arrow hits him in the top of his back. He falls forwards onto Aziraphale’s chest. The demon chokes out a gasp of surprise. He had forgotten what it was like to touch and be touched without malice. He had forgotten the warmth of the angel who always seemed to run hot around the serpent. He would’ve basked in it, but he could hear the crackling in Aziraphale’s lungs more clearly now. Crowley replaces his hand for the blade. With an apology on his lips, he made sure to slice into the angel’s heart with one determined push. It may as well had been his own, he thought. His corporation didn’t want to last much longer after that.