Tadfield on the line.

Title: Mending
Story & Illustration by: irisbleufic & linnpuzzle
Characters/Pairings: Raphael & Uriel, Aziraphale/Crowley, Brian, Adam…
Rating: R, for several things (a bit of blood and a bit of romance).
Notes: Follows A Crown of Stars and CoS Epilogue: The Beginning. Since so many of you took a liking to Raphael and Uriel, we thought you might enjoy another post-battle piece that focuses more on the two of them (but not at the exclusion of the others, either). In light of the fact that we happened to delay posting this piece until this week, and considering yesterday's events, we'd like to dedicate this story to London and all of those brave souls who have endured the situation with such strength and determination.
Summary: Wherein the survivors receive stitches of various sorts.


Like most military installations, the airbase had medical facilities. The infirmary consisted of two separate rooms, one of which was stocked with supplies that suggested it was meant to serve as a makeshift surgery. Raphael had fished out all the various kinds of bandages that he could find, along with sutures and antiseptics, and told Uriel to see about getting rid of all the dust. She'd glared at him, snapped her fingers, and walked out.

Raphael washed the blood off his hands, listening intently to the voices in the next room. Joshua and Miriam were still with Sophia. The birth had happened quickly, and she and the child had been without medical attention until near the battle's end.

"Can I go, sir?" asked Brian. He pressed on the newly bandaged portion of his thigh, then winced. "I won't need crutches, will I?" He sounded frightfully young.

"No more than I will," Raphael reassured him, smiling, and dried off his hands. He fetched his cane from where he'd propped it against the wall and tapped on his own heavily bandaged calf. "Less, even. Mind that you don't worry the stitches."

"I feel dizzy," Brian said, easing himself off the table.

"That'll be the blood loss," Raphael said matter-of-factly, clapping him on the shoulder. "I advise you to walk no more than you must. Now, young man, get out of here. I'm sure Adam would like to see you."

"Yes, sir," Brian said, dazed, and gingerly limped out.

Curious, Raphael followed him to the door. The line of chairs was occupied by those awaiting their turn, those who had been brought or had managed to make it off the battlefield themselves. Raphael had helped Uriel bring a dozen or more before staying behind in the surgery and starting on the patients.

At the end of the hall, Adam Young stood with a bundle in his arms. Brian had already spotted him, trying to walk faster. Adam met his friend halfway, and their voices were no more than a whisper above the building commotion.

"Out of the way!" Uriel shouted, appearing around the corner. "He's unconscious and bleeding, I said out—"

Raphael took one glance at who she carried and who was helping her, then stepped back into the surgery. He fetched one of the folded towels from the shelf over the sink and hoped that it hadn't collected too much dust. He didn't have enough time to be shocked, but it seemed that there was enough for him to be sufficiently ashamed that he had, on the battlefield, taken his next patient for dead.


*


"The line's thinned," Uriel said some hours later, holding the door. The angel that Raphael had just treated wasn't accustomed to having one eye patched over with gauze, and his depth perception seemed off. She made sure he was well up the hall before she turned around and said, "Do you want me to see if Joshua will take them?"

"Yes," Raphael said, turning on the water. The sink's stainless steel basin looked by now as if somebody's throat had been cut over it. "If you'd be so kind."

"Kindness has nothing to do with it," Uriel said, and briskly walked out.

Raphael let the water run over his hands, watching the blood swirl in intricate patterns. The humans, now, they were easy to fix. They could be healed by your standard miracle, provided the damage wasn't too severe. Angels and demons—or whatever the fuck was the right term for them now—were more difficult. They'd gone around sticking each other with the equivalent of poisoned weapons, and wounds like those couldn't just be erased.

He felt Crowley's presence in the doorway before he could turn around.

"Tsk," Raphael scolded, drying his hands again. "You shouldn't have run off, darling. All those good deeds couldn't possibly be worth dropping dead on us."

Wordlessly, Crowley shoved himself away from the doorframe and strode across the room. He was doing an admirable job of seeming unconcerned, or as admirable a job as one could do when his face was streaked with dirt, sweat, and blood. He had his jacket folded over his left arm, but his right—sleeve ragged and dangling, drenched and singed—hung limply at his side. He hoisted himself onto the table, wincing.

"My pleasure," he said acidly. In the brightly lit room, his yellow eyes were startling.

Raphael ignored him and stepped up close, studying the wound. Michael must have caught him at close range, as the blade had bit down almost to the bone. It wasn't the worst injury he could've sustained, but if he'd caught it on his sword arm—

"I don't want to hear it."

"No, of course not," Raphael said, picking some shreds of formerly white linen out of the way. Briefly, he wondered where Crowley did his shopping. "Nobody wants to hear that a single blow taken elsewhere would've been the end of him. Sit still."

"I'm afraid," said Crowley, through gritted teeth, "that I'll always hate you."

"That's the least of my concerns," Raphael said, finally looking him in the eye. "I'll draw off the poison, but this will have to be cleaned and stitched."

"The wonders of Celestial medicine."

"Saucy," Raphael said, delighted. He reached for Crowley's shirt buttons, only to have his hand instantly smacked away. "Have it your way," he amended, and reached for the scissors. Crowley glowered at him as he cut the garment away.

"I heard you quit after the Plague," he muttered.

"Temporarily," Raphael replied, tossing Crowley's ruined shirt on the floor. He reached for a wad of gauze he'd set to soak in a dish of antiseptic and applied it firmly to Crowley's shoulder. "Desperate times, desperate measures."

Crowley hissed in pain, clutching the edge of the table.

"Then or now?" he asked weakly.

"Both," Raphael said, peeling the bloody gauze away, and repeated the process. He noticed that Crowley was pointedly looking in the opposite direction, eyes wider than when he'd first walked in the door. "There," he said, tossing away the second wad of gauze, and clapped Crowley on the back. "Wings out."



Crowley turned his head sharply, glaring.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I imagine you'll have no trouble," Raphael explained. "Frankly, I'm amazed that you're still upright, but I've got to check anyway. Aziraphale couldn't—"

"Don't expect me to thank you," Crowley snapped.

"He's in the next room," Raphael said reasonably, prodding the middle of Crowley's back until he felt the familiar shift, the wild beat beneath his fingertips. "Resting off the—"

Without warning, a flurry of ruffled feathers smacked him in the eye.

"Sorry. Must've damaged my motor skills."

"I doubt it," said Raphael, rubbing his eye with one hand and setting the other directly over Crowley's shoulder. He felt the demon stiffen and tremble under the white-hot blaze of his palm. By the end of it, Crowley was sagging and looked as if he might fall over at any moment.

"Is…that…?"

"No," said Raphael, brusquely, reaching for the sutures.

Crowley took the last leg of the procedure in silence, flinching every time Raphael pulled a stitch tight. Uriel was lurking about in the hall, likely pacing, but Raphael wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of entry. Thirty-six stitches total, and still there was silence.

"You've done very well," Raphael said, passing his hand over the wound a second time.

"Thanksss."

Before Raphael could reach for fresh gauze, Crowley was already off the table and bandaged. He tucked his wings away as quickly as he'd manifested them, then seemed to remember, nervously, that he was shirtless. The new shirt was as fine as his old one.

"Avoid using that arm," Raphael advised him, dropping the tweezers in the sink. "Good as new, darling, the both of you. I appreciate your cooperation."

"And I'd appreciate it if you kept your petty jealousies to yourself," Crowley said, and left.

Some people, Raphael thought guiltily, would never learn.


* * *


Aziraphale had given up on trying to open his eyes. Except for the pain, everything was hazy. He knew that he'd been carried somewhere, carried by Crowley and somebody else. And that there'd been another familiar somebody, and searing heat along his arm, and more pain, and then silence. He'd been carried again, but not by Crowley.

"She's frail," said a hushed woman's voice. "After a birth like that - she's so small."

"Like her father," said another woman's voice, this one tired and tear-heavy.

"You should go. Your daughters will worry."

"They're at home with Newt."

"Send one of them in your place. You've been here for hours."

"Miriam, I'm not tired enough to—"

"I'm sorry," said Crowley, interrupting them out of nowhere. "I mean," he added, more softly, "is this…"

"Far corner, second from the left," said the voice called Miriam.

"Thank you," Crowley said, sounding out of breath as he approached. "Thank you so—"

There was the sound of a curtain close to Aziraphale, and bright light on the backs of his eyelids. Just as suddenly, the light faded as Crowley leaned over him. There was nothing but silence for long, interminable seconds, as if Crowley was taking inventory of him. Crowley's fingertips brushed his arm, which felt very bandaged and very numb, and the faintest echo of stinging rising to meet them. Aziraphale sighed.

"First off, don't," Crowley said softly, sinking down beside him and leaning on the edge of the mattress. "I don't want you talking. If you can't get out your wings, you certainly oughtn't be talking."

Now, thought Aziraphale, faintly, I don't know about that.

"Well, I do," Crowley told him, "or that bloody doctor of yours does, anyway."

Not mine. Not anymore.

"Not mine, either," Crowley said, carefully taking hold of Aziraphale's hand. "I don't care what's changed, angel."

You've changed, Aziraphale thought, thinking of a smile.

Crowley made a choked sound.

"So've you."

Not for the worse, I hope. Wait, don't answer that.

"Who do I need to talk to about getting you home? Because I'm not going back—"

Aziraphale imagined his fingers moving, curling around Crowley's, and they did.

Ask Uriel, he suggested.

"Yeah," Crowley said, squeezing Aziraphale's hand briefly before letting go. He was gone before Aziraphale could reconsider his suggestion. Uriel had a lot of work to do, and she'd probably just tell him—

The air stirred, and Crowley sat down on the edge of the mattress with a heavy sigh.

No luck?

"She's, er, busy at the moment," said Crowley, vaguely. "Isn't there another bed here?"

None free, they said.

"That would figure," Crowley muttered.

My dear, lie down.

"I don't think they'd take kindly to my squashing you."

Move me. There's room.

And, just like that, there was.

With Crowley's head warm against his shoulder, Aziraphale slept.


*


"Your hands are going to dry out," Uriel said, closing the door behind her. "They must have some lotion around here somewhere." She watched Raphael toss the towel onto a pile of bloodied rags on the floor. "You might want to take care of that," she suggested.

"Why?" Raphael asked, turning, leaning heavily on the edge of the sink. "It's not as if it's hazardous to our health."

"There are humans here," Uriel said gently. "It's hazardous to them."

"Nonsense," Raphael said, flashing her a tired smile. "They're in the next room."

Uriel made the rags vanish and gave him a pointed look.

"Oh, darling," he sighed. "Not this again."

"Would you like to hear about the body count?"

Raphael's eyes flickered, briefly tired and desperate.

"Why do you do this?"

"Because," Uriel said, taking him by the hand and leading him away from the sink, "you've been gunning for this ever since you brought us back from the cottage."

"I can't help it, darling," Raphael said, eyes brightening as she backed him up against the table. "You look fabulous in a skirt."

Uriel wanted to laugh. Instead, she set her hands on his hips and said, "You don't look half bad in trousers."

"I hate trousers."

"I hate skirts."

It wasn't reassuring, really, to discover that Raphael hadn't gotten any better at kissing than the last time she'd kissed him, but that had been at least six or seven centuries ago. Uriel hitched up the somber, pleated black taffeta—stiff with dry blood, dear God—and half pushed, half lifted him onto the edge of the table.

"You always could sweep a girl off his feet."

"I guess this clears up a few questions," Uriel said between her teeth, accidentally brushing his cock with the back of her hand. "You're too predictable."

"I'm a transvestite," he gasped, eyes closed, "not a hermaphrodite. At least lately."

"That'll do," Uriel said, and kissed him again.

Anything was better than the Plague, and the table was almost comfortable.


—Continue: Closed Doors—