I feel like waving this fic passage around like a banner:
"“The prophecy didn’t mention water,” Aziraphale spoke. “Only fire.”
Smoke. Flames. Papers blackening, drifting in the air as ashes.
Crowley blinked, pulling himself out of the memories. The back of his throat hurt. “So?”
“I made my choice a long time ago.”
Instead of trembling, Aziraphale was now terribly still. His breathing had evened out, his exhales slow and long. A sense of purpose had calmed him, but at his words, a sudden dread overtook Crowley, freezing him on the spot.
“Even if I - if I refrained from admitting so. The world didn’t deserve to end. And neither do you, my dear. If my fate - the fire, the hellfire - if it’s been said - I am ready to face it if it means you might get to enjoy the world we’ve saved.”
Crowley blinked as Aziraphale’s watery smile came into focus. It was small and apologetic, but still sincere. He meant what he was saying.
The demon’s body refused to cooperate. As the realization set in, he wanted to scream, hiss, curse the angel for even suggesting this very idea, but he remained quiet, terrified.
“I would burn,” the angel told him, but then Crowley had wrapped himself around him, muffling the final two words as his hand cupped the back of Aziraphale’s head, cradling him against his chest, “for you.”
He did, however, hear them, and his psyche stored them away somewhere deeper, somewhere safe to unpack later.
For now, he just held the angel and dared the world to try and take him away from him again.
“No, you won’t,” he hissed as a promise. There was no reflection to prove it, but he knew himself well enough to know that his eyes had turned completely yellow at the mere thought, of the image of Aziraphale surrounded by flames -
It wouldn’t happen. Crowley wouldn’t let it happen. Then it didn’t matter what an old book said because Crowley wouldn’t break his promise.
“Says to play with fire, not to give up and walk right into it.” Crowley loosened his grip enough for Aziraphale to pull away so they could look at each other once more, teary-eyed and weary. “We’re not doing that. We’re not giving up. We’re not gonna make it any easier for them.” Crowley jabbed a finger at Aziraphale’s chest, ignoring how he winced. “Our side. We defend our side -”
“That’s what I aim to do!”
“Not like that.” Crowley barely resisted the urge to shake the angel in order to make him see reason. “I won’t let you. So stop being an idiot, and think of something else.”
It scared him more than he liked to admit, the stubborn look in Aziraphale’s eyes. It’d been stronger than mere resignation. Crowley had thought it to be from realization, and he’d been right, but where he’d been relieved at the hope of an escape plan, Aziraphale had found comfort in the option of self-sacrifice.
As if it was easy. As if it was the right thing to do.
A cold shiver ran down Crowley’s spine.
“I can’t,” Aziraphale cried, and he rocked back and forth in his grief. “I’ve tried! The whole trip back and - all I can think of is hellfire and holy water and you -”
“And you,” Crowley reminded the angel of his own existence. “It’s you and me. If there’s hellfire involved, then there’ll be holy water too. We’re in this together. That means we’re going to have to be clever. Not self-sacrificial.”
“I know what I said, and I’m sorry.”
He’d thought - He’d thought he’d spoken his last words to Aziraphale. That the last thing he’d told the angel was a cruel lie.
When I'm off in the stars, I won't even think about you.
They could drown him in holy water, and Crowley’s last thought would always be Aziraphale.
“Don’t be,” Aziraphale told him softly, eyes filled with a thousand apologies. “I’ve been rather stupid for a while now.”
“Letting Heaven burn you is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” Crowley barely managed to keep his voice from shaking. “So we’re not doing that.”"
-- Ria the Dreamer, "Are We Meant to Read the Footnotes?"
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