Total Recall is a Bitch - Starshadow667 (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

He really wanted to get drunk now. Aziraphale was gone. Gone! After Crowley had bared his very heart, let down every barrier. He was alone. Really alone. He’d told Hell to bugger off, even though he still had a frisson of fear thinking about his old Boss, who lately had seemed as remote as God. Satan/Lucifer (Crowley really hated him enough to deadname him, even in his thoughts) had retreated to somewhere, nobody knew where, after the failure –for Him– of His would-be Son. Maybe He’d found other demons to torment, after losing Adam and Beelzebub. As long as He’d moved on, Crowley didn’t care.

All Crowley had now were his Bentley, his plants, and his memories.

So many memories.

The thoughts bubbled up like gas in a swamp. Would he have been better off if he hadn’t met his angel? He remembered the first meeting. Aziraphale helped him by holding the Plans — the ones for Time, and Physics, and Matter, and Energy, and how they all fit together as he inserted the crank that started it all.

Aziraphale- such an attractive Angel!- had admired the work, and the newborn stars. He remembered the shock when Aziraphale had told him it was all due to be shut down long before most of the nebulae could start churning out new stars. It made no sense to him then, and it made no sense when- six thousand years later -- the pair of them thwarted the planned Apocalypse in favor of keeping it all going.

Memories, he thought, were a real bitch. As an immortal being he really didn’t have the luxury of forgetting, like so many humans seemed able to easily do. He often claimed to not remember his own Fall, but he lied about that, too. As a demon, lies came easily to his lips, a skill he wished he’d had as an angel. Maybe then he’d still be up on the top floor, in Heaven’s large expanse of offices. Knowing what he knew now, he was actually glad that was no option. But would he have been better off?

Aziraphale had once begun agreeing with him. He was certain of it. Why had he abandoned everything the two of them had stood for? Why had he been willing to push Crowley away, and leave him? It made no sense. Evidently all the things he thought the angel had been saying to him were wrong. Were, perhaps, lies. He knew angels could lie. Aziraphale had lied -– to save humans. To save the world. To save Crowley.

But had he been lying to Crowley? All those millennia?

The Bentley drove on. Crowley appeared to be steering it but the truth was the Bentley had a mind of its own, which was just as well, as it swerved through traffic, narrowly missing pedestrians and other cars, on its way out of London. It had an idea of taking Crowley for a long drive, away from people, away from Crowley’s pain, perhaps, but the pain lingered on.

Crowley kept drifting back to his first days. He’d left Aziraphale to report back to his bosses back in Heaven. He was determined to let the Big Boss know that putting Earth way off in the corner, where half the “wallpaper” wouldn’t even be seen, was a terrible idea. Crowley had been certain God would want to hear another point of view. Wouldn’t anyone? God could, and would, make up Her own mind. “I mean,” he mused to himself, “I would. And maybe I was wrong, but couldn’t She explain it to me? She’d listened to me before. She had explained things.”

He never had the Big Picture. Nobody but the Almighty did, as far as he knew. But She had created him to ask questions. How– now that his first job was done -– could She object to him doing what he had been created for? Wasn’t that his purpose?

But another shock -– he had been turned away from Her offices, the only ones that had walls inside the huge skyscraper that held Heaven’s offices at the very top floor. When he had been turned away his surprise was great – the Almighty had been readily available during the Planning Phase, seeming eager to explain the angelic responsibilities to Her creations. She had approved his plans, even pointing out fixable flaws, when a step had been in danger of being skipped, or when the physics needed tweaking to work within parameters. Why was he being told “No Entrance” now?

Metatron guarded Her doors, and wouldn’t let anyone in to see Her. Metatron listened impassively and then told everyone to go back to work. God was busy. She couldn’t be disturbed. No matter what Crowley asked, or when he asked, the answer was always the same. “Go back to work. Everything is as it should be. The Almighty needs no one’s input.”

Frustrated, Crowley had tried to go through the ranks. He was getting no response from Metatron, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, or Sandalphon, or indeed any of the major archangels. The hierarchy of Heaven was already sorting itself out, and the so-called elite were, for the most part, nothing more than bureaucratic lickspittles. Any input from the so-called “Lesser Angels,” including Thrones and Dominions, was simply not wanted or allowed.

Lucifer was receptive, though. Lucifer, Morning Star. Light-bearer. God’s Supreme Archangel. Her favorite. Lucifer was blindingly beautiful, and so very powerful, if somewhat spoiled. But he was willing to listen. And supposedly, Lucifer did have God’s ear.

Heaven wasn’t a happy place. So many were expressing dissatisfaction. Lucifer listened to each of them. Angels had come into existence to do a particular job, and once it was done, they were told to just fill out forms. Forms, endless forms. Write essays. Take notes. In other corridors, angels formed choirs, practicing songs of praise. Praise to God. To Her works, Her creations. Half the work hadn’t even been done yet, and She wanted songs of praise? Why?

It didn’t seem to him to be a good look for an Almighty Creator.

Later on the Fallen–most of them, Crowley later realized, not the brightest or best of God’s heavenly host, judging by their lack of imagination – cited “terrible food” as one of their gripes, but that wasn’t it. Food hadn’t even been invented yet. Angels didn’t need food.

What in Heaven was being done with all the filed forms? Nobody seemed to know. Nobody questioned the need for it all. Scriveners busily filed it all away, and as far has Crowley knew, nobody looked at it again. Scriveners also took notes, and were responsible for the filing systems. Everything in triplicate. Why?

Endless meetings had been called. The Higher Up angels, Michael, Uriel, and that toady, Sandalphon, had Charts. The meetings were presided over by Gabriel, who sat at the head of the long tables and the assembled angels were expected to sit around and be attentive. Each place had scrolls and pens for more notes. Nothing to quell the boredom as the meetings droned on and on. Crowley had taken to writing strings of nonsense words, just to keep himself from yawning right in front of his superiors. It never mattered. No one looked at the notes. They just filed them away. He couldn’t resist peeking at Aziraphale’s notes, neat and concise. How he could stand it, Crowley didn’t know, but Aziraphale was always cheerful, always ready to follow direction.

What had been the point of it all?

Aziraphale was so excited to discuss the Plans for the Earth, in production. Some wag- perhaps God, Herself – had incorporated as a joke, fossils of long-dead animals that never were, and never would be, along with pre-aged geologic features. At least Crowley assumed it was a joke. Nobody had consulted him, after all. But he tried to show an interest when Aziraphale talked about it. He would be assigned there. Crowley hadn’t been given another job, and thought maybe he could get himself posted there, too. He could work, maybe, on some of the geological features. Or some of the living things that would be placed there. To that end, he expressed his attraction to the plans, and paid attention to the layout of what would be the first garden. “Here, and here,” Aziraphale had said, “This is where they’ll put the animals, and all the fruit trees and vines, for the people and the animals to eat. It’s all very complicated, but inside the Eden – that’s going to be the name of the Garden–all the animals eat leaves and fruits and such.”

“Eat?”

“Yes. It’s a New Thing. The, erm, People and Animals, they can’t take in energy like we do, from our surrounds. They need to, well, consume it with their mouths. It’s all right here. The parts much like we have, but instead of being decorations, they have multi-use. It’s all very exciting.”

It had sounded exciting, and Aziraphale’s enthusiasm was infectious. But Crowley still had questions. Aziraphale was uncomfortable with those, so Crowley dropped them, mentally adding them to his roster. What about the animals with sharp teeth, that God was putting outside the Garden? What would they eat? Why put the one apple tree in the middle of the Garden with a giant “Do not touch” sign on it? Why have it inside at all? Where were all the other People going to live? Why weren’t they in the Garden? Where would this Land of Nod be, and how many people would be in it? So many questions.

Lucifer said he saw no reason they couldn’t be answered, and Crowley liked that. He kept meeting up with the other, dissatisfied angels, and all of them had questions, some more intelligent than others. He, Crowley, noticed that most of the unhappy group didn’t seem to think past their initial concerns. Crowley wanted changes, or at least reasons why changes were untenable.

In the meantime, there was a lot of rushing around, making a place in Heaven for mortal souls. Crowley seemed to have missed that particular memo, and it probably was as unimportant as all the notes, the endless notes. Paperwork.

Where was there room in all this Planning for love? Heaven, as had been said before, was supposed to be about love. Crowley had questions there, too. What was love? What did it mean? Was the rest of his angelic life to be filing endless paperwork? What kind of existence was that? Not exactly Heaven in his eyes.

He’d figured out by then that Lucifer had only been buttering him up, that he wasn’t anyone special to the archangel, despite all the nice things that angel had told him. It didn’t hurt his feelings. Truth be told, he hung around Lucifer only as a means to an end, himself. He just wanted someone to get him in front of the Almighty, so he could ask his questions, even if She would only tell him not to worry, that everything was in hand.

The only angel he really felt attracted to was Aziraphale. And he didn’t know what to do with that attraction. Sex had yet to be invented. Angels didn’t need to reproduce, though theoretically they could have. It just never occurred to them as yet. Why would they? Death had yet to be invented. Angels just were. Created to be love itself, or so Crowley had been told, again and again, though he had seen precious little of that emotion within the corridors of Heaven and no real evidence that the higher-up angels held any love for anyone but themselves.

For now, none of his higher-ups seemed receptive to assigning him to Earth, near Aziraphale. Time after time, he was told "All positions have been filled.”

But Lucifer listened. “I'd put you there, if I ran things. It’s a crying shame, a misuse of such a talent. I saw your work with the nebulas. Beautiful work. They don’t appreciate you. I do.” And, ”If I ran things, I’d put the Earth in the middle of it, so the People could really admire it all.” And more in that vein. Crowley had heard all this before but didn’t mind the repetition. It reinforced his own thoughts and opinions.

Again and again, days not yet having been invented, Crowley found himself hanging out with the beautiful Archangel, interval after interval. Each interval there were more angels around Lucifer. More whispers, more ideas. New words. Protest. Demonstration. Petition. Demands. Union. United. God was nowhere to be seen, even when Lucifer tried to speak to Her. Metatron was always there, standing between even Lucifer and Her office doors.

Finally came a time when a host of angels had assembled in front of the Offices. Crowley had found himself in the crowd, having nothing better to do, and wanting to be a part of the Protest. Lucifer was in front, a little bit away from the others, brandishing the Petition of Demands. Crowley hadn’t signed it. He hadn’t been asked to, and truth to tell, thought Demand was too harsh a word. He only had Questions. What was wrong with Questions?

But the Demonstration was going all wrong. Angels jostled, wing to wing, Lucifer’s side holding copies of the Petition, and brandishing them. Crowley thought maybe they’d all be told to go back to work, like usual, if they weren’t allowed in. But that didn’t happen.

Everything happened so fast. Crowley had tried to make sense of it later. Angels suddenly Armed. New words. Swords. Clubs. Shields. Angels striking at angels. So many new words, tumbling through his mind, and while he knew their meaning at once, they made no sense to his experience.

War! A terrible word. Crowley saw angels being cut down where they stood, and had tried to defend themselves. Where the blades cut, their bodies leaked pure light, and they fell, and vanished. And where they vanished, a new Angel walked. Huge, black-winged, with a dark and shadowy robe. Crowley tried to see their face, but it was insubstantial, blurry, frightening. And where they moved, Angels DIED. Another new word. Gone. Angels were immortal beings, but they had no souls, and once gone, were really gone, forever.

Crowley panicked and tried to back away. He looked frantically for Aziraphale, but didn’t see him in the crowd. It appeared not all the Heavenly Host were here in the midst of the battle. He did see Lucifer, who had made himself larger. Lucifer gestured and Crowley found himself clutching the hilt of a long and very sharp sword, knowing instinctively not only how to use it, but that it was made of a metal which could kill angels. He didn’t want to kill angels. He didn’t want to kill anybody! He found himself next to an angel he knew as Ramiel. Later, Ramiel would take the name Furfur, but that was in the future. For now, Ramiel, a scrivener who had been tired of the endless filing and paperwork, saved Crowley by parrying a blow from one of the host recruited to this battle, a blow which would have skewered him had it hit.

Crowley returned the favor by cutting the legs of an angel he knew as Saraqael who nearly cut down Ramiel. His blade scarred their face and crippled their legs, which Crowley regretted. Saraqael was dragged back, out of sight. Crowley knew it wasn’t avoidable. He realized the opposition truly meant to destroy the protesters, not just stop the Protest. Crowley cast about for a way to stop this.

Time. He had started Time, had helped to invent it. He knew how to pause it. So he did. All around him, the sounds of battle ceased, and angels stilled in the midst of movement. Crowley realized he had been holding his breath, and looked through the crowd. He still didn’t see Aziraphale anywhere. He did, however, catch sight of the Metatron, still in his accustomed place in front of God’s Divine Offices. As he wove between bodies he saw Metatron glower, and grow in stature, so that he stood head and shoulder over the battle.

Crowley, still clutching his sword, but more as a shield than a weapon, arrived in front of that being, unabashed by his Heavenly glow, and unimpressed by his size. Like any of them, Crowley could be as large or as small as he wished. His opinion of Metatron was unchanged.

“Why?,” Crowley demanded. He wasn’t certain which question he was asking. Why the War? Why was there no answer from God? Why was the Metatron unaffected by the pause in time? Crowley knew he couldn’t keep it paused indefinitely. All he wanted was an answer!

Metatron looked him up and down, contempt in his steel-blue eyes. “The Almighty has appointed me Her voice. Anything you need to say to Her, you can say to me. And my voice is Her voice.”

“Then,” spat out the frustrated Crowley in a fit of temper, “God’s an idiot!”

As he spoke, he knew it had been the wrong thing to say.

The floor beneath him opened, and he fell into the void, and the last thing he heard as he fell was the Metatron telling him he was a snake, unfit to speak to God.

In vain he’d tried to slow his fall, opening his wings, whose feathers, torn and tattered, darkened in hue as he fell. Around him he saw others, hundreds -- thousands, perhaps – of the survivors of the Great War, some silent, some shrieking in pain or fear. He thought to look for Lucifer, but soon learned he had been the first of their troops to fall. He saw below him a seething lake, smelled a sulphurous, overwhelming odor, and then he was down, immersed in the flames, which rose around him, burning away everything that had defined his angelic status.

His deep brown eyes had turned yellow, and he found scales on parts of his body, when later, he’d been pulled from the depths of the flames. He knew pain, and darkness. He wept until his eyes were dry of tears, and his skin had burned almost to black. Around him he saw so many others, shrieking in pain, and fear.

All of them, in terror. In darkness. They were each, and all, utterly cut off from Heaven, and irrevocably, from God.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

The memories continued to wash over Crowley. His Bentley was driving itself by now, and though outwardly he appeared to be in control of the wheel, he was lost in his thoughts, and for once, had decided to let the memories be, as they really happened, where usually he pushed them back with denial and obfuscation.

The lake of burning sulfur. His first thought was pain, as he floundered, his wings dripping with the fire, feathers burning black. His garments had burned away, and he had no strength to make them anew. He felt as if the body he had worn since his first thoughts, if it were truly flesh, would have burned down to skeleton, his skin gone, but no, he was fully aware, and fully aware of the screams which burned his throat.

Around him were others, former angels, and he heard a new word: Demons. That was what they were. Demons. He saw a monstrous form which waded in and out of the lake, dragging each of them to the shore.

Lucifer.

No longer shining in countenance, he had made himself large in stature compared to the rest of them, and where light had shone from his halo, his head was now adorned with many horns, and his once beautiful eyes were as black as soot, his mouth twisted in a scowl. He gnashed his teeth and showed fangs. His skin was reddened. And as he seized each of his followers, he whispered in their ears. “You are Mine, now. We will get revenge. We will make a place for us, and one day our strength will overcome Heaven.”

He needed a new name. Lucifer proclaimed himself Satan, the Adversary.

As the newly born demon rested on the shore of the lake, shaking the fire from his wings and body, he healed, and looked down on his body, noticing a few scale-like hard spots on his abdomen, he caught sight of his reflection in the onyx rocks by the lake, and noticed his eyes were yellow, like a snake’s, and there was a tattoo in front of his ear. “Crawley,” he said, and clothed himself in a flowing black robe, spreading his now-ebon wings.

Around him he saw other demons, and noticed each of them had some form of animal or insect attached to them, presumably, what the Lake had decided was the essence of their natures. Crawley hadn’t ever seen a snake before but he knew what that creature meant. Cunning, wise, wily, and invisible unless it wanted to be seen. Very well. He would be as the serpent, using all the talents of his former life, but subverting them to oppose all that God had conveyed to him that he had been meant for.

Everything they had stood for in Heaven, they would stand against now, in Hell. Another new word. Instantly he knew what was meant by that. Satan led them to what he said was the basem*nt of the building which held Heaven at its top. It looked like an old run-down factory, leaking pipes, ichorous walls, as dark as Heaven had been Light, but it was all theirs. When the People God had made populated the Earth, Hell would be ready, collecting souls against the time Hell would rise up.

Crawley didn’t much care. The memory of all that he’d lost still hurt him to the core. He’d had the best of intentions. He just had wanted to do his job, the best way he could. And because he was particular about detail, and didn’t want anything shoddy to go out, or for his work to be “just wallpaper,” for that, he was cast out? It didn’t make sense. Why would his Boss, the one who made him the way he was, punish him for being the way he was made? Now he’d never get his answers.

He had a new boss, now. Satan was more powerful than any of them, as he’d demonstrated, and he demanded loyalty. “I saved you all. You belong to Me now.” Hierarchies sorted themselves by power and intimidation. Crawley didn’t care about power. All he wanted was to be left alone to lick his wounds, but he wasn’t left for long.

Satan had commandeered offices, and they were the nicest of the awful spaces in Hell. Crawley just wanted to be left alone, but that didn’t appear to be an option. One by one, newly minted demons entered the grand doors, miracled to look like heavy dark wood, studded with black metal. Quite intimidating, they were, as foreboding as Heaven’s walls had been spacious, these doors promised closed-in, claustrophobic spaces. Some demons came out with titles. Beelzebub became Grand Duke. Second in command, they were, and sat on a big ugly throne, above everyone else, where they could supervise. They had buzzing insects surrounding their face. Anyone else would have been slapping the annoying creatures away, but Beelzebub seemed oblivious, though their scowl became legendary, causing lesser demons to scurry away in fear.

Crawley wasn’t impressed, but as they seemed to quickly have collected a great number of toadies, he wasn’t going to be able to challenge them anytime soon.

Each demon felt Satan’s summons, and though frightened, each one crept to the huge doors, and was let in. Some, Crawley noticed, never emerged. Others came out with fear stamped on their faces, fear and pain, which they covered up with swagger and bravado. Hell, Crawley saw, was going to be ruled by bluster and fear.

He wanted no part of the hierarchy, but neither did he wish to be one of the faceless mob hanging around in the halls, wandering aimlessly while attempting to look busy. How was this any different to Heaven, he wondered, but he didn’t have long to wonder, or to try to figure out his own place.

Soon enough came his own summoning. He didn’t show his own trepidation as the doors swung open, and he entered, conscious of, but ignoring, the glances slung his way.

The conversation was more mundane at first than he had anticipated. “Come in, come in. Crawley? Have a seat.” Satan was intimidating. Still large, he lounged on a very throne of a chair, somewhat reminiscent of the one God Herself had, but instead of being formed of light itself, his seemed formed of blackest night, like the universe before Crawley had placed the stars. Like shadow and deep.

Satan looked him over, appraisingly. Crawley felt naked, exposed, as if the former archangel could read his every thought. Satan leaned forward over the table, his huge, clawed hand cupping Crawley’s face, turning it this way and that. Crawley again resisted the urge to squirm.

“You’re still beautiful. You’ll do.”

Crawley exhaled. “I’ll–do?”

“Oh, yes. You’ll do. But first, I need something from you.” Satan held Crawley’s gaze steadily. Crawley blinked, exhaled, and despite his will, looked downwards. Fear ran down his spine, and ruffled his black feathers as his wings twitched. Satan gestured as a chandelier hung from the dark overhead suddenly blazed with light, illuminating the back part of the chamber. Behind him a huge bed loomed. Bed. Another new word. Angels didn’t have to sleep.

Somehow he knew that sleep was not on offer.

“I am going to teach you things, my little snake, and you will teach them to humans. The people on the Earth. You will go among them, and I will depend on you to harvest their souls for us. You will not fail me, will you?”

“Erm, teach me? What, exactly?” He tried to sound nonchalant, but he was far from it. Satan effortlessly picked him up, as if he was a poppet, a mere doll, and threw him on the bed. His robes vanished, and in panic, he tried to miracle them back, but he could not. He was powerless. He wanted to fight. He wanted to say no. He didn’t exactly understand what was happening, but he knew he didn’t like it, that he had no power to stop what appeared to be inevitable.

Pain. Penetration. It hurt. A struggle, that came to nothing. Lucifer had never acted like this toward him. There had been a feeling that he was respected, and liked, but as this Archdemon loomed over his body, touching him with hands and a white-hot tongue, in places he didn’t know could even feel. He felt powerless, weak, disgusted. And confusingly, parts felt pleasure. A tiny part of him liked this. Liked being embraced, and touched, and feeling emotions he hadn’t known existed before. But above all of it shame, that he couldn’t do anything about what was happening, and he didn’t understand that either.

Satan was tasting him all over, and demanding reciprocation. While initially he had fought, had tried to get away, he was overpowered, his strength drained, and finally, he acquiesced. He used his mouth in imitation of what was being done to him, hoping it would be over faster. He found the hard place between the Archdemon’s thighs, like his own parts, which he knew on angels were mostly decoration, he also knew were planned for humans. Sex. It was going to be a design for pleasure, for pairbonding, for closeness, for affection. But here, now, was no affection at all. Only messy tangles, and the pain he’d felt when penetrated.

His mouth summoned moans and fierce thrusts, their limbs tangled like some bizarre puzzle, being assembled by an insane designer. Crawley only wanted it over. He used his newfound skills to bring it all to an end. Fiercely, Satan erupted in a sticky mess, quickly miracled away.

He was free to clean up, and dress, able to again use his own demonic powers. Satan seemed unconcerned as to his, Crawley’s, own satisfaction. There had been none. There was only a lingering sense of his own shame, another new emotion arising from this ordeal. Crawley wondered if he had rather been tortured than to feel this helpless. He felt sick in his middle, and pain in his parts hitherto unused for anything, and now tingling and stinging with obscure promises of feelings yet to come.

In silence, he wrapped his wings around his body, feeling an urge to find cleansing flame and immerse himself in it. Satan, standing by the bed, the scene of his debauchment, took Crawley’s chin in his great, clawed hand once more, and his black eyes bored into Crawley’s yellow ones.

“Now do you see, my little serpent? Now you can subvert the People, teach them pleasures that God would deny them.” Crawley’s middle roiled again and he swallowed, thickly, trying to hold back something that rose in his throat. He nodded, unable to look away or to speak. “I must have your loyalty. Is that clear?”

Satan gestured, and the wall nearest him came alive. Crawley saw demons that had come through these doors before him. He saw that the ones who more closely resembled the angels they had been also undergo rapes, and be given tasks, and some who failed to please the Archdemon had been torn, limb from limb, to vanish in soot and flame. By this, he knew he couldn’t hope to go against this kind of power. And he very much wanted to live. At this time, he thought he had been through the worst. He could hardly make any other choice.

Satan had him sit down again, and paced before him.

“You’re special, Crawley. A demon with gifts. You’ll be My emissary on Earth. It’s up to you to make certain of more souls as they come available. I’m sending you up there. God has given Me dominion, thinking I will fail. But I will not fail, Crawley. I’m counting on you. Go up there. Make some trouble. Report back to Beelzebub, when you’re done.Do not fail Me. There will be consequences.”

Crawley again gulped, and nodded, unable to find his voice. He’d do what he had to do. He didn’t have to enjoy it, but he had to do his best.

At least he’d finally see Earth.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

That had been a shock! Crawley arrived up in that pleasant garden in snake form, figuring to avoid being seen, and saw that the angel assigned to watch over the new People was Aziraphale, equipped with a flaming sword. Well, he didn’t want to get his one-time colleague in any trouble, and he was a little afraid of that flaming sword, so he stayed out of sight.

That was the first surprise. Then came a second. God spoke to the new People. She wouldn’t give him the time of day, but She spoke to the humans. He listened only to hear God lie. She told the two humans that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, an apple tree in the middle of the garden, that they’d die on that day. A third shock. God lied? That one he didn’t expect. It made his job easier, though.

He knew exactly what to do. He waited until the coast was clear, and still in the Guise of Serpent, he slithered up to the Woman. He told her God had lied, and that if she ate the fruit, far from dying, she would be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil. It had certainly been her choice to listen or not. She listened. Went to the tree, plucked an apple and bit into it. Then she handed it to her mate, who took a big bite himself.

God, apparently, wasn’t happy with that. The pair were banished from Eden. An overreaction, if you asked Crawley. God was clearly unfair to all Her creations. Lying and then punishing when the lies were exposed seemed more a thing of Hell than of Heaven. Crawley wished there was another choice, but there was only Heaven, Hell, or death. Crawley wanted to live, even on those terms.

Well, that job was done. Now all he had to do was wait for the People to make more People. Crawley wasn’t sure how that worked, but he knew it was planned for. He slithered toward the top of the wall around Eden, and saw Aziraphale, still as attractive as ever, standing, looking out over the desert. Crawley altered his form as he joined the angel to one more in keeping with his own self-image. His deep red hair hung in curls around his face, and he stretched his wings behind him, their gleaming black feathers glistening in the afternoon light. He regarded the clouds gathering on the horizon.

He remembered turning to Aziraphale, seeing the recognition in his eyes. The angel inquired after Crawley’s current name. Yet another surprise, rather pleasant. that Aziraphale cared enough to offer the courtesy to not want to call him by his angelic name. He knew most angels wouldn’t bother to do the same with their Fallen former comrades.

A day full of surprises, so soon after days had been invented. There was another. “Didn’t you,” he asked the angel, “Have a flaming sword?”

Aziraphale dithered, and Crawley pressed on. “You did! It was flaming like anything!”

The angel looked guilty and confessed to having given it away, to the new humans. That took gumption. Willing to help the humans in spite of Heaven’s possible wrath. Crawley didn’t think he had it in him, and it increased his attraction to the angel immensely.

The demon was annoyed at himself. He was meant to confound his angel counterpart, not feel any kind of kinship with him, so he covered his annoyance by teasing the angel when he confessed to worrying whether he’d done the right thing. “Oh, you’re an angel. I don’t think you can do the wrong thing.”

Aziraphale didn’t notice the sarcasm, so Crawley continued to tease, only stopping when rain began to fall. The very first rainfall. Aziraphale, helpful to the last, extended a wing, and Crawley sheltered, in an echo of the time Crawley had sheltered Aziraphale when the first star-stuff and comets rained.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about it all, but decided to just roll with it. Whatever the feeling, he liked it. He didn’t resent that Aziraphale had been on the Other Side. He’d maybe even fought for Heaven, though Crawley hadn’t seen him in the crowd. He didn’t hold any of that against the angel. Crawley certainly wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone else. Not the Fall, the separation from God, nor the physical and mental pain that followed.

Aziraphale, he thought, was a bit of a naif, an innocent, though certainly capable as a warrior. But the angel still believed in the goodness of Heaven, and had faith in the Great Plan. Crawley didn’t. Not any more. If there ever been a Great Plan, it was flawed as—well, Hell.

He hadn’t a lot of faith in Hell’s plan either, but didn’t have enough power to go against Lucifer/Satan. That Being could out-miracle the lot of the demons, even Beelzebub, and they were certainly at least as powerful as the current Archangel Gabriel.

Well, he certainly couldn’t express a friendship, let alone a kinship, with this angel, attractive as he might be. Even if it was reciprocated—which he was not at all confident of— neither of them could openly express much. Neither of them could be certain that either side wasn’t listening in, at any given time.

Crawley thought he might be able to sense such surveillance, but being new to the new Earth, wasn’t certain, and he certainly didn’t want to be punished, not without it being somewhat worthwhile, anyway.

He’d watched, in serpent form, as Adam and Eve joined together in a joyous, happy way, that showed the rape he himself had endured–and he knew he wasn’t the only demon who’d endured it, since Lucifer/Satan had meant to strip all joy from any of them–didn’t have to be the norm.

He was not yet certain how reproduction worked. When Aziraphale had said Eve was “expecting,” he wasn’t sure of the significance. That sex, and lust, could be fun, he had seen for himself.

He couldn’t see himself pairing up with any other demon. Most of them were dull creatures, their Fall having stripped them of creativity and intellect, and most of them hadn’t been designed for either in the first place.

They’d been an unimaginative lot as angels and their Fall had made them worse.

The only ones with imagination had risen to high rank as demons, but Crawley hadn’t wanted a part of any of that.

The Earth smelled so much better than Hell, or even Heaven. It smelled of fruit, of flowers, of plants and green, growing things, and more – of possibilities. Crawley had liked the idea of possibilities.

He wondered if Aziraphale had similar thoughts.

In any case, Hell couldn’t object to him keeping an eye on the Principality assigned to this place. When the people started -– what had been that thing Aziraphale had said? -– breeding like people, making more people, then would start the harvest of souls for his side, that Lucifer/Satan had planned. For every good thing accomplished by Heaven, his side would perform two worse things.

Meanwhile, Crawley had to walk by himself.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

Occasionally Crowley would come back to himself, as the Bentley drove on, wondering where he was headed. The terrain seemed familiar, and he didn’t remember steering out to the countryside nor heading on the road towards Edinburgh, but that was where he found himself. He thought about pulling over, but his Bentley seemed to be quite capable of steering itself, and so he continued. Time enough to pull over when he found himself at a destination he wasn’t interested in revisiting.

In the meantime, his ride through his memories continued unabated, and without volition.

In the decades and then centuries following, the humans had spread across the Earth. Crawley had whispered, and tempted, spread jealousy, and envy, and unease, though he found the humans were quite capable of both heights of goodness and depths of evil he, Crawley, hadn’t even considered.

He had a huge triumph, whispering in the ears of some angels, tempting them to look upon the men and women of Earth with lustful eyes. From these forbidden liaisons – and why were they forbidden, Crawley wondered? – children were born, outwardly beautiful in form, but inwardly some of them had twisted natures. Some of them introduced serial murders -– but there were others who inspired artworks and music, so it rather balanced out, as the demon thought.

Still, he earned a great deal of cachet having gotten more angels to Fall, and his name was whispered down the corridors of Hell. It earned him a certain amount of freedom to do as he wanted. He discovered the joys of earthly food, and helped invent a pretty decent wine. He liked the effect, and the taste. Wine earned him a bit of hazy forgetfulness, for a few hours, or a day.

At first he didn’t dare relax his vigilance, but gradually he let down his barriers, ready to erect them at a moment’s notice.

He had been spreading mischief and mayhem around the local village when he saw that someone was building a giant boat and herding animals onto it. He spied Aziraphale and hailed him, asking what was going on. A boat and a zoo in the middle of a desert didn’t make sense. Aziraphale told him God was planning to drown the humans. “All of them?” Crawley was appalled. This seemed more something his crowd would do. He really was beginning to think God wasn’t any better than Lucifer/Satan. He also wasn’t favorably impressed by Aziraphale’s attempts to justify the carnage.

What in the Hell good was a Rain-Bow compared to the deaths of so many innocents?

Aziraphale wittered on for a moment, then stopped when he saw the disgust in Crawley’s eyes. ”So, how did giving them a flaming sword work out then,” Crawley’s parting jab, as he melted back into the oblivious crowd. He was disgusted with the angel, for a while, before reflecting that he, too, really had no choice. But it didn’t stop him from first saving as many children and even goats as he could. Not many in the scheme of things, out of hundreds below him as he flew across the waters of the flood.

Hell was impressed. Most of the Nephelim had drowned in the waters, which Crawley supposed was God’s aim, though he thought it pretty sloppy aim. And of those, a good number had been twisted and evil. They were being sorted now, Hell, evidently, deciding that rather than damning them, would appoint them as lesser demons. Either way Hell was as happy as Hell got.

More commendations for him. More freedom, which he used to dump the kids onto Aziraphale, who had taken refuge in the islands to the North, having miracled himself a roundhouse and a history that the humans believed lay between him and they, so the village accepted him as one of their own.

Crawley grinned. This was going to be fun. He shifted his form to female. “Aziraphale!” he called. “It’s me, Snake, your wife. With our children!”

Aziraphale huffed. “Craw–erm–Snake! Where have you been!” Then, in a stage whisper, from the side of his mouth, “We need to speak, privately!”

“Of course, dear!” Crawley smirked. “The children are already in bed. I’ve tended the fire. We can talk later.” Aziraphale looked from the village elders, with whom he had been consulting, to his “wife” and back again. Glared. But he saw the elders suddenly recognize Snake as the angel’s wife, whom they had known for years, and knew he was well and truly stuck.

In private, she acquainted Aziraphale with “their” children. The angel couldn’t abandon them, just as Crawley hoped. And in the days and years that followed, Aziraphale got more attached.

Hell was impressed when she reported her version–that she was keeping the angel busy for a few years. She omitted telling her bosses that she, too, was involved in raising them. And she did disappear for days at a time, going northward, to stir up trouble. She used her feminine wiles, learned by observation, to stir jealousy, starting petty squabbles that devolved into wars.

But she kept her village – Aziraphale’s village–safe and out of trouble. She enjoyed coming “home”, helping with the kids, getting them to bed, and then sprawling around the fire in the center of the house, in the living space of the roundhouse and talking. Their fire somehow never produced excessive smoke, and never ran out of fuel, while the pair talked until daylight.

Those times were peaceful, and despite herself, she enjoyed them. The conversation was of humanity and the various cultures. Aziraphale was teaching the children music, and which herbs cured which ailments, and how to make art. He had hung shelves from the rafters and displayed little carvings the kids had made. Village elders also taught them hunting, and how to use weapons, and how to cook and weave, all skills they would need in life.

Their talks never veered into philosophy, because Crawley knew that was dangerous territory for Aziraphale, and she wasn’t ready to upset the applecart just yet.

Crawley enjoyed those nights. But they ended soon enough. Aziraphale gave the roundhouse to the grown children – how fast they grew! and miracled them into thinking he and his “wife” had died, and the two prepared to go their separate ways.

Sadly, the last night ended in a quarrel. Crawley was in a temper that night, part of the moodiness that sometimes overtook her, disgusted with both Heaven and Hell, and the pointlessness of it all, bringing up the Flood and how terrible it was that all the children had died. She was impatient with Aziraphale’s excuses for God’s excesses, forgetting for a time that the angel could have no concept of what the Fallen had gone through, and how it had colored her own opinions.

“I thought,” she told Aziraphale bitterly, “That you were different. That you could see how terrible God–”

And Aziraphale interrupted her. “Don’t say it. It’s the Almighty’s plan. It’s not for me to question. It’s all well and good, you’re a demon. It’s what you do. But I won’t hear it, and I don’t think the children should either. Perhaps you should go, before they do overhear.”

Crawley’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. I’m going back to Golgotha. I hear it’s all dried out again, and the humans are spreading there. Time to get some wickedness in. Goodbye, Angel.”

She strode outside, looked around, and seeing no one awake, she spread her wings and was gone. The next time she saw Aziraphale was in Uz.

It had to be enough.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

The sky had grown dark as the Bentley drove on. Fog rose, swirling around the lights of solitary vehicles passing in the night. The moon played hide-and-seek with the clouds, above the fog Crowley pulled himself out of his musings with a start, recognizing where he was, though the streets had changed since 1827. There were enough landmarks to mark the place. There was the cemetery, much the same as it had been, though graverobbers no longer lurked around its premises.

And down this road, there was Dalrymple’s old place, now the Resurrectionist Pub. Crowley parked in the carpark just adjacent, remembering that once there had been cottages, and sheep, and cobbled streets, now paved over in blacktop. No one was about. He checked his chronometer. It was nearly three in the morning.

Crowley wished he had kept diaries, as Aziraphale had done. He just couldn’t be arsed to set it all down. Besides, the memories were all there, once he let them come up. He wasn’t sure yet where this walk down the winding streets of his reminiscences was leading him, but it felt like therapy of a sort, so he wanted to continue.

Grief. He’d seen enough of it in humans, with their brief lives, but never thought he’d have to cope with that emotion. He and Aziraphale– the loss of him hurt. And he wasn’t sure yet whether the joys outweighed that loss. Aziraphale wasn’t dead, but Crowley knew the chances he’d see him again were slim. And he wasn’t yet sure he wanted to if he could.

As soon as he was parked, he turned the ignition off and pocketed the keys. No one was around that he could see, but just to be safe, he miracled a protective barrier around the Bentley, making sure that even if a policeman shined a light into his car, all they’d see was an ordinary, parked classic vehicle. And if any would-be criminals tried anything, the Bentley would be impervious, and they would suddenly change their minds, and car-prowl elsewhere.

Then he prepared himself for another dive, far, far back.

—-------

He was still calling himself Crawley, though he was beginning to dislike the sound of it. He had yet to come up with a better name.

He’d heard of a resort town, a shining city rumored to be a city wall to wall with very rich humans. It was supposed to have wide streets, gorgeous villas, and no poverty at all. That seemed unlikely, so of course Crawley decided to go there and see what mischief he could stir up, if the city was that much of a paradise. But when he got there, he saw the truth – that the city had plenty of poor people, but that they weren’t allowed inside the walls except to work in service. Domestics, cooks, gardeners, and any other service work was ill-paid, but at least paid something, but the workers were not allowed inside the city walls until daybreak, and needed to be gone by dark.

These servants lived in slums nearby the city walls, and their conditions were as terrible as the resort town’s were luxurious.

The city was called Sodom. Crawley, still presenting as female, posed as a wealthy widow, and insinuated herself into the city council. Miracled coins allowed entrance into the city’s elite. Gold talked.

Crawley began a whispering campaign. All those people, outside the city, were disease-carriers. Criminals. Wine-bibbers. Just horrible people. Crawley made certain of her targets, and she had the ears of powerful men, using flattery and gifts. So the wealthy folk soon decided to call a city-wide meeting, and they all voted to send out soldiers — they had a paid armed garrison, to guard the gates and guard their wealth, and those were all well-paid – to clear out the slums. And from then on, it would be unlawful to let a stranger in.

This, of course, would be a death knell for strangers, who came seeking shelter from wars, or clan squabbles, or need for water, wells and water-holes being scarce outside the city walls. The poor just moved away once the slums had been razed, and the rich just got used to doing for themselves.

There had been only one family who defied the new laws, the family of a man called Lot. He, his wife, and their daughters lived by the city walls, and indeed, had their own door leading outside it. Crawley had tried corrupting Lot, but the man was resolute, and wouldn’t even associate with the wealthy “widow” without his wife being in tow. Crawley had been pretty successful in flattering the other men of the city, as well as cozying up to the wives, but Lot was a tough nut to crack, impervious to both flattery and bribery. Disappointing, but Crawley had success with the rest of the city’s citizens, at least, and that success seemed to attract attention from his old bosses.

She’d egged on a crowd eager to run Lot’s family out of town, figuring that was the best she could do to allow Hell to acquire all the citizens. At least all the grown-ups. She had also made them miserable, since they had now to do the jobs their servants had been doing. Win-win. But as the crowd reached Lot’s villa, Crawley saw Gabriel chatting with Lot, casually, not a wing feather in sight. Incognito, as it were. Crawley covered her face with her veil and retreated. She didn’t want to risk Gabriel recognizing her. It had been a long time, but Gabriel wasn’t entirely stupid.

Then she hid near the city, using her demonic powers to keep an eye on the action. She wasn’t about to get within smiting range of the angel who’d replaced Lucifer as Supreme Archangel, knowing that she couldn’t begin to compete with Gabriel’s powers. So she watched, a little confused as to why this city, of all the wicked cities — and there was plenty of wickedness to go around in human settlements — had drawn Heaven’s attention. She, Crawley, had only become interested as a lark, just another way to find souls for Hell to harvest. She had no vested interest in this place otherwise, but it appeared God did, or at least someone in Heaven.

As she watched from a safe distance, she saw Lot’s family gather a few belongings, and depart the city, using their own private gateway. Gabriel appeared to point to some nearby hills, opposite where Crawley hid, with some natural caves. The family had covered their heads with their garments and fled in haste, none of them looking backward until they reached the hillclimb. One of them – it looked to Crawley like it was the wife — couldn’t resist turning and looking. Her figure froze and solidified. When Crawley investigated cautiously later, she found a figure made entirely of salt. More overkill on God’s part. Or maybe that was Gabriel. Who knew?

But if that seemed extreme, it was nothing compared to what followed. Gabriel made a motion and a huge ball of flame appeared over the city, bright enough that if Crawley hadn’t been a demon, it might have burned her eyes. As Crawley watched, impressed in spite of her trepidation, the ball spat out flames that burned the resort city to ashes in minutes, along with every citizen.

Crawley quickly totted up and decided to take credit for the souls that would be stacking up in Hell’s waiting rooms, though privately she again thought it was more extremism on God’s part. Was fire any better than flood? It still got innocents caught up in the carnage. She didn’t see her angel anywhere. They must have been keeping him busy someplace else.

At least Crawley wouldn’t have to listen to more smarmy preaching, so there was that.

Disgusted with Heaven’s excess, Crowley took her report to Beelzebub.

It was well-received, as it turned out. She was given a plum assignment. Apparently, God and Satan had some kind of bet going, whether God’s favorite human could be corrupted. She was handed a scroll and a map, the former containing blanket leave to destroy everything this human had, up to and including handing out afflictions that would torment, though not to kill or permanently maim.

Crawley was dismayed to see this included all the human’s animals – and children. She didn’t want to destroy either. But her marching orders were clear.

Crawley had an idea. It would take finesse to pull off. She’d have to deceive both Heaven and Hell. But finesse was in her wheelhouse. Subtle as a serpent. Her bosses had said it. Heaven had said it, and once an engineer, always an engineer, Crawley thought. She could do this.

She was gaining confidence, and while she still had a great deal of fear of Satan, she had gained conviction in her own abilities to deceive. Success had been a great teacher. She knew her name was being whispered down the corridors of Hell. Her successes had not gone unnoticed.

With a bow they did not recognize as sarcasm, Crawley took leave of Beelzebub, and of Hell.

On to Uz.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Crawley stood on the sands of Uz, near the seaside, and altered himself back to his first, male, appearance. Breasts flattened, and external organs closed and extruded, and he clothed himself as fashionably as he could. He had previously gone to a jeweler and made a new fashion, a pair of spectacles, smoked glass to cover his demon’s eyes.

He robed himself in black with deep red stripes with the same cloth binding his head, keeping his chin-length red hair tidy in the desert wind. He made a chin beard to accentuate his masculinity. Men were listened to, here, and he would need that.

He miracled a side outcropping of rock shiny, to check his reflection. Quite in fashion for the place and time. He’d do.

Then he sat on an outcropping of rock and considered. This would take planning. He was supposed to destroy his dwelling and all his animals, and among his possessions, both Heaven and Hell counted his children. Crawley was tired, so very tired of children dying needlessly just to satisfy uncaring bosses of either side’s lust for dominance. Always the kids. Why? Mortal lives were so brief already, why cut these ones even shorter?

When did they get to choose between good and evil? It was another of his endless questions, for which there were never any answers. Well, Crawley would be twice-damned if he didn’t at least try to do something about it.

As he climbed the hill overlooking Job’s beautiful house, Crawley remembered the fireball Gabriel had summoned. It had certainly looked intimidating. He cleared his throat, and grabbed one of Job’s goats at random, placing it on the rock before him. Practice for when he would speak to the human inhabitants, he made a little speech, trying to delay the inevitable, then placed the goat back on the ground, feeling a bit silly. But his speech hadn’t gone unnoticed.

An angel, radiating light. “Avaunt!” came the commanding voice. Crawley just stared. Aziraphale, attempting to look regal and, well, angelic, stepped down from the rock he’d alighted on. “Oh, it’s you!”

Crawley continued to stare, faintly amused at the flustered angel. Of all Heaven’s angels…

He acknowledged Aziraphale’s presence with a slight head wag. “What are YOU doing here?” For a moment, he thought he’d said it out loud, but no. Aziraphale hiked up his robe and climbed his rock, extending his arm theatrically. “Avaunt, Foul Demon of Hell!”

“No.”

Aziraphale was taken aback. “No?”

“No, thank you? See, I have a permit.” And he unrolled the scroll he had tucked into his robe. Crawley decided that this might be a bit of fun. He needed a bit of fun. He was sick of being worried, and fearful, and looking over his shoulder. This assignment might cost him dearly, but he was damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy himself a bit, even if it was literally the last thing he’d do. Aziraphale was too easy to tease.

And Crawley was going to tease him to his limit.

First thing he did, was appear to smite all the goats. Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice when they flew away. Good. The next thing to go was Job’s outbuildings. Then he went looking for the children. He came upon Job and Sitis in the smoking rubble and asked after the children. Sitis seemed suspicious, asking who he was, so he did a little demonic miracle, gazing into her eyes. She said his name–well, the name she now thought he was. Bildad the Shuite. Very well.

And when he heard Sitis threaten to curse God, he knew he had to do something. And Aziraphale, bless his heart, had the gumption to play along. He was rather pleased with himself and with the angel. A bit of subterfuge, a bit of sleight-of-hand and he was able to fool Gabriel and Michael. But he couldn’t have done it without Aziraphale. Crawley wondered if that was the angel’s first lie. He didn’t think it would be his last.

Poor angel. It seemed he blamed himself. Not God, nor the other angels. He was like Job, convinced everything was his fault. Crawley hoped he would learn that Heaven wasn’t all good and that angels were capable of terrible actions, which Aziraphale didn’t always have to approve of. That he could lie for a better cause, in this case, the lives of Job’s children.

Crawley hoped he’d shown that God Herself could be petty and unavailable. Aziraphale had seemed taken aback by God speaking to Job, directly, when she wouldn’t speak to Her angels, even though Job didn’t understand anything he was told. And Crawley had been successful in tempting Aziraphale to eat Earthly food. He figured that there would be time enough to get the angel to enjoy wine.

Aziraphale had been so crestfallen at his lie. Crawley, however, was impressed. He didn’t think the angel had it in him.

Right under Gabriel’s nose, who hadn’t recognized Bildad the Shuite as his former underling. Quite the triumph, actually.

He was pretty pleased with himself, because he knew what was at stake if he’d fumbled, or if Azirahale gave the game away.

He shied away from that thought. Retribution would be extremely unpleasant, to put it mildly. Hell didn’t mess around with just demotions.

And even though Job had been saved, and Satan lost his bet, Hell figured it wasn’t Crawley’s fault. The word from the Big Boss was that the game had been rigged. Crawley, so came the memo signed by Beelzebub themself, was due a commendation.

And that was good news.

Job’s house had been restored, was bigger than before, in fact. There was a bigger paddock and even more goats. Sitis was- what had Aziraphale said – ” expecting,” whatever that meant --and Crawley was reasonably happy and satisfied with himself.

He ambled out to the rock by the sea, to find Aziraphale sitting there, wringing his hands. When he saw the demon approaching, Aziraphale stood. “I’m ready,” he said, a note of despair in his voice.

“Ready for what?”

“For you to take me to Hell.”

Silly angel. As if one lie would condemn him to Hell. God Herself lied, repeatedly. She apparently didn’t care much about lies if they advanced Her cause. Crawley felt sorry for the angel, but it certainly wouldn’t serve the demon well to admit that. Hell would rightly see it as weakness. Showing weakness was a good way to get a demon destroyed. So he chuckled.

Aziraphale looked more distressed, as distressed as he had ever seen him. For an angel, he certainly carried more than a share of guilt.

“I’m not going to take you to Hell.”

Aziraphale was almost crying. “Why not?”

Really, teasing him was like teasing a goat. The goat just didn’t understand. But Crawley couldn’t resist. “Well, for one thing, I don’t think you’d like it.”

“But I lied! To thwart the will of God!”

“You did. But I’m not going to tell anyone, are you?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “But if I’m not Fallen, what am I?”

Crawley chuckled again. “You’re just an angel who goes along with Heaven, as far as he can.”

“Isn’t that lonely?”

Crawley turned serious. “Well, yes.”

“But you said it wasn’t!”

“I’m a demon,” he remembered telling the angel. “I lied.”

Again, he felt a kinship with Aziraphale. It had been so difficult for him when he realized for himself that Heaven wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The pair of them sat, then, in silent companionship, each lost in their own thoughts. Crawley thought he knew a little of what Aziraphale was going through. His whole worldview had been challenged, and he had to come to grips with what that meant.

Crawley hoped they’d continue to meet up from time to time. He’d mocked the angel’s blond curls, but secretly he thought that Aziraphale was about the prettiest being he’d ever seen, and it looked like he, too, had imagination. If only he could prod him bit by bit out of his naivete.

At last, Crowley spoke. “I must be going. No rest for the wicked, you know. See you around?”

Aziraphale gave a faint smile. “I expect so. Do take care of yourself.”

“Oh, Angel, it’s all I do.” He saluted with a fingertip to his forehead, and with that, they parted.

Crawley hoped, as far as their respective jobs allowed, they would continue. He really liked the angel. Such an attractive being, and for all his naiveté, he was so intelligent. Look how quickly he’d caught onto Crawley’s deception!

Crawley sighed. No holidays for demons. He was on to his next assignment. Something about some tower being built. Someone, some human, thought maybe they could reach Heaven itself if everyone worked together. Hell, of course, thought it was a great opportunity to do some mischief against Heaven. That was where Crawley came in. He’d have to figure out what needed doing on the fly, so to speak, but that came easily to him.

And it was always fun to see what humans would think up next. They were a most inventive lot.

Easy to influence, too. Crawley liked that just fine. It looked very good on reports.

Reports. Lists. Still the bane of his existence, but it did beat Hell out of the alternatives.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

Crowley blinked. It was daylight, and the street was filling with people. Humans. The pub had its “Open” sign on it, and he thought maybe going in and having a drink, and maybe some breakfast, would take his mind off his grief and anger. It was like a sore tooth, or what he had assumed a sore tooth would be like, having caused a few but never had any. He couldn’t resist poking at it.

He adjusted his appearance, neat and clean, as though he hadn’t spent a few days in his car, but had come fresh from a shower and wardrobe change. He donned a fresh pair of sunglasses from the dozens in his glove compartment.

Then he unfolded himself from his Bentley and sauntered through the door.

There, a table near the great fireplace, evidently just decorative now, as it was bricked over, with the mantel holding decanters and figurines. One of them looked like that statue of Gabriel in the cemetery that he’d wanted to show Aziraphale had been so long ago. It looked like a cheap souvenir, the kind sold to tourists in gift shops. Gabriel, he thought sourly, would have approved if he’d seen it, at least prior to falling for Beelzebub.

How did they rate a happy ending, and he didn’t?

He ordered and paid for a bottle of Talisker. Might as well take a spin down Oblivion Lane, if Memory Lane would let him be for a while. He was, for the first time in his life, an utterly free agent. Hell had been told to leave him alone, and apparently was doing so.

He poured the Talisker into a glass, swirled it a moment, then tilted his head back and threw it back. It tasted of regret, burning its way down. But it didn’t make a dent in his sobriety, sadly enough. He glanced around and noticed people staring at him, but he glared back, behind his dark lenses, and they quickly found other things to look at.

He poured another glass, and stared morosely into it.

Remembered.

—-----------------

Sunny Egypt. It was the time of what archeologists would later call the New Kingdom. Egypt was prosperous and shared the prosperity with people that Egypt called Canaanites. Later, they would call themselves Hebrews. It was a case of immigrants becoming good neighbors, and Hell decidedly did not like that.

Crawley was sent to stir up trouble. Once again, she presented as female, and cozied up to the Pharaoh Thutmose and his wife, Hapshetsut.

Crawley had some ideas, and used her affinity with animals to start things. A plague of frogs, just to soften up the Pharaoh and his family, was the first thing. Frogs everywhere. The people found them in their pantries, in their baths, in their homes, and all over their gardens. Crawley suggested that perhaps God wasn’t well-pleased with all these immigrants.

Next, locusts. Those were even worse than the frogs. They ate the grain in the fields, and starvation was threatened. Pharaoh was quite unhappy, Fortunately for the people, he’d laid up stores where the locusts couldn’t get at them, sealed jars and sealed graineries, but he really was beginning to think there was some sort of divine retribution on his people. The crowning touch was sending hoards of scabies, itching bugs that burrowed into the skin and caused boils. Crawley was rather proud of that. It hadn’t been easy convincing the bugs to land on the people, nor to convince them to leave once Pharoah passed laws expelling the Canaanites. As far as Crawley knew, the immigrants had migrated to the wilderness, following some fanatical ruler.

Crawley thought she caught sight of Aziraphale among the mob as they left, but she couldn’t be certain, and didn’t care to look. She was still sorting out her feelings. Hell seemed happy with the outcome, and Egypt was still coping with the aftermath of plagues.

Another job well done.

Next time she ran into Aziraphale, there was a baby involved.

At least this time, they didn’t have to raise it.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Crowley had downed the whole bottle of Talisker, and it wasn’t doing anything that he could notice. He paid for another, and miracled a space around him, where nobody took notice of what was shaping up to be a very alcoholic breakfast. He had no desire for food. He resisted the urge to drink out of the bottle. Aziraphale’s manners had rubbed off on him a little bit, just enough that the angel could stand being seen with him. But he poured a hefty slog into his glass, threw it back, and poured another. It didn’t seem to help or hinder. The memories kept on coming, relentless.

—---

It was a small town, and some census for tax purposes had been called, just an excuse to move people around, Crawley thought. She was still presenting as female. It just seemed easier to get into peoples’ confidence that way. Sometimes she was a wealthy widow. Sometimes a sex worker. Sometimes just a poor widow. It depended on who she had to impress, and what needed doing. Usually it was just a case of pitting neighbor against neighbor. Petty quarrels.

Hell, however, had said something was happening here, and Crawley was assigned to look into it. None of her bosses knew what was – well, up – but they expected Crawley to find out, and do mischief around it.

Crawley was dressed respectably, as a widow of modest means. She had acquired a donkey and developed a rapport with it, as she did with most animals, and equipped it with a pannier holding supplies that a traveling human would need, though Crawley needed none of them. She also had some skin bottles, only one of which had water in it. The rest held wine. It wasn’t great wine, but Crawley rated it drinkable. It was the best this settlement had, which wasn’t saying much.

With the influx of out-of-towners, and only a few inns, Crawley was finagling that every inn was full, leaving a great many people to have to camp in the desert. With luck, maybe there’d be a fight or two breaking out. Hell would approve of that, surely.

As Crawley and her donkey meandered down streets, the houses thinned out, There were weary people knocking on doors and gates. People were arguing. Crawley kept walking until there was only desert. Fires dotted the sands. Small camps of humans, forced to stay outside, had lit fires which burned fitfully in the night, mostly fueled by dung, and people wrapped themselves up in every bit of cloth or fur they had, and tried to sleep.

Crawley led her donkey out into the night, past the campfires. She talked to some scorpions, and a few snakes out hunting, and convinced them that frightening humans in campfires would be a fun way to spend the night. The snakes weren’t venomous, but were happy to see if there might be a rat or two hanging around the humans. It wasn’t a big triumph, but the miseries did add up. Some nights were more productive than others.

But as she walked, she saw another campfire. This one had a lone figure standing by it, warming hands over the glow. Aziraphale.

“Hullo, angel! Fancy seeing you here! What’s up?”

Aziraphale looked unhappy. “I don’t know. I was told to come here, to Bethlehem, and I’d know when I got here. Only I got a bit turned around. It got dark awfully fast. I just thought I’d stop for a bit and get my bearings. There’s so many little towns around here.”

Crawley chuckled. “I can tell you where you went wrong. You want to go a half league that direction,” and she pointed. “So what’s the big shindig?” Aziraphale looked confused. “The happening? The party? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. But it’s big. I…” His voice trailed off, and he pointed. “Look, here comes someone! Maybe they know what’s happening.”

Drawing near to them was a man leading a donkey, on which sat a woman, swaying with exhaustion. As the group came to a stop, the man turned and helped the woman down, and Crawley saw she was hardly more than a child, and very pregnant.

Having posed as an obstetrician, Crawley had subsequently taken it upon herself to learn about babies and where they actually came from. But usually they came to grownups. Adult humans.

“Thank God,” said the man, “May we share your fire? Oh, where are my manners? I’m Joseph. This is my wife, Mary. We need to get to Bethlehem, only I think we’re lost.”

Crawley simpered. “No worries. It’s half a league that way.” She pointed. ”But my husband and I,” and Aziraphale glowered, but said nothing, “would be delighted to share our fire.”

Behind her appeared a vaguely couch-shaped pile of furs. Crawley guided Mary onto them, and she sat, gratefully.

“We can’t stay long,” Joseph said, looking distressed. “The baby’s coming. We’re supposed to have a room waiting at the Goat and Bush Inn.”

Mary wailed. “I’m frightened, Joseph. I need help! I’m getting twinges…”

Crawley spread her hands and faced Aziraphale. “My husband would be willing to go with you and show you the way, while I stay with your good wife, wouldn’t you dear?” He smiled guilelessly at Aziraphale, who blinked and tried to look angry.

“Are you sure?” Joseph looked apologetic.

Aziraphale made a head gesture. We need to talk, while he answered, “Of course. Hang on a moment.” He ducked around Crawley’s donkey, placidly standing, munching on a patch of grass Crawley had miracled for him. “Crawley, I think this is it. This is what I was sent for.”

“This?” Crawley looked back at the young girl, who was rubbing her protruding stomach, still looking scared. “Go on then. I’ll take care of the child. Only hurry, I don’t really want to midwife this baby if it can be helped. And I certainly don’t want my side or yours figuring out I helped in any of this.”

“Understood.” And he and Joseph hurried away into the night.

The two of them were gone for some time. Crawley kept up a running dialogue with the frightened child – that was what she was, just a child herself, scared because it was, Crawley heard, her very first pregnancy. Pregnancy was something she had learned in the intervening years, and now understood. It involved pushing a whole other human out of the woman’s body. And it wasn’t an easy thing for them.

Some of them died.

Crawley didn’t intend for that to happen, even if Hell wanted it. She’d fooled them before, and she’d do it again. It was one thing to let adult humans die or even have a hand in their dying from time to time. But Mary was hardly more than a child herself, and having a child. More innocent lives.

“Look, they’re coming back. You’ll be all right. This baby isn’t coming just yet. You’ll be all right.”

Aziraphale was wringing his hands. Joseph helped Mary back on the donkey. “All we can get is a stable, Mary. A stable! No room in the inn at all.”

Crawley felt a little guilty. She was responsible for all that, after all. She held Mary’s hand reassuringly. “You’ll be all right. I just know it. I know things.”

Mary latched onto Crawley’s hand. “Please. Stay with me. I’m really scared.” Crawley reassured her again.

“Angel, will you take my donkey? I think I’m helping.” And he accompanied them on the walk, Aziraphale walking behind.

Soon enough, they reached the stable, really a cave set into the wall of a hill just outside the city. Crawley helped Mary down. She was clearly in labor. Crawley took charge. “Joseph, you go get water. Hot if you can get it. Clean, at least. Angel, would you look in my bags? There are clean cloths there. We’re going to need them. All of them.” And she cast a look at Aziraphale that said “Miracles” but she didn’t say it out loud.

When Mary was settled, Crawley took all the cloths including what she knew as swaddling wraps for a baby. Then she ushered Aziraphale outside. “Women’s work,” she said, and added, “Keep watch, will you, dear?” Aziraphale looked worried, but was reassured when Crawley added, “Don’t worry. Trust me. I can do this.”

And over the next few hours, she did. She’d watched midwives. She knew in theory what needed to be done, and she did it, rubbing Mary’s back, putting her ear to her stomach and encouraging her to push hard at the right time, soon handing her the lusty baby, wrapped in a clean cloth. Mary didn’t even notice when Crawley miracled away the mess. She was too busy counting fingers and toes and then nursing her new son.

Aziraphale came rushing in. “Crawley! You’ve got to leave! Gabriel’s on his way! Oh, dear, oh, dear. He mustn’t see you here!”

Crawley, in a panic, ran out of the cave, and saw a light appearing, advancing quickly. She changed herself into the first thing she could think of, a snake, and slithered away through the dark. That was close, she told herself. She waited until she got far away until she felt safe enough to change back into a human form. Idly, she wondered why Gabriel had gotten involved, but figured it had something to do with the young family. Neither Heaven nor Hell had to know Crawley’s involvement. She never could resist the small humans.

And she’d left her donkey. Oh, well, couldn’t be helped.

It was years later when she saw Aziraphale again. She’d kept an eye on the young carpenter the baby had grown into. This time she met him in the guise of a young sex worker. He didn’t seem at all interested in her, despite looking her most seductive, hiding her eyes behind her veil. So she decided to show him the world. Took him up to a mountain, and revealed all of it to him, and he didn’t seem impressed at all. Crawley decided not to waste time on the incorruptible. There were other fish to fry.

She’d also decided to change her name. She’d been dissatisfied with Crawley for some time. She decided to go with Crowley. Much more like a name to conjure with, so to speak.

Humans were so easy to corrupt, generally. Show a bit of leg, whisper temptation, whether lust or gluttony or just plain old fashioned greed, and they fell right into Hell’s lap. Some of them were always ready to rob or cheat to get their way. Some even murdered each other, sometimes for the love of it. Crowley couldn’t really get behind that, but she could also hardly object. It kept her bosses off her back.

One day there was a public execution. Crowley decided to go. There was always some casual cruelty to sow in a crowd. She saw Aziraphale and approached him. The angel seemed in ill-sorts. No wonder, having to justify Heaven as much as he did.

“Come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?”

“Smirk, me?” Aziraphale looked shocked.

“It’s your lot put him there.”

“I’m not consulted on policy decisions, Crawley.”

“Oh, I’ve changed it. Yes, my name. Seemed a bit to squirming at your feet-ish, you know.”

“Well, you were a snake.So what is it now? Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?”

“Crowley.”

Aziraphale sniffed. He was in a mood. “Did you ever meet him?”

“Oh, yes.” After he was grown, she thought, but didn’t say it. Nobody had pegged to that, and she wanted to keep it that way. “He seemed a bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world.”

“Why?”

Crowley shrugged. “He was a carpenter from Galilee. His traveling opportunities are – well, limited.” She winced as the man groaned at the nail being hammered into his wrist. “That has to hurt. What was it he said that got everyone so upset?”

“Be kind to one another.”

Crowley shielded her eyes from the sun as the cross was hoisted upright. Her sympathies lay with the young fellow. Humans were brutal when it came to killing their own kind. “That’ll do it,” she reflected, and melted back into the crowd. It didn’t pay to get too attached. A breath, and they were gone.

Like this one.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Golgotha had really impacted him, Crowley thought. He began then to try to distance himself more from specific humans. He wasn’t able to, really, any more than he was able to stop asking questions. He felt as if he had gained Aziraphale’s trust, but he didn’t feel as if he had fairly earned it. Sure, he helped that woman in her distress. He had been able to because he had studied human reproduction after discovering he was woefully ignorant, when he had saved Sitis’s children.

Aziraphale had tried to thank him, then. At least he thought so, looking at the angel’s face. He was always so demonstrative of his emotions. Crowley had run away both times, not allowing it. He had always been conscious that Hell might have its agents listening. He had never dared say out loud some of the things he had been thinking, because he knew some of the things that might trigger either of their respective sides. Of course he pushed to his limits. But he knew what the limits were, or thought he did.

He wasn’t really sure when he started to fall in love, looking back. But what he did remember was that when he saw Aziraphale, his, Crowley’s, world got a little less grey, a little less overwhelmingly hopeless.

Humans. It had been his job to make their short lives miserable, when he could. But some of them could easily exceed even his inventiveness in sheer awfulness. Crowley looked down at the table, at the six empty bottles of Talisker. One of the better human inventions, to his mind, but right now it hadn’t been doing its job. Not a speck of oblivion had he found so far in any of the empties, or even at the bottom of his empty glass.

He was as near stone-cold sober as he ever had been after a thorough drinking binge.

Resisting an urge to smash the glass against the former fireplace mantel he got to his feet, and tossed a handful of hundred pound notes onto the table, his feet growing steadier as he walked.

He got into the Bentley and leaned his forehead against the wheel for a moment. “Where to now, old girl?” He fished out his key and put it into the ignition. The Bentley purred and swung out of the carpark. He let it go its own way.

He didn’t bother to steer. The Bentley knew where it was going.

______________

Some years after Golgotha, Crowley was in Rome. Hell had demanded he spend some time corrupting the current Emperor. Rome was getting too successful. Too many happy citizens.

So Crowley had gotten an invitation for one of Caligula’s parties. He’d dressed carefully, presenting male, but very much like an out-of-towner trying to impress. Expensive toga, barbarian shawl around his neck, hair carefully arranged, short, like the humans wore it but with elaborate curls in front, like some of the tarted-up upper crust. He very much gave the impression of a high-priced male prostitute.

The party had been horrid. Nastier than anything he could have planned, actually. Caligula had taken the guests’ wives one by one into one of the bedrooms, and not one guest dared complain, clearly. The wives came out disheveled and clearly unhappy. Caligula, nonplussed, had greeted Crowley, and quite infatuated, had groped the demon, and crowned him with a gold laurel crown. Dish after dish had been served, and most of them went uneaten. Too much food, too rich, and ridiculous things, like larks’ tongues in honey, all while some of the help, all enslaved, went hungry out back where the kitchens were.

When Caligula demanded one of the help be flogged, for entertainment alone, Crowley begged off, and went to a local taverna. He really was in a temper. “Give me a jug of whatever you think is drinkable.” Glumly, he paid and then poured himself a cup.

“Crawley? Crowley?” Aziraphale. “Fancy seeing you here! Still a demon, then?”

He remembered scowling at the angel. “What kind of a stupid question is that? Still a demon? What else am I going to be, an aardvark?”

“Just making conversation.”

“Well, don’t.” Crowley remembered giving a side glance to the angel. He couldn’t stay angry with him for long. ”Cup of wine? It’s the house dark.” He hailed the bartender. “A cup for my acquaintance, here.” She gave him an empty cup and held her hand out for another coin.

Crowley had paid, then poured a cup for Aziraphale, handing it to him.

Aziraphale smiled and held the cup up, and Crowley clinked. “Salutaria! In Rome long?”

The angel had brightened. He really had a way of lifting Crowley out of the blackest of moods.

“Just nipped in for a quick temptation.”

“Anyone special?”

“Emperor Caligula. Frankly, he doesn’t need any tempting to be appalling. Going to report it to the head office as a flaming success. You?”

Aziraphale dimpled. “They want me to influence a boy named Nero. I thought I’d get him interested in music. Improve him.”

Crowley allowed himself a smile. The angel really did have delightful dimples. “Couldn’t hurt. So what else are you up to while in Rome?”

“I thought I’d go to Petronius’s new restaurant. I hear he does remarkable things to oysters.”

“I’ve never eaten an oyster.” Crowley said this into his cup, not willing to admit he’d like an invitation.

“Oh, let me tempt you–” Aziraphale stopped in confusion, seeing Crowley’s amused smile. “Oh, wait, that’s your job, isn’t it?”

They’d had oysters. Crowley ate a few, Aziraphale polished off quite a number of them. The wine had been quite drinkable. It had been a nice evening, as Crowley remembered. It had lasted nearly until the next morning, when the angel had to leave to his tutoring of the boy, Nero.

Well, that had worked out swimmingly, hadn’t it? All Nero had been interested in was his music. Rome had kept going downhill. Eventually even Londinium had been left to the locals.

Empires rose, empires fell. Crowley had watched it happen many times. This new one seemed different, somehow. Through it all, he could count on seeing his angel from time to time. Not enough. Never enough. He was always conscious it could end at any time, one way or another.

But in the meantime, Crowley had a little bit of Aziraphale’s light. It had to be enough.

Because in the end, he knew he’d be locked away from it. Eternally damned, whether Hell or Heaven won. Never to see that light again. He had to keep it deep inside his heart, where, he hoped, he could pull bits of it out to look at again.

A bit of hope. What had that human woman said? “Hope is the thing with feathers.”

Aziraphale.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

The Bentley had headed south again, and some hours later was in unfamiliar territory. Crowley thought at first it had meant to go towards Tadfield but it veered southwest, and Crowley found himself amidst farms and other small villages. Eventually, he wound up in a field near a museum recreation of an Iron Age village.

Crowley recognized it with a start. It was near the village where he and Aziraphale had raised some human children to adulthood. The museum recreation had a chain across its gate and a sign said it was closed to tourists, though he saw people working in it, some of them in garb which suggested the garb the people he’d known had worn. They’d gotten some details wrong, of course. That was only to be expected, with no one left to tell them different.

The museum was some way away from where his village had been. Crowley parked the Bentley near a field reclaimed by some gorse and a few sheep. Crowley hopped over a low fence. He didn’t see the landowner around, and in any case, he was just rambling around. Looking, trying to see landmarks that had changed in several thousand years, forests having disappeared, and houses disappearing into the land. He figured nobody would care, and if there was trouble from a landowner, he knew how to make sure they’d suddenly be interested in being somewhere else. He pretty much did that automatically.

But he oriented himself. Here. Here had been the house. He kicked at a small hillock and saw something in the dirt, and crouched down, using a small miracle to bring it up from its burial place. He brushed grass from one end of it. It had been a bear, carved from bone, though one of its legs was broken off, long since, judging by the color of the break. Fox. Their hunting girl. She had made it, because she’d seen a bear and stalked it, practicing, so she said, for when she would kill one. Eventually, she did, he remembered. He wondered what had happened to her. Had she had children of her own? Had she died early, or lived a long life?

He hadn’t ever checked. He wondered idly if Aziraphale had. Never thought to ask him. He pocketed the carving. Humans would want it in a museum, he knew. What they wanted didn’t concern him. Fox had been as good as his child, even though she’d thought Crowley was her mother. He’d been kind to her and loved her after his fashion. But she was human, and he hadn’t wanted to get too attached, knowing how brief her life would be. And he had wanted to leave as soon as he could, so Hell wouldn’t figure out what he was doing.

He continued squatting for a time, thinking. He really didn’t want to stay here. He’d already visited these memories. Eventually, he rose and found his Bentley, and got in again. He patted the wheel, and, feeling a bit silly, asked, “Why’d you bring me here, old girl?” The Bentley didn’t answer. He didn’t expect it to. Again he put the key in its ignition and backed it up onto the street.

“Where to now?” And the Bentley purred into life. He let it go where it wanted to. Evidently it had developed some form of sentience. It was easier just to let it go its own way. It headed north again, toward modern Essex.

He let himself remember.

Rome’s empire had fallen, and the local people had formed a great many small kingdoms. There was one which was known as a place of enlightenment and prosperity, run by a human who called himself Arthur, King of All the Britains. An impressive title, and one which was contested by various nearby warlords. Crowley had been assigned to one and was calling himself the Black Knight. It wasn’t his favorite gig. He really didn’t like killing. But a job was a job, and this one came with a sword and armor, plus a reputation to uphold.

Arthur’s court kept sending champions, which he was forced to either fight, or convince to simply go elsewhere. He’d dispatched a few, but mostly he just looked at them and they’d decide to go away. But more of them kept coming. Crowley was tired of mucking about in the cold and damp. With the big black horse. He really didn’t like riding horses, especially not in armor. For some reason the head office thought he should like big black horses. They weren’t Crowley’s idea of stylish, especially the ones with glowing red eyes, but his bosses thought he needed to keep up their idea of appearances.

Another damp, foggy day, and look, here came another of Arthur’s champions. And look who it turned out to be. Aziraphale. This encounter had been brief. Evidently, the angel was in a mood, too. Called him Crawley again, and the demon corrected him. Crowley pointed out that what with Aziraphale’s running around and spreading love, and he, Crowley, spreading disorder and discord, they were canceling each other out. It would have been easier if they just stayed home and were comfortable, just sending good reports back to their head offices.

But the angel wouldn’t do it. Hell of a time to be a stickler for rules. You win some, you lose some. They didn’t exactly part on good terms.

Crowley had an idea, though. Arthur had a pretty, young wife. He hid in guise of a snake again, and whispered in one of Arthur’s knight’s ears, tempting him to pursue the wife. Then he whispered in the ear of the wife. She was lonely, what with her husband always off on some crusade or other. Didn’t she deserve some fun?

Then he retreated, staying out of Aziraphale’s sight. It had been so much easier than he thought. Humans. So many took the easy route. It made his job so much simpler. Jealousy, bitter and deep, and soon enough, it precipitated the death knell of Arthur’s kingdom, though the birth of a myth, about noble knights and protecting the weak.

Camelot was no more.

You could always rely on humans, mostly to do the wrong thing. Good for his side. Wahoo.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

The only landmark Crowley recognized in West Essex was a crumbling piece of a tower. Crowley thought it might have belonged to the warlord he’d been assigned to as a champion, but the rest of the castle was long gone. Sheep grazed where the entrance once had been. He poked around in the rubble, but saw nothing of interest.

Not even a bit of pottery or a rusting shard of weaponry remained. He looked at a gorse bush, thinking about the stables that had stood strong, even had housed the horses, including that damnable black horse. Riding that in armor had literally been a pain, and he didn’t regret the changeover from horse to horseless carriage.

He saw some kids playing in a nearby copse of trees, and they waved at him. He lifted his hand, then turned away. He really didn’t want to interact with humans right now. Not while he was still trying to figure out why his Bentley was carrying him through all these places. What was it trying to tell him?

He got back in the Bentley, and let it take him where it appeared to want to go. Apparently, it was headed a bit southwest. He saw a picturesque English village; on its west side, there was a cemetery and next to that, a crumbling ruin of what had been a church. It looked like a newer church had been built near the old, but the Bentley parked itself in front of the ruins.

He got out and walked around. There was no roof on the old church, but near where the altar had been there were stone monuments, perhaps one-time tombs, but there seemed to be no bodies, judging by the state of them. At first, he didn’t recognize any of it. The church was no longer consecrated ground, so that wasn’t an issue, but he poked around the ruin and saw a concrete wall, bisecting what remained of what had been the old wall, now just a few bricks.

This had been Aziraphale’s garden. He’d attached himself to a local monastery, Crowley remembered, and was calling himself “Brother Aziraphale.”

Crowley had represented himself as an itinerant entertainer/peddler because it got him into a great many places. He remembered his “dancing bear”. He’d convinced the bear to pretend to be a tame bear, on promise of good meals, a promise he’d kept. The bear called himself Brighteyes in bear language, so he translated that into what was later called Old English. He convinced the bear to wear a collar and a long leash, for appearance only, and it had been quite the attraction.

Crowley sat on the new wall and let his memory wander.

____________

“Aziraphale! How have you been?” Crowley greeted him jovially. Today had been a good day. He’d corrupted a tax collector and a deacon, and was promised a royal appointment for a party, where there would be lots of rich people of the town assembled and quite a few great chances for a plentiful harvest for Hell.

“Crowley! I haven’t seen you since… Arthur’s court?” Aziraphale was cheerful. He was dressed in monk’s clothes, but instead of the usual monk’s tonsure, wore a little round cap covering the middle of his blond curls.

Crowley swung a pack from his back, and undid the bear’s leash, addressing it. “There’s plenty of acorns in that copse over there, but stay out of sight of the peasants, Brighteyes. If anyone bothers you, just come back. I’ll sort them.” Then, to the angel, “Yeah, about then. Look at you! Are you gardening now?”

Aziraphale sat on one end of a low wooden bench under the ash tree overlooking his neat garden. “Why, yes. I’m meant to be blessing this whole area, and helping the Abbot here, who’s very well known for his philanthropic works. I decided to take up growing herbs. It’s rather satisfying. I suppose you’re up to mischief?”

Crowley grinned. “Coincidentally, I’m supposed to be corrupting your Abbot. You do realize that once again, we’re canceling each other out, right?” He sat on the other end of the bench. Aziraphale blinked at him, realization in his eyes. They really were working at cross purposes.

“I don’t suppose,” the angel said, “you’d consider leaving the Abbot alone, would you?”

“‘Fraid I’ve got my orders. But maybe if you could suggest a better target, and I could persuade you to do a little bit of temptation, maybe we could work something out?”

Aziraphale suppressed the urge to shut this down immediately. He knew Crowley. The demon had a good track record when he focused on a target. And Heaven really wanted this Abbot. Aziraphale risked getting demoted if he didn’t succeed.

“I’m not sure I can do a temptation,” he said. “But I can tell you that the Sheriff who runs this village is a pretty bad lot. He’s getting rich from bleeding the peasants dry, and he drops a lot of money on the church, here. He thinks he can buy enough indulgences to pave his way to Paradise. That’s not how it works.”

“Oh, Angel, You did pretty well tempting me to eat oysters, as I recall. I’m not asking you to actually curse anyone, you know. Just a small temptation. I can teach you. Nothing to it, really.”

Aziraphale considered. “Well, he is a very bad man. I don’t suppose it can hurt. What do you think he should be tempted to?”

Crowley chuckled. “Just put it in his mind that the soldiers he hired for protection can’t be trusted. Then let the peasants do the rest, once he’s dismissed them. Humans in poverty don’t happen to like oppression. Things happen to the oppressors. You know, like that fellow Julius Caesar.”

“Was that one of yours?”

Crowley guffawed. “Nah. He did all that himself. Trusted the wrong people. I did take credit for it, though.” He brightened. “Saw a lovely little inn in the village over there. Could I tempt you to a bit of lunch? I think they’re roasting a few geese today.”

“That sounds scrumptious. What about your bear, though?”

“Oh, he’ll be all right. He can look after my pack. Nobody’ll mess with it. Or him.” He called Brighteyes, who loped over. “Had enough to eat? Oh, you fancy a nap? Great. Look after my pack, won’t you, while me and my friend pop over to the village.”

Brighteyes nodded, and lay down next to the pack. He was mostly out of sight of the villagers in the garden. He appeared to like Crowley, and the feeling was mutual. The demon treated him with respect, as a working partner, rather than a pet or worse, as a food source or evil thing to be hunted.

Crowley remembered that day as a very pleasant interlude, and the first time they started calling their compromises “The Arrangement.” Aziraphale, true to his word, did his bit. Soon enough, the Sheriff mysteriously disappeared in the wood, and his cash-box went missing. The angel gave the purported thieves a good talking-to, and the church poor box saw a sudden influx of gold coins of unknown origin.

It fed quite a number of people the next winter, and evidently, both sides, Heaven and Hell, were happy. The Abbot knew nothing of any of it, save for the coins, which only interested him for the good work they could do. And Hell was as happy as Hell got when the Sheriff turned up in their offices.

That suited Crowley just fine. Eventually, he and the bear parted on good terms, and Crowley was assigned elsewhere. But it had been a nice visit. And slowly but surely, Crowley thought he was making inroads into Aziraphale’s black-and-white thinking.

That was his ultimate goal, and he counted every win as a small triumph, totted up in his heart.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Crowley wandered through the cemetery, stopping short when he came to the large tomb in the center. It was very old, and of crumbling granite, on two sides were carvings of figures, which, seemingly miraculously, had somehow survived in good order. Crowley recognized the Abbot on one side, evidently by the time of his death raised almost to sainthood. This monument may have been his burial place. Crowley prowled around it, and on the other side he was taken aback by a carving of a figure surrounded by carvings of herbs. There was no inscription, but it was a good likeness of Aziraphale.

Crowley stared, then ran his hands over the carving. Whoever the artist was had done a fantastic likeness. The demon blinked, tears standing in his eyes. He took off his sunglasses and wiped at his eyes with a sleeve. “I didn’t bloody need this,” he muttered to himself. “I really need to not see you everywhere, Angel. Since I can’t bloody see you. Damn you anyway.”

He slumped against the monument, sitting on the ground, and laid his head on his knees, and wept. Grief. It was a terrible feeling. How did the humans manage it, when they must deal with it every single day of their short existences? He sniffled, feeling sorry for himself, and irritated at himself for falling apart in such a pathetic way.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up, for a moment hopeful. But it was evidently the cleric of the church. Quickly, he donned his sunglasses, but not, he thought, before the human cleric had seen a glimpse of his eyes. But there was no fright in the man’s gaze, only a warmth and a caring look on his human face. ”Are you all right, brother? Is there something I can do?”

Crowley wanted to shake off the hand and snarl. He hadn’t the heart to do it. If this human could show compassion, and he, Crowley – no longer bound by Hell – could receive it, he would attempt to not hurt the man’s feelings. “‘M okay,” he mumbled. “I just…well, just was thinking of someone I lost, that’s all.”

“Can I help? Do you need a place to stay, or a meal, at least? We at St. Aziraphale’s have a mission. There are beds, and a hot meal if you need one.”

Crowley smiled, in spite of himself. Saint Aziraphale? If only they knew. “Look, Father…”

“Terry Prat. Just call me Terry. You’re a stranger here, aren’t you?”

“I used to travel around here, Terry. A long time ago. A very long time ago.”

Father Prat looked at Crowley. “Did you know my parents?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t really get to know anyone. Look, I appreciate your concern. But I’ll be all right. I’m just taking some time off to work through something personal. But I’m not down on my luck, and I don’t need the help. In fact. Maybe I could help your – mission? Group?” He pulled a few hundred-pound notes out of his pockets. “Here. Take it. In memory of…” and he glanced sideways at the carving, “a friend.”

He carefully removed himself from the caring grip of the hand on his arm. “Thank you,” he breathed, and moved quickly to his Bentley, opened the door, and hopped inside. He left the man standing, looking bemused at the notes in his hands, and back up at the rapidly receding automobile.

The Bentley was making its way to the south again. Crowley laid his head on the steering wheel and nearly wept again. He hadn’t cried after Satan/Lucifer had demanded his loyalty after treating him so brutally after his Fall. He hadn’t wept when God had drowned a whole culture of people in the Flood, nor after he had been forced to cause misery and even death to humans ever since.

Aziraphale had made him weak. He should despise the angel for it. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. Nothing had really been fair in his entire existence. He really had thought that just maybe things could work out. All he really wanted was to live in peace, with the only being he had ever loved, and who he thought loved him back.

But that luminous being, that creature who had brought light to his darkness, had left him. It wasn’t fair! Crowley resisted the urge to beat his head against the steering wheel. He needed sleep. Well, not needed, needed. Not in the sense that humans needed it. He just needed to suspend his thinking for a while. Clear his head. Give his head a chance to clear.

The Bentley pulled over as if it read his mind, and parked along the curb. Crowley miracled a barrier around it and him, and curled up to sleep on the front seat. His sleep was restless, though. Half-remembered dreams of cuddles, of kisses, of flying, and of falling made him wake in a cold sweat in the middle of the dark. He fumbled under the seat and came up with a bottle of Talisker, stowed against a someday need. This time, he drank from the bottle. This time, it had the desired effect.

He slept, dreamless, finally, and tried to heal.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Crowley woke, disoriented. The Bentley had moved in the night, taken him somewhere. Sunlight streamed into the car windows. Crowley sat up, blinked. He was in a field, and tire tracks led through grass and overgrown weeds.

The light was cold; it was still midwinter. Just after the humans’ holiday of Christmas. Crowley in a better mood had chuckled at this. The baby they all celebrated had been born just after spring, in a very warm climate.But the myths humans told had little to do with actual history. It didn’t matter. Humans counted it as a time of relentless goodwill, but underneath the joviality was an undercurrent of all the evils humanity was prone to. Theft. Poverty. Hatreds.

And on some places on the Earth, outright war. Humans killing each other, from the first days.

Which thought led Crowley to wonder why he was even here? He miracled himself cleaned up, new, clean clothing, and his hair immaculate. Mouth and teeth gleaming clean as if he’d just brushed and flossed.

He climbed out of the Bentley and wandered around the field. Over there, a farmhouse, old, but by no means as old as his memory. Over here, a river. Wear, the name came to his mind. If he followed the river, he knew he’d come to where an old castle may still stand. But he wasn’t here as a tourist, even though he remembered when the castle had been going to be built..

There was effectively no trace of the village he remembered. But it had existed. Mud wall houses, low walls of wicker enclosing gardens and keeping out animals. If he squinted, he could see the muddy tracks between the houses, and their thatched roofs burned and smoldering, the dungheaps behind, and the flies. Oh, the flies. Bodies piled in front of houses, heaps of them. The pathways were silent, only a few ragged dogs barking and growling over bones, the origins of which would have certainly made Crowley sick, if he wasn’t, as a demon, used to such displays of gore and rot. Hell was rife with them. He just learned to ignore them. Business as usual.

William the Conqueror. He’d sent troops here, occupying troops. Anglo-Saxon people had killed them, early terrorism in a week of a bloodbath and in revenge, William had sent more troops who slaughtered peasants. People who had nothing to do with the initial slaughter. Crowley had arrived just after the massacre but wasted no time in taking credit for it to the Head Office. It never hurt to be proactive with reports.

Aziraphale had also been sent here. Crowley spotted his blond head in company of some monks who were engaged in digging a pit, the purpose of which became plain when bodies started being flung within.

Aziraphale, looking solemn, flinging what looked to be holy water from a psalter, praying over the bodies. As if that did any good. But it was what humans expected, and so the angel did it. Crowley waited until the psalter had been safely put away, and dismounted from his horse, approaching. He hadn’t been wearing armor as he wanted to appear nonthreatening.

“Hello, Aziraphale. Fancy seeing you here! Does your side know you’re here?”

“Crowley! Is this your doing?” Aziraphale seemed ready to be accusatory.

“As usual, the humans beat me to it. Apparently, some king got a bee up his nether regions and killed the wrong people. But Hell thinks I did it, so it’s all good. Well, except for the aftermath being..” and he gestured toward the pit. “You know I prefer a more understated approach. What’s your mission?”

“That’s it. A mission. Well, an abbey. I’m meant to help bless the building of it, and see that it gets done. You?”

“The usual. Mayhem, wickedness, you know. Wherever the humans congregate, there’s always some temptations to take hold. But with all this done for me, I have some free time. Fancy nipping over London for a bite of dinner, when you’re done with this?”

Aziraphale looked around him. “I don’t think my side would want me miracling myself elsewhere, when I’m meant to be here. They’d notice. And I can’t really leave for several weeks.”

“Hell really likes me. I expect if you can carve out a few hours, I can always miracle us there and back.”

Just then one of the monks rushed up. “Excuse me, Your Worship…” Aziraphale shushed him.

“Just Father will do. What is it?”

Crowley chuckled to himself. From Brother to Father. He didn’t say it out loud, because the monk seemed quite distressed.

“We’ve found two children, alive!” Aziraphale looked at Crowley, who backed up with his hands up.

“Don’t look at me, Angel. Not again. This is your problem.”

“Crowley—I’m not asking you to raise them. Just help me find homes for them.” Aziraphale was following the monk, who hastened away, leading him to a body with an obviously frightened toddler and a baby that clung to a dead woman’s torso, probably their mother. The angel knelt, reassuring the toddler and picking up the baby. Crowley had reluctantly followed, and was moved in spite of himself. Aziraphale turned and handed the baby to Crowley, who instinctively cradled it.

Crowley looked defeated. “No. I don’t suppose we can. But I warn you, Angel, as soon as we find a wetnurse, we leave them, is that clear?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Of course. Are we still on for dinner?”

Crowley gave him a wry look. “Sure. Once the kids are settled. There and back again.”

Aziraphale grinned and gestured to the monks. “Go ahead and bury the rest. Brother Elred, you do the prayers. My new friend and I,” and he gestured in Crowley’s direction, “need to settle these two young souls. I’ll be gone for some time, don’t wait up on Vespers for me.” Before any of the monks could object, Crowley, who had already mounted his horse, helped first the toddler, whose cries had turned to sniffles, and then Aziraphale behind him, and they were off.

Crowley remembered finding the mill, and there was a woman there who said she could nurse the baby. She looked middle aged, but had children clinging to her skirts. She took charge of the toddler as well. Crowley miracled her a bag of silver coins, and she was delighted.

As soon as they’d left the children, as good as his word, the demon got them both to London, in front of a very well known inn, known for its savory pastries and roast meats. How Crowley loved to watch the angel eat. It tickled him to watch his dainty manners which disguised a real hedonist. Every once in a while he imagined his fingers tracing that jawline or trailing across his throat as he swallowed, but he was pretty sure he kept his runaway imagination enough under wraps that Aziraphale never saw a thing.

That had been a pretty good meal. Crowley and Aziraphale had talked through the night, and Aziraphale had agreed once again to do a bit of mild tempting of riff-raff hanging around the burned village, while Crowley, for his part, made certain that the farmers who’d taken in the children would be safe and secure. That way the pair didn’t have to be in the same two places at once.

Aziraphale, who was on notice to make certain that the monks could do the cleanup of the village and then go to the nearby town to build their abbey, and that it would be successful, was willing to compromise with Crowley in order to keep both their home offices happy.

Another win for the Arrangement.

—--

Crowley came back to the present. The village had later been rebuilt, but evidently eventually abandoned, since there was no trace of it. He got back in the Bentley, which slowly backed out of the field and onto a modern road, which wound around to the town. Durham. The abbey building was still there, as was a castle built after the invading armies had left.

Crowley just sat, bemused. The Bentley kept going south, until it got to Middleton, and parked itself outside a rather picturesque inn. It refused to go further.

Crowley tried starting it. Its only response was refusal to turn over at all. Cursing, he pocketed the keys, opening the door on the driver’s side, and he was nearly hit in the face by a windblown pamphlet. “See sunny Rome,” said the front of the pamphlet.

“Is that what we’re going for? Why are we here, then?” The Bentley didn’t answer. “You want me to get a room, and just think about it, is that it?” Still no answer. “Fine. I’ll get a room. But I’m going to the pub, too.”

Rome had been the next time he’d seen Aziraphale. Crowley guessed the Bentley didn’t want to drive all that way. It could have, with help, of course. It wouldn’t have taken that long, if Crowley speeded things up–or slowed them down outside the Bentley. Maybe his beloved car didn’t want Crowley in a place where he could go totally rogue. He was close to entering his least favorite century, and that he had spent in England.

But he wasn’t there yet. Just now, he wanted something to drink, and a bit of privacy. Apparently, the Bentley knew that.

It had taken until after the averted Apocalypse to appreciate that his car wasn’t just a machine. Or maybe Adam had done something when he restored it. It seemed to have a mind of its own, for certain.

But for now, fortification. A room, and maybe a case of something drinkable, since the Talisker hadn’t put a dent in his unwanted sobriety.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Rome. It had been a hotbed of intrigue, and quite naturally, Heaven and Hell both wanted to put their oars in.

The architecture of the Rome Crowley had known was there, though some of the temples had been converted to churches and cathedrals, like Saint Peter’s Basilica. Some of the odd bits of pretty decoration from temples, baths, and villas had been cannibalized when the humans built new churches.

The current pope had been kidnapped by King Roger of Sicily’s son, also a Roger. Aziraphale had been sent with the troops to ransom him.

Crowley was on the other side, as usual.

He wondered again why Heaven was so invested in this Pope, who’d named himself Innocent. Innocent my rear, thought Crowley. His soldiers had carried out crusades and wholesale murders of real innocents. Men and women, as well as their kids, killed in the name of God. I hope She’s impressed, thought Crowley. I certainly am, but not in the way She seems to think.

If he had his way he’d let Roger quietly dispose of this pope with no issues. Either way would make his bosses happy. Innocent the pope would be a good catch for Hell. But his papacy didn’t exactly make things better, either, so whether he lived or died, Europe would still be unstable.

Another win-win for his bosses.

But Aziraphale’s troops – for once again, the angel was a warrior – managed to pull off a ransom that relied on Innocent acknowledging Roger’s kingship. Intrigue piled on intrigue. Not much point to any of it.

Before the treaty was signed, however, both Aziraphale and Crowley met with the Pope. Aziraphale assured him of the necessity of the treaty. Crowley managed to convince him to break it some years later.

It really seemed like wholly a useless endeavor on Heaven’s part, which Aziraphale refused to concede. Especially since Innocent reaffirmed it again, later.

This time neither of them had much time with each other. They just managed to get in each other’s way. Less than five years later, Innocent was dead, and Crowley was able to take credit for that, too.

He couldn’t wait to leave Rome. But he’d done such a good job, Hell kept him there for the rest of that century. He managed to talk his bosses into letting him go back to England, eventually.

The thirteenth century had been relatively peaceful. In between corrupting churches and egging on raids, he had been able to meet up with his angel a number of times. Not so many in the scheme of decades, but every social event was a cause of minor celebration on Crowley’s part.

And then came the 14th century. Plague.

He really didn’t like to remember the 14th century.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Crowley was pacing. He’d rented the room for the next night or two, planning to delve back into his memories again, and see if the Bentley was more amenable to moving on once he had. He caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror by the bath. He’d been running his fingers through his short hair until it stood up on all ends, and his once carefully-coiffed ‘do was a mess. No wonder the cleric, Father Prat, had thought he was homeless.

He wanted a change. He snapped his fingers, and his hair grew to shoulder length, and arranged itself carefully in a pulled-back style with a short ponytail, held in place with a black hair tie. While he wasn’t planning on going out, he liked himself better when he was neat and clean. Not fussy, like Aziraphale had always liked, but spare, austere, even. Cool, as he thought it.

He miracled himself some new, clean clothing, all black except for his customary silver mesh scarf, worn in lieu of a tie. His black shirt was open at the neckline, and showed just a hint of red chest hair. He studied his reflection. His yellow eyes gazed back at him. He heard a knock at the door, and he hurriedly donned his sunglasses before opening the door to a man with a delivery hand truck. “You must be hosting a hell of a party.” Crowley assisted with unloading a couple of cases of wine as well as one with whiskey. “Bachelor party?”

“Something like that.” Crowley didn’t feel like conversing, but he handed over a fistful of hundred-pound notes. He could miracle them as he needed them, and this trip proved to have a need. He’d prepaid for the wine – and whiskey. Apparently, Hell had forgotten to turn off his credit card.

As soon as the delivery man was gone, happy for the generous tip, Crowley miracled a few wine glasses, and locked the door.

Then he began some serious drinking.

—----------

First there were the winters, colder and longer than in previous years. Crowley wasn’t real happy with cold winters. It’s not that Hell was so much warmer – the temperature in Hell simply varied from uncomfortably hot to uncomfortably cold, uncomfortable being the salient description. It was just that he preferred the warm and sunny days on Earth to the damp or freezing.

After the long winters, some of the English peasants were starving. Then the Knights Templar were excommunicated and put on trial. Crowley was in process of planning something brilliant, but all on their own, the humans cooked up their own plan, excommunicating nearly all the Knights Templar, and the Church seizing all their property. Crowley just pretended this was his doing all along.

In Scotland, Robert the Bruce was gathering troops to bring Scotland under his sway. Hell approved of war. Edward II started assembling his own troops to attack Scotland. Crowley took credit for all that, as well.

Wars and skirmishes, crusades and squabbles. Crowley was getting tired of designing ways to make humans miserable, only to have them unleash something far worse than he could have even thought of, just before he could implement his plans. All across Europe armies were on the move, and petty tyrants were declaring themselves religious leaders or kings or princes.

There’d been a famine, and a great storm in Britain, neither of which had been precipitated by any agents of Hell, but Crowley, in order to capitalize on misery any way he could, secured a small castle in the countryside from which he hoped to have a retreat, of sorts, in order to capitalize on misery any way he could.

The Hundred Years War had started. Europe was in the throes of famines and diseases brought about by close living and lack of sanitation. The masses were frightened of “the devil” and “witchcraft” and made war on old women and cats, which encouraged rats. And then came the Black Death.

Crowley wasn’t happy. He really preferred a more subtle approach. He took refuge in his castle, and did his best to sleep through the entire century, only emerging to claim credit as the bodies piled up, even though he had nothing to do with any of it. But if humans were determined to kill, torture, maim, battle, and die of diseases that they could have prevented if only some of them had the foresight to figure out that killing cats encouraged rats with fleas, which carried the plague, and then hopped on people, he figured he might as well take advantage of it one way or another.

So Hell pretty much thought he was a real miracle worker. Their waiting rooms were awash with the most venal of humans. He was pretty sure Heaven had much the same issues, but they didn’t concern him. Human souls weren’t ever going to be his department before his Fall.

Afterwards, he was only glad he didn’t have to do the processing. But it kept Hell busy and off his back.

He spotted Aziraphale from time to time, but Heaven seemed to be keeping him busy as well, and they never had time to even exchange more than a few words. This depressed Crowley even more.

When a big earthquake hit Italy, so big it was felt across Europe, he decided enough was enough. Humans were predicting the Apocalypse, which he knew wasn’t due for centuries yet.

Fear made them all even crazier than usual.

He retreated entirely to his castle, then. What was even the sense of trying to make subtle plans when humans were determined to use an axe where a needle would do?

During the latter part of the century, Crowley woke up only once every decade, except for 1370, when he woke once to pee, and later to check on what was happening. Most of his awake times he was bored out of his skull. He’d never liked paperwork. He’d learned how to pad reports long since but that only filled a finite amount of time.

He was happy to see that century end. The Black Death was petering out, having cut great swaths across Europe and England. The Hundred Years War ended, and the War of the Roses commenced, but this war was more normal for humankind.

There were still inquisitions, and pogroms, and massacres, but they had started to be more localized. And humans who were artists and playwrights emerged. Later the humans would call this time the Renaissance, because free thought was less punished, and the arts flourished.

Crowley emerged from his castle. With fewer peasants, the clergy and kings couldn’t enforce as much suppression as they had done in the past. They needed the labor. So there was more opportunity to stir up trouble which wouldn’t be eclipsed by the worst in humanity.

And he kept seeing Aziraphale out and about, even able to meet him socially, because he wasn’t as busy either.

This was a much better time, if you asked Crowley. Life was getting better again.

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

This was already shaping up to be a better century. Crowley remembered yawning, stretching, and checking the fashions of the day.

In the early part of the new century, Henry was still King of England. Codpieces. Crowley thought them a silly fashion. They’d begun as a necessary pouch for men because trousers had lengthened and joined in back but soon became a rather unwieldy exaggerated accessory. The demon looked at his own male organs, generally useful as enticements to temptation, but otherwise of little consequence to him. He didn’t see the point. Wouldn’t a spouse or partner figure out the exaggeration sooner or later?

Humans. He still didn’t quite understand them. But no accounting for fashion.

Crowley’s work had been largely done for him up to now, exceeding his bosses’ expectations. He’d popped back to Italy, something about the current pope having several mistresses as well as fathering kids by them, and Hell thinking he’d make a grand addition to their collection. It hadn’t taken any effort at all to be sure he was secure, and that the Borgia name would go down in history as one of the most corrupt in history. That done, he headed to Florence, fancying a bit of holiday.

He found a tavern and headed inside. He hadn’t been drinking alone for long, when a bearded man, eccentrically dressed in an artist’s hat and smock, invited himself to his table. “Hello,” he said. “Have you ever had your portrait painted?” Hell of a come-on line.

Crowley smiled behind his glasses. “Not that I know of,” he said.”Wine?” He’d play along, for now.

“Yes, please.” The man helped himself, pouring into a cup. “I’m Leonardo, by the way. You may have heard of me.”

“Crowley,” and the demon clinked his cup to Leonardo’s. This could get interesting. “Aren’t you the fellow who painted the lovely lady Gallerani, with an ermine?”

“The very same. If you can arrange for some wine, I can show you my studios. I’m working on another lady. She’s quite pretty, too. In fact, she’s here!” He cupped his hands and called over the noise in the tavern. “Lisa! Come here. Yes, bring your husband. Meet my friend, Crowley.”

The lady languidly extended her hand, and Crowley stood, and kissed it, then saluted the husband, who only smiled vaguely. He didn’t introduce himself, and indeed excused himself and bowed out, saying he needed to check on their children. “Don’t mind my husband,” she said, “He doesn’t really like socializing. Is Leo going to paint you? He’s painting me, now, so you’ll have to wait.” She spoke more vivaciously once her husband was out of sight. Still didn’t seem the time for casual tavern-hopping, but you never knew with humans.

She was looking him up and down, with an appraising look. Crowley, still standing, offered her a cup of wine, and she seated herself and took a small amount of wine. Sipping it, she offered, “Don’t worry, I won’t get in between you two if…”

Crowley interrupted her. Leonardo also spoke, almost at the same time. “It’s not like that!” Both were indignant. Crowley was puzzled. What was it with humans, always jumping to conclusions?

“Lisa, Miss Gerardini. I simply want to show my new friend here…”

“Your drawings? Sure, Leo.” The lady adjusted her sash. and finished her cup. “All right, gentlemen, let’s go on to Master Da Vinci’s studio. I can be your chaperone!” She snapped her fingers and a young page scurried to her side. “Tell my husband I am going to the studio of the great artist Leonardo. I am to be chaperoned by this gallant young man. You are,” she peered at Crowley, “a gentleman, no?”

“I’m certainly safe to escort you, Madame,” was Crowley’s sardonic reply.

Once at Leonardo’s studio, the lady seated herself in a chair on a small pedestal, where, it appeared, her sitting for her portrait was usually accomplished. Only Leonardo appeared unwilling to address the easel on which the portrait-to-be was in the process of creation. He did, however, pour Lisa a cup of wine, as well as one for his guest, and taking one for himself, handed the filled cups around, then waved expansively.

“Here, Maestro Crowley, here is my studio.” He gestured to piles of drawings. “I am not just an artist. I am also an inventor. But there is little chance of being able to produce my inventions. Nobody is interested in them.”

Crowley was. He was, after all, an engineer first. “Let me see!” Leonardo gestured, and Crowley began carefully leafing through them. Here were engines which moved on their own, with gears and pullies and a boiler for steam. Here were ambitious bridges. Machines which showed humans in flight. Machines that glided, soared, lumbered and floated. Machines for war. Machines that mimicked human motion.

“So have you built any of these?” Crowley was intrigued in spite of himself. This wasn’t going to advance any evil. But he did have some time to kill, and he was fascinated with the inventiveness of this human.

“Not as such. My patrons tell me the materials are too expensive. But I’m sure they’ll work.”

Crowley was looking over all the diagrams and found one for an automaton, to be built under a suit of armor. “This might work really well. But you’ve got this bit wrong.” He pointed at a small motor. “You’ve got the gear in the wrong place. Try here, and connect it with another gear, like so,” and he sketched with his finger. Leonardo grabbed a charcoal stick and a bit of vellum, and quickly reproduced what the demon was demonstrating.

He saw what was intended immediately. “Like this?”

“Yeah. And have this pulley here. I see your wind-up mechanism — it’d work fine, but it needs to be bigger and outside the automaton. Like this, see?” Crowley took the charcoal piece and sketched a few lines. “Make a great party trick. I bet your patrons would like that.”

Leonardo guffawed and slapped him on the back. The wine was flowing. Lisa Gerardini pouted. “Gentlemen, why are you ignoring me? My husband does want my portrait done, and I’d like it soon. There’s a place near my sitting room all ready for it.”

Leonardo rushed to fill her cup. “Quite right. This is an excellent burgundy. My new friend has a good eye.” He turned to Crowley. “Let me show you my sketches of the lady.” He gestured to a wall where he’d pinned up drawings. “Here’s what I’m trying to reproduce.” And he uncovered the partly-done painting.

Crowley studied them, then took one off the wall and held it next to Lisa’s head. “Yeah. I see what you’re going for. Frankly, though,” and he turned to Lisa, “I think you need to smile a bit more.”

The lady held her hand over her mouth. “Can’t. Bad teeth.”

Crowley could have miracled them fixed but he thought he’d better not. First, he didn’t want to blow his cover. Second, it might be interpreted as an “act of kindness” which might draw Somebody’s attention. “All right. But maybe just the corners of your mouth, just a bit?”

Leonardo took his charcoal and drew quickly. “YES. Yes, like this.” He ran to his paints and started mixing. Crowley was almost forgotten.

“I’ll just keep this, then, all right?” Crowley held up the sketch. Leonardo looked up. Smiled. He appeared to be in that zone, a kind of fog that creative people got into. Crowley remembered that fog. So long ago.

The artist waved an assent, and Crowley let himself out, rolling up the vellum sketch and stowing it in his doublet. It eventually wound up in a box of possessions he’d kept over the years, which now was sitting in the boot of his Bentley, minus the sketch, which he’d left in the flat lately inhabited by Shax. Later, he claimed he'd paid fifteen florins for it.

Possessions, he thought, largely weighed a person down. Much like memories.

He brought himself back to the present. Still sober. Of all the times for alcohol to fail him, why did it have to be now? It wasn’t like he could discorporate from alcohol poisoning. He’d managed to empty eight bottles of the wine and had started on the whiskey, and not so much as a headache.

What would it take to actually forget for a while?

—------------------------------

Elizabeth was Queen in England. She embraced gaudy clothing. She’d had a relatively austere childhood, once her father had begun discarding her – and her mother – to chase after the male heir he finally got, who, sadly, never lived long.

Men were still in charge, despite the Virgin Queen. Crowley wasn’t certain he liked the poufy short pant over tight legging style, but at least the codpiece was not quite as in style as it once had been. Crowley thought the silly fashion was well gone. The lace collars were interesting, though.

He did his in black on black. Buckled shoes completed the outfit. Crowley couldn’t resist adding a chin beard. He thought it made him look jaunty.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Crowley remembered he’d spent the rest of that decade criss-crossing Europe. There was always plenty of human greed and hatred to exploit. European explorers were busy “discovering” lands that had been occupied for a few thousand years, and started their plundering and taking people into slavery.

That was humankind’s biggest evil, Crowley thought privately, but his opinion wasn’t wanted nor did he dare voice it aloud. But he did what he could, within bounds of not being found out, to alleviate some of it. Ships on their way to the “new colonies” often sank from no discernible cause, and expeditions went awry, but one lone demon – especially one whose bosses had a vested interest in keeping the evil going – could do little about it.

Still, he tried.

By the turn of the century, he was back in Londinium, only now, it was London. He’d gone to the Globe Theatre a few times. There was a fellow writing plays there. Shakespeare, his name was William Shakespeare. Two names. Quite an interesting human fashion, which had come about because there were getting to be so many humans. They seemed to be having trouble telling each other apart by this time.

He’d thoroughly enjoyed the play Much Ado About Nothing. It got Shakespeare some cachet. Crowley could see why. He roared at the antics of Benedick, and thought it quite a good joke that he and Beatrice, the man-hater character, got together in the end.

So when Aziraphale consented to meet with him in 1601, and proposed the Globe Theatre, his expectation was that they’d be lost in a crowd. Instead, there were only scattered viewers. No wonder. He wasn’t really enamored of the gloomy plays, and this one looked exceedingly somber.

But Aziraphale was there, right enough, eating grapes out of a handkerchief. Crowley’s heart could have skipped a beat watching the angel eat. He so obviously enjoyed it. But Crowley had serious business. He was being sent to Edinburgh. It was such a minor temptation. He didn’t fancy getting on a horse again; his bottom still pained him from the last time.

He’d heard Aziraphale was also being sent there, for similarly minor causes. He wanted to talk the angel into only one of them going. He’d planned to get him a treat, but he’d already gotten his own.

To his delight, Aziraphale was easy to convince. He didn’t miracle the coin toss, either. Not to say he hadn’t been tempted to do so, but it just wouldn’t do, not with his angel. So it was that Aziraphale had gone to Edinburgh, and true to his word, had done both the blessings and the temptings. Crowley never pushed it by asking him to actually curse, though he knew the angel was perfectly capable of it. Aziraphale was just too pure of heart to contemplate that.

He’d done his own miracling, and the next time Hamlet played, it was to a packed house.

London was easy pickings for Hell. Pickpockets, cutpurses, people selling adulterated foods, spouses cheating on one another – no end to the mischief he could do. Aziraphale, as usual, was hither and yon, blessing the poor and downtrodden, doing minor miracles to keep people from accidents around him.

Crowley watched from a distance when Aziraphale decided to buy a plot of land himself, and miracled a bit of a bargain for his angel. Nothing too flamboyant. He knew Aziraphale would pay a fair price, but really, could Crowley be blamed if he paid the best of a fair price? Aziraphale had accumulated quite a lot of gold through the years, which he said wasn’t miracled, just saved.

Good for him. Everyone needed a corner of their own. Aziraphale had a cottage built, and was starting to fill it with books and scrolls. Crowley wouldn’t have been surprised if the angel hadn’t influenced the inventor of moveable type. Books became much more available after that, and Crowley knew that besides food, Aziraphale’s other biggest weakness was books.

Crowley stuck to rentals, and didn’t like accumulating possessions. Too easy to get tied down. Like with attachments to humans, better to not, in the long run. To survive he really needed to be footloose. And he’d gotten really pretty good at survival.

Sometime in 1650 he and Aziraphale had a falling-out. Crowley had tried to warn him. A small band of riff-raff was busy scamming the middle class and rich out of money by running a bogus “charity.” Aziraphale had been taken in by them, certain they were doing good work by feeding widows and orphans. The angel was just too trusting. Crowley hadn’t been deceived, especially since he’d been the demon encouraging their theft from the rich.

He wouldn’t have done it if he had known they’d threaten his angel. Crowley had gone in with fury, put the fear of something in them, so much so that they abandoned their ill-gotten gains and left London altogether. Aziraphale had been so apologetic.

Crowley was more angry with himself than the angel, but Aziraphale hadn’t understood. He did get Crowley to laugh, though, and forgive all, by doing what he called “the apology dance.” Watching his angel literally destroyed his black mood.

—-----------

Remembering this almost made Crowley smile. Aziraphale had looked so ridiculously adorable. The dance always had its desired effect, though, putting their quarrels behind them.

How was he to get through the rest of his existence without Aziraphale? Crowley sat up from where he’d sprawled and miracled himself clean. He looked around the room. Empty wine bottles. Empty whiskey bottles. And not even a hangover to show for it.

He snapped his fingers and the mess disappeared, all but two bottles of Talisker. He picked them up and did a slow walk downstairs, paid for his room, and left in the Bentley, which started quickly, as if it hadn’t refused to go a few days ago. The maid who had been sent upstairs to clean stood, perplexed. It was as clean and neat as if no one had been there at all.

But she snatched up the hundred-pound note left as a tip on the dresser, nonetheless. Lord grant her more guests like this one!

Evidently, Crowley was headed back to London. He sincerely hoped the Bentley didn’t want to drag him to Soho.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Soho. Crowley did NOT want to revisit here. He didn’t want to interact with people who knew his recent history. He wasn’t up to dealing with anybody, really. To his relief, the Bentley bypassed Whickber Street and drove straight through, on its way to Canterbury. It stopped briefly outside that city, to the southeast, and Crowley remembered having been here right after the battle of the second civil war in England. Always room for mischief right after a war. But there had been slim pickings, he recalled. The war ended relatively peacefully, with the rebels surrendering, and the Crown had treated the rebels with leniency. That didn’t leave a lot of room for Crowley’s machinations.

Cromwell’s Parliament had given way back to the Monarchy. Crowley took in a play starring Nell Gwyn, an illiterate woman who made a good success on the stage. Crowley rather thought it was likely because women only lately started being able to be on the stage. Miss Gwyn wasn’t exactly a great actor, though she seemed to carry comedies reasonably well. Crowley approved of comedies.

He managed to insinuate himself into the court of the present king, Charles II, and tempted him to lust after one of Charles’s own wife’s ladies-in-waiting, and she subsequently became his mistress. But the Queen, Catherine of Braganza, seemed tolerant of the whole thing, so that was rather a dud. Hell didn’t gain souls just because of lust, there had to be some element of betrayal in it. With the Queen’s approval, that wasn’t going to gain a soul. Crowley had better luck with others in the court, so he still wound up scoring several nobles and ladies.

You win some, you lose some. It was a net gain, so Hell approved.

England still hanged and burned “witches” and most of these were just illiterate peasants, male and female. Mostly older women. Crowley had no hand in it, but had no trouble taking credit for it. When one Agnes Nutter was burned, and arrived on cue at Hell’s door, she lied and said it was Master Crowley who helped send her there. She had some idea he’d be needed on Earth one day. Crowley never knew the source or reason for that commendation, but shrugged when it arrived, happy to pretend he knew what was what.

He met with more success in London with the burgeoning population. Aziraphale’s land was being developed, with the area that had once been semi-rural having houses and estates for the gentry going up apace, from which, Crowley learned, Aziraphale derived considerable income, as he refused to sell. Crowley approved. Aristocrats getting angry only added to the general miasma of London.

Industrialization brought in pollution and poor workers, and just added to the general misery that was creeping around the edges of Soho, still a fashionable place to live. Wherever human misery was, Crowley could be found. He could never afford to rest on his laurels for long.

During this era, Crowley had limited time for socializing. When he saw Aziraphale, it was generally in passing. Knowing the angel’s inclination to believe only the best of humans, he did keep an eye out for his welfare, but was careful to not let Aziraphale know. Crowley understood pride. And he guessed most times the angel could take care of himself; he was a warrior, after all, but he also knew that humans could be more wily than an angel could likely plan for.

Crowley was kept busy. Humans really were inventive when it came to methods of dealing death and destruction on each other.

Eventually, he wound up in Paris. There was loads of corruption there, and Hell wanted in on it.

—------

Crowley realized that was where the Bentley was going when he wound up on the ferry across the Channel.

He’d spent a lot of time in Paris, sent there by his bosses. Lots of scope for souls there, what with starving peasants and obscene wealth, but it wasn’t generally the poor who were going to find out what Hell was like. There was even a thriving body-snatching industry in Paris. Crowley was up for that. Hell might get some poor people after all. He didn’t mind, too much.He couldn’t afford to spare any sympathy. He had his own survival to think about.

He did miss his angel, though. Aziraphale’s side seemed to be keeping him firmly in London, for now.

It wasn’t the best time, but Crowley would make do. He always did.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

It was 1750. Aziraphale was in Paris. Crowley smelled him. The demon had been doing a whispering campaign against the already-corrupt police, and rioting had broken out as a result. Rumors had spread that the police were kidnapping young children so that aristocrats could use their blood to revitalize themselves. One policeman had been beaten to death. While the rumors were false, police corruption was truly rife, and the one who had died was guilty of quite a number of rather nasty trespasses upon the poor.

Once again, Hell was pleased. Crowley had a free hand to disrupt society as much as he could, and he certainly did his best – or worst, as it were. He really didn’t want Aziraphale in the mix. Things could get ugly pretty quickly. Crowley thought he’d better keep an eye on his angel. Just in case.

So Crowley made it his business to keep tabs on Aziraphale.

He observed at a safe distance when the angel – dressed to the nines in silk and lace – ascended the steps of a modest set of apartments above the street level of shops and cafes. He was there for about an hour. Crowley couldn’t resist finding out what it was about, so he, too, walked up the two flights of stairs, to find a door with a bell, and beside it a notice which read “M. Rossignol, Cours de longue Francais prix raisonnable” in a neat script.

Crowley nearly guffawed. Angels – and demons – already spoke every language known to humans, living or dead, plus the language of the angels from before humans had been created. Aziraphale was full of surprises. Why on earth would he take lessons?

He couldn’t wait to tease the angel about that. Talk about trying too hard to fit in! He wasn’t able to meet Aziraphale for some time after that, however. He was busy in the court. Louis XVI desperately needed money. Crowley suggested he could save money without oppressing the poor any further by dismissing some of the King’s royal – and loyal – guards. Then when the expenditures of the court continued to rise, Crowley suggested a wall around Paris to stop the smuggling of goods into the city. The wall had fifty-six gates where taxes had to be paid, and this further alienated the peasantry. Marie Antoinette started out beloved, but had rapidly eroded all the goodwill she’d had from her coronation.

When the Revolution started, of course Crowley took credit for it. But really, he had nothing to do with it, although it could, perhaps, have been predicted. What the demon hadn’t predicted with the invention and overuse of Madame La Guillotine. Later, Crowley remembered, it had been rumored that M. Guillotin, whose name became synonymous with the device, had died by it, but it hadn’t been so. The man eventually died of natural causes. And, for whatever reason, Hell didn’t have him.

But that was later.

Crowley arranged to meet with the angel just as the Revolution was starting. “Disappear,” he’d told him.”Go back to England. It’s safe there. They’re going to start killing people soon. I’ll do what I can, only, please, Aziraphale, don’t risk it. You know how your side gets. You can’t save them all.”

“I’m being sent back to London anyhow, Crowley. You be careful.”

The demon chuckled. “I’ll be okay. Hell likes it when unrest breaks out. Only listen to me. They’re talking about imprisoning anyone in clothing that’s too nice. And you know, you always dress well.”

Aziraphale huffed. “Yes, well, I haven’t been passing as nobility. I think they’re only arresting the nobility. I’ll be fine. And in any case, Crowley, I won’t be here.” He reassuringly touched the demon’s arm, and briefly took his hand. Crowley’s heart may have skipped a beat. But he didn’t pull away.

“Just see you’re gone, angel. Promise me.”

“I promise.” And he had gone back. Crowley watched him board the ferry. He hadn’t counted on him nipping over for lunch.

Aziraphale had been lucky that Crowley had been keeping tabs on him. Silly damn angel, dressed as if he’d just stepped out of a bandbox during a revolution, when even ordinary people, middle classed – just not wearing approved revolutionary dress – in France weren’t escaping Mme. La Guillotine. He’d smelled him, there in the Bastille, just before some stupid human was about to discorporate him. The angel smelled of spice, and a faint hint of Bergamot, of sunshine and laughter. Scents unknown in Hell.

The angel’s bosses wouldn’t like him being executed. Might even refuse to send him back to Earth with another physical body. Crowley couldn’t have that. No more luncheons. No more dinners. No more nights of conversation and drinking.

So of course he did his demonic miracles, and saved his angel. Last possible minute. It had been worth it to watch him eat crepes. And to admit to Crowley that he’d been wrong. After crepes came Aziraphale’s apology dance. Crowley tried not to crack too big a smile. Aziraphale really felt guilty for ignoring Crowley’s warning, it seemed.

But the angel, he had to admit, made a lovely damsel in distress. His blond curls, his large doe-like eyes and that bright, shining smile. Crowley knew it made Aziraphale happy when the demon rescued him.

Well, it certainly made Crowley happy. And he locked that feeling away, aware that one day, he would have to do without small happinesses, without his angel, but could, perhaps, in times of future darkness pull out these memories and keep himself from utter despair.

Because that future didn’t bear looking at.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Crowley’s Bentley had cruised around Paris, stopping in front of a little restaurant. It wasn’t the one Crowley and Aziraphale had visited; that had been gone for at least a hundred years. But it served crepes. Savory crepes. Sweet crepes. Almost every kind of crepe seemed to be on offer.

The Bentley couldn’t possibly want the demon to dine alone, could it?

Apparently it did. It refused to go, and Crowley sighed, and went in. How depressing. Nearby was a human couple, two women, laughing softly at their table for two, holding hands, and talking in low voices. They looked so happy.

He wanted to snarl and leave, but instead, he allowed himself to be seated. He’d have to get used to being alone, and he knew isolating himself wasn’t the best idea, either. He would still have to live among humans. Going off to Alpha Centauri alone didn’t appeal, especially since he knew Gabriel and Beelzebub were both off somewhere, probably there. If he had to endure their sappy looks at each other, he’d hurl, he thought.

So he sat. Where he was, he couldn’t help hearing the words “anniversaire de mariage” mentioned to the Maitre d’, and when he was approached with a menu, exchanged some words. Shortly the couple were surprised with a very expensive bottle of champagne delivered to their table, which they were told was an anonymous gift. They looked around nervously, but the restaurant was nearly full, and they did not see Crowley where he sat at a corner table, near enough that he could be unobserved by most as he dined.

Aziraphale had eaten Boeuf Bourguignon crepes, Crowley remembered. He ordered a plate of them, along with a very good bottle of Sancerre Rouge. He could hardly bear to eat at first. The crepes were delicious. Crowley slowly and methodically ate, remembering Aziraphale’s delight in the dish. Remembering how very happy it had made him to watch his angel enjoying human food.

He surely must be missing those tastes now. Crowley ate, and savored, wishing he could be angry at Aziraphale, but feeling almost as if the food was being eaten in memory of him. He finished with a small tarte au chocolat, and as he spooned a tiny bite into his mouth, between sips of the wine, another memory bubbled up.

—----

It was 1800. He and Aziraphale both had been stationed in London again. Soho was in process of changing from gentrified estates to shops; Aziraphale, some time before, had arranged for his land to be built up. He’d invited Crowley to see his new shop due to open in a few days. Crowley had picked up a small gift of fine chocolates, and headed over. But as he was nearly in the door he saw that Aziraphale had been backed into a corner and was making “go away” eyes at him. He ducked around the corner, and listened in.

It was that damned archangel, Gabriel, with his flunky Sandalphon, and they were talking about recalling his angel back to that hellhole Above. Heaven. Like it was a promotion – a promotion that Aziraphale was definitely sounding like he didn’t want.

The two archangels, clearly besotted with human fashion, though disdaining every other thing humanity had which made life better, mentioned going to a human tailor. Crowley had to do something.

So as Gabriel entered the tailor’s shop, with Sandalphon stationing himself outside, Crowley miracled himself a dummy, clothed in a dark draped robe, which loomed over him. It looked to any heavenly observer that there were two beings.

He positioned himself outside the tailor shop window, near where he knew Gabriel would be, trying on clothing, and began his charade.

First, his own voice. “Are you certain we are unobserved, oh monstrous creature from the bowels of Hell?” and then throwing his voice and making it deeper, “No one is listening, oh demon Crowley.”

He knew he’d gotten Gabriel’s attention, when he glanced up behind his sunglasses, and saw the archangel press himself against the wall, attempting to not be seen.

He continued. “Curses! If only I could understand why my evil plans are always so brilliantly thwarted!” He was overacting, enjoying himself. “It’s as if the forces of Heaven have a champion on Earth who thwarts me, thwartingly!”

Gabriel was eating this up. Crowley smiled smugly to himself.

Then, in his monster voice, he continued. “Why Mister Crowley, you must not be downcast. I hear news that will bring joy to you and to all the powers of Hell! They do say as how the angel Aziraphale, your nemesis, is being sent back to Heaven!”

He listened for a second, to make sure Gabriel could hear him, continuing to lament in his own voice, that he had been about to swallow holy water in despair, but that hearing this news, “Only Aziraphale knows my ways enough to…” and in the monster voice, “Thwart them?”

And then in his own, rejoicing at Heaven’s foolishness and the success of evil. Then it had been his turn to listen as Gabriel and Sandalphon went back to the bookshop, Gabriel in his new suit, the dandy. He pretended to loathe the things of Earth, yet was happy to enjoy the fine clothing.

The hypocrite.

But he’d had his desired effect. Gabriel decided to leave Aziraphale where he was, on Earth. Thank somebody that stuffed shirt was so easy to fool. Aziraphale had been nonplussed when Crowley strolled in with his gift of chocolates and a very expensive champagne.

It had been a night to remember. The pair of them spoke just a little more openly than usual, though Aziraphale never knew why Heaven had changed its collective mind.

Still, though, Crowley could never say why he had done what he had done aloud. Perhaps Aziraphale would have known, had he confided in him, but neither of them dared. In any case, the demon had thought then that Aziraphale couldn’t return his, Crowley’s feelings. That would be too much to hope for. Crowley didn’t want to indulge in hope. It left him too vulnerable.

He couldn’t afford vulnerability.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Crowley finished his meal, in a slightly happier mood. Humans. He couldn’t escape the fact that despite six thousand years of intentionally causing misery to them, he liked them. Yes, they did awful things to each other. But they could be loyal and loving, as well. The couple he had been watching got their bill and again looked around, trying to see. They finally noticed Crowley, and looked at him, questioning. He simply lifted his glass and drank, then rose, exiting swiftly, before they could think to come over and thank him.

He just couldn’t resist an occasional act of kindness. Aziraphale must have rubbed off on him, he thought.

The Bentley pulled out into traffic, heading for the ferry. It wasn’t long before he realized he was on his way back north. He rested his hands on the wheel, and to any casual observer, he was driving, steering, but he just let his car go where it wanted. He was pretty sure where he was headed. Islington. Just outside London.

His thoughts drifted.

—------

Hell had him keeping tabs on a human they deemed important. Spy. Smuggler. And was evidently planning a jewel robbery. He got himself insinuated into the gang that carried out much of this human’s work, and as such, met with her at a local public house.

Her name was Jane Austen. She seemed pretty no-nonsense for a woman who pretended to be such a fainting violet in public, but apparently, that was how she managed to do so much under the noses of the authorities. People simply saw a lady of gentle breeding fallen on hard times. Apparently, she was passing money on to her brother, but she never openly displayed sudden wealth, so who knows what he was doing with it.

Crowley was impressed in spite of himself by her quick intelligence and wit. This cunning human – looks could really deceive. She seemed so demure, dressed in the Empire fashion, with a modest straw bonnet over her dark, plain hair, but she was a powerhouse. Looked like the type to sip claret with her afternoon tea, but here she was, throwing back gin with the best of the gang, and none the worse for it. She was quite something.

The gang, including Crowley, huddled around her in a corner of the public house, as she laid out her plans. There was a vault at the back of the jewelry shop which was impervious, but Jane had arranged for one of the gang to be working with the courier who was supposed to transport the jewels. The whole idea was they were to be intercepted before they even arrived. Crowley could find, barring utter incompetence of the gang, no flaws in the plans.

And they were executed flawlessly. Crowley hadn’t even had to do any demonic miracles. The spoils were divided, and Crowley found a trustworthy fence; the man stayed bought. Of course, he skimmed a lot, but this was expected, and everyone made a tidy profit.

And the security paid by the jeweler had no success at all in tracing any of the precious goods, police having yet to be established in London and its environs. Crowley had been quite tickled by the caper and was pretty certain he’d secured several souls for Hell in the future.

As it happened, Jane was the first to go, not too many years later. Crowley was almost regretful at the time, he recalled. Not regretful enough to actually do anything to stop the inevitable, of course. In the game of survival, a demon did what a demon must.

It was only that it was his job. Not his choice of jobs, in any case, but then who in this world was truly free? Humans could pick their sides, though that was their only choice, as far as Crowley could see. Demons and angels didn’t have that much freedom.

Some days the whole game seemed pointless. Not pointless enough to stop surviving, however.

Survival was a habit. And there were still perks, like the chance to see his angel from time to time. Like food, and alcohol. Like not breathing in the effluvia of Hell, nor hanging around idiots who used a sledgehammer when a light tap was called for, like Hastur and his partner, Ligur. And those two – they enjoyed their jobs. They really liked spreading misery and evil. That was their idea of a good time, and neither of them had any imagination in planning.

Crowley didn’t much like either of them. They both were Beelzebub’s lapdogs, though, happily doing their bidding. Crowley wasn’t certain what he’d do when he had to spend eternity with the likes of them. Maybe Hell would win, and there’d be room to spread around. Maybe show Aziraphale some of the sights on Alpha Centauri, or the view from the Horsehead Nebula. If the angel wound up being a demon, too, well, maybe he could shield him from the worst of things.

There were worse things than being damned.

Time moved on, and Crowley with it. But time seemed to be speeding up. Though it was just an illusion, Crowley knew the fuse had been lit, and Earth’s time was only a couple centuries from being up. Crowley allowed himself a tiny bit of hope that it wouldn’t happen. Nobody knew the Ineffable Plan, after all. Hell was pretending it was all business as usual, but also as usual, nobody confided in him.

Crowley looked at this glimmering of hope, and then tucked it deep away, where it wouldn’t interfere with his job. He still had to survive, one way or another.

Time didn’t stop, not even for the one who had helped invent it.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

It was 1820. Crowley had been meeting Aziraphale regularly. Aziraphale was dressing a bit more fashionably of late, with his lovely white gold muttonchop sideburns and his greatcoat and beaver hat, still in shades of beige and white, though several years out of date.

Crowley quite admired his own reflection in shop mirrors. He was the very definition of fashion, he thought to himself, in his top hat, his hair curled beautifully around his own muttonchop sideburns, his red corset peeking out from his silk waistcoat, and diamond and onyx stickpin holding his silk cravat at his throat. Some of the diamonds had been a gift from Miss Austen, and they were flawless.

He thought he cut the better figure, but still, there was something about his angel. Crowley had visited Aziraphale’s bookshop one evening and over a few bottles of a fine claret, the angel had confessed to having been duped again, not without some indignation. Apparently, a lady had come to him for help with her brother, who had unfairly, so the lady said, been thrown into debtor’s prison. The lady called herself a countess but said she’d fallen on hard times, and that she and her brother were the last members of their household alive after their parents had died.

Aziraphale had promised to help her, and the countess had thrown herself on him, apparently thinking he would only help on promise of bedding her. Crowley had stifled his laughter at the thought. His angel would hardly succumb to sexual advances. Aziraphale had been very affronted, and the lady, who had disrobed, hastily dressed, distressed that perhaps “Mr. Fell” wouldn’t help her, but he had assured her that he still intended to free her brother.

And he was as good as his word, of course. But much to his shock and surprise, the lady having fled, Aziraphale had found that she was no countess, and the man was not her brother, and the two of them had left quite a number of debts and debtors in the lurch. Aziraphale, feeling guilty, had paid those debts, not wishing to add to the suffering of the business owners and private parties hurting for the funds promised and never delivered.

Crowley had not at all been surprised. How many times had he warned Aziraphale about such people? Aziraphale was just too trusting for his own good.

It was another cold November in 1827, and Crowley had been sent to Edinburgh again. What was it with Hell and making the demon lurk in the dampest and foggiest of conditions? He’d been sent to monitor the upsurge in body snatching. He was lurking in a graveyard, and if he’d been human would have had a heart attack, seeing the prominent statue in the middle. It wasn’t unusual for statues of angels to be in cemeteries, But this one was an exact replica of his old nemesis, Gabriel.

It was as if he’d come down and commissioned it himself, and sat for the artist. Crowley wouldn’t have put it past him. He sent a courier to Aziraphale telling him to come and meet him in the cemetery. He wondered if the angel knew anything about it. But Aziraphale denied any knowledge of the thing.

It was uncanny, they both agreed. It was Crowley’s opinion that if the archangel hadn’t commissioned it, he must at least come down from time to time to admire it. But if he did, evidently Aziraphale hadn’t heard anything about it.

While they were speculating, they heard a commotion. A young woman, dressed in men’s clothing, ragged and dirty, with a cap pulled down over her face, was accusing them of trespassing on her territory. It turned out that the woman, who introduced herself as Elspeth, was engaged in body snatching. Crowley approved.

Aziraphale was appalled, even after he met Elspeth’s friend, Wee Morag, and it was clear the pair were on the edge of starvation, and couldn’t even afford a doss house to sleep in. Wee Morag tried to tell her friend that digging up bodies was wicked, but Elspeth was unmoved. They needed the money. There was a surgeon who would pay good money for a fresh body. What was the problem?

Elspeth seemed confused as to why the two obvious gentlemen were accompanying her. Crowley could see it in her eyes. But she allowed them to tail her once it was clear they weren’t going to interfere, as she transported the body in a pickle barrel hand cart down streets to the door of a gentleman’s house. Aziraphale, who had introduced himself as Mr. McFell tried to argue with her, to dissuade her, but to no avail. She wasn’t sure she trusted him, thinking he was some fop from England. Crowley hadn’t introduced himself at all but his Scottish accent, assumed automatically, caused her to believe he, at least, could be trusted.

She certainly wasn’t sure about the obvious, to her, Englishman. McFell indeed! She wasn’t buying it. Crowley could see that. Elspeth trundled the pickle barrel to a door answered by a man in a blood-stained apron. She wheeled the barrel into the anteroom where the man, who introduced himself as a surgeon, Mr. Dalrymple, was dissecting a corpse. Aziraphale was dead set on dissuading her from what he thought was wickedness, and performed a small miracle, rotting the fresh corpse as if it had been dead for weeks or months. Dalrymple sent her away with no money at all.

Crowley got Aziraphale to talk to Mr. Dalrymple, and the angel learned that cutting up bodies was the only way to save lives. Without knowing how a body was made, students of medicine had no way to save lives. Crowley caught the look of pain on Aziraphale’s face when he learned that a boy had died, because the knowledge just wasn’t there. Crowley himself knew that was one reason you couldn’t get attached.

Aziraphale was learning that goodness and wickedness were relative. He followed Elspeth when she persuaded Wee Morag to go back to the cemetery and steal another body, finally understanding that being good wasn’t quite as simple as he’d thought. But when Morag accidentally set off a gravegun that in turn set off an alarm, and they all retreated to a mausoleum to hide, her death was clearly painful to the angel. Especially because he hadn’t the power to bring her back to life, because he had missed the window of opportunity to bring her back from the brink.

Elspeth, defiant and seemingly undaunted, showing no one the pain she kept inside. Crowley could see it. He recognized it, and the defiance. He saw how unhappy she was, the grief she tried to hide away. He sensed a kinship in feeling with this street urchin, and the anguish in her soul. Morag hadn’t gone to Hell. She never had been meant to go there. There was still a chance for Elspeth, however. Crowley was supposed to nudge her in that direction.

Instead, he took the laudanum she had meant to drink, and it sent the demon on the wildest bender he’d ever been in. It removed every speck of self-control he’d nurtured for nearly six thousand years, as he shrank, then grew, putting the fear of Hell into Elspeth, who saw him for the demon he was. Hell was suddenly very real, very near, and with the help of Aziriphale’s money, she left the city, determined to do as she was told, to buy a farm and reform.

And, still drunk, nearly blind, he remembered he’d clutched at his angel, who held him by the waist, almost in an embrace. Crowley felt as if he’d drown from the sheer love Aziraphale had showered him with, though in a last bit of sanity, he’d tried to disavow his good deed. For a moment he thought it had gone unnoticed, that he’d gotten away with it, and then the ground opened under his feet, and that was the last he remembered, seeing Aziraphale’s face as he watched with sympathetic eyes that told of an inability to help.

Crowley never knew if Aziraphale would have if he could have. He didn’t see him again for a little over twenty-five years.

And for some time he wondered if he ever would see him again.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

Crowley barely remembered the fall, or the impact, for that matter. The ground had opened up beneath him and his last sight was of Aziraphale’s shocked face, and his hands reaching for him, but unable to help. It had happened so quickly.

He woke strapped to a long table of rough-hewn wood, his arms secured above his head, and his feet fastened so that he could not move. He was naked and his wings were outstretched, fastened to a crosspiece of some type. He hadn’t unfolded his wings for some time. He strained to see them, because they were cramped, straps tightened so much that they hurt.

He could see he was in one of the rooms inspired by the Inquisition. Crowley had taken responsibility for that, though he’d had nothing to do with any of the inventions. But Hell had embraced them, and here was an array of them around the room. Crowley had an idea he might find out their efficacy, soon enough. From behind him he heard a door clang, and a voice he had hoped to never hear again.

“You’ve disappointed me, Crowley.” Crowley suppressed a shiver. “Tell me why I should keep you alive.”

Crowley tried to keep his voice steady. “I was drunk. I’ve already done everything you’ve demanded. If you destroy me, you’ll get no more souls. Not from my work. You know my work already.” He saw a great clawed hand reach into his field of vision and grip his shoulder.

“I am aware, my little snake. There are consequences for disappointing me. This is going to hurt you very much more than it will hurt me. Are you frightened, little snake?” Crowley’s face betrayed him. “You should be.” Crowley felt the claws graze his jaw, and saw the hand and arm retreat.

“Wait!” Crowley found his voice, though it was shaky. “Am I to die?”

Satan’s voice sounded amused. “I will decide, later. Enjoy thinking about it, my little snake.”

Crowley closed his eyes. Tried to calm himself. If these were to be his last moments, he wanted to spend them not in fear, but in quiet resignation. His wings tried to flutter, but were immovable. His ability to do any miracles was blocked, which was no surprise. He summoned his memories of Aziraphale, using them to quieten his mind.

When he opened his eyes it was to see a huge demon he knew as Vorbis. Vorbis, if he’d been human, would have certainly been the type to pull the wings off flies and happily drown kittens. Usually, he was assigned to torture human souls, and he took pride and happiness in his work. Crowley, naked and vulnerable, tried to assume a bravado he did not feel in the slightest.

Vorbis rubbed his clawed hands with glee. “If it isn’t the renowned Mr. Crowley. I’m so going to enjoy this. What did you do to piss the Boss off? I wouldn't be in your shoes for anything. But wait, you don’t have shoes, do you? Don’t worry, you’re in good hands with me. It was sure lucky we got prototypes of those intriguing devices you invented, wasn’t it?”

“Erm, about that…”

“Don’t worry. I’ve learned exactly how to use them. We get a lot of practice on those souls you sent us a few centuries ago. You won’t die, Mr. Crowley. Not yet. I know exactly how far to go.” A gesture, and Crowley saw a large glowing brazier, and iron tools being heated. “I won’t take your eyes. Even if they do grow back. The Boss is pretty adamant about that. He wants you to see it all. Didn’t say anything about the tongue, though. Depending on how loud you get, maybe I’ll leave it for a while.” Crowley must have shown something in his face, because Vorbis patted his shoulder, almost reassuringly. “Don’t worry. You’re a demon. It all grows back. It all heals. It’s just going to take a while for some of it. I mean, if you’re to survive at all.”

Crowley did not find any of that reassuring.

In the end, he learned he’d spent just over twenty-five years in that room. He had screamed until he lost his voice. When his voice came back, he found himself begging for mercy, for Vorbis to stop, to listen to him, please, he’d been drunk, he’d been out of his mind, he’d never do anything like it again, please, just kill him and get it over with, please. When he was unstrapped and allowed to heal, he had collapsed on the floor of the cell, unable to move for days. In the end, he was sent back to Earth still healing in body.

His mind would take more time. He could never allow this to happen again.

It was 1862. Aziraphale had been away, had received a message from Crowley to meet at their usual place, but he had been on assignment, unable to answer until now. Crowley was still stiff, his body pained, but he did his best to conceal it from Aziraphale. He knew the angel might cut off contact completely, in the mistaken belief he would be protecting Crowley. Crowley thought he might give up entirely if that happened. Aziraphale was the one remaining bright spot in what had become a somewhat bleak existence.

Survival, however, had become a habit, one which he was unwilling to break. To this end, he had an idea for insurance. Holy water. For insurance. He had several ideas how he could use it.

Aziraphale refused. He was convinced Crowley wanted a suicide pill. In vain he argued that he had no intention of dying. The angel apparently wasn’t convinced. He flounced off, refusing to even listen to Crowley. The demon found out later the cause of his bad mood – he’d almost sold one of his precious books.

That didn’t solve his problem.

When Aziraphale left, he stood for a few minutes watching Aziraphale’s retreat, then made his way slowly and carefully to a park bench, and sat. It had been important to him to not show weakness in front of his angel. He didn’t want that kind of sympathy. He didn’t want Aziraphale to feel sorry for him. Aziraphale had no concept. He didn’t want him to have a concept. He was a demon, for Hell’s sake.

A jumble of thoughts went through Crowley’s head. He didn’t need the angel. The angel didn’t have any kind of clue – and why would he? Hell was worse than even Crowley had thought. He couldn’t allow himself to be vulnerable again. Not to Aziraphale, not to anybody.
Hell wanted souls. He had picked up a newspaper next to him, and it was all about the Gold Rush, and America, and people making their fortunes. If one thing was true, it was that gold always made humans greedy, and greed led to wickedness.

And Crowley needed a break from London. And, truth be told, Aziraphale. Aziraphale made him vulnerable, and he could no longer afford vulnerability. A break would allow him to set up his barriers anew. Maybe new horizons would give him new ideas on how to protect himself.

He decided to go through by going under. Being a demon, he could take a shortcut across the ocean, by going under, rather as he had done when Eden had been new. He had read all about this new town in South Dakota territory.

Deadwood. Said to be a hot spot for wickedness.

Crowley was down with wicked.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

Some hours of driving (riding, really, as the Bentley knew where it was going and moved on its own, with no input from Crowley) later, and the demon found himself in North York, driving to the moors there. The landscape was bleak, but beautiful, relatively deserted today. This was good. The Bentley parked itself on the edge of a small local road, one used more in summer months for cycling or walking. Even horseback riding. Crowley shuddered. Why anyone would voluntarily get on one of those animals was beyond him.

He threw up a screen, so that anyone passing simply would look the other way, their brains not allowing them to process that they’d seen him. Crowley then miracled himself a glass and poured some whiskey, tossing it back rather than the sipping it deserved.

He was not in the mood for sipping; these had not been happy memories.

—-------

It was 1876. Crowley emerged at night near where, in a couple of years, Deadwood’s first cemetery would be established. He didn’t think much of gentlemen’s fashion here, but since he needed to fit in, he dressed himself like the better-dressed men of the area, although eschewing the white starched shirts he knew most human men wore for his customary color. Cravats were shorter, here, and he mourned his diamond stickpin, lost when Hell had sucked him down, but decided it would have been much too showy here. He miracled himself another walking stick. He still needed it, though it labeled him a bit of a fop. He finished the outfit with short black gloves.

Soon he would heal enough to not need the stick any more. The scars on his psyche would take longer. But he could not spend time thinking about them, they would have to fend for themselves. He had work ahead and needed to prove himself all over again.

Hell did not care. Hell never rewarded even with faint praise for a job well done. Hell only punished failures. Crowley would not fail them again.

At least not so they’d find out about it.

Slowly and painfully, he made his way into the town. Well, “town” wasn’t quite the operative word, in this place. There was a road of sorts, a dirt and mud expanse, and on either side of it were wooden buildings with false fronts, evidently retail establishments, with banners proclaiming their business. A bank, a hardware shop with a large and showy banner over its front sign, a liquor shop, a tailor’s shop, a dentist, a hotel. Welch’s Hotel. Ah, very good. A home base, of sorts. Crowley miracled himself a valise as he walked, and opened the front door, unlocked, but a bell above the door signaled his entrance.

There was a counter, and a man sleeping on a chair behind it. Crowley summoned an American accent. “Excuse me, but I’ve just arrived.”

The man sprang to his feet, blearily looking at the clock. “A stage, at this hour?” He glanced up at the clock which read 3:14. “I didn’t hear one arrive…”

“No. I was dropped off by…my cousin. On horseback.” Crowley improvised. “Do you have a room?”

The man behind the counter looked him up and down. “Our rooms go for one to two bucks a night, depending.”

“Depending on what?”

“Depending on whether you want to be first in line for the bath or not. An extra 50 cents for hot water. Payable in advance. I just had a guest die before he could pay me. I’m not taking any more chances.” He glared suspiciously at Crowley, who used his demonic abilities to allay suspicion. “Of course, being it’s you,” he trailed off.

Crowley pulled out a well-padded wallet. “Perfectly fine. I’d like to pay for a month in advance.” He wouldn’t need the hot water but figured it was better to pay for it, to fit in. He laid out bills on the counter, and the man grinned and brought up the register. Crowley signed with “Mr. A.J. Crowley.” He really didn’t have an idea of any other name to use, but figured those were safe enough initials. The bills had been deposited in a lockbox, and he was given a key with the room number on it.

Crowley climbed a staircase and entered the room, not bothering to unlock the door, but he did miracle the door so it wouldn’t open for anyone else. Then he hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob, and pulled a chair up to the window, so as to carefully observe the town.

Saloons. Bars. Dance Halls. There were several, and a few brothels at the ends of the broad, muddy Main Street. Some of the businesses had wooden sidewalks built in front of them, but these would give way unexpectedly to muddy trodden paths. There were mundane businesses as well, the bank, hardware stores, a furniture shop, gentlemen’s ready-to-wear shops, grocers who sold food supplies, and here and there small eateries, serving meals for 25 cents to a dollar or two. Crowley had little interest in any of them, aside from keeping up appearances. On the outskirts of Main Street, and in back of the retail buildings, there were a few small decent houses, but most of them ranged from log cabins to houses made of mud or sod bricks, to tents, and the occasional clapboard two-story. Practically mansions, here.

As the night turned to day, and citizens began stirring, Crowley saw there were almost no women. Shopkeepers brought barrels and crates of goods outside their shops, quickly setting up displays.

Crowley decided to start at one of the gambling houses. Walking into one at random, he saw a sign reading “Nuthall & Mann’s Saloon No. 10” above the door. This amused him; imagine a small town with only a few legitimate businesses but enough vice so there were at least ten saloons. Quite the scope for a good harvest.

Crowley quickly established himself as an out-of-towner who was willing to gamble and able to lose fortunes. He had miracled himself not only a never-empty wallet but a never-empty inside jacket with bags of gold nuggets. Nobody seemed at all concerned as to where he’d gotten either. All they saw was a dandy who deserved to be parted from his wealth.

But in spreading that wealth, Crowley also spread greed, enmity, and whispered promises of more money available by robbery or murder.

His campaigns soon paid off. Humans started murdering each other. Crowley had made acquaintance with one Jack McCall, a ne’er-do-well itinerant who for some reason was calling himself Bill Sutherland, by which name he introduced himself to Crowley. The demon saw beneath his not-very-thought-out “disguise” and whispered in his ear imagined slights from more prominent citizens.

That was quite a payoff, when McCall, later that year, shot one “Wild Bill” Hickok, in the back. McCall was first acquitted, then later condemned elsewhere, and was hanged. Both of them had already joined literal hundreds starting to pile up in Hell’s reception and processing rooms, such as they were.

When smallpox swept through the town, it took a number of really wicked people. Crowley had also secured quite a huge lot of souls that, when they eventually died, would also arrive at Hell’s doorstep.

Crowley stayed long enough to see a man named Al Swearingen build a saloon and prostitution house he named The Gem Theater. He cozied up to Mr. Swearington, spending money freely therein. He did have a hand in making sure four of his underage prostitutes, falsely recruited by telling them they’d be waitresses and cleaning staff, escape from the man’s clutches, but he did so surreptitiously, not really daring to do more.

When Crowley left (knowing Swearington, a man of no virtues and nearly every vice, along with a number of his associates, were guaranteed a berth in Hell) as a parting shot, he started a fire which burned the Gem to the ground. Crowley left the way he’d arrived, after settling his final bill with Welch’s Hotel and making certain the register would not show his name, first. He wanted no record of being in this place to survive.

He arrived back in London in 1880, fully healed and feeling more like his co*cky, old self again.

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

Crowley had fallen asleep again. He had never liked revisiting those memories–he still had residual mental pain, which sometimes gave him twinges in his limbs, even the wings he kept folded within his corporate body. The pains were remanent and what was once called “psychogenic,” though that term had fallen into disuse.

He was a demon, though, not a human. He didn’t expect to still be dealing with fallout from that abuse, so long ago. Sleep was his great healer. There were no therapists for ailing demons.

He woke abruptly in the morning, and, for a moment, had forgotten where he was. He soon remembered. He was still alone on the moor, and he got ready to dive within his mind again.

___________

It was 1880. Crowley was feeling much more himself, and ready to look up his angel. However, when he swung by the bookshop, it was closed, and no light glimmered within. In vain he knocked. Aziraphale did not appear, and so he retreated to the nearby pub. He had lately discovered Talisker, and had a taste for it, so while he waited, ordered a bottle, pouring himself a hefty draught and sipping it. It was early enough in the morning that he expected Aziraphale to come soon.

Sure enough, the angel was whistling his way down Whickber Street. He was not alone. A tall, florid man (Human? Must be, Crowley mused) accompanied him. The man was dressed somewhat eccentrically in a velvet coat, over which was thrown a cape with a collar of some dense fur. In one hand, he bore a walking stick and on the other arm he was carrying several books, with loose papers between them. The two were talking in an animated fashion, as Aziraphale unlocked the shop, and ushered the man within. Crowley felt a twinge of an emotion he did not recognize; it was jealousy.

He suppressed it immediately. It wasn’t his business with whom the angel – what was that word? – fraternized. He stayed where he sat, drinking a little more steadily. The two were there for several hours. Crowley bought bottle after bottle of Talisker. He had gotten really drunk, as he recalled, though not so drunk that he wasn’t in control of himself.

Finally he saw the other man leave, and the closed sign was turned to open. Crowley contemplated going over. Instead of that, he decided to follow the man, who was evidently living in a boarding house. He contemplated confronting him; then he decided against it.

He felt a little ridiculous. Jealous of a Human? Surely the man was no competition.He tried to tell himself. he was just being protective. That his mistrust was only because mortal beings could hardly be trusted to do the right thing. In his head danced images of the man, head to head with his angel, sharing confidences. He tried to tell himself that he was being absurd.

So giving himself a talking-to, and knowing his feelings were irrational, he made his way back to Whickber Street, and the bookshop. Trying to appear disinterested, and utterly failing, he sauntered within. “Aziraphale!” he greeted the angel, who was placing some books and papers on a shelf. “I’m back!”

Aziraphale spun around. “Crowley, my dear fellow! How have you been?”

“M’all right. How’s the blessing business going? Met any interesting humans lately?”

Aziraphale had bustled over to the alcove he kept his liquor in, on a makeshift bar consisting of a table and shelf. He laid out two glasses and poured from a decanter, then handed one to Crowley, indicating one of the chairs by the table. Then he seated himself, and lifted his glass. “Cheers!” he said.

They clinked glasses, and Crowley sniffed appreciatively. “Talisker! You remembered!”

“Of course.” He sipped at his glass. “Oh, what I’ve been up to? Well, I’ve joined a gentleman’s club. And I am meeting the most fascinating humans. Oh, and I’ve learned to dance!”

“Dance? I thought angels didn’t dance!”

Aziraphale beamed. “I do. I learned one. It’s called the gavotte. Quite a lively dance, actually. I learned in my club. It’s quite amusing. Keeps me on my toes, I can tell you!”

“Gentleman’s club? I didn’t think you were the club-joining type, Angel. What club, exactly?”

“Oh, it’s quite discreet, really. And expensive. It’s called the Hundred Guineas Club, because that’s what it costs for a year.”

Crowley nearly choked on his sip of whiskey. He sputtered. “Angel, do you know what kind of gentlemen go to that club?”

“Oh, yes. There are quite a lot of artistic types. Speaking of whom, I’ll have to introduce you to my new friend, who acquainted me with the club. It’s quite nice. They serve lovely dinners. And there’s quite a lot of lively and interesting conversation. We even have a royal member! It gives me lots of opportunities to keep abreast of happenings that could be very important to me, as an angel.”

Crowley looked at him over his glasses. The angel was guileless. Maybe he really had no idea of the real reason for the club’s existence. “And your friend?” he prompted.

“He’s a writer. A journalist, originally. But he’s written a play, quite a good one! I not only have a few copies he’s gifted me, but also the original manuscript of the play! He’s even signed it to me!” Excitedly, Aziraphale jumped up again, and taking hold of some papers, brought them back to Crowley. “Look, and he’s given me some magazines in which he’s been published. I really think he’s got quite a good future!”

Crowley still didn’t know enough to know that what he was feeling was unabashed jealousy. “You think so? Don’t you think that maybe he’s only trying to use your influence, or that maybe there’s something personal there?”

“Whatever can you mean, Crowley?” Aziraphale’s tone seemed perplexed

Crowley had leafed through the manuscript, and he wasn’t really impressed. “I don’t really think this play is all that notable. Lots of action, but look here,” and he pointed, “A really confusing, tragic end. I think the dialogue is a trifle – well, trite, if you ask me.”

Aziraphale huffed. “Oh, Crowley. You didn’t like Shakespeare, either. And look how popular he still is.”
Crowley shifted in his chair, leaning back while unbuttoning his coat. “Yeah, well, remember that’s partly on me, after all.” He picked up his glass again, languidly sipping. “I think this fellow – what’s his name?”

“Oscar.”

“Oscar. I think he might be sweet on you, Angel.”

Aziraphale looked shocked. “Surely not, Crowley. He’s an intelligent human. That’s all.”

Crowley spread his hands. “Okay, Angel. Let’s not fight. Dinner? The Grand’s got oysters on the menu today, with a lovely saddle of lamb and Gateaux Victorian for afters. My treat, all right?”

He could always mollify his angel with a good meal. As for Crowley, he just enjoyed watching Aziraphale eat with such gusto, albeit with the manners of a princess. He remembered that night with much fondness.

He had never convinced Aziraphale of the type of club The Hundred Guineas Club was. Apparently, the angel always left before any shenanigans, but he remained friends with Oscar. When Crowley met him, he was charmed in spite of himself. The human had beautiful manners and an exotic and agreeable way of speaking.

His plays did improve, and he became quite well known in later years, marrying, having children, and then a scandal. Crowley had nothing to do with that, either, and would have helped him if he could. Indeed he’d met with him and tried to convince him not to sue the parent of his lover, but to no avail. Crowley could do no more.

Aziraphale had been kept busy, as well, and wasn’t able to stop the inevitable. But he had enjoyed the nights spent chatting with his human friend, who never failed to bring him a first edition of every work he’d gotten published. Heaven had made it clear that he was not to interfere, however, and it was known that Oscar’s kindness had tipped the scales enough that he would be heading towards Heaven, and Hell had already lost him.

Aziraphale, for his part, had been quite unhappy when the gavotte had gone out of style. As was usual, he had embraced a fashion not long before it ended. If it had been clothing, as it generally was, he just carried on wearing it. But a dance that required partners was a whole other thing. He could never convince the demon to learn it.

The rest of that century they’d both been kept busy by their separate offices, but still managed to meet up for meals and the occasional chin-wag.

It was the turn of the century. Time, as time does, was moving on.

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

Crowley woke when the Bentley started to move. “All right, where to now, old girl?” He got no answer, though to his surprise, the radio turned on. On offer was not the usual Queen, but a song he barely remembered.

“I love you ma cherie, whenever you I see, it seems like heaven…” he reached over and shut it off. It turned on again. “I hate you ma cherie, for you, it seems to me, love six or seven…’ Crowley snarled and switched it off again.

“I don’t need to hear it again. It came with the damn gramophone.” He glared at the radio. “Don’t tell me we’re headed to London again.” Silence, but the Bentley was indeed moving in that direction. “I’m not ready, damn it!” He tried slamming on the brakes, but the Bentley just speeded up. “All right. All right. I guess I’ll just have to deal with it, won’t I?”

No reply, but Crowley remembered when he first heard that damnable song.

__________________

“Happy New Year, Angel! I brought you a present!” Crowley was carrying a box of records, on top of which was perched, precariously, a brand new Victrola gramophone, its golden trumpet gleaming in the evening light.

“Crowley! You shouldn’t have!” Aziraphale held the door as Crowley sauntered in, miracling himself a table on which to deposit the gramophone. “How did you know I’ve been thinking about acquiring one?”

“You wot? Thinking about getting something current in technology? I figured if I left it, it would take you at least another decade or two. Look, it came with an assortment of records, just to start with. I got a few more–Holst’s newest, some Gilbert and Sullivan librettos, suchlike…” he trailed off, as he saw Aziraphale gazing adoringly at the gramophone.

Reverently, the angel was reading the pamphlet that came with it, and he carefully wound the crank, and meticulously took a record from its sleeve and placed it on the turntable.

“I love you, ma cherie…” came the tenor’s voice. Aziraphale was listening raptly. Crowley, for the first time, was hearing the lyrics as they finished. “Ah, ma cherie, I worship you just madly, you treat me very badly, ma cherie. For I love you but you don’t care for me…you break my heart completely, ma cherie…”

Crowley felt his face grow a bit red, and, afraid to look at Aziraphale, picked up another record, handing it over. “Here’s Holst’s newest symphony.” Aziraphale put that one on next, as Crowley tried to sneak a peek sideways. Phew, the angel seemed oblivious.

Later, Crowley tried to find the record, hoping to get rid of it, but he couldn’t find it. Perhaps Aziraphale had decided he didn’t like it and discarded it.

In May of 1910 King Edward died, and wound up in Hell, despite his reign having been one of relative peace with several social reforms getting their starts. George V was crowned. At this point he could have gone either way, and evidently Hell didn’t much care, as Crowley was kept busy elsewhere.

When the War to End All Wars broke out a few years later, England wasn’t eager to join at first, but by 1916 they, too, were in it. Mandatory conscription was passed in January, but both the demon and the angel miracled themselves identification which proved they were over 41. Women handing out white feathers found themselves unwilling to hand them to either being.

By 1914 bands of suffragettes were being arrested all over England. When a band of them tried to march on Buckingham Palace with a petition, Crowley, to his dismay, was tasked with making sure they were stopped. He wasn’t happy about the assignment, because it reminded him too much of his own experiences, but really had no choice. He whispered into the ears of the police, and they rounded up the group before they got anywhere near the Palace grounds.

At least in their case there was no open warfare, and no Fall. Not even arrests, then. Arrests did happen later, after various acts that the authorities deemed “terrorism,” so eventually Hell’s intentions became more clear. Spread misery. Create havoc.

But then Germany attacked Britain, and all the suffragettes were released. War was much more interesting to Hell. When rationing was introduced, Crowley made certain to tempt as many people as he could to establish a thriving black market. It was a fairly easy temptation, but Hell continued to be happy with the results. Bombing raids took out several black marketers, and when they arrived at Hell’s doorstep, so to speak, Crowley’s reputation for demonic interference and misery spreading grew as well.

Then came 1918, and a pandemic. Crowley didn’t start that, either, but was content to take credit for it. The Armistice happened, and this further spread a second, deadlier wave of what was called Spanish Flu. This was when the authorities began enforcing social distancing and quarantine measures.

The toll was still high. Again, Crowley did his best to avoid tempting people to gather, but when he got his marching orders, he sighed and did what he was told, but did inform Aziraphale, so he could, hopefully, cancel out the worst consequences. Nobody could fault him if that happened.

When the teens gave way to the twenties, and servicemen started coming home, rationing finally ended, and people felt freer to celebrate. Austerity gave way to celebration, and the young seemed to know how to party. Crowley took advantage of this to introduce what was seen as vice to these “bright young things” as they were being called. Even the women began to smoke, which of course led to more health problems and deaths.

Crowley himself eschewed the idea of inhaling noxious fumes. It didn’t seem attractive to him.

In 1929, Crowley got interested in automobiles. They looked much nicer than horses.The demon arranged to be introduced to W.O. Bentley, one of the prominent automobile tycoons, and was soon looking over prototypes in the fellow’s offices. Crowley, as an engineer, found a kindred spirit in the human, and W.O. was flattered by the evident interest of a person with a large bank account, and who asked intelligent questions, and exhibited an interest in a design mocked up to be released in a few years.

Crowley paid handsomely to have the car made to order. From the first, he cherished that car.

He didn’t forget his angel. He’d been to a society party and met a rather portly newspaperman, Evelyn Waugh, and flattered him enough that Mr. Waugh gave him a first edition copy of his new novel, Vile Bodies. He had him sign it to Aziraphale. He knew the angel would be tickled.

He took Aziraphale for a spin. If the angel had been capable of it, Crowley registered that Aziraphale might have had a heart attack. “Crowley! Slow down!”

Crowley chuckled. “She goes fast, doesn’t she? I can get over a hundred easily.”

“Not in downtown Soho! Crowley, you’ll discorporate us!” Aziraphale gestured towards the window. “And maybe a few mortals, as well!”

“Not to worry, Angel. Miraculous misses and all that. This is fun! Watch!” Crowley veered around a few pedestrians, a bus, and two other cars he seemed destined to run straight into.

Aziraphale winced. “I don’t find this fun, Crowley.”

Crowley screeched to a halt in front of the Ritz Hotel. “Fine. Let’s go have some dinner, then. I’ve got you a present.”

The dinner had gone well. Aziraphale had been delighted with the first edition. The twenties gave way to the thirties, and Crowley changed his looks with the seasons, but his angel seemed to never change.

It was rather reassuring, Crowley thought.

Chapter 27

Chapter Text

The thirties arrived. Crowley didn’t see Aziraphale at all that decade. There was a depression going on, which was always good for Hell’s business. There was a growing fascist movement even in Britain, which Hell approved of – it did advance their agenda of soul harvesting. Seeing that the fascists were being called blackshirts, which they proudly wore, Crowley switched his shirts to dark blue. He didn’t want to be seen in any way connected to those morons.

But of course he took credit for them on reports. Hell had stopped checking up on him except sporadically, and when he did hear from them, usually from Hastur or Ligur, or occasionally Lord Beelzebub, since he was busy stirring up trouble here and there and not in contact with Aziraphale, they were all reassured. Besides, there was plenty of trouble to be had. The Irish Troubles had the IRA busy with homegrown terrorism. There were protests, random bombings and arsons, even an assassination attempt on King George V. Crowley was busy stirring up dissatisfaction, which contributed to all of these, so of course, he claimed credit.

Hell liked the social unrest, the social divide, which England was trying to alleviate by eliminating the slums. The government built new, modern housing to replace the razed slums. Never enough. The newly prosperous middle class was oblivious to the suffering of the poorest, sometimes literally a few streets from their own homes.

All of it was fodder for Hell’s waiting rooms, and all of that very good for Crowley’s stats.

Motorcars were filling London’s roadways, along with double-decker buses and every kind of trade vehicle. London smog was starting to fill the air, as well. Even the Silver Jubilee of George V didn’t lift the mood for long. The Croydon Aerodome robbery really flummoxed Scotland Yard. They did manage to catch three of the gang but never recovered the gold – around 12,000 pounds – but Crowley knew where it went. He’d had a hand in that, rather in memory of his old friend Jane Austen. What Hell never knew was that his share went to a charity to feed children. Crowley always had a soft spot for kids.

It had been a lark for the fun of it, but Hell was rather impressed, especially when in later years they collected more of the gang as one by one they eventually showed up in Hell’s intake lobby.

Two million Britons were out of work and unskilled laborers lived in slum conditions, which added to the general malaise. There were marches– a national Hunger March, for one, but there were others. Desperate people who owned little to nothing, and had nothing to lose, committed desperate acts. First begging, then robbery, breaking windows to steal food or anything they could sell for food, to try to feed their families. All of it set in motion by a certain demon, whispering down hallways and in the ears of receptive mortals.

The IRA became a terrorist group, after their demands were met with silence at best and armed suppression at worst, leaving first threats, then bombs. All of it very good for Crowley’s roster.

The government enacted housing schemes, razing slums and building new housing. Not enough. Never enough. The slums that were left were literal streets away from the new places, which became filled with the newly prospering middle class, whose skilled work netted them better incomes and even paid vacations. Class divisions were stark. Crowley capitalized on that division, sowing hatred and suspicion.

With few social programs or missions, even churches, strapped for funds, couldn’t help bridge the gap between starvation and making do. Out-of-work men registered for the Dole, but few got it, and those who did were as likely to drink their money away as to take it to their families for rent or food.

It was very good business for Hell, and increased freedom for Crowley.

Then George V died, and was succeeded by Edward VIII, but he could not escape the scandal of his affair with Mrs. Simpson. Crowley managed to insert his influence there, as well. Mrs. Simpson evidently only wanted a good time and was ready to go back to America, abandoning the idea of being Queen of England, but Crowley made certain Edward was utterly besotted, and he would not let her go.

The scandal nearly caused a Constitutional Crisis. A point for the demon in Hell’s reckoning.

But instead, Edward abdicated, and his brother became George VI. Crowley whispered in his wife’s ear, and she never forgave the errant couple, who immediately went into exile.

Germany was on the march. Hell really liked that. By the time England entered the war, now being called the Second World War, Crowley was able to take credit for that, as well, though it really had nothing to do with him. He was still great at padding reports.

The Blitz began. Crowley made doubly certain nothing fell where he had to be, as well as guarding Whickber Street. Otherwise he didn’t interfere.

He did hear rumors of Aziraphale being mixed up in some spy business. He couldn’t pay close attention; spreading malaise and general evil kept him rather busy. He sent a message ‘round to the bookshop by way of a trusted human messenger, written in the language of the angels, that warned Aziraphale to not get mixed up in these intrigues. There was a real danger in trusting the wrong people. Aziraphale had sent back quite a huffy reply conveying that he, Aziraphale, was perfectly able to take care of himself. Crowley let it go.

He didn’t have the time.

People got really unhappy with rationing, and Crowley made sure there was a thriving black market going. It kept Hell occupied. Crowley was actually making money himself, smuggling liquor as the luxury tax was making it scarce. He invested, understanding trends, deciding he needed some kind of nest egg, as a hedge, to buy influence if nothing else.

He still wanted holy water. He found a flat in Mayfair he liked, and once papers were signed, and billing set up with Hell (one good thing was that he cultivated the friendship of a demon named Dagon, who made certain the rent was to be paid in perpetuity) he made a safe in the wall, and equipped it with hazmat gloves and apron, as well as a state-of-the-art welder’s mask and tongs, for future use. He would get holy water one way or another, he decided, with or without Aziraphale.

Then he caught wind of Aziraphale’s meeting with homegrown Nazis and spies. The angel had the best of intentions, he knew, thinking he was being recruited to catch the villains. Crowley’s own spy network heard about it, and had notified the demon that all was not as it seemed. He heard that Aziraphale had been convinced to appear to sell books of prophecy, first editions, and was told that he’d get them back and help to catch Nazis as well!

The angel had trusted the wrong people, despite every warning. Crowley knew from his own machinations that the so-called “double-agent,” one Miss Rose Montgomery, was actually a German national, whose real name was Fraulein Greta Kleinschmidt.

He was supposed to be delivering black market liquor to the Windmill Theatre and Mrs.Henderson’s Ladies, who were making a tidy living from American GI’s lonely for female companionship. Really, he had no intention of interfering, at first. Going into a church, consecrated ground, did not appeal, but as he was nearby, he listened. When he heard the Nazi Mr.Glozier threaten to shoot his angel, that was enough.

Discorporation could make Heaven decide to keep the angel there. Crowley couldn’t have that. So he walked into the church. Of course, “walk” wasn’t the operative word. It was painful. Hopping first on one foot, then the other, he proceeded down the aisle. His eyes fell on a font filled with holy water. Humans! Who could figure them! At least he had an idea for later.

For now, however, he had to stop the moronic Nazis.

“Aziraphale!”

“What are you doing here?” the angel was quite indignant, obviously assuming the worst. Crowley was stung.

“Stopping you from getting into trouble!”

“I should have known! These people are working for you!”

“No!” Crowley was actually affronted. He thought the angel would know better. “They’re just a bunch of half-witted Nazi spies, running around London, blackmailing and murdering people! I just didn’t want to see you embarrassed!”

There had been a bit of back and forth with the aforesaid half-wits, regarding his assumed name. He had been rather pleased with the way the name and initials rolled off the tongue, and for a moment, it seemed Aziraphale wasn’t quite on board with it. Anyway, it didn’t matter. The important thing was that he used a demonic miracle to redirect a bomb to the church, and another to shield the books, while his angel kept the two of them safe, being certain the holy water didn’t splash Crowley.

He knew Hell would be pleased with the three dimwits he’d sent them, so that was a plus. The destruction of the church was just the icing on the cake of awfulness. He didn’t find out until later Hell was spying on him–and Aziraphale. But even so, he told the angel not to call him “kind. The last thing he needed was Hell thinking he’d gone soft. Sadly, for him, some of them already were thinking that, but he remembered he hadn’t known that at the time. That was something he found out later.

Crowley remembered he’d offered Aziraphale a ride, though he had to swing by the Windmill Theatre first. He had liquor to deliver. Aziraphale was happy for him to detour. He still seemed in a bit of a daze that Crowley had remembered to save his books. The angel kept looking at him with a strange expression on his face. Crowley couldn’t quite figure him out.

Aziraphale tagged along as Crowley made his delivery, but, to the demon’s irritation every bottle had shattered in the bomb blast. He’d thought shielding the Bentley would keep his contraband safe, but evidently not.

He’d have to give a refund to the brothel’s owner, but she had lamented loudly that everything had gone wrong, and that even their headliner magician had been arrested as a deserter.

That’s when his angel intervened, much to Crowley’s chagrin. He bragged that he himself could fill in for the magician, and Crowley, sensing that the angel wanted to help, kept his own mouth shut until they were safely back at the bookshop, whereupon he voiced his own concern. But he’d been more amused than actually being worried. After all, what could really go wrong with Aziraphale amusing himself? It did give the demon satisfaction to see the joy on Aziraphale’s face, and that joy was infectious, in spite of Crowley’s cynicism.

Besides, it had been worth it to see Aziraphale do the apology dance, this time for the loss of the liquor, and also for falling for the whole spy routine. Crowley thought maybe he had been reading too many spy novels.

What he hadn’t counted on was that Hell, once again, had been paying attention. They’d been tailed, and when Aziraphale, all enthusiasm, decided his showstopper was to be a bullet trick that had, in 1918, killed one William Robinson, who had been billing himself as a Chinese magician named Chung Ling Soo, Crowley had put his foot down and gotten Aziraphale to promise that if anything went wrong, he’d use a miracle to fix it.

To his dismay, Crowley discovered, too late to back out, that there was a miracle blocker in place, and he would actually have to fire the rifle and miss. Crowley had never actually fired a gun in his long life. He hadn’t needed to. And guns were a bit more complicated than the “point and shoot” he had seen in films. But somehow, even as he felt the recoil, he just missed Aziraphale’s face, and in his relief, he registered the triumphant angel’s grin, as he showed off the bullet in his teeth.

The Marvelous Mr. Fell had brought the house down.

His relief was short-lived, however, as they were visited by Furfur, and shown a photograph that he’d taken, which he said (and Crowley believed) would prove that he was working with the angel who was supposed to be his sworn enemy. Crowley was dismissive of Furfur, pretending a nonchalance he did not feel. He also pretended to not remember the Great War, when the other demon brought it up.

Crowley was frightened in spite of his bravado, but he decided once again to trust his angel. Perhaps he had something up his sleeve. Perhaps not. In any case, at least he’d spend what might be his last night on Earth in company with the one being who made his existence worth enduring.

But Aziraphale had come through for him, somehow managing to palm the photograph Furfur had taken. Crowley had been elated, and relieved. He had really thought for a while he’d wind up being dragged to Hell again, and though he thought maybe it wouldn’t amount to the same kind of torture he’d suffered before, because he was pretty certain he could pass off his involvement with the angel as a temptation scheme, it would be unlikely they’d let him go back to Earth again.

He’d have been demoted, perhaps to a desk job. Intake, or something tedious like that.

He had been relieved that the one time it had mattered, Aziraphale had succeeded. Two times, actually. Crowley owed the angel. In his state of relief he’d had a bit too much to drink, and while he hadn’t said anything overt, he had spoken a bit too recklessly, almost confessing to...what, exactly?

He said barely anything, but he saw the look on the angel’s face. And they both pretended later as if the nothing that actually happened was what was intended all along.

But Crowley – Crowley had, for once, some regrets. He couldn’t articulate them, even to himself. But it had put a constraint on their relationship. The demon resolved once again to go it alone.

It was a promise to himself that he couldn’t keep, in the end.

Chapter 28

Chapter Text

The Bentley arrived in London, but parked itself outside his old apartment in Mayfair. Crowley had asked Shax about it when he’d turned down Hell. She’d said she didn’t care what he did with it. He decided to look and see whether she’d left anything. He still had his key.

When he opened the door to the place, it smelled empty. Shax had done nothing to indicate she had even lived there. He decided to miracle his plants back in their usual places, and even patted their leaves reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” he told them. “You’ve got a week or so to readjust. But I expect you lot to straighten up and grow right as soon as you get settled, understand?”

The plants trembled a bit, but then stretched their leaves to the light. It had been cramped in the Bentley. Crowley wandered through his apartment, inspecting everything. The kitchen was pristine. Fridge fully stocked, as he’d left it. The only sign that anyone had used anything was an empty kettle in the sink. Crowley snapped his fingers and it flew to the top of the cooker, filled. He didn’t turn it on. It was just for show anyway.

In the bedroom the bed stood clean and untouched, as always. Crowley generally preferred sleeping on the wall or ceiling when he slept at all. He opened the wardrobe and found a suit Shax had left behind. Again, he snapped his fingers, and the suit neatly folded itself into a box, which sealed itself with tape. Picking up a sharpie he scrawled an address on it, then miracled the box into the back seat of his Bentley. He planned to chuck the box into the stairs going down to Hell next chance he had.

Then he checked his dresser, which actually held his liquor supply. It was empty. Shax must’ve gotten busy while she was there. No problem, he thought. He’d just order another delivery.

Meanwhile, he padded back and forth between the bedroom and his office. He checked the wall safe. His sketch of Mona Lisa still hung over it, and it hadn’t been disturbed. Nothing was inside except for an empty thermos, which he’d left behind hoping the remnants would dry on their own. It looked like they had, but he didn’t bother checking. It appeared as if Shax hadn’t even looked.

He felt restless. He had felt soul-tired, if he’d had a soul. Demons didn’t get tired, not the way mortal beings did. He wished so hard that the memories would just stop, but they kept bubbling up. Where were they leading him?

And why couldn’t he just get drunk, and forget – for a while?

—--------------------------

The forties had been filled with bombs. The Blitz had given way to the Baby Blitz. People carried gas masks everywhere. Then came the doodlebug bombs.

The Blackout gave way to a Dim-Out because of too many accidents and even fatalities. Crowley privately approved but nonetheless did nothing to advance any well-being. When a V2 rocket destroyed a Woolworth store, killing 168 and injuring over a hundred, the demon took credit for it, even though, had he been there, he might have made it explode harmlessly before it hit. If he dared.

He did know he was being watched by Hell, so he did his best to reassure his bosses that he was up to no good, so to speak, with the occasional flashes of brilliant evil-doing that got him more freedom, more status.

1945 came and in May VE Day was celebrated all over England. Crowley used the occasion to encourage petty crime and vandalism. The Black Market was still thriving, but demobilization brought troops home, and by November the Second World War was officially over.

Crowley dropped over to the bookshop to see Aziraphale taking the tape off the windows. He’d brought wine from his black market stash, and they surreptitiously shared it in the back room. He had tried to stay away, but sometimes felt as if he needed to see Aziraphale, needed to know he was still the same angel he’d always been.

He still had to be careful, and not indulge too often.

The next year saw the Jitterbug craze sweep Britain. Crowley, amused, spoke to Aziraphale about it, trying to convince the angel to learn it, since his beloved gavotte was thoroughly extinct. He was delighted to see how much this annoyed Aziraphale, whose musical tastes veered to long-dead composers, and who scored every kind of popular music as “bebop.” Even though that description was supposed to apply only to the newest jazz.

Aziraphale did not like jazz, either.

Crowley took advantage of the housing crisis, too, by encouraging idiot Communists (who had replaced idiot Nazis) to demonstrate, which they did with gusto, organizing a mass squat of people made homeless by the Blitz and by economic loss, in vacant properties owned but not used by various entities. The police seemed unable to handle these mass protests, which sparked more ill-will and general unhappiness.

Technology was moving on. Crowley looked into buying his first television. He felt the new programs over the air might give him more insight into how humans worked. He settled on a Bush TV22, whose Bakelite console gave a distinctly modern ArtDeco vibe. He started turning it on in the evenings for an hour or two. He especially liked Cafe Continental, a variety show broadcast on weekends. He didn’t quite understand the dancing and singing, but felt he needed to figure out why humans were so attracted to it.

Aziraphale eschewed the new technology. “It’ll never replace books,” he said, primly, though he’d consented to Crowley giving him a small radio some years before. “There’s nothing of redeeming value in it, Crowley,” he’d told him. “It’s just one of those human fads. It’ll soon give way to something else, you’ll see.”

Crowley watched when Princess Elizabeth and Philip’s marriage took place, however. It was a very human activity, marriage. Newspapers spoke of it as a “fairy tale wedding.” It was popular, and the newspapers announced that 400,000 viewers had watched the ceremony as it was broadcast. Marriage was something foreign to the demon, and he had watched with interest.

The National Health Service started, and bread rationing ended. Well, Crowley’s market hadn’t been bread, but liquor and luxury goods, so he hardly noticed.

But the robbery of the Stone of Scone, that he could get behind. He’d also been actually responsible for the scheme that had been cooked up of peanut farming in Tanganyika, which paid off with the abandonment of the scheme causing a loss of over 36 million pounds, which eroded confidence in the government that year.

He was also responsible for a government crackdown on television-watching without a license. Over 150,000 households were doing it, but with the deployment of television detector vans, many of them were caught and fined. This wasn’t popular and paid off in more unrest. He’d been down with unrest. More low-grade evil, more freedom for himself.

Then in 1952, George V died. There was a Queen Regent for the first time since Victoria. Her coronation in 1953 was a grand affair, and again, Crowley watched in his flat. He’d convinced Aziraphale to watch with him, but the angel was still dismissive of the television and of its potential. He did concede that the pageantry was “pretty” and “reminiscent of the stage, as well as earlier times” but it was, after all, only human government, and those were by definition, only very temporary.

“That,” said Crowley, already on his second bottle of a very fine old wine, “isn’t the point. The point is, it’s human, and both of us need to try to understand humans better in order to do our respective jobs. I mean,” he continued, pouring another glass for Aziraphale, “We don’t have that much time left, you know. According to your own people. I read the plans.”

Aziraphale nodded. “You’re right about that. But maybe the plans have changed. You never know.” His angel. Always hopeful. Always thinking best-case scenario.

That night, sadly, had also ended in a quarrel. Something about changing technology, and the importance of keeping up with it. And Crowley couldn’t resist ribbing Aziraphale about it. The angel had stormed out, and Crowley had finished the last of the several bottles by himself.

The next time they met it was at the first espresso bar which had opened in Soho. Apparently someone wanted the angel to bless the new business, just because it brought new employment to the area.

Crowley’s interest was of the new – to him – beverage, and tempting his angel to it, in which he was successful. Crowley of course had coffee long before, but this was relatively high-octane. Caffeine wasn’t quite as good as alcohol, but it would do in a pinch, the demon decided. It rather jump-started his brain. He had several good ideas come out of that espresso.

Humans could always surprise him, he thought.

Chapter 29

Chapter Text

The baby boom fifties had given way to the swinging sixties, as the boomers had come to be teenagers and young adults. More importantly, they had disposable income – and collectively threw a temper tantrum loud enough that adults on both sides of the Pond sat up and took notice.

While London still had the usual petty crime and even murders going on, things were really hopping in the States. So Crowley decided to go there. Hell was interested in everything going on there – racial unrest, anti-Vietnam-War unrest, and women’s-lib unrest among them.

Crowley decided on California. There was a lot of scope for a demon there, he thought. This time, he’d present as female, to better fit into the growing social movements.

Also, it was just easier to use the one name there. Nobody questioned a tall, thin dyke with enough money to rent her own place. It had a garden, and Crowley threw herself into cultivating it. She didn’t even need to grow her hair. Short was the fashion of the day. While she was there, she drove a rental car. Nothing ostentatious. She did want to fit in. She had arrived just after the illegal police raid on a New Year’s ball of drag-wearing humans, and appeared to be among the many now flocking to the area. The raid had been challenged by lawyers, and the police were subsequently constrained in arresting people just for being gay, which had led to a burgeoning almost-community. Nearly a social movement.

Crowley was in her garden, doing wintertime cleaning and preparation for spring. As long as she’d be here for a year or two, she thought she could get in some gardening. She never wanted flowers. They were too temporary. She’d gotten some catalogs, and figured to look through it for leafy plants that would do well in this climate.

To her surprise, she heard a voice, calling her name, and although the voice was feminine, and the accent was Californian, she knew it instantly. “Aziraphale?”

“I’m going by Azira, just for this assignment. Fancy seeing you here!”

“Our respective home offices must have had the same idea. Up to blessings, I assume?”

Aziraphale colored. She did look rather adorable with curly locks, shoulder length, held back by a silver-colored headband. Crowley looked at her appraisingly. She was dressed in a white blouse with lacy sleeves under a beige velvet vest, along with an a-line skirt over brown boots. Quite fashionable, and gave off what Crowley had heard as “lipstick lesbian” vibes. Azira seemed to hardly notice her rather bosomy chest. Crowley thought she could get used to it.

“Why yes. I’m supposed to be blessing some people’s mission work, and the farm workers union, and some church for justice and rights, and helping with some baseball team, called the Los Angeles Angels. Are you still going by Crowley here?”

“Baseball? Angel, I didn’t think you went in for baseball. Yeah, no one looks twice at a lesbian going by her last name. Come on. I’ve rented this place. Do you have a place yet?”

Azira grumbled. “Not yet. And I don’t really give a fig about American baseball, but Sandalphon’s got a bee in his bonnet. I think because of the name. I told him they weren’t even in San Francisco. But the head office wants me here – something about blessing a church here, and some gay and lesbian rights group. That’s what the humans are calling hom*osexuals these days. Rather silly but someone’s misunderstood something, and made up things the Almighty was supposed to care about, and they’re persecuting them.”

She huffed a bit, looking quite put upon. “And Sandalphon wants me to at least be at some of those baseball games when the Angels play.” The angel followed Crowley into the house. “Oh, this is nice! Looks like you have plenty of room!” She was looking around appreciatively.

“I don’t need all this room. I just took what was available as a central location. Look, upstairs has a separate entrance. I can let you have it if you like. Nobody has to know. I can give you a key.”

“My side…”

“Oh, to HELL with your side, Angel. Look, just tell them it’s an apartment. It’s where humans live these days. I’m hardly ever here anyway. They’ve got no real way of knowing. It’d do me a favor.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Aziraphale was beginning to concede, Crowley could tell.

She dug in her pocket, handing the angel a key. “It all came furnished. There’s even books up there. And a little kitchen. I have a suspicion there’s the makings of hot chocolate in it, too. Might as well be comfortable.” Crowley poured two glasses of wine, handing one to Azira – might as well get used to calling her that, was her thought – and taking one for herself. “This is just home base. I’m meant to be all over this state. There’s all kinds of strife afoot, and I’m meant to help stir it. I don’t think we’ll be covering the same ground, so you might as well make yourself at home.”

“All right, then, if you’re sure.” Aziraphale had caught the key and pocketed it. “Where’s the Bentley?”

Crowley shrugged. “Parked by your bookshop, actually. I put a shield around it. Rented a rather unassuming car while I’m here. I did a bit of research. It’s what lesbians drive. I’d suggest you get one, but…”

Aziraphale shuddered. “I don’t think so. You do know they drive on the other side of the road here, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll adjust. How are you getting around here?”

“They have trams here. Apparently, they’re all the rage with tourists. And I’ve got a bicycle. Evidently it’s also a lesbian-friendly transport. I’m meant to look like a local lesbian. There’s scads of them around here. Very important to fit in, you know.”

Crowley sighed. “Yes, Angel. I know. I’ve read all about it. Why do you think I look like this? But you won’t want to go up and down those hills on a bike. Tell you what, I could give you a lift sometimes when I am around. Just let me know.” She changed the subject. “Have you plans for dinner?”

Aziraphale’s eyes sparkled. “Do you fancy seafood, Crowley? There’s an excellent place called The Old Clam House. I mean, as long as we’re in a place known for its seafood, we might as well indulge. Do you remember Petronius and his oysters? They have fresh oysters there. And boar. I haven’t had boar since…Year 38?”

Crowley laughed. It was jolly to see her angel so happy. “The Clam House it is, then. Come on, Azira, your chariot awaits.” She’d even driven carefully, and below the speed limit. It wasn’t as if this Volkswagon little car could go fast anyway. And it hadn’t the personality of her Bentley. As a rental, it had no personality at all.

That had been a lovely meal. As was usual, Crowley hadn’t eaten much. She had a few bottles of wine, and a shrimp salad, which she picked at, as was her custom. Watching Aziraphale eat was her sustenance. Aziraphale had talked animatedly about her plans, but never mentioned where the church was or what it was called.

It wasn’t until a few days later when she saw Crowley outside said church that she questioned Crowley’s intention to be busy elsewhere.”Not at all, angel. I’m just supposed to keep an eye on this group – Vanguard? My side thinks there may be some unrest going on here, Minor stuff, really. I didn’t know it was your pet project. And if there’s a church involved, well, I can’t say I want to dig too deeply there, either. Does it have one of those holy water fonts, too?”

“Most of them do, Crowley.” Aziraphale sounded amused rather than irritated. “Usually right by the altar. It’s a new kind of church, catering to the lesbian and, erm, gay young people. It’s giving space to the Vanguard group. I dare say you won’t find much strife here.”

Crowley had turned away already. “Definitely not my scene. There’s some racial tension down southward. I’m headed that way, tomorrow.” She was about to leave when two women bustled up, dressed in women’s pantsuits. One of them approached the angel.

“Azira?” I’m Del. I’m so glad you made it! This is my partner, Phyllis.” She shook hands with Azira, then turned to Crowley. “Won’t you both come in?”

Crowley backed away a bit, albeit with a placating smile.”Sorry. I have places I have to be. Angel? See you later?” She turned and walked quickly to her car.

“Don’t mind her,” he heard the angel say. “She’s got some…erm, religious trauma. She doesn’t like churches.” Crowley drove away before she heard anything else.

She spent the next few days in and around Los Angeles. It was easy to instigate unrest. There was already considerable strife between police, mostly white, and minorities who were largely living in squalid conditions. Crowley had seen it all before. The haves got better “justice” than the have-nots. It was easy to tempt police officers into taking bribes, easy to encourage petty crime and vandalism, which only escalated when a human named Malcom X was assassinated in February, even though in a different part of the country. It was a very big country.

Hell seemed to have no real idea that there were distances between California and the South, either. Racial injustice in the South was overt, but while covert in Los Angeles, Crowley saw it was a simmering pot, ready to boil over at any time. It was her job to help turn up the heat.

To that end, she got involved in the mayoral race between two Democrats, but one was DINO. Democrat In Name Only. Hell wanted that one to win. Corrupting him was easy, and would result in more social strife now, and eventually, one more politician for Hell. All counted as points in her files.

By August the pot was boiling. Watts exploded. Lives lost were regrettable, but all part of the expected collateral damage his side expected. And there was quite a lot of damage, as well as some of the dead police showing up in Hell’s waiting rooms.

There were over two hundred buildings completely destroyed, and well over 40 million in damages. Privately, Crowley thought it was just as well. Many of those destroyed buildings had been slums. A well-known folk singer wrote a song about it that year, as well.

Hell counted it as a job done. If they thought it was a good job, they’d never say. But it kept them off Crowley’s back.

She managed to stick around long enough to see her garden grow. Azira had added roses, and they were blooming like mad. Yellow roses. Crowley couldn’t see the appeal.

The last night they spent together in that place was rather peaceful. Crowley had gotten Chinese food delivered as a treat, and the two of them sat around the large circular antique table that had come with the house.

“It’s been nice seeing you here, Angel. Are you done here? I’ve been called back to London.”

“I’m here for a few more months, Crowley. You know they think you and I are partners at the church.”

Crowley sniffed. “As if. Well, the lease here is up in another five months, and the rent’s paid through then. It’s all yours. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Should I say thank you?”

“Better not. Just enjoy. Look, I got a lot of food here…I hope you have an appetite.”

Azira had sniffed appreciatively. “It smells wonderful. Let’s eat, then.” The angel had brought her own wine to the table and they both got reasonably tipsy and maudlin. Crowley had, regretfully, pushed Aziraphale up the stairs before things got too sloppy. She didn’t trust herself. They had both been on the verge, she felt, of saying things best left unsaid. There were dangers neither of them trusted themselves enough to risk.

By morning, she was gone.

Chapter 30

Chapter Text

Crowley was tired of trying to convince Aziraphale he had no intention of committing suicide by holy water. For Hell’s sake, if that was the idea, he would just walk into a church and dive into one of those fonts. Aziraphale was just so stubborn though. It could be maddening, sometimes.

He had decided to take matters into his own hands. He used his criminal connections to recruit a small gang, figuring the fewer people in on this, the better. Of course he had a vague idea that humans in general were reluctant to steal from churches. As a demon he never entered one voluntarily anyway, unless the circ*mstances really were urgent, as they had been in 1941.

He’d rented the back room of the Dirty Donkey pub in Soho, which had rapidly been aging into a hotbed of criminal activity, though most of Whickber Street remained relatively crime-free – if one didn’t count the brothel at the end of the street. He was expecting three humans, one who called himself Spike, another who only introduced herself as Sally, and a third, a locksman named Narker.

Crowley had been watching a lot of James Bond movies. He was a big fan. He’d even bought petrol once so he could get the free bullet hole transfer stickers for his Bentley, which he thought were the epitome of “cool.” He never bought petrol for his car. He didn’t need to.

But because he watched Bond films, he had a vague idea that despite having seen a church with an unguarded font of holy water, that church must have been an anomaly. He was sure that usually – especially nowadays, with so many hi-tech solutions for crime becoming available – any modern church would surely have their supply be behind some sort of guard or trap. Maybe even one of those laser things he’d seen in so many Bond movies.

Two of his people were already there, and he swiftly outlined his plan. Midway through the meeting, the third man arrived, but it wasn’t the one Crowley expected. The young man that arrived appeared to be eccentric, beyond what strangeness most humans exhibited. Crowley had never entirely figured them out, though, so maybe the way this one behaved was normal. It wasn’t as if he had to make friends with them to aid in corrupting them.

“Hang on,” Crowley had said, “Who are you?”

“I understand,” he said, in an accent that was almost Scottish, but not quite. Crowley couldn’t place it, or him. “You need a locksman.”

Crowley frowned. “I was expecting Mr. Narker.”

“Well,” said the new man, “Mr. Narker’s passed on to his reward. I’ve taken over the business. He was my cellmate. He taught me everything he knew. My name’s Shadwell.”

Crowley considered, then nodded. “Please sit down, Mr. Shadwell.”

The man sniffed. “Lance Corporal Shadwell, if you don’t mind.”

Sally, who had quietly been drinking her pint, spoke up. “What’s so valuable that they’re going to leave it in a church at night?”

“We’ll go over the details of what you’re obtaining for me when we get there.” He looked over to the new man. “You have a question, Lance Corporal Shadwell?”

Shadwell looked perturbed. “Stealing from a church – there’s nae witchcraft involved here, is there?”

“No,” Crowley said, flatly. “Completely witch-free robbery.” He really was beginning to think this human was just a bit on the barmy side, though all mortals were a bit strange, to be sure.

“Mmm, pity,” Shadwell said.” He almost sounded regretful.

“Any other questions?”

“You are not yourself a witch, warlock, or someone that calls your cat funny names?” Shadwell again.

“Not a witch. No pets. Anyone else?” He looked at Spike and Sally, and Spike opened his mouth first.

“What are we getting paid?”

“A hundred now, another hundred when the job’s done. A hundred more to keep schtum.”

As they walked out of the room, Shadwell indicated he wanted a word as the other two walked out, so Crowley hung back for a moment. “Mr. Crowley? May I have a moment of your time?”

“Yes…Lance Corporal Shadwell.” Crowley paused. “What are you a Lance Corporal in? You don’t look like an army man.” He chuckled. Shadwell looked serious, earnest.

Shadwell went on to inform the demon that he was a member of a proud and vast army of witchfinders, and that if he, Crowley, being a gentleman with hundreds of pounds to throw around might have need of a vast secret army. If he needed to find him, Shadwell had said, he knew how to reach him. Crowley filed this knowledge away and climbed into his Bentley. To his surprise, the passenger door opened, and he found Aziraphale sitting beside him. “What,” he said through gritted teeth, “are you doing here?” The last thing he needed was angelic interference.

“I needed a word with you.” The angel just looked at him, all business. “I work in Soho. I hear things. I hear you’re setting up a – caper. To rob a church. Crowley,” his words tumbled out, no longer all business, giving way to concern. “Crowley, it’s too dangerous! Holy water won’t just kill your body, it will destroy you completely!”

“You told me what you think 105 years ago,” Crowley responded coldly.

“And I haven’t changed my mind. But I can’t have you risking your life. Not even for something dangerous. So,” and he handed over a tartan thermos, “you can call off the robbery. Don’t go unscrewing the cap.”

Crowley breathed in, almost reverently “It’s the real thing?”

Aziraphale nodded. “The holiest.”

Crowley was touched. “After everything you said.” Another heavy breath. “Should I say thank you?”

“Better not.”

This was a reversal of their usual talk. Crowley wasn’t sure how to respond. “Well, can I drop you anywhere?” He knew they were right by the bookshop, but Aziraphale knew what he was asking.

“No, thank you.” Aziraphale saw the look of hurt on Crowley’s face, and tried to reassure him. “Oh, don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could…I don’t know, go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz.”

Crowley found himself pleading. “I’ll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go.”

Aziraphale sighed. “You go too fast for me, Crowley.” He walked away, as the demon gingerly held the thermos. He knew what giving it to him meant. What he didn’t understand entirely was Aziraphale’s parting comment. He was pretty sure it didn’t mean how fast he drove, but it wasn’t as if he, Crowley, had been one who ever agitated for more in their relationship. Always conscious of the fact that either side’s bosses could be listening, he had pushed the angel away, not once, but many times.

He was pretty sure even if Heaven – or Hell – hadn’t cared, the angel didn’t return his affections. It was just that occasionally when they were in their cups, Aziraphale had gotten maudlin and affectionate, but Crowley knew an angel could never really return anything more than friendship, to such as he was, a demon. Unforgivable. And even friendship was only contingent upon circ*mstances, on their Arrangement. Crowley knew Aziraphale would only look at him with contempt if he knew the extent of the evil he’d spread.

Of the pain he’d caused, through all the ages. It had been his job, not something he had gotten joy from, for the most part. But he was not a free agent. Neither of the two immortal beings were. Only humans got a choice. Only humans got the chance of a happy ending.

Crowley knew what he could look forward to, and there was no happy ending no matter who would win the Great War. All he could do was endure, and save up every tiny bit of happiness he could wring from his life, to put away, in order to endure the rest of his existence.

He paid off the gang anyway, and filed away the contact information for Lance Corporal Shadwell. It might be that having a vast army of human secret agents might come in useful someday. He then carefully stowed the thermos in his safe, hoping against hope he wouldn’t have to use it. But he knew if it was expedient, he would do what he must.

The swinging sixties had settled into the seventies. The roads were getting clogged with traffic, and London was increasingly congested. Various Ringway schemes had been proposed, and some bits had, over the decades since the War been built, even, but the first schemes were discarded as too disruptive and too expensive. Crowley wouldn’t have much cared, only it did put a crimp on his speeding through central London. No room for speeding when traffic was bumper to bumper.

He had started, years before the holy water incident, to pay attention to press releases of schemes the government planned, and realized this time a highway would be built, regardless of cost and how many buildings would have to be torn down, and how much disruption this would cause. The idea, he saw, was to build a larger Ringway around London. Crowley looked at the planned road and realized something.

The plans, with a little tweaking, would spell out the sigil of a long-dead order of Black Priests of long gone Mu.

The sigil was called Odegra which translated to “Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds.” If he could pull this off, road traffic on the roadway, which was to be called M25, would work the same way prayer wheels sent out good vibes – but in reverse. It would invoke a low-grade evil miasma which would blanket London and environs for years to come.

It had been a major effort. He’d had to break into the planning offices more than once, and bribe a minor official (two birds with one stone, that was, as corrupting the official accomplished one more soul for Hell). He’d hacked into their computer systems three times, one for every time their systems had been upgraded. He spent hours in a wet field moving marker pegs at night, to ensure the correct configuration.

And when M25 was built, it exceeded his expectations. He proudly showed the whole project to his bosses. Hastur, as usual, had no understanding of the project’s brilliance.

It was rare he had actual pride in his work, but he really felt this had been a stroke of genius.

Chapter 31

Chapter Text

Crowley had been in his flat for days. He’d gone through cases of liquor, but hadn’t managed a decent buzz, even. He couldn’t figure it out. Alcohol had never failed him before. He looked around at empty bottles and empty cases. Only a low-grade hangover to show for it. His mouth tasted terrible. He padded into the bathroom, which he had seldom even gone into for decades, and studied his face in the mirror. To his chagrin he looked terrible.

His yellow eyes looked bloodshot. He’d actually started growing a scruffy beard. He ran fingers through his hair, which was standing up in all directions. He snarled at his reflection, and snapped his fingers, turning on scalding water in his shower and disrobing in one move.

He grabbed a pristine bar of soap and stepped under the hot water stream, and for once, cleaned himself the way he knew mortals did. The water did help clear his head a bit. Stepping out of the shower some minutes later, he miracled himself a large fluffy towel and wrapped himself in it, looking down at his body, studying the corporation in its present state.

A few scars here and there from Hell-made instruments, scars that would never heal in this body. A few hard spots on his abdomen which resembled black scales, leftover from his initial Fall. He unfurled his wings. Feathers, black and glossy, still in good working order. He refolded them inside his body. Currently male organs, largely decorative, so far. He flexed his hands. Long fingers, strong and supple.

Not too shabby for a body that was six thousand years old. He’d been unkind to it for the last few weeks. Time to treat it a bit better. He snapped his fingers again and was clean shaven, his hair perfectly coiffed again. Past time to change up.

He miracled away the mess he’d made in the apartment, and sauntered into his plant room. He noticed the plants all stood straighter and stuck out their leaves. “Aw, guys, I know you’re doing your best. Not to worry. I have more things to worry about than…” He saw the medium sized peperomia shaking, and misted it. “You’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Things’re gonna be different. You’ll see. We don’t need that angel, do we, gang? You and me. You and me and the Bentley. We’ll be fine.” The plants trembled a bit. Was this a new kind of lecture? None of them knew. They were, after all, only plants.

He dressed himself with another finger-snap, donned a new pair of sunglasses, and walked downstairs.

Time to visit the old haunts, he thought. His memories had almost caught up with his present. And he was feeling better, he told himself, sternly. He almost believed it.

He slid into the driver’s seat of the Bentley. “Where to, old girl,” he asked, and the Bentley purred into life.

It took him to the bookshop.

“Of course I’d end up here, Damn it!” He hit the steering wheel as the Bentley slid into place, right where his usual spot was. Right where he’d watched as Aziraphale walked away from him with that damnable Metatron. “No. NO!” He tried to turn the key, but nothing happened.

Maybe no one would notice him. If he had to, he’d walk back home. Too late he saw the door to Maggie’s record shop open and Maggie, who had obviously seen the Bentley drive up, step determinately to where he was parked. “Mr. Crowley! Mr. Crowley!” She had a look of sympathy and concern on her face. He didn’t have the heart to snarl at her. He stood up, unfolding himself and trying to be minimally sociable. “How are you? Everyone’s been worried sick about you!”

“Everyone?” Crowley tried not to sound as needy as he suddenly felt.

“Yes. Nina, me, Muriel, Mrs. Sandwich has even asked after you. I said we hadn’t heard anything.” Maggie stood, awkwardly, and gestured in the direction of the shops. “Muriel…you know, Mr. Fell’s niece, who’s taken over for him, you know. Muriel says she’s not heard anything from Mr. Fell, but one or two of his associates has been coming into the shop nearly weekly. Come on, Mr. Crowley. Nina will be that tickled to see you!”

He let himself be led into the coffee shop, and was seated by Maggie at the table in the back. Nina came bustling over and plonked a coffee cup in front of him. “Six shots, nothing else. Mr. Crowley, where in the HELL have you been? Don’t you know your friends have been worried sick about you?” She sat down next to him. Maggie sat on the other side. Crowley regarded the cup in front of him as if it contained holy water, not espresso.

“I,” he stuttered. “Wait, friends? You, Maggie, friends?”

“Friends, Mr. Crowley. And friends don’t run out on friends. Look, we’re not stupid. None of the other shopkeepers have much memory of that night, but we do. Maybe because we stuck around. But I remember it all. Mr. Fell’s halo. Dead…what’d he call them? Demons? Those other stuck up people. I assume they’re angels, like Mr. Fell. I saw you clean up inside, before we came in and talked to you. I don’t pretend to understand it all. Heaven, Hell, it’s all real. I saw it. We talked to you about it. Remember?”

Crowley growled, and leaned back in his chair. “How can I forget? You told me to talk to Azira – Mr. Fell. You saw the result. He turned me down.” He picked up the cup, growled again, and tossed back the contents in one gulp. “Yup. Just right. At least you got that right.” He looked up again, curious. “You and Maggie. We were trying to help you become ‘an item’ as Shax charmingly put it. How’d that work out?”

Maggie colored. “We’re friends, Mr. Crowley. Just friends. You lot don’t know much about us, do you? How long have you been here, anyway?”

“Not sure you’d believe me.” He looked around. There were a few customers in the shop, and one by one, they got up and took their beverages to go. Nina kept staring at him, not noticing the exodus. Crowley looked up and deliberately removed his glasses. Nina didn’t look away. He glanced at Maggie, and her face, too, just held concern. For him. Flustered, he looked down again.

“Try me,” Nina said. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Crowley, I saw enough impossible things that night to fill a book. Not that anyone would believe any of it. How long, exactly?”

“Exactly? Just over six thousand years. Just after humans started, actually.” Crowley almost mumbled, staring into his empty cup. He was afraid to meet the eyes of these two mortals. Friends, they said? Demons didn’t have friends. Demons didn’t deserve friends. He kept staring into the cup, hearing again those deadly words. “I forgive you.”

Both humans nearly simultaneously took his hands, one each. disengaging them from the cup. “Look at me, Mr. Crowley. Look at me!” Nina was insistent. He lifted his gaze and met hers, then looked at Maggie. Both sets of eyes still held concern, but Nina’s held something else. Anger? Indignation? “Six – THOUSAND – years? isn’t Earth around 14 million years old?”

“No. S’a joke. Not by me. By,” he cast his gaze upward, “Her. Or someone. Wasn’t my department. Earth came pre-aged, y’see.” He tried to pull his hand away, gently, but neither woman was having it.

Nina held on tighter. “Six thousand years. And you still haven’t learned. You can’t just manipulate us like we’re puppets, you know.” She let go of the hand she was holding and patted it. “Look here, Mr. Crowley. You and Mr. Fell, you belong together. Anyone can see that.”

Crowley dropped his eyes to the sunglasses on the table. Awkwardly, left-handed, he managed to slide them on his face again. He felt less vulnerable with them. “Yeah. That’s why he left. That’s why he wanted me to change. To stop being what I am. To go back to being a damnable angel again. That’s why he chose Heaven over me, even over his damn bookshop! Do you know he’s collected books since they were scrolls? And he’s had that bookshop for over two hundred years! He chose Heaven over them. And over me.”

“Oh, Mr. Crowley…” Maggie spoke up. “I can’t pretend to know what it’s like. I try to wrap my brain around all that time, and I can’t. But I want to try. We’re your friends, Mr. Crowley. And friends don’t abandon each other.”

“Maggie, I’m a demon. Do you know how much misery I’ve given the human race? You’d hate me if you knew. I can’t be anyone’s friend. When the Supreme f*cking Archangel Aziraphale can’t overlook everything I’ve done, I don’t expect you two to…” he trailed off. Maggie continued to hold his hand.

“Muriel explained things to me, at least as best as they could, once we – Nina and I – explained that we knew they were an angel. They tried their best to convince us they were human. They’re not very good at lying, but we got the impression they were afraid to get in trouble. With Upstairs.” She continued gripping his hand, reassuringly. “You lot don’t really have free will, do you?”

“We’re not supposed to. Humans are supposed to be the ones with free will. Something about ineffable plans and all that. I don’t entirely buy it. I haven’t for a long time.” He shifted in his seat. He wasn’t used to just say what was on his mind. “What we don’t have is a choice between good and evil. Angels, demons, none of us. We’re generally stuck with our respective jobs. Although apparently I don’t have a job anymore…”

Maggie let go of his hand, patted it. “Mr. Fell. Muriel said he’d gotten a promotion. I saw him, Mr. Crowley, I saw him before he had that talk with the old man.”

“Metatron. Voice of God, though I think maybe She made a big mistake. But who knows. She hasn’t actually talked directly to anyone since She spoke to Job…” his voice trailed off. He was remembering again, and the memories hurt. “Anyway, Azira– Mr. Fell, he put doubt in Gabriel’s mind. And Beelzebub’s. I wonder if that was the first thing that got them together.” Despairingly, he pulled away from the two women, and put his head in his hands. “Why do they rate a happy ending?”

“Oh, Mr. Crowley. I’m trying to tell you. I don’t think Mr. Fell wanted to go. He didn’t look at all happy. And one of Nina’s customers, who was it?’

“Mr Caramel Latte with soy milk, grande. I only know most of them by what they order.”

“What was it he told you?”

Nina leaned forward. “Something about something coming again. He wasn’t real clear. The two of them were talking as they crossed the street. He only overheard snatches. That Voice Man. Mr. Dash of Almond. He said something about ‘right angel’ and ‘plans’ and something about coming back. Or coming again. He only noticed it because he said usually Mr. Fell was walking with that tall dark fellow, that’s you, obviously, and Mr. Fell didn’t look happy. He looked agitated, and a bit scared. My customer was worried that maybe something was going to happen to his favorite coffee shop. He thought the old man might be a landlord or CEO of something. I told him I’d let him know if I heard anything.”

Crowley sniffed. “He didn’t look all that agitated to me. Look, I appreciate your concern, ladies. But I have to make my own way now. “ He shifted a little in his chair. “How’s Muriel doing?”

Nina brightened. “They seem a little lonely. We’ve tried talking to them, and they’re friendly enough, but they do seem a little frightened all the time. I don’t know if they’re afraid of doing the wrong thing, or saying the wrong thing. I know,” she patted Crowley’s hand again. “Maybe you could help them out. Aren’t you two both partly the same thing?”

Before Crowley could object that angels and demons were decidedly not the same thing, Maggie spoke up. “Look, Mr. Crowley. I know you’re probably thinking that a person who lives forever couldn’t possibly be friends with – well, just us, humans – but you’re our friend, right enough, and we are going to be here for you, as far as we can be. That’s what friends are for. Don’t go running away this time. Mr. Fell said that’s what you do.”

“I do not!” he protested weakly, then stopped. He shook his head, rueful. “I’ve spent six thousand years lying. Mostly to other people. But maybe, just maybe, I can practice stopping. It’s a hard habit to break. I’ve had to look over my shoulder for six thousand years. That’s no longer an issue. Hell doesn’t care about me anymore. And I made it pretty clear I wouldn’t have Heaven even though they offered. I’m on my own side now, for real.”

He stood up. “Thanks, ladies. I have a feeling I’m not done remembering. That’s what I’ve been doing. Remembering. I’m not sure why the Bentley wants me to remember.”

Nina and Maggie exchanged puzzled looks. “Your…car?” They spoke almost as one.

“Yeah, long story. I think it’s sentient. Or semi-sentient. It’s been taking me all over, retracing a lot of steps. Like it wants me to remember something in particular, or just remember. I don’t know…” he trailed off, looking out of the window. The Bentley was still parked outside the bookshop.

“Therapy,” said Maggie. Nina nodded.

“It makes sense, Mr. Crowley. Therapists listen to people talk. I don’t suppose there is therapy for an immortal person, but if your car cares about you…I mean, as long as I’m believing in impossible things, I might as well…anyway, I think maybe your car wants you to heal, and wants you to figure out your life. That’s what my therapist is doing, helping me after my partner ditched me. I don’t suppose your lot has therapists, do you?” Crowley shook his head. “Well, I think that’s what your car is trying to do for you.”

“I dunno.” Crowley was staring at nothing, trying to organize his thoughts. “I’m not used to any of this. Not being friends with mortal people. Not figuring things out. Not figuring out my life, or how I’m gonna spend eternity without…” he trailed off. Clearly, he had some more thinking to do. He wondered if alcohol or caffeine would start working again when he was done with this journey. “Erm, I think I’ll talk to Muriel, then.” He stood a minute longer, still deep in his own feelings, trying to sort them out. Then, as something occurred to him, “Do you ladies remember what went on in 2016? Before the pandemic?”

Nina looked thoughtful. “Yeah, there was some kind of world-wide hallucination thing going on.I remember scientists put it up to some solar…fluctuations, or convergences, or something. It was the oddest thing. People all over the world reporting strange things that seemed to be happening. Stuff about aliens, and Atlantis, and the Kraken, and really weird things. But then it all turned out to be hoaxes, and hallucinations. Maggie even thought she’d seen a flying saucer. It was awful weather.”

“Yeah. Well, about that…” He sat back down. “We should talk. Can I get another cupful?”

Chapter 32

Chapter Text

Crowley had spent several hours talking, explaining, as best he could, what had gone on during what he and Aziraphale had started calling “The Nonpocalypse.” Even his brain, several layers more complex than the human brains, couldn’t entirely understand the warping of reality that had occurred, let alone describe it to the two human women. His friends. He still couldn’t quite believe in that, but he appreciated the gift. He was sure they were sincere.

He still didn’t quite believe he was worthy of friendship with anyone, anymore. But it was easier to talk to these mortal people, who, though their lives were brief, were more loving and supportive of their friends than any angel had ever been with any other angel. And demons didn’t have friends. Not even other demons.

He was starting to feel uncomfortable with the idea that he and Aziraphale both had been manipulating these mortals like puppets – or trying to, at any rate. Over the millennia, he’d grown accustomed to objectifying humans – it had made his job easier.

Nina and Maggie were being kind to him. He couldn’t reconcile that with the facts that despite his liking for humans, he’d treated them as things, as objects, to be moved around as if on a giant chess board, or more like pets, in the best case. He finished his narration, asking if they had questions, and waited for them.

“Do you lot even care about us? Are we, like, your pets? Or are you just watching us like we look at bugs, under some kind of cosmic microscope?”

Crowley shifted uncomfortably. “I used to feel that way. I suppose I don’t, anymore.” He sighed again, and removed his glasses. He needed to show them that he trusted them. That they could trust him. He had an inkling that this was what friends expected. “Look at me, Maggie, Nina. I’m learning. I didn’t understand any of you. I still don’t. What I do understand is that you’re offering me something I don’t know that I deserve. But I’m tired, very tired, of lying to you mortals, of hiding, of distancing myself, to try not to feel.”

“It must be hard, Mr. Crowley.” Maggie was patting his hand again. Kindness was overwhelming him. He forced himself to not look away.

He dug in his pocket, and pulled out a carved bone figure, and laid it on the table. Nina looked at it curiously. “What is that?”

“A very long time ago, there was a big flood. You may have heard of it.”

“Noah? A world-wide flood? I thought it was a myth!”

“It wasn’t world-wide. But it did drown a lot of people. And kids. I saved some of them. Not enough.” His voice got dreamy as he remembered Fox and the others. “Never enough. Never enough. But some. Took them up here, from Golgotha. Aziraphale was here. I was…well, I was being a woman. Decided to try it out. You know, to learn how to act more like you lot. Anyway, I had an idea to dump the kids on Aziraphale, but when I got there, I had to help. Neither one of us knew anything about raising human babies. It took the whole village, helping.”

He picked up the figure, handed it to Maggie. “Our girl, Fox, made this. She’d seen a bear, and wanted to learn to hunt one. To help feed the village, and for the pelt. Humans didn’t waste anything around there, back then. The claws were used to fasten clothes, or for jewelry, or tools. She used a claw someone else gave her, plus an iron knife I made her. I didn’t miracle it. I wanted her to learn how to make iron. Copper they already knew, but copper was soft, and tools got dull pretty fast.”

“Like for magic? To help her hunt?”

“No, no.” He turned the figure over. “Look, here, and here. She made the marks for its face, and decorated its back, just for fun. Archeologists thought all these things were religious. Like sympathetic magic or runes for magic. And some of them were. This one was just for decoration. I found it last month, in the dirt.”

“Why didn’t you take it with you back then? What happened to her?”

“Well, we both of us miracled it so they thought we, Aziraphale and I, were their parents, and we’d died. We left everything. We had our jobs to do. Back in Golgotha, and Uz, and Rome. Suchlike.” He let Maggie and Nina handle the figurine, and they did so reverently, turning it over and over, tracing the patterns with her finger. “No, I never checked back. Never had time. It’s been thousands of years. My side never let me take too much time off.”

“And Mr. Fell?”

“His lot kept him busy. That’s why we got to be friends, actually. We were both in the same places at the same time. He was busy spreading good will. I was busy spreading bad. Seemed to me we were canceling each other out. My idea was that maybe we’d make an arrangement. Only one of us do the blessing and the tempting at a time, and just send word the job was done.”

“Mr. Fell – did he do curses?”

Crowley chuckled. “Ah, no. Just light temptations. I never asked him to actually curse anyone. I’m not sure he could have. Our bosses never checked up. I took credit for a lot of evil you humans did all on your own. But, “ and he again shifted, uncomfortably, “I did plenty of evil. I really didn’t have a choice, you know.” He avoided looking at what he assumed were accusing looks. “Hell owned me. I did what I had to do.”

Maggie patted his arm reassuringly. “I’m sure you weren’t that bad.”

Crowley snarled. For a moment he looked frightening, his yellow eyes glinting in the last light of the sun. Maggie recoiled. “You have no idea what I’ve done! I’ve tortured people. I’ve tortured demons, when I had to. I’ve committed horrors. You have no idea! I’m a demon. It was me, or them.” He slumped, vulnerable again. “I told you I don’t deserve friendship.” He buried his head in his hands.

He started when a soft hand touched his shoulder. “You had no choice, did you? I don’t know as any of us wouldn’t do the same, if they had to.” Maggie was rubbing his shoulder, sympathetically, while Nina touched his arm, on the other side.

Nina’s assistant had been quietly cleaning tables and had turned the sign to closed. “Nina? I’ll be going now, if you don’t mind. We’ve never had such a quiet day, but I didn’t want to disturb you. You want to close out?”

“Go ahead and leave it. I’ll do it later.” She smiled reassuringly as her assistant left, then stood and walked to the register. Crowley gestured, and Nina gasped as she saw the till filled. “Did you do that?”

“Nothing to do with me, only,” his resolve to quit lying had faltered. “Well, think of it as the money you’d have made if I hadn’t kept customers away. It was my fault. I just fixed things.”

“Mr. Crowley, this is more than I generally make in two weeks’ worth of custom! And aren’t the bills like counterfeit bills?”

“Not exactly. You know all the bills that people lose in a day, from fractions of pennies to transaction fees unfairly charged? Well, that’s where this money came from. It’s quite real, and no one will miss it. Besides, I owe you.”

Nina slammed the drawer. “Thanks. Next time, just ask. Okay?”

Crowley was puzzled. “What did I do?”

“You didn’t ask! I didn’t ask you to fix things! Mr. Crowley…”

“Just Crowley, is fine.”

“Crowley, then. Fine.” Nina breathed in. “Look, I was willing to forgo customers, and money, to help you. Because that’s what friends do. Six thousand years of living around us, and you still don’t really understand us, do you? Friends offer help. We don’t do it to get anything in return. It’s almost an insult, Crowley. It’s a lack of respect to just try to fix things without even asking. Like you both tried to do with Maggie and me. You just don’t get it, do you?”

Crowley looked from Nina to Maggie, then at his hands. He didn’t understand her sudden anger. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to help.”

“Next time, ask. Okay?”

“Got it. Ask.” Crowley sighed. Humans were so damn complicated. He changed the subject. “Can we all go over and check on Muriel now? I’m sure she appreciates you helping her, but I think I can explain things a little better. Besides, I think we need to go over what happened here. I need to understand things. You need to understand things. Is that okay with you?”

Nina grabbed her purse. “I don’t know about you, but I need some dinner. I was thinking of going over to the Chinese buffet.”

“Could I help? I still have a credit card. Hell pays the bills.”

Nina smiled. He was learning. “All right.”

“Why don’t I pop over and order, and have it sent over when it’s ready? What would you like?”

“Assortment.” They spoke almost simultaneously, and Maggie added “If they have Mongolian Beef, nice and spicy, that would be lovely. And crab rangoons.”

“Got it. You head on over. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

Humans needed to eat. He got a bit of everything. Added a case of a good Merlot from China, and on seeing a display, a case of Chinese whiskey, deciding to see if it was drinkable. He arranged for it to be all carried over as soon as it was cooked and tipped handsomely. Hell would be paying the bill, after all. As they did any other bills.

If they cut him off, as they might do eventually, he had plenty stored up on his own that Hell didn’t know about.

Then he headed back to the bookshop. He found Maggie and Nina sitting on the couch, talking earnestly to Muriel. “Food will be here in a tick. You lot mind if I set the table?”

Nina nodded and he snapped his fingers. “It’s in the back. There’s a table and four chairs back there.” Muriel was looking at him with shock. “They know, Muriel. It’s all right. Just don’t go blurting it out to Upstairs. Speaking of Upstairs, have you heard from…”

Muriel shook her head, wordlessly.

“Right.” He swallowed. Took his glasses off again, that he’d donned on leaving Nina’s coffee shop, then put them on again to answer the door, tipped again, and as soon as the delivery person left. MIracled it all to the table. “C’mon, everyone. Eat. We still have a lot to talk about.”

“I rather think we do,” said Muriel, sounding quite a bit less breathless than he had ever heard her sound.

Maybe she was learning, too.

Chapter 33

Chapter Text

The two humans had finished their meal, and Crowley had teased Muriel into trying food, and got much the same response as he had from Aziraphale so long ago. She had been so taken with food, she’d eaten everything the humans hadn’t. Neither angels nor demons were limited to physical capacity. Nina just watched, astonished. Maggie had questions, but didn’t bring them up until after. Crowley miracled away the mess as soon as it was clear the humans had eaten their fill.

Now they were sitting in the office, Muriel in the chair in front of Aziraphale’s desk, which didn’t look as though it had been touched for weeks. Crowley had dragged in an extra armchair, and Maggie and Nina were side-by-side on the couch, both sitting primly, their body language decidedly not of lovers, not as far as Crowley could see from his admittedly limited perspective. All of them were holding glasses of wine, but Crowley was the only one drinking. Muriel was staring at hers as if it were a rattlesnake about to bite her.

As Crowley threw himself into his armchair, everyone looked at him. He blinked, took a gulp from his glass, and stared back. “Right,” he started. “Muriel. How are things from your perspective?”

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ve only been a low level scrivener since the very beginning. I’ve been told I’m assigned here for now, but I don’t have any practice!” She looked over at Maggie and Nina. “They’ve been trying to help me. But Uriel and Sandalphon check in every other weekend. They were just here two days ago. I had to warn these two to hide from them. I don’t think our side knows they know…you know, that we aren’t like them…”

“Human? Muriel, have you managed to lie to them?”

“Not exactly.” Muriel colored. “I just didn’t say anything. I don’t think I can lie.”

Crowley chuckled. “Oh, you can. You just need practice. And none of you lot are good at it.”

He draped his legs over his armchair, took off his glasses, and tossed them in the general direction of the horse head sculpture he used to deposit his sunglasses on in better days. Nobody noticed that they landed precisely as if he’d just placed them there.

“Right,” he said, again. He was having trouble starting. He just wasn’t used to an audience. “So, His Royal Supremeness Archangel hasn’t said anything, or checked in at all? Nothing?”

“I expect they’re keeping him very busy, Mr. Crowley. It’s much quieter, here. I’ve not sold any books, but I’ve been reading them. Maggie and Nina, they told me that it was important to not sell books. I’ve also been forgiving Maggie’s rent. So there’s three things I’ve learned to be good at.” Maggie looked again at her glass of wine, and set it carefully on the table with the chess set, untasted. “But I still don’t understand. Why are they,” and she pointed up, “so determined to end down here? But they are. They still are. I’m quiet, and they think I’m stupid, just because I’ve been stuck in my – well, office space – and now down here. But I’m not stupid. I just don’t know a lot. Or I didn’t. I’m learning. Books help, Mr. Crowley.”

“Yeah. But you know, I’m learning books aren’t always real life, Muriel. They make things up. At least the ones called ‘fiction’ do. Things aren’t the same as in the movies, either. What have Their Smugnesses been saying?”

“Something’s up. They keep talking about it when they think I’m not listening.They call it the Second Coming.”

“Second Coming? Like in that young fellow from Galilee? The one your lot helped nail up?”

He turned to Maggie and Nina. “I helped deliver him, you know. His mother was hardly more than a child herself. I’ve never been able to resist kids.” Muriel looked shocked, and bemused. “I took him up on a mountain, showed him the world. I thought he might never get out of Galilee, and I was right.” He shook his head. “He’s coming back?”

“That’s the idea. He’s supposed to read from the Book of Life, and judge everyone from the beginning. But there’s a snag. Nobody knows where the Book is.”

“Do you know anything at all about it?”

“No, I’m kind of glad I don’t know. I didn’t know it was real before Gabriel ran away. Heaven was in an uproar then, and I don’t think they even noticed it was missing before the new Supreme Archangel arrived. He swears he knows nothing about it, too. Well, I heard they threatened him, Aziraphale, but either he really doesn’t know, or he’s way better at this lying thing than I am.”

Crowley digested this. Maybe finding the Book might be the most important thing any of them could do. As to Aziraphale, it stung him that there hadn’t been any word from him. He tried to tell himself that no news was good news, but he didn’t believe it.

“So. About what happened with Gabriel, and that night. What do you two remember?”

Nina spoke up first. “I saw a naked man walk through Whickber Street and go straight up to Mr. Fell’s bookshop. It was wild. He was holding a box but completely naked. Not every day you see that. And then later he turned up dressed, and Mr. Fell said he was an assistant bookseller. He seemed a little strange – the bookseller, I mean. Mr. Fell’s usually been nice, but so often his shop is closed. I could never figure that out, but I really didn’t have time to spend worrying about it. Between minding my own shop and trying to placate my partner, Lindsay, it was enough to mind my own business. Lindsay was so jealous. She hated me talking to any other woman, you know? And when things were going well with us, they were really going well. I thought that woman hung the sun and the moon, you know?”

“I think I might have an inkling.” Crowley’s voice was dry, introspective.

“Of course you do. Sorry for bringing it up. Anyway, from what I could see, things were more or less normal on the street, except for that. And then you came in, with your six shots of espresso. I saw the look you gave Mr. Fell when I asked after the naked man. You didn’t know what to make of it either, did you?” Crowley said nothing, and she went on. “And then you went back to the bookshop and next thing you were walking in the middle of the street, and smoke was coming off you. And lightning struck. I thought you’d be killed! And then the power had gone out and I was stuck in my shop with Maggie, and I couldn’t even call home.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I was rather frustrated. Angry. Didn’t notice. My fault, actually. Weather is rather one of my specialties, but that was just temper.”

Nina sniffed. “Well, I couldn’t figure you out, and looking back, you fixed the power, too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I just didn’t know you two were stuck there. I had other things on my mind. That naked man – he wasn’t a man, actually.”

Maggie looked pensive.”We figured that much out, later. Not exactly why he came, nor who he was, exactly,”

Crowley chuckled, but he didn’t sound amused. “That, dear mortal friends, was the Archangel f*cking Gabriel, Supreme Archangel of Heaven. He and I had a long history, back from before the Fall. To say we never got along would be an understatement. Angels, we were told everyday, were about love. Demons, we’re supposed to be about hate. But there was never any love from or with Gabriel. He was insufferable. I hated him the way I never hated anyone but two other beings. And the feeling was certainly mutual.”

“Did he give you a bad time?”

“No. He didn’t remember. And Heaven was hunting him. And Hell was hunting him, and neither of us could figure out why, or why he couldn’t remember. Aziraphale, you realize he’s an angel, right?” Nina and Maggie nodded. “Well, he tried to tell me we had to protect him. And I didn’t want to. We’d spent the last few years relatively peacefully. No, not talking, not like that,” and he looked at the two women. “We never dared.” He sighed, and sank lower in his chair. “We talked. But not about how we felt. It was too dangerous. We’d fooled them once. We couldn’t say what we wanted to. What I wanted to. Maybe Aziraphale never did feel what I felt, and I wasn’t sure what I felt. All I knew then was that I’d go anywhere, do anything to protect him, you know?” He turned his face up and away. Maggie thought she
saw tears, but he blinked a few times and put his hand up to his face.

Then he continued. “Anyway, I’d read about human love. In books. I know about reproduction, how humans do it. I know about sex. I’ve had to use it for temptations and curses before. Seemed like it’s the central theme in humans’ lives. Sex, and love, and they’re not the same thing. I had an understanding of how sex worked, right enough. Had to, for my job. But love and sex – I figured out a long time ago that they aren’t the same, but I guess I only understood love the way books talked about it. The books were written by humans, so I thought you lot knew all about it. You don’t have it figured out either, do you?”

“No, Crowley.” Nina looked at Maggie, who looked back. It seemed to the demon as though they’d spoken, rather like the way he and Aziraphale…

He suppressed that thought. “Anyway, that’s why we did what we did. Um, not then. But later. What happened was, I did kind of run. I went back, but I ran first. I was scared, you see. If Gabriel remembered who I was, he could really put a crimp in a nice quiet existence. I knew it couldn’t last forever. Sooner or later, Heaven or Hell would figure out how we’d tricked them. But as dim as all of them usually are, we both thought it’d take them a few decades to figure it out.”

He stared morosely at his glass, lifted it to his mouth, swallowed. It still didn’t help. ”Anyway,” he said, grabbing the bottle and refilling it, offering it round. No takers, so he shrugged and put it on the floor next to his chair. “So Shax showed up. You met her, Maggie. She was my replacement. And she told me Heaven and Hell were hunting Gabriel, and if anyone was hiding him, there’d be literal Hell to pay. That didn’t scare me. But then she told be that if
Heaven found anyone hiding him, they’d be erased from the Book of Life. They wouldn’t be just discorporated, or dead, it would be as if they’d never existed at all. I didn’t even know the Book was real. I’d never seen it, not even back when…” His voice trailed off.

Muriel spoke. “When you were an angel?” Crowley looked at her sharply. Muriel was certainly not as dim as everyone thought she was.

“Something like that. We all thought it was just a story to scare the cherubs, keep them in line, you know? Did you ever see it, Muriel?”

Muriel shook her head. “No. As a level 37 scrivener, I didn’t rate. I just knew it was real. Not even sure where it was kept. Nobody ever talked to me. I think the last time I even saw a file on it was…” she thought, “back before the Fall. And it wasn’t a file I could open. Throne eyes and above only. I just filed it.”

“Muriel, is there any chance you could get that file?”

“Not sure. I’m not authorized to leave this area on Earth, even, let alone go back Upstairs. Mr. Crowley…”

“Just Crowley. As long as we’re friends. We are friends, aren’t we, Muriel?” Crowley turned his yellow gaze to the angel, and as near as Muriel could tell, looked sincere.

“Yes.” Muriel was looking at Crowley as if she wondered whether Aziraphale would approve. She knew that the angel had known him longer than anyone. It appeared he passed muster.

“Yes. Crowley, then. But I’m not sure the file would even help. I mean, they all have access to it, and it didn’t help them.”

“But did they access it?”

Muriel looked unhappy. “I don’t know. I wasn’t Upstairs when the brouhaha happened. I only heard about it because they all think I’m stupid.”

Crowley shook his head. “You’re not stupid, Muriel.”

“No. No, I’m not, I don’t know a lot. But I’m learning. I mean, look at me. I’m dressed like
Gabriel was when he was Jim. I know that fits into what humans do. Hardly any of them
dress in all white, isn’t that right?”

Maggie smiled at her. Maggie had been the easiest human to talk to. Nina had been a little short with her at the start, and later, she’d learned why, learned that human police officers don’t just ask questions about human’s love lives and had apologized, but Muriel was still a little afraid of her temper.

“Yes, Muriel. Especially not police, like you were trying to be. They wear blue.”

“Right. And I don’t have to pretend to be a human police officer anymore. Just a human bookseller. Except I don’t sell books. I just read them.”

“Muriel, we’re getting sidetracked.” Crowley turned back to Maggie and Nina. “So, what went down. I knew I had to protect Aziraphale. Somehow. And he thought, Aziraphale, that is, thought if we did a tiny little miracle so neither side would know Gabriel if they looked at him, then it would buy us time to figure out what to do. So we joined together, and just did what we thought would be a teensy little nothing of a half miracle. Not even as much as we usually did, just to get through the day, you know? Only it backfired.”

“Together. You did it together! It showed up as a 25 Lazari miracle! There was a huge, blaring alarm, heard all over Heaven. And I saw it – a big purple plume of miracle-smoke, coming right from here!”

“Lazari?” Nina leaned forward.

Crowley waved dismissively. “Yeah, it’s how they measure miracles. How many times can a human be brought back to life, y’know? Only really been done once.”

“Lazarus?”

“Yeah.” Crowley turned back to Muriel. “So I never quite got it straight, what happened after that? Upstairs?”

“Well, I heard Michael and Uriel and Saraqael talking, and next thing they were on the down elevator. That’s all I know until I was sent down to pretend to be a human police officer, to keep an eye out for whatever I could find out. You know the rest. You figured out who I was right away, didn’t you?”

Crowley chuckled. This time it was a warm sound, a reassuring sound. “Well, you were pretty obvious, Muriel. I teased Aziraphale his first time, too.”

“Did you? When was that?”

“Wall, outside the Garden of Eden. Pretty place, you’d have liked it. Too bad God didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Unless it was Her that added those dinosaur fossils. I didn’t help plan that joke, so I don’t really know.”

Crowley turned back to the two women on the couch. “So, Aziraphale contacted me. We couldn’t talk at the bookshop, because you were there. We couldn’t talk at your cafe, Nina. His plan involved you and Maggie.”

Maggie was a little indignant.”I did say a little something to Mr. Fell, but I thought, you know, in confidence…”

“Yeah, well, he thought, Aziraphale, I mean, he thought you and Nina were perfect for each other, and maybe if we just gave you a little push…” He shifted again. “But that was after. Those smug, meddling angels came down and they threatened Aziraphale. At least our miracle held. They looked right at Gabriel and didn’t know who he was. But they knew about our miracle. And Aziraphale couldn’t think of anything to say about it but that he’d done a miracle to make you two fall in love. He’s not always that quick thinking on his feet, you know. He doesn’t have the practice I do.”

“So you two idiots thought with a little push, the stupid humans would just fall in love, is that it?” Nina’s tone was scathing.

“Look, I’ve said I’m sorry. I apologize. We didn’t know, Nina! We needed a cover, and once Aziraphale had said it, I had to go along with it! I know it was stupid, but you have to understand, we had both Heaven and Hell going after both of us. I don’t care much for myself, but Aziraphale…I couldn’t have it!”

Nina was still shaking her head. ”And you’re still swearing you two aren’t partners.” She looked at the wineglass in her hand, and took a swig of it. “You two. Six thousand years, and you are idiots. Idiots in love.”

Crowley just sat there, frozen. He’d never dared say it. Not once. And Aziraphale? He heard again the words he’d used. “You go too fast for me, Crowley.” And that final, deadly, “I forgive you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. He never loved me. He only wanted me as an angel. Unforgivable. That’s what I am. That’s all I’ll ever be.” Again, he buried his head in his hands.

Instantly, the three others surrounded him. Hands, loving hands, touched him, rubbed his shoulders, his back, his arm. Nina spoke first. “Crowley, Crowley. I know you’re wrong. Listen to me. I saw how he looked at you. I saw how he spoke about you. I don’t know what went wrong, but I can tell you, that if that wasn’t love, nothing is.” Nina took the empty wineglass from his unresisting hands. “Demon or not, you need sleep.”

Crowley was drunk. Hell of a time for the alcohol to finally work, he thought. Blearily, he allowed himself to be helped up. He thought he should probably miracle himself sober, but he was a bit too far gone to care.

“There’s a bed upstairs. I don’t use it, but I think Jim – Gabriel did. But it’s all made up, with clean sheets.”

Maggie got on his other side. He let himself be led, unresisting, up the stairs, and they laid him on the bed, and pulled off his boots. “We can continue this tomorrow, Sleep now.”

Crowley waved his hand. “I’ll be all right. M’just a wee bit in m’cups, y’know?”

Maggie shushed him, and shut the door.

Crowley slept for three days. When he woke, he heard voices downstairs. He listened carefully before padding down. By the time he reached the floor, he was clean and dressed. He yawned. “Okay, you lot. Ready to get back into it? We’re not done yet.”

Chapter 34

Chapter Text

Crowley sauntered downstairs. Muriel and Maggie had been talking animatedly, when they both caught sight of him. Maggie spoke first.

“Are you all right, Crowley? I thought for a while you weren’t going to wake up at all. Muriel couldn’t tell us whether it was normal or not. All she said was that angels don’t sleep.”

“M’fine. Sleep is just a hobby, y’know. Any coffee?”

Maggie held out a cup. “We heard you stirring. Nina sent this over. She says she’s busy for about two hours, yet. Muriel wants to send for food.”

Crowley dug in his pocket. “Use this. If they turn it down, I’ve got another, all mine, but I think they’re too busy down there to notice.”

By the time Nina came in, dinner was all set up. Lasagna, garlic bread, salads. Cannoli for dessert. Muriel ate what everyone else didn’t. Wine was drunk, and the group was laughing when they convened to the office.

Crowley was regaling the others with the “cupertee” story. “You should have seen Muriel’s face. What she didn’t realize was I remembered her from back before the Fall.”

“Did you, now? I didn’t think anyone remembered me! All the other angels, they just acted like I didn’t know anything. They still do! I’ve been keeping records and filing for thousands of years! Sure, I never got to go to Earth. I was just stuck in my little corner, you know. But that doesn’t make me stupid!”

Crowley spread his hands as he flopped into his chair. “No. It just made you naive. Their smugnesses, however, they’re pretty stupid. Anyway, I remember you from those nearly endless damn conference room meetings. You’d be there, right by the charts, scribbling away, taking all our notes…”

Muriel scowled. “There was one who just wrote strings of nonsense words and letters. I had to figure out if it was some code or just somebody being bored. I think in the end, I just filed it all away. Just stuck it with the other notes.” She looked at Crowley. “Was that you!” Her tone had turned accusatory.

Crowley blushed. “Yeah. I was bored. What else was there to do? Saraqael and Gabriel or Michael and Uriel or Sandalphon and Gabriel just droning on. And on. And no new information. Just wittering on. I had to do SOMETHING. Just to keep from yawning. And you know how contagious yawns are. Always thought that was another design flaw. When you start looking, you see so many of them.”

Muriel pursed her lips. “They’re not flaws, Crowley. They’re design features. They’re…”

“If you say ‘ineffable’ I’m going to hurl something.”

Muriel shook her head.

“Good angel. You’re learning.”

“Crowley, you’re wicked!” This from Maggie.

“I’m a demon. I’m supposed to be wicked.” He deflated. “Well, I was a demon. I guess now I’m a demon without a job. I’ve got an idea of a new job, though. Let’s go back to that week. Where were we?”

“You mean three nights ago?” Nina lifted her glass. “Cheers.” She drank. “You were asking what we saw.”

“Right. Maggie?”

Maggie looked thoughtful. “You first.”

“Well, from my perspective, it all started when Gabriel showed up. And we wound up doing a miracle together – Aziraphale and I. We wanted just a teensy one. Just so nobody could find Gabriel. And it worked, too well. I told you all that. And I had an idea, to get you two to fall in love, because Aziraphale said that was what we did the miracle for. I made it rain. And it looked for a moment like it worked, and then the awning broke, so it didn’t. Work, I mean.”

“So that was you, too?”

“Yeah.” Crowley sounded rueful. “One of my specialties, weather. Don’t really have need to do it often. But I thought it’d work…I saw it in a Richard Curtis film. Apparently, you can’t trust human films, either.”

Nina sniffed, and seemed about to say something.

Crowley didn’t give her a chance. “It’s a joke.”

Nina looked unamused.

“So anyway, I was just following Aziraphale. I knew something was up, but he was having so much fun. And he wouldn’t tell me exactly what he was up to. Then you said what you said, about other peoples’ love lives. And it struck me. We’d both been dancing around the words. Forever. And I still didn’t feel safe enough to say them.” Crowley stared down at his glass. Emptied it, poured another.

“So that night, I was out and I saw Hell’s fog, and actual demons. Lots of them, just shambling through London like they owned the place. I made sure to get you two to safety, and then I confronted them, and found out Shax was leading the bunch. I can’t say I wasn’t worried for the safety of all you mortals.”

“Weren’t you worried about yourself?” Maggie was giving him a look he was learning to recognize as concern.

Another dry laugh. “I’ve seen worse than a demon with half its face gone. I’ve done worse. The day I worry about a bunch of half-wit demons is the day I hang up my miracles. No, the real concern was you, and you,” and he gestured, sweeping his arms, “and all the rest of you lot. I didn’t want to be responsible for any of your deaths. Though you do have souls. Pretty sure none of the merchants around here are due for the Pits, you know, but I still think you’d find death pretty inconvenient, all the same.”

“And Aziraphale was oblivious to all of it. He wanted his Jane Austen ball, and he got it. Maybe any other time, I might have enjoyed dancing with him, but not that night. He was just so oblivious, you know? And there was Gabriel, all dressed in blue and sequins, handing out vol-au-vents. I tried to tell him – Aziraphale – that there was real mischief afoot, real danger to all of you, but he wasn’t having any of it. Until Shax’s little love note came through the window.”

Crowley paused, took another swig of his wine, and continued. “And he still thought he could handle them. I figured it was up to me to get all the mortals to safety, and I did, except for that stupid Mr. Brown. Thank somebody he was sent back without having been eaten. And that nobody remembered. Except you two. I don’t know why you do. You’re both exceptional mortals, and that’s the truth.”

Maggie spoke up. “He was that brave, your Mr. Fell. He held those creatures back with a candlestick and that circle over there.”

“Yeah, the portal to Upstairs. Or, in the case of most of the demons, discorporation.”

“I saw them die! I killed a lot of them myself.”

“They aren’t dead. They were just discorporated. Inconvenient, but not dead. Definitely not dead.”

Nina squeezed Maggie’s hand. Maggie, wide-eyed, went on. “I did make a mistake, letting them in. That was an accident. And you were nowhere to be found. Where were you?”

“Upstairs. I tricked Muriel into taking me. I had to find out why they were hunting Gabriel, you see. And I found out, right enough.” He sighed. “It wasn’t just him consorting with Beelzebub, you know. They wanted to start Armageddon again. I bet they still want to. And he’s helping, now. After all we said, all we’ve done. It’s not over, Maggie, Nina, Earth is still in danger. And I don’t have any idea how to stop it.”

Nina’s eyes narrowed. “Surely it can’t be that bad, can it?”

“Remember Shax and her band of idiots? Remember what they did to Mr. Brown? Remember what they threatened to do to you? And they’re not the worst. Believe me, you don’t want to see how bad Hell can be. But Heaven isn’t all that much better. It’s prettier than Hell, if you like a sterile atmosphere. It’s less bloody. But whether Heaven or Hell wins, Earth will be just as dead, if either side has their way.”

“So that’s God’s plan? Create a beautiful world and just as it’s all getting going, end it all?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it is any more. But it’s certainly Metatron’s plan. Second coming, Nina. That means that young man from Galilee comes back. He reads from the Book of Life, judges everyone, and it’s the end of this planet. Maybe the shutdown of everything. I refuse to believe that a God who helped me design a whole star factory that won’t be warmed up even now wants the whole thing to just stop. It doesn’t make sense. I still think I could just leave. I was always partial to Alpha Centauri but there’s other star systems with planets. Only I don’t want to go alone and I guess now I don’t want to just abandon you all.”

Muriel spoke up. “I don’t want Earth to end. I’ve only just gotten started here! And Maggie and Nina, Mrs. Cheng, and Mrs. Sandwich. They’ve all been so kind. I’ve read so much about Earth. It’s so pretty! And I knew God was so proud of the whales. Why would She even… well, stop them. And I don’t want to fight anybody! I’m a scrivener, not a fighter!”

“Muriel, you know what it means if you go against them. It means they’ll consider you a fallen angel. It’s dangerous, Muriel. Even to talk like that can leave you open to punishment. You wouldn’t like Hell’s punishment. And Heaven tends to hand theirs over to Hell.”

“I don’t care, Crowley. I’ve been listening. They really think I’m stupid.”

“Yeah. I think I heard Metatron call you ‘dim.’ You’re far from it. He shouldn’t underestimate you, Muriel.”

Muriel looked at him, trying to see whether there was a hint of sarcasm. There wasn’t.

“Look, you’re going to have to decide. But don’t do it right now. Think, really think. If Their Supreme Smugnesses figure out your loyalties are wavering, they could destroy you. Completely.”

“Crowley,” Muriel said. “You and Mr. Fell, couldn’t they go after you two as well?”

“That’s the point!” He slammed his fist against the chair arm in frustration.”That’s why we never talked, like you two said. Not like that. But I thought, you know, we had an understanding. I thought even when we didn’t say it, we said it. He’d say, you know, ‘I am an angel. You are a demon. Hereditary enemies.’ And then he’d open the door. Pour the wine. Hold my hand even. I thought he really did care. That I wasn’t alone. And it was all worth it, though I knew it could end any time. I thought he…” Crowley choked. “I thought he loved me. I knew I loved him. But it was never real, was it?” He slumped, buried his head in his hands, and tried not to cry.

Maggie had been rubbing his shoulder all the while. He felt as if he were drowning. He couldn’t get used to kindness. Not after six thousand years of pushing it all away. “Crowley, Crowley, I know he loves you.”

Crowley snarled. Maggie wouldn’t let him move away. “No. I was wrong. Because if he did, he wouldn’t leave. He loved the angel I was, Maggie. But I haven’t been that angel for a long time. And I don’t want to be him. I’m content to be who I am now. I didn’t know anything, then, not really.”

“You said you made the stars. I couldn’t do that.”

“That wasn’t anything. That was just engineering. I worked with Saraqael on some of it, but they weren’t much of an engineer, that was just artistic design. I did gravity, and time, and physics, all that stuff. Not all of it, but I worked pretty closely with my superiors who had the final say, before God gave Her approval. And then when I put it into place. I found out they planned to shut it all down before the engine even got warmed up! What a waste.”

“Don’t tell me,” Nina said, and her voice was acerbic. “God’s plan?”

“That’s what the rest of them said. ’Ineffable.’ I swear if I heard ineffable again…” he sighed. “Well, that was the start of it. I just wanted answers, and God wasn’t talking to anybody back then. She still isn’t.” Crowley exhaled, a strangled sound, deep in his throat. “I only wanted to ask questions. Even if She’d just said She had it all in hand. I don’t trust Metatron. I never did. That was the trouble. He spoke for Her, and he wouldn’t answer either. Well, I can’t say I liked Falling. I never did much fighting in that War, only just defended myself and some of the other angels. But I Fell, and it changed me.”

“The other demons, they were angels, too?”

“Yeah. Most of them a dull lot, to be sure. Were then, before, and worse, now. There’s some brighter than others, but most of them were just created as backdrop, I think. Dunno. I’ve never been consulted on any policy. I was made to be an engineer. That’s why I knew the password to open those files, Muriel. I bet they still haven’t changed their passwords, even now.”

He stood up. The alcohol was finally getting to him. He wasn’t sure why it had stopped working, or why it had started again. “I don’t feel so good. Need to lie down again.”

Muriel and Maggie flanked him, got him upstairs, where he collapsed on the bed again. “Not going to do another three days. Wake me up tomorrow evening again.” He miracled himself pajamas. Grey silk. Comfortable. He needed comfortable. “We have a lot more to talk about. What a team. Two mortals, an angel and a demon. Wrong angel, though,” he mumbled, then seeing Muriel’s face, “Sorry, didn’t mean…”

“It’s all right. I know what you meant. Look, Crowley, I can’t replace the Supreme Archangel. But I have some abilities. I’ve been really good at taking notes all these years. And even though I couldn’t read every file, I read a lot of them. I can at least try.”

“Tomorrow, Muriel. When I’m sober again. I kind of got used to alcohol not affecting me. M’kay?”

The last thing he saw before the room darkened was two sets of eyes, looking at him with concern. Concern for him.

Maybe things could work out okay after all.

Chapter 35

Chapter Text

They were all in the office again. It was beginning to be their custom. Dinner first, with drinks, then retire to Aziraphale’s office space. They were going to have to be mindful of time, Saraqael and Michael were due to check in on Saturday, and Muriel said they often came in person, though, just in case, she often set up the portal. With the battery powered candles.

Crowley had fortified himself with a bottle of Talisker and a whiskey glass, but was sipping from it, careful to remain sober. They all had serious business to discuss.

“Right.” Crowley stood up in front of his chair. “I think I should go first. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. And I can’t expect anyone else to put their existences on the line. It’s not that I don’t appreciate everything everyone’s done. But without Aziraphale’s help, there’s really quite a good chance that even you mortals would be putting your lives in danger. I can’t have that. I have to go it alone.”

Muriel stood up. “You don’t have to do this alone, Crowley. We’re friends. Friends help each other.”

“Muriel, you’re risking your entire existence! Upstairs won’t take this kindly. What if you Fall? Or worse – they do what they threatened to do to Aziraphale, and erase you from the Book of Life? I can’t let that happen.”

Muriel huffed. “Some things are more important, Crowley. You – and Maggie – and Nina – have all taught me that. I may only be a 37th class scrivener angel, but I’m still your friend. You need friends.”

“If they find out…” He cast his eyes upwards, and Muriel’s eyes followed.

“No one has to know, Crowley. I’m good at covering my tracks. Upstairs never has to know. As far as they know, I’m dim. That’s what he said, Crowley. Dim. Six thousand years filing and record keeping, and he just calls me ‘dim’ but I’m not dim, Crowley. I’m smarter than they think. That’s our benefit. They’ll never know what I’m up to. Nor you.”

“That’s the spirit!” Maggie had chimed in. “We can help, too. We can try to gather information on the ground, so to speak.”

Crowley looked worried “No. You’re mortals. You’re vulnerable to Hell and to Heaven. Saraqael would just love to turn you into salt pillars. Like they did with Lot’s wife. I was there for that one, too. And I think, personally, they still resent me for crippling them, back during the so-called Great War. So it’s personal between us. If Saraqael knows I’ve befriended you, I wouldn’t put it past them to take a personal interest. I can’t have you risking...”

Nina spoke then. “You don’t have a choice, Crowley. You’re stuck with us, now.” She spoke rapidly. “Look at it this way. You don’t want the Earth to end. We don’t want the Earth to end. Muriel doesn’t want the Earth to end. I’m betting there’s others of your kind that don’t want it either. What if we could gather more people together, discreetly, you know, and find out something. Muriel, can you talk to other angels?”

Muriel considered. “Mostly, I’m kind of stuck here but surely they wouldn’t object if I went up to my old office space and pulled files I need to help me do my job here…”

“That’s the spirit!” Nina applauded.

“Do you even know what’s at stake?” Crowley was looking from one to the other, incredulous. “You’re mortals! Muriel, tell them!”

Muriel smiled a brilliant smile. “We all discussed it this morning. Over breakfast.”

“Crowley, you’re not getting rid of us. Get used to it. We are your friends. Your friends. Friends look out for one another.” Nina had stood up and was in his face, staring into his yellow eyes, and he just yielded. Nina was a force of nature even a demon couldn’t overcome at this point. He looked helplessly at Maggie.

“Don’t look at me for help. Or rather, look at me for help. Because we’re going to help. No matter what it takes.”

“Look at me, Crowley.” Nina was relentless. “What good does it do to save our lives if we’re going to die with the whole world anyway? My life has been a mess up to now, but it’s been my life! I’m not ready to just throw it away for nothing! If I have to throw it away, let it be for a cause!”

By now she was holding his shoulders, looking directly at him. All his co*ckiness and bravado were gone. Once again, he was letting himself be vulnerable. He hadn’t planned to be vulnerable ever again. Somehow, these two morals had broached his defenses. He wasn’t sure how. He didn’t want this, he told himself. He knew he was lying.

He held up his hands. “It was a mistake to let you two remember. I could miracle it so you forget.”

“And then where exactly would you be? What would that prove? We can be useful, Crowley. We can be your ears on the ground. You need us. At the very least we can tell you when you’re going in a wrong direction. Don’t you need another perspective? You’re not always right. In fact, I can count quite a number of times in recent history you’ve been wrong.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Nina counted.”You locked us in my cafe and cost me my relationship. That’s one. You tried to make it rain so me and Maggie would fall in love. That’s two. You left us all alone while a troop of actual demons were trying to break in and kill us. That’s three. Aziraphale trusted you to come up with a solution when they were attacking us. That’s four.”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘Aziraphale trusted me to come up with a solution?’”

“When they came in, he said he was waiting for you. And I told him he should come up with his own plan. And he said, ‘I am. But it makes him so happy to rescue me.’”

“He said that?”

“He did. And then you came in, right after he did that thing he did, the halo thing? And you just laughed. But he’d saved us, Crowley. He’d saved our lives. And it clearly hurt him to take that halo out of his head.”

“Yeah. Losing the halo hurts. I should know. At least he could get his replaced. Not mine. He’s done the thing with the halo before. At least he told me he did. I didn’t see it. It was during the War. Mine burned away. That hurt a Hell of a lot worse, actually, because it was forever, and I knew it. But my point is,” and he slouched into his armchair, picking up the glass that he’d placed on the ground next to it, “My point is that it didn’t hurt him in any lasting way.” Crowley sniffed, and sipped at his whiskey.

Nina shook her head. “You got things wrong. That’s my point, Crowley. You need people to tell you when you get things wrong.”

Crowley heard his own voice in his head, a remembrance. I’d want a fresh point of view if it was me. He shook his head. “Point taken.” He looked down. “But we have another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“The Book of Life. I’ve never seen it. I was told long ago it was just a story. You know, like your Santa Claus. Kept the cherubs in line. ‘Be good, or She’ll erase you from the Book of Life,’ that sort of thing. But Shax said it’s real. Beelzebub said it’s real. Former Grand Duke Beelzebub. When they were an angel, they saw it. They never said where. But I don’t believe they’d have lied about it. They were ready to risk their life – their very existence – for Gabriel. But I believe them when they said what they said.”

“It’s missing, Crowley. Really missing. Upstairs is pretty angry about it. I heard them talking about it. Nobody knows anything about where it’s gone.”

“Muriel. Do you think Aziraphale knows?”

“I heard they quizzed him pretty hard. They don’t think so.”

“What do you think, Muriel?”

“I – I just don’t know. I haven’t spoken to the Supreme…”

“Quit calling him that! Supreme ARSEHOLE. Traitor.”

“Crowley…I don’t think he wanted to leave. I really don’t.”

“Grmph. Leave that. I don’t believe it for a minute. Let’s go back to the Book.” It was a sore spot for the demon. They all saw it. Maggie and Nina just exchanged looks, and Nina gave Muriel a look that said, later.

“The truth is, no one knows.”

“Well,” said Crowley, co*cking his head. “I think we’ve at least got the glimmerings of a Plan. First, we need to gather information. Knowledge is power. Second, we’ve got to do it under the noses of both Upstairs, and Downstairs. Third, we’ve got to find that Book, before either of them do.” Crowley sat down rather heavily. He tossed back the remainder of the whiskey in his glass, forgetting for a moment he had decided to stay sober.

“Beats hell out of no plan, right, Maggie? Crowley? Personally, I think we need to act as normal as we can. Maggie and I will keep our ears open during business hours. Right, Mags?”

“Right. And we could meet here?”

Crowley looked at Muriel. “Is it really safe? I’ve spent a couple days here already, and I don’t trust those smug bastards of angels, not for a minute. I have a flat, in Mayfair. Well, it’s a rental, but Hell pays the bills. Shax had it for a while, but she gave it back to me. We could meet there.”

“You think it’s safe?”

Crowley shook his head. “I don’t know. It should be.” He was looking out the window over the desk. “The Bentley.”

“What about the Bentley?”

“My car. She’s safe. Aziraphale said a thing. I don’t quite remember. But he made it so that anyone who came inside my car would have to ask. Especially a demon. She’s safe. I’ve had her from new, and she…she knows things!”

Nina had her hands on her hips. “Your car. Knows. Things.”

“Yeah. That’s brilliant! Tell you what, you two,” and he turned to Nina and Maggie, “You be our eyes on the ground. Muriel, you see what you can find out Upstairs. I’m going to sneak into Hell.” Crowley pulled out his keys, and tossed them to Maggie, who caught them with a questioning look. “My Bentley. If anything at all goes wrong, go to the Bentley. It’ll know where to take you. You’ll be safe there.”

“And if everything works out?”

“We’ll meet at my Bentley. Oh, and here.” he tossed over a couple of cards. “My card, and Hell’s card. Try Hell’s first. If they’ve caught up with the books, use mine. Couple days?” Three nods. “Go now, scoot!”

Crowley watched the two women leave the bookshop, then turned to Muriel. “Okay, then, I’ll be off. I’m gonna sneak down to Hell, and poke around. As soon as it’s safe, you scarper Upstairs, and we’ll meet in a couple of days.”

“Won’t Hell notice?”

Crowley morphed, and where he’d been standing, stood what looked like a disreputable homeless bum, red hair hiding under a tattered hoodie. His face was dark, shielded by dirt and a torn knit scarf that looked as if it had spent weeks in a muddy field. “Those arseholes won’t even know I’ve been downstairs. As long as Shax doesn’t see me, I’ll be fine.”

Muriel stared, then smiled. “Right. I’ll just pop Upstairs, then, and see what I can find out there.”

Crowley held up his hand. “Just be careful, Muriel. Don’t tell an obvious lie. Lie by omission. That’s the best kind. Two days, Muriel. And don’t let His Supreme Archangelness see you. Or Metatron. Michael’s scary, but stupid. You’re safer if you wind up talking to her.”

“Got it. Omission. Oh, do be careful, Crowley!”

Crowley was already walking out of the door, retrieving and pocketing his sunglasses on the way out. “Don’t worry. Six thousand years of practice. I’ll be okay.”

This was going to be fun. For the first time in weeks, Crowley felt a bit of optimism. Who needed Aziraphale anyway? He had friends. Real friends. Not the sort to run off and chase promotions, and leave bookshops without a second glance. Not the sort to beg to be kissed, and then turn their backs and walk away.

Not the sort to reject nightingale song.

He didn’t need Aziraphale.

He almost even believed it.

Chapter 36

Chapter Text

Supreme Archangel Aziraphale sat at his desk, which overlooked Heaven’s spaces. He’d deliberately claimed the space nearest Earth, where he could see an overview of the planet daily.

He wished he could have brought his diary, but it was too dangerous. Even if he had kept it locked, that was no guarantee that Metatron would not see it and read it. But really, he had no need of a physical diary. He remembered all of it, every tiny detail, from his first awareness as a being, to now.

For perhaps the ten-billionth time he wondered if he’d done the right thing.

Not leaving – he really had no choice in the matter. Metatron’s hatred of Crowley had been stated directly between the lines he turned over and over in his head. He also knew he’d been watched from the moment Metatron had said “Take your time” until Crowley had walked out. He hadn’t been able to say anything he wanted to say. It had been too dangerous. Crowley was in danger, that was utterly plain.

Aziraphale had misstated his intent, once more. He hadn’t meant to say, “You’re the bad guys.” He’d meant to say “They’re” but it came out wrong. He was too focused on keeping Crowley safe. And of course Crowley had misunderstood. Of course he’d taken offense at being offered restoration of angelic status. It wasn’t that he rejected demonic Crowley. He loved every inch of him, from his yellow eyes to his black feathered wingtips.

But he also knew it was his one shot of staying with him and keeping him safe.

Then Crowley had kissed him. The kiss that set his being on fire, that tasted of Crowley’s whole being, from the fire he’d passed through to the depth of his essence. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of him, from that beginning. Aziraphale had clutched at him, had wanted to draw him close, had wanted to drink deep and to drown in Crowley.

But he forced himself to push away. He forced himself to say the words that would save Crowley’s life and make Crowley hate him forever. “I forgive you.” Three simple words. He had to do it. He knew Crowley wouldn’t forgive him. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his whole long existence. It still hurt.

But it kept Crowley safe.

Until Metatron told him about the Great Plan, once again. And Aziraphale knew he had to go through it, to act as if nothing else mattered to him.

He’d managed to hide the Book though. None of them counted on that. And they didn’t count on him being able to lie so convincingly. Somehow, someway, he’d have to figure out how to stave off what Heaven thought was inevitable. They wanted their war. And God? She was simply not available, not even to Her new Supreme Archangel. Aziraphale would have to do things alone, for once in six thousand years. He couldn’t rely on another being, ever again.

He had to set aside his feelings for Crowley. He knew that door was closed. Probably forever. But Aziraphale was determined. He’d been created to be a warrior. Very well, he would be a warrior, on his own side, against Heaven, and against Hell, and against all of them who wanted to destroy the planet he’d grown to love.

Somehow, he knew he would win, and Earth would be safe. If he, Aziraphale, would then have to endure eternity without the one being he loved more than almost anything, so be it.

He would do what he had to do.

Heaven – and Hell – didn’t have a clue. They wouldn’t know what hit them.

And if anyone was watching, they never knew why the Supreme Archangel was smiling.