Chapter Text
Crowley knows what it’s like to fall.
Falling is painful.
That’s not quite right.
Saying falling is painful is like being in a category 5 hurricane and saying ‘it’s a bit windy eh?’.
At least, in terms of the Fall.
He can still remember, with vivid clarity, the feeling of having divinity ripped out of him. The emptiness that follows the loss. The darkness that never dissipates, because Her light is gone. Her light will never shine on you again.
Everyone assumes God’s punishment for the rebellious angels, the ones who dared to question Her will, was the Fall.
If She had been merciful, the fall would have killed them.
But the Fallen live on. They live as demons. Demons who remember what it’s like to feel whole, to feel light in their souls. Demons who ache, who fester. Demons who take out their revenge and their hatred on Her creations. Demons who are still doing Her will. Who are still following Her plan. Demons, who nothing has very much changed at all, except now it hurts.
No, the punishment wasn’t the Fall, the true punishment, was forcing them to live afterwards.
Humans have a funny saying about love. About falling in love.
Crowley never understood it. Falling was painful, but humans spent their whole lives wishing and waiting and eventually falling in love. He watched as they held hands, pressed lips together, whispered words of adoration to each other. As they told each other ‘I’ve fallen in love with you’. And he knew when they said this, they meant it differently than when they said ‘I love you’ to their mothers, to their friends, to family. For a while he thought the difference might be sex, but humans often had sex together without love. And he had seen souls so bright it nearly blinded with love for each other, that never once touched skin.
Once, a long time ago, Crowley had been in Mesopotamia and stumbled upon a young woman curled beneath a tree, sobbing. He had assumed someone she cared for must have died. Mortals got quite sad about the death business, and it happened all too often.
He doesn’t remember what he said to her, why she opened up to the demon, but he sat with her as she told him of a woman from her village, her childhood friend. ‘She was beautiful’, the girl said. ‘She glowed like the sun and always knew how to make me laugh, how to make me feel like everything was going to be okay’.
‘What happened?’ he had asked.
‘I loved her, and I couldn’t help falling in love with her. She was my light, my everything, I would have followed her anywhere.’
‘That sounds nice’
‘It was’
‘Then why are you sad?’
‘She married. Moved far away to another village. I’ll never see her again’
She broke into new sobs. Rocked back and forth on her heels.
‘She broke my heart. I feel like a part of me has been ripped away. It’s hard to feel like I’ll ever be happy again’
Crowley pondered for a moment. Figured Hell would hardly notice a small miracle, hardly a miracle at all really.
‘What if you could forget?’
She glanced up at him with confusion.
‘What?’
‘Hypothetically, what if you never met her? If you had no memories of being in love with this woman?’
‘No!’ She shouted, grabbing his arm.
Crowley was confused.
‘But you wouldn’t feel like this. You would be happy!’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t regret falling in love with her. I think I only know what happiness is because I felt it with her you know? I don’t want to forget that.’ Her next sob almost sounded like a laugh.
‘Even if I feel like this forever, it was worth it.
She was worth it.’
Angels feel love.
It’s kind of in the job description. They are mirrors to reflect and shine Her divine love.
The first time Crowley met Aziraphale, nearly bursting with divine light standing up on the wall of Eden, was the first time since the Fall that Crowley could almost sense Her love. Out of all the angels, Aziraphale seemed to radiate Her love the most. Crowley was pulled like a moth to a flame, as if he could fill that emptiness his divinity had left and chase away the darkness Her light had left behind, with the echos of it radiating out of Aziraphale.
So throughout the years, and through time, Crowley sought Aziraphale out. ‘Happened upon him’ a little too often. Set up the Arrangement.
It wasn’t until years into their Arrangement that it occurred to Crowley that for some time now it hadn’t been Her light he was chasing, or even Aziraphales’s divinity.
When Crowley saw Aziraphale, he wanted. He wanted him to smile, for his eyes to shine with that unnamed emotion when Crowley ‘rescued’ him. Crowley found himself desperate to hear the angel’s laugh. See him wiggle with delight when he ate something particularly tasty. Yearned for him to say something idiotic or naive. Lose himself in a rant about some book or other. Crowley wanted.
What he wanted, was Aziraphale’s own light to keep shining, his happiness to never wane.
And he was starting to realize, with some horror, that he would do anything to make Aziraphale happy.
Angels feel love, but they don’t fall in love.
Demons don’t love at all.
He was never much of an angel.
Never much of a demon either.
So Crowley falls in love.
I forgive you.
Crowley falls, and it hurts.