Chapter Text
Once upon a time there lived a demon who, it was said, was not very much like a demon at all. He lived on Earth, in a very pleasant little cottage on the edge of a small village, surrounded on all sides by the beautiful and bountiful gardens that were his pride and joy. Oh, he would do his fair bit of tempting to be sure - a man fencing in some property that didn’t quite belong to him here, a girl hunting the great herds of deer in the king’s forest (and never getting caught) there - but most of his days were consumed by cultivating his plants, wishing that television would just hurry up and be invented already, and being dreadfully bored most hours of the day (and more than a mite lonely, though he would be loath to admit it).
And so it happened that one day the demon, whose name was Crowley, came up for a quarterly review (Hell was nothing if not appallingly bureaucratic) and it was discovered that he had been neglecting his duties. His supervisor, not the sort of demon that tolerated any kind of slacking off in the ranks, rang him up through the set of panpipes hanging behind the door for just such an occasion.
CROWLEY
The voice wanted to boom, but the pipes were only made of reed, and so it was more of a low whistle. Crowley, who had been busy putting the fear of G-S- Someone into his turnips begrudgingly rose from the garden to answer the call.
“Yeah?”
Crowley was a very casual brand of demon.
WE DIDN’T SEND YOU UP THERE FOR FUN AND GAMES. YOUR NUMBERS ARE WAY DOWN FROM LAST CENTURY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT IF THOSE BASTARDS FROM PANDEMONIUM BEAT US THIS DECADE I’LL NEVER HEAR THE END OF IT AT THE COMPANY PICNIC? Crowley was never invited to the company picnic and truly couldn’t care less what those bastards in Pandemonium did, but he was very interested in being left to his own devices on Earth, of which he was perhaps overly fond. Thus, he had been developing a contingency plan ever since that dark and ominous castle appeared on the edge of the other side of the forest a few months back.
“I understand your displeasure,” he began loftily. He might not have cared for the game but he certainly knew how to play it. “But I’ve been planning something really spectacular, the boys downstairs are going to love it. Picture this: an entire village of wailing mothers and children, turning their eyes from God and begging for mercy from our most nefarious lord and master himself.”
GO ON. The voice was intrigued, and that was always a good sign.
Crowley told them about the castle on the edge of the forest, which, as it was rumoured among the women of that village, was home to a terrifying monster who wished to feast on the flesh of young maidens.
“Now this is pretty standard stuff,” he continued. “The beastie will select a beautiful maiden from the village, she’ll fall in love with him despite his physical faults, the power of patience and faith and all that, blah, blah blah, he’ll turn into a handsome prince and they’ll live happily ever after with peace and prosperity reigning throughout the land.”
INDEED, PAR FOR THE COURSE. BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH YOU?
“Yes, well, here’s where it gets good.” Crowley rubbed his hands together, eagerly. “I’m going to go in the maiden’s place and disrupt the whole thing. No falling in love, no handsome prince, the village falls into ruin and before you know it you’ve got a line out the door of starving peasants desperate to sell you their souls for a crust of bread, all cursing heaven’s name while they do it.”
THIS IS MOST ACCEPTABLE. WE WILL SCHEDULE ANOTHER MEETING FOR SIX MONTHS TIME TO REVIEW YOUR PROGRESS. HAVE A BLIGHTED DAY.
Crowley was already back to tormenting his vegetables.
A few weeks later, a poor miller and his three gorgeous, maiden daughters were seated around their fire on a cruelly dark evening, while the rain fell and the wind blew wild and rough through the cracks in the walls. They were so consumed with their needlework or sock darning or what have you that the first three (exceptionally polite) knocks on the window went totally unnoticed, and the thing outside was reduced to hammering on the glass to get someone’s attention. The father went out to see what was making such a racket, and what should he see but an eight foot tall monster made of brilliant white light that stuttered and shook like a the stub of a candle at the end of its wick. He thought he could sense fire and wings and many eyes within the light, but it burned his eyes and he felt that prostrating himself in the mud was perhaps a better use of his last few moments of existence. When the thing began to speak the miller covered his ears, but it spoke so softly that he was obliged to pull his hands away.
“Pardon?” he asked, face in the dirt.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” said the creature. “Can you hear me alright?” If the miller didn’t know any better, he would say that the voice was almost apologetic.
“Yes, that’s fine, thanks.”
“Oh good. Now, well, this is a little embarrassing, but I’ve come to ask a favor -”
Now the miller, who considered himself a man of the world despite his poverty, knew all the stories, and had been expecting something extraordinary to happen to his family ever since his two eldest daughters ended up greedy and vain and his youngest daughter turned out kind to all creatures, a paragon of maidenly virtue, and the loveliest of her sisters besides. Though he had been picturing an old woman with a golden apple, or a plucky youth with a talking cat to appear one day, he wasn’t about to let the opportunity to better his situation pass him by, and visions of palaces and riches danced in his head.
“Yes of course,” the man said, without waiting for the luminous horror to finish its request. “You should take my youngest, she’s the purest and the fairest of them all.” There was a wrenching sob from inside the small hut behind them.
“Much as I hate to interrupt a man handing over his daughter to a strange and terrible vision without so much as asking her first -” here the wailing from the daughter inside grew louder, “I volunteer to go with you.” These words were spoken by the demon, who had sauntered out from between the trees. His ostentatious black and silver cloak was dry despite the rain, and his eyes blazed yellow. The monster hadn’t been expecting this at all, and swayed from side to side, dithering. Crowley could almost see the light warping where a normal man would be wringing his hands.
“This isn’t really the way it’s supposed to go,” it said, after a bit. “She’s got to say no twice, and then on the third night, after her family has, well, basically bullied her into accepting, then she’s to go with me.” The tone of the creature made clear that this sort of thing was all rather distasteful to it to begin with (but its voice contained the weariness that came from following orders one didn’t always agree with for the last several millennia).
“I mean, that’s well and good, kidnapping a girl from her home and family and all that, but isn’t a willing sacrifice all the easier to manage?” The monster agreed that indeed it was, and accepted the demon’s proposal.
“But what about me?” said the miller, watching his dreams of gold rapidly turning into dust. “What about my daughter?” Crowley, who had seen the man’s youngest daughter sneaking off with the blacksmith’s wife on more than one occasion, assured him that all would be well, and she would never want for swords, armor, or horseshoes.
“Well, that’s something then,” he said, but the demon could tell he wasn’t happy about it.
Meanwhile, the bright and shining thing had extended its (according to Crowley) woefully under-groomed wings.
“I’m - ah - I’m supposed to carry you,” it said, sheepishly.
“No thanks.” Crowley unfurled his perfectly kept wings. “I’ve got my own.” There was an awkward sort of silence between them.
“Right then,” it said. “Follow me, I suppose.”
They flew a long, long, way until they came to the tower beyond the forest. There was no door, but when the monster knocked upon the stone a door opened, and they came into a charming antechamber all draped with lovely tapestries, golden sconces, and candles that Crowley was certain were magicked to never diminish. There was also an alarming number of books that covered every surface, and were spilling out onto the floor where they lay in hasty stacks.
“Bit of a reader, are you?” The thing shrugged, bashful, and when they came into a dining room where a fine feast was laid out for two, Crowley was actually starting to congratulate himself on a job well done. How long could this curse last? A year? Three years? Surely no more than that. And all he had to do was enjoy a nice warm castle with excellent food and good wine. A few plants here and there and it would truly be a paradise.
They shared a pleasant meal, even if the conversation was a bit strained (the monster had been expecting many more tears and many less questions about what he thought of the lamb, and was a bit slow to change course). After Crowley had refused dessert and the creature had finished both servings of a delicate and delightful meringue, the demon decided that he would see what the sleeping accommodations would be. He was led to a room with a bed that could fit seven, piled high and white with silken pillows and fine down quilts. Crowley climbed into bed at once and sighed with comfort. The room went pitch dark, and the monster took off his terrible form, but Crowley couldn't see what he looked like.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked, when it bid him goodnight and made to leave the room.
“Heavens no!” it exclaimed. “We’ve only just met!”
“Well what were you planning on doing with that maiden then?” asked the demon, who felt that the story had gone a bit off the rails even before his interference. (The beast didn't fit the definition of one, and was rather a nice sort of being, whatever it was.)
“Well I don’t know exactly,” it replied. “But it wasn't going to be that. ” The demon thought this over for a moment or two before deciding that what he really needed to get a handle on the situation was a long nap.
“Suit yourself, said Crowley, and proceeded to fall fast asleep and remained that way for five consecutive days.
The creature spent that time wandering through the castle, reading, sipping its cocoa, and wondering if it had somehow gotten the whole thing wrong from the start.
When Crowley awoke, he spent a little while enjoying the castle and much more time enjoying the company, especially once the thing had summoned up a pair of dark glasses to shield Crowley’s eyes from the great and terrible light it emitted at all times, except in the velvet darkness when the demon couldn't see him anyway. It was good to talk to something non-human that wasn’t another demon, though he couldn’t say what the thing had originally been.
Eventually he got round to asking for its name (because referring to the monster as ‘it’ in his head was altogether rather tiresome) and it’s name was Aziraphale. The pair became fast friends, mostly because the conversations quite charming and there wasn't much benefit in being enemies with the only other being he got to interact with on a daily basis. But it didn't take too long for the demon to realize that his new friend often seemed distant and depressed, and he suspected it might have to do with the curse.
“Can you talk about it?” Crowley had asked him sometime around the second month, “Or is it one of those things that’s impolite or impossible to speak of?” The resounding silence told him everything he needed to know, and they moved on to a discussion about Ancient Greece. (They both missed the figs drizzled with honey.) Things continued on like this for some time, but Crowley was growing increasingly frustrated that Aziraphale never shared his bed.
“Even just for sleeping,” he had whined when one night, four months into Crowley’s voluntary imprisonment, when Aziraphale made to leave him again. “I bet it’s part of the curse, may as well get it over with.” The monster, who had identified that the genre-savvy demon would stumble upon this salient point some time or another, gave in, and put out all the lights in the room, transformed into his true self, and laid down beside him.
“You’re so warm,” said Crowley, as he wrapped himself around Aziraphale, nuzzling into his neck. “And soft.”
“Yes, well, you’re not - you’re very -” Aziraphale was flustered, and Crowley wondered what sort of story it was where the ‘beast’ started blushing like a bride on her wedding night the moment things got a little cozy.
“Go on?” Crowley whispered.
“Beautiful,” Aziraphale said. “You are, I mean. And I do like you very much.”
Not much sleeping was done that night, or the next few nights that followed it, after all.
Things went on quite happily for a while, but Crowley realized that the six months were almost up, and he would have to report back to his supervisor again of how the scheme was all going (barring the intimate details, those were for Crowley alone). On the appointed day he found a room with a harp (the most un-hell like instrument he could possibly imagine) and waited for the inevitable.
CROWLEY. The voice hummed along the strings, sounding as divine and uncorrupt as a choir of nuns at vespers. WE HAVE SOME RATHER BAD NEWS.
“And what is that?” he asked, because, honestly, this was all going rather well for him and it was so like hell to muck things up just when he had his ducks all in a row.
WE FEAR THAT WE KNOW THE IDENTITY OF THIS MONSTER. Crowley replied that he didn’t see why it should be of their concern, but his supervisor continued.
WE BELIEVE HE IS OUR ENEMY, THE ADVERSARY, AN ANGEL OF GREAT POSITION AND POWER. HE INTENDS TO CORRUPT YOU, OR SMITE YOU, AND HE MUST BE STOPPED.
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong,” Crowley disagreed. He had known angels, even been one, long ago, and Aziraphale was nothing like them. They would speak nothing but love and righteousness out one side of their mouth while they went and started the Crusades with the other. Aziraphale was, well, he was Aziraphale. He was a bit absent minded and had an irritating streak of goodness in him, but he was also intelligent, amusing, and kind in ways Crowley had encountered in neither the humans he met in his long time upon the earth nor the angels he had once lived alongside in Heaven. Not once had Aziraphale ever said anything about Crowley’s unusual eyes, for one, or even tried to smite him. Plus, their nighttime activities were quite gratifying indeed and certainly an angel would never entertain that sort of thing with a demon. “He’s not like them at all, I would know.”
WE MUST BE SURE. YOU WILL TAKE THIS.
At this bit of black candle appeared suddenly in Crowley's hand. It tickled with hellish energy. He slipped it into a pocket.
TONIGHT YOU MUST WAIT UNTIL IT IS ASLEEP. LIGHT THE CANDLE. YOU WILL SEE.
Then the voice in the harp was gone.
Crowley did not like following orders, but he was a curious demon, and the offer to finally see what his companion looked like proved to be too great a temptation. After they had gone to bed, he waited until the gentle snoring beside him had become deep and regular, and then he lit the candle. He let the light shine down on the the creature, and Crowley was horrified to discover that Aziraphale was well and truly an angel, and also the most handsome angel Crowley had ever seen, all curly blonde locks and perfect skin and long eyelashes. The demon supposed his eyes were blue, and he longed to see them in the thin light of the morning. Crowley also realized, with a resigned sort of giddy sadness, that in spite of all his attempts to wriggle out of it he had somehow tripped and plunged headfirst into the story anyway.
He had fallen in love.
The demon knew he was probably in trouble with someone over this, but right then all he knew was that if he didn’t kiss Aziraphale at that very moment his heart might pound right out of his chest and make a mess all over the clean white sheets. So Crowley leaned over to kiss Aziraphale’s gently on the lips, as he had done many times before in the dark. But as he did, three drops of hot tallow from the candle dripped onto Aziraphale’s shoulder, and he woke up, startled and dismayed.
“What have you done?” Aziraphale cried. “Now you have ruined it for us both, for if you had held out only this one year, I would have been free! Heaven laid this curse upon me as a punishment for my idolatry of the world before the Host. If I could have proved that the Earth was full of faith and patience and love for one year -” The angel sadly shoot his head. “But now all ties are broken between us, and I must return to Heaven forever.” Crowley, furious with himself for being taken in so thoroughly by Hell (for he supposed that they had engineered this whole thing, as punishment for his own demonic failings) cried and grieved, but there was nothing to be done, and as dawn approached Aziraphale would have to go.
“I cannot come with you,” said Crowley, for he had been a denizen of Heaven before, and knew the rules. “But can I follow after you?” Aziraphale thought for a moment.
“I suppose you could? But it lays east of the sun and west of the moon, and my dear, you’ll never be able to find your way there.” Crowley took this as a challenge, and kissed his angel, and told him that before the year was out, they would be together once more. In for a penny, in for a pound, if he was this deep in the story already.
The next morning, when Crowley awoke (and he did not remember falling asleep, but supposed that it must have happened), both Aziraphale and the castle were gone, and he was lying half in a scummy pond that smelled like dead frogs.
Crowley understood that this was not an auspicious beginning to his quest.
He supposed that he could sit in his wet trousers and cloak and have himself a good cry, but afterwards his cheeks would be as damp as his cloak and he wouldn’t be any closer to Aziraphale, so instead he set out on his way.
Crowley flew for many days, until he came to a high cliff. A boy sat there, dressed all in white, a bit too old to be a child, too young to be a man, and he was weaving a crown of long grass. The demon (who was no fool and knew that these sorts of things didn’t just happen way out in the middle of nowhere) asked the boy if he knew which was the way east of the sun and west of the moon.
“Oh, you’re wondering about the angel, aren’t you?” the boy, whose name was Brian, asked. “Maybe you are the one who should have had him?”
Crowley felt that the question was a bit too forward for anyone to be asking, and absolutely not one he was inclined to provide an answer to, especially not to a child. Instead he gave a helpless sort of shrug.
“No, it’s you, I can tell. He has been taken away to Heaven, which lies east of the sun and west of the moon, and you’ll get there too late or never. I don't know the way, but you may visit my friend, Wensleydale, who’s on the next cliff over. He might know more.” Crowley thanked the boy, and spread his wings to take flight.
“Wait!” Brian said. “Take this crown with you, you may have use of it.” So Crowley placed the crown of long grasses upon his head, and then flew a long time until he came to another cliff, as Brian had foretold, where sat another boy, all in black. He was fiddling with a bit of string and twigs that one (if one was more forgiving than most) might have called a set of scales. Crowley asked him if he knew the road that would take him east of the sun and west of the moon, and he answered, as the first boy had, that he didn’t really know, but his friend Pepper was the next cliff over, and she might know more.
“Do you ever get together?” Crowley asked. “Like, the cliffs thing, how does that all work? How do you communicate?” Wensleydale gave him a funny sort of look, but didn’t reply, and before Crowley took off to go through the whole rigmarole again with whatever strange child lived on the next cliff over, Wensleydale tucked the scales into the pocket of his cloak.
“You might have need of them,” he said.
When Crowley reached the next cliff it was indeed the same thing all over again, although this time the child was a girl in red, and she was playing with a sharp stick she referred to as a sword.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said when she saw him. “I suppose you are the one who should have had the angel?”
“I did and I’d like to again,” said Crowley, who was beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that these children were not all they seemed. “So if you could point me the way east of the sun and west of the moon I’d appreciate it. And no sending me off to someone else. You’re the third child and I know these things work in threes.” But Pepper slowly shook her head and shrugged.
“There is another. He is in the field below us. Take my sword with you. You may have use for it.”
Crowley - for the first time since his quest began all those months ago when it was just a stupid, half-baked plan to lead a village into temptation by meddling about in the proper order of things and maybe meet a cool monster living the woods - was afraid. A fourth child was not part of any of the stories he knew.
He landed on the field with trepidation. The fourth child was another boy like Brian and Wensleydale, but also not like them at all. The demon sensed a vast and incomparable power within the fourth child, who looked over Crowley’s crown and scales and sword with an approving eye.
“I’m Adam,” the child said. “You’re doing alright so far, but remember that Aziraphale is the one who has to use the sword.” Crowley was very confused and asked him what he was talking about, but Adam only smiled and said that he didn’t know the way east of the sun and west of the moon, but the east wind might, and gave Crowley directions to where this wind lived.
But when Crowley arrived, the Eastern wind shook his head and told Crowley that he didn’t know the way to Heaven, but that his brother, the Western wind might.
“No,” said Crowley, pretty fed up at this point. “I’ve gone over all this with those kids, I’m not doing it again. You'll take me to the Western Wind, who will want to take me to the South Wind, who will take me to the North Wind, who is the oldest and most powerful of all. We're going to skip all of that, and you can take me to the North Wind right this instant.” The Eastern Wind meditated on this for a moment, and agreed that it would save everyone a whole lot of time and trouble, and so took Crowley straight to the home of the North Wind, doing a bit of grumbling about the proper order of things along the way.
“Of course I know the road that leads east of the sun and west of the moon,” said the North Wind, and Crowley very much wanted to shout ‘I told you so!’ at the retreating back of the Eastern Wind. “It is a quite a long way off, but if you aren’t afraid I will take you on my back and blow you there.”
Crowley was so relieved that he had finally found someone who could actually help him that he could have sobbed. No, he was not afraid, and yes, could the wind please take him east of the sun and west of the moon.
“We will set out early tomorrow morning, for we will need the whole day if we are to get there at all,” said the North Wind.
Early the next morning the North Wind woke him, and puffed herself up and blew and blew, as if they would not stop until they reached the end of the world. The sharp gusts ripped at Crowley’s feathers and tumbled him through the air, but he kept a firm hold on his crown and scales and sword.
They tore on and on, over the waves of the northern seas, over acres of forests and towns and cities, pulling water and trees and roof tiles in their wake. Just as the last rays of the sun slunk over the horizon, the wind managed to throw Crowley onto the shore before a pearly gate, but she was so exhausted she had to wait many days until she could go home again.
Crowley, expecting to be poisoned by the sacredness of heaven and combust at any moment, wandered about the gates for a minute or two, while St. Peter gave him a look that said he was about to call security if Crowley didn’t shove off. But then a heavy weight appeared on his head, and the crown of long grasses had become a fine filigree crown of blackened silver. The pocket of his cloak strained, because now it was filled with a silver set of scales instead of bits of grass and twigs. And finally, his belt sagged, the little stick sword having transformed into a short blade of razor sharp steel.
The demon looked over, and St. Peter had noticed the crown, and there was a sudden buzz of activity behind the gates until St. Peter could find someone who was qualified (and compensated well enough) to deal with this issue. The crown faintly buzzed on his head, and Crowley wondered if his various accoutrements were protecting him from Heaven’s divinity.
“Hey you,” said Gabriel, the assistant manager (because Heaven would insist on being even more thoroughly bureaucratic than Hell) that St. Peter had fetched. “That crown, what do you want for it?”
“It’s not for sale for mercy or absolution,” declared Crowley.
“Well if it’s not for sale for mercy or absolution, then what will you give it for? I understand that demons fancy themselves shrewd negotiators. I will allow you to name your own price.” Crowley considered this.
“You may have it if I may get to Aziraphale, who is stuck here, and speak alone with him for one minute.”
Gabriel didn’t like it, but yes, it could be done. Crowley insisted on keeping the crown with him until the full minute had gone by because he wasn't an idiot, and to this Gabriel also agreed, and fetched the angel Aziraphale and positioned him against the gate that Crowley might speak to him through the bars.
“Your one minute begins now,” said Gabriel, and vanished from sight.
“Aziraphale?” said Crowley, but the angel’s face was impassive, blue eyes dull and not at all how the demon imagined they would be.
“We don’t have time for any of this,” said Crowley, and wrapped Aziraphale’s fingers around the sword.
“I’m supposed to do this three times,” Crowley was hurried and anxious, “but I’m fairly certain that this crown is the only thing keeping me from bursting into flames or something, and I never cared much for the whole threes motif in the first place.” Aziraphale tilted his head to the side, listening intently, but still without that spark of awareness. “So please,” the demon’s voice cracked, was strangled, desperate. “If I ever meant anything to you you’ll snap out of whatever brainwashing they’ve wrung you through and we can escape.” For good measure (and because it’s how these things were done) Crowley kissed him through the bars three times, once for each drop of tallow he had spilled on Aziraphale’s shoulder.
Then there was a humming sort of sound, and the sword was aflame in Aziraphale’s grip, and recognition shone in those blue eyes that were more perfect and beautiful than the demon ever could have dreamed.
“Crowley?” he murmured, confused at first, but then he beamed at the demon as if he were the only thing that mattered in Heaven, Hell, or anything in between. “You came for me? But how-”
“No time for that, angel,” said Crowley, who wanted very much to hug his angel very tightly, and would have ripped apart the bars between them if it had been in his power. “We’ve got about ten seconds before they come for you and this crown, and we have to get out of here.”
So it was that Crowley and Aziraphale, swinging a set of silver scales and a flaming sword, respectively, slammed the pearly gates open on right Gabriel’s fingers and flew from that place. At this point, Gabriel flew into such a rage that they exploded on the spot (although Crowley felt that was a bit over dramatic, even for an archangel).
As for Aziraphale and Crowley, they ran as far as they could from the Heaven that lay east of the sun and west of the moon and returned to their own version of paradise: the little village where Crowley grew his bountiful gardens. Shortly after they had taken up residence there, the miller's youngest daughter and the blacksmith's ex-wife were elected co-mayors in something of a landslide, and immediately began instituting a set of revolutionary new economic and social policies that did away with feudalism entirely and set the village up as something of an autonomous collective. (Crowley would blame Aziraphale, Aziraphale would blame Crowley, but the truth was that they both didn’t like the local lord at all, and felt that the village deserved some degree of self-determination.) And because Crowley had (in his own way) led an angel into temptation, and because Aziraphale had proved that there was faith and patience and love upon the Earth (the fact that he had found it in the form of a demon didn’t seem to be in breach of the terms of his curse), the powers that be admitted that the pair had won that round, and let them alone.
There were lazy summer days where Aziraphale would read in his chair while fondly watching Crowley criticizing the plants, cold winter nights where they would cuddle together before the fire, and there would be times when they would laugh and cry and argue and kiss and make up, and they would live happily ever after.