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After what would've been Armageddon, but didn't quite get that far, I wish I had the grace of keeping my status as an angel. After all, smoothing things over with Gabriel wouldn't have been too difficult (the execution attempt was quite over the top, anyone could surely agree, but nothing that couldn't be forgiven in the face of eternity) and everything could've gone swimmingly.
Of course, things aren't so nearly as simple when you add Crowley into the mix, that wily serpent, he complicates things in such an outstanding manor that one can't help but step back and admire it, and thwart him for it later, naturally. But, sadly, that couldn't happen. God herself seemed to run thin on benevolence as of now, like famine had slithered into her being and rotted her core, no longer seeing the good in all but the sin, like some sort of damming varnish that could only washed off in a pool of sulphur.
Who knew after all these years, that was to be my fate? Flipped through, page by page, judged, and thrown away never to be read again. Except I fell much further than from the desk to the waste bin. Much further. From the heavens to the depths of the earth.
It should've hurt more, I imagine, had that daft demon not encased me with his own wings, taking the brunt of my punishment. He was always so good, deep down. If only She could see that, he would've never have fallen in the first place. How could such a terrible sinner create such vast starscapes, stretching across the universe like punctuation in poetry.
It took less time that you'd think for all to heal, he couldn't protect me fully, after all, and I had to play with the cards of which I had been dealt. Black didn't suit me like it suited him. It just sorted brought to focus my loss, like a vignette effect framing my very being. It was a great pain, or would have been, if Crowley hadn't called me stunning in the darker hues, made me laugh when my feathers molted, white trickling from them like a river through Eden, seen but not understood.
He held me in the more dire moments, he seemed so sure it would get better that I had started to believe him.
Returning to earth was an interesting one, to walk the familiar streets of Soho a different man, or well, a genderless creation set aside like an old toy. I felt I needed the excuse of the confidence that came along with familiarity to not just choose a different vessel and start new. I liked this face, wizened and charming. Crowley seemed to think so, he thinks the black brings out my eyes, pale blue, as it was.
He finds it amusing that I have no animal form, as he does, perhaps She believed that would be too forgiving. He said I'd find one soon enough, but that's easy enough for him to say, he's been a snake for over 6000 years, though I think he's more of the straw type that hisses hello at you in your garden than that of some mighty python hunting its next prey.
I'd pick eventually.
The bookshop didn't change. Well, it was no longer burnt, and nothing had moved around or scattered off however the atmosphere wasn't quite right, it was akin to walking into a friend's home, familiar but not quite yours, though Crowley and I had christened it rather quickly as the several bottles of wine hadn't felt any different going down than they had before.
I keep mentioning him, don't I? I suppose it's hard not to when he's so ingrained into my being. If I could keep him and attach myself just as closely to him as he to me, I would. I could no longer feel his love but I didn't need to, to know it was there. You could sense it in every time I saw his golden eyes peek at me from behind his dramatic glasses, checking over me as I pulled on a dark waistcoat, jeans, boots.
"Leather matches the wings." he'd say, running his hands on the separate textures just to see my face distort, usually into a smile as his silly ministrations. He knew what they felt like though. Honestly, if he wanted to touch or embrace me he could have just asked, I was still as loving toward him as before the Fall, perhaps more so now.
Being a demon wasn't so terrible when you had him to teach you the not so terrible ways to get humans to sin. I mainly stuck to gluttony and lust, they were sometimes the most innocent. He entertained me to fill the time before I could slowly return to my books. The classics didn't scoff at me or my new parts, they bent and turned as they should and I handled them with care, giving the bin a dirty look.
Sometimes, the shop would become too much to bare and Crowley would take me out to the Ritz, or to his humble abode for me to stay for a time. He'd sometimes go all scaly on me when we slept, wrapping his serpentine body around mine in some semblance of a cuddle. In the mornings I would just kiss whatever expanse of black scale was presented to me and, well, if the man himself appeared next to me who was I to break tradition.
We'd still go to Berkeley Square, feed the ducks (not bread, they needed more nutrients than that) and sit idly on the benches, gaining stares and smiles alike. I felt I was becoming more comfortable with myself, accepting the angel Aziraphale was gone. I didn't fancy changing my name though, somethings do and must stick after so long and that was one of them, along with the tartan, of course. I couldn't give that up for the world. As long as I kept to my new colours Crowley couldn't say a word, not that he needed to.
As of late, unsaid words hung between is in the air comfortably, like unspoken conversations expressed with the eyes, a quirk of the brow or knowing smile. If only Agnes could have predicted this, it might have given me some warning. Though, looking around and seeing him, glasses off, smiling and our hands interlaced lazily, I suppose nothing could be helped and, as ineffable as it may be, I knew in that moment that all was meant to be. Damn Her and any such plans. If I had Crowley, it wouldn't matter whether I was in black or white, the shades of my tartan. All I'd ask for would be his eternity, in exchange for my own, of course.
He was ever so happy to oblige, and the ring suited him so nicely. So I might have fallen from heaven, and it may have shaped me into something I had never considered I could have been, but in all effect, I also had fallen for Crowley, and one sin after a magnitude was but a fleck of sand in a desert, a blade of grass in a garden, an apple on a tree. That surely shaped me for the better.
He kissed me and I knew then. The future would be brighter than any white and warmer than any black on a summer's day. In loving him, I realised I had really fallen long ago, it was just official now. I couldn't say that I'd change a thing. 6000 years for 6000 more, though this time, I'd spend every second of it together.