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Crowley sat staring through his dark glasses for a minute, heart pounding, not quite daring to believe that he had just been visited, be it noncorporeally, by his Angel. His Aziraphale, who he had saved from the guillotine, kept from being shot by those witless nazis in the church. His Angel who, with shaking hands, had given him a tartan flask of holy water “to keep him from getting hurt”. His Angel who he had first laughed with on the walls of Eden, shared six thousand years of memories with, and who he had been unable to save from the inferno of his own burning book shop. The same Angel who had filled his tortured mind in the hours since he’d walked into that burning book shop and realized that said Angel was gone. Truly gone. Unfindable even with every demonic sense he possessed. And since then, his mind had been tormenting him with images of Aziraphale’s untimely end. Burned into nothing by demonfire, turned into a drifting handful of ash, his big bright eyes filling with fear as he realized what was happening, as he looked hopefully around for a demon who wasn’t there.
Crowley wiped his hand down his face, for no other reason than to pull himself drunkenly back to the present. And the hand certainly did not come away from his face somewhat damper than it had been before.
The first couple hours of drinking had been an attempt to dull the pain of the images of Aziraphale’s death. A pain like none he had experienced, not even during his Fall.
After that had come a couple hours of angry drinking to fortify himself for his plans of vengeance. During those hours he had finally come to understand Shakespeare’s gloomy plays, and his mind had filled with rage and revenge. He’d take them all on. Hell and Heaven. Armageddon be damned!
After a couple more hours of drinking, his train of thought had been replaced by memories pulled at random from his considerably long existence. Mostly they were memories of Aziraphale. And he’d reached a kind of soft, sad numbness in which he’d decided the best plan was just to stay where he was and if Armageddon didn’t finish him off, his people, or Aziraphale’s surely would soon after.
Who knew, maybe angels and demons shared the same oblivion.
It wasn’t much, but he held onto that hope like a demon drowning slowly in holy water.
But everything had changed when, through his stupor, he’d seen and heard his Angel, as if he’d been sitting across the table from him, not dead, not on fire, and not gone. What had he said, that he’d been discorporated… was looking for a receptive body… needed that book. Crowley glowed down with drunken pride at the book clutched tight in his hand, then there was something about an airbase…
But had he imagined Aziraphale? Imagined him coming to say that there was still hope? Was it just wishful thinking? Crowley frowned at the book, trying to remember what else Aziraphale had said. Something about the Tadfield airbase… and then one thought slouched its way to the front of his mind…. “We’ll both have to get a bit of a wiggle on”. He slammed his palm on the table top, startling two passing humans. That was it! His wishful thinking never could have come up with the phrase “get a wiggle on”.
“No” he commented aloud, pulling himself up in the chair. “Never would have come up with that in a million years”. He gazed dazedly around for another moment, then, Agnes Nutter’s book clutched tightly against his chest, he suddenly uncoiled himself from the seat he’d vowed to keep until Armageddon was a smoking pile of rubble, and they came to drag him away. If they, hell or heaven, still existed. And if he still existed.
He rose in a fluid movement reminiscent of the serpent he was, and promptly fell flat on his face, as the very drunk demon that he had become.
From his new position on the floor, he grinned in the vague direction of the nearest pair of shoes, “It really was Aziraphale!” he crowed with a slight slur as the floor got in the way of his mouth. Somewhere, somehow, his Angel still existed! And had come to find him, and tell him the plan. They had a plan! Crowley wasn’t exactly sure what the plan was, but it made him feel better that there was one, and Aziraphale had come up with it. It made him feel even better that whatever that plan was, it was their plan. His and Aziraphale’s.
Someone was bending over him, asking if he was okay, offering to help him up, to call a cab. He accepted the offered hand, and clambered up the bartender’s neat trousers, taking him by the shoulders when he reached their height. “He’s okay!” he shouted at the startled human, “And he’s on OUR SIDE!” and without waiting for the human to retrieve his lost voice, Crowley sauntered unsteadily out the door and onto the sidewalk where he leaned against the wall, tapping the bricks with the long fingers of one hand.
“Got to get a wiggle on” he muttered to himself, grinning again, and then quickly frowned at the empty street in front of him. “Where’d the blasted Bentley go?” he asked the air where the car should have been parked, “pretty sure I left it right here… well somewhere like here. It was on a street…” wandering out into the road, dealing out sloppy minor demonic miracles to keep from being run over, or causing an accident, he called loudly, “Here Bentley… good Bentley… come on out now” he paused, turning in a circle “I’m not mad… just come out!”
The Bentley had, in actuality been parked by Crowley half on the street, half on the sidewalk in front of the pub he’d just exited. But in light of his expected inebriation on exiting the pub, the Bentley’s breaks had mysteriously malfunctioned, and the car had managed to drift a couple blocks before hitting a lose cobble stone that had turned the wheels just enough to slide around a convenient corner where it could wait just out of sight until it was safe for its favorite demon to get behind its wheel again.
Crowley turned in a circle a couple more times, calling endearments to his lost car as he casually rerouted startled divers left and right, some of whom found themselves driving down completely different streets than they had been a second ago, and in one case, an entirely different city.
Finally he stopped, standing still, arms hanging loosely by his side, “Oh alright, you win” he called, and with a deep breath and a long sustained groan, he pushed the alcohol out of his blood stream. There was a lot of it, and it took some time. Inside the pub, the bartender who had been clearing away the empty bottles from his table, stared speechlessly as the bottles refilled themselves.
Finally Crowley’s vision sharpened, and through his iconic sunglasses, he spotted the fender of his Bentley peaking primly around the nearest corner.
Crowley stalked over to it, and pulled the door open, “Think you’re so clever do you?” he growled as he petted the steering wheel affectionately, then pulled the door closed, putting on his best scowl “Now don’t you go getting any ideas about who’s in charge darlin’. Maybe it’s time you met my houseplants…” Crowley trailed off, then beamed unexpectedly, starting the engine with a snap of his fingers (he’d lost the key years ago).
“Come on.” He said, his face settling into an expression of intense determination, “We’re going to Tadfield”