Chapter Text
2083BC Shinar, Tower of Babel
The tower, as far as anyone was concerned, was the highest structure ever built by humanity. It was much higher, in fact, than humanity ought to be able to build. This was because among the humans, demons were at work. One such demon, stood near the top, his black wings hidden, but ready to spread. It is in the nature of all creatures with wings to wish to be high up, and the demon, Crawley, is no exception.
He had been given this place of honour, or rather, no other demons felt like fighting him for it, because he was the serpent from the garden of Eden, and despite not being of a particularly high rank in Hell, his actions still counted for something.
He could hear the whispers drifting up from below. The humans were marvelling at their own creation, still too new as a species to think to second guess their supernatural help. The demons, well, their whispers were of far greater significance.
“If it were really so easy to go back, we’d have done it already,” whispered Furcas
“We’re trying it now,” Ukobach whispers back, as if that somehow proved that it would work.
The order from His Unholiness, Satan, King of Hell, had been to make as many humans fall from Her Grace as possible, but in it some demons were hoping for a way back.
The Fall had been worse than anyone had expected. Most demons never speak of it, and the one’s that do only say anything when they know no-one is listening. Physically falling, even burning up in hellfire, hadn’t been as bad as the other thing. Losing Her. Demon-kind had bonded together in their misery, and had formed a mockery of what their life had once been like, with their ringleader, Lucifer, the light bringer, at the top of the chain of command. He was a poor fit for the hole in their essences where She had once been. But at least he was present, they told themselves, at least when he issued an order it came from his mouth, and at least they get to make as many other beings as miserable as they are.
Crawley did not believe they would make their way back into Heaven through this tower. No, this would all come crashing down about their ears. To Fall is to be unforgivable, and he knows it.
The humans looked up as clouds gathered near the spire Crawley hangs off, Crawley wonders if She is speaking to them, the demons cannot hear Her, but the humans can, if they chose to listen.
With no warning, there was a flash of thunder and the tower began to crumble beneath their feet. Rumbles came from the sky they had recently been so close to and a torrent of rain began to fall.
“Shit!” Crawley exclaimed. He had been too close to the top, and the holy lightning singed his hand nastily. It would heal, but the slow way, there was no miracle-ing away Her power. His wings had unfurled, leaving him to glide to the pile of rubble where the tower had once been.
In the distance several angels celebrated. The quietest of them, Aziraphale, flinched as the lightning hit the tower, he hoped at least some of the people had survived.
“You do not cheer, Aziraphale?” Michael said, her eyes cold.
“Oh!” Aziraphale was taken off guard, “No, erm, I mean, yay! Great show everyone!” He said, not remotely convinced of his own words.
Michael did not seem to notice this as she hummed approvingly, peering through the ranks of angels to see if anyone else wasn’t making the correct noises of enthusiasm.
“Yes, yes, great show,” Gabriel agreed beside Aziraphale, “a wonderful display of Her might.”
“Indeed,” Michael agreed before turning on her heel, “Well, that’s enough of that, come on, you all have work to do.” And with that, she, and all the other angels ascended. Well, almost all of them.
“Yes, well, I’ll just catch you up in a moment,’ said Aziraphale to a Gabriel that was much too far away to be listening to him.
He rubbed his hands together and walked sedately over to the ruins of the tower. One of the many useful things about being an angel is that even at a sedate pace, you can reach your destination in record time with one tiny miracle.
He approached a child, they were leaning rather heavily to one side
“Ana hamatia alik,” they said
“I’m sorry,” said Aziraphale, “I can’t understand you.” Languages. This was where fiddly translation problems began. Technically, Aziraphale could speak and understand any language that existed or would ever exist. But once a mind gets used to doing everything one way its rather hard to convince it to switch tracks.
“iâti kiš” the child said in earnest and Aziraphale tried with everything he had to understand it.
“Help me, please.” Aziraphale was momentarily very pleased with himself until he realised that the child’s ribs had been crushed by the rubble.
“Oh dear,” he said, mindful to reply in Akkadian. He waved his hand over the child’s midsection, that ought to have done it. Aziraphale looked up and immediately regretted it. There was so much destruction everywhere, it was a barrage on the senses. People were shouting, desperately trying to make themselves understood through a barrier that no one had ever seen before.
“Ta-ma-de,” said one person who had only fallen a short way by the eastern door, “wo-yao-zuo-le.” Which Aziraphale took to mean, “Fuck this, I’m out of here.” Which was a rather understandable sentiment.
“So, Aziraphale, having a fun morning, are we?” Crawley had slinked his way into Aziraphale’s field of vision. Crawley wasn’t sure why he was even bothering to talk to the angel, the last time they had spoken Aziraphale had made it clear that, however interesting he had been on the wall of Eden, he was not as different from the rest of them as Crawley had hoped.
“Really Crawley, How can you ask me such a thing?” Aziraphale was genuinely hurt by the statement.
“I dunno, seemed like your lot were rather enjoying the show,” Crawley said, bitter nonchalance clear with every syllable.
Aziraphale felt a pang as he recalled his earlier words “Good show”. “No,” he said. “Angles do not enjoy the suffering of humanity!”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night-or whatever it is you do at night,” Crawley said, smiling rather mockingly at Aziraphale.
“I’m not the one who decided to try something as stupid as this!” Aziraphale said defensively.
It is important to note that, at this point, Aziraphale truly believed that the demons had only meant to use the tower to cause humanity to sin, and while that was partially true, it would not be for many years before he even conceived of the other reason.
“Oh well, I’m ssso ssorry that this wasn’t what you exsspected!” Said Crawley sarcastically, “I’m sure there was no way you could possssibly have seen this coming.”
“warrin piallumukan!” Came a cry not far from them.
“I’m going to go see to that,” said Aziraphale resolutely, determined to ignore Crawley, walking over to the person buried under layers of rubble.
It always seemed to end like this, the two of them, surrounded by chaos and rain. Crawley wondered if Aziraphale would ever shelter him from it again.