Chapter Text
Most angels didn’t sit at bars. Most angels also didn’t team up with a demon to stop the apocalypse. Aziraphale wasn’t most angels, and in the two months since the world failed to end he was finally comfortable with that. He sat at his usual spot at the bar one seat from the wall. The vacant red bar stool closest to the wall didn’t just seem empty . It seemed to radiate disappointment whenever he glanced at it, and he made the unfortunate mistake of glancing at it a lot since he arrived.
The bartender also glanced at it as he uncorked a bottle and poured a glass of red wine. Mickey Tucker, a man in his 30’s with a well-groomed beard and a soft-spoken voice, was a friendly chap. The sort that thrived in this setting. He gave the regular’s nicknames and did this in such a jovial way that everyone just accepted the names they were given. Even Crowley had not objected.
“Raphael, where’s your boyfriend tonight?” he asked as he placed the glass down in front of Aziraphale.
“He’s not really…” said Aziraphale, but decided there was absolutely no point in trying to explain his relationship with Crowley to a human. No human could ever understand it. It had been over 6,000 years and he wasn’t sure even he understood it.
Crowley and Aziraphale had been frequenting this bar since they averted the apocalypse. Neither of them remembered it prior to the events of that fateful Saturday, but with a name like Apple and Sword it had caught their attention. They had gone in to satisfy their curiosity, but it turned out to satisfy both Aziraphale’s love of fine wines and Crowley’s love of things that were trendy. The bar managed to blend both modern and classic styles, maintaining a sleek minimalist look yet still remaining cozy. The well worn oak bar and wooden tables gave it a warm inviting feel while the modern lamps hanging down from the ceiling on crisscrossing poles and chic red chairs and bar stools attempted to give it an only-trendy-people-belong-here vibe. It did both and neither. Somehow it just worked, and it suited them both.
“Don’t even try to deny it. I’ve seen the way you look at Mr. Anthony J. Sunglasses, and it might be less obvious, but I’ve seen the way he looks at you too.”
“Crowley decided to check out one of those open-air concerts. Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid.”
The angel took a sip of his wine and tried to let go of the disappointment. Let Crowley have tonight. Aziraphale was used to being in the thick of things. If he had still been on Heaven’s good side Gabriel would have probably given him an assignment tonight. Most events of any moderate magnitude he’d be assigned a job. It felt good to sit this one out and just breathe, not that he needed to breathe.
“One of those Doomsday concerts?” asked the bartender. Aziraphale turned back to look at him.
“That’s an unusually pessimistic outlook, especially coming from you . It’s supposed to be a celebration of what we still have. For example, good wine at a fine restaurant.” He raised his glass, giving Mickey a sort of salute and took another sip. Mickey laughed.
“I don’t know about ‘fine’, but I like to think the old man and I run a good, clean establishment. I meant no offense to Mr. Sunglasses. I guess, I just don’t see the fuss with this festival. Shutting down whole sections of the city for it and all. Most people can only half remember what happened that day.”
“Maybe that’s the reason,” said Aziraphale, “People do like to make sense of things. I suppose this festival is a way for them to do that. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“Obviously you must see something wrong with it otherwise you’d have joined Mr. I-Wear-My-Sunglasses-at-Night. Which one did he go to, anyway? ‘Highway to Hell’ or ‘Kraken’? He seems like a ‘Highway to Hell’ sort of man.”
Aziraphale failed to hide the smirk on his face. “Neither. He’s going to ‘Escape from Grievous Bodily Harm’,” said Aziraphale.
“That’s one of the band names? And you say it isn’t a Doomsday festival?”
“I believe the key word in the name is ‘escape’,” said Aziraphale.
“If you asked me, we haven’t escaped anything,” said a middle-aged woman with an American accent, Boston, if he had to guess. She hadn’t said anything since she sat down. Aziraphale had said hello and she merely nodded at him. Evidently having downed most of her beverage made her more talkative. “Climate is going to shit and so is everything else.” Mickey excused himself to attend to a couple who had just sat down.
“Yes, there may be some terrible things happening, but there are also plenty of good ones,” said Aziraphale, unable to resist the urge to be encouraging. “We mustn’t lose sight of that.” The woman shook her head, her silver earrings swaying as she did.
“It’s too late. If you asked me, we just postponed it a little. The trouble is no one believes in science anymore. There are people who believe the earth is flat! And the other day I heard someone say they were going to hunt demons at this festival. Demons!”
“You must have met up with the same people. I heard something similar,” said Mickey, who had handed the couple a drink menu and was giving them a moment to look it over. “Can I get you another drink?”
If anyone had been paying attention to Aziraphale, they would have noticed his cheerful expression slipping. He had heard of humans who blamed demons for the nuclear scare and the other oddities that happened, but just as often he heard theories about aliens and once he even heard a theory about a flying spaghetti monster, but he thought that was mostly a joke. What troubled him in this discussion was the word ‘hunt’.
“Strongbow, and please, none of that ‘golden’ crap or whatever they call the sweet shit that passes as Strongbow in America. Just ignore my accent. I want the real stuff!”
“You got it!” Mickey smiled, and after a moment he had returned with a bottle, and a clean glass.
“Excuse me for interrupting, but what was all this about hunting demons?” asked Aziraphale as Mickey poured the cider.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mickey. “These guys were in last night. They were arguing about stealing holy water and putting it in a spray bottle, as a defense against demons at the festival. Can you imagine stealing holy water from a church? They were dead serious about it, too. Didn’t like me laughing.”
Aziraphale’s face lost most of its color. He pulled out his wallet. “I’d like to settle up. I’m afraid I just remembered some place I really need to be.”
Crowley parked the Bentley where he liked; he always did and he wasn’t about to stop now. He did, at least, have the lights on. Humans preferred it when his lights were on, especially when it started to get dark. Well, except for when he got out of his car. Then they didn’t like it at all and felt a compulsory need to tell him about it. Crowley parked right next to the flimsy barricade that blocked off the road so that the throngs of people could walk down it without fear of being run over. He got out of his car and had barely taken two steps when a man pointed.
“Sir, you left your lights on.” The man didn’t care that Crowley parked cattywampus on the wrong side of the street up against the barricade plastered with the big no parking signs. Most people tended to accept the Bentley wherever it happened to be as though it belonged there, everyone except traffic wardens, that is, but he always miraculously evaded tickets and towing.
“Sir, your lights ,” the man insisted.
Crowley shrugged. “They go off after a minute.”
“But surely that’s an antique.”
Crowley snapped his fingers and the lights turned off. The man frowned but said nothing further. Crowley slipped between the barricade and walked down the crowded street. He could have parked closer to the actual concert, but tonight wasn’t about the performances, not really. Tonight was about the humans. He wanted to be among them and really soak it in. He shuddered to think all of this might have stopped.
While the mortals remembered events that nearly resulted in Armageddon in a vaguely fuzzy way, he remembered those same events in vivid terrifying clarity, but few people would remember his involvement and those that did would only have glimpses. As far as the Americans at Tadfield airbase were concerned, nothing out of the ordinary had happened there. There wasn’t so much as a supernatural feather on the security tapes. Crowley had checked.
The demon gave a shudder as he walked, though it was not cold. The worst had not been that business at the airbase. A burning bookshop replayed in his head, causing his heart to race. He stopped mid-stride, causing a few grumbles from the people around him. A strong desire to turn around and go find Aziraphale almost overwhelmed him, but instead he stepped out of the stream of traffic and feigned interest in one of the food vendors menu. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm his physical form. He trained this body a little too well to react like a human. Is this a panic attack? That’s new, he thought.
Aziraphale is safe. He is fine. You’re safe, the world is safe.
He bought a bowl of chips to reduce the awkward stares he received from the people inside the food truck. The taste and smell helped ground him. Slowly his surroundings came back into sharp focus; he hadn’t even realized he’d lost sight of the very thing he came to experience. He stood there for a few moments, eating the chips until he got tired of them. He willed away the rest of the remaining anxiety symptoms with a single thought. It was easily done now that he was thinking more clearly. There were advantages to being a demon.
He decided to enjoy the rest of the night and let Aziraphale have a demon free evening. He would have preferred the angel’s company, but he understood his reasons for not being here. Aziraphale may have appreciated recognition but he didn’t crave it the same way Crowley did. Not that he expected to get credit for saving the world. He preferred what he liked to call ‘anonymous recognition’. He liked it best when everyone nearby was talking or, more often, complaining about something he had orchestrated, but no one knew he had anything to do with it. This gave him a smug sense of satisfaction. He preferred the shadows to the spotlight, but the ineffable plan had made other arrangements tonight.
People lined the streets. Savory food smells, like that of the chips, drifted and mingled with sugary ones. People laughed. Balloons drifted into the air at the hands of careless children, and would eventually rain down as litter when they popped later that evening. Parents demanded, “take my hand,” and street vendors shouted clamoring for attention. Crowley approached one of the vendor stands that glowed like Christmas and sold every piece of useless light-up junk imaginable. A father with two boys stood in front of the stand. A short distance away, a grey-haired man with a stack of paper stared at Crowley. This didn’t escape Crowley’s notice. Though his sunglasses hid his eyes from view, he avoided eye contact all the same. That’s what you do if you didn’t want to be handed pamphlets or asked to sign petitions or be sold something you didn’t need. A demon didn’t spend 6,000 years on Earth without learning that.
Crowley may have been too late to save the other eight balloons littering the sky, but the ninth one drifted into the air almost exactly as he passed. The smallest of the two boys by the glow wand seller stared at it for a moment and then began to cry. Crowley leapt into the air, and even though the string was just out of reach he caught it anyway. He stooped to hand it back to the boy.
“Now you hold on tightly to that,” said Crowley sternly, “You see the other balloons up there.” Crowley pointed to an orange one well above the rooftops, but still very prominent against the darkening sky. The boy nodded solemnly. “Those are never coming back.” The father who had been helping his older son pick out a lightsaber-shaped glow wand turned his attention to his younger son.
“What do you say to the nice man who rescued your balloon?” he prompted. Crowley tried not to wince at the word “nice”.
“Thank you!” said the boy, giving him a grin. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“Don’t mention it!” said Crowley before turning to walk away.
The gray-haired man lurking with the papers scowled in his direction. Crowley pointedly ignored him, until the man deliberately stepped into his path and began to shout.
“This is you, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
He waved what looked to be a photograph in his face. Crowley bit back a sarcastic remark about being unable to see anything waved that vigorously in front of him. His demon eyes saw better than humans. Something in the photo caught his eye and a chill ran up his spine. He snatched the photo out of the man’s hand with lightning speed and stared hard at it.
This is wrong, thought Crowley, V ery, very wrong, but his face gave no outward sign of his thoughts, except for a reflexive swallow as he noticed the caption. The man’s shrewd eyes peered out at him from beneath very wild looking thick grey eyebrows. He noticed Crowley’s display of fear. Crowley noticed him noticing, but pretended not to. It was yet another example of the price he paid for training his body to automatically emulate humans. Most of the time it worked to his advantage. It would have been very distracting to actively remember to breathe all the time. This was not one of those moments.
Crowley shrugged, hoping that if he feigned indifference the man would forget what he thought he noticed. He handed the man back the photograph slowly the way a weary commuter might hand over a bus pass. “There is a bit of a resemblance, I suppose.” He said, but the man’s glowering stare continued. Crowley stepped to the side, but the man mirrored his motion refusing to let him pass.
Crowley became aware of the eyes on them. A small crowd gathered in a loose circle. Before this moment, the festival interested Crowley in the same way that a documentary about Nostredame might interest Aziraphale. It now interested him the same way a lone woman would be interested in a figure lurking in a darkened alley.
He wanted to run.
“It is you!” the man insisted. “You’re the demon of Tadfield. You tried to destroy the world.”
Crowley forced a laugh, that was not convincing.
“Don’t be ridiculous; it’s photoshopped. There are clear signs.”
Crowley knew none of these signs, but he didn’t expect to be asked to elaborate. He made yet another attempt to slide past the man.
The crowd surrounding him grew in size. Most of them held or wore glowing objects and all of them held photographs. They glanced back and forth from the photo to Crowley, confusion on their faces. After 6,000 plus years on Earth, Crowley had become adept at discerning the motivations of humans, and the mob mentality had always terrified him more than he would ever admit. He realized they were not trying to decide if he was the same man from the photograph, as most of them already decided he was. No, what they were trying to decide was if this was a performance or something else. It was the something else that worried Crowley. The man accused him of being a demon. If he performed a demonic miracle to escape, he would only prove them right, or would he? Crowley grinned. This was the 21st century. It didn’t have to be a large miracle, just a flashy one. Oh, I’m going to have fun with this.
Crowley turned and fixed the man with a stare. The stack of photos leapt out of the man’s hand straight into the air, where they exploded with a pop into flaming bits of confetti. The crowd gasped and jumped back a few feet to avoid the dome of flames raining down, not that the paper posed any real danger. The flames went out well before they landed on the crowd.
Now that he let them know it was a performance, it was time to put on a little show.
“I am a demon!” said Crowley loudly with a hint of a hiss. He grabbed the man by his shirt collar, “And you shall let me pass! For I like the world as it is!” Crowley pointed at the crowd in a big sweeping arc and hissed. “Such malice, such fear ! SUCH destructive potential! Why would I ever want it to stop?” he asked, pausing for dramatic emphasis before spitting out, “A dead world has no malice.”
The crowd cheered, eating it up; a drunk 20 something in the back pumped his fist in the air shouting “Ma-lice, Ma-lice, Ma-lice,” and a few of his friends joined him. Crowly faced the man, now properly terrified, and released him. “Good people, bad people, listen! Demons don’t want Armageddon. We are on your side!” As Crowley said this last part a small burst of fireworks crackled immediately overhead. The man who had accosted him ran off and the crowd cheered all the louder. He took a bow and ducked into a side street, grinning at his own brilliance. He remained grinning until something very heavy hit him in the back of the head.
Aziraphale found Crowley’s Bentley easily enough, an antique like that stands out, especially since it was always parked where it ought not to be. Finding him in all these people would be much more difficult. Aziraphale had attempted calling Crowley from a payphone before he hailed a taxi, but he hadn’t answered. He hoped that was only because in all this noise he hadn’t heard it ring.
Aziraphale squeezed past the barricade and headed down the street scanning the faces for Crowley and for any suspicious figures armed with plant misters. He hurried forward towards the park where discordant noise that passed for music seemed to be emanating. Escape from Grievous Bodily Harm sounded to Aziraphale like it would cause grievous harm to one's eardrums if he got much closer; that is, it would if he had been mortal. In his haste, he slipped and nearly lost his balance. He looked down at the glossy paper underfoot. Most people would have grumbled and kept on walking. Fortunately, Aziraphale still couldn’t resist doing good. If he slipped on this, then someone else might slip and they could get hurt. He moved his foot and stooped to pick it up; as he did, the light from a nearby window illuminated it. Crowley’s face stared back at him emerging from a car completely engulfed in flames.
“Oh, this can’t be good,” the angel muttered, “Not good at all.” As he considered exactly what sort of not good this was, a boy leapt from the doorway of a nearby restaurant.
“For I like the world as it isss,” hissed the boy, pointing the mini lightsaber-shaped glow wand at Aziraphale. “It’s full of malice!” The boy gave a mock-evil laugh and Aziraphale noticed the photo in his hand. A younger boy holding a balloon followed behind him.
“Ma-lice! Ma-lice! Ma-lice!” cheered the young boy, gleefully punching the air and causing the balloon to bobble in a very unmalicious way.
“Yes, alright, that’s quite enough of that,” huffed a tired looking man in exasperation as he emerged from the restaurant behind them.
“Excuse me,” said Aziraphale.” Could you tell me where everyone got these photographs?”
The father looked at Aziraphale wearily and said, “Some street performers handed them out. Bloody brilliant, but my sons liked it a little too much, I’m afraid.”
“He’s a demon, but he’s on our side,” added the older boy helpfully.
“Right, um... would you happen to know where this, err, actor went?” asked Aziraphale hopefully. “I’m supposed to… err, help with the next performance, but I’m running a bit late.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, reasoned Aziraphale. If there was a ‘next performance’, he intended to be part of it.
“He took a bow and ducked down that alley,” said the father.
Aziraphale frowned. “Thank you. Thank you very much,” he said before hurrying off.
Crowley wasn’t in the alley. What Aziraphale did find turned his blood into ice. Lying next to a dumpster lay a pair of sunglasses, the exact kind Crowley wore with the mesh to block his snake-like eyes from view even in profile. Only one lens remained intact, the other shattered. Aziraphale suspected the tire iron propped up against the dumpster might have had something to do with this. He picked up the glasses and they repaired themselves as he did. The sunglasses confirmed two things. His friend was still alive, and in danger. He couldn’t have been sprayed with Holy water, at least not here. Aziraphale felt certain of that. If Crowley had melted, the sunglasses would have been warped, as if from heat. These were only shattered.
He quickened his pace down the alley. “Crowley!” he shouted, desperation in his voice. “CROWLEY!”
Where could they have taken him? He must be somewhere nearby. You can’t just drag a man around a crowded street without someone noticing.
Then he saw it.
Where the alley joined the road up ahead, a pointed silhouette reached up toward the sky that could only be a church steeple. Aziraphale ran full speed, his footsteps echoing off the buildings.
Let me be in time…Please let me be in time.
A pervasive burning feeling greeted Crowley as he drifted back into consciousness. He first became aware of it on his face, like a bad sunburn, and gradually became aware of the same feeling, only marginally less intense, over most of his right side. Indistinct voices murmured quietly somewhere nearby. A throbbing in the back of his skull reminded him of the blow he received after stepping into the alley. He opened his eyes.
“Oh, that explains it,” he muttered as the overall churchy-ness of the room came into focus. Rows of pews lay out in front of him. He lifted his face off the floor and the burning subsided. This did nothing to alleviate the pain in the rest of his body, which was still in contact with the consecrated ground give or take a few millimeters of clothing. He struggled to sit up, desperate to get as much of his body away from contact with the floor as possible. He felt the uncomfortable tug of ropes around his wrists behind his back and another set around his ankles.
He could get rid of the ropes easily, but he wasn’t ready to give that away just yet. His captor might be watching and his ability to perform miracles inside a church were limited. He might need the element of surprise. Slowly, Crowley turned his head so he could see his feet. They weren’t just bound, they were also tied to something. His eyes followed the stone column upward about 3 feet where it fanned out into a basin. He let out an involuntary gasp, before resolving to stay very, very still. The muttering grew louder.
“Did you get a look at his eyes? What are we waiting for?” said a voice. “He is obviously a demon.”
“He’s starting to stir. We should do it now!” said another.
“No, not yet,” said a third. “I want to hear him beg . I want him to know he’s beaten.”
Crowley identified the location of the conversation as above and behind him. Ever so carefully, he shifted his body to look over his shoulder in that direction. Three men peered down at him from the choir loft. The one in the middle held onto a glass bowl full of water that rested very precariously on the railing. A sinking feeling grew inside of him and his normally vivid imagination went blank. There was no way he’d be able to get rid of the ropes, stand up in time, and run. They were only waiting for him to speak before they dumped the contents of that bowl down on him. These men couldn’t be convinced through words. They knew his act wasn’t a performance because it had been their show all along. If he spoke, he knew the terror in his voice would give him away. Crowley had miscalculated, and he would pay for it with his life.
Aziraphale may never know what happened. He might even think I cut a deal with Hell and abandoned him.
That thought was too much for Crowley. He was able to locate his mobile phone by the uncomfortable way it dug into his burning skin. He miracled it out of his pocket. It appeared tucked up tightly next to his chest to hide it from view. The angel would never hear his message in time; he was probably still at the bar, but at least he would know what happened. At least Crowley would be able to say goodbye. He hesitated to magically dial the number. What do you say when you only have maybe 10 seconds to sum up thousands of years of friendship? No, that wasn’t the right approach he realized.
Just tell him you love him and that you’re about to die. Keep it simple.
The phone dialed silently.
A creaking door sounded very loud in the quiet church, but louder still were the hurried footsteps racing down the aisle. Crowley thought he recognized those outdated two-tone brown boots as the owner skidded to a stop right in front of him. As Crowley looked up, his jaw dropped. He’d never been more relieved to see that face in all his life, except perhaps after the bookshop fire. He grinned at him.
Aziraphale did not grin back. His eyes darted about, quickly surveying the scene before finally fixing on the men above.
“Who the hell are you!” One of the men shouted.
“It’s another one. I’ve seen them together. Make it rain! We’ll get them both!”
Crowley looked up just in time to see the bowl overturn and then everything went dark.
Aziraphale wiped a splash of water off of his jacket. The men on the balcony gaped.
“Where did he go? Did it work?”
“Why didn’t it destroy that one? The water got him; I saw it!” The man in the middle pointed at Aziraphale. The men whispered to each other. “Yes, but why didn’t it destroy him?” shouted the one in the middle again.
“Possibly because I’m not a demon,” said Aziraphale, glancing towards the spot where Crowley had been a moment ago, and noticing his mobile phone. He tried not to worry as he bent down to scoop it up. It was soaked but nothing a minor miracle couldn’t fix.
“Wait! You’re not a member of our order. Who are you?”
“A member of a higher order,” said Aziraphale.
“But I’ve seen you with him!” yelled one of them. “You were friends .”
Aziraphale swallowed.
Were friends… past tense. No, I timed it right. I know I timed it right. He’s safe. He must be safe.
“Yes, well… I had to befriend him as part of a bigger plan, you see, so he would lead me to others. You’ve ruined that, I’m afraid.” Aziraphale found when he thought of Crowley, lying came more naturally. Most things were easier when he thought of Crowley. What he was thinking now, or rather trying not to think, was how close Crowley had come to that falling bowl. Just one drop and Crowley would have been gone.
I need to find him. I need to be sure.
Aziraphale turned to leave. The men called after him, their voices a jumble of questions, but he ignored them.
Aziraphale first went back to the Bentley since that was the closest spot, although something told him that Crowley wouldn’t be there. Yes, he loved that car, but after driving through an inferno with it and watching it explode he probably wouldn’t consider it the place he felt most safe and content in all the world.
Aziraphale did not make a habit of vanishing people, but on the rare occasion he needed to do that, he typically sent them to the place they felt the most content. The trouble was, it wasn’t always exactly perfect. An unhappy adult might have last felt comfortable in their old childhood bedroom. They would arrive in their old bedroom regardless of who owned the home decades later, and that could be very dangerous for them. Crowley’s favorite places changed every decade, sometimes sooner. Aziraphale didn’t expect to find him easily. He just hoped he’d sent him to a recent place of contentment and not some castle from the 14th century that had since fallen to ruins. He had never intended to use the trick on a demon.
Aziraphale tried the nearby bars, including Apple and Sword.
“Raphael! You’re back,” Mickey grinned. Aziraphale wasted no time on pleasantries. He barely wasted time on being polite as he asked about Crowley. “Mr. Sunglasses? Sorry, no I haven’t seen him.”
The curly haired waitress at the next bar grinned, as Aziraphale showed her Crowley’s sunglasses.
“Oh I’ve seen him; always wearing sunglasses, that one,” she replied and Aziraphale brightened. “Saw him some time last week. Hasn’t been in since.”
Aziraphale thanked her and moved on. He briefly considered showing the photo, rather than describing Crowley and showing off the glass, but decided against it. The photo had put Crowley in danger in the first place. He kept it stowed safely in his pocket along with a miraculously exact duplicate of Crowley’s mobile phone.
He tried several more places with similar responses. If he were on a scavenger hunt to find all the places Crowley liked best, he would have been doing well. Almost everyone recognized him by description, but none had seen him recently. As he neared Crowley’s flat, he grew more hopeful. This was the only angel, fallen or otherwise, he’d ever known who enjoyed sleep. Surely his flat must be a place he felt comfortable.
Aziraphale rang the buzzer. When there was no answer, he snapped his fingers, the door opened, and he stepped inside.
“Crowley?” He called as he moved through the empty rooms. The place looked as untouched as the last time he had been inside.
No, even more unlived in than that, not a single dust bunny, not a shelf with one misplaced object, not so much as a wrinkle on the bed or a single unopened piece of mail. Even the TV remote was perfectly placed at a right angle to the table it sat on. How does he live here? Maybe he doesn’t…Maybe it was a mistake to come here.
“Crowley, where are you?”
The plants appeared to shudder in response.
Aziraphale walked back through the kitchen heading for the door. Something on the floor caught his eye. He fumbled with the switches until a dim light turned on by the sink. He gasped as his eyes fell to a small mound of congealed something on the floor by the stove. Sticking up out of the pile lay the melted remains of a pair of sunglasses.
“No!” Aziraphale fell to his knees in the doorway. He couldn’t bring himself any nearer to the twisted remains. Crowley?! No…