Work Text:
Aziraphale had panicked.
There was no other word for it.
And (as always) his way of dealing with panic had been to just shut everything down.
Aziraphale was well aware of this tendency. He knew that his automatic, instinctual ‘No’ at any suggestion of change or the unexpected was a subconscious way of buying time, and yet — despite knowing it — he was apparently still incapable of saying ‘I am feeling a little overwhelmed and uncertain at what you are proposing, please allow me some time to consider it, and I will get back to you.’
No, he had just shut everything down.
Although the reason behind it was not quite what you might expect. In order to understand his actions, we need to go back in time a little.
~o~
Aziraphale was enjoying lockdown.
As he would explain to Crowley: No customers, and plenty of time to read.
Catching up on his reading involved quite a few of his more occult books, now when members of the public couldn’t stumble upon them and get the wrong idea if he left them out. Fascinating things, although he always felt rather transgressive, studying such texts.
As a sort of counterpoint he started re-reading The Pilgrim’s Progress. It had been a while (several decades, maybe longer) since he’d read it last, and he remembered the allegories being enjoyably uncomplicated and entertaining, even if some of the preaching was a little dry. But it should balance out the more fantastical aspects of Magic: An Occult Primer and Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century rather nicely.
If he was honest, he had always been partial to The Pilgrim’s Progress and liked to insert himself as one of the divine helpers along the way. After all there were the three ‘Shining Ones’ which were clearly angels. Which role he saw himself in tended to depend on whatever mood he was in, but he generally liked to think of himself as the third one, the one who gave Christian the Pilgrim ‘the roll with a seal upon it’. Sometimes he wondered what Bunyan had made of Heaven when he arrived and hoped the dear chap hadn’t been too disappointed when confronted with the reality.
Unfortunately, much to Aziraphale’s chagrin, this time round the story didn’t work as well as it usually did. Instead it threw up a lot of quite frankly uncomfortable questions.
If he was no longer Heaven’s emissary, then could he still insert himself as one of the angels in the story? Sure he had — looking back — always been a bit of a rebel, giving away his flaming sword (not to mention The Agreement), but he had still been on the payroll.
Now however, he had nothing to fall back on. And behind this simple thought about allegorical angels in a centuries’ old book lay far bigger and more frightening questions. Where did he fit now? He was a creature of structure and rules, and he had worked very hard on ignoring how rudderless he now found himself. Not to mention all the questions about Falling and where precisely he would be placed if God ever decided to put Her house in order…
‘Who am I?’ loomed out of The Pilgrim’s Progress and it was a spectre he didn’t enjoy one bit.
He finally gave up near the end of the first book, telling himself that the conversations became too lengthy and preachy and he knew what happened anyway.
Searching for alternative reading, the bookshop — being a considerate enterprise — ensured that he came across the cookbook section, which was a marvellous success as he decided to try his hand at a cake or two and managed to forget everything about pilgrims and questions about personal identity.
~o~
After the (attempted) burglary one his neighbours had knocked on the door to make sure he was OK. This was of course very kind (especially since they didn’t want to buy anything).
However, because of this incident he realised that one was supposed to be checking on those who lived alone. His thoughts immediately jumped to Crowley, and he realised that this was the perfect excuse to give him a call. Aziraphale had rather been missing him, if he was honest.
But then Crowley offered to come over. This would have been fulfilling every secret dream that Aziraphale held — except his eyes fell on the still open Pilgrim’s Progress, the words on the page glaring up from the paper as if personally judging him:
HOPEFUL: I thought I must endeavour to mend my life; for else, thought I, I am sure to be damned.
CHRISTIAN: And did you endeavour to mend?
HOPEFUL: Yes; and fled from not only my sins, but sinful company too; and betook me to religious duties, as prayer, reading, weeping for sin, speaking truth to my neighbours, &c. These things did I, with many others, too much here to relate.
And all the small nagging voices at the back of his head joined forces and asked: ‘WHAT IF I AM THE PILGRIM?’
He stood there, phone hot in his hand, feeling himself sinking into The Slough of Despond, helplessly. Or was he standing at the foot of Hill Difficulty? Or maybe he had been taken prisoner in Doubting Castle?
Where was he? What were the rules now? What if he got it wrong? How was he supposed to know?
And so, he panicked.
Clinging to the only rules he could think of — the blanket government advice, that surely applied to both of them — he did what he always did and held The Rules before him like a warding off sign.
He could hear the disappointment in Crowley’s voice (felt the bitter sting himself), and slowly put down the receiver.
The book lay there, as if innocent of its crimes and, despite himself, he kept reading, moving the Map of Oxfordshire out of the way with a trembling hand.
HOPEFUL: Another thing that hath troubled me, even since my late amendments, is, that if I look narrowly into the best of what I do now, I still see sin, new sin, mixing itself with the best of that I do; so that now I am forced to conclude, that notwithstanding my former fond conceits of myself and duties, I have committed sin enough in one duty to send me to hell, though my former life had been faultless.
How had he ever thought this book comforting? It was downright terrifying, a horror story filled with monsters. All this about staying on The Right Path, and not listening to the wrong people… or demons…
The plausible deniability he’d always clung to when it came to Crowley had been blown clean out of the water by Armageddon’t, and there was no way around it.
Telling himself that it was merely a human’s projections, that Heaven was quite different to the Eternal City that Bunyan had envisaged, that he had helped save the world, that his demon was unlike all the other demons and did not want anything to do with other creatures of Hell… None of it quite worked. Because Hell was all too real, and he had been there. Knew exactly how they treated traitors, and (worst of all) Heaven was no better.
He was, in a word, shook.
It was all unaccountably unsettling, whichever way it was framed. Why had he thought to read that book again anyway?
Then with sudden determination he shut it — angry with himself and with Bunyan and (rather illogically) with Crowley. He needed something different, something completely other…
His eyes fell on G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy and he tapped his fingers on the table lightly. Orthodoxy was generally something to stay clear of (he could hear Crowley’s voice in his head, clear as day, warning him), but… he was feeling suddenly rebellious and contrary, and it truly was perfect for his current mood and requirements. He needed to ‘re-discover England’. (Or Brighton, or South Wales — he forgot the particulars, except that all of it was referring to theology… Chesterton’s similes were a lot more eccentric than Bunyan’s.)
(How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town?)
Topping up his Courvoisier he retired to the sofa with Orthodoxy, cognac, cake, and a good dollop of personal mutiny.
It was several days later when he rang Crowley again, considerably worse for wear (both from drinking and from his choice of reading material), his head spinning with untold terrible possibilities and desperate for someone to reassure him that The Rules were not complete fairy tale madness.