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If Hell had been more the kind to check the memos the Demons sent to the headquarters, or, in other words, if the Demons down there weren’t too busy holding buckets to save the papers no one ever read from the water leaks, maybe Crowley would have had troubles. Like… Big troubles.
We know that, as a matter of fact, Crowley is… Well. How to put it in kind words? Probably the worst Demon to ever had walk on this damn Earth. Or under. Or in the Universe, because you can’t create something as beautiful as Alpha Centauri and be a bad guy, really. Indeed, he never had wanted to fall. But it was to late, now, so… Whatever.
As a Demon, Crowley had to achieve temptations; it was the very base of his job: finding human beings, tempt then to do evil. But Crowley really didn’t like that and, besides, people didn’t need any Demon to decide to make wrong choices. So he had developed a very simple tactic to accomplish the less temptations he could AND to not have any problem with the headquarters: he just let people be their stupid, mean selves and claimed their actions as his wills. Very, very simple, isn’t it? No job had ever been easier.
So, if, one day, Mephisto had decided, Satan knows why, to open a folder related to Crowley, he would have discovered the Demon was at the source of, among others, the Spanish Inquisition, the World War II, the computer bugs and the f*cking vacuum packages which are impossible to open properly! Of course, Crowley hadn’t even been in the area when all of these atrocities had been committed; but, hey, what Hell doesn’t know can’t hurt it, isn’t it? And it had always worked.
Once, however, Crowley had almost had bigger troubles than if Hell had discovered his little tricks. From Crowley’s point of view anyway. It was, oh… It was a long time ago, during the sixth century PC. Roma had fallen and the “barbarians” were ruling a good part of Europe. Crowley had heard that a very peculiar man was part of Theodebert’s truste, a man who couldn’t be anyone but Aziraphale (or a mad sorcerer, did Merlin cross the Channel?!) and, well… Crowley tended to go where Aziraphale was. So, to Francia he goes. But Hastur was waiting for him and he was not happy. Well… Even less happy than his usual self.
“Crowley! What the Hell did you do, this time?”
As far as he was concerned, Crowley hadn’t done anything really special these last centuries. Sure, he had claimed the fall of the Western Roman Empire as one of his success but, well… It was some times ago, now.
“What are you talking about?”
“The language, Crowley, I’m talking about the language! Our people send us unintelligible notes!”
What Crowley wanted to answer was I’m sorry, did you just understand that half of the humanity is as clever as a rock?! And whose who were a little bit above that had been killed because they asked questions before killing?! What do you want me to do? Making them grow a f*cking brain through the agency of the Holy Spirit?! You tosser! What Crowley actually answered was “What?”
Hastur wasn’t known to be the most patient Demon. Well, Demon weren’t supposed to be patient and, for once, Crowley was average. If Hastur hadn’t thought Crowley was responsible for tempting Nero to set Rome on fire, he certainly would have set the snake on fire himself. Hastur didn’t trust Crowley, never had, never would, neither was he afraid of him! What he was afraid of was what higher or… Well, lower authorities would do to him if Crowley was, indeed, telling le truth. So, we could consider Hastur’s further explanations as, in fact, an act of patience.
“The Latin, Crowley! I’m talking about the damn Latin! It was already a pain in the ass to understand when it was properly written, but now, it’s the absolute chaos! It takes hours to decipher the messages our spies send us! I’m sure you’re the one responsible for this mess and, when the leaders will come to ask questions, I’ll make sure they know where to find you!”
Crowley wasn’t a good Demon, far from it, we’ve already told that, but he was goddamn great actor. Too bad he had to act in the shadow, the audience would have loved him.
“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. What is our job? Doing the evil, and all that jazz, yeah, great. But you’re not forced to do it like a damn git, you can use finesse, can’t you? Communication is the base of everything, if you don’t understand people, you can’t agree with them and what happens when Humans can’t understand each other? War, destruction, misery. Classic Latin was far to neat. And, besides, you know they adore chaos. Don’t worry, I’ve already had my congratulations for the good work.”
“You… I… You should be very careful, Crawley, because, one day, I-I will find a weakness and I’ll be right behind you to-“
“Yeah, far, far behind me… Whatever. Ciao.”
Hastur looked like ready to eat his shoes, and if Crowley hadn’t been such a great actor, he would have looked even worse. He certainly wasn’t involved in the degradation of the Latin language, but he knew very well who had created it first.
oOo
Aziraphale wasn’t a perfect Angel. This part was Gabriel’s one and, according to Gabriel himself, Aziraphale was a shame to all the Angels. But who cares about what this knob head thinks?
So, Aziraphale may not be the best Angel of all, but he’s always doing his best to do the good. That’s why he had invented the Latin; it was a complex language, sure, but it was a logic one, with a lot of rules and a lot of exceptions, because the Angel was definitely not a big fan of the rules. But it worked! It worked so well that the Church had decided to adopt this language as its own! What a reward for Aziraphale, he was so proud; even if pride was a deadly sin.
And maybe… Maybe he was being punished for his sin, that’s what the Angel had though when he had heard, during one meeting with Michael and Uriel, that the Latin was in such a state that the Higher Authorities were thinking about a second Babel debacle to put an end to it. All of this because of a malicious Demon. All of this because of Crowley, of all of them. Crowley had almost destroyed something the Angel had built. Willingly. Damn the Latin, the pride, the Church itself! He had willingly spoiled what Aziraphale had created and it was what made the Angel so hurt, and sad and… Angry.
oOo
Aziraphale was trying to find his inner peace, soul deep in some rotuli the Irish monks often send him, when he heard him.
“Angel!”
“Angel!”
And for the first time in more than six thousand years, he ignored him.
“Angel, answer me!”
“…”
“Please, I have to talk to you, that’s important!”
“…”
“I said ‘please’, come ooon!”
“…”
“You believe it, don’t you? You really think I would do that to you. After all this time…”
Ah! But what did he think? Aziraphale maybe had forgotten about Crowley’s demonic nature for a time, but he was very aware of it right now! Trusting a Demon, what was he thinking?
“I… I didn’t think you would, but you’re a Demon after all. I should have known better.”
Wait, wait, wait… Literally ten minutes after tempting Eve to crunch in the goddamn fruit, the Angel was talking to Crowley like nothing had happened and, now, he was looking down on him? Because of something he didn’t even do? Hell, no!
“Would you, please, just think about what you just said for one minute? Because I think you will immediately understand that this is ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT!”
“Crowley! Watch your language!”
Well… Old habits die hard…
“Yeah, precisely! I recently watch the language and it’s a mess, but I promise it’s not because of me!”
A Demon’s promise, great, Aziraphale was so relieved now…
“…”
“Ok, listen, when you told me you had given your flaming sword away, what did I do?”
That made Aziraphale pay a lot more attention to the conversation. “Wha-what did you do?”
“Nothing. I could have told it, I could have made the Angel of the Eastern Gate fall! But I kept your secret. If I really had wanted to harm you, don’t you think I would have done it rather than spoil a language?!”
Aziraphale had never felt this stupid in his entire life. He was truly ashamed of himself, ashamed to have thought Crowley was the culprit without any evidence, but…
“No, you’re right, I’m sorry, but it was such a beautiful language! It afflicts me so much to see what it has become…”
Crowley has a good, sweet soul; that’s why he’s the worst Demon of all. And seeing his Angel all sad was tugging at his heart strings like nothing else could.
“Hey, hey, it’s ok, we… We could invent another language! Latin is great, but I’m sure you can do even better! I’ll help you!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, come on, it will be great!”
“Can we still use declinations? I like them.”
“Sure, Angel, whatever you want.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, you just attended to the birth of the German language.
Ende.