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In the Beginning, God had created the heavens and the earth. And just before the Beginning, the angel that Crowley used to be had stretched their hand across the universe and given it the gift of gravity and light and all the strong and weak forces that stretched and bent it all together, no extra maintenance needed.
Were you there when the morning stars sang together, and all the angels shouted for joy?
Crowley had been there. And he had been one of those morning stars, and he'd been a little pitchy, but he'd been on time. And he had thought, deep down, that it was a bit of a waste, having all this incredible stuff in the universe that the humans couldn't even see from Earth. And it wasn't like the Earth would travel through space in any pattern entropic enough to even see a good fraction of it in 6,000 years, either. But he'd been there. And he'd sung. And he'd done his fair share of shouting. Well, he hadn't been Crowley, then, they'd been--
Well, now. No use thinking about that.
Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion's belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
He'd just asked questions. That was all, really. Maybe he'd been too annoying or too talkative or too something, who knows. He'd spent long enough languishing in the pit dismayed at his tarnished feathers, trying to put the blame on Lucifer, on Beelzebub, on Abbadon, on anyone that wasn't the Almighty. Because maybe, just maybe, there was just enough of the angel he wasn't left inside him to feel a little bad for doing so.
It was easier to bear when he said he hadn't really meant it. And he hadn't. It wasn't that he'd particularly enjoyed Heaven. The food hadn't been too great. Angels always told him what to do without giving a good reason for why. But he'd gotten to get creative, and he'd gotten to build things that made him happy.
Back when he knew what that meant, of course, back when he had been--
Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Crowley doesn't know how he hasn't exploded or exploded something already, though the plants in the backseat quiver in his shadow. He's far too calm, he thinks, far too still, given everything that just happened. There's not a single cloud in the sky to suggest a stormy mood, nor is the sunshine warm enough to imply a heated temper. It's mildly brisk, Crowley thinks, though he doesn't know why he thinks that.
He'd be lying if he said he knew where he was going, but as a demon, he probably would have lied anyway.
There's too much to think about. Crowley wants to get piss-drunk and forget all of it.
What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
There are some things that the Bentley notices about the way that Crowley's driving. For starters, there is no music playing. The Bentley would have been more than happy to oblige with something appropriately rocky, even if Crowley isn't in the mood for Queen (which never happens, not really). But today he has both hands on the wheel, knuckles rigid in their looseness and wrists stiff in their motions. He sits straight with his back against the seat. He is wearing his glasses.
And he is driving at precisely 50 kilometers an hour.
Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked into the recesses of the deep?
One of the less-fun things about being an immortal angelic- no, demonic-, well, celestial being is that when memories get stuck in one's head, they tend to stick for a while. Of course, Crowley's perfected the art of not thinking about things when he doesn't want to, so rarely do thoughts slither in unwarranted.
He would say out loud that he's not thinking about what happened just now in the bookshop, not at all. For those keeping count, that would be the second lie he would have said today.
Six thousand years. Plus a dash of Eternity Before. And four years After.
And some bastards get away with just the After.
Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
It's a miracle that Crowley makes it out of London as quick as he does, at the speed he's going. It's another miracle that no one's called or bothered him in all that time. And it's a third miracle that he's managed to stay absolutely composed, absolutely cool and calm and chill for it all.
Crowley's not nice. He's not kind. He's not decent. He's not good, or charming, or sweet. He's not any of those things.
And he'll be damned if he is.
Crowley is selfish. He is self-centered and self-serving and he will make his own way in the world and have it too, forces of Heaven be damned and legions of Hell be blessed. The fact that he hadn't meant to Fall doesn't erase the fact that he had. And God-, Satan-, Somebody-- he'd Fallen.
Where were you when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'?
And that bloody stupid perfect idiot had wanted him to go back? After all they'd been through together? After floods and bombs and storms and bullets and Arma-bloody-fucking-geddon? After six thousand years with a dash of Eternity Before and four years After?
Most angels are not capable of regret because most angels do not question things; least of all, whether things could have gone differently. But Crowley is capable of more than an angel is, because he's not one. Not anymore. And he knows now, he knows down to the tiniest electron of his being, that he never should have let that idiot go to speak with the voice of the Almighty alone.
The Almighty did nothing to stop him creating the vast unseen corners of the universe. The Almighty did nothing to stop him taking a swan dive into a pool of boiling sulphur. The Almighty did nothing to stop him defying Heaven and Hell alike in thwarting the end of the Earth that They made.
And yet. This is where the Almighty draws the line. And Crowley is meant to keep to his side of it. His own side. His own lonely, lonely side.
Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
An archangel and a duke of Hell. And not just any archangel or any duke of Hell. The Supreme Archangel, and the Grand Duke of Hell, with their titles all in upper-case. Four years. What did they get in four years that Crowley had missed in six thousand plus a dash of Eternity Before and four years After? Who said they could have that? Why did they get to disappear off to Whoever-Knows-Where, into the endless expanses of Crowley's own creation?
They had held hands. They had sung together, the way they had as morning stars. An angel willing to fall. A demon who hadn't forgotten.
And eternity had been willing to overlook that? Eternity was willing to be kind?
For the first time since he'd landed in that pool of sulphur and watched the white fade from his wings, Crowley had felt a smidgeon of something vaguely holy deep in his bones. It had taken him a while to recognize what it was, how very fragile and light and human it was.
He'd been grinning like the lovesick idiot he was when Heaven and Hell alike had let its leaders go. Because a feeling like that is not made for those who had everything, who were perfectly content in every way carrying out orders and not bothering to question things. No, a feeling like that is made to inspire art, to lead revolutions, to coax music, to dare the bravest of the unknowns.
Hope is made for the hopeless.
And fuck if Crowley hadn't been so very hopeless for so very long.
Do you have an arm like God's, and can your voice thunder like Theirs?
Crowley should have spoken first. Because if he had spoken first, maybe it would have been the other in the terrible and awkward and awful position that he had found himself in. And if he'd spoken first, and if had been him, he wouldn't have even needed convincing. There wouldn't have been need for desperate measures, because he wouldn't have been desperate.
He'd be lying for a third time if he said that wasn't his first kiss, and a fourth time if he added that he knew exactly what he was doing.
But truth be told, it wasn't anything like humans said it'd be like. Crowley had grabbed twin fistfuls of collar, put his mouth where he was supposed to, held on for as long as he could bear to, forgot that he hadn't needed to breathe anyway, and then he'd just stopped. He'd stopped, as abruptly as he'd started.
And it had taken all his willpower not to wipe his mouth or wrinkle his nose or make a snarky comment about how it hadn't felt nice or good or kind at all. Maybe it just hadn't worked because maybe an angel and a demon weren't meant for nice human things like kissing. Maybe it hadn't worked because kissing was what you were supposed to do to get someone into bed with you the way angels pretend not to know, and Crowley wasn't interested in that kind of relationship. Maybe it hadn't worked because maybe the whole point of kissing was to get blood going in a certain direction, and angels and demons neither had blood nor the effort it took to get it to get a certain way.
Or maybe it just hadn't worked because Aziraphale-- after six thousand years and a dash of Eternity Before and four years After-- just didn't feel the same way.
It wasn't that Crowley hadn't meant the kiss. He had. He still does. And he means everything he knows a kiss can stand for. It was just that he wished he'd been mean and nasty and prideful and arrogant and not-nice and just gone first.
Crowley had regretted it as soon as it was over. And many things, it seems, are now over.
I forgive you.
Don't bother.
The angel inside him had cried for the angel beside him. And now, for the first time since the Armageddon-that-wasn't, Crowley bows his head, and he prays.
"I was there when the morning stars sang together, when all the angels shouted for joy. I bound the chains of the Pleiades and fitted Orion's belt. I brought forth the constellations in their seasons and led out the Bear with its cubs.
"I know the laws of the heavens. I can raise my voice to the clouds and cover myself with a flood of water. I know the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, and I know the way to the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth.
"I have journeyed to the springs of the sea, and I have walked into the recesses of the deep. I was there when You laid out the earth's foundations. I tell You because I understand. I was there when You said to the ocean, 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt'.
"I have been shown the gates of death. I have seen the gates of the deepest darkness. Everything You have created I have the power to move. Everything You know I have the ability to learn. And everything You have I have the power to burn."
And here, the Bentley stops, in the middle of a crowded M25 that does not burn, surrounded by traffic that does not move. And almost by a miracle, the other cars and buses pass the Bentley by, as if it does not exist on Earth at all.
And the driver of the Bentley, who used to be an angel, stares straight through the glass as though he can see into the penthouse of Heaven. And maybe he still can. And he says to the still, small air, "But my arm is not like Yours. And my voice does not thunder like Yours. And I, damned or blessed or whatever else there is to be, have no idea what to do next."
Dark-tinted glasses clatter across a dashboard.
"Is this it? Is this all part of the Plan? The big Ineffable Plan that no one gets to know about or question or even guess what it's about? That one? What, to- to leave me here alone on Earth while my best friend marches around in your pearly white suits doing You-Know-What to this dreadful, broken, beautiful world that You've made? Hm? Look, even when You punished Satan, You didn't let him go alone. So what is it between You and me, huh? Anthony J. Crowley, always on the short end of the demonic shtick, is that what this is?"
He catches sight of his eyes in the mirror, the serpentine brand that scars his jawbone.
"Or do You really want me home that badly?"
The word slips out without his meaning to. It's been a long time since he's thought of anywhere as home, and certainly not the all-white eyesore that kicked him out for hanging out with the wrong crowd at the wrong time. Hell's not so much a home as it is a place to crash when he gets tired of humans being better as his job than him. And his flat, well. That served its purpose.
His car, though. And his- his- well, his angel's bookshop.
In either of those places, Crowley remembers-- truly remembers-- what the good old days had been like. Back when there hadn't been sides or people or sin or virtue or good or evil, and when things had just existed. Back when rain meant a downpour of meteors and floods meant light pouring on and on into infinity. His history runs deeper than all the stardust in the sky, not that he likes to think about it.
"If all this is part of Your Big Ineffable Plan," he hisses, "then You're the one that made everything like this. You're the one who created sides, and You're the one who made everything that a demon stands for. You're the one who created pain and death and suffering, and there's nothing that any of us can do about it, because everything, everything, EVERYTHING IS SO DAMN INEFFABLE!"
Angels do not cry because angels have nothing to cry about.
No wonder, then, that Crowley is no longer one.