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He’s gone.
He left.
Crowley willed the Bentley to start long before Aziraphale stepped into that demon forsaken elevator. It was an act of resistance, an act of anger, a desperate attempt to get him to look back.
He didn’t.
Well that’s just fucking brilliant isn’t it.
Crowley swung the door of the Bentley closed as he pulled away. The whirling mixture of emotions seemed to reach an impasse within him and he found he couldn’t push the car past the speed limit as he drove around the corner. Even the plants seemed strangely still.
The radio was on.
‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’
Crowley could have punched the speaker in his desperate attempt to turn it off.
Bloody Fucking Nightingales.
Nothing was at all good or peaceful or virtuous right now. They should all be somewhere else.
He’s gone. He didn’t know me. He couldn’t understand.
Crowley could feel his foot press down on the pedal. The Bentley screamed. He was laughing. It was hysterical, really. All this time he had thought they were on the same page, all this time he’d spent convincing Aziraphale of the demons in heaven. He thought Aziraphale had finally seen it; finally seen what he had known, all this time.
But he hadn’t.
He hadn’t seen the multiple attempts by Michael to restart Armageddon. He hadn’t seen the ways in which God and Heaven manipulated the humans like they were rats in a laboratory experiment. He hadn’t seen the lengths that God would go to in order to win a bet. He hadn’t seen that Crowley detested Heaven the exact same amount that he detested hell. He was never forced to reckon with it. He believed far too much in the idea that goodness comes first. It was always his fatal flaw.
“Curse your bloody fucking idealism Aziraphale!” Crowley shouted as loud as he could. Sparks seemed to emanate from him. His plants shied away lest they risk burning.
He drove for a long time, just circling the M25. The endless throng of commuters were probably sitting in their cars and complaining of a Bentley causing near accidents left and right. Because that’s what Crowley was all about. Near accidents, almost disasters, borderline murder. Nothing deserved to be killed on his account, but they did deserve to share some fraction of his pain.
Stupid humans with their Godlike likenesses and their short lives. No feeling any one of them would ever have, could hold a candle to the feelings shared nor the ones shattered between Crowley and Aziraphale.
After tearing back through the city, Crowley screeched to a halt outside the building his apartment would once more be in. Shax was standing rather menacingly outside the door, intimidating the passersby with her mere presence. She glared at Crowley as he got out of the Bentley, and his answering one could have burned nebulas.
“Crowley. You were given back this apartment by the dark council, and while it is here, it shall serve as a—”
Crowley pushed past her effortlessly, “Shax, if another word comes out of your incompetent mouth I will personally, douse you in holy water,” he looked back at her, daring her to say anything else.
She did not, and promptly dissolved back into the ground from whence she came.
A few people stared at the interaction, having been drawn by the loud voices. Always out for some good gossip. Crowley could almost feel his thoughts hiss. He stared at the lot of them for just a moment before turning to go inside.
Crowley opened the door and ran up the stairs to his apartment. Ordinarily he was the type to take an elevator. Much more class, the elevator. It would always grant you the dignity of an entrance. Now was not the time.
His thoughts were a tumbling mess, tearing memories at random and desperately clinging to them in order to keep themselves together. He was falling apart at the seams.
His apartment was entirely bare once again, and a fleeting thought crossed Crowley’s mind that he had forgotten to bring in his plants. His mind was long past going back and getting them however, and as soon as he entered his office, he crumpled to the ground and wept.
Aziraphale went upwards.
No longer a traitor.
No longer fallen.
The Metatron had given him the distinct honour of following Archangel Gabriel as, well, the new Archangel. It was his duty to take up the mantle. He could make a difference.
Crowley could have made a difference.
Aziraphale shoved that thought out of his mind. Crowley had abandoned him. He hadn’t wanted to make a difference, he had just wanted to let things go. He didn’t believe change was possible. Aziraphale would show him. Crowley would understand then.
“Typical, I suppose… for a demon.”
“What?” Aziraphale was struck out of his reverie.
“Crowley, dear child. He declined your proposal to run heaven by your side as an angel. Should say something about the tendencies of demons…” the Metatron stared out at the lights flashing past them. Aziraphale nodded his head uncomfortably.
They ascended a few more floors in silence.
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“Are there any nightingales in heaven? I mean, of course there are, but… you know…” Aziraphale paused, “are there?”
The Metatron turned his expressionless face back towards Aziraphale’s concerned one. “Well of course there are, child! What would heaven be without the inclusion of those creatures that inspire hope and purity and peace?” his tone was almost bemused.
“Well, I mean– I just– well I was just hoping that– oh, that’s good.” Aziraphale looked away. The silence stretched longer.
All the
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“I just mean to say… do they– are they always present?” Aziraphale asked, fingers tapping insistently, a minute representation of the tension in his body.
“Well I daresay, there likely won’t be any in your office” the Metatron espoused. Anything he did would likely count as an espousal… right?
“Oh, really– uh, erm–” Aziraphale paused, looking wide-eyed back at the Metatron, “why?” his hands clasped themselves back together in front of his chest.
“Well, obviously it could distract from the work!” the Metatron intoned, with an air of import and emphasis. “God can’t very well have legions of angels distracted by the song, however virtuous, of thousands of nightingales!” he spoke with the incredulity of someone who’d just been asked why chocolate ice cream should not be paired with smoked salmon. Aziraphale looked away.
“Ah… so, I likely.. won’t see one then.” he stared downwards unconsciously, feeling his vision fade behind a veil of water.
None of that. He willed himself to stand up straighter. The Metatron would notice something was wrong.
Nothing’s wrong. Everything has to be right. This must just be another part of the great plan. It must be, it must—
The elevator stopped. A light heavenly chorus announced the arrival of two heavenly beings at the highest office of heaven.
The light was blinding. Aziraphale should have expected that. The elevator was dimmed somewhat from the lack of inherent light given to it, but the floors of Heaven were flooded with it from an inherent source of God’s care and love for Her children.
“Well, I’ll expect that there are many a person who at this moment, wish to commune with God, and as her vocal representative, I must now depart you, Archangel Aziraphale.” the Metatron paused before returning to the elevator, “I am so pleased you decided to take the position. Your idealism will be a boon to humanity.” he gave an uncharacteristic smile and disappeared back behind the elevator doors.
Watching the Metatron go, Aziraphale was hit with the most bizarre set of emotions he had ever experienced in his life. It was as if he had been hit by a train, only, that train was filled with sadness and anger and bewilderment and was shaped like Crowley.
The room was entirely empty, save for a large glass desk and a sleek chair. So drastically different from the environment Aziraphale had crafted at the bookshop.
I suppose this was Gabriel’s old office.
His eyes submerged once again, and Aziraphale fell.