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The Bentley wasn’t moving. This wasn’t an inherently unusual behaviour for it, frequently so adept at not moving that the average parking attendant wouldn’t think of ticketing it anymore than they would ticket a statue. The problem was that it wasn’t moving when the demon at the wheel was quite insistent that it should be.
It had been slicing through the English countryside with all the persistence of a scythe through a sinner1 for days on end, and had, as far as a car could experience the sensation, grown tired of it. It had started with a dragging speedometer, the car puttering around Cumbria at truly dismal 50 miles per hour. This protest had proven incapable of even raising an eyebrow, the driver hitting the speedometer a few times before settling on just covering the blasted thing with his jacket. It had then escalated to jamming the windows open at just the right height to cause eyes to water and the wind to persistently whistle through one ear and scream out of the other.
The windows had been something more of a victory, judging from the several mile long trail of glass shards along the M12. The only surviving part of the windows was, ironically, the bullet hole decals on the driver’s side.
The final straw had been the radio. It’s typical limited selection had, for the only time in its many decades under Crowley’s care, begun to expand. The first song was typical annoying fare, some repetitive shrill children’s song. Crowley didn’t so much as acknowledge it, refusing to rise to now open hostility. So the playlist upped the ante. It was twenty minutes into its most disagreeable collection before Crowley’s fist had gone clean through the dashboard. 3
Now the Bentley, as it rolled off the production line, was a fairly hearty machine. The lack of crumple zones made it something of a small tank when in a collision with some poor delicate things like pedestrians and other cars. And if you were to take a machine as hearty as the Bentley and instill it with occult power daily for say, nearly a century, that heartiness could grow into a stubborn streak as wide as the chassis and twice as inflexible.
And when it’s more intellectual attempts at protest came to naught, the stubborn streak bled. And that’s why, outside a church, somewhere miles from nowhere in the North of England, the Bentley dug in it’s heels4 and refused to move.
At first Crowley did not react. Slowly leaned forward and turned the keys in the ignition with all the quiet malice of someone drawing a piano string taut over someone else’s throat.
The car didn’t even humour him with a cough.
He frowned, and turned the key again.
It stuck in the ignition, and the handle snapped off just as his patience did.
“Now listen to me. You are my car. I’ve had you since new and you are not-“ Crowley faulted, the fire that ran through his veins sputtering and faltering for the first time since he was new. “You are not going to let me down.”
The car creaked, as though it was thinking about letting tyres down but had decided against it for now. Crowley seized the steering wheel in both hands, clutching it with such fervour his fingernails nearly split the leather. He hissed tense, angry breaths between his teeth, anger bubbling so close to the surface that his glasses began to oh so subtly melt.
And then. He let the anger go.
He headbutt the steering wheel so hard his glasses fully shattered 5 and the car let out a surprised honk.
Okay. Now the anger was gone. Deep breaths. Count to ten, and you’ll stay calm.
He’d reached somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred and twenty when someone knocked on the door.
“You okay there?”
Crowley shot a withering look through his shattered shades, surrounded by broken plastic and shards of glass. The Bentley chose this moment to deflate its tyres, a jarring drop that jostled the plants crammed in the backseat so badly that leaves and potting soil went everywhere.
“Just peachy.” Crowley said in a tone so biting it could draw blood. He pointedly brushed some dirt off his sleeves and removed the remains of his glasses.
“Oh, sorry.” Stumbled the person outside, taking off their own glasses and polishing them sympathetically. “Daft question. Why don’t you come in out of the rain?”
Crowley looked around, confused. “It’s raining?”
The human, a young woman with short mousey hair swamped in a giant yellow rain mac and mismatched green wellies, waved the handle of her umbrella around to indicate the heavy storm Crowley hadn’t even noticed. The movement doused Crowley in a generous spray of rainwater, which subtly smoked as it landed.
“Oh! I am so sorry, let me help-“ She reached in the car, moving to help sweep some of the water off of Crowley’s arm. He wrenched his arm back from the touch and snapped his full attention on her, ready to let loose a devastating barb.
She looked so mortified. Hands shaking, ever so slightly. Stumbling back, almost afraid. Exactly like-
“It’s fine.” Crowley lied, running his hands over his face to obfuscate6 the poisonous yellow of his eyes. “I’m fine.”
The woman, to her credit, regrouped. “You’re welcome to stay in the church until a mechanic can get out here.”
Crowley growled a laugh at that, “I’m not welcome in any church.”
She leapt somewhat automatically to a wrote defence. “Oh nonsense, everyone is welcome here.”
Crowley opened the glove compartment to retrieve a fresh pair of glasses. It swung open with a gentle pop, and a handful of lemon travel sweets rolled forward expectantly. He withdrew his hand like it had been burnt and slammed the compartment shut. An arm of the shades wedged in the door, causing it pop open again with some force. A small cloud of icing sugar burst out, dusting Crowley with a fine white powder. With a strangled scream, Crowley grabbed everything, sweets, glasses and compartment door and hurled it the window.
“I told him! I told him a thousand times not to eat in here, why does he never… Why did he never listen! I’ve only been right the last hundred thousand times…7”
The women softened. Ah. Of course he didn’t feel welcome in the church.
“Sir?”
“What?!”
“Come stay with me in the church hall while I call an mechanic for you. It belongs to Mr Palin from down near the train station these days, and he doesn’t even attend for Christmas and Easter.” After a few quiet moments, she added, “They have Zumba there on Thursdays”, as though that was proof of an absence of religious alignment.
“I am quite happy right here.” Crowley lied, crossing his arms and settling in his soggy, sugary seat.
“No.” She said, with a sadly sympathetic smile. “You aren’t.”
Crowley frowned at her, hoping to instill some of his renowned hellish terror into her. But his heart just wasn’t in it. Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was wanting to punish to the Bentley by leaving it to sulk. Maybe he just wanted to drink enough coffee to not be able to think for a while. He stretched8 and finally opened the door to the Bently. The woman politely stood back as the door swung open, extending the umbrella to cover it.
“Name?” Crowley asked, unfurling from the car.
“Oh, it’s Harriet.” She shimmied a little, so very excited to have finally extended an olive branch. “Yours?”
Crowley slammed the door of the Bentley by way of an answer.
Crowley hadn’t spent any time in churches outside of one emergency in 1941 which he’d rather not think about right now. In the brief moments he’d spent in the church before it had instead become scattered rubble, he’d thought it was nice enough. More like a hospital than he’d expected. For houses of supposed love and worship they were so cold and empty. Maybe humans had seen more of heaven than Crowley had assumed 9.
Church halls were far better, if this one was anything to go off of. This one had squeaky linoleum floors and fluorescent lights that reflected off every surface in different shades of dingy yellow. It smelled like cold tea and was uncomfortably warm, like wearing a jumper next to a radiator. He was taking his time inspecting the walls, which were papered over with notices dating back to the days when he used to wear bell bottoms. He was particularly engrossed in deciphering the full saga of what was presumably a missing cat10when Harriet swept back in with a laden silver tea try.
She handed Crowley a tea stained mug with the phrase “Born to Be Mild” written across it in chipped paint. He took it, not looking away from the notice board. He was dimly aware that she was hovering in the corner of his vision, with a perfunctory plate of dry looking biscuits.
“You should eat.” She said, softly.
“I don’t.” Crowley replied on reflex. He must’ve had this exact conversation with Aziraphale dozens of times, each and every time they went to eat. It was a dance of theirs, steps well worn and rote enough that the music didn’t even need to play. Luckily this human didn’t seem to think anything of the statement and placed the plate to one side.
“Mechanic says it’ll be an hour, but I’ll be honest, he’s only Pete from up the road. I don’t know if he would know what to do with a beautiful old car like yours.”
“Hmm.” Crowley murmured, engrossing himself in inspecting the art corner. “I’m sure it’ll work itself out before I need to do anything drastic.”
Harriet seemed a little confused by this, wondering what could be more drastic than replacing the windows, wheels and body of a car. She waited for Crowley to elaborate. When he didn’t she found herself clutching to whatever niceties were immediately to hand.
“So what brought you to this corner of the world? N-not that you have to tell me, if you’d rather not.”Crowley slurped his tea and hissed out the corner of his mouth. “Trying very hard not to be in a different corner of the world, as it happens.”
“Oh.” Harriet said. “I, I can understand that.” She got quiet in the way humans always got quiet when they were thinking things they shouldn’t say. 11
“Why? Church of the middle of bloody nowhere not the shining bastian of entertainment the scout notices say it is?” Crowley griped, flipping one of said notices up with his finger.
She hesitated, started saying something, hesitated again. And then finally:
“They have some good resources here, you know. If you’re running away from someone.”
Crowley choked on tea he wasn’t even drinking.
“Who talked to you?” He turned to her with hellfire in his voice. His eyes flickered reflexively, down, and then for this time in eons, up. And that frightened him, the resurgence of the ancient old fear of what upstairs wanted from him, that upstairs even thought about him.
“Oh, no, no, it’s nothing like that! I just, you reminded me so much of myself when I first got here, and I was thinking how much I wished someone had been there to you know, walk me through it all, and I know I must’ve overstepped, and if you want me to leave-”
Crowley couldn’t deal with all this noise, it was too loud, all the fluster and good intention, it was sickening. He locked eyes with her, after frustratedly reaching to whip off glasses he wasn’t even wearing, and snapped his fingers.
“You are going to be quiet. You are going to stand there and not be helpful at all, not even a little bit. And-” Crowley drifted off, mid command. Drawn inexorably to a thick piece of drawing paper pinned to the drawing board just behind her.
“W-who… where did this come from?” Crowley asked, eyes narrowing as though trying to see straight through it.
Harriet responded dreamily, in a trance. “The local art competition. This was ever so good, I think it should’ve come in first but the judges thought it would be more inclusive if one of the children’s entries won12.”
Crowley plucked the picture from the wall, as thought it might crumble under his touch. 13 “Who drew it?”
“Oh, it was the vicar. Said it came to him in a dream.”
“Or a vision from on high…” Crowley said, with the stunned tone of someone hit over the head with a dinner plate.
“Oh no. We’ve been told not to have those. It was in the parish newsletter.” 14
“Must’ve been a bloody dull dream.” Crowley murmured, holding the picture up to the light. “You said your vicar drew this? Can’t deny it’s a good likeness, he’s in the wrong profession. Course, I’m meant to say that about all vicars.”
Harriey seemed ditheringly confused by this, in a way not entirely dissimilar to her general demeanor.
“L-likeness? It’s not of anyone, it’s an angel.”
“What do you mean, not of anybody?” Crowley snapped, frustration smarting like a whip. “Clearly it’s of somebody. You don’t see it?”
He held the picture beside his face, waiting for the moment of recognition in Henrietta. When it didn’t come, he growled.
“Hold the damn tray up.”She did so, obliging as people under his suggestion always would, though not without first removing her own mug of tea and gently placing it on the floor. With the picture still beside him, the reflection of the tray showed them side by side. A before 15. An after 16.
Crowley had never particularly thought about the angel he had once been. Why would he? Certainly nobody else did. If he had to try and summarise what he felt about him, it was perhaps a vague resentment? The way he felt about colleagues that made stupid mistakes that resulted in the whole office getting stuck with overtime. Not really their fault, usually the result of piss poor management. But getting pissed at management isn’t the done thing- no-one wants to be out of a job, do they? - so they settle for this. Vague resentment.
But seeing his angelic countenance face to face like this? It was hard. Hard in a way he didn’t expect. It was certainly him. Same sloped nose. His hair was much the same, though he couldn't begin to understand who would like those absurd perky curls17. The eyes were the most obvious difference, each a bright sparkling galaxy that outshone the sky around them. Crowley’s were still bright, though that had been a source of inconvenience for him rather than some point of celestial beauty.
But there was something else. Something he was missing. Something Aziraphale thought he was missing. That this angel apparently had, and was worth destroying six thousands years of their side to get.
“This is what he wanted, eh…” Crowley murmured, pouring over the reflections thoughtfully.
Henrietta got that strange soppy expression of wanting to say more than she should again.
“Mine expected me to be a total angel too.”
“Don’t see what’s so wonderful about being an angel.” Crowley muttered.
“Being perfect all the time… that might be nice.” Henrietta supplied.
Crowley snored. “Angels are far from bloody perfect.”
Henrietta paused. “Happy, though.”
Ngk.
So that was it. That angelic vision of a version of him long dead had something Crowley didn’t. Happiness. That head in the cosmos, naieve moron was smiling. Beaming even. Not a hint of irony, damned or otherwise.
Despite himself, Crowley’s face twitched. Began to make a grimace of a grin. Because if that’s what Aziraphale wanted…
No.
“Henrietta. Once I leave, you will have no memory of me ever being here. You will wake up having had a dream. A dream of… whatever it is you like best.” Crowley sighed. And then added as an afterthought, “And whatever it is the person you’re running from wants you to be. You are not to let that change who you actually are. You seem fine. Perfect is a waste of your time.”
When Crowley got back to the Bentley the rain seemed to know better than to hit him. The Bentley too, seemed to know better than to annoy him. When he sat down, the intact windows rolled closed, and the engine purred to life reassuringly. It wasn’t until Crowley went to grip the wheel that he realised he still had the drawing in hand.
He took one last, careful look at the person She had created him to be. A perfect builder of galaxies and object of divine grace.
“Tosser.”
The demon dumped the crumpled drawing out window and sped off into the storm. He was a demon after all.
Certain expectations had to be met.
1. Which is not at all like the far more common metaphor of a knife through butter, excepting for the speed and the smell. Return to text
2. This caused several minor accidents and resulted in hours of delays across the country. Once not so long ago, this would have made Crowley quite happy.Return to text
3. The opening twang of “Earth Angel” had been crushed so violently that the facebook group of the neighbourhood the Bently had been moving through devolved into several days of furious debate as to whether some busker had been run over or if all the local foxes had somehow gone into heat at once.Return to text
4. The closest example for what the car literally did would be if the wheels on a regular hatchback were instead replaced with large rolls of double sided tape. Movement was certainly theoretically possible, but you would have hard time keeping the roads intact.Return to text
5. If he had been human, it would have broken his nose. But since that was not an option, and such a stupidly petulant action felt particularly stupidly petulant if nothing broke, the glasses were a natural victim.Return to text
6.This was, in practical terms, entirely unnecessary. Even Crowley’s customary sunglasses were unnecessary. Humans very rarely paid attention to the truly unusual as it was time consuming and uncomfortable for them.Return to text
7. Crowley had in fact, been right much closer to fifty percent of the time than he or his former bosses were comfortable admitting.Return to text
8. There several concerning snapping sounds, not dissimilar from the sound of corroded battery being prized out of the back of television remote with paper clip.Return to text
9.The renaissance had been particularly bizarre for Crowley in this respect. So many vivid tableaus depicting the rich colour and bounty of heaven. He’d long since realised that heaven, for humans, was a place on Earth. And that place was a combination brothel, grocers and theatre with the most open bar imaginable.Return to text
10. The various notices for “Timmy” dated back to around 2002, and included no less than four families, six accusations of theft, and one particularly interesting line of thought where someone Timmy had been mistaken an old christmas tree left out for rubbish collection.Return to text
11.The fact that Crowley has been able to recognise this habit of humans had done him many favours during his career in hell. If a human was quiet midway through a temptation, the worst thing he could do was try and talk to them. There was far more chance he’d talk them out of it than into it.Return to text
12.First place has been awarded to Jack Nelson, who was ten years old and had been rewarded due to his exceptional imagination in his depiction of his parents kissing. The picture has since been confiscated by his blonde mother, who seems rather upset that his depiction had rendered her brunette, tanned and suspiciously similar to Jenny Brideshead from the planning office.Return to text
13.This could be forgiven, since the subject matter predated all known drawing implements.Return to text
6. Following the events of the thwarted Armageddon, where all the terrible suffering inflicted by walls of fire and boiling oceans was undone, most religions faced the problem that salvation had been proven to be non-denominational. This was terrible for most organised religions, who’d operated on a lot of promises of exclusivity they clearly did not deliver on. As a result, religions of all colours and creeds had found themself unusually united under one simple theorem: what the almighty doesn’t let us know, we can’t be blamed for.Return to text
15. Before the beginning.Return to text
16.After the end.Return to text
17. If Crowley was capable of self-reflection, he would have known he did quit enjoy those curls, just on an angel other than himself.Return to text