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“Why?”
When I first molded Adam and Eve 6,000 years ago, I made a vow to myself to always listen to their descendant’s prayers. They were My children after all, and although there had been no mothers yet, I figured it wouldn’t be very motherly to ignore Her children’s pleas. Answering them was another matter, but I’m omnipotent. I could surely listen to everyone.
It was easy at first, during the cave days when all they would ask was to let their spears fly straight and for their children to live past birth. Then they got comfortable and started thinking. Consciousness, that was my biggest mistake, right after humidity and tea getting cold. Then came the most dreaded question of all.
Why?
I get it from humans constantly, why did I lose my job, why did my wife leave me, why did my child die from cancer at five, blah blah blah. I tune them all out at this point, I can’t stand it any longer. Why? Because I’m fucking God, that’s why. I can do what I want. That’s why the Fall happened; you can’t be an angel of the Lord and question what She does. Now none of them talk to Me anymore.
Until, one day, I hear in the corner of My omnipresent ear, that shaky, raspy, desperate question from My former angel. Crawley. No, it’s Crowley now, for some reason. Humans and angels I can ignore, but here I let My curiosity get the better of Me.
“Why what, Crowley?”
He looked around, shocked that I actually responded with words rather than vague thoughts in the back of your mind that you can’t quite delineate from your own. The demon was outside a club in SoHo, collapsed in a puddle in an alleyway, his Bentley nowhere in sight. Exactly where I planned him to be.
“You’re actually bloody here aren’t you?”
His eyes were red and dry, their contents stained down his cheeks.
“I’m everywhere, Crowley. Always.”
“Suppose so.”
No quip. No sarcasm. His gaze was downcast, unfocused.
“It’s about Aziraphale, is it not, My child?”
Now, those two, that was a surprise, even to Me.
Crowley’s eyes narrowed slightly at that last phrase, but just responded, softly, “Why did you make like this? Why did you make me, this?” His voice broke on that last word; if he wasn’t a demon I might have felt sorry for him.
“I made you an angel. I made you close to perfect. You are the one who chose to befriend Lucifer, to question me, to disobey. You chose to fall.”
“I didn’t mean to fall, I just-”
“You had good intentions, sure, and look where they led to.”
Crowley opened his mouth and closed it again. He wrung out his hands and then buried his head in them, his shoulders shaking and water dripped from his fingers. I stayed quiet; I may be omniscient, but I still have no idea what to do when somebody cries. Say “It’s okay”? “It’s not your fault”? “Here’s a tissue, I’ll be a shoulder to cry on”? I’m not exactly the biggest fan of lying.
After a few deep, gasping breaths, he ran his hands through his hair and looked around, desperately, as though looking for someone who was on the next floor up. “I thought our life was perfect. Heaven forsook him, Hell abandoned me. It was just-us. We were us. That was all I needed. Him. In his crisp old coat and his belief in good and his adorable love of mysteries and his stupid attempts at magic and his smile. He was enough for me. But me-I guess I was just a shadow to him. A pale memory of what I used to be. We could only be an ‘us’ if I was an angel. One of the ‘good guys,’ whatever that means anymore. And I can’t, I could never be that again. I just wish I never fell in the first place. Then he might still be here. Or maybe I went too fast for him at the end. Either way, it’s my fault.”
“Oh, Crowley. You were, well, lovely. One of My favorites, may I add, one of My mightiest archangels. But you always had to fall.”
“Right, the Great bloody Ineffable Plan.”
“Well, yes, but it’s who you are. I should have known that when you painted the galaxies and hung the stars that you would’ve fallen in love. I mean, I’ve always known, but the point still stands. So many of your comrades fell because they hated me and hated being told what to do and hated not having ‘autonomy’ or ‘a voice’ but you fell because you fell in love fast and loved hard. You loved creation so much you wanted it to last millions of years. You loved Earth so much you risked total annihilation to protect it from myself and your boss. You loved-” I took a metaphysical breath here; I’m still pissed about them. One angel and demon in love I can handle but two? That would look horrible on me. “You loved, that, angel, so much you risked your life again to help him with Gabriel.”
Inhale. Exhale. Frantically searching for something to say. “That’s not actually a nice thing to say to a demon.”
“The truth isn’t nice. And you’re not a demon. Not really. Not anymore. You two have become something else entirely.”
“Why are talking to me? If you’re trying to get me to change my mind, it won’t work.”
“A Girl can try.”
“If Aziraphale couldn’t get me up there, then fat chance you have.”
“Good Me, Crowley, what’s with the hostility?”
He hopped up to his feet, wiped his eyes, and glared at the sky. It was as though something clicked, and any signs of desperation or grief were replaced by vitriol. “Because this is what you do, shower someone with compliments and exactly what they want to hear about themselves to get them to do your dirty work. It probably worked on my angel, that brilliant idiot, but it won’t work on me. You’re also wrong. Because while I may love the sky and the Earth and my angel, I really fucking hate you.”
“How rude! You know I was going to tell you how Aziraphale was, but-”
“Oh, don’t you dare.”
“Don’t I dare?” A crack of thunder split through a perfectly pleasant evening. “Don’t I dare?” I forgot what I fucking prick he could be.
“Oh, thunder, I’m so scared.”
Lightening. “You ought to be.” If he wasn’t so important, I’d turn him into a shadow on the wall right about then.
He spit up at the sky and quickly miracled it away. “You fucking leave me alone.”
“So you don’t care about Aziraphale then?”
Crowley stumbled out of the alley, as though trying to escape an omnipresent deity. “You have no fucking idea. And I get any whiff that you do anything to him, I will-”
“What? Wage war on heaven?”
“I’ve done it before.”
“With legions. Now you’re on your own.”
“Like you said, I’m a lover. And you have no idea-or well, I guess you do, but still-what love can make someone do.”
“What do you want? Where are you going”
Crowley was falling through the empty streets towards some destination, moving as though his mind was sober and his body was drunk. “I just want my angel back. But unless he’s in danger, he has to come back to me. After everything, I can’t go to him, not if he doesn’t want me. I’m so bloody tired of heaven and hell and angels and demons and most certainly of all, you. It’s none of your business where I’m going, just shut up and piss off.”
I left. I wanted to smite him, but all in the Ineffable Plan that I force myself to stick to. Creating it was easy, that first push of inspiration, but it’s the discipline, of denying yourself for greater rewards, that’s what builds champions. And deities.
Now, I could have told Crowley that obviously Aziraphale loved him exactly how he was, and that he only wanted him to go to heaven because he thought it would make heaven better. I could have told him that I created politicians, red-pillers, and Catholic priests and used My brilliant powers of guilt-tripping to make him think he had a duty and obligation to an institution that only ever hurt him. I could have told him that I had the Metatron slip a little something into Aziraphale’s coffee for extra insurance. But that would’ve been no fun at all. Besides, I needed him on Earth and wallowing in self-pity and burning with hatred for my next bit.
He went to the bookshop that night, by the way. Aziraphale obviously could leave it, but Crowley couldn’t. Now, Crowley didn’t actually think his angel was coming back (his distaste for Me ranked just lower than his negative self-image), but, with Muriel’s help, he still stayed off any potential bibliophiles from the shelves. Aziraphale loved the books too much, and Crowley- Well. You know.