Chapter Text
Crowley’s overgrown locks of red hair fell in an unceremonious plop onto the tile floor. The bathroom of the bar reeked like a dead man, adding one more cause to the list of reasons Crowley felt like his insides were violently clawing out of him. He didn’t look in the mirror. He knew he had never looked worse.
He knew he had felt worse. There was no worse than Crowley’s worst.
The scissors he had nicked from the bar’s kitchen clanged to the ground beside the fallen hair. Crowley’s hand became limp, for he had no energy left to move his fingertips.
Facing his reality, drunk out of his mind and cutting his hair off in the bathroom of some shitty pub in Soho, was bad enough.
Yet receding back into his mind, into his memories, was so much worse.
Summoning what little strength he had, Crowley tilted his head up and gazed in the mirror. Though uneven and hanging in his face, his hair was back to the same length it had been nine months ago. When it happened. In his memories, and in reality, all at the same time, was the infinitely worse option. Overall, he looked the same. Being an immortal being, it was to be expected.
There were points where Crowley wished that he aged. It would show, at least, that some time had passed. That he wasn’t just standing in a void of nothingness, where time either didn’t exist or didn’t care enough to do its job.
Crowley hadn’t cried yet. He cried once, millennia ago. He remembered all too well how much the tears stung.
Ignoring the strange looks from the other pub-goers, Crowley stumbled through the maze of tables until he finally found his way outside. A street light glowed several feet above him, his dizzy head only adding to the over-the-top brightness of the accursed metal pole. Grumbling incoherently to himself, Crowley made his way to his car.
Bentley had been giving Crowley the silent treatment recently. It almost seemed like a perfectly normal car now, all of the life sucked out of it.
Flopping into the driver’s seat, Crowley didn’t spare a glance at the charred and blackened hole where the radio had once resided. The demon barely even remembered ripping it out. He was either too drunk then to remember it then, or too drunk now to recall.
He still had his phone, however, holding only two contacts, The first was Nina. They hadn’t spoken in months.
The second of the contacts happened to be buzzing up a storm as the phone lay on the passenger’s seat.
Muriel.
The young angel had been assigned the somewhat unfortunate role of Heaven’s representative in London. From what Crowley could recall, nearly anywhere on Earth was more interesting than a desk job Upstairs. And Muriel’s time on Earth had certainly been interesting. Crowley often wondered if they had been giving any training or education on how exactly humans worked. He would’ve been surprised if anyone in heaven knew. He had never been given any sort of orientation, but it wasn’t really necessary back in the old days, when humanity was nothing two people just trying to survive. Now humanity had climbed to eight billion, and Muriel hadn’t the slightest clue how to interact with any one of them.
After seeing more than a couple of unfortunate events unfolding throughout London, Crowley had enough. It would be more painful, he told himself, to have to witness the wayward angel learn how to be human the hard way. The only people who would get hurt by Crowley giving Muriel a little nudge along were people he couldn’t care less about.
Now Muriel had a small, bare flat they were slowly decorating with various colorful furniture. They had a real, not-inspector-constable job they didn’t get fired from on the first day for ‘strange and erratic behavior’. They were doing far better than Crowley, all things considered.
Heaving a dramatic sigh, Crowley accepted the call.
“It stopped ringing!” he heard the upset young angel’s voice on the other end. “I suppose I’ll try it again…”
“No, no, kid. I can hear you.” Crowley was surprised at how croaky his voice sounded.
“Oh! Hello, Mister Crowley!” Muriel greeted cheerily. Even after nearly a year of being on earth, she still struggled with cell phones.
“Yes, yes, hello.” Crowley muttered in return. “Whaddya need?”
“It’s a bit of an emergency, actually. I think it would be better if I were to explain it in person-”
“Absolutely not.” Crowley shot them down. “Your definition of emergency and mine are very different.” he shifted into a more comfortable position in his chair. “You can tell me over the phone.”
“Well, alright. Erm…” Muriel hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “The…the Second Coming is… it’s happening.”
Crowley immediately decided he was too drunk for this. Tossing his phone in the backseat, ignoring Muriel’s voice asking if he was still there, he rested his head on the steering wheel. He hit his head against the cold metal once, twice, three times, just to make sure he was awake, each time resulting in an aching pain he was aware of but couldn’t really feel.
“Fuck.” was all he could think to say. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck.” If this wasn’t some sick prank on Muriel’s end, or some hallucination or nightmare that had become too lifelike, that was something Crowley couldn’t bear to think about. He couldn’t even begin to think about what happened that Muriel would tell him about it.
After five or so minutes of staring at the back of his eyelids, he craned his neck to look at this phone, and was surprised to see Muriel still on the line. With fumbling hands, he managed to retrieve it.
“When?” he sighed.
“Tonight.” came Muriel’s dreaded response. Crowley fought hard against his own instinct not to throw the phone again.
“Why in whoever’s name would you call me?” he asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
He heard sniffling coming from the other end. “I…you’re the only number on my phone. Besides my manager, but I don’t think she would-”
“What happened?”
“It was up to me, as Heaven’s representative and all, to help to deliver the baby-”
“Deliver the baby?” Crowley repeated, confused. “What baby?” Despite being a demon, he had heard quite a lot about the theoretical Second Coming over the years, and certainly no one had ever mentioned a baby.
“I don’t know!” Muriel sobbed. “Everything got switched around at the last second, and this wasn’t supposed to happen for a year, and all the plans are changed and now-”
“Muriel!” Crowley tried to catch their attention. “Please. Back on topic.” He was developing a horrible headache.
“I’msosorry, Mister Crowley.” Muriel sniffed. “Um, well, plans changed. A lot. Now Christ is being reborn in the form of a child on earth. London, specifically.” they spoke with lightning speed, giving Crowley no time to react with one piece of shocking news before moving on to the next. “Well, everything was going smoothly, for how last minute it was and all, and I was watching from the outside of the hospital, as I was told to do, because there would be another angel inside doing most of the hard work. As I look away for one moment, and there is a loud crash, I turn back around and the hospital is on fire.”
Muriel finally ceased their storm of words, stopping to catch their breath. Crowley stared at his phone screen, displaying Muriel’s contact, with no picture attached.
“And… you called the only demon you know about this?” Crowley asked, running his fingers through his uneven hair.
“That’s the thing!” Muriel cried. “It’s hellfire.”
“Hellfire?” Crowley felt incredibly stupid for being able to do nothing but repeat Muriel's words.
“And I need you. I think the other angel is gone. Gone, gone. And if Christ is still up there somewhere, I can’t just leave them to burn while I sit here and watch.”
“So you want a demon to go poking around a burning hospital to try and save Her kid?” Crowley was growing more and more convinced by the second that he was hallucinating.
“Yes.” Muriel said. “Please.” they added, quieter this time. Crowley could sense the desperation in their voice, the panic.
Before Crowley even knew what he was saying, he asked. “Address?”
As Muriel rambled off the answer, Crowley was already pulling onto the street, cutting off a biker as he sped away. Under other circumstances, he would’ve laughed. It was really quite a ridiculous scene, a former agent of Hell about to do a favor for an angel and saving God’s kid from burning to death.
***
Crowley could see the smoke from blocks away. Running the Bentley through several layers of police tape and a line of fire trucks, he skidded to a stop at the front of the main doors to the hospital. Spotting Muriel standing, somehow unnoticed, near a police car, he slammed the doors and ran to them. Sweat and ash had already begun to stick his hair to his forehead. Tearing off his jacket, he shoved it into Muriel’s arms when he reached her.
They looked like they were about to say something, but Crowley cut them off. “Don’t tell your side I’m here. Which floor?”
“Sixth.” Muriel quickly replied. Her eyes and face were bright red.
“Fuck.” Crowley looked up at the building. “That’s a long way up.”
Stumbling as he ran, the demon disgruntledly shoved past several officers, before disappearing into the smoke.