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Crowley wasn’t sure where exactly he was driving to. He just knew that he had to get out of London. Away from the bookshop. Away from his flat. Far away from any reminders of him. So he drove, pressing the pedal to the floor and never looking back. And Satan help anyone who happened to get in his way.
He supposed it never would have worked out between them anyway. They were made to be on opposite sides. Hereditary enemies, as he had put it.
But it had always been the two of them. Since the beginning. Since before the beginning. When there had been no bookshop, no Hell, nothing to get in the way. Just them. Side-by-side in a sky full of stars.
Even when they were apart, there had always been some comfort in the knowledge that he could never be more than a few thousand miles away, and at any moment they could run into each other, as they often did. Always an angel, always a demon with wiles to be thwarted. Them against the universe.
Now the angel was gone, back to the people who had once eagerly queued up to watch him burn. There was no them anymore. Hell, maybe there never had been. Maybe behind that perfect little face had been just another purple-eyed pencil pusher who had probably never cared about him anyway, and could certainly never love–
Crowley slammed on the brakes, sending the car screeching to a halt. Then he was pounding on the dashboard, driving dents in the smooth black surface until it began to crack.
After a few moments he stopped himself, muttering an apology. One snap of his fingers and it was good as new. He wasn’t himself right now. That much was clear to both of them.
The city had long since vanished, and he hadn’t even noticed. He had come to a halt in the middle of a country road, with nothing but greenery for miles around. He went to shift into gear… and paused.
Something had caught Crowley’s eye: the gear stick now sported a bright red tartan cover. He reflexively moved his hand to snuff it out, then stopped himself and sighed. His mind cast back to four years ago, to a night on a road like this one. When he had found a luggage rack miracled onto the back of this very vehicle. A luggage rack with tartan straps. Perhaps this was some last scrap of divinity which the Bentley had been clinging to.
He gave the steering wheel an idle pat.
‘I know.’ He murmured. ‘I miss him too.’
Now he started the car off again, slower this time. The radio remained silent – the thought of Freddie Mercury singing another love song was currently more than he could stomach.
He had never liked being alone. He had always noticed immediately when the angel had popped back upstairs for whatever reason. The paradigms of the world would shift, the Moon would lose its glow, and everything would feel that little bit emptier. Never for too long – the upstairs always seemed to make him uncomfortable, or used to, anyway – but long enough to be bothersome.
And now he was facing an eternity of that emptiness, with no clue of when or if it would ever end.
Oh sure, there was that doe-eyed thing the Powers That Be™ had put in his place, still wet behind the ears and eager to please. Maybe that had been the Metatron’s attempt to placate him, like a parent buying their son a new goldfish and hoping he wouldn’t realise the old one had been flushed down the toilet. A mocking gesture.
To tell the truth, Earth wasn’t much of anything anymore. Even when he hadn’t been with him, it had still been his place of work, somewhere for him to run around and cause trouble. Now it was little more than a space for him to exist, where he was permitted to exist now that both sides had thrown their hands in the air and accepted that trying to get rid of him would be more trouble than it was worth.
No, it wasn’t much of anywhere. Not without Aziraphale.
That kiss had been his last resort. The last resort. To get it all off his chest, to show him what it could be like if he stayed. To say more than three little words ever could.
After all, they had seemed rather inadequate in the face of eternity.