Chapter Text
It was dark.
Heaven was never dark.
Heaven wasn’t even dark at night.
It is not supposed to be dark. The idea of heaven being shrouded in darkness was kind of like the concept of the sun never coming up in the human world. Absurd, impossible, and yet. Heaven was dark. Impossibly dark, as if everything that was once good about it had been destroyed in the wake of the corruption that he was almost certain only he could see.
Well, until a few hours ago, he was certain only he could see the corruption that came from Angels blindly following the orders of God and her plans. Without any room for suggestions, or ‘oh hey, murdering an entire planet of people you created after 6000 years because they’re ‘just an experiment’ might seem a little bit like overkill.’ You know?
It was almost, to be completely honest, as if someone had taken dark tinted sunglasses and placed them over his eyes. A dark aura if you must. He could see nothing but the darkness that had spilled from his stars, being no more important than a wallpaper that would serve six thousand years and then be discarded. Like trash, because it was no longer convenient.
An experiment for future plans.
The Great Plan.
Something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
Something was wrong and he was one hundred and one percent certain that he was the only Angel able to see it.
Until a few hours ago.
It had happened soon after he had started to question his very own existence. Like. If humans were put in this new world, they would have created for them, for simply six thousand years, a blink of an eye really. Then, what was his purpose? Was he overdue for his extinction? Had his six thousand years come to an end yet?
The lives of these ‘people’ as God had called them were worth so much more than simply six thousand years of existence.
He was starting to see or realise things that he potentially shouldn’t. Things that would probably get him in trouble. Yet he couldn’t stop.
Like. When one of the Archangels casually decided that a person deserved to die for something like stealing an apple. Or buying a new book instead of borrowing it from a library. While they weren’t able to directly kill a human, the Archangels were completely within their rights to send some natural disaster or wild animal to take them out instead.
For the good of the rest. For the concept of utilitarianism, the trolley problem. The domino effect. That human who stole an apple, what if they decided to rob a bank next? And if that succeeded than that bank robbery could turn into a hostage situation, and next thing they knew, that person would be ruthlessly murdering other humans and in turn, heaven would lose a number for their army.
And who even knew what that army was even for?
He sure as hell didn’t.
The person who bought a book over potential greed instead of borrowing a used book from the library to save trees could buy a forest next, cut down all the trees to build a housing estate and then cause the increase of the concept of global warming. Killing the universe faster than the set six thousand years. Ruin The Great Plan.
And of course, all of this was hypothetical. These people didn’t even exist yet. Adam and Eve had barely even made it out of the conceptual phase and yet he knew exactly what would happen.
Angels were predictable like that.
They were also incredibly stubborn.
They were also always right.
They would rather send a lion to murder these hypothetic mistake makers instead of an angel to influence them along the right path. Allegedly, heaven was understaffed. People were an experiment to overstaff themselves again. God would rather a person die normal than die slightly bad. Because you cannot have bad people amongst your ranks of inherently good Angels.
He was one hundred and one percent certain, he was the only one who could see how messed up this was. He was also one hundred percent certain that killing someone before they could tip over the edge of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ was cheating.
Also. What was the line there? At what point did someone go from being normal, to being evil. At what point can someone go from being normal to being ‘perfect’.
Perfect was a social construct. But even that kind of terminology was hypothetical because Earth doesn’t exist yet.
Goodness, it was so difficult to think about potentialities. He’d seen the book of life. Helped write some of it in fact.
Well, not really.
God was not open to suggestions.
He had read it though. He knew what was going to happen. But it hadn’t happened yet.
Therefore. It was hypothetic. Yet still seemed incredibly not right.
He tried to tell himself that God was always right, over and over and over and over again. If he could convince himself that it was true, then he could carry on believing the crap that God had started and feel better about being a mindless hypothetical bee in a mindless hypothetic hive where God was the Almighty hypothetical Queen who would get rid of anyone who might potentially contradict or question her orders to make hypothetical honey.
That is where Lucifer came in.
He’d heard whisperings for a while. Lucifer was staring a rebellion. Lucifer didn’t like how God ran things. Lucifer had an interest in that Seraphim who had initially started the question of… why?
He hadn’t thought anything of it until Lucifer himself approached him.
He hadn’t even known how the rumours of him questioning the Great Plan had even started to spread. Although he had an inkling that a certain Cherub had let it slip, one eccentric sentence and boom, he’s doomed for life.
“Hello…” Lucifer had paused, their eyes studying him like he was a slab of hypothetical meat. It took him a moment to realise Lucifer had no idea what his name was.
He didn’t dignify it with an answer, instead he simply regarded them. “Lucifer?”
There was another pause. This one was drawn out, awkward and he had half a mind to simply walk away. Perhaps he should have.
God. He wishes he had.
A hand found his shoulder and Lucifer steered them behind a wall that had showed up on their journey.
“I’ve caught wind about your opinions on the Great Plan.”
He stiffened. “I have nothing of the sort.”
Lucifer had raised an eyebrow and he scowled.
“Don’t lie to me. I’m rounding up others, we’re starting a revolution.”
A hypothetical revolution obviously.
He glanced over his shoulder then back at Lucifer. Checking carefully for any eavesdroppers. “I’m not lying, and I have no interest in your little redundant group of quote-unquote, ‘rebels’. It’s going to get you thrown out.”
Lucifer straightened, their eyes narrowing before they adjusted their clothes, “I’ll see you there.” They had then turned and left.
He frowned, watching Lucifer go.
Of course, he was interested. He wasn’t, however, interested in getting thrown out of Heaven.
He found himself there anyway. You see there is no direction in Heaven. There is, however, a hypothetical hierarchy. You can wish yourself anywhere with a high enough clearance. Fortunately for him, he had the highest.
He stayed at the back. View of an exit should things go downhill.
And they did of course. He had enough premonition to see that much.
And it was dark.
Dark where he was caged.
Because he was not, in fact fast enough to exit before a war was started. A few damned words of him being there, at the meeting that initiated it had been enough for him to join the ranks of those imprisoned after the hypothetical revolution had lost.
It had happened later. He had no foresight for it. In fact, he wasn’t sure it was written in the Great Plan at all. It must be now. And he must be written out.
He was there, deep in thought. Another one of those seemingly weeklong tangents. Arguing with himself about something or other. The main thing that kept coming back to him was ‘why?’
He had stilled his thoughts. Stilled them again. And yet still… They raged on.
Gabriel stood in front of him.
He practically leapt out of his hypothetical skin. Certain the Archangel hadn’t been there three seconds prior.
“Sorry. Did I scare you?” Gabriel did not look sorry.
He then straightened, allowing his extra inch or so of hypothetical height to build his confidence. He outranked Gabriel. But there had just been a war. The Hierarchy was in shambles.
“No, not at all.” He forced a smile, “I was just deep in thought, and you pulled me out of it.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. If that were possible for an Angel to do. “Deep in thought? About what?”
His brain stuttered. He’d made a mistake. Angels weren’t supposed to think about anything other than The Great Plan, being deep in thought insinuated that he was questioning God’s rule. He was acting against the Great Plan… He was-
“The Great Plan.” He said quickly, clearing his throat, “how excellently planned out it is. How excited I am about the completion.” He shifted his weight uncomfortably. This, of course was a lie.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed further before suddenly all anger and suspicion vanished. He knew better than to let down his guard, however. There had just been a war, suspicions were being thrown out left right and centre.
“Wonderful,” Gabriel exclaimed, “wonderful, I agree. The Great Plan is wonderfully thought out.” Then he winked, “after all, it is God’s creation.”
He nodded swiftly, silently thanking whoever wasn’t God that angels were so dumb. They couldn’t think anything for themselves aside from what they wanted for hypothetical breakfast. Godly eggs, or Godly cereal.”
Except for him, of course. He had thoughts. He thought a lot about these thoughts. He shouldn’t, those thoughts would get him in trouble. But there was something very, very inherently wrong about how Heaven was run. Something very wrong with God and something very wrong with his own existence.
An entire, gorgeous Nebula and no one would explore it. No one would witness it outside of a wallpaper that they could see from their sky. They weren’t even in the middle. They would see less than an eighth of it.
It was… well it was bullshit for a lack of a better, hypothetical word.
He pulled himself out of these thoughts when he heard his name. Once again deeply horrified to discover that Gabriel was still standing there. In front of him, while he was deep in thought. A sin. He really was going to get in trouble one of these days.
The war proved it. Lucifer proved it. God, he should have listened to… What was his name?
Aziraphale…
“Gabriel?” He righted himself, making his voice nonchalant, curious. Sliding into words as well as he could. He was good at this.
Lying.
Not a good thing, but he was.
Either that or the angels were simply terrible at deciphering a lie.
“You’re wanted.”
He felt his blood run cold. “Wanted?”
“Yes.”
He fiddled with a finger briefly before looking up at Gabriel. “I’m busy. Nebulas to create. Can you reschedule?”
“No.”
He heaved in a long breath.
“Where?”
Gabriel’s eyes darkened again.
Heaven went dark.
And it had stayed dark.
He hadn’t been given a trial. Hadn’t been able to speak in his defence. Hadn’t been able to do anything as they read out a list of his alleged crimes. Lucifer had mentioned him, not by name, but by association. Dragging him further into this. Maybe to save their own skin. Maybe to not be alone in their punishment. Maybe just out of spite.
He would never know. Most likely…
Alleged, because he hadn’t done any of it. Aside from yes, attending that one meeting. And the rumour Aziraphale had accidentally spread after his nebula.
Now he sat here. Alone. In the dark. Awaiting his punishment.
He wasn’t crying.
He was not Crying.