Work Text:
The Earth was colourful. Far more than either Hell or Heaven. Both of those were bleak, just opposite kinds — Heaven was clinical and cold and so very white; while Hell was dark and crowded and all grimy basement hallways. Earth was, and had never been, like that. It had dozens upon dozens of colours. From the plants to the landscapes to the fauna, and the humans dotted all over the planet.
Earth’s colourfulness, much like Hell and Heaven’s bleakness was less about where the colours came from and more about the beings and their lives that resided there. All of their selves, opinions, and choices made the world colourful. ‘Colourful’ was really more of a metaphor than a descriptor.
But for Crowley, that colourfulness was the result of the presence of the Principality that owned a bookshop, and liked books and tea and that blessed tan tartan.
Aziraphale.
Crowley’s Earth was colourful because Aziraphale was part of it.
But then e wasn’t.
Six thousand years of the two celestial beings sharing the earth and then the angel had left to go back to Heaven.
E had taken the colour with er, Crolwey was sure of it. What other explanation was there for their world abruptly losing nearly all of its colour?
And for thirteen long, long years Crowley’s world was colourless and dull. The first six of those, they drank. Day in and day out. The muted state of the world owing to the effect of all the alcohol in their system.
The they got bored of drinking, of moping about. But when they were completely sober again by the eighth year, the muted colours persisted. It was like they were viewing everything underwater. No matter where they went or what they did, the muted colours remained.
Compared to the millenia that Crowley had existed for, thirteen years should have felt no longer than a blink. But instead, it felt like eternity.
So long had the dull state of the world persisted that Crowley begun to forget what it was supposed to be like.
By the eleventh year since Aziraphale had gone back to Heaven, a certain demon had forgotten just how much colour the Earth was supposed to have.
And then Aziraphale came back.
It took a lot longer for the colour to return to Crowley.
But after the incredibly rocky reunion, that took months to actually occur — neither of them had ever been particularly skilled at communication — the leaves, the roads, the duck pond, and the Earth regained its vibrancy.