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Living in the moment comes naturally to a demon. Not much value pondering what might have been or may yet be, when the mind and heart of God are forever closed to you. And Crowley had learned that most questions don’t get answered, no matter how loud you shout.
Not that the questions ever stopped coming. They spilled out of him like water overflowing a glass. Too often they made it out of his mouth before he could stop them. And yet, for all his questions of Hell, of Heaven, of God herself, there was one question he’d never been able to bring himself to ask aloud.
He feared the answer, and yet it wasnt fear that really stopped his otherwise treacherous mouth.
Hope.
That tiny firefly of possibility. A spark of “maybe” that had been his only medicine for 6000 years. So vulnerable he cradled it in his hands and his heart, warming his hands and his chest when no other comfort can be found.
Something so fragile couldn’t possibly last forever.
Crowley looked back to drawl a parting “bye” to Aziraphale as he left. The angel looked up at him, blue-green eyes somehow meeting Crowley’s own, even behind his sunglasses. Aziraphale’s fluffy white hair was lit from behind by the shop lights and looked for a moment as if his halo had manifested itself into this plane of existence.
Crowley stalled. Mental gears crunched as his imagination, ever working against his own interest, added a pair of great white wings. For a moment he was utterly lost to the fierce ethereal beauty of the angel in the bookshop.
He cursed internally and masked his hesitation with a nonchalant flick of his hair, breaking eye contact. He turned back to the door and stalked out towards the safety of the Bentley, where he slumped into the driving seat. He stabbed his keys into the ignition and turned the engine on with a roar. Attacking the gear stick and the accelerator with vigour, he hastened to move the car forward and away.
The lights and buildings whipped by as Crowley sped through the streets of London, almost hypnotic as they danced across his vision. He had automatically set off in the direction of Mayfair and home, but as he crossed Regent Street Crowley felt a familiar tingling restlessness flow through his limbs. Home and bed wouldn’t do - he needed to move, keep his body and mind busy. So he let the Bentley instead nudge him down towards Piccadilly, and then beyond to St James’s Park.
The Bentley rolled to a stop in a side road that definitely wasn’t a legal parking spot. Closing his eyes, Crowley leaned his head back, trying to clear his mind of the image of Aziraphale in his winged angelic form. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen him like that in the real world. Not much call for halos and wings on earth: it tended to scare the locals.
And yet it was an image that his imagination painted for him with some regularity. One that had sustained and consoled Crowley for nearly 6000 years now, as comforting as a fire in the hearth, but with the same capacity to burn the unwary.
Crowley had long come to terms with demonhood. He hadn’t meant to Fall, but he had endeavoured to pick himself up from the pool of sulphur, brush off the ash and make the best of things. He knew he wasn’t a typical demon, by the standards of Hell. Oh, he took plenty of enjoyment in chaos and a little (or a lot of) good spirited trouble. He had the usual sinful depths of anger, pride and certainty sloth. To say nothing of lust (best not). But he just didn’t seem to possess the same unquestioning conviction in the cause of evil as his coworkers. Somehow he just couldn’t stop wondering the point of it all.
He didn’t allow this apparent defect to trouble him too much and on the whole avoided scrutiny by minimising the time he spent with other demons. His absence was no cause for concern: companionship was on the whole discouraged among the residents Below, and there were no other demons who he cared to spend time with, or who missed him in return. He’d spent millennia earning and securing his tenure as representative on Earth, and Earth offered plenty of distraction and entertainment in return. And it had become apparent early on that humans themselves more than made up for his own lack of appetite for acts of true evil. If he had to swallow the occasional distasteful duty for Hell to maintain that distance, then that was a price that just had to be paid.
What Crowley couldn’t fathom was why he was different. As far as he knew, his fellow demons hadn’t been any more evil in the general scheme of things than he had when they Fell. Most, like him, had harboured vague concerns about the state of heavenly HR: unanswered questions of policy or a sense of existential dread they couldn’t shake. But somehow the hellfire seemed to have infused them with a much greater dose of malevolence than he had received.
Whatever the reason, though, Crowley suspected that the same defect that set him apart from Hell had also been the crack in the doorway through which Aziraphale’s light had crept.
Crowley slunk out of the car and stalked down through the park, the sounds of late night London traffic fading slightly into the background as he wandered deeper towards the dark, still waters of the lake. Gangs of ducks, geese, and occasional ostentatious pelicans roosted around the edge of the water, paying him no heed other than the occasional curious glance. Crowley granted a scowl to any that dared meet his eye. He turned to follow the path that led along the water.
The cold air and impudent waterfowl still hadn’t shaken Aziraphale’s image from his mind. It nagged at him, even more than usual. Was something a bit… off about that image this evening? No less beautiful than it ever was, than Aziraphale himself ever was. But there had been…something.
Crowley focused on his still-fresh memory of the way Aziraphale had looked at him in that moment of his departure. Something in the angel’s eyes had felt different. Not sad exactly, but they had contained a tiny hint of a shadow. Regret? Fear? Maybe even a hint of anger? Crowley had thought he’d mapped every expression that graced that blessed face, and yet he couldn’t quite place it.
As far as he could recall, through the wine and whiskey that coloured some of his memories, it had been a perfectly normal evening, following the same well trodden path of so many evenings they’d shared before. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done or said to upset the angel. There had been the usual banter that both enjoyed: familiar anecdotes, teases and well-rehearsed re-tellings of shared memories of the past. He conceded perhaps he had allowed himself one or two indulgent looks, but nothing he hadn’t been able to hide. Goodness knows he was well practised in policing himself to try to avoid any of the unspoken lines between them.
And yet Crowley felt an ember of doubt and fear start to smoulder in his gut. Clearly something had been troubling Aziraphale’s mind as they parted. And as Crowley himself was the only observable variable in their equation, it had to have been something relating to him. Perhaps that parting moment of hesitation as his mind had rebooted? Despite his bizarre blindspots when it came to music or fashion or magic tricks, Aziraphale’s mind was sharp as a razor. Crowley’s stomach jolted with the realisation that his mask had slipped: he had betrayed himself with a glance.
Crowley’s snakeskin boots began to smoke, rapidly evaporating dew rising in clouds of water vapour around his legs. Crowley growled and stomped harder down the path, causing a group of alarmed ducks to scatter into the water with a flurry of feathers and splashes. His head briefly transfigured into a giant fanged snake and hissed and snapped at them as they fled.
Crowley prided himself in being clear minded about himself and his life. Despite being eccentric by Hell’s standards, he refused to grant himself the luxury of denial about his nature as a demon. He may lack the deliberate, delighted cruelty of his colleagues, but he was still the fallen serpent of Eden who tempted Eve: the origin of human suffering. His sins were undeniable and unforgivable, and if he were ever again in his existence to experience Her presence, he had long resolved he would look her in the eye (or metaphysical equivalent) and own those truths.
Crowley’s stubborn self awareness extended to his feelings about the angel. Oh that angel! That daft, ridiculous, radiant angel had long been the sun around whom Crowley’s whole world was condemned to orbit. Against his will, his better judgement and his nature, his heart had been captured under a wing upon a wall. And who would have known so much love could exist in a demon’s heart?
His unforgiving rejection of self-denial hurt like a flaming sword through the chest, but Crowley gave himself no quarter. He knew without a trace of doubt that his love was a fire that would eventually consume him, more surely than hellfire or holy water. Sooner or later he would get too close and either he would burn, or Aziraphale’s light would be extinguished. Hell would come for him, or heaven for Aziraphale. Or worst of all, Aziraphale would run from him, finally flee his demonic wiles, his sins, his anger, his pride. His lust. And yet Crowley could not look away, bending always like a sunflower towards the sun.
Crowley left raised, shiny footprints in melted tarmac behind him as he continued to stomp through the park. His unwieldy limbs threatened to trip him at every step. Crowley wanted nothing more than to pass on the pain of his wretched existence to every living thing around him. To boil the lake, roast the ducks, and turn the trees and plants to ash. Make the world pay the cost of his damned existence.
By the time he came to a halt in front of a familiar bench there were tiny dancing flames tracing across his skin. Dark scales were becoming visible around his collar, and the shadow of black wings flickered in and out of sight. He raised his hand, preparing to snap and be rid of the physical reminder of everything he wanted but couldnt touch.
It was the sound of a bird singing in the distance that made Crowley pause. It wasnt quite dawn, but clearly his antics and duck bothering had woken some other feathery resident and its voice pierced through the quiet darkness. Crowley started at the almost ethereal sound, all thoughts briefly dispelled.
From the sudden quiet in his mind, a treacherous memory began to swim past his vision. A past meeting and argument. A piece of paper burning up in the water and Aziraphale flouncing off.
For a moment Crowley simply simmered, clenching his fists and breathing raggedly. But then another scene began to play. In this one the angel was sitting next to him in the Bentley, his face lit up in red and pink from soho nightclub lights. A tartan thermos had been exchanged. Aziraphale had been beautiful and sad and regretful and fearful that evening too.
And a tiny half promise had been made: perhaps one day
Crowley slumped onto the bench, flames extinguished, but boots still smoking gently. The birdsong had ceased, and only the gentle sound of distant traffic broke the silence. All traces of his anger and fear melted away, leaving only an odd, unexpected calm. Crowley stared vaguely at a pair of swans that were huddled among the reeds and plants along the edge of the water, their elegant necks tucked against their bodies and their heads snuggly hidden under their wings.
Crowley felt a tiny spark of warmth flicker in his chest. This heat wasnt the same consuming furnace he’d been feeling moments before. This was light and giddy, so soft that it was almost not there at all. He barely wanted to look at it or acknowledge its presence, lest it escape and fly away.
With all the restless energy, fear, anger and pain lifted, albeit temporarily, Crowley allowed himself to feel the flame of hope that lived in his core. Let it soothe and console him. He couldn't have what he wanted now, and perhaps never would. But the possibility of “one day” existed.
And that would have to be enough.