Work Text:
Crowley was not a sentimental type. Aziraphale might have been, but not in the way that humans would recognise. They weren’t exactly friends of humanity, merely observers who tended to the finer details.
Aziraphale had likened them to gardeners. Labourers in another’s yard, and Crowley had laughed and laughed until he had screamed because that was bitter in the way no sulphur could touch.
They cared for humans. They loved them in their own capacity, to the extent they could, and they didn’t truly realise how much they cared until, but still, there was ever a distance. Loving is understanding, and neither party could truly bridge the gap between them. The idea of honesty when you’re something beyond explanation, and the implications your very existence brings? Well, in the long run, it’s simply not worth it.
Aziraphale had a smattering of acquaintances at any given time, small talk buddies and local purveyors of food and small curiosities. Humanity to him, was creation. The way they take the ingredients of Her wonderful kingdom and twist them to their own benefits, to their own use. He found patrons and learnt them in quiet moments and shared conversations.
Crowley haunted humans in their own masses. He slipped over things as vague as identities, and remained blessedly-cursedly unknown, but he slipped through riots and crowds, a shadow in protests and soft eyes in a stadium. There’s something to be said about mob mentality, but humans have such a shift when they’re in masses, and it’s close to intoxication. It’s not always loud, or even subversive, but he liked the malleability. Humans are never more easy to tempt or persuade as to when they’re certain they’re right, and they’re never more confident as when they’re surrounded by their own crowd. Any human flinches from the dark, but throw a few of them together and they roar.
When ghosts grow in number, they don’t give it much thought. It was an inevitable sort of matter, given the way overpopulation has been buzzing over the last few . No matter the breadth of the Endless, the depth of humanity is unsurpassable. Crowley had tried to explain it as air pockets in the ocean. Inevitable and ephemeral, but a rebellion in their own. Ghosts have never truly been a threat, or even beings of much power, and the exceptions tend to hold only personal grudges. They rarely have broad agendas, or ones that exert vengeance on the supernatural world. Typically they haunt the places they haunted in life.
Typically.
Crowley met them first. Aziraphale thinks it’s him, and Crowley had been so charmed by the Angel’s excitement of describing the two beings that he had never disillusioned him, but the young Charles Rowland had made his acquaintance years ago. The boy held onto Death’s quiet shadow, setting him apart from the masses of London, but as he dashed and wove around pedestrians, he still called out apologies, as though his fervent chase had picked up any level of notice to the maddening crowd. Crowley wondered, idly, if the boy was aware of his own death, but the young boy saw a mirror and, after a minutes hesitation, slipped through with clear care and concentration.
Smart ghost, clearly. Mirror travel was nothing truly remarkable, but only a small percentage of the undead were capable of it. Perhaps Crowley ought to have wondered what had an already dead being in a state of such harried panic, but he was late to a Temptation, and frankly, hardly cared.
That would later change.
The next time one of the ‘Dead Boy Detectives’ came under notice, it was at some terrible concert. Some garage band groups at a horrific venue, some underground tunnel by a forested area and a main road. Crowley skulked around, filling his quota by Tempting a few brats into bad habits. If he hadn’t been so bored with the mundanity, he would have missed them entirely.
It was the young ghost, dragging along some twee fella. Crowley bit back a smirk, recognising that look, the same one his Angel had at any shift in the popular culture. Complete and biting disdain. So, the ska punk got an Aziraphale of his own, did he?
They moved through the crown with a diligent sort of direction, less like they were interested in the music, and like they were…
Crowley shrugged. It’s not like there was anything interesting going on. He materialised in front of the Rude Boy patch wearing kid with just a touch of drama, using a soft finger motion that did a lovely job convincing the general surrounding crowd that there was nothing odd about a man appearing out of the shadows and talking to nothing.
The boy he’d later know as Charles Rowland flinched, but not without unsheathing a…
Cricket bat.
For heavens-for Satans sake, there used to be standards. He raised one eyebrow in a wholly unimpressed gesture.
“Seriously? A Cricket Bat?” The boy was in a pretty steady stance, and he was willing to bet that he made a formidable threat to the average run-of-the-mill sort of spirit, but this was a Demon. And it was time to remind him what that meant.
“It’s good enough for the likes of you!” Cocky kid. Knowing what he was and not backing down anyway? Not many had the guts to stand against occult beings, but if anything, the boy seemed rearing to go.
“Believe me, you really don’t want to do that.” He stepped forward, idly impressed in the way the front boy lowered his centre of gravity to accommodate.
“After what you did to those poor kids? Trust me, I really do.” The boy seemed incensed, viciously angry for… What, a few hits of marijuana? Kids had such high morals these days. He resolved to share that pun with Aziraphale, without letting on that he was aware of the wordplay. A knowingly shared pun could be big strike against his reputation. Externally, he rolled his eyes, bored instantly.
“Couple of hits of marijuana won’t kill them kid…” He eyed the punk up and down. Clearly recently dead, going by the way that if he wasn’t dead his clothes and style would be barely out of place. “Unless, that’s what did you in?” Harsh if it was. He’d seen overdoses, and it was a viciously horrific way to go. He softened slightly, though he’d deny it even to himself. He looked at the kid behind Charles, the Aziraphale adjacent, who was flipping through a large red tome.
“Wait, what are you talking about, marijuana?” The boy, strangely enough, lowered his bat at Crowley’s admittance. “I’m talking about the dead kids, the ones murdered here last week?”
Crowley blinked, a bit too familiar with humans to be horrified, but still confused. “There were kids murdered here last week? And there’s all this still going on? Blimey, you lot don’t get attached, do you?”
The two boys both froze, and looked at each other. The first one looked back at Crowley, looked just as confused. “Right… Sorry if this is offensive but, are you an incubus?”
Good thing Crowley was so confused, because it stopped him from being offended. Him?! A slimy incubus? He almost regretted that the boys were dead, it stopped him from wreaking havoc upon their lives. “What the bloody hell are you talking about? What incubus?”
As though rehearsed, a scream rang out, muffled from both distance and the crowd. Crowley knew screams, created screams. So he knew exactly what caused it.
Fear. Fear of knowing you’re about to die.
Crowley had never had the instinct to help. He’d never been the type to reach out like it was a habit. He questioned and doubted and tricked and if some of those ended up in a positive for another party, so be it, but he was never the type to react on instinct with aid.
Rude Boy, was clearly nothing like Crowley. He bolted like his skinny little ghost arse was on fire.
Aziraphale adjacent kid, clearly familiar with his buddy running off at any given moment, sighed momentarily. He looked at Crowley a second, sizing him up. “That incubus.” He remarked with casual superiority before making haste as well.
Crowley didn’t like being confused. Or surprised for that matter. But confronted with the bizarre situation, he cackled, because this was new. He followed the two clearly insane ghosts. Walking though. He didn’t believe in running, and it cramped his style.
Still, being a demon meant that distance was exactly what he wanted it to be, and even at a casual saunter, he reached the incubus at the same time as Aziraphale Adjacent kid, who sighed at finding his buddy beating up a leather clad squirmy rat with a bat. To the side, some kid with wide eyes and dark eyeshadow lay, clearly close to passing out, and Crowley flicked his fingers, sending him a bad memory of getting lost in the wooded area chasing after a boy to tide him over. Maybe then the dumb twit wouldn’t go following hot blokes into shadowy places.
He kept the majority of his attention on the two ghosts. The first one was still clearly treating the incubus like a piñata while the second one seemed to have finally found the right page in his tome and started stuttering out ancient aramaic like a kid reading aloud in class. Crowley rubbed his eyes, genuinely confused.
The two brats were attempting an exorcism?!
Not just attempting, he realised, as Rude Boy tossed a pre-painted sigil over the incubus, and Aziraphale Adjacent tossed out a shower of sparks that stuck to the fluttering fabric. Rude Boy threw himself out of the line of fire just seconds before it all went up in flames and the shady copse of trees was once again quiet.
The two boys had completed an exorcism. As ghosts. Hidden by shadows, he allowed himself a modicum of shock. Silence stretched through the trees, broken by the distant caterwauling of whatever shitty band had the microphone now.
Like a tide returning to the shore, the two boys looked at each other, looking to be just as shocked at Crowley was. Rude Boy broke out of the shocked static first, a grin stretching wide as a lounging cat across his face as he whooped, infecting the other with a giddy smile. The two of them crashed into each other, Rude Boy swinging around Aziraphale Adjacent with a whooping sort of sound, and Crowley took a second to let his breath hitch at the simple tragedy carried in the laughter of two children who had died a long time ago.
Rude Boy puts down Aziraphale Adjacent, his beam not dimming an iota. He jabbers off on some tangent about how ‘I knew you could do it!’ and ‘we’re proper now’ and a bundle of slang that seems to go right over his companions head, though the genuine warmth in his voice is impossible to mistake. Aziraphale Adjacent meets his beam with a gentler, though no less genuine sort of smile, clear satisfaction and pride in their mission.
“Yes, Charles-” which means that Crowley can finally put a name to Rude Boy “-this rather is a feather in our cap, so to say, but we ought not be complacent in our victory. It’s important to properly file and understand what drew the incubus here, to fully complete our case.”
“Yes, I know Edwin-” Helpful, as Aziraphale Adjacent was a hassle to keep saying, even if he was just thinking it “-but come on mate! How many people can say that they exorcised a ghost at their first show! At least admit that you’re proper chuffed at our victory.”
Edwin’s smile shrunk into something a touch mischievous, but still warm and hopelessly charmed.
He gives them a moment to celebrate before making his presence known. He’s always wanted answers, and this is his best chance to get them. But still, he gives them a moment.
He doesn’t need to do anything as gauche as slow clapping, or a sardonic remark in a drawling tone to attract their attention. He’s a demon, and just as he can divert someone’s perception, it’s just as easy to draw it. A small favour from the moonlight and the rustling leaves makes both boys look over, and their faces, free of blood, blanch at the way he casually lounges against the rock pile he’s elected as his podium from which to address them.
Just as before, they’re quick to react. Charles sweeps Edwin behind him with a vicious sort of snarl, gripping his bat again, and Crowley takes it a little more seriously after seeing the way it had pummelled an incubus into a paste.
It’s not a threat to him, but it is a threat.
He steps forward into the clearing, impressed at how neither boy flinches. Charles looks at his friend for just a second, something solid passing between them. Like it’s been agreed, he’s the first to speak.
“Who are you? You’re no human, but definitely not a ghost either.”
Crowley let his head tilt to the side, just a fraction too far, taking advantage of the way his skeletal system was only ever restricted to how he wanted it to be.
“I’m someone who’s pretty impressed at the exorcism you two just carried out. For amateurs, you’re not wholly useless. Charles and Edwin, is it?”
Charles steps even further in front of Edwin, and it’s telling. He doesn’t flinch at his own name, but the sound of Edwin’s makes him snarl. Sweet.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Questions are dangerous things. Answers more so.” But Crowley isn’t in the business of safety, so he introduces himself anyway. “Crowley.” Because he wants to see them flinch, he snarls with slitted eyes and too many teeth. “Operative from Hell. Resident Demon for this planet.”
If he was looking for a flinch, he would have been satisfied. Charles lunged forwards, and Edwin fell back, face white and blanched. It takes true trauma to show on the face of a ghost. More than just fear of something they’ve heard of in books. Edwin’s met demons. Edwin’s learned to fear demons.
But he can’t think about that, because there’s an insane ghost trying to tackle him with all the wrath of a furious chinchilla.
Crowley could win immediately. Demons fight only if they want to, and most of them always want to, but Crowley doesn’t find it all that interesting. Aziraphale is the bookworm, for sure, but Crowley reads reality with all the understanding of an author an inventor. Charles fights like a street rat, never defending, but overwhelming with near constant aggression. It’s telling. Fighting is about inflicting harm, not defending himself.
It’s all for his friend.
It’s more clear now than it was with their embrace. This is how Crowley understands love, in how far you’re willing to fall.
Crowley loves the stars and he fell to hell. Crowley loves Aziraphale and he hasn't stopped falling.
Aziraphale would never-
That’s not important. Love is about falling, not dragging someone else down.
Charles fights like a force. He’s less focused on shielding himself, but he’s barreling Crowley away, away from support, away from backup, away from Edwin.
He’s prepared. Each weapon and move is rehearsed and intentional. He’s trained for demons, for hell and it pays off. Crowley evades talismans and artefacts most humans have forgotten.
He feels the presence of Holy Water and decides it’s time to stop playing.
Charles will never remember what happens, but he’ll never forget the feeling of being fully immobilised. He’s used to helplessness, used to weakness, but tormented by his father and targeted by a demon are similar in the way iron and steels are. It’s not a physical binding, it feeds and is charged from the memories of it’s prisoner.
It’s cruel. But Crowley has never been kind.
But he’s never been malicious either, so he lifts it after a second. Charles whimpers and falls, but retains a human form. Strong ghost. He opens his mouth, and Crowley thinks it’ll be a battle cry, or a stream of abuse.
It’s a plea. Not for his own safety, or for Crowley’s mercy. It’s not for him.
Crowley knew screams, created screams. Knew what it sounded like when you were scared to die.
But he’d never known there could be so much anguish in screaming for someone else. Had never known humanity capable of that much fear after their own death.
Charles is screaming for Edwin to run, and Crowley waits because-
Because love seems to be doomed to an unrequited form of worship. It never seems possible to see it play out with anything close to happiness. It never seems to take form, just flounder in a state of…
Love is a forbidden tree, where nobody can taste the fruit.
Edwin arrives, and Crowley understands what Eve must have tasted when she tried the apple.
It’s nice. That there’s still places away from Her gaze where someone can love, and have it matched. Crowley swallows, and tastes jealousy.
Edwin is pale and terrified, and recites Aramaic with a trembling voice. Crowley silences them both, because it seems like the only way to get them to listen.
“Ready to listen?”
Charles tries to push himself up, and Edwin seems frozen, which might actually be Crowley’s fault. Crowley rolls his eyes and clicks his fingers. It cracks with a lightning bolt, showy and harmless.
“Ready?”
They’re not. But they don’t really have another chance, do they?
Crowley leans back against a tree that might be new. He’s abusing his temptations, but he’s been bored.
“It’s Crowley. And I’m curious. Why are two ghosts tackling incubus cases in Hammersmith? Make the answer interesting or I’ll make it so you have ‘Bicycle’ playing in your heads for the next decade.” Crowley had experienced that first hand, and frankly, Death was more merciful. She was a better coversationist too.
Edwin opens his mouth, but it's Charles that answers first. “Kids have been dying. Edwin’s been saving them. I don’t care about me, but please, don’t let him go to Hell. Is that what Hell wants, someone who’s saving kids who never had a chance?”
Now Crowley is confused. “Why would I be taking him to Hell? That’s not my department, I’m not a desk job type of guy.”
Well, at least all of them are confused together. Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumbass exchange charged looks, and Edwin seems to be elected to speak.
“I’m sorry but- are you not looking for us?”
Crowley furrows his brows. Hell has a lost and found department, but they’re rarely hunting down ghosts. Last he heard, they were still rounding up the missing ghosts from when Dream went missing.
“Arrogant little things, aren’t you? I was just passing by really. Thought you stuck out, and it’s been a slow week.”
“But…” That’s Charles, hoarse and exhausted. “You’re… A Demon?”
“Don’t pigeonhole us. I’m a different division.” Demonination, he thinks, as a private joke for his own head. “Earth Representative. Tempt humans towards sin, ferment wrath and envy, that sort of stuff.”
Edwin doesn’t seem to buy it. “And lust? Was the incubus your doing? All those dead children?”
“What? No, of course not, that’s trashy. That’s all, dog training and pavlov reactions, I’m an artist.”
“You just happen to be in the same space as an active incubus?”
“I was on other business!”
Charles chimes in, sounding better. “Weren’t you selling Marijuana? Is that you tempting humans?”
“Oi! Don’t underestimate it! Have you ever seen the school assemblies, it’s a gateway drug and everything.” There’s a sort of silence, and he vividly feels like he’s being judged. He bristles under it.
Edwin had frozen with his arm thrust in front of him, and one supporting a heavy tome. He lowers it slowly, and at Charles’ panicked glance, nods warily. Charles stands, but doesn’t fully let his guard down.
“I’m Charles. That’s Edwin. We’re the Dead Boy Detectives. We look out for the deceased, take on their cases.”
How ridiculous. How human. “Right. Lots of competition in that industry?”
Charles carries on, like he doesn’t want to loose his nerve. “We take care of them, because we know what it’s like when you don’t get justice, when your life ends before you do.”
“You know, there are departments for that. Somewhere, probably. Dead boys should be in the Sunless Lands by this hour.”
“That’s not where I would go.” Edwin talks a little like Aziraphale when he's so close to regretting what he is. Resigned. “I died in a demonic sacrifice.”
Crowley looks and finally understands.
“You escaped Hell. Tough thing to do.”
“And we’re not letting him go back. I’m not letting him go back. It’s not where he belongs.”
He wouldn’t last a second against a real demon. He’d fall and fail and be torn apart. Crowley isn’t even much of a fighter and he won. But something in the way Charles says it, like it’s the only option makes him believe in the kid.
Crowley tilts his head, and something sharp in the clearing falls away. Charles, at his first chance, runs to Edwin and clings to him, standing in front of him like a shield. Damned one trick pony.
Crowley lifts his hand with a snicker. “Relax. I’m not interested in the actions of two insane ghosts who fancy themselves vigilantes. And you don’t wind up in Hell by snitching.”
He tries to spend as little time in Hell as possible. This sort of thing, frankly, feels like paperwork.
And a part of him is glad. Best to not let anyone know just how glad, because liking anything as a denizen of Hell gets him in trouble. He won’t let sentiment get him in trouble, again. Crowley’s not smart, but he learns.
It just takes him a few lessons for it to set in.
So he smiles, and hopes that the two kids will be okay. Because it’s been so long that he’s looked into someone’s eyes and known that they understand what it is to be on a side all your own.
And if they were lucky, that would have been the last time they met.
Charles Rowland isn’t lucky, and he’s a damned idiot on top. At least that’s what Crowley realises when he returns home and the Rude Boy is camped out, analysing his record collection.
“Do you have any Ska?” He asks, rather than begging for his own salvation, which would be the smart response.
“Do you have any taste?” Crowley responds, rather than bursting him into ghost dust or whatever. He’s off the clock.
They play Queen, and Charles enjoys music in the worst way, wanting to discuss the lyrics and meaning rather than just zoning out, but damn it all, Crowley must crave suffering because he loves the one being he can’t, and he finds himself smiling at the way the Charles reminds him of all of them. Blessedly curious, loving and enough mischief to not rub against all of Crowley’s sharp angles.
He’s chatty and Crowley tries to not hold it against him, but he’s funny enough, and cackles over the interior design.
Crowley rolls off the couch to stand up and grabs his plant mister in a squiggly sort of coordinated movement. He spritzes in the general direction of the hanging stuff before starting his tirade of typical abuse. Some of the leafy varieties are getting wholly too comfortable.
Charles breaks off his chatter immediately. And Crowley’s flat is used to silence, but it’s so clear and Crowley tastes fear, which has never had a place here.
He’s smart, and he knows fear. It doesn’t take long to understand why the child who died young might be afraid. And damn it Crowley isn’t soft. But making humans panic is fun, but that doesn’t mean he likes the sour aftertaste of fear.
He’s a terrible demon.
Crowley snipes, and snarls at his place, and even allows sarcasm, but he doesn’t scream. And when he chooses to dispose of the most rotted, the most failed, he gestures for a pale, though no longer frozen Charles to follow. He does, but like he fears retribution if he disobeys. That’s fine.
Crowley turns on the vicious shredder as they leave, and ignores the way that Charles flinch. But they continue walking, stepping to a garden. A real one, out in the world, not hidden and locked away for only one person.
None of these plants are watered and verdant. They take water from rain and nutrients from Earth. They rot and compete and die and they’re Crowley’s biggest act of blasphemy. Crowley tosses the plant pot to Charles, who curls his fingers around them like it will protect them. But every act of repotting loosens those fingers, and by the time there’s a space made for the newest fallen plant, Charles passes it without even a shade of distrust or fear.
Crowley doesn’t say anything, doesn’t answer anything. But when Charles asks ‘why’, he doesn’t punish him either.
Crowley reenters with a scowl, but Charles sits closer to him, which doesn’t mean anything. The kid is smiling too, which also doesn't mean anything.
Crowley chooses the next record, and they enjoy it in the quiet of two people who aren’t afraid of the person next to them.
It doesn’t become a ritual or anything. There’s no schedule, or obligation. But every couple of days, Crowley finds an unexpected houseguest, and knows that the evening will stand out.
“Could you help Edwin? If you wanted to?” Charles asks this after three months of knowing him. If Crowley didn’t know him so well, he’d wonder if this was why he spent so long trying to endear himself to a demon. But he knows this kid by now. And Charles, if he ever did something like that, leverage goodwill and manipulate a friend, it would only be for Edwin. But it’s separate. The kid craves love, begs for it in the way he smiles like it’s a duty, and shows up with presents of things Crowley mentioned throwaway and as a joke.
He’s good. And Crowley is so used to nice and sweet and gentle that finding this kid, good with teeth and pragmatic in who he loves most and who he will always prioritise, it means something.
It’s not that Charles is new, or distinct. He’s just aggressively, all of Crowley’s favourite parts of humanity.
So he’s honest in his answer. “It’s not my department. Honestly, if I go about, it might just end up throwing up alarms. They’re overstaffed as it is, keep your heads down and they’ll probably forget you exist.”
“… We’ve not really been keeping our heads down.”
“Ehhh, your agency isn’t too dangerous. But steer clear of possessions and dark magic, that’ll get you trussed up.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
Crowley should leave it there. There’s always humans that they get attached to, Freddie, Jane, Old Lady Zheng. But Charles isn’t ephemeral in the way that means he has a finish line. It’s dangerous to believe that something will last. He’s been too kind, if anything.
But he still speaks up, when Charles is leaving through the new mirror that Crowley bought because it adds to the open floor concept, and no other reason.
“Let me know, if you end up in trouble. At the very least I can give you a tour.”
It’s too much, and not enough. But Charles understands, and smiles, and Crowley is just as soft as Aziraphale when it comes to these faces, still soft with smiles and a roundedness that never got the chance to be sanded down by the pain of adulthood.
The next week, Charles shows up, beaming, with a bodysnatchers cassette that’s cursed to never change, and challenges his Bentley. It’s not even a thank you, it’s just because he likes Crowley with the simple affection of a nice kid. He rests his head on Crowley’s shoulder, and Crowley doesn’t refuse the way his heart softens.
That’s as close as he can afford to caring.
Edwin visits once. He shows up harried and afraid, but Crowley realises that Edwin’s not afraid of him. He’s too full of fear, for Charles, who is missing. Missing and poisoned and Edwin looks like he would walk a hundred hells rather than be without him one more second. Crowley rolls his eyes and tells him he ‘doesn’t know where his lapdog is, but he should try a leash’. Edwin runs as soon as he knows Charles isn’t there and Crowley finishes his glass of wine. Then he chooses another record and plays it to completion, and two more cups of wine. Then he rationalises that he’d like to drive off the drunkeness and systematically covers every square inch of London as a challenge to see how fast he can travel. He finds Charles, and bends reality just a touch to bring them within a square kilometre. Then he fucks off back home because this isn’t his business. As he swings open the car he hears Edwin voice, and he remembers how Charles sounded, when he was more scared of Edwin than himself. It’s just as bad on Edwin’s part.
Edwin visits. The kid is smart, and can recognise demonic energy. He asks for an appointment, and Crowley pencils him in for Nevertember the eightieth. So he shows up uninvited, and damn it the two are perfect for each other. It’s harder to recognise the touch of hell by now, it’s been cleaned away by justice and affection and all the pleasant emotions and Crowley laughs. Charles could try to do that on him, but a demon isn’t so easily cleansed. Edwin makes polite conversation, with proper manners, and Crowley understands why Charles must love him. The conversation isn’t a shovel talk, or a negotiation, or a test. It feels like Edwin just wants to know him. Understands that Charles cares for him, and he tolerates Charles, and so wants to know the shape of him.
Crowley is a demon. And Edwin wants to know him, because he matters to the person he loves.
He loves Charles. In the forbidden way, in the roses way. And Charles loves him, but it seems to be in the wildflowers and compassion way. It can grow into something else, but that’s not a guarantee. And Crowley doesn’t know how Charles would react, but it’s reassuring, knowing that the kid is loved well.
Edwin’s smart. But he never lets on that he knows anything, and Crowley never confirms that he’s done anything. They know when it’s smarter to leave things unsaid.
Crowley doesn’t mention Aziraphale. It doesn’t seem out of place. This place, with good music and conversation feels immune to the rest of the world. Selfishly, he hoards something that hasn’t been touched by something impossible.
Charles mentions Edwin, because his love doesn’t hurt. Even drags him along every couple of visits, to ‘socialise’ him. They’re not together, and Crowley doesn’t know if they ever will be, but they love each other beautiful. Everything comes back to Edwin. He mentions ‘Edwin would hate this song’ with an unbridled grin, and every visit comes with half an hour of him bragging on whatever new skill his partner has used to solve whatever case is stumping the agency, proud enough that you would think it’s his own achievement.
Aziraphale meets them then, calling Crowley with his ‘I need to tell someone about something clever I did or I will pop’ voice, and Crowley, drawn like a magnet, helpless.
It says something that he sees Aziraphale happy, excited and wiggling in the way he is when he’s found something delightful and just a little outside Heaven’s approval, and immediately thinks ‘ahhh, you’ve found them too’. He doesn’t say he knows them already, doesn’t confirm or deny anything. This is a little like him and Charles and a record. It’s nice to love something with someone else who loves it just as much.
Aziraphale flutters around the ethics of it as Crowley knows he is want to do. He describes the horrors of a young child doomed to hell, shooting Crowley a disapproving eye like it’s his fault, and then the logistics of doing something and nothing all at once. He says ‘sin of omission’ like that’s an actual thing and how after days of debating and introspecting, he’s resolved to turn a blind eye to the two. He goes on about a sweet young kid and a youthful hooligan, and Crowley is delighted to hear about a ‘sweet boy’ who wore a jacket with a variety of pins and a pleasant, charming demeanour, and a ‘hooligan’ who insisted to handle the most precious books in Aziraphale’s collection. Edwin seems to have fallen under Aziraphale’s disapproval, but in the way that Aziraphale seems just a little too fond of someone he allegedly loathes.
Charles storms in that weekend with a bright smile and calling out on how ‘we met the weirdest bloke-’ and doesn’t understand why Crowley can’t stop laughing.
Crowley’s flat is minimalistic at best, and lifeless at worst. But the boot of his car accumulates clutter like growing mould, pins and badges. And records that hold onto their songs the way ghosts hold on to the Earth.
The Bentley is as much of a jackass as she is, but she isn’t malicious. She won’t get rid of the things he cares about.
When Crowley delivers the Antichrist, he has a long journey. He drives for miles and miles. He thinks about a universe and a nebula and a planet and an angel and a detective agency that can’t burn. They need more time.
So Crowley decides to save the Earth. For everyone, but also for them.
He invites Charles, and the boy brings along Edwin. Like this, looking at them at the same time makes him ache. They look good together in a way that an angel and demon never will.
Sometimes Crowley has to hurt himself.
He tells them the truth and tells them to stay away. Tells them that he’ll be reporting to Hell more frequently, and they’ll be checking up on him like they haven’t in centuries. Tells them that they have to stay away, because he can’t save the planet and them. Keeps his sunglasses on the whole time, and pretends this doesn’t matter to him, even when Charles starts crying.
Crowley snags his sleeve as they’re leaving and talks quiet. Asks if he’ll treat the kid like his plants, or like he treats Charles. And his eyes are soft and insistent, and Crowley has never ever asked, because he already knows. He says that he’ll treat the child like a child, and Charles smiles like he’s passed a test, like the baby will be safe with a demon godfather.
They don’t visit, the next decade. But on the first of each month, Crowley received a package, courtesy of his subscription to Day By Day Records, a service designed to ‘broaden the music horizon of our customers!’. The bright ‘DBD’ on the parcels is worlds away in design to the ones on their business cards, but it lights something in him anyway, and Warlock grows to love the quiet Sundays with Nanny, listening to all the greatest hits of the last three centuries.
He remembers why he wants to save the world. He takes it Day By Day.
Their plan goes to hell. Their plan goes to shit and Crowley can’t think about anything except finding the antichrist and fixing it. He stands on an airbase in the middle of Tadworth and sees a boy who is human incarnate and thinks that ‘I know someone who’d be a great friend to you’. He sees Adams father, and he sees Adam’s dad, and thinks that the kid wound up pretty great, all things considered.
Aziraphale would agree, if he could say anything.
They go home together, and step out of the bus in foreign bodies, but once the End of Days is officially over, and a nice weekend is settling in, Crowley takes a nice long walk, and believes very hard that Charles knows that it is safe to swing by again.
That’s the good thing about being a demon. There aren’t as many limitations on what can be true.
Charles shows up with a smile, a record, and a hug. Which is new, but so is everything.
Life carries on, and he thinks things are improving. Which is dangerous, but everything seems safer. Aziraphale calls more often, and Crowley can see Heaven’s sticky fingers peeling away from him, the way his oldest friend is less likely to flutter around a decision, the way he stands his ground and acts with instinct, not instruction.
Charles and Edwin are in America when Gabriel shows up and Crowley thinks ‘good’. He doesn’t put those kids at risk, refuses to. And Gabriel may be harmless, but that doesn’t mean he can’t destroy everything Crowley loves.
He doesn’t need to, as it turns out. Crowley destroys everything anyway.
So Aziraphale is gone, the bookshop is dead, and the Earth is on it’s final countdown anyway. So Crowley does the only logical thing and drowns himself in a lake of alcohol. He refuses to talk to anyone, and passes three weeks in inebriation and solitude.
Charles finds him like that, and if Crowley was any less destroyed, he would fix it. Would remember how the kid flinches from alcohol and violent men, and fix himself. But honestly, he can barely recognise Charles. He rolls away from his alarmed questioning, and shouts a rambling tirade to hopefully chase him away, and chugs another bottle, because nothing is strong enough. He drinks and drinks from bottles that he must be using a demonic miracle to keep full and within arms length, but honestly, he can barely keep track.
When he realises he can see, he realises he’s been tricked.
Charles hadn’t left. He’d been quietly filling the bottles with water and handing them to Crowley, to help him sober up. He doesn’t look aware from the demon’s glare, even as he knows he’s caught.
“Sorry. But you needed it.”
“Shut up.”
Crowley never tells Charles to shut up. Tries not to say that sort of thing generally. He’ll turn humans into lizards if he wants quiet.
He rolls over, but doesn’t reach for another bottle yet. He feels the liquor burning away, leaving behind fresh wounds that will scar unless he drinks more.
“Can we fix it? Is it something to do with Hell?”
“Seriously. Shut up.”
“… Can I stay?”
Always the dangerous questions with this one. Crowley’s a shit demon.
“M not chasing you away.”
Maybe it’s because when Aziraphale left, Charles asked to stay. As though it wasn’t what Crowley wanted, if not who Crowley wanted. But Charles stays. He doesn’t talk, seeming to take ‘shut up’ a little to literal, but he waters the plants (he does it wrong, all sweet and gentle) and cleans the apartment. He ducks out, doubtless to his little partner and little cases. But he always tells him that he’ll be back, and always comes back.
Three weeks pass like that, and Crowley sits up. He uses a miracle to make himself coffee, and then shouts enough abuse to make his plants sit up, verdant and vibrant. He throws out and burns the only clothes that know what Aziraphale feels like when he’s been kissed, and lounges around in a silk robe because there’s nothing he needs to do and nobody he needs to be.
Charles returns, and Crowley refuses to acknowledge that he in any way cares about the way the kid bursts into a grin at the sight of him up. He snaps out something acerbic and bitter, but Charles doesn’t take it personal, and if anything, seems to be reassured at the way the words are biting, but not loud, and a world away from the drunkeness that Charles was taught to fear.
Dumb kid.
He thinks that Charles will leave now, now that Crowley is clearly fine, but if anything he turns up more. He brings Edwin, for some reason, and resumes his chatter. Edwin seems… Better. More comfortable with a demon, which might mean nothing, but Crowley Looks and sees that his energy is…
“Off?” Edwin sounds horribly unimpressed, and Crowley doesn’t deserve that.
“Yeah, I guess. The fuck happened in America, you’re all-” he does an odd shape in the air “-woobly.”
“Woobly.” And now the kid is offended.
“And you’ve got the Hell traces on you.” He Looks at Charles too, and these kids are always confusing. “You too. Messed with a demon or something?”
They exchange glances, and Crowley feels his stomach drop as he realises that Something has happened.
“Hell’s Lost & Found department located us. I was unfortunately dragged down to-” And Edwin tries so hard to be an adult but shit. He’s a kid, and he breaks off because he’s about to cry. “Charles came for me.”
Hell.
Edwin went to Hell, came back and recruited a bloody Rude Boy to become vigilante detectives. He never deserved Hell, and he should never have gone back. If Crowley had been a good person, or anything other than a demon, he would have reassured them.
But he’s a demon, isn’t he?
He turns his scowl on Charles.
“Bloody brilliant then. You go wandering off on a school trip to hell on your lonesome, hmm? No plan, no backup? I thought I told you-” He breaks himself off, because he’s about to cry. He scowls and throws himself into the couch again.
Charles laughs in the way that means it isn’t funny, but isn’t painful. “Sorry mate. Charlie, that’s the matron of the Lost & Found Department opened the door for me, and I didn’t think I really had time to find you. I couldn’t really think.”
Crowley enjoys the laziness of sulking. “Not my business. Start a hell tour bus side business if you want.”
“Don’t be like that, you know you’re our favourite demon.”
“Right. Cause I’m a Demon.” And that’s it isn’t it. He’s a demon. And it doesn’t matter who he is, or what he does, because it’ll always come down to that. Fucking Aziraphale. “I’ve been a demon, and no matter what, I’m staying a Demon.”
“It’s not a bad thing to be, I don’t think.”
“You’d be the only one.” Crowley’s head knocks back against the back of the sofa, and he makes himself taller so it’s more comfortable. “Seriously. What a twit. Can you imagine saying that? After everything?” He refuses to elaborate, just waves a hand to summon another cup, but catches Charles tense and makes sure it’s coffee.
“Well, you’re one of our top ten. Top five, probably, but I’d tie you with Mr Fell.”
Crowley spits out the coffee and chokes. Right, he’d never told them about their ‘Mr Fell’. Nobody knew what they meant to each other, because why would such a lovely man engage in any sort of relationship with a dastardly sort of-
Well… Nothing was stopping him now.
“Well. Makes sense. We’ve been tied together for hundreds of years. Not that that matters to his sanctimonious arse.”
“You and Mr Fell?” Charles sounds surprised, but like he’s been given an unexpected present. Crowley snorts. Leave it to this kid to say it like it’s something good, a pleasant surprise instead of an alarming revelation. “Was he a demon too? Is that why he’s called ‘Fell’?”
“My Angel. Or, he was. Another thing that’s ended.”
A pause. And then Edwin, in an incredulous tone. “You mean to tell me that that insufferable bookseller was an angel?!”
“He wasn't that bad Edwin."
“He ought to have his license stripped from him.”
“He never applied for one.” Crowley has to interject, as the memory grows bitter. That’s the worst part of it. Aziraphale hadn’t just taken away Crowley’s future, he’d rotted their past. Centuries tied together and it all tastes sour. “Didn’t need to, at first, and now…” He finishes his coffee with an obnoxious slurp. “Doesn’t matter, in the end. Bookshop’s over. We’re over. Gabriel and Beelzebub can do it, you two can do it, but not me.”
Edwin still seems confused, but Crowley doesn’t see fit to fill him in, preferring to languish and wail. Charles seems content to placate him with sweet words and refill his coffee.
The story comes out in bits and pieces. Of him and Aziraphale, and all of him and Aziraphale. Of the garden, and a flaming sword. Of their arrangement and the apocalypse. Of fucking Gabriel and the damned Metatron.
Of Aziraphale asking him to change. Of Aziraphale choosing to leave. Of his own stupid attempt to-
He doesn’t even know what he was trying to do. It’s not like that would have gotten him to stay. The worst of it was that Aziraphale did love him, at least a bit. He’d always kept a door open, always picked up the phone. But never enough. And never enough to close the door behind him.
When he’s finished, he slouched back, beyond drained. The coffee cup is empty. So is he. All of this, every part, it’s all shit. It’s his fault, it’s Aziraphale’s fault, but he’s the one who gets the worst of it. Every time, he’s the one who looses.
He doesn’t know what he expects. He doesn’t expect anything. He attaches himself to humans, it’s not the other way round. Being known isn’t appealing when you’re the scum of mythology.
Oscar had flinched. And he was right to but it still hurt.
But he doesn’t expect Charles to curl against him, throwing himself forward in a whirl of teenage boy and idiocy. He halfheartedly wiggles, before slumping. The boy is cold, and there’s no warmth in a ghosts hug, but Crowley feels it in his heart anyway.
If he has a heart.
“He’s awful.” Charles mutters, and it’s unfair. It is, because Aziraphale can’t be expected to stay, can’t be expected to choose anything but heaven, can be expected to love him back, but nobody has ever been on Crowley’s side, and so he indulges in the kind of petty hatred that comes when you care about someone who has been hurt. “You don’t deserve that. You’re better than all of Heaven. Better than Hell too.”
Charles talk as if the two are equal. Aziraphale had said something similar, that Crowley was ‘better than the other demons’ but it was a hollow compliment. It sounded more like Crowley ‘wasn’t all that bad, comparatively’. Charles says it with love, and an equal distaste for both Heaven and Hell.
Edwin clears his throat and shuffles. The boy isn’t the emotional type, for all his clear love for Charles, but he’s still here, and trying, which would probably mean something if Crowley had it in him to care.
“Charles, would you mind brewing a new pot of coffee for Mr Crowley? Real coffee, not coffee that has been willed into existence.” Edwin has never been quiet for his distaste of ‘miracles’ demonic or otherwise. The concept of ‘believing something into reality’ rubs against his practical sensibilities. Charles seems reluctant to rise, but does under Edwin’s look, ever trusting. Crowley’s surprised at how reluctant he is, at the pang in his heart as Charles steps away. They both watch him leave.
“Don’t tell him you love him.” The words are bitter, but needed. If those fool girls hadn’t convinced him to talk maybe… Maybe something could have been different. He would be full of regret of what he hadn’t said, rather mourning what he had done. “I know you want to, and I know it seems like the right thing to do, but don’t. It will destroy you. It will kill every part of you, you don’t understand. The pain of not being with them is nothing against the pain of being without them.”
“You’re too late for that, I fear.”
If Crowley had a human neck, it would have snapped. Edwin’s smile isn’t even cocky, the bastard. Just hopelessly sorrowful, and yet content in it.
“We were climbing out of Hell. He came for me.” He shook his head, like that was at all surprising, like anyone who knew them expected Charles to not. “Hell. He just, followed me down to drag me up. I thought… Well, I did not truly think of much, truthfully. I just knew I had to tell him. Perhaps it was that I couldn’t bear it any longer.”
“So, you’re together?” He can’t bear to congratulate them. He’d thought them alike, just a little, and it used to make it fond and now it hurts.
A touch more sorrow. The same amount of love. “Not quite. He does not feel the same way.”
“But he stayed.” And that’s jealousy. He turns away, ashamed despite himself. It’s disgusting, to be jealous of this, but it’s real. “He stayed.”
“I do not take it for granted.”
“You better not.” And it’s a growling mutter. It’s cruel, but true.
“… I do not mean to be insensitive. But I have a point to make.”
“Do you now.” Crowley wishes he could take a swing. “Please, proceed with your point.”
Edwin’s glare is steely even now, and it feels like he’s being pinned down with a vicious glare at a music event in Hammersmith. “It is the deficiency of his character, and not yours that lead to this. You both may be divine, but just because your situations are more complex than mortals, that doesn’t mean your emotions are.”
The room is very, very quiet.
Edwin doesn’t stop talking. “Emotional conflicts are rarely like crimes. There is not a perpetrator and victim. There are degrees of blame across numerous parties. They can’t be handled as one of our cases. But, remember that while Mr Fell not returning your feelings is not a moral failing, it does not make his behaviour kind. One can not love someone and care for them simultaneously.”
It feels like hard won advice.
“He said he forgave me.” Crowley doesn’t even recognise his own voice.
“We have done nothing that requires forgiveness. To leave, to suggest that you ought to change, to make decisions for your life, none of that should be seen as an act of virtue.”
“… He’s an angel.”
“That does not make his actions correct. You once told Charles that our choices determine our character, not the other way round, did you not?”
He had. That felt like a long time ago.
“Don’t let your tragedies determine your narrative. It will be more of a prison than either Heaven or Hell.”
Crowley felt a lump grow in his throat and he gave a shaky grin.
“Who made you so clever? I thought Charles was the people person.”
“I am.” Charles smiles, clearly having overheard the last lines of their conversation. “That’s why I found him.”
This kid. Crowley likes him. Likes the way he stands against the world and loves the people in it. Loves the way he seems to feed off the joy he can give to others. Loves the way he takes pride in living as much as he can, as often as he can.
Loves the way he proves that you can care, and be kind.
It doesn’t really change anything, not being alone. It doesn’t really matter, that he has people on his side. It doesn’t change that his greatest everything is gone, that every fear he’d idly built back up since that gut wrenching fall has been broken apart and left him in desolation. But Crowley looks out the window of a lifeless apartment and sees a whole world. And for the first time in a while, it doesn’t seem impossible, or even intolerable to live in it.
Charles still shows the signs of youth, still feels like a tragedy to look at. But damn it, the kid looks so happy, just to be with them. And knowing that Edwin loves him, it doesn’t sit like a burden, it finds a place in his heart because he’ll accept the whole world.
Crowley doesn’t know what’s going to happen. Doesn’t know what bullshit the second coming will rain down among them. Doesn’t even know for certain if he will ever see his Aziraphale again, who was just mischievous enough to be wonderful. But he remembers his nebula, at the beginning of when time forgot to begin. The way everything blossomed into each other and fell apart caused leading to triggers leading to catalysing and the whole mess or reality, a scale model.
Decades ago, he met two kids. Chance took root and bloomed into this. He shouldn’t have let them wander, they shouldn’t have been alive. That’s what it was, when Heaven doesn’t have a say, when reality is permitted to exist.
‘This is what we loved about humanity, Aziraphale.’ He thinks, soft and somehow, free of rage. ‘I hope somewhere up there, in the Heaven you think so holy, you remember that.’
Alone, mourning, in a Heaven that never understood, Aziraphale does.