...I didn't want to write this, at first. After the idea was presented to me, I kept making excuses as to Why This Didn't Work... and then my dear friend Ruize/Pen Sil got sick of it and told me in no uncertain terms Why All Of My Excuses Were Utter Bullsh*t. I sulked for a bit, and then gave in and started writing it while out to dinner with my family. In Elder Futhark runes so none of them could read it over my shoulder.

Disclaimer: If I owned Good Omens, I would not have boobs. Nor would I be posting on here. I'm just kicking over the sandcastles in someone else's sandbox. I'll put them back when I'm done.

EDIT: Hey, everyone! Check out my profile for a link to the song Fade to Black by Metallica. It isn't the namesake of this story, by the way. I actually discovered it about a week after writing and posting this and thought it fit rather nicely.

He's gone.

The thought echoes in his mind, spinning, chasing itself in circles, invading every crevice of his brain. It was forbidden, he knew that from the very beginning, but they had been left alone. He wasn't foolish enough to believe that neither of their masters knew. It was, he had felt, just a part of the Great Ineffable Plan.

A small part of him had always expected to be punished. Perhaps one or the other of them would be recalled, perhaps the punishment would be more creative.

But he had never expected this.

The thought still chases itself and its echoes through his mind, and he attempts to smother it by drinking himself into a stupor. It doesn't help. Besides which, drinking just isn't fun without his drinking partner – his demon. He continued doggedly anyway, until he finally passed out right where he sat at the desk in his bookshop, sinking gratefully into the blessed oblivion.

He emerged from the darkness later – much later, although he couldn't have told you exactly how much later. It might have been an hour; it might have been a week for all he knew – to the thumping headache of a hangover. He winced as he sat up, all memory of the previous day obliterated by the pain, which he hurriedly miracled away, only to wish that he hadn't as the crashing reality came rushing back. He was alone. His demon, his best friend, his love… was gone. Dead. For good. Not just temporarily - if inconveniently – discorporated, as they both had been many times over the millennia. It was nothing that they couldn't both handle. Certainly there might be a few years of loneliness, perhaps a few centuries if they were unlucky – it always did take a ridiculously long time to gain new mortal corporations, but they both knew that, eventually, they would be back together. Not this time. He was dead, his soul destroyed.

Over the following weeks, slowly, numbly, the angel settles back into a routine. A touch of divine inspiration here, a small miracle there, because that is what is expected of him, but somehow he can't bring himself to care any more. There are no wiles to thwart now and he is frozen, numbed from the inside by impossible cold. It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing does.

So he hides behind a mask of smiles and affability, a kind, welcoming presence to all. The humans cannot feel how his spirit is broken. He knew that, even if his heart had smashed and his joy had shattered, he shouldn't pass his pain on to others. That was selfish, cold-hearted and….

…and it wasn't what he would have done, what he would have wanted, because the angel knows that, no matter how hard his demon protested, he wasn't all bad. He was just good enough to be worth liking and just good enough, reckless enough, stupid, crazy, beautiful enough to have stolen the angel's heart. Besides… it wasn't in the angel's nature, even now, to bring sorrow to humans.

He was still spreading God's Word, still doing what he always had done, what he'd always believed in – still believed in, even now, with that small part of his being that had always refused to waver, that simply couldn't believe that God's Ineffable Plan was flawed – but… why did it hurt so much?

He moved away from London. There were too many painful memories there. Too many dinners shared at fancy restaurants, cosy lunches at little cafés, too many lazy afternoons spent at the bookstore, too many happy evenings spent getting completely and utterly smashed in each other's company. He found himself in a small village, where he holed himself up and soon became a part of the villagers' lives. If anyone had a problem, inevitably they would find themselves drawn to the kindly, bookish blonde man, and he would help them, his lips curved into a gentle smile that, had they looked deeper, they would have noticed never quite reached his clear blue eyes. Years passed. Villagers died and were replaced by their children, and somehow no one ever noticed that he never aged, never died…

Years on and he still travels as much as he can, unable to stay in one place for too long for fear of the memories that will surface, spreading good, finding righteous souls, because it's what he's always done, and always, always returning to the village. Years on and he buries himself in the books and scrolls that he has collected over his 6,000 years. Where once they were a hobby, something that he enjoyed doing, now they are a desperate bid for freedom, for escape, one that almost –but not quite – works, one that almost, but not quite, suppresses the empty ache in his chest. He doesn't sleep any more – not that he ever needed to. It was only his demon's influence that had caused him to sleep in the first place. He had tried, once, hoping that the dreams might be a way to escape the pain, but the nightmares that tormented him that night were even worse than the reality.

He is running, trying to reach something before it is too late. There is a snarl. A shout. He springs, desperate. A splash. Legs collapse under him. Voices scream. Flesh sizzles, melts, dissolves. One of the voices falls silent, but the other continues and slowly he realises that it is him. His hands reach for the dying, fading demon and pass right through him. He stares blankly as his love's eyes meet his one last time, filled with a desperate pain, before he fades for good. The other angels snicker delightedly at their good deed, and all he can think is 'He's gone… gone…'

The word and the laughter echo in his mind as he curls into a ball, hands over his ears as if that could block it out. The word fades to empty darkness, he is immobilised and he cannot even cry…

He hardly even dares to close his eyes any more for fear of what might be lurking in the darkness behind his eyelids.

At times, he would look back and think of the things they'd done together, the adventures they'd had. All those amazing things that had been replaced in the blink of an eye with… nothing. With normality.

How mundane. How strange. Sometimes he wondered how he coped.

At times, he would look back and remember a demon – no, a friend. He with black hair that somehow managed to be both rumpled and perfect at the same time, he with impossible eyes, he who was reckless, and lively, and stubborn.

He who is gone.

Sometimes he would wonder if it had been a dream. He used to wonder if God even heard him, if the demon had ever existed anywhere outside of his mind, if God even cared about the work he still did for Him. Sometimes he felt guilty for doubting Him, but he didn't know what to believe anymore.

He promised to keep spreading His word, and keep restoring faith and hope, but as the years dragged on the days melted into one another until it seemed like a never ending chore, and sometimes he wondered if God existed, if he ever had existed. There is no trace outside of his memories of the demon ever having existed any more. Still he keeps going, the flicker of hope and devotion to his Father that never leaves still burning brightly, the only thing that he can feel any more besides the pain and the emptiness.

But as the years go by, each as void as the next, the hope begins to wane, leaving him with only the feeling of emptiness. The people of the village looked up to him, called him their Guardian Angel – one can only stay in one place for so long before people begin to realise that you aren't what you seem, after all – but he still only felt empty, the life long gone from his eyes. They looked grey now, and showed his age, every second of his 6 millennia. He kept them hidden behind tinted glasses. His inspiration was a God who had forgotten him, but still he stuck to his duty, still he saw the face of his long-gone lover when he closed his eyes.

The years went by, he felt old, and he wanted his love back. It was impossible, he knew, but he prayed for a sign from the God that he had served faithfully since the dawn of time, but no answer came, still there was no sign from Him, and finally his mask cracked, the façade shattered, he broke down… and he Fell.

The people that had looked up to him, loved him, revered him could only watch in shock as the one who seemed so strong came crumbling down, his screams of rage echoing around the tiny village as ink went flying, glass splintering, paper tearing, tears falling. The dark glasses shattered, and the books burned. They were nothing, he realised. Just paper and ink, and yet he had clung to them for so long.

Drops of blood from the ripped hands of his human body drip onto the wooden slats, onto the leaves and into the water, staining everything with crimson circles, mixing with the ebony-black ink, and they watch in fear as their guardian screams his rage and his despair to the sky, knowing now that the only person who could have gotten through to him now is long gone, long dead, and can no longer help, that the one he has blindly served for so long does not care, and they know that the one they depended on is gone, or perhaps never existed, that he hasn't had anyone that he could depend on for a thousand years, and as he hurls his curses to the sky lightning splits the heavens, shining white wings burst from his back and rain comes pouring down, mixing with the tears on his cheeks, with the ink and the blood, soaking him to the skin as he screams defiance to the one he has followed for so long. Everywhere the raindrops touch the feathers of his wings turn black. His heart hardens, and he turns away from everything he worked so hard to protect, turns his back on his people and walks away, away from everything and everyone he knows, and though his hands heal, and the ink stains on his skin fade away, the rents in his heart never fully heal, nor does he ever attempt to repair the rips in his clothing, wash away the stains of ink and blood, or hide the scars from the bits of glass that went too deep, no longer caring, no longer feeling. His mind, his life, like his heart, have faded into the black, fallen, spiralling down into the darkness and his mind has broken, because after all, what is physical pain compared to the emotional pain he bore silently for so long, before it broke him?

How long ago it seems now that his heart became as cold as ice, as hard as diamond, and he stopped feeling. Does he know that he has Fallen? Does he know whether he wanders through Hell, or on the terrain of Earth? They do not know. The other Fallen fear him, this strange, broken angel with blank, lifeless, soulless eyes. He does not wait for the end. He cares not. He only exists. He only is.

The days when he was happy are a long-forgotten dream, and he wanders, forever lost, in the darkness of it all.

Fade to black…

...

...Oh, look, a pit trap...

-"accidentally" falls into the conveniently-placed pit trap-