Disclaimer: Good Omens, and, specifically, Crowley, are NOT mine, they belong to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. The angel doesn't belong to me either, and of course, God just goes without saying. Full credits can be found at the end.
Rated K+ because I worry about this sort of thing.
When The Night is Cloudy
Kireawel has never been much of a believer. He has never had to be, really. You just do what you have to do, sit through the Times of Rapture, convince your superiors that you are Loving Everybody and Spreading Peace and Light, and try not to fall asleep during the hymns. Holy light isn't going anywhere in a hurry.
And then…the Rebellion. Dissent murmurs, fear creeps about like a traitor in the night. Kireawel fights for Heaven, though he isn't sure why. He tries to avoid the actual conflicts.
It is a brutal struggle. Wings are splintered in the dizzying heights that surround Heaven. Flaming swords arc and flare, and crash down on ethereal flesh. Cracks in the Faith are gnawed at by doubt and exhaustion.
And then, when the ruins of angelic cities are littered with clumps of collapsed beings, wings drooping, feathers bent and splattered with blood, the ground rifts, and half of the Hosts Fall through.
The death-cries of a thousand souls ring in the ears and the hearts of the remaining angels long afterwards. A reminder of what can come to pass, now.
Kireawel skulks in the shadows and bites his lip. Doubt is rising in him. He can feel it worming like a parasite. He knows he shouldn't-, but he can't help it- it makes so much sense- those are legitimate questions, questions that need answers. Questions. New questions. Doubt, and fear.
Angels are Falling every day now, afterthoughts, aftershocks of the earthquake.
And Kireawel does not understand anymore. Everything used to be so…straightforward. 'This is good'. 'This is what you have to do'. That was before 'evil' had been invented. He found this new concept…confusing. What is he supposed to think? What should he do? He should be good, he should be loyal, but…but…. What did that actually mean? How did one do that? Why should one do that?
So many questions.
I can't- I can't stand this. If I just ask, then it should all be cleared up. And everything can just go back…to how it was before. When everything was good, and there were no decisions or questions….Yes. Right. Of course.
Right.
He finds a passing angel, with rusty flaming curls and a bloody sword over one shoulder. There is a livid slice across his cheek. The redhead frowns at the request for clarification, as if wondering why anyone would need such a thing.
Just checking. Just asking. Just…
And Kireawel is pitching forward, and the expression on his face- the horror, the shock, the blinding fear- will haunt the other angel for eternities to come. The way he scrabbles at ground that is not there, clutching on to something- anything. But there is nothing but water vapour and ashes, and the angel can only watch, aghast, as the darkening figure plummets towards an infinite abyss.
The petrified scream ebbs like mist away from the scene, where the angel still stands, motionless, gazing sadly through the hole in the ground at his feet, where, far below, a black shape writhes.
"Why?" he whispers. And there will always be an answer.
"Let it be." The angel frowns, surely he has heard that somewhere. Or maybe he will hear that sometime in the future. Let it be. But it is such a waste. It really-.
The indistinct figure beside him puts one arm around his shoulder, wipes the cut from his face, and leads him gently away. Let it be.
The terror, the fear that goes beyond words or screams. The futile panic, because there is no ground anymore, nothing simple or solid or sane. Tearing with bleeding claws, but the sky is nothing but painted silk anymore, and it rends and bleeds like a soul. Clouds can be fallen through, now.
Wings and limbs flail and shatter- bones fraying, feathers snapping under the weight of gravity and guilt, muscles being shredded.
The sun is setting. Despite the distinct lack of anywhere for it to set in, or over, or onto, the endless sky is flaming alizarin and ochre with flashes of pale purple clouds. Earth is not even on the drawing boards yet, but in eternities to come, sunsets like this will be the backdrop for countless romantic excursions, with an attractive couple strolling hand-in-hand along a golden beach.
A tiny, broken silhouette tumbles across that joyous sky.
A sound trails after it. Maybe it is a supersonic boom, maybe it is the screech of bad brakes or nails across a blackboard or an artistic masterpiece's final shriek as it is put to the torch. Maybe it is the scream of a soul undergoing the greatest loss it can endure before being shattered into tinkling broken glass on the concrete floor of oblivion. Maybe it is the sound of a spirit being unceremoniously stripped from an entity that is as fragile as it is eternal.
Pain. The omnipresent force, so intertwined with gravity that maybe they are the same thing. They shred through dark, blood-shot hair, crushing bones in on themselves. They rollick together in the turbulent aether- the majestically seething no-man's-land between Heaven and Hell. They dance with the crumpling, tattered body.
There is nothing, anymore. Reaching for something-someone, because there has always been someone there, there has always been an answer, even if the soul was too blind to see it. There will always be an answer.
But the hand has been retracted. Nothingness yawns, with terror grinning in its vast expanse. Flailing hands meet with empty air.
There are no answers.
There has always been an axis to spin around, always a reason, a purpose. A something to believe in. Something that was there for you to believe. Even if you didn't, it was there.
There has never been this much pain.
How can wings break? Wings are…are…. I thought that wings were unbreakable. I thought….
I thought that the sky was solid. I? What is that? A word. No time for words, now.
The world is a burning fireball. Memories flit, charring. Eyes wide open, clawing for some sane vision, a vestige of solidity, something, anything. Blindness. Eyes, bleeding from burning pupils. Nothing.
No time for confusion. A whirling, spinning frenzy of panic and agony and each molten moment flares white before melding with the sea of tortured thought in a mind that is scorching and sizzling, without even drips of chilled liquid sense to quell the fire.
There is nothing and nothing and nothing. And I am nobody. I am nothing. Maybe solidity was only a dream. Maybe vision was only ever a delusion. Maybe there never was anything.
Maybe there never was an answer.
Maybe. Maybe.
Blackness blossoms across the infernal sky.
Suddenly there is too much of something, and broken wings crack on a cold floor of blackness. Cold pain, now.
Rest. Please. Let it end. Let me rest. Let me sleep. Forever. No. No more. Please. Let me rest.
Feathers float to the icy black. The darkness is crushing. It seeps into the shattered form. The insubstantial inky everything, sticky as pitch, stains the dulled feathers.
The mind begins to throb, spilling unwanted memories. Somehow, sight has returned in this place of darkness. Vision- the ultimate vision, to open bloody eyes and see… and see everything- to see the world laid bare. To see that there is nothing- within, and without. That it is utterly dark. That beyond the superficial darkness of the Infernal Pit No. 17, there is a deeper, stygian blackness, a blackness spawned from an eternal void. The soul is gone. It was shredded somewhere in that burning sky.
The hand that once reached out, has been withdrawn. The knowledge, the faith in that unerring hand has gone. Faith that waned and wavered and guttered. Maybe there never was faith at all. Maybe there never was a soul.
But I thought there was. And when I thought- when I believed that there was- then the clouds were solid, and the sky was riveted down, and not going anywhere.
And then I thought…I…I…thought….it was only a question, wasn't it? I only wanted to know….I only asked. There were supposed to be answers.
Maybe there was an answer. And I just…didn't….
And now there is nothing where my soul should be. Just a cavity, a ragged hole brimming over with sulphur scented pitch and shame.
Shame, oh yes. Every memory, look. That is the thing about vision. It is not selective. Look at that. And that. What were you thinking? But-oh. I forgot. You can't think. You are nothing.
No. I'm not. I'm…I'm….
Look. Surrounded by obscurity. Where you belong. Your wings are black now. Black. Stained the colour of evil, and nothingness.
Don't…. Please…. Don't.…Stop…please.
The body will take years to recover, but the mind would weep, if it could. It would weep tears that would burn down the face and sizzle on the floor, in puddles of hissing tar.
It would weep tears from eyes that burn like the fiery sky. Eyes deeper than pits, deeper than the depths of a soul, because if there is no soul, there is no bottom. It is bottomless. Nothing is solid. Solidity was a memory, that has been charred away.
And eyes are windows into the soul.
They will open the door to Infernal Pit No. 17. And the artificial light will flood in, and the dark shape will raise its head. And it will look at them with eyes that burn deeper than the fires beyond the sun.
And they will call him by a name. And he will hiss back in astonishment. Because they can give him a name.
He is still nothing, a shell filled with a bottomless vacuum of darkness. But he is slightly less of a nothing than he was before.
Crawley….yesssss….
The sooty memories will never leave him- skeletal rememberings picked clean by the vision that only comes with the severing of a soul. He will remember the bright light, so long ago, and the time when one could walk on air.
He will dream of it, and wake up screaming. And there will be nobody to hear him.
And he will remember the pain, and the whistling gravity, and the sky burning. And he – and only he- will remember the sound that his soul made as it was torn away.
And he will know that his memory is only a shadow of the pain that wracked his tortured frame that infernal day.
But, somewhere in the empty void within him, something, some vestige of something long lost, long forgotten, remains.
And, secretly, shamefully, he nourishes the tiny hope, that one day there might- there just might- be an answer.
Credits:
-Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett- for writing Good Omens. What else can I say that could eclipse that?
-The Beatles- for the title, and the continuous references to their wonderful (and much-loved by me) 'Let it Be'.
-Penmaron, for her stunning Beta-ing skills.
-The person who came up with Crowley's pre-Fall name. (I'm afraid I don't know who this was. But I give them kudos, cookies and lots of hugs anyway)
-You, for reading, and for being patient. And-*crossed fingers* for reviewing? Anyone?
I do hope it was worth your while.
-Llaregyb