Crowley had been there at the air force base when they had averted the apocalypse, but he had been sitting on a bench in the park when the world ended. Or at least that was how it felt to him. All it took were three words.
"I'm going home." Aziraphael said quietly while fidgeting with the corner of the piece of bread he had been feeding to the ducks. He had been doing quite a bit of that lately, the fidgeting; much to the distress of the ducks he hadn't been as diligent with the duck feeding part.
"Alright Angel, see you tomorrow, perhaps I could tempt you to some lunch?" Crowley responded casually.
"No Crowley, I mean home, home. I've been called back." The angel seemed to sag in on himself a bit while Crowley stared incredulously into space. Home. As in, up there? The angel had been called home?
"For how long?" Was about all the demon could really think of for the moment while he waited for something he did not want to think about inside to stop aching.
"Well, that's the thing, I think that it's a permanent move. Something about going native, and bad influences and needing to spend some time with my own kind…" Aziraphael muttered. He felt wretched. He had been frightened when he had first heard from his superiors, afraid that he'd be reprimanded or cast out or something messy and unpleasant. This was somehow worse. After all, Crowley was his, while he could not for diplomatic reasons refer to him as a friend, he was definitely a compatriot. Someone to talk to that understood, and really the only other face he had seen on an almost daily basis for the past several millennia. The thought of not seeing that face ever again was a bit harrowing. He kept reminding himself that it was all ineffable, it had to be, because the orders had come from the top and if it was arbitrary or worse…well, as an angle he couldn't condone where that line of thinking led. The only thing keeping him from utter panic at this point was the thought that this was all part of some plan and His will and all that. Meanwhile Crowley was cursing every angle he could remember meeting, save for the one sitting next to him, and the big guy himself. He would worry about how he was going to deal with spending the rest of eternity alone later. For now, at least in his own personal thoughts, there was hell to pay.
There was no showy goodbye, no hugging or fond farewells. There was no point really. They both knew that they'd never see each other again, or if they did it would probably be on a field of battle and most likely on opposing sides. And really, how does one go about saying goodbye forever to someone you've known for as long as you can remember. When it came time, they simply said goodbye, good luck and went their separate ways. Besides, demons didn't hug. They also did NOT cry, or so Crowley kept telling himself all the way back to his flat. When he was finally safely behind his own door, Crowly sank down on his couch, buried his head in his hands and steadfastly did not cry, he also patently did not think about how alone he suddenly felt.
The first few days weren't that bad really. Crowley found that he only thought of the angle a few times, whenever he happened upon something that reminded him of his –not friend, adversary, yes, that was the word- his adversary (which seemed to be more and more often lately). It was at these times that he would be sure to do his job a bit more thoroughly and with a bit more spiteful glee than had been there before. Actually he was doing swimmingly; he had even won himself back some favor with his colleagues down below. By the end of the first month Crowley had almost gotten over how angry he was. In fact, by the second month he had all but stopped setting parking meters on fire and he only occasionally pushed someone into traffic. In the back of his mind a little voice (that sounded irritatingly like the angle) kept scolding him and making little disapproving noises whenever he did his job with more vigor than was probably necessary. Really it was getting annoying. It kept him from enjoying himself at all. He should have been enjoying his work, he was very good at what he did, he was making a right bastard of himself after all, but there was that voice again, that was why he was so upset, it had to be. Only it wasn't just work, he didn't enjoy much of anything anymore. He never drank, never went out to eat, he never ate at all actually, he didn't even terrorize his houseplants.* He did sleep though, in fact he spent a good deal of time sleeping. Crowley, being a demon, didn't dream. So sleep was a bles-, dam-, a relief. When he was asleep Crowley didn't have to think, he didn't miss anyone, he didn't feel alone or betrayed…he didn't feel anything. He began sleeping too much. He found that he was sleeping for months on end and really he didn't care. Why should he get up at all? He didn't require food or drink or any human bodily need. He didn't really need to do his job, what would they care downstairs; he could always argue the fact that he was exercising his right to partake in the sin of sloth or some such rubbish. And really, what did it matter? If Crowley had been human he probably would have worried that he was becoming depressed, but he wasn't human and that was the problem. He was a demon, he was immortal and had all of eternity to sit around and wait. It hadn't been so bad when the angel had been around, he had had someone to talk to, someone that understood or at least was kind enough to listen when Crowley spoke of things an angel couldn't understand. Now, now he was alone. And it looked like he was going to be alone for quite some time and he was damned if he was going to go back to his people in search of company.
Years seemed to pass, and might well have before Crowley bothered to get out of bed again. He tried to go for a walk, but there were too many places that he didn't want to see. The bookstore was still there, just as the angel had left it, and it would stay that way for as long as Crowley deemed it should. It would probably remain that way with its closed sign in the window long after people forgot what books were. He steadfastly avoided the park where he and the angel had spent their last day together. He walked two blocks out of his way to avoid the little café where they would always share a drink. Somehow, what with all his detours and side trips of avoidance he found himself standing in front of a church. It was an impressive number: stone, very gothic and he hated it more at that moment than he had ever hated anything in his long life. Now, even though he was a demon, Crowley had after all been an angel once and therefore still held some sort of respect for religious symbols. After all, churches were His symbolic houses and all that. And it was for that reason that he was suddenly filled with the urge to shatter all the stained glass windows. He didn't care if it was His house; no actually it was because it was His house. Crowley was halfway up the front stairs with a rock in hand before he had even realized that he had picked one up, if he hadn't just willed it into being. And he probably would have broken something if the door hadn't opened when it did. He wondered vaguely if he should throw the thing at the priest, but decided that he'd rather not find out what kind of consequences there were for that. He was almost back to his flat before he really stopped to think about the fact that he cared if there were consequences. It was only later when he was aimlessly flipping through channels on the telly that he realized that he cared about a lot of things, things that he hadn't and as a demon probably would have been better off not caring about. For example, he cared that someone had gone on a shooting spree in some town in America. A little nagging voice in his head tut-tutted and remarked that that had been someone's son once. He found more things he cared about over the next few weeks, it seemed that every news headline brought out strange little thoughts about 'what a shame' or 'such a waste'. And one day he realized that that niggling little voice in his mind had long since stopped being Aziraphael's. In fact, he really couldn't remember what the angel had sounded like. Crowley was afraid. Not of what his colleagues would think about all this caring he was doing, but that he was going to forget about Aziraphael. Crowley really wanted to see Aziraphael. But that just wasn't going to happen.
Somehow Crowley managed to survive. Really it wasn't such a feat considering he didn't have to actively do anything in order to continue to live. He spent a lot of time thinking, since he seemed to have no end of time on his hands. He thought about things like ineffability and the fairness of it all. He composed great one-sided arguments in his mind and he thought about the past. He remembered his time with the angel and he remembered before that. He thought about why he stayed in London, he debated going to Adam and asking him to bring Aziraphael back, and he spent a good bit of his time stewing and seething. He had never really given much thought to 'the cause', after all he hadn't really fallen so much as sauntered vaguely downwards. He had never really had any quarrel with the ones 'up there'. Although now…well, maybe he wouldn't mind taking up a sword in the end battle after all. And after he had stewed and seethed for an ample amount of time, he wallowed a bit. As years rolled by he never realized that he had stopped doing his job some decades ago. He never even realized when he started to do the 'right' thing, it was just small things here and there, little things that he had always done for Aziraphael when the angel was out of town. After all, what did it matter who did what, as long as both of them met their quotas what was a good deed here or there and the angel could be a right bastard when he had wanted to. Smiting was smiting after all…So really it had slipped his notice for a few years: puppies adopted, lost kids led back to their parents, kittens saved from trees, a distinct lack of tickets for traffic violations and a lightening of rush hour traffic. It wasn't until he had talked that one bloke off the bridge that he realized what he had done and by then he really didn't care. In his own way, he was keeping the balance. As far as he knew no one had been sent to replace Aziraphael and he had done more than his fair share of damage that he should really make up for…Or rather, he shouldn't because he was a demon, but really, who cared? Not him. Nope. Besides, hadn't Adam said something about not mucking about with humans?
He really doesn't remember now when he had stopped thinking of himself as a demon, or when he stopped looking back over his shoulder waiting to see one of his people, or when he felt it was safe to start listening to music without worrying about getting some communiqué from down below. He doesn't know when he gave up trying to talk to humans, when he stopped ranting at the news stand when he'd read a headline about someone that had died. He doesn't remember when he spoke to that priest about forgiveness, and he still doesn't pray or cry, but he hopes. He still misses the angel, but he's hoping now that someday he'll see him again. He has time. Lots and lots of time. And he's hoping that it's enough time to earn a set of feathery wings.
*It should be noted that his houseplants rather enjoyed this and took the time to flourish. If anyone had come over to visit they would have been impressed at how well maintained and taken care of Crowley's houseplants looked, which is strange and interesting considering Crowley had all but forgotten about them and had stopped watering them some time ago.