Crowley sat on the very edge of his expensive white faux-leather sofa. He was leaning forwards with his elbows propped up on his knees and his chin propped up on the palm of one hand as he gnawed distractedly at the thumbnail of the other. The ceaseless bouncing of his leg sent nervous vibrations rattling through the length of him.
He was watching the news.
Crowley knew that he shouldn't watch the news. Aziraphale always told him not to watch the news. It only aggravated him. It only made him anxious. It only reminded him of all of things he'd spent several weeks during the Spanish Inquisition drinking in order to forget.
Nevertheless, Crowley was watching the news.
His television in London picked up channels from all over the world, because he assumed that that was how television worked. He was currently watching a broadcast from the USA. From Washington DC, specifically. And even more specifically, from the office of President Reagan. He was ostensibly giving a speech on " Defense and National Security ".
It was 1983.
That meant that this speech was actually on nuclear warfare, and Russia, and the potential of a completely human-instigated apocalypse.
Crowley was quite interested in nuclear weapons, if interested actually meant extremely and actively anxious over , that is.
Things like this worried Crowley.
A lot of things worried Crowley, actually.
He wasn't sure what he thought about the deterrent theory. About the stability-instability model. About Mutually Assured Destruction . He knew how he felt about it though, and it wasn't great. In fact, he felt downright nauseated . But thinking and feeling are different things, and he didn't know enough to know exactly what he thought about it. He didn't want to know enough. The more he knew, the worse he felt.
But he just couldn't help himself. That had always been his problem.
That was why he was watching the news.
Reagan seemed to be talking about building some sort of laser-gun in space, as far as Crowley could tell, which was… surprising, and appealingly sci-fi-ish. A satellite (satellite? Rocket? Space station? Crowley didn't catch the details) that could shoot ballistic missiles straight out of the sky as soon as they were fired. He wasn't surprised when the next day the newspapers were referring to the plan as " Reagan's Reckless Star Wars Scheme".
It was an interesting idea, Crowley thought. Whether it was in any way realistically feasible he had no idea, and whether, if it were technically feasible, it would do more political damage than good, he had even less of a clue. But the concept of intercepting a missile before it got to its intended destination, now that was interesting. Prevention instead of attack and counter attack. Instead of an all-out war with God knows (would God even know?) how many casualties, one might just nip it in the bud at the outset. Stop it before it started. Armageddon with an "Undo!" function inbuilt. Could that work? Would that work?
Probably more complicated than it seemed, Crowley thought to himself. When two sides are spoiling for a war enough to actually throw the first stone, catching the stone mid-air won't stop the fight. Might give everyone some breathing space, though. Whilst they all go and find some more stones to chuck. And that might give the adrenaline chance to burn off.
Or it might just add more fuel to the fire, of course. Leave people saying " Oh, so those Commie Bastards/Capitalist Pigs really were going to start it, were they? They were really going to destroy everything, just to prove a point? Well then, we'll show them by starting it again, first!"
But even if it didn't work in the long term, it would buy everyone else some time, wouldn't it? And time was always good. If you had time, you could think, you could do something. If you just had time then you had a chance. In theory, anyway.
Yes. Lots of things worried Crowley.
Maybe Aziraphale was right, and Crowley needed to have a little more faith . Not in ineffability, or in the greater good (don't make him laugh), but in humankind itself. Their self-preservation instinct was at least as strong as their self-destruction instinct, so perhaps that in itself provided some kind of a safety net. They'd stick their fingers in the plug socket of the universe to see what happened, of that he had no doubt. But they'd have their best mate standing by to cheer them on, take notes, and, if need be, put out the ensuing fire.
The demon turned off the television with a sigh, and leaned back on the couch, trying to direct his mind towards pleasanter things. There were, after all, plenty more enjoyable things he could be spending his time thinking about, instead of worrying about the possible destruction of the planet. Soap Operas, for one. Windscreen wipers for another, they were an extremely good invention. James Bond movies. The Velvet Underground. All sorts of brilliant, interesting, exciting, wonderful things to keep his omnipresent anxiety at bay.
After staring at the telephone handset for a handful of moments, he snatched it up and dialled the only number he knew by heart.
'Hey, angel. It's only me.'