19. Walking to the well

One foot in front of the other.

The sand shifts and sinks under Crowley's feet, making it hard to walk with his burden. Urgency is drawing him forward, though. He had tried running, but it had been too exhausting and almost made him lose his balance with every step. He has settled into a fast walking pace instead.

One foot in front of the other.

Up and down the dunes. Ignoring the rough pulsing pain in his back and the dull ache in his shoulders.

One foot in front of the other.

Ignoring the blazing sun, the heat beating like a hammer into his skull.

One foot in front of the other.

Ignoring the sand in his shoes and under his clothes, in his hair and mouth and in his wounds.

One foot in front of the other.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the horizon, focused on not losing the direction, the desperate hope that lies there.

One foot in front of the other.

Feeling the spasms and tremors in the body he is holding, hearing the pained breaths and moans.

One foot in front of the other.

Feeling the agony under his hands like his own, clenching his teeth with each step.

One foot in front of the other.

Worrying about the heat increasing Aziraphale's fever, causing the hellfire to burn faster in his essence.

One foot in front of the other.

Worrying about the sand getting into Aziraphale's wounds, irritating them even further.

One foot in front of the other.

Worrying about the rising wind, the grains of sand in the air hitting everything that stands in their path like miniature shrapnel, obscuring his view of the set direction.

He stops and brings his wings in front of his body like a cloak, shielding Aziraphale from the sandstorm as well as he can.

Then he sets one foot in front of the other again.

And again.

He's leaning against the wind, fighting for every step.

He doesn't breathe. It's better than inhaling the sand.

And again.

He needs to remind himself to not breathe.

And again.

He inhales anyways and starts coughing.

It doesn't make him stop.

One foot in front of the other. Again and again and again. Time is running out, slipping between his fingers like sand.

The wind abates. Slowly, the horizon clears.

In the distance, he can see walls.

"Aziraphale! We are almost there, angel! Angel?"

He opens his wings.

The glow of hellfire is illuminating them blood-red. The whole left side of Aziraphale's chest is smoldering with it, the veins of fire reaching towards his arms and thighs, one climbing up his neck. He is not breathing.

"Angel!"

He doesn't need to breathe, Crowley reminds himself. He doesn't need to breathe. He's not dead.

A holy spear piercing Crowley's mind. That's Aziraphale's look when he suddenly opens his eyes. A focused, intense point of agony.

"C-Crowley…"

It squeezes Crowley's heart like a wrung laundry.

"Almost there… Just a moment longer…" he whispers.

"Crowley… I can't…"

"No. No. It will be alright. Hold on, please…"

Aziraphale sobs. Then he grits his teeth and closes his eyes again.

Crowley grits his teeth as well, knowing that Aziraphale can't deal with the pain he's in any longer.

He starts running. It makes him lose his balance. He's stumbling and falling forwards, but manages to move his legs in time to stop himself from toppling over. It feels like a snake trying to run. It is a little faster than walking, but twice as exhausting. For that little difference, it's worth it.

Aziraphale is squirming in his arms now, screaming in agony. Crowley is pressing him to his chest to not drop him in his staggering run.

The walls are getting closer.

Crowley barely sees them through the tears. His heart feels too big for his chest, squeezed in the tight space and pressing itself into his throat. He grits his teeth and looks at the sun. It's sinking on his left. He turns right, looking for the Eastern gate.

The walls are close now, looming over him, a tantalizing vision of salvation.

Suddenly a stream crosses his path, flowing in a shallow bed along the walls. A most unusual sight, in the middle of a desert. The air is pleasantly cool around it. It draws him closer, beckons him to drink from it, to wash Aziraphale's wounds. Maybe the cold of the water could ease the burn…

He leans over the stream.

"N-No," sounds between the screams and sobs, urgently.

Crowley looks at Aziraphale.

"N-No… That's… Lethe…"

Crowley recoils.

The river of forgetfulness. The Greeks believed it to be flowing through the underworld. Dante wrote about it flowing through the Purgatory. Crowley thought it was just a myth: he knew it wasn't either Above or Below. It wasn't a myth, though. God placed it here, to protect the lost Eden from any unwanted visitors. Nobody knew about it. Nobody but God and the angel who had been present when the Paradise had been closed to all.

It's not much, as rivers go. Just a narrow stream, finding its way through a bed of sand. But a stream in the desert is enough to tempt everyone who comes across it to drink. Crowley has to give that to God - a sure temptation for minimal effort is a style he can appreciate.

He jumps over the stream and steadies himself when his feet threaten to buckle - the jump a last drop after a long exertion. He cannot fail now.

He can touch the rough stones of the wall. He can see the whole Eastern side of it.

No gate.

Aziraphale is delirious. The burn now covers his whole chest and is spreading to the abdomen. The heat rising from it is intense even in the hot air of the desert.

"Aziraphale!"

No response between the sobs.

"Aziraphale! Angel, where is the gate? Listen to me!"

Crowley walks along the wall, trying to find any trace of the gate as he speaks. When he was here last time, he came through the ground straight from Hell and left the same way. That way is blocked now, but there has to be a gate. Aziraphale is the angel of the Eastern Gate. Where is the gate?

"Aziraphale! Just a moment, love! Please, I need you…"

That seems to do it. Because Crowley needs him, Aziraphale focuses his gaze.

"Where is the gate, Aziraphale?" Crowley asks desperately.

For a moment, Aziraphale stares at him without understanding. Then he registers the wall, so close that he could touch the stones if he had the strength to move. He has none. He just looks back, at the part of the wall that Crowley passed already. His whole body is trembling, cold sweat mixing with blood and making Crowley's grip precarious. "T-There…"

Crowley returns immediately, letting Aziraphale's eyes guide him. When they stop at one portion of the wall, he stops there as well.

"Here?"

Aziraphale's nod is barely perceptible.

Crowley lowers the delirious angel into the sand as gently as he can and frantically searches the wall. He digs in the sand at its base that may have buried the gate.

There is no gate.

That's when the pleas start.

"C-Crowley... Crowley, please… It's too much! I can't… Please, kill me! Agh! Kill me, dear! Please… Please…"

"Angel… The gate..."

"Oh God! Kill me, Crowley! Aaaah! If you love me, kill me now! Please!"

Crowley's hands are shaking. He looks at the wall without a gate. He looks at Aziraphale. He can feel the hellfire awaiting his command, a smoldering spark eager to be fanned into flames. It would be over soon…

And suddenly it hits him.

6000 years of knowing Aziraphale as the angel of the Eastern Gate, and only now Crowley realizes what that title means. Eden had no gates. Aziraphale does not bear the title because he was assigned to guard the Eastern one. He was assigned it because he made it in the Easten wall, so that Adam and Eve could escape from God's wrath.

He looks closely and he can see it now: a couple of stones at the base of the fortification are loose. He sinks his slender fingers into the gaps and pulls.

A broken sob. "P-Please…"

He's trying not to listen. He promised… but he had no hope when he did. He has hope now. They are so close.

The stone doesn't move. He's not strong enough. It would take a miracle for the stones to fall apart.

"Crowleyyyyy! Kill me, I beg you!"

He can't not listen.

"Crowley..." It sounds defeated, betrayed. It sounds like Aziraphale understands that no relief will come from that side. And he is right.

"No. I'm so sorry. No."

It's a no-miracle zone outside of the wall. But in the wall? He pushes his fingers as far into the gaps as he can. The stones are heavy on his fingers, but don't hurt them. There, he can feel the hellish power flowing through his hands. His last miracle. The one he kept in case it can save the angel. He uses it now.

The stone moves.

Aziraphale doesn't. His eyes roll back in his skull. His body can't take the pain anymore. It's dying. There's no retreat in unconsciousness though: he can only retreat into his essence, and the essence is burning.

A narrow passage through the wall is revealed, one that Aziraphale made with his own hands.

Crowley gathers the angel in his arms. "A moment, angel. Just a moment longer…" he whispers as he carries him where no mortal or immortal set foot for 6000 years.

The air is pleasantly cool, full of sweet smells and the clear sound of water. The lush greenery bears ripe fruits that nobody has tasted for ages. The golden light of the sunset lengthens the shadows.

Crowley doesn't pay attention to anything of that. He's running again, running into the middle of the garden.

And out of the ground made Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Breathless, he reaches the familiar place. The Tree of Knowledge is there, its branches laden with red apples ripe for tempting. He passes it without acknowledgement. He's looking for the other tree now.

The Tree of Life.

The only hope to stop the hellfire, to stop Death from taking his angel. Countering Death with Life, given directly from God.

He stops.

He looks at the Tree.

Gently, he lays Aziraphale on the soft grass under the tree and kisses his burning lips.

Then he falls to his knees and wails - a high, inhuman sound carried across the whole Garden.

The Tree is dead.

Dry, fruitless branches are sticking towards the sky like skeletal fingers.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Crowley remains motionless for a while, an empty look in his eyes. The hope that had been there before is dead too, buried under the golden irises like an ancient king under a mound of his treasure.

Slowly, the demon stands up.

His eyes are fully serpentine, but so different from the eyes of the snake that tempted Eve in this very place so long ago. They look so much older now, dull and tired. There is a dangerous glint in them, though. It's not hope, but anger and spite as he watches the dead Tree of Life.

"Pa-the-TIC!" he yells. His voice is weak and raspy around the first two syllables, but it gathers strength and carries through all of Eden with the last one.

Leaves rustle with the sound like in a gust of wind.

"See? The others have LEAVES! They have FRUITS! You are growing in the middle of a literal fucking Paradise! You have no EXCUSE! No excuse for being dead!"

The demon is swaying on his feet, but the strength of his anger is obviously much larger than that of his body. It's fully focused on the dry tree in the middle of the Garden.

"You USELESS pathetic thing! You think you can just wither because you have no purpose anymore? Boo-hoo, the humans are mortal now so guess I'll just die off! Is that what a proper tree does? You've got the best soil, all the water and sun you could wish for but what do you do? You DIE!"

All the trees around seem to listen. Even the Tree of Knowledge looks relieved that the words are not directed at it. The dry Tree of Life looks unaffected, though.

"You've just GIVEN UP, that's what you did! Just because nobody needed you for 6000 years, it doesn't mean you'll never be needed again! You are needed now! And what are you doing? You are being fucking dead! Useless!"

The sun is touching the western wall now. The shadow of the dry Tree looks like the fingers of Death reaching for Aziraphale.

"You stupid chunk of firewood! Don't you see he needs you? Don't you see how much pain he's in? He's DYING, you moron! Not like you, though! He's never given up, he always fought, he got us out and he's dying anyway! And it's your FAULT!"

Crowley clenches his teeth. His hands are shaking.

"Your fault!"

His voice is getting raspy again.

"Fucking useless…"

He falls to his knees, the angry scream turning into a sob. "Useless…"

The sun sets behind the wall. The sky is still bright in the West, but Eden falls into shadow.

Crowley hides his face in his palms and leans forward until his elbows touch the ground. His anger is spent. He's weary like he's never been before, not even after the failed Apocalypse.

"P-Please…" he whispers. "I don't ask anything for myself. It's for him. I know you are dead and all, but he… he's the most amazing creature in this world. If someone is worth rising from the dead for, it's him. Please, he really needs you. Saving him is the most noble purpose you could wish for. Trust me..."

He sobs again and looks at Aziraphale.

Hellfire is spreading over the angel's face now. The body is dying and the essence is burning. He can't perceive what's around him anymore and Crowley didn't even get to say farewell. His last words to the angel were some idiotic rambling about how they're almost there. But there's nothing here. Nothing that can save Aziraphale.

The wind rustles in the trees.

Crowley turns away, unable to look at the serpent sigil on the angel's chest. He looks at the Tree.

On the branch closest to him, there is something green.

He gets up, staggering. He comes closer to inspect it.

It's a little bud, opening under his sight.