The "Crowley's brain" bit of this chapter was difficult to write, mostly because it was sooooo tempting to go off on tangents into the past. So you know what I did? I scrapped a lot of what I wrote, and decided to turn it into a separate story. I have a theory about Crowley's past, and how it all fits with his arrangement with Aziraphale, and I think it's a story worth telling! Probably, I'll try and do that after this is over.
Along the same lines, in the previous chapter, I wrote that 1051 was the beginning of their arrangement. However, today, I was listening to the "Good Omens" audiobook in the car, and discovered I'd missed the mark by 31 years! Actually, the beginning of the arrangement was 1020, and in the time before and after, Crowley and Aziraphale had a lot of philosophical discussions over human free-will, and making choices about good and evil.
Anyway, you may recall, Aziraphale had gone to sleep, having decided to turn the Nutter manuscript over to Gabriel first thing in the morning, but awoke at the end of the previous chapter, having had nightmares about hell! What the Heaven does that mean?
Enjoy!
FOUR
Crowley's bedroom was unlike that of other demons.
As with the rest of his home, it was decorated in dark hues, with charcoal-coloured carpet, and an ever-so-slightly lighter-coloured throw rug at the foot of the bed. The window covers were black plantation shutters, the walls painted black, and over the bed hung fifteen panels of the same stone that lined the rest of the flat, cobbled together in an artistically-textured sort of way.
The bed was on a step-up from the floor, but was otherwise low to the ground. Seven years ago, when he'd decided to move to this brand-new, trendy building, he'd thrown out the old box spring and had decided to switch to a memory foam mat. The bedspread and sheets were rainy-day grey, and there was a black velveteen duvet runner draped dramatically, diagonally, over the top, spilling down the side, with a look of calculated indifference. The light fixtures were simple, silver teardrops, and there was a television on the interior wall.
It was elegant and comfortable… and only slightly severe. So, yeah, definitely unlike other demons' bedrooms.
Actually, it would have been more accurate to say that Crowley had a bedroom, which was one of the things that made him definitely unlike other demons. Because actually, he didn't know a single other demon who had a bedroom. Or a bed. Or bothered with sleep.
And in fact, his flat had two bedrooms. They were just off the minimalist parlour, and were more or less mirror images of each other. The flat was oddly shaped like a T, with a kitchen on one end of the arm, and the parlour and bedrooms at the other end. Down the stalk of the T, there was a long hallway where he kept a veritable forest of terrified houseplants, had a guest bathroom, storage, and an office.
He'd lived in this flat only a few years, but when he'd moved in, he'd had it remodeled to suit his tastes. Or, at least, that's what he thought he was doing. He was a demon. He wanted something elegantly gothic, a touch "spooky." Only, one room wasn't decorated in black, and that was the second bedroom. He had decided to model it after a posh Japanese-style bedroom of which he'd seen a photo in a magazine just before moving in. Most of the furniture was chocolate-brown teak, including a Japanese grid-like headboard that took up most of the wall, with teak partitions and light tan bamboo panes. The bed was like his own, a step up from the floor, but still low to the ground, and memory foam. The bedspread was down and beige, and the velveteen throw across the middle was a shade of brown halfway between beige and chocolate. The window coverings were a lot like the headboard. They slid back and forth, and Crowley had heard them called Shoji by the man who'd sold them to him. The floor was light-coloured wood, and there was one area rug on the side of the bed nearest the door, with brown and pink cherry blossoms crawling across it like vines.
When the room was finished, he'd walked into it and thought, "Okay, this is nice, but why the Heaven did I do it?" The décor was so not him, and he couldn't understand what he'd been thinking. An entire flat of medieval-like stone, severe lines, and ash-coloured walls… except for one room.
Well, he understood now.
It was Aziraphale's room, and it always had been. He had decorated it subconsciously to suit the needs and tastes of his best friend before it was ever suggested that the angel might stay there in the flat.
Aziraphale had said, "Well, now, this is comfy," when he'd walked in and seen his accommodation, the night of the failed Apocalypse. And Crowley could tell from his tone, after knowing him for six millennia, that he was sincere.
Of course, that particular Saturday night, Aziraphale had never actually made it to bed, and neither had Crowley. They'd been up all night drinking, reminiscing, and trying to figure out what to do about the prophecy advising them to choose their faces wisely. They'd spent a good chunk of the time coming up with the scheme that had so flummoxed both Heaven and Hell, that it had driven Hastur to come up with the weirdly imaginative idea of the Third Domain.
On this night, now one month on, after he had backed up Agnes Nutter's second volume on his computer, it was around two in the morning when Crowley finally fell into sleep. They had officially retired just after ten p.m., but lately, with Aziraphale in the flat, he had had trouble falling asleep, enjoyable though sleep could be. He hoped that when things were less "up in the air" with his companion, when their rapport gelled a bit better, he'd be more relaxed. Read: when they could finally just retire at night together, he'd be able to sleep like he used to.
He'd stripped off his shirt and trousers, and stretched out in his underwear. These were a pair of black boxer-briefs, and a black sleeveless undershirt. He had noted, whilst undressing, that these had both been undergarments made by Calvin Klein, and both had come in packs of two. The other garment from each pack had been worn in a bath of holy water by Aziraphale, and had been carefully discarded by the angel himself, far, far from Crowley's flat, just to be safe.
But, he'd spent about four hours flipping through channels, pacing the floor, intermittently drinking, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, thinking. His thoughts ran mostly to the last thousand years, when companionship-as-they-more-or-less-now-knew-it had begun. Sure, they'd been friends before that, and it had occurred in several phrases. 1020, though, began their arrangement phase, wherein they would cross-practice their individual brands of supernatural wiles, in order to economise with time and effort. And, probably, so that they could see each other more often, and understand one another better. And Crowley not only appreciated the saving of time and work, but also taking breaks every now and then from being a fiend, and balance the scales himself.
However, though Aziraphale had been mostly in the dark about it until recently, the arrangement had never worked quite as smoothly as Crowley pretended it did… which was a thought that filled him with anxiety, guilt, and all manner of other unpleasant emotions. But he couldn't stop his mind from going there, especially lately…
And so, it was the medium-sized hours of the morning before sleep finally relieved the demon of this particular familiar torment.
And it was in the wee hours when he was awakened by his name being called out desperately from across the hall, by a harried angel.
With Agnes Nutter's second volume "backed up," as Crowley had put it, and a plan to return to Heaven tomorrow to turn the original manuscript over to Gabriel, Aziraphale had fallen into a peaceful sleep, as he had begun to do each night, like a proper corporeal being…
…but to his surprise, the slumber turned fitful.
"Crowley!" he called out, sometime around four o'clock in the morning, before he could stop himself.
He heard the demon padding across the hall almost immediately. His mussed red hair came through the crack in the door first, then his drawn, groggy face. "What? What's the matter?"
"I had a nightmare!"
"What about?"
"Hell. I dreamed of Hell."
Crowley edged into the room and rubbed his reptilian eyes. "It's all right, angel. I dream of Heaven sometimes… it's normal."
"Not for me," Aziraphale told him, his voice breathy and panicked. "This has never happened before!"
"You haven't spent as much total time asleep as I have."
"Crowley, listen! I'm disturbed, can't you see that?"
"Okay, okay," the demon said, trying to recover, and now moving forward toward the angel. He tried to shake off the haze of sleep, and he sat down on the edge of the bed, and said, "Talk to me."
Aziraphale sat straight upright with the covers covering him from the waist down, and folded his hands in his lap like always. "Well, I was in that bath of holy water, and I was doing what I did… trying to act like you, and enjoy the effect I was having upon them. I was being smug, and glib, making Michael miracle me a towel, and just generally being overtly whimsical…"
"That's how you think I act?"
Aziraphale blinked hard a couple of times. "Well, yes, when you have, as it were, bested the enemy. It convinced your bosses."
Crowley shrugged. "Okay, fair enough."
"But then, Hastur and Beelzebub, and others, they started moving forward, and they hauled me out of the bath," the angel said, his voice sounding as though it might break. "And they said they were just going to keep me all the same."
"Keep you all the same?"
"Yes," Aziraphale sighed. "I was dripping with holy water, and they were manhandling me, and it had no effect on them whatsoever. And they said it was a nice try, but they were going to keep me as their own, and Hastur gave this horrible noise that sounded sort of like a laugh, but really not…"
"Yeah, he hasn't mastered the art of mirth yet," Crowley muttered.
"…and then suddenly, I couldn't hold the glamour anymore, and I turned back into myself. It was just me, all…" the angel sighed again, and stared down at the blankets in his lap. "All soft and white and frightened, in your clothes – just like the ones you're wearing now – and they knew it was me. And they threw me in a dungeon of hellfire, and I felt my skin singe… and that's when I woke up."
"Blimey," was all Crowley could manage to say.
"Sorry to bother you," Aziraphale whispered. "I do know how you enjoy your sleep."
"It's all right," Crowley said, now frowning hard. "Do you think this dream was meaningful?"
"Well, I am an angel," Aziraphale pointed out. "You and I both have rather a pointed connection with fate. And especially considering what you and I have done…"
"But do you think they knew? Or they know? That we swapped places? Because that's what your dream seems to suggest."
Aziraphale frowned now, as hard as Crowley. "To be frank, Crowley, I would tend to doubt it. I feel as though, if that were the case, we would have heard from them by now."
"I think so, too," Crowley said. "I don't think either side has the subtlety to know what we did, and not say anything. To just lie in wait, and… what? Punish us later?"
"It's possible, but… it just doesn't feel right," Aziraphale commented, rolling his shoulders a bit, as though he could feel the idea in his bones. "But I do think the dream was meaningful. I just don't know how. Yet."
Crowley chuckled and nodded toward the night stand where Aziraphale had laid Agnes Nutter's manuscript. "Maybe she can tell us."
"Do you suppose?"
"I don't know," Crowley shrugged. "I was just making a joke."
Aziraphale stared at the stack of papers with what looked like dread.
For a moment, the demon thought the angel would actually reach out for it, and search for a prophecy concerning an angel in Hell, but he did not. Instead, to Crowley's relief, Aziraphale seemed to shake off the urge. He said, "No, no. I won't do it. I think that, in spite of myself, I really just need to get that blasted thing out of here. I'm glad we saved it from being burned because the prophecies need to be seen, and Agnes Nutter's talent needs to be acknowledged, but… it's setting my teeth on-edge. I hadn't realised it until now."
"Okay," Crowley said to him, with some finality. "Then you can feel safe in handing it off to Gabriel tomorrow, and if you change your mind, we've always got the computer file we made yesterday. Which you never have to touch again, if you don't want to."
Aziraphale nodded. "Yes. Yes, thank you, Crowley."
"Want me to come with you?" Crowley asked, as his instinct was to offer help to the angel, even without thinking it through.
"No, no," Aziraphale dismissed. "Far too dangerous. No, I'll be fine facing Gabriel on my own."
As Crowley had done upon returning to Hell in order to ask for the time-travel device, Aziraphale used the Central London entrance to Heaven, relieved to find the escalator still running, and visible to him. He arrived in the main lobby, and within a few moments, the posse of Archangels was walking forward toward him.
"Aziraphale," Gabriel's crisp voice said, across the echoing space. "I'd say it's good to see you, but it's really not. Just hoping you have our book."
"Er, yes," said Aziraphale, now, in spite of himself, feeling right back in the role of milquetoast subordinate, usually with something to hide. He held the manuscript out in front of him, and said, "Here you are. It took some doing to track it down, I tell you."
"I'm not interested in the details," Gabriel said, with a fake smile, taking the papers, and then tucking them under one arm.
"Yes," said the nervous (and annoyed) principality. "You never were."
"I'm just glad you got your hands on it, and now it's in ours. And Aziraphale, I want you to know that I don't like you, but I had genuinely been hoping that all of this could turn out well for everyone involved," Gabriel told him, managing to sound ever-so-slightly sincere. "I guess it's in my nature. Well, I told you as much, a couple of weeks ago when I asked you to find the book."
"Yes, I remember."
"But, I'm afraid the Almighty had other ideas, and when She speaks, well… I mean, once she started talking, I had no choice but to agree with her. It's kind of my job."
"What are you talking about?" Aziraphale inquired, beginning to feel a horrible sinking in his stomach. "Or rather, what was the Almighty talking about?"
The Archangel Uriel said, "You've done well, Aziraphale, putting Mistress Nutter's second volume in the hands of the Archangels. I don't mind saying so, in spite of your past transgressions. Which makes it all the more difficult to tell you what we have to tell you." She said this completely flatly, and in a way which suggested that it was not in the least difficult.
"Tell me what?" Aziraphale asked.
"Oh Aziraphale," Gabriel sighed, actually taking Aziraphale's shoulders in his hands. "God had a plan. And you thwarted it. Well, you, that little Satanic brat from Tadfield, and your demony BFF. Heaven can't touch Adam Young, unfortunately, and Crowley's already been cast out – that happened ages ago. And you… well, we tried to get rid of you the easy way, didn't we?"
He let go.
"But you survived, you little dickens!" Sandalphon cut in, smiling in a way that was truly disturbing. Of course, anytime Sandalphon smiled, it was disturbing. It also gave Aziraphale the distinct impression that he had as much idea of what was happening, as did a clay jar filled with ground coffee.
"Indeed," said Gabriel. "So basically, we can't kill you for some reason, but we also can't keep you around."
"What?" Aziraphale asked, his face turning hot, and his stomach now doing unpleasant gymnastics.
"Well, you haven't actually been around much at all since the beginning, but what I mean is, we can't have you keeping ties to Heaven," Gabriel clarified. "I mean, even if we don't ask you to do anything, and you aren't actually performing blessings or miracles on our behalf anymore, your soul is still anchored here. Your powers are fueled by Heavenly will. But you are contaminated, Aziraphale, and as long as you're an angel, you run the risk of contaminating us. Remember when I said that I don't sully the temple of my celestial body with gross matter? Same principle."
"Your body is made of flesh and bone, which is standard on all planes of existence," added Uriel. "But its non-standard features are ours, and we want them back."
"So, you're… you're casting me out?" asked the principality, his voice trembling. "But you can't! Do you lot really still cast angels out of Heaven, just for having free will of thought? That's barbaric!"
"Barbaric? Really? You ought to be careful, Aziraphale," Gabriel warned. "This was the Almighty's decision."
"Erm, not entirely," the Archangel Michael interrupted.
"How's that?" Aziraphale wondered.
"The Almighty put it to a vote," Michael explained. "She made it clear that she wanted you gone, but asked the four of us to put in our thoughts. Some of us were more scared than others to disagree with the Almighty…"
Gabriel shifted uncomfortably, Uriel looked at the floor, and Sandalphon gazed out blankly from his stupid, stupid smile.
"But," continued Michael. "Let's just say that the vote was not unanimous. Your casting-out was suggested by the Almighty, but decided by a majority. It was four-to-one."
"Four-to-one?" Aziraphale asked her. "Were you the one?"
"I'm not at liberty to say," she reported softly. "But I thought you should know, the decision was not made lightly, nor unilaterally. And it was not supported by all."
"Well, then, shouldn't there be a trial?" asked Aziraphale. He came dangerously close to telling them just then that even in Hell, the most evil beings existence had ever known had held at least a nominal trial for Crowley before attempting to execute him. But he bit his tongue, and scolded himself for what he almost revealed.
"That's a good idea," Sandalphon said. "We could charge him with the crime of freedom of thought."
"That'll do, Sandalphon," Gabriel admonished. "Anyway, it's not about freedom of thought. It's about derailing fucking Armageddon. It's about going directly against the Almighty plan. It's about not just carelessness, but obstinate disobedience. Going out of your way to make sure things don't go according to the Will of God."
"I see."
"It's about fraternising with an evil thing from the depths of Hell, and liking it. It's about lying to your superiors for millennia, and then refusing to just die, like you know you should!" Gabriel was now shouting. "It's about thinking that your life on Earth, or any life on Earth, is more important than the great battle between Heaven and Hell! It's about being an overall piss-poor excuse for an angel for probably a lot longer than anyone realises!"
The remnants of Gabriel's voice echoed through the space, and then there was, for a few moments, an oppressive silence.
Aziraphale then cleared his throat, and said, carefully, "Well, I won't apologise for having thoughts of my own. And I certainly won't apologise for believing that humanity is as important as Heaven and Hell, if not more so. I won't apologise for putting the lives of seven billion humans ahead of, to borrow a phrase from the Antichrist himself, finding out whose gang is best. So, if I'm cast out, I suppose that's that. I'm cast out."
Gabriel tried to stare him down, and Aziraphale could see that the Archangel was disappointed that the soon-to-be-former principality was not expressing more abject fear.
Although, Aziraphale had only pulled his emotions under control for appearance's sake, so as not to give Gabriel the satisfaction. On the inside, his soul was howling.
"You have until midnight," Gabriel said, crisply.
"Midnight? Tonight?"
"Yes," the Archangel snapped. "Midnight, GMT, of course."
"And then… I'll have become a fallen angel?"
"Better known as a demon," Gabriel lilted, and the infuriating fake smile was back. "I assume you'll be on Earth when it happens, and once it does, Hell may or may not get in touch straight away. I don't know what they'll have in store for you. Maybe you could do a lot of the same type of work you've already been doing… unless... er, do they already have an emissary on Earth? Hmm, someone should check that out."
"Very clever," Aziraphale muttered, having been previously unaware that Archangels were capable of ironic sarcasm.
"It's going to be one Hell of a fall. Hmm… it's a pity you don't know anyone who could help you with the transition."
"Again… clever."
"Now, let's see, I'm not a soulless man, obviously," Gabriel said. "So I'd really like to leave you with some wise parting words. Let's see what Agnes has to say, eh?"
"Er… all right."
Gabriel opened the manuscript to a random page and read aloud, "When a liberator of Mankind, a dispassionate Being of Heofon, becomes at last grounded with his Essential, and takes leave of his ascetic Qualms, the Probing of the Tertiary Territory will commence."
The Tinkerbell prophecy, Aziraphale said to himself, remembering being drunk, and trying to interpret these very words. He now, of course, had no idea why he'd thought it was about Tinkerbell.
"Profound," said Sandalphon.
"What does it mean?" asked Uriel.
"No idea," said Gabriel. "It's for Aziraphale to ponder, not us. And, well, the Almighty, of course."
"Right," she commented.
"Anyway, Aziraphale, it was interesting doing business with you," Gabriel said, snapping the manuscript under his arm once again. "May we meet again on the battlefield of a successful Armageddon, and may we kick your sorry ass."
If Aziraphale had been a different sort of being, a phrase like self-righteous arsehole, or arrogant twat might have popped into his head.
But as it was, his mind was blank as Gabriel turned on his heel and walked away, with Uriel and Sandalphon trailing behind. Michael, to Aziraphale's surprise, stayed for just a moment longer, and made brief eye-contact with him, before following the rest.
*dun dun dunnnnnn*
I'd like to say thanks to the folks who fed my total neediness and left a review last time. It really is the sort of thing that can make a writer's day, and incite her to keep going!
I'd like to appeal again to your sense of fanfiction camaraderie (or something): if you're following and reading, it's only fair to leave some feedback sometimes!
Thanks for reading, either way! :-)
