The songs belong to Tom Waits. The demon and the angel belong to each other.
Well hell doesn't want you
and heaven is full
and the earth died screaming
while I lay dreaming
and the earth died screaming
while I lay dreaming of you...
It was of the hour before the highest moon when the demon J. Crowley did walk the streets. Hot and high the air did pass around him and sweep the mortal refuse past his feet. Close enough to touch they stood, juicy and ripe for the picking, fragrant skin tight and firm around them justly rightly waiting to be tasted. But there was music in the step of the demon J. Crowley, and he would have none of the living frailty while his dead heart beat still as a stone. So they talked, talked, talked themselves down and around him and walked, walked, walked on the blind and lonely path without a light to guide them while he passed amongst them like smoke in the night. And he burned too dark to touch.
Come on along with the Black Rider
we'll have a gay old time
lay down in the web of the black spider
I'll drink your blood like wine
So come on in
it ain't no sin
take off your skin
and dance around in your bones...
The Green Goddess licked his veins inside out and teased the blood long sleeping with promises of thujone and kisses. The scent of an angel clung to him but not the angel himself...a head full of emerald fumes and an aching burning crotch were the entirety of the demon J. Crowley. The dull grey snake of the pavement moved under him like a swamp, flowing and wet and sucking his boots down with hard licks.
Until
the Window shone above him like a lighthouse and he stared in awe at the yellow wonder of it all, stepping back and back to better see but tumbling when the hard gutter came up fast from beneath to take him down down down where he belonged. The demon J. Crowley lay in the filth and laughed and laughed like a straightjacket fool until he wept. The rain began to fall, knocking the heat from the air, and he sang a little more.
Well, Jesus gonna be here
gonna be here soon
he's gonna cover us up with leaves
with a blanket from the moon
with a promise and a vow
and a lullaby for my brow
Jesus gonna be here
Be here soon...
It was quiet inside. The single lamp burned dull and soft, lighting the face of the angel Aziraphale. Glass of wine. Old and precious things all about. A deep red chair and a book with tiny writing. The smell of ancient wood and clean dust. The window a crack open, for the night -unfortunately for all concerned - was sultry, which went utterly against everything everyone everywhere knows about London.
"I got to keep my eyes op-ENN, so that I can see my LORD! I'm gonna watch the HOR-I-ZOONNNN, for a brand new Fooooorrrd..."
Blink. Blink.
Hmph. Deplorable drunks, wandering around disturbing people at this unGod- at this wretched hour. The singing tapered off like water down the drain, replaced by the soft pat of rain against the window. The angel Aziraphale settled back to the fine, thin paper dotted with someone else's thoughts long dead.
Then
"I can-a hear him rollin on dooowwwwnn the laaanne, I said HOLLYWOOD BE THY NAME! Jesus gonna be heeeerrrrreeee...gonna be here ssssssssoon..."
The angel Aziraphale sighed, and gently cursed his innate Niceness. After all, it was late, and it was raining, and give him your cloak as well and all that. He only hoped that whoever it was wouldn't smell quite as bad as he sounded. The Window of Crowley's Desire opened and a fair, ruffled head poked into the darkness, light shining behind to make him a Madonna Without Child.
"Hello? I say, are you alright down there?"
"Well, I've been FA-YAYAYAITHFUL, and y'know I've been SO good- except for drinkiiiiiiiiiin', but he knew that I would..."
The angel Aziraphale squinted closely at the rumpled figure sprawled beneath the streetlight in a pool of brackish water and self-pity.
"I'm 'onna leave thish place beeeettteeerrrerer, than the way I found it wassssss, and Jesus gonna be...here...gonnabehere sssssssssshoon..."
The angel Aziraphale's mouth fell open a shade, and he peered closer. "...Crowley? Crowley, is that you?"
...and the demon J. Crowley rolled over in his bed of stone and copped a face full of rain and sympathy. "ZIR'PHALE! Wotchew doing here, eh?"
"I live here, Crowley. Why are you lying in the gutter?"
"Oh. Oh, oh, right. You livesh heremmm. Yesss." He moaned as the world went sideways again and the angel Aziraphale said something about someone that wasn't important. All the music had left the demon J.Crowley, left him naked with nothing but his own rolling thoughts washing back and forth across his head like rancid treacle. The head above him vanished back into the warmth, leaving him flat on the cold, cold ground, staring at the stars that didn't care a brass thingummy for him and his.
He remembered a story he'd heard from someone dead now, about stars...that by the time you saw them, they were already gone. It had been forgot along with the dead man he'd been told it by, until there'd been something on the telly about stars, how they died screaming in a beautiful, horrible fireworks of pain. The instruments, the man on telly with the carnation in his buttonhole had said. The instruments -what instruments? What are they doing with instruments in space?- had picked up noises, signals, sounds from the stars as they imploded/exploded/whatever. They screamed as they died.
The demon J. Crowley opened his mouth to call for an angel. It filled with cool water and, forgetting what he was about to say, he drank the liquid down. Then there were warm, soft arms smelling of soap all around him and a cross, kind voice in his ears and heart.
"...Crowley?"
The demon J. Crowley opened one eye. Two. Too bright. Can't see a thing. A malicious someone had filled his mouth with something absorbent while he dozed, but on the plus side they'd placed him in a sweet-smelling place. As it turned out, the absorbent thing was his tongue. Poor tongue. All gone.
"Oh, good you're awake heavens just look at yourself would you you're an absolute mess didn't you realise it was raining you're just lucky it's so warm tonight oh *do* sober up will you before you start slobbering on the couch at least not on the good cushions anyway oh just *look* at your lovely jacket it's completely spoiled I hope you didn't buy that..." The demon J. Crowley closed his eyes against the nasty lights and disappeared into the soft scarlet eternity of the chair. He couldn't care less what the angel Aziraphale was saying; he talked too much, and even if he said a thousand words, the ones that the demon J. Crowley needed to hear would not rank amongst them.
"...Crowley? Are you going to sober up, or do I have to slap you?"
"Mmmm..." The demon J. Crowley will not be sober; sober means thinking, thinking means he will realise where he is and then he will have to cry and if there is anything, *anything* that he fears, it is crying in front of the angel Aziraphale.
Slap.
Ouch.
Eyes open.
Crankypants angel, glaring like a nanny, a pretty lip caught between small white straight American teeth. "Now, Crowley, I *told* you I'd slap you, didn't I?"
The demon J. Crowley could utter not one word not one syllable not one sound. The scent of the angel Aziraphale wrapped around him, clean and sweet, washing drying in the light of a Sunday morning. Soft, and lovely. It would be so easy, just to take him. Just to take. Want and take, that was how it ought to be. Grab handfuls of fair hair and pull back the pretty face and bite the soft mouth, bite it and bite it and leave his mark until no one would ever touch it again and it would be all his, forever and ever amen-
Thoughts coming too thick, trying to drown the demon J. Crowley in mendacity cocktailed with truth. No choice left save sobriety- purge the body and the mind will follow...or was that cut off the head and stuff garlic in the mouth? He blinked once twice three times and the world crystallised before him. "Ahhhh..."
"Serves you right for getting shickered, dear boy. And without me, as well."
He looked even better sober. The demon J. Crowley felt his limbs drawn like a cursed marionette, reaching out to grab and claw and shred, to take every holy and pure part of the angel Aziraphale and bend it to his will-
"It's always without you," said the demon J. Crowley, past caring and into despair.
Kind eyes like the sea after a storm gazed down at him. "Crowley? Whatever do you mean?" Silence. "Is something the matter?"
IwillnotcryIwillnotcryIdon'tcareIdon'tcareIdon'tcareNothingmattersIwillnotcry...
"Crowley...why are you crying?"
...damn.
Why was he crying? Because...because...
Because he could not love. He could not feel the sweet, pure compassion he had once known, only thick choking desire and need...hunger. Always hunger, gnawing at the back of his mind like a fanged worm burrowing deeper into him, spreading its sickly sweet poison through him. Because he wanted to love like an angel, but could only lust as one of the damned. Because he had chosen, long ago, not to love one who wanted it then as desperately as he did now, and for that he would never love again. Because...
Because he finally knew what it was to fall.
"Um. Something in my eye," said the demon J. Crowley, a watercolour smile on his face. The angel Aziraphale was beside him now, so close he could feel the soft warmth that he could never possess. Rain falling down down down hard on the roof above and scratching at the window pain, like Crowley's thoughts begging to be let in.
"Oh." The angel Aziraphale was Not Convinced. "Well, are you going to dry yourself off? Or do you want to borrow some of my-"
The first kiss was soft, bare feet on moss and water on golden skin. The second was harder, running in an alleyway and laughing at the moon. The demon J. Crowley licked his lips and tried to keep the chanting thoughts of blood from his mind. All the scented fog of Desire had been swept away by the icy breeze and clarity of Need and suddenly, love was not so very important after all. The angel Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak but found a cool, white hand pressed across it.
"Don't you say a bloody word, Angel."
The third kiss was Sin itself.
Well hell doesn't want you
and heaven is full
and the earth died screaming
while I lay dreaming
and the earth died screaming
while I lay dreaming of you...
It was of the hour before the highest moon when the demon J. Crowley did walk the streets. Hot and high the air did pass around him and sweep the mortal refuse past his feet. Close enough to touch they stood, juicy and ripe for the picking, fragrant skin tight and firm around them justly rightly waiting to be tasted. But there was music in the step of the demon J. Crowley, and he would have none of the living frailty while his dead heart beat still as a stone. So they talked, talked, talked themselves down and around him and walked, walked, walked on the blind and lonely path without a light to guide them while he passed amongst them like smoke in the night. And he burned too dark to touch.
Come on along with the Black Rider
we'll have a gay old time
lay down in the web of the black spider
I'll drink your blood like wine
So come on in
it ain't no sin
take off your skin
and dance around in your bones...
The Green Goddess licked his veins inside out and teased the blood long sleeping with promises of thujone and kisses. The scent of an angel clung to him but not the angel himself...a head full of emerald fumes and an aching burning crotch were the entirety of the demon J. Crowley. The dull grey snake of the pavement moved under him like a swamp, flowing and wet and sucking his boots down with hard licks.
Until
the Window shone above him like a lighthouse and he stared in awe at the yellow wonder of it all, stepping back and back to better see but tumbling when the hard gutter came up fast from beneath to take him down down down where he belonged. The demon J. Crowley lay in the filth and laughed and laughed like a straightjacket fool until he wept. The rain began to fall, knocking the heat from the air, and he sang a little more.
Well, Jesus gonna be here
gonna be here soon
he's gonna cover us up with leaves
with a blanket from the moon
with a promise and a vow
and a lullaby for my brow
Jesus gonna be here
Be here soon...
It was quiet inside. The single lamp burned dull and soft, lighting the face of the angel Aziraphale. Glass of wine. Old and precious things all about. A deep red chair and a book with tiny writing. The smell of ancient wood and clean dust. The window a crack open, for the night -unfortunately for all concerned - was sultry, which went utterly against everything everyone everywhere knows about London.
"I got to keep my eyes op-ENN, so that I can see my LORD! I'm gonna watch the HOR-I-ZOONNNN, for a brand new Fooooorrrd..."
Blink. Blink.
Hmph. Deplorable drunks, wandering around disturbing people at this unGod- at this wretched hour. The singing tapered off like water down the drain, replaced by the soft pat of rain against the window. The angel Aziraphale settled back to the fine, thin paper dotted with someone else's thoughts long dead.
Then
"I can-a hear him rollin on dooowwwwnn the laaanne, I said HOLLYWOOD BE THY NAME! Jesus gonna be heeeerrrrreeee...gonna be here ssssssssoon..."
The angel Aziraphale sighed, and gently cursed his innate Niceness. After all, it was late, and it was raining, and give him your cloak as well and all that. He only hoped that whoever it was wouldn't smell quite as bad as he sounded. The Window of Crowley's Desire opened and a fair, ruffled head poked into the darkness, light shining behind to make him a Madonna Without Child.
"Hello? I say, are you alright down there?"
"Well, I've been FA-YAYAYAITHFUL, and y'know I've been SO good- except for drinkiiiiiiiiiin', but he knew that I would..."
The angel Aziraphale squinted closely at the rumpled figure sprawled beneath the streetlight in a pool of brackish water and self-pity.
"I'm 'onna leave thish place beeeettteeerrrerer, than the way I found it wassssss, and Jesus gonna be...here...gonnabehere sssssssssshoon..."
The angel Aziraphale's mouth fell open a shade, and he peered closer. "...Crowley? Crowley, is that you?"
...and the demon J. Crowley rolled over in his bed of stone and copped a face full of rain and sympathy. "ZIR'PHALE! Wotchew doing here, eh?"
"I live here, Crowley. Why are you lying in the gutter?"
"Oh. Oh, oh, right. You livesh heremmm. Yesss." He moaned as the world went sideways again and the angel Aziraphale said something about someone that wasn't important. All the music had left the demon J.Crowley, left him naked with nothing but his own rolling thoughts washing back and forth across his head like rancid treacle. The head above him vanished back into the warmth, leaving him flat on the cold, cold ground, staring at the stars that didn't care a brass thingummy for him and his.
He remembered a story he'd heard from someone dead now, about stars...that by the time you saw them, they were already gone. It had been forgot along with the dead man he'd been told it by, until there'd been something on the telly about stars, how they died screaming in a beautiful, horrible fireworks of pain. The instruments, the man on telly with the carnation in his buttonhole had said. The instruments -what instruments? What are they doing with instruments in space?- had picked up noises, signals, sounds from the stars as they imploded/exploded/whatever. They screamed as they died.
The demon J. Crowley opened his mouth to call for an angel. It filled with cool water and, forgetting what he was about to say, he drank the liquid down. Then there were warm, soft arms smelling of soap all around him and a cross, kind voice in his ears and heart.
"...Crowley?"
The demon J. Crowley opened one eye. Two. Too bright. Can't see a thing. A malicious someone had filled his mouth with something absorbent while he dozed, but on the plus side they'd placed him in a sweet-smelling place. As it turned out, the absorbent thing was his tongue. Poor tongue. All gone.
"Oh, good you're awake heavens just look at yourself would you you're an absolute mess didn't you realise it was raining you're just lucky it's so warm tonight oh *do* sober up will you before you start slobbering on the couch at least not on the good cushions anyway oh just *look* at your lovely jacket it's completely spoiled I hope you didn't buy that..." The demon J. Crowley closed his eyes against the nasty lights and disappeared into the soft scarlet eternity of the chair. He couldn't care less what the angel Aziraphale was saying; he talked too much, and even if he said a thousand words, the ones that the demon J. Crowley needed to hear would not rank amongst them.
"...Crowley? Are you going to sober up, or do I have to slap you?"
"Mmmm..." The demon J. Crowley will not be sober; sober means thinking, thinking means he will realise where he is and then he will have to cry and if there is anything, *anything* that he fears, it is crying in front of the angel Aziraphale.
Slap.
Ouch.
Eyes open.
Crankypants angel, glaring like a nanny, a pretty lip caught between small white straight American teeth. "Now, Crowley, I *told* you I'd slap you, didn't I?"
The demon J. Crowley could utter not one word not one syllable not one sound. The scent of the angel Aziraphale wrapped around him, clean and sweet, washing drying in the light of a Sunday morning. Soft, and lovely. It would be so easy, just to take him. Just to take. Want and take, that was how it ought to be. Grab handfuls of fair hair and pull back the pretty face and bite the soft mouth, bite it and bite it and leave his mark until no one would ever touch it again and it would be all his, forever and ever amen-
Thoughts coming too thick, trying to drown the demon J. Crowley in mendacity cocktailed with truth. No choice left save sobriety- purge the body and the mind will follow...or was that cut off the head and stuff garlic in the mouth? He blinked once twice three times and the world crystallised before him. "Ahhhh..."
"Serves you right for getting shickered, dear boy. And without me, as well."
He looked even better sober. The demon J. Crowley felt his limbs drawn like a cursed marionette, reaching out to grab and claw and shred, to take every holy and pure part of the angel Aziraphale and bend it to his will-
"It's always without you," said the demon J. Crowley, past caring and into despair.
Kind eyes like the sea after a storm gazed down at him. "Crowley? Whatever do you mean?" Silence. "Is something the matter?"
IwillnotcryIwillnotcryIdon'tcareIdon'tcareIdon'tcareNothingmattersIwillnotcry...
"Crowley...why are you crying?"
...damn.
Why was he crying? Because...because...
Because he could not love. He could not feel the sweet, pure compassion he had once known, only thick choking desire and need...hunger. Always hunger, gnawing at the back of his mind like a fanged worm burrowing deeper into him, spreading its sickly sweet poison through him. Because he wanted to love like an angel, but could only lust as one of the damned. Because he had chosen, long ago, not to love one who wanted it then as desperately as he did now, and for that he would never love again. Because...
Because he finally knew what it was to fall.
"Um. Something in my eye," said the demon J. Crowley, a watercolour smile on his face. The angel Aziraphale was beside him now, so close he could feel the soft warmth that he could never possess. Rain falling down down down hard on the roof above and scratching at the window pain, like Crowley's thoughts begging to be let in.
"Oh." The angel Aziraphale was Not Convinced. "Well, are you going to dry yourself off? Or do you want to borrow some of my-"
The first kiss was soft, bare feet on moss and water on golden skin. The second was harder, running in an alleyway and laughing at the moon. The demon J. Crowley licked his lips and tried to keep the chanting thoughts of blood from his mind. All the scented fog of Desire had been swept away by the icy breeze and clarity of Need and suddenly, love was not so very important after all. The angel Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak but found a cool, white hand pressed across it.
"Don't you say a bloody word, Angel."
The third kiss was Sin itself.