What Have I Done?
A Good Omens fanfiction
During the rebellion/war in Heaven:
There was war in Heaven.
The universe had never known war before the rebellion.
Indeed, though she would only grow to her full strength in the minds of men – who were yet to be created – War herself, red hair and slow smile, began to take shape.
She did not show herself to anyone, save perhaps Death (Azrael knew she was there from the start, there was no point her hiding from him).
She only watched.
She watched – with vague curiosity – another red-haired creature, quite different from herself. This one was inclined – though you'd never have known it from seeing him then – towards creation rather than destruction. He had been an angel, but he was on the other side now, and they did not yet call themselves demons; they called themselves Lucifer's Army.
He was different from the others, this one of Lucifer's soldiers – strange and halting. He grimaced when he fought.
To War's displeasure, he actually seemed to try and avoid the heavier fighting when he could dodge it.
Idiot, she thought.
She tried, invisibly, to nudge him the direction of a conflict already underway. Perhaps the flame-haired coward was only wary of beginning a fight. Surely he'd have the sense to take one up if he had an easy way in.
A few feet away, a scowling Principality brandishing a flaming sword was fighting another of Lucifer's soldiers.
"I say, that isn't very nice!" he shouted, ducking and narrowly missing being struck by the rebel's darker-coloured blade. "Stop it! Really, now."
War would have laughed at him, for his stupidity, but she was actually rather impressed. The angel knew what he was doing with that sword – he wasn't merely waving it about in a useless fashion. She might not fancy his lack of enthusiasm (which was strangely akin to that of the red-headed numbskull she was drawing closer to the fighting pair) but War couldn't fault his technique.
Trained well, this one. Sweat on his pale brow, fire in his eyes as well as on his sword.
Now, finally, she would see some action.
Not only was the fight heating up, growing intense to the point where one of them – God's angel or Lucifer's soldier – would not make it out unscathed, but something all around them was exploding.
Raw matter blew up from another part of the battle, setting their little corner of the war ablaze. Stardust exploded in the air like shrapnel.
He was, currently, a nameless angel.
When they joined Lucifer's side, they quickly forsook their old names – there seemed to be no reason to keep them, since they were being removed from God's books in light of this fiasco.
Sometime later, after the creation of the earth, he would be called Crawly, though only for a little while.
But for now he was nobody.
There was stardust in his eyes, burning them and limiting their field of vision.
Only temporary, he knew – they'd heal themselves soon enough. Though – and this he didn't know – they would no longer be a celestial golden again when they did. They'd be much closer to yellow.
So he wasn't too distressed, really, merely frustrated by the inconvenience. He was trying to reach one of his side that was fighting a Principality and – it seemed – losing.
Lucifer had given them orders not to be heroes. "We look out for ourselves from now on!" he'd boomed, rallying those who'd taken his part to battle.
But when you've been an angel your whole life, old habits don't all die at once.
The nameless angel's instinct was to save his own. That Principality clearly had the greater skill set and was likely to win. If he couldn't help his cohort beat him, the least he could do was pull him away before he got hurt.
If only he could see properly to do so!
The air was growing sulphurous. He was choking as well as nearly blinded. The pearly ground under his feet was shaking. Flickers of blue flame were in the corners of his vision. Something had happened around the two soldiers. They were both trapped, Lucifer's angel and the principality.
The nameless angel reached for his cohort.
He made contact with a hand that was unexpectedly warm and plump.
While he didn't get too good of a look at his cohort, didn't know him personally, he hadn't realised he was such a hefty fellow. Strange, that. He'd seemed slender enough from a distance. Oh well.
He gripped the hand tighter.
The hand he held squeezed back, and a pleading voice blurted, "Please, whoever you are, don't let go. I can't see." There was increased fear in his tone as he added, sheepishly, "I've dropped my sword."
"I've been blinded, too – it's all right."
There came a snarl.
The principality, thought the nameless angel, and – with a grunt – he lifted his foot and kicked it away, further into the exploding chaos, before it could hurt his cohort any more than it already had.
With all the strength he could muster, he pulled the plump being to complete safety and they hid behind a pearly pillar.
"I'm sorry about your sword," he panted.
"Oh, never mind that, I'll ask Gabriel to put in a request for another." He felt the angel shift slightly, as if he were easing himself into a more comfortable position. "Mind you, he'll be quite cross, but there's nothing to be done... Even the quartermaster will have to understand..."
Gabriel? Quartermaster?
The nameless angel's heart sank. Then thudded wildly against his chest. No. He hadn't. He hadn't done something so incredibly stupid.
He couldn't have.
Not even he could screw up this badly.
Surely he hadn't just rescued one of the wrong side and deserted his actual cohort.
His eyes were beginning to clear. He could see only the outline of the angel he'd saved. White uniform, kilt, white helmet, messy wing feathers. He blinked to clear his vision, as if that would somehow change the uniform's colour and reassure him he hadn't just kicked away one of Lucifer's lot and rescued a trained Principality.
He was holding the hand of a Principality whose face he couldn't make out but who – in his blinded state – still clung to him trustingly.
What was going to happen when the Principality got his own vision back?
Surely he'd notice the dark uniform and black weapons and...and then...
He could attack him now. That would be a real feather in his wing, to have tricked and subdued a clueless principality.
Not like this, though.
It wasn't really the angel's fault, after all, poor trusting bastard. He clearly believed the nameless angel was one of his own side, too, since he'd gone and saved him, pulled him away like that.
"Oi," shouted a voice from nearby in the endless madness, "where are you, you useless crawler? Don't think I didn't see you slinking away from that last battle."
It was the equivalent of his quartermaster, calling him back to the action... He mustn't be found like this!
He began to pull his fingers free from the angel's grasp.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"There's something I have to do, I'll be right back," he lied.
Trustingly, the angel stopped fumbling to keep hold of his rescuer's hand. "Oh. All right, then. Jolly good. Wait here for you, shall I?"
Even as he hurried away, all the nameless angel could think, over and over and over again, was: What have I done?
"But, Gabriel, there was!" protested Aziraphale desperately, waving over his shoulder at the remains of the pillar he'd been found leaning against. "He was there! There was another angel – one of ours – in that part of Heaven where the explosion happened. He saved me after I dropped my sword. We can't seal off the area and move on until we've found him, too."
"Aziraphale," the archangel said slowly but firmly. "You were in the heat of battle. Stressed. Perhaps you imagined it."
"No – he was holding my hand. He said he'd be right back."
"Where is he, then?"
"He..." Aziraphale's throat felt like it was closing on him. "You don't suppose the other side got him?"
"No, Aziraphale," Gabriel sighed, making the face a person makes when they are trying to avoid rolling their eyes. "I told you. All of Lucifer's followers were hurled down. They've been cast out. We won. There were none of our side over here when it happened. Only you, stranded behind the pillar and rubbing your eyes. I think you're the only one who missed the spectacle. For the last time now, it's time to move on."
Nodding and dashing away tears with the back of his wrist, Aziraphale numbly followed the archangel.
"Traitor." Beelzebub was glaring at him from behind her desk in the newly-formed breakaway basement office they now called Hell (this office was not actually an inferno, despite later reports; it was just really, really crappy).
The demon who was not yet Crawly felt shivers going up and down his spine. He tried to play it cool, tried to disarm her with a sly smile. "That's not a nice word."
"All the other wordzz I have for you are worze."
How could she know? he wondered, frantically searching his mind for the faintest recollection of anyone who might have witnessed his kicking away what would now be called a demon and rescuing the angel instead.
There was too much dust in his memory. He'd barely seen the angel, let alone anyone else.
"Don't let it happen again," she warned, tossing a blackened file onto the filthy floor to her left and reaching for another. "I'll be watching you very clozzely. Next!"
A/N: Reviews Welcome, replies may be delayed.