Author's Note: this is my fastest one to-date. Whew! Newly rated this to M just to be safe; I know I must be living in an idealized world for thinking that many 16 year-olds won't have a more colorful vocabulary than I do.
ALL IN A LIFETIME'S WORK
Chapter 8
Crowley careened down the street at a speed previously thought of as impossible on traffic-logged Park avenue driving away from the garden. His car - or rather, his 'appropriated' car - was a red Ford mustang convertible. It was fast, sleek and sexy, but really no comparison to his beloved Bentley waiting back home in Mayfair. He's thought about having it shipped to New York for the time he'll be spending playing "assistant" to the angel, planning to have told Aziraphale tonight after the concert. Crowley knew the angel would have loved that, knowing in that small act that the demon was in a sense moving in with him.
But that was a few hours ago. All thoughts of his car, his plans, his after-party with the angel had flown out the window. There was a single thought running through the demon's mind as he banked left and narrowly missed a taxi cab;
Find Aziraphale.
Find Aziraphale and that fucking bastard that took him.
Crowley slammed his foot harder on the gas, turned right and sped as a red blur down 42nd street. He was worried, he was thinking desperately of the few million places Aziraphale could be right now. Gabriel was right, he couldn't sense Aziraphale now. He couldn't sense the holy aura anywhere on this planet and that worried the shit out of him. The gravity of this fact scared the demon more than he cared to admit to himself. He could be anywhere or nowhere right now. Wiped out of existence... or worse. The thought of forever losing Aziraphale was something he had never ever hoped to endure in his existence. He wiped furiously at his cheek with the back of his hand, scarcely realizing that tears were falling down his face. Demons don't cry, he angrily told himself. They don't love either, another voice in his head mocked him.
Yeah, right.
Too many things in this world have proven to him that angels and demons were not set with these rules for eternity. He clenched his jaw and concentrated back to the task at hand.
Hell didnt have Aziraphale, or he would have known by now. He was sure of that. News of a captured angel would have travelled fast down the grapevine. He jabbed his finger at the radio and it came to life. All of the radio stations were talking about Azira's disappearance and the demon knew Gabriel was working with the police. Big help that would do, he thought sourly as he flipped through more stations. All the same. It depressed him all the more, and he finally stopped at the lone station that wasn't talking about Aziraphale. It was playing 50's songs.
He drove blindly, hoping to feel something, sense anything that would lead him to the angel. Then the crooning voice from the radio stopped abruptly and a voice all too familiar spoke;
HELLO CROWLEY, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?
*******
"Now. Kiss me Aziraphale. Kiss me the way you kiss your lover."
Aziraphale's mind filled with despair. He had no choice, he struggled furiously against his bonds and found his strength no more than an average mortal's. His mind struggled to come up with a plan, any plan that could help him out.
"I... I can't." Aziraphale braced himself for another blow, "I can't with my hands tied behind my back." he said nervously. It was vaguely technically true and he latched onto that semblance of truth to work with. He supposed lying isn't such a big sin to worry about right now.
John watched him carefully, suspicious. "Don't dare lie to me Aziraphale. I know you."
"Then - then you know I can't lie to you right now. Not after what I've... done." Aziraphale said quickly, "I need my hands to show you..." he swallowed down the bile threatening to come up his throat, "... to show you exactly how I want to make it up to you."
A smile spread across his captor's face, "Oh Aziraphale, I knew you can never forget your love for me." he reached forward and hugged the angel, resting his head on Aziraphale's shoulder. "Alright, but just one hand for now. I know you can be really sneaky if you wanted to." He reached carefully behind the angel and started untying the rope.
"You know me," Aziraphale forced a light laugh as he felt his right wrist being worked free from the rope. He looked at the terrified girl watching and he pursed his lips into a silent 'shhh'and she nodded, understanding.
As soon as he felt his right arm free, he flexed it tentatively feeling his joints cracking. It tingled a bit, parts of it being deprived of blood for quite a bit of time now. The feeling was rather alien to Aziraphale who never knew how 'pins and needles' felt like. "Thank you." he said weakly.
John drew back a little and watched his captive's face, "You're welcome. Now, where were we?"
*******
Great. Just great. They just had to come in calling now of all times.
"Yes, lord."
WHERE ARE YOU GOING CROWLEY?
Crowley bit his lip and wondered if there was any chance in hell that they didn't already know what he was doing. Lying he thought would be pointless right now, so he opted for vague (although he was quite sure that would futile as well). "I'm looking for someone, lord."
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THE ANGEL CROWLEY?
He cleared his throat and answered in a small voice, "Yes." Oh great. Now he's really in for it. "I can explain sir, see - er --"
GOOD CROWLEY.
"P-pardon sir?" His face could have won 'Best Double-Take Of the Century'.
WE WANT YOU TO FIND JONATHAN SKIMS CROWLEY.
"Jonathan Skims?"
WE DISAPPROVE GREATLY OF HIS USE OF ARCANE KNOWLEDGE AND DEMONIC SECRETS. MEN ARE NOT MEANT TO WIELD SUCH POWER. There was a thoughtful pause. HE'S ZAPPING TOO MUCH ENERGY FROM THE POWER GRID, THE BOYS DOWN HERE AREN'T TOO HAPPY WITH THAT. THE BOSS' COFFEE HAS GONE COLD.
NOBODY WANTS THE BOSS' COFFEE TO GO COLD, CROWLEY.
Crowley, on some working level of his mind understood completely, yet he still couldn't believe it.
JONATHAN SKIMS ISN'T AUTHORIZED TO CONSUME THAT MUCH OF HELL'S ENERGY EVEN IF IT MEANS CONTAINING AN ANGEL, CROWLEY. WE KNOW WHERE HE IS.
And just like that the information was in Crowley's head. On any given day, he hated it whenever they basically dumped everything in one go into your mind. But this was not any given day and he recieved the information almost gratefully. It was his second double-take, he couldn't believe where Aziraphale was. No way. He slammed on the brakes and took the sharpest U-turn on the face of the planet and sped back towards Madison square.
"Th - thank you my lord. It will be done."
Oh it will be done alright. This Jonathan Skims will wish he was never born, Crowley grimly promised.
Lucky. Aziraphale was absurdly lucky the stupid human chose the most energy-inefficient sigils to mask the angel's aura.
It took raw firmament for both angels and demons to basically do anything 'out of the ordinary'. Both sides used it for a wide variety of purposes, from powering all things such as miracles and misdeeds to playing with memories to... just about everything. The size of the task to be done demanded a comensurate amount of firmament; making an angel mortal and holding him secret from the eyes of both heaven and hell was by no means a remotely cheap expenditure of the stuff. Down Below was simply running low on it and nobody wants anyone to be more pissed than they already are; not especially the lords of Hell who were walking psychological timebombs as it were. Besides, it wasn't as if hell would ever want to save an angel, even a singing one at that. Right?
GOOD CROWLEY
Crowley nodded, taking a left onto Madison avenue.
... AND CROWLEY, SEND IN A FEW AUTOGRAPHED TICKETS TO THE CONCERT WHEN THE ANGEL'S TOUR RESUMES. WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING WITH GREAT INTEREST.
"What?!"