Authors Note:
Hello there guys, gals, and non-binary pals. Have you finished Good Omens S2? Have you decided that your heart wasn't shattered into quite enough pieces? Well, then do I have a story for you!
Before you proceed, PLEASE READ THIS. This is an honest-to-god, no-holds-barred, I-am-fucked-in-the-head darkfic. There will be heavy violence, torture, and rape. I am going to try very hard to write this in such a way that the triggering chapters can be skipped, but my characters have surprised me before, and these two especially have minds of their own. Individual chapters with dark content will be marked, and there are a few thousand words to go before they show up at all.
That being said, I promise that our boys get a happy ending. It's going to be long, it's going to be bloody, it's going to be angsty. It's going to be a ride, and everyone is going to be the epitome of Not Okay for a while, but I swear it will get better.
If you're still with me, then on with the show!
Crowley gave himself twenty-four hours.
If a certain angel was going to throw away six thousand years together without so much as a by-your-leave, then Crowley could certainly pull himself together. At least he had the grace to mourn—what they were, what could have been. He wasn't going to mope—demons didn't mope—but he was going to summon a great deal of good wine from a shop on his way out of Soho, and a flick of his wrist was going to empty the pockets of a teenager on the street corner into the Bentley's passenger seat. A smattering of pills in a rainbow of colour jounced along in their tiny plastic bags, knocking gently against the glass bottles that held the promise of oblivion, if just for a night.
He drove.
The Bentley roared over the streets, heading away from London, matching her owner's single-minded intensity. The traffic lights were all mysteriously, miraculously green on Crowley's trip east, no other souls on the road as the speedometer crept up to ninety, then beyond. Crowley was barely paying attention, putting utter faith in his girl, if no one else. She'd pushed through flames to the end of the world for him; he could trust her to take him to the beach.
Studying the little baggie of tablets, Crowley huffed out an annoyed sigh. There wasn't a single label in sight. With a resigned shrug, he pushed a yellow pill between his lips, swallowing it down dry. Why yellow? He had to start somewhere, he reasoned, ignoring the thudding of his traitorous heart that reminded him that yellow was Aziraphale's favourite colour.
No one dared stop him as he screeched through the nature reserve; he'd actually exerted quite a bit of energy to ensure it. Trees and animals alike jumped out of his way until the sound of the surf could be heard under the car's growling engine. Crowley stared at the ocean for a long moment as he approached, bludgeoned with the passing notion that he could drown himself in more than alcohol. Then he grunted and downshifted so hard that, had he been trying to rein in a horse, it would have had to slide down on its haunches to obey. The Bentley, by contrast, made a sound like all of her gears were crunching at once and honked her horn wildly as her tires fought for traction. The following silence as she swerved to a stop was accusatory.
Crowley popped another pill—a blue one this time, a very pretty shade if he said so himself—and patted the steering wheel on his way out. "Sorry, old girl. Don't mean to take it out on you."
The world was already starting to spin as he ducked back into the car for his bounty. After a moment's deliberation, he grabbed a second as well—it wasn't like he didn't plan to drink it.
Settling himself a generous distance from the gentle swell of the waves, Crowley embarked on a quest to get well and truly pissed.
A hazy sky went blurry around the edges as Crowley flopped onto his back, blinking up at a few puffy clouds that took on increasingly amorphous shapes the longer he drank. Was Aziraphale up there watching him now? Shifting the conditions to make abstract pictures just for him? He wasn't nearly drunk enough for that line of thinking, though, so he finished what he could of the last few mouthfuls. The rest fell to his side, dregs dribbling onto the sand. Too maudlin to even consider returning to the car, Crowley reached for more—had he really finished two bottles already?—and pulled it through the space that stood just a little to the left of reality.
Apparently he was a little further into his cups than he'd thought because most of the contents of the Bentley now littered the beach around his head. Crowley flailed a hand toward the reflection of sun on plastic. Yellow and blue make green! he thought as he chewed absently on said green tab, biting back a giggle before washing the horrid flavour away with more wine.
Time ceased to exist as he lay there, cracked-open and lethargic, colours whirling and blending into an impossible palette as drugs that almost certainly weren't meant to be combined pumped heartily through his veins. The light was slowly fading overhead, and Crowley was running ever-lower on alcohol. Every time his thoughts turned to Aziraphale, he took another long, deep guzzle, and, as a result, he was going through his supply at an alarming rate.
Somewhere, somehow, Crowley had managed to prop himself up into a mostly-sitting position against the Bentley's fender. He didn't remember coming back to the car, but he must not have done it before high tide, judging by the squelching in his shoes and the dampness below his knees. Day had bled into night while he was lost in his own misery, and the glow of stars above seemed almost peaceful against the backdrop of curious insects and the soft crash of the sea.
Crowley couldn't stand it.
He staggered to his feet, using the Bentley for balance, and launched his mostly-full container toward the foam lapping up onto the beach. Inebriated as he was, it didn't go far, but the smash of glass on stone was immensely satisfying. Crowley took one wobbling step, then two. Scowling, he forcefully purged some of the intoxication from his body—enough that he felt he could navigate the trail of empties leading toward the shore without keeling over—shattering each one he touched. He followed his own rubbish like breadcrumbs, expending an occasional miracle to restore the glass just to have another thing to break.
"Son of a bitch!"
His voice didn't echo across the water; birds didn't frighten and take flight. It was just Crowley, his heartbreak, and the night.
This far from the nearest town, no one heard his torment. He screamed himself hoarse, until his throat grew sore and ragged, until no other sound came out. His limbs shook from the exertion of containing a demon's anguish in a corporeal form, until lightning shot down and spiderwebs of super-heated sand cooled to glass. No matter how he paced or shouted, no matter how much electricity or smoke poured out, he couldn't exorcise the pain. The wound was huge, bloody and gaping and exposed, and how was he supposed to live like this?
Wine obviously hadn't done the job. Crowley reached through the celestial firmament to steal some fine whiskey from a different shop, an upper-shelf tequila from a third. None of it made him feel better. The ghost of Aziraphale's smile, the one reserved just for him, was etched ineffably into what remained of his soul, those beautiful blue eyes branded onto Crowley's heart. It was going to take more than a single day and some liquor to stamp out the parts of him that were crying out for his angel.
Even if Aziraphale wasn't his angel anymore.
Crowley lay sprawled against his windscreen and watched the sky brighten with the first hint of light, colour washing away the last vestiges of darkness. It was truly a gorgeous spectacle, the sunrise that heralded the worst morning in his existence.
He despised it.
When the sun finally cleared the horizon, he eased back into the Bentley, ground still rippling dangerously beneath his feet.
"Home," he mumbled, resting his forehead against the wheel.
The car rumbled to life and, much more carefully than the day before, made its way back to a cheery little neighbourhood in London.
Twenty-four hours ago, almost to the minute, Crowley had stood in this same place and waited for Aziraphale to choose them—to choose him. But he hadn't. The regret had been plain on his face when he'd met Crowley's eye and stepped onto the lift, but he'd still gone. Crowley might never see him again.
"Fuck." He hadn't shed a single tear in his fit of hysterics, and he wasn't about to do so now.
Sobering himself up took all of a snap, but there was no recourse for the following groan. While he'd never gotten a hangover after a miracle, going through a process that usually took several hours in less than a second was never pleasant. It only shortened his already formidable temper.
More than that, something was… off. Crowley studied the street through narrowed eyes before he registered the problem.
An OPEN sign hung merrily on the bookshop door.
Crowley bared his teeth in rage. It felt so much better than the aching rejection boring through his chest. He grabbed the ire with both hands, unwilling to let it slip through his fingers now that he'd found a useful emotion. He was a demon; he could let himself be angry. Antagonising angels and mortals alike was what he was meant to do, after all.
Ignoring the oncoming traffic, Crowley swung into the street and marched himself up to the door. Horns blared, humans swore, and he couldn't care less as he turned sharply on his heel and slammed through an opposite entryway.
Nina, standing idly behind the counter with a damp rag, merely raised an eyebrow at his entrance. "The usual, Mr. Crowley?"
Bless or curse the woman for being absolutely nonplussed at every turn. She could do to be a little more plussed sometimes, actually, he thought with a snort.
Crowley dropped into his usual seat with none of his typical grace. "I think today deserves a double." Nina looked askance at him from the corner of her eye and Crowley wagged a finger before she could so much as open her mouth. "Ah, ah. No questions, just coffee."
The shop was quiet as she measured out twelve shots of espresso. Crowley had his hand out before she even got to the table, but Nina pointedly held the mug out of reach. With effort, he sagged back in his chair to direct his face toward hers. Setting his drink down none-too-gently, Nina crossed her arms in the no-nonsense fashion of someone who was used to wearing down their uncooperative prey. "I'm letting it slide today. Tomorrow is a different story."
She had the same heart as Aziraphale, he'd noticed—brazen, courageous almost to the point of absurdity, with a golden core that was as comforting as it was confrontational. Crowley had never expected a human to pounce with claws extended and rip his defences to shreds before his very eyes, but here she was, wearing a disappointed expression that cut deeper than all the torments of Hell.
"Yeah. Cheers." Crowley made a half-hearted salute with his cup. Across the street, people were coming and going through the doorway of A.Z. Fell and Co., more customers in a single day than it had probably seen since Aziraphale had opened it.
The bitterness was still there, beating just behind his ribs. Without the candy-floss feeling that came from mixing too many substances, Crowley could reach down and touch it, cradle it in his palms and let the warmth of good, honest hatred soak into his bones. A fiery red light, nearly as dark as the halls of Hell, pulsed where the pure, unbridled fury was stoked with every unnecessary breath.
Through A.Z. Fell and Co.'s street-side window, he could see an angel—the wrong angel—wave jauntily to the next set of people to step inside. To anyone else, it was a perfectly nice, normal day in Soho, if a little too sunny and strangely warm for the season. The world hadn't ended for them; the Earth turned lazily on its axis and brought forth a new day for humans who didn't know what it was like to suffer.
Well. That was about to change.
Crowley guzzled his coffee, not caring that it scalded his unhealed throat, or that Nina was staring at him with ever-greater concern, or even that he was scorching the tiles under his shoes. A thought had been niggling at him since the moment Aziraphale had blurted "you're the bad guys," a thought he'd tried to push away with pills and drink and pain. Now, though, it came back full force, the truth of it crystallising into a brittle, manic smile.
He thinks I'm just a demon? I'll show him a fucking demon.