Happy Holidays, NotASpaceAlien!
Dec. 5th, 2017 05:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeTo my recipient: This is a blend of two of your prompts, with hints of the third. It turned out both longer and shorter than I expected. Please enjoy! (Also, Pollution is agender. This is the only detail I took from the upcoming TV show.)
Author’s Note: Many thanks to Kelley, my beta, inspiration, cheerleader, and wonderful friend. They’re both my muse and my incentive, and this story wouldn’t be what it was without them. Kelley is practically the second author of this piece, what with all the brainstorming and support they gave to me. <3
Rating: PG
Characters: The Horsepersons, Aziraphale and Crowley, Adam Young
this time it was yours
Death stands on a hilltop, watching the Earth burn, piece by screaming piece. Most of him isn’t there; most of him is with them, collecting fallen souls, taking human and demon and angel hands, guiding them to empty, unstable afterlives. But some of him is there, observing.
This is not how the story ends. It’s not even how it starts. But it’s a good place to begin.
*
It starts, if you want to be entirely accurate, in the Garden. It starts in verse twenty of the book of Genesis, when the dark water bubbles and burns with life, when bacteria and pathogens squirm to life alongside fish and anemone. If anyone cares to ask who the first (or, in human terms, the eldest) of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse is, the answer is Pestilence, pale as snow (though there is no snow yet) and formless, bringer of disease.
It starts with the flash of Eve’s dark throat, swallowing the first bite of the apple in her hand, with the Serpent’s nervous smile, with the angel’s pounding footsteps and cry of shock. Death, the second Horseman, starts what can almost be called a life at the foot of the Tree of Knowledge. He is as close to omniscient as any being that isn’t God can be, everywhere that there are humans all at once, in every moment. For now, though, he’s in the Garden, watching Adam take an apple from Eve’s hand and damn himself and his descendants; he feels each of their deaths cement themselves in time, from the dark, naked humans beneath the tree to the End Of All Things.
It starts with Aziraphale, bottom lip caught between his teeth, his hands trembling, catching Eve’s wrist. It starts when he curls her fingers around the hilt of the flaming sword, whispers some cross between a warning and a promise and a prayer, and sends them off into the night. War has always been a woman, always lived in the minds of women. Her beginning is with Eve, carrying the fiery blade into the night. But it isn’t the sword she is born from, it’s Eve’s pale knuckles around its grip, the muscles in her arms waking as she works to lift it, the fiercer fire in her black eyes.
It starts, then, with the rattle of the gates slamming, with Adam and Eve’s realization that they will not be provided for, that the Garden and its abundant food and clear water is locked behind them. It starts with the ache in Adam’s stomach, the cramp of hunger, the way Eve curls in on herself and groans. Famine walks in their shadows, laughs in their ears, rests icy hands on their stomachs and digs his nails in.
There’s a fifth beginning, a half-creation, when Eve lights a fire with the sword, a glimmer of something in the way the smoke curls against the blue-black sky, a silent promise of more to come. Just as penicillin drives Pestilence away, the Industrial Revolution cements Pollution’s place among the Horsepersons, chalk-white and youthfully optimistic, finding beauty in oil spills and smog and candy wrappers.
This, maybe, is where the story begins: with four Horsepersons (and a fifth) and the ways they quietly start, for all its flaws and despite their duties (despite their very selves,) to love humanity.
*
War drives the point of her sword (not her sword, that’s saved for the future, but a human weapon that serves her well enough) into the dirt and lifts her arms above her head, stretching until her spine pops. The sounds of fighting are dying down around her, in this little backwater barely-country. She turns, wiping someone else’s blood off her face, meets the eyes of some boy soldier, so smeared with mud and blood and not even God wants to know what else that there’s no way to tell what side he’s on. His eyes are wide and determined and scared, but when he looks at her, at muscles and curves under tight fabric that shouldn’t let her move the way she is but does, because she wills it to, she realizes that maybe she’s underestimated humanity.
He’s not fighting for her. Maybe he started fighting for her, or maybe just his superiors did, and he followed behind, but either way, he’s fighting in her name, because she created fighting (and ego, it seems,) but he isn’t fighting for her. She grins with too-sharp teeth stained with lipstick and blood; he salutes her, standing straighter, and throws himself back into what’s left of the fray. He’s not fighting for her. He’s fighting to win, and War throws back her head and laughs to the darkening sky.
“I love humanity,” she says, eyes bright, to no one, and wonders at the pang in her chest.
*
Famine spends as much time building corporations as he does standing on the cracked ground of third-world countries, spends as much time providing the means for humans to damn themselves as he does killing their food sources. Right now, he’s doing both at once, negotiating with the leaders of a village about building an irrigation system.
“Right here,” he says, drawing an X in the dirt with the toe of one perfectly polished Oxford. “Dig the well in this spot.” He smiles his thin, corporate, facsimile smile, and neglects to mention the oil deposit they will just barely miss, that will eventually leak into the water and poison their crops. He’ll leave before then, of course, and wink at the worker with the pale grey eyes and white-blond hair who takes over from there, then fade into the background.
“They’re so gullible,” he murmurs, linking arms with Pollution and leaning close to murmur in their ear. The youngest Horseperson smiles, grins with their crooked white teeth, eyes far away and dreamy.
“Aren’t they wonderful?” they say, and Famine realizes that yes, they are.
*
This is something Pollution realizes first, the strange wonder of humans, almost as soon as they stumble into being, staring up at the skeletons of skyscrapers, wreathed in smog, climbing higher and higher, like the tower of Babel. They join the work crews building factories, traveling city to city, country to country, until oil and metal and smoke cover the Earth.
“I barely had to do anything,” they say, laughing. “They did it themselves.” They turn to the figure beside them, clothed in black, masked, wings like gaps in reality itself half-unfurled behind him.
WE ARE A PART OF THEM. OUR INFLUENCE GUIDES THEM, EVEN IF WE DO NOT DIRECTLY INTERFERE.
“Huh,” Pollution says, rubbing coal dust from their cheek with one pale hand. “Don’t you love them, though?”
Death does not reply.
*
Death was created alongside War, and Famine, and Pestilence, and Pollution, but he is different. There’s a certain level of omnipotence, omnipresence, that comes from guarding mortality. He is everywhere, always, with every human at the end of their life. He is with the very worst of them, the most cruel and despicable, and with the kindest, the most forgiving. He is on battlefields, in hospital rooms, in living rooms, in basements, wherever the other Horsepersons are, places that they aren’t. He is on the highest mountains and deep in the ocean, wherever humans are.
Physically, though, he’s in a run-down diner somewhere near London, playing trivia, and letting the winnings from his ongoing perfect game accumulate. He’s been there since the place was built, but he never arrived. He only left once, when the Apocalypse almost happened, but he’s here again, in biking leathers and a motorcycle helmet, blending in, surrounding by an ever-shifting crowd calling out answers that he already knows.
He’s known every answer to every trivia game ever played on Earth since the moment he existed. But it’s something to do, something to occupy this fragment of himself.
Everything is present tense, everything is happening now, has always been happening.
What is present tense to everyone is this: Adam Young is dying.
*
Death is standing in a diner playing trivia. Death is standing at Adam Young’s bedside, invisible, between clusters of friends and family and the two beings that no one remembers inviting but no one cares to send away, hovering near the doorway, frowning and fidgeting, looking at the space where Death is standing out of the corners of their eyes.
“Hullo,” Adam Young says to Death. The man in the bed doesn’t speak, but Death hears him anyway, as clearly as he can see the golden-haired boy before him, eleven again, still no true match for Death.
NORMAL ENTROPY PREVAILS, EVEN FOR YOU.
“I know.”
This is nothing like their charged exchange of more than seventy years ago - this is quiet, knowing acceptance, on both sides.
YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN.
“Yes.”
YOU KNOW YOUR OPTIONS. Adam nods, blue eyes too knowing for the age he appears to be. THIS IS THE CHOICE YOU MAKE.
“Yes.”
A pause. An almost-laugh from behind the motorcycle helmet. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME SUCH A QUESTION HAS BEEN NECESSARY.
“But not the last?”
THAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN.
Adam smiles, and holds out his hand. “That means something’s still in flux, yeah?”
FOR THE SECOND TIME.
“Cor. Good luck.”
LUCK IS ARBITRARY.
“I know.”
*
Crowley curls his hand around Aziraphale’s wrist, staring straight ahead, footsteps quick and sure. They’d started down the hallway as soon as the heart monitor flatlined. “Felt that, angel?”
Aziraphale nods. “Like we feared.”
Two flights of stairs, a stumbling path across the lobby. Heavy silence. A black 1926 Bentley screams away from the curb, pale-knuckled hands wrapped around its steering wheel.
“Nice run, though, wasn’t it?” Crowley murmurs, prying one hand off the wheel to grip Aziraphale’s arm. The angel pats his hand absently, then laces their fingers together.
“Indeed.”
Crowley grits his teeth, forcing the Bentley faster. Back to London, then. Back home, to figure out what to do next. “And not over yet.”
*
Crowley's original plan was to sit down and discuss their options over wine. They don't get very far into discussing before it ends up as lamenting.
Beings of angelic stock are nothing if not dramatic by default. And this specific pair has been drinking for the better part of the ten hours since Adam Young died.
“Aziraphale. Angel, listen t’ me.”
“What is it, dear boy?” Aziraphale tugs the bottle out of Crowley’s hands, and takes a sip. They’re about three and a half bottles from trivial things like wine glasses.
“What… what’re we gonna do?
Aziraphale blinks at him, and Crowley tugs the wine bottle away before it spills.
“About the apocha- apocly- end of all thins. Things. Bugger.” Crowley sets the bottle on the table and sprawls across the seat he’s in, worming one foot under the table to kick Aziraphale in the shin. “We need to do somethin’.”
“Do what, Crowley? Dear boy, what could we possin- possy- ever do?” Aziraphale kicks back, stepping on Crowley's foot.
“Dunno. But, but- we have to- have to- we need to do something, Aziraphale.”
“I know.” Aziraphale sounds remarkably sober for having his share of almost ten bottles of wine. “Sushi.” That seems to explain everything to both of them. Crowley kicks Aziraphale again.
“Sober up.”
Aziraphale does, with a shudder, but Crowley drains the bottle on the table before he follows suit. No sense in wasting good wine.
“There’s no source. It’s just going to happen,” Aziraphale says, frowning at the ceiling.
“No eleven year old antichrists to murder to solve all our problems?” Crowley crosses his legs, then uncrosses them, then draws his knees up to his chest.
“Let’s not fight.” Aziraphale gives Crowley a long, burning look. Crowley stares back, undaunted. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Crowley looks away. “No,” he says, unspecific. He reaches for the wine bottle, stops, reaches out again. He lets his hand fall into his lap. “I don’t want this to end.”
“Heaven has the best choreographers.” Aziraphale smiles thinly, and Crowley grins back.
“We have the composers.”
“But no sushi restaurants.”
They both falter. No sushi restaurants, no Ritz, no wine, no ducks and no bread to feed them with. No long drives, no Bentley. No bookshops, or potted plants, or people. Just an eternity of Heaven (frigid and lonely and boring) or Hell (burning and painful and loud.) Either of them could be gone by the time it was all over.
Crowley scowls, bites his lip, looks upward, blinks behind his sunglasses. “Who could do something?”
“No singular divine or diabolical force. No human, unless there’s another antichrist.” Aziraphale sounds hopeless, properly hopeless, like the world’s already ended, and Crowley’s chest burns.
“I know,” he says softly, and suddenly he does. “The Horsepersons. Death, specifically.”
Aziraphale’s scowl breaks into startled, disbelieving laughter. “They exist to bring about the end of the world, Crowley. They’re not going to help us save it.”
The burn in Crowley’s chest sparks into a wildfire. “You and I exist to save and damn the human race, and to kill each other. They’ve been here as long as us, and they’re more human.”
Aziraphale goes still for a moment, then nods. “I’ll…”
Crowley grins fiercely at him, the blaze fading into a warm glow. “Dither. Drink cocoa.”
They can feel the event horizon approaching, can feel the End of All Things drawing nearer.
“If… if this is the last time I see you, angel…” Crowley speaks haltingly, already halfway to the door, not looking at Aziraphale. “Don’t change. Don’t ever change.”
The door slams, the bell rattling. The Bentley tears away from the curb.
Aziraphale breathes out, low and shuddering. Don’t ever change.
*
England, 1349
Three figures sit on the roof of a building, watching the sunset through beaked plague doctor masks. Below them, the houses are dark, locked and shuttered against the darkness outside, against the sickness lurking everywhere.
Eventually, one of the figures speaks, in a deep, tired baritone.
PESTILENCE, I APPRECIATE YOU GIVING 110%. BUT PLEASE NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.
“So noted, lord.” The second figure pulls the mask from its face, reveals pale, sunken cheeks, colorless eyes ringed with shadow, a grey mouth pinched with some unnameable emotion. “I will admit, this particular project got… out of hand.”
The third figure laughs, low and bitter. “Clearly.”
The other two turn toward him, but he’s already spread his wings and pulled the mask from his sallow face. Golden eyes flashing, lips twisted with a grimace and bitten bloody. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”
The other two figures watch him go, one masked and one unmasked, drained to nearly nothing, emptied out by their own actions gone awry.
“I am not sorry, lord.”
I DO NOT ASK YOU TO BE. JUST THAT YOU BE MORE CAREFUL.
“I will.”
Silence settles over them, over the plague-ridden town, over England.
*
Death’s second favorite place to leave his physical form while he works is a diner outside of London. There’s something about England, something that draws in the ethereal and the occult and any humans in any way connected to either. Something that draws in the Horsepersons, too, though they're none of the above. London, for demons and angels and witches and War and Famine and Pollution (and Pestilence) and Death, is home.
The diner, specifically, was chosen for its permanence, springing up as a tavern early on and never quite going away, for its ever-changing crowd (no one looks too hard at how long he stays) and for the ease with which a tall man-shaped being in a biking helmet (or a cowled robe, or a mask) can fit in.
The trivia game is part of it, maybe. There's something strangely gratifying about being cheered on. Something heartening about being praised. At least one fraction of him is being celebrated even when his presence is dreaded everywhere else.
But it's only his second favorite place. Death’s favorite place on Earth is Wrightsville Beach.
*
The beach is empty for miles, still and silent except for the waves and the faint, cold breeze.
Death sits in the sand, helmet, jacket, and gloves discarded beside him. Skeletal fingers pick idly at a seashell, blue points of light in empty sockets idly count stars.
This is Death’s favorite place for the opposite reason that the diner is his second favorite, this is peaceful, untouched by the other four, nearly untouched by humans (though there can’t be one without the other, or one’s influence without the other’s, and which way it goes is up for debate) and beautiful.
(He can appreciate beauty. He was created from humanity, after all.)
The waves crash on the beach, the foam licking over his booted feet, as Death looks out at the ocean and thinks about the end of the world.
"The world is full of all sorts of brilliant stuff and I haven't found out all about it yet, so I don't want anyone messing it about or endin' it before I've had a chance to find out about it. So you can all just go away.” says the eleven year old Adam Young, as golden-haired and stubborn as when he was keeping the very Earth alive, looking at humanity’s shadow in the same way, knowledge applied to childish innocence, quoting himself from seventy years ago. Death stares intently upward, at the stars, ignoring what might be a hallucination and might be a spirit that just refuses to let go.
I KNOW EVERY POSSIBILITY. I HAVE WATCHED THEM DECAY FROM THE FIRST MOMENT UNTIL NOW. TIME IS… CONDENSING. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE REDUCING AS THE END APPROACHES.
“Something’s still in flux.” Adam says.
THERE IS NO ONE WITH THE POWER TO STOP THE END. NO ONE STILL LIVING.
“There’s you.”
The seashell disintegrates under Death’s fingers. Not surprise; he knew there was someone there. Someone has always been there, and the words have always been spoken. The truth of them, however, is something creation’s shadow is less willing to face.
Crowley smiles, thin and thoughtful and apologetic, from where he’s standing on the boardwalk leading out into the sand, curling his bare toes against the rough wood.
Death doesn’t have to look to know that he’s smiling, or that he walks through where Adam Young isn’t standing (one hand in his pocket, slouching, that boyish smile playing across his lips,) or that he left his shoes and socks and jacket and sunglasses on the boardwalk, or how many steps Crowley takes to sit down beside him.
The demon hunches forward, curling his long fingers around his ankles, hunched against the cold. “There’s you,” he repeats, uncovered eyes staring into the waves. “You could stop it from happening.”
THE WORLD WILL END.
“Why now though?”
I CAN SEE EVERY POSSIBILITY FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE EARTH TO THE END OF ALL THINGS. TIME IS NOT LINEAR. EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING AT ONCE. SOME EVENTS ARE SET, SOME ARE IN FLUX. EVERY VARIATION IS VISIBLE TO ME. THOSE POSSIBILITIES, THE THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN BEFORE THE END, ARE… DECAYING. THE WORLD WILL END. THAT IS SET. THE POTENTIAL TIME BETWEEN NOW AND THEN IS SHORTENING. THE EARTH IS RUNNING OUT OF POSSIBLE EVENTS TO DELAY THE END.
“Well.” Crowley blinks slowly, serpentine gaze slowly turning toward Death. “Let them write some more.”
WHAT?
“Maybe they’re running out of possibilities because no one with enough power is trying to stop the end from coming. Maybe, if someone just said ‘no,’ there’d be a chance.”
That was Crowley, Death knew. Always optimistic, always looking for a way out. Shivering and terrified, fingernails cutting into his skin, but still fighting.
WHY?
“Why?”
WHAT REASON DO I HAVE TO INTERFERE?
Crowley is silent for a long moment, rocking back and forth in the sand, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, watching the waves crash. The tide is going out, leaving seashells behind, and one dead crab. Crowley reaches out and picks it up, cradling it. He breathes life back into it and sets it down, watching it scurry out of sight, into the darkness.
“The point of humans is that they aren’t- aren’t good or bad, aren’t predisposed to be either. They don’t have basic nature. They’re formed by circumstance, less by Above or Below and more by each other. They have the, the… the creativity, the capability to be awful. And some of them are. Some of them are murderers or dictators or cut people off at intersections. But some of them, most of them, are good. Choose to be good. Choose to be clever and kind and inventive. They’re not a tool in some greater game, they’re not civilian casualties. They’re people, amazing, ridiculous people, and someone has to do something.” Crowley stops, catching his breath.
Death turns his head and looks at him steadily. AND?
“And you can.” Crowley stares back, golden eyes shining. “Please.”
Something —almost imperceptibly— changes.
Death’s smile reaches the blue points of light in his eyes. Crowley beams.
I WILL SEE WHAT I CAN DO.
*
“You want us to… what?” Famine drops into the seat across from Death, dark fingers reddening on a cup of coffee that no doubt contains very little aside from water, caffeine, sugar and flavor. “Boss?”
NOTHING. VERY SPECIFICALLY. DO NOTHING. FAIL TO BRING ABOUT THE END.
War catches on faster, taking her boots off the table (and almost kicking Pollution in the head in the process) and turning toward Death with a half-twisted, half-hopeful expression. “Lemme get this straight, m’lord.” She runs one hand through her clipped auburn hair, rubbing fretfully at her neck. Pollution straightens from behind her, dropping a soda-tab chain onto the table with a rattle. “We’re going to stop the Apocalypse.”
WE ARE GOING TO DELAY THE APOCALYPSE.
“Does this mean I came out of retirement for nothing?” Pestilence mutters, sulking at Famine’s elbow.
“Cool it, granddad.” Pollution shoots a rubber band at the Horseperson they replaced, grinning. “Just means more time on Earth for all of us.” They turn to Death, colorless eyes bright with joy. “I’m in, lord.”
GOOD. WAR, FAMINE, PESTILENCE?
War and Famine nod almost as one, silently giddy. More time, they’ve been given more time on this planet, on Earth, the only place that’s ever been home to them, amalgamations of human and divine. Pestilence scowls, leans hard into Famine’s side, nods.
In a different booth, out of the corner of Death’s eye, Adam Young, golden-haired and translucent and eternally young, smiles.
*
All the hair on the back of Crowley’s neck stands up a block from the bookshop, and he beats on the steering wheel with one fist, cursing, dreading the worst. He knows the sterile, medicinal tang in the air, knows it from the last time the world was ending.
The déjà vu is nauseating.
He forces himself to slow down, parking in front of the bookshop and steadying himself. He walks toward the bookshop, glaring the shop bell into silence as he steps inside.
The feeling of divinity overwhelms him, almost drives him to his knees. Aziraphale is standing in front of a column of blue light, arguing with a voice that echoes in a thousand different tones, all of them frustrated, condescending, or grudgingly accepting of whatever Aziraphale is saying.
Crowley blacks out, though whether the divinity itself or the resulting panic is to blame he doesn’t know. When he comes to, the light is gone, and Aziraphale is kneeling over him.
“-very sorry,” the angel is saying, one hand on the back of Crowley’s head, the other on his chest. “I should have warned you, my dear.”
Several pieces drop into place, because Crowley’s always been good at reading people, and Aziraphale best of all. He swallows, bites back a curse, and breathes, sitting up. “Good news?”
The angel blinks, his hands dropping away. “I… I discovered where and when the End will take place. And also the parameters of offering asylum, or at the very least mercy…” Aziraphale trails off. “Dear boy, where have you been?”
“Hopefully saving the Earth, I talked to-” the gears grind to a halt in Crowley’s head. “‘Offering asylum?’ You were… you were bargaining for me?”
“Well, of course I was, Crowley. Did you expect me not to?”
Crowley stares at him, touched, blinking behind his sunglasses. “Er. Thank you. I… thanks.”
The silence that follows isn’t quite awkward, but only because it’s crowded with too many other things.
“Thank you, angel, really, means more than I can say but I think that won’t be necessary this time around.”
Aziraphale pauses, and a smile slowly spreads over his face. “You spoke to Death, you said?”
“Yeah. And I convinced him to- you know. Stop it.”
Aziraphale laughs, a high, strange, grateful laugh. “Oh.”
Crowley laughs along with him, gripping the angel’s sleeve. “You said you know where it’s happened?” Aziraphale nods. “What say we go and observe?”
*
Halfway to their destination, Aziraphale speaks softly.
“Heaven will grant you asylum. If the End does commence here.”
“It won’t,” Crowley says, staring straight ahead. “I know it.”
*
The sky is twisted - slivers of dark clouds showing between the half-translucent bodies of angels and demons. The Host and the infernal Horde crowd the sky, waiting for the call to battle.
Below, two figures made of flame stand side by side, while five other figures walk toward them. From afar, an angel and a demon watch, pensive.
The air heaves with tension.
The four Horsepersons stop in front of the Metatron, Voice of God, and Beelzebub, Lord of Flies and Prince of Hell.
“It beginzzz,” Beelzebub says, looking at the Metatron with something, perhaps, close to regret.
The tension rises into a palpable whine, a sound of building power, of preparation.
(The angel and the demon grip each other's hands.)
Death’s skeletal hand moves in a blurred half-circle. The sound stops.
ENOUGH OF THAT. The skeletal grin hasn’t changed, but the air of satisfaction is as palpable as the confusion of the assembled beings, as heavy and thick as the whine of building energy isn’t anymore.
Death’s smile reaches his eyes, blue points of light glimmering in empty sockets. YOU CAN ALL GO HOME. SHOW’S OVER.
“What?” the figure made of golden flame that is the Metatron says. “You do not have the authority-”
I AM ABOVE AUTHORITY. Death says. I AM ENTROPY, I AM CREATION’S SHADOW, I AM DEATH. THERE IS NO HIGHER AUTHORITY PRESENT.
“It izz your tazzk-” Beelzebub begins, but War, stepping forward, cuts him off.
“And that’s why we can stop it. Because we’re the ones who would make it progress.”
A long silence follows, broken only by the wingbeats of the gathered beings.
THE END OF THE WORLD WILL NOT PROCEED. NOT NOW.
“Eventually-”
BUT NOT NOW.
The Voice of God and the Prince of Hell talk over each other, clamoring, but Death waves a hand to silence them.
THERE IS NO LOGICAL REASON FOR THE END OF THE WORLD TO HAPPEN NOW.
The realization ripples through the assembled - he is right. He is right, and there is no reason for the world to end. No reason for the war to begin. Beelzebub glances at the Metatron, the Metatron glances back, and the tension between them unravels, surrendered.
LEAVE. The word echoes, compels. NOW.
So they leave, the Host and the Horde and the humans and a very smug Crowley and Aziraphale, because entropy triumphs always, and there is no force more on Death’s side. Everything ends, but not yet. Not today.
It had only taken a spark of energy to make the dramatic whine stop, but it had done for a good show, (or showstopper, as it were,) and a delightful parallel. The rest had been the Horsepersons’ work (or rather, lack of) and Beelzebub and the Metatron’s surrender.
Death turns back around, to War and Famine and Pollution, (and Pestilence lurking, disgruntled, in the background.) There’s no celebratory embrace, no swell of music or credits rolling, but they smile, and that’s enough, that’s always been enough.
“So,” Pollution says, not trying to hide the grin on their face. “More time, then.”
War laughs, somewhere between a joyful guffaw and a childish, girlish giggle. “More time. Why didn't we just do this last time?”
Death wonders too, but Adam answers for him, from beside him.
Because it isn't about stoppin’ it. It was about choosing to. It was my choice last time, this time it was yours.
Death turns to look at him, but the spirit-hallucination-guiding consciousness of Adam Young fades, disappearing into light and shadow and nothing at all, with a smile.
*
Halfway back to the bookshop, Crowley jerks the Bentley over to the side of the road. Aziraphale starts, putting a hand on his arm. “My dear?”
Crowley peels his shaking hands from the steering wheel and shoves his sunglasses into his hair, biting his lip. “I’m fine,” he glances at Aziraphale, his voice faint. “Give me a minute.”
They sit there for a moment, the silence only broken by the faint music from the radio and Crowley’s thin, shaking breaths.
In a flurry of motion, Crowley opens the door of the Bentley, glaring until it locks behind him, and stumbles onto the side of the road, sinking to the ground with his face in his hands. Aziraphale gives the lock a stare that startles it into opening, and scrambles after him. The angel kneels on the asphalt and rests one hand on his shoulder. Thin, and trembling faintly.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks, with as much gentleness as he can muster in his exhaustion. “My dear, what’s wrong?”
A cracking, twisted laugh. “At least nothing burned this time.”
After a long silence, Aziraphale’s wings unfold, nearly silent, but loud in the quiet air. They curl forward, wrapping them both in feathers. Crowley’s fingers find themselves twisted in Aziraphale’s jumper, and Aziraphale’s arms end up wrapped around Crowley, hands pressing hard into the small of his back. Neither of them move for a long time, and when they do, their hands end up laced together, and they don’t bother letting go.
They are living on borrowed time, just like the planet they call home, but it is their time, and they have their own happy endings to write.
*
At some point in the future, Death will stand on a hilltop, watching the Earth burn, piece by screaming piece. Eventually, this moment will become the present, will become reality, but not today.
Today, at least for a while, they write their own stories.
Author’s Note: Many thanks to Kelley, my beta, inspiration, cheerleader, and wonderful friend. They’re both my muse and my incentive, and this story wouldn’t be what it was without them. Kelley is practically the second author of this piece, what with all the brainstorming and support they gave to me. <3
Rating: PG
Characters: The Horsepersons, Aziraphale and Crowley, Adam Young
this time it was yours
Death stands on a hilltop, watching the Earth burn, piece by screaming piece. Most of him isn’t there; most of him is with them, collecting fallen souls, taking human and demon and angel hands, guiding them to empty, unstable afterlives. But some of him is there, observing.
This is not how the story ends. It’s not even how it starts. But it’s a good place to begin.
*
It starts, if you want to be entirely accurate, in the Garden. It starts in verse twenty of the book of Genesis, when the dark water bubbles and burns with life, when bacteria and pathogens squirm to life alongside fish and anemone. If anyone cares to ask who the first (or, in human terms, the eldest) of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse is, the answer is Pestilence, pale as snow (though there is no snow yet) and formless, bringer of disease.
It starts with the flash of Eve’s dark throat, swallowing the first bite of the apple in her hand, with the Serpent’s nervous smile, with the angel’s pounding footsteps and cry of shock. Death, the second Horseman, starts what can almost be called a life at the foot of the Tree of Knowledge. He is as close to omniscient as any being that isn’t God can be, everywhere that there are humans all at once, in every moment. For now, though, he’s in the Garden, watching Adam take an apple from Eve’s hand and damn himself and his descendants; he feels each of their deaths cement themselves in time, from the dark, naked humans beneath the tree to the End Of All Things.
It starts with Aziraphale, bottom lip caught between his teeth, his hands trembling, catching Eve’s wrist. It starts when he curls her fingers around the hilt of the flaming sword, whispers some cross between a warning and a promise and a prayer, and sends them off into the night. War has always been a woman, always lived in the minds of women. Her beginning is with Eve, carrying the fiery blade into the night. But it isn’t the sword she is born from, it’s Eve’s pale knuckles around its grip, the muscles in her arms waking as she works to lift it, the fiercer fire in her black eyes.
It starts, then, with the rattle of the gates slamming, with Adam and Eve’s realization that they will not be provided for, that the Garden and its abundant food and clear water is locked behind them. It starts with the ache in Adam’s stomach, the cramp of hunger, the way Eve curls in on herself and groans. Famine walks in their shadows, laughs in their ears, rests icy hands on their stomachs and digs his nails in.
There’s a fifth beginning, a half-creation, when Eve lights a fire with the sword, a glimmer of something in the way the smoke curls against the blue-black sky, a silent promise of more to come. Just as penicillin drives Pestilence away, the Industrial Revolution cements Pollution’s place among the Horsepersons, chalk-white and youthfully optimistic, finding beauty in oil spills and smog and candy wrappers.
This, maybe, is where the story begins: with four Horsepersons (and a fifth) and the ways they quietly start, for all its flaws and despite their duties (despite their very selves,) to love humanity.
*
War drives the point of her sword (not her sword, that’s saved for the future, but a human weapon that serves her well enough) into the dirt and lifts her arms above her head, stretching until her spine pops. The sounds of fighting are dying down around her, in this little backwater barely-country. She turns, wiping someone else’s blood off her face, meets the eyes of some boy soldier, so smeared with mud and blood and not even God wants to know what else that there’s no way to tell what side he’s on. His eyes are wide and determined and scared, but when he looks at her, at muscles and curves under tight fabric that shouldn’t let her move the way she is but does, because she wills it to, she realizes that maybe she’s underestimated humanity.
He’s not fighting for her. Maybe he started fighting for her, or maybe just his superiors did, and he followed behind, but either way, he’s fighting in her name, because she created fighting (and ego, it seems,) but he isn’t fighting for her. She grins with too-sharp teeth stained with lipstick and blood; he salutes her, standing straighter, and throws himself back into what’s left of the fray. He’s not fighting for her. He’s fighting to win, and War throws back her head and laughs to the darkening sky.
“I love humanity,” she says, eyes bright, to no one, and wonders at the pang in her chest.
*
Famine spends as much time building corporations as he does standing on the cracked ground of third-world countries, spends as much time providing the means for humans to damn themselves as he does killing their food sources. Right now, he’s doing both at once, negotiating with the leaders of a village about building an irrigation system.
“Right here,” he says, drawing an X in the dirt with the toe of one perfectly polished Oxford. “Dig the well in this spot.” He smiles his thin, corporate, facsimile smile, and neglects to mention the oil deposit they will just barely miss, that will eventually leak into the water and poison their crops. He’ll leave before then, of course, and wink at the worker with the pale grey eyes and white-blond hair who takes over from there, then fade into the background.
“They’re so gullible,” he murmurs, linking arms with Pollution and leaning close to murmur in their ear. The youngest Horseperson smiles, grins with their crooked white teeth, eyes far away and dreamy.
“Aren’t they wonderful?” they say, and Famine realizes that yes, they are.
*
This is something Pollution realizes first, the strange wonder of humans, almost as soon as they stumble into being, staring up at the skeletons of skyscrapers, wreathed in smog, climbing higher and higher, like the tower of Babel. They join the work crews building factories, traveling city to city, country to country, until oil and metal and smoke cover the Earth.
“I barely had to do anything,” they say, laughing. “They did it themselves.” They turn to the figure beside them, clothed in black, masked, wings like gaps in reality itself half-unfurled behind him.
WE ARE A PART OF THEM. OUR INFLUENCE GUIDES THEM, EVEN IF WE DO NOT DIRECTLY INTERFERE.
“Huh,” Pollution says, rubbing coal dust from their cheek with one pale hand. “Don’t you love them, though?”
Death does not reply.
*
Death was created alongside War, and Famine, and Pestilence, and Pollution, but he is different. There’s a certain level of omnipotence, omnipresence, that comes from guarding mortality. He is everywhere, always, with every human at the end of their life. He is with the very worst of them, the most cruel and despicable, and with the kindest, the most forgiving. He is on battlefields, in hospital rooms, in living rooms, in basements, wherever the other Horsepersons are, places that they aren’t. He is on the highest mountains and deep in the ocean, wherever humans are.
Physically, though, he’s in a run-down diner somewhere near London, playing trivia, and letting the winnings from his ongoing perfect game accumulate. He’s been there since the place was built, but he never arrived. He only left once, when the Apocalypse almost happened, but he’s here again, in biking leathers and a motorcycle helmet, blending in, surrounding by an ever-shifting crowd calling out answers that he already knows.
He’s known every answer to every trivia game ever played on Earth since the moment he existed. But it’s something to do, something to occupy this fragment of himself.
Everything is present tense, everything is happening now, has always been happening.
What is present tense to everyone is this: Adam Young is dying.
*
Death is standing in a diner playing trivia. Death is standing at Adam Young’s bedside, invisible, between clusters of friends and family and the two beings that no one remembers inviting but no one cares to send away, hovering near the doorway, frowning and fidgeting, looking at the space where Death is standing out of the corners of their eyes.
“Hullo,” Adam Young says to Death. The man in the bed doesn’t speak, but Death hears him anyway, as clearly as he can see the golden-haired boy before him, eleven again, still no true match for Death.
NORMAL ENTROPY PREVAILS, EVEN FOR YOU.
“I know.”
This is nothing like their charged exchange of more than seventy years ago - this is quiet, knowing acceptance, on both sides.
YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN.
“Yes.”
YOU KNOW YOUR OPTIONS. Adam nods, blue eyes too knowing for the age he appears to be. THIS IS THE CHOICE YOU MAKE.
“Yes.”
A pause. An almost-laugh from behind the motorcycle helmet. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME SUCH A QUESTION HAS BEEN NECESSARY.
“But not the last?”
THAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN.
Adam smiles, and holds out his hand. “That means something’s still in flux, yeah?”
FOR THE SECOND TIME.
“Cor. Good luck.”
LUCK IS ARBITRARY.
“I know.”
*
Crowley curls his hand around Aziraphale’s wrist, staring straight ahead, footsteps quick and sure. They’d started down the hallway as soon as the heart monitor flatlined. “Felt that, angel?”
Aziraphale nods. “Like we feared.”
Two flights of stairs, a stumbling path across the lobby. Heavy silence. A black 1926 Bentley screams away from the curb, pale-knuckled hands wrapped around its steering wheel.
“Nice run, though, wasn’t it?” Crowley murmurs, prying one hand off the wheel to grip Aziraphale’s arm. The angel pats his hand absently, then laces their fingers together.
“Indeed.”
Crowley grits his teeth, forcing the Bentley faster. Back to London, then. Back home, to figure out what to do next. “And not over yet.”
*
Crowley's original plan was to sit down and discuss their options over wine. They don't get very far into discussing before it ends up as lamenting.
Beings of angelic stock are nothing if not dramatic by default. And this specific pair has been drinking for the better part of the ten hours since Adam Young died.
“Aziraphale. Angel, listen t’ me.”
“What is it, dear boy?” Aziraphale tugs the bottle out of Crowley’s hands, and takes a sip. They’re about three and a half bottles from trivial things like wine glasses.
“What… what’re we gonna do?
Aziraphale blinks at him, and Crowley tugs the wine bottle away before it spills.
“About the apocha- apocly- end of all thins. Things. Bugger.” Crowley sets the bottle on the table and sprawls across the seat he’s in, worming one foot under the table to kick Aziraphale in the shin. “We need to do somethin’.”
“Do what, Crowley? Dear boy, what could we possin- possy- ever do?” Aziraphale kicks back, stepping on Crowley's foot.
“Dunno. But, but- we have to- have to- we need to do something, Aziraphale.”
“I know.” Aziraphale sounds remarkably sober for having his share of almost ten bottles of wine. “Sushi.” That seems to explain everything to both of them. Crowley kicks Aziraphale again.
“Sober up.”
Aziraphale does, with a shudder, but Crowley drains the bottle on the table before he follows suit. No sense in wasting good wine.
“There’s no source. It’s just going to happen,” Aziraphale says, frowning at the ceiling.
“No eleven year old antichrists to murder to solve all our problems?” Crowley crosses his legs, then uncrosses them, then draws his knees up to his chest.
“Let’s not fight.” Aziraphale gives Crowley a long, burning look. Crowley stares back, undaunted. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Crowley looks away. “No,” he says, unspecific. He reaches for the wine bottle, stops, reaches out again. He lets his hand fall into his lap. “I don’t want this to end.”
“Heaven has the best choreographers.” Aziraphale smiles thinly, and Crowley grins back.
“We have the composers.”
“But no sushi restaurants.”
They both falter. No sushi restaurants, no Ritz, no wine, no ducks and no bread to feed them with. No long drives, no Bentley. No bookshops, or potted plants, or people. Just an eternity of Heaven (frigid and lonely and boring) or Hell (burning and painful and loud.) Either of them could be gone by the time it was all over.
Crowley scowls, bites his lip, looks upward, blinks behind his sunglasses. “Who could do something?”
“No singular divine or diabolical force. No human, unless there’s another antichrist.” Aziraphale sounds hopeless, properly hopeless, like the world’s already ended, and Crowley’s chest burns.
“I know,” he says softly, and suddenly he does. “The Horsepersons. Death, specifically.”
Aziraphale’s scowl breaks into startled, disbelieving laughter. “They exist to bring about the end of the world, Crowley. They’re not going to help us save it.”
The burn in Crowley’s chest sparks into a wildfire. “You and I exist to save and damn the human race, and to kill each other. They’ve been here as long as us, and they’re more human.”
Aziraphale goes still for a moment, then nods. “I’ll…”
Crowley grins fiercely at him, the blaze fading into a warm glow. “Dither. Drink cocoa.”
They can feel the event horizon approaching, can feel the End of All Things drawing nearer.
“If… if this is the last time I see you, angel…” Crowley speaks haltingly, already halfway to the door, not looking at Aziraphale. “Don’t change. Don’t ever change.”
The door slams, the bell rattling. The Bentley tears away from the curb.
Aziraphale breathes out, low and shuddering. Don’t ever change.
*
England, 1349
Three figures sit on the roof of a building, watching the sunset through beaked plague doctor masks. Below them, the houses are dark, locked and shuttered against the darkness outside, against the sickness lurking everywhere.
Eventually, one of the figures speaks, in a deep, tired baritone.
PESTILENCE, I APPRECIATE YOU GIVING 110%. BUT PLEASE NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.
“So noted, lord.” The second figure pulls the mask from its face, reveals pale, sunken cheeks, colorless eyes ringed with shadow, a grey mouth pinched with some unnameable emotion. “I will admit, this particular project got… out of hand.”
The third figure laughs, low and bitter. “Clearly.”
The other two turn toward him, but he’s already spread his wings and pulled the mask from his sallow face. Golden eyes flashing, lips twisted with a grimace and bitten bloody. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”
The other two figures watch him go, one masked and one unmasked, drained to nearly nothing, emptied out by their own actions gone awry.
“I am not sorry, lord.”
I DO NOT ASK YOU TO BE. JUST THAT YOU BE MORE CAREFUL.
“I will.”
Silence settles over them, over the plague-ridden town, over England.
*
Death’s second favorite place to leave his physical form while he works is a diner outside of London. There’s something about England, something that draws in the ethereal and the occult and any humans in any way connected to either. Something that draws in the Horsepersons, too, though they're none of the above. London, for demons and angels and witches and War and Famine and Pollution (and Pestilence) and Death, is home.
The diner, specifically, was chosen for its permanence, springing up as a tavern early on and never quite going away, for its ever-changing crowd (no one looks too hard at how long he stays) and for the ease with which a tall man-shaped being in a biking helmet (or a cowled robe, or a mask) can fit in.
The trivia game is part of it, maybe. There's something strangely gratifying about being cheered on. Something heartening about being praised. At least one fraction of him is being celebrated even when his presence is dreaded everywhere else.
But it's only his second favorite place. Death’s favorite place on Earth is Wrightsville Beach.
*
The beach is empty for miles, still and silent except for the waves and the faint, cold breeze.
Death sits in the sand, helmet, jacket, and gloves discarded beside him. Skeletal fingers pick idly at a seashell, blue points of light in empty sockets idly count stars.
This is Death’s favorite place for the opposite reason that the diner is his second favorite, this is peaceful, untouched by the other four, nearly untouched by humans (though there can’t be one without the other, or one’s influence without the other’s, and which way it goes is up for debate) and beautiful.
(He can appreciate beauty. He was created from humanity, after all.)
The waves crash on the beach, the foam licking over his booted feet, as Death looks out at the ocean and thinks about the end of the world.
"The world is full of all sorts of brilliant stuff and I haven't found out all about it yet, so I don't want anyone messing it about or endin' it before I've had a chance to find out about it. So you can all just go away.” says the eleven year old Adam Young, as golden-haired and stubborn as when he was keeping the very Earth alive, looking at humanity’s shadow in the same way, knowledge applied to childish innocence, quoting himself from seventy years ago. Death stares intently upward, at the stars, ignoring what might be a hallucination and might be a spirit that just refuses to let go.
I KNOW EVERY POSSIBILITY. I HAVE WATCHED THEM DECAY FROM THE FIRST MOMENT UNTIL NOW. TIME IS… CONDENSING. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE REDUCING AS THE END APPROACHES.
“Something’s still in flux.” Adam says.
THERE IS NO ONE WITH THE POWER TO STOP THE END. NO ONE STILL LIVING.
“There’s you.”
The seashell disintegrates under Death’s fingers. Not surprise; he knew there was someone there. Someone has always been there, and the words have always been spoken. The truth of them, however, is something creation’s shadow is less willing to face.
Crowley smiles, thin and thoughtful and apologetic, from where he’s standing on the boardwalk leading out into the sand, curling his bare toes against the rough wood.
Death doesn’t have to look to know that he’s smiling, or that he walks through where Adam Young isn’t standing (one hand in his pocket, slouching, that boyish smile playing across his lips,) or that he left his shoes and socks and jacket and sunglasses on the boardwalk, or how many steps Crowley takes to sit down beside him.
The demon hunches forward, curling his long fingers around his ankles, hunched against the cold. “There’s you,” he repeats, uncovered eyes staring into the waves. “You could stop it from happening.”
THE WORLD WILL END.
“Why now though?”
I CAN SEE EVERY POSSIBILITY FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE EARTH TO THE END OF ALL THINGS. TIME IS NOT LINEAR. EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING AT ONCE. SOME EVENTS ARE SET, SOME ARE IN FLUX. EVERY VARIATION IS VISIBLE TO ME. THOSE POSSIBILITIES, THE THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN BEFORE THE END, ARE… DECAYING. THE WORLD WILL END. THAT IS SET. THE POTENTIAL TIME BETWEEN NOW AND THEN IS SHORTENING. THE EARTH IS RUNNING OUT OF POSSIBLE EVENTS TO DELAY THE END.
“Well.” Crowley blinks slowly, serpentine gaze slowly turning toward Death. “Let them write some more.”
WHAT?
“Maybe they’re running out of possibilities because no one with enough power is trying to stop the end from coming. Maybe, if someone just said ‘no,’ there’d be a chance.”
That was Crowley, Death knew. Always optimistic, always looking for a way out. Shivering and terrified, fingernails cutting into his skin, but still fighting.
WHY?
“Why?”
WHAT REASON DO I HAVE TO INTERFERE?
Crowley is silent for a long moment, rocking back and forth in the sand, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, watching the waves crash. The tide is going out, leaving seashells behind, and one dead crab. Crowley reaches out and picks it up, cradling it. He breathes life back into it and sets it down, watching it scurry out of sight, into the darkness.
“The point of humans is that they aren’t- aren’t good or bad, aren’t predisposed to be either. They don’t have basic nature. They’re formed by circumstance, less by Above or Below and more by each other. They have the, the… the creativity, the capability to be awful. And some of them are. Some of them are murderers or dictators or cut people off at intersections. But some of them, most of them, are good. Choose to be good. Choose to be clever and kind and inventive. They’re not a tool in some greater game, they’re not civilian casualties. They’re people, amazing, ridiculous people, and someone has to do something.” Crowley stops, catching his breath.
Death turns his head and looks at him steadily. AND?
“And you can.” Crowley stares back, golden eyes shining. “Please.”
Something —almost imperceptibly— changes.
Death’s smile reaches the blue points of light in his eyes. Crowley beams.
I WILL SEE WHAT I CAN DO.
*
“You want us to… what?” Famine drops into the seat across from Death, dark fingers reddening on a cup of coffee that no doubt contains very little aside from water, caffeine, sugar and flavor. “Boss?”
NOTHING. VERY SPECIFICALLY. DO NOTHING. FAIL TO BRING ABOUT THE END.
War catches on faster, taking her boots off the table (and almost kicking Pollution in the head in the process) and turning toward Death with a half-twisted, half-hopeful expression. “Lemme get this straight, m’lord.” She runs one hand through her clipped auburn hair, rubbing fretfully at her neck. Pollution straightens from behind her, dropping a soda-tab chain onto the table with a rattle. “We’re going to stop the Apocalypse.”
WE ARE GOING TO DELAY THE APOCALYPSE.
“Does this mean I came out of retirement for nothing?” Pestilence mutters, sulking at Famine’s elbow.
“Cool it, granddad.” Pollution shoots a rubber band at the Horseperson they replaced, grinning. “Just means more time on Earth for all of us.” They turn to Death, colorless eyes bright with joy. “I’m in, lord.”
GOOD. WAR, FAMINE, PESTILENCE?
War and Famine nod almost as one, silently giddy. More time, they’ve been given more time on this planet, on Earth, the only place that’s ever been home to them, amalgamations of human and divine. Pestilence scowls, leans hard into Famine’s side, nods.
In a different booth, out of the corner of Death’s eye, Adam Young, golden-haired and translucent and eternally young, smiles.
*
All the hair on the back of Crowley’s neck stands up a block from the bookshop, and he beats on the steering wheel with one fist, cursing, dreading the worst. He knows the sterile, medicinal tang in the air, knows it from the last time the world was ending.
The déjà vu is nauseating.
He forces himself to slow down, parking in front of the bookshop and steadying himself. He walks toward the bookshop, glaring the shop bell into silence as he steps inside.
The feeling of divinity overwhelms him, almost drives him to his knees. Aziraphale is standing in front of a column of blue light, arguing with a voice that echoes in a thousand different tones, all of them frustrated, condescending, or grudgingly accepting of whatever Aziraphale is saying.
Crowley blacks out, though whether the divinity itself or the resulting panic is to blame he doesn’t know. When he comes to, the light is gone, and Aziraphale is kneeling over him.
“-very sorry,” the angel is saying, one hand on the back of Crowley’s head, the other on his chest. “I should have warned you, my dear.”
Several pieces drop into place, because Crowley’s always been good at reading people, and Aziraphale best of all. He swallows, bites back a curse, and breathes, sitting up. “Good news?”
The angel blinks, his hands dropping away. “I… I discovered where and when the End will take place. And also the parameters of offering asylum, or at the very least mercy…” Aziraphale trails off. “Dear boy, where have you been?”
“Hopefully saving the Earth, I talked to-” the gears grind to a halt in Crowley’s head. “‘Offering asylum?’ You were… you were bargaining for me?”
“Well, of course I was, Crowley. Did you expect me not to?”
Crowley stares at him, touched, blinking behind his sunglasses. “Er. Thank you. I… thanks.”
The silence that follows isn’t quite awkward, but only because it’s crowded with too many other things.
“Thank you, angel, really, means more than I can say but I think that won’t be necessary this time around.”
Aziraphale pauses, and a smile slowly spreads over his face. “You spoke to Death, you said?”
“Yeah. And I convinced him to- you know. Stop it.”
Aziraphale laughs, a high, strange, grateful laugh. “Oh.”
Crowley laughs along with him, gripping the angel’s sleeve. “You said you know where it’s happened?” Aziraphale nods. “What say we go and observe?”
*
Halfway to their destination, Aziraphale speaks softly.
“Heaven will grant you asylum. If the End does commence here.”
“It won’t,” Crowley says, staring straight ahead. “I know it.”
*
The sky is twisted - slivers of dark clouds showing between the half-translucent bodies of angels and demons. The Host and the infernal Horde crowd the sky, waiting for the call to battle.
Below, two figures made of flame stand side by side, while five other figures walk toward them. From afar, an angel and a demon watch, pensive.
The air heaves with tension.
The four Horsepersons stop in front of the Metatron, Voice of God, and Beelzebub, Lord of Flies and Prince of Hell.
“It beginzzz,” Beelzebub says, looking at the Metatron with something, perhaps, close to regret.
The tension rises into a palpable whine, a sound of building power, of preparation.
(The angel and the demon grip each other's hands.)
Death’s skeletal hand moves in a blurred half-circle. The sound stops.
ENOUGH OF THAT. The skeletal grin hasn’t changed, but the air of satisfaction is as palpable as the confusion of the assembled beings, as heavy and thick as the whine of building energy isn’t anymore.
Death’s smile reaches his eyes, blue points of light glimmering in empty sockets. YOU CAN ALL GO HOME. SHOW’S OVER.
“What?” the figure made of golden flame that is the Metatron says. “You do not have the authority-”
I AM ABOVE AUTHORITY. Death says. I AM ENTROPY, I AM CREATION’S SHADOW, I AM DEATH. THERE IS NO HIGHER AUTHORITY PRESENT.
“It izz your tazzk-” Beelzebub begins, but War, stepping forward, cuts him off.
“And that’s why we can stop it. Because we’re the ones who would make it progress.”
A long silence follows, broken only by the wingbeats of the gathered beings.
THE END OF THE WORLD WILL NOT PROCEED. NOT NOW.
“Eventually-”
BUT NOT NOW.
The Voice of God and the Prince of Hell talk over each other, clamoring, but Death waves a hand to silence them.
THERE IS NO LOGICAL REASON FOR THE END OF THE WORLD TO HAPPEN NOW.
The realization ripples through the assembled - he is right. He is right, and there is no reason for the world to end. No reason for the war to begin. Beelzebub glances at the Metatron, the Metatron glances back, and the tension between them unravels, surrendered.
LEAVE. The word echoes, compels. NOW.
So they leave, the Host and the Horde and the humans and a very smug Crowley and Aziraphale, because entropy triumphs always, and there is no force more on Death’s side. Everything ends, but not yet. Not today.
It had only taken a spark of energy to make the dramatic whine stop, but it had done for a good show, (or showstopper, as it were,) and a delightful parallel. The rest had been the Horsepersons’ work (or rather, lack of) and Beelzebub and the Metatron’s surrender.
Death turns back around, to War and Famine and Pollution, (and Pestilence lurking, disgruntled, in the background.) There’s no celebratory embrace, no swell of music or credits rolling, but they smile, and that’s enough, that’s always been enough.
“So,” Pollution says, not trying to hide the grin on their face. “More time, then.”
War laughs, somewhere between a joyful guffaw and a childish, girlish giggle. “More time. Why didn't we just do this last time?”
Death wonders too, but Adam answers for him, from beside him.
Because it isn't about stoppin’ it. It was about choosing to. It was my choice last time, this time it was yours.
Death turns to look at him, but the spirit-hallucination-guiding consciousness of Adam Young fades, disappearing into light and shadow and nothing at all, with a smile.
*
Halfway back to the bookshop, Crowley jerks the Bentley over to the side of the road. Aziraphale starts, putting a hand on his arm. “My dear?”
Crowley peels his shaking hands from the steering wheel and shoves his sunglasses into his hair, biting his lip. “I’m fine,” he glances at Aziraphale, his voice faint. “Give me a minute.”
They sit there for a moment, the silence only broken by the faint music from the radio and Crowley’s thin, shaking breaths.
In a flurry of motion, Crowley opens the door of the Bentley, glaring until it locks behind him, and stumbles onto the side of the road, sinking to the ground with his face in his hands. Aziraphale gives the lock a stare that startles it into opening, and scrambles after him. The angel kneels on the asphalt and rests one hand on his shoulder. Thin, and trembling faintly.
“Crowley?” Aziraphale asks, with as much gentleness as he can muster in his exhaustion. “My dear, what’s wrong?”
A cracking, twisted laugh. “At least nothing burned this time.”
After a long silence, Aziraphale’s wings unfold, nearly silent, but loud in the quiet air. They curl forward, wrapping them both in feathers. Crowley’s fingers find themselves twisted in Aziraphale’s jumper, and Aziraphale’s arms end up wrapped around Crowley, hands pressing hard into the small of his back. Neither of them move for a long time, and when they do, their hands end up laced together, and they don’t bother letting go.
They are living on borrowed time, just like the planet they call home, but it is their time, and they have their own happy endings to write.
*
At some point in the future, Death will stand on a hilltop, watching the Earth burn, piece by screaming piece. Eventually, this moment will become the present, will become reality, but not today.
Today, at least for a while, they write their own stories.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2017-12-05 01:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-05 02:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-05 03:53 pm (UTC)And Aziraphale negotiating for Crowley's asylum. And Crowley's breakdown. And Death's beach – lovely!
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2018-02-06 02:59 am (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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Date: 2017-12-05 10:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-05 11:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-06 01:30 am (UTC)SO, first off, what an opener. The way it's sandwiched with the accompanying bookend to finish it off--oof. That is mean. And beautiful. And does a wonderful job of reminding the reader of the cosmic scale of things, here. I admit when I saw the opening, I went back to check my prompt and make sure I specified that I wanted happy endings only....but you delivered ;D
The beginning describing the "birth" of the horsepersons was very poetic...as was the slowly mounting "i actually kind of don't want the world to end" of the horsepersons as we saw them interacting with humanity.
The way you described Death's limited omniscience was vivid and took so few words, it felt very organic and yet other-worldly.
I'm so glad adam is hanging around as a type of force ghost--the line "adam young is dying" made me so sad :( I usually like to think of adam as immortal because the thought is too sad!
More drunk talks. Glad to see that staple of canon appear here.
"PESTILENCE, I APPRECIATE YOU GIVING 110%. BUT PLEASE NEVER DO THAT AGAIN." is probably my FAVORITE line.
"There's something strangely gratifying about being cheered on. Something heartening about being praised. At least one fraction of him is being celebrated even when his presence is dreaded everywhere else." THIS was my favorite line for humanizing Death. And the beach scene--for some reason, the image of Crowley having his shoes off stuck out to me, as did Death sitting in the sand. I guess i just like the feeling of sand...
And then Crowley panicking, and finding aziraphale, only to black out, and then come to to find out Aziraphale has successfully bargained asylum. Very great!!! the asylum thing is a really under-utilized bit of canon IMO
and then Death just whips out that "I am ABOVE authority." Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Again I say, THANK YOU SECRET AUTHOR!!!!! THIS WAS A TREAT TO READ!!!
(no subject)
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2018-02-06 03:08 am (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-06 07:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-07 03:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-07 04:29 am (UTC)I love Crowley and Aziraphale kicking themselves under the table. And "Don't ever change." </3 Death asking Pestilence to not repeat the plague is so great. And the fact that he likes trivia because it's the only chance he gets to be cheered on is so bittersweet! Relatable, Death, I wouldn't be able to say no to Crowley then, either. I love how you've characterized the Horsepersons, how you mentioned that they're 'more human' than angels and demons, how delighted they are to have more time, and how Pollution is perfectly annoying to Pestilence :) 'There is no reason--' I love this. There's never a reason for it to end NOW. And the last four sentences of this were perfect :) I'm so glad you gave this fic, full of fear and sadness, an uplifting ending :)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-16 08:20 pm (UTC)Gorgeous work, thank you for this!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-19 06:52 pm (UTC)This part just kills me, and in several different ways:
England, 1349
Three figures sit on the roof of a building, watching the sunset through beaked plague doctor masks. Below them, the houses are dark, locked and shuttered against the darkness outside, against the sickness lurking everywhere.
Eventually, one of the figures speaks, in a deep, tired baritone.
PESTILENCE, I APPRECIATE YOU GIVING 110%. BUT PLEASE NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.
“So noted, lord.” The second figure pulls the mask from its face, reveals pale, sunken cheeks, colorless eyes ringed with shadow, a grey mouth pinched with some unnameable emotion. “I will admit, this particular project got… out of hand.”
The third figure laughs, low and bitter. “Clearly.”
The other two turn toward him, but he’s already spread his wings and pulled the mask from his sallow face. Golden eyes flashing, lips twisted with a grimace and bitten bloody. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”
The other two figures watch him go, one masked and one unmasked, drained to nearly nothing, emptied out by their own actions gone awry.
“I am not sorry, lord.”
I DO NOT ASK YOU TO BE. JUST THAT YOU BE MORE CAREFUL.
“I will.”
Silence settles over them, over the plague-ridden town, over England.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-24 10:07 pm (UTC)Read you describe how the horsepersons came to be is delightful, the interaction between them and Eve and the tree aaaaa !!
Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship was on point you had me squealing, I mean:
" “Don’t change. Don’t ever change.”
The door slams, the bell rattling. The Bentley tears away from the curb."
OUUCHHH!! <\3
And then
"Neither of them move for a long time, and when they do, their hands end up laced together, and they don’t bother letting go."
;3; <3 <3
The sequence was great! I like death not being the first one to come around but being boss, every time he smiles is kfbskbdksnskd!
he's freaking spooky! XoX and I LOVE he preserves Adam's memory/spirit/force.
Every part of this was marvelous! Congrats!
My favorite part is when Adam Young meets Death for second time. It feels really good Its peaceful. Also love No "time rules" apply to this conversation
Also happy you included both pollution and pestilence.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-25 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-26 11:05 pm (UTC)"Because it isn't about stoppin’ it. It was about choosing to. It was my choice last time, this time it was yours." Beautiful!
And your style, goodness, your STYLE!!!