Happy Holidays, macdicilla! Part 2
Dec. 24th, 2017 05:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goe_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
go_exchange29. December 1953 (N. S.), New York
Eireen’s voice.
“Crowley, dear-“
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fine. Alana, you little shit. You’ve been drinking for three days straight. Now get off my couch and get rid of the wine bottles,” Eireen demanded.
“Don’ hav’ t’ get up f’r that,” Crowley mumbled petulantly, miracling the mostly empty containers away.
“Holy crap!” Eireen cried out.
“G’ss ‘gain.”
“What?”
“’sssss ag’n.”
“What?!”
“Guesssss again!” Crowley hissed, her frustration doubled by the effect of all the alcohol abruptly leaving her system. The accompanying flash in her bright yellow eyes was enough to spur her partner into action. Even if the action was running away.
Here, there was no escape. Not with the acidic burn of a vaguely holy blade keeping the wound open. Not when the most terrifying enemy she’d ever had to face was standing a mere two steps in front of her, creating military secrets with the ease of a confident winner.
To her credit, Eireen came back after a few hours. Armed with everything she could think of, ranging from freaking garlic through a rosary, a cross, and a phial of low-grade holy water, to an old, battered, definitely unsafe handgun. The sight made Crowley erupt in hysteric bursts of laughter.
“Well, you can go right back to Hell, making fun of me like that! What else was I supposed to do?!” Eireen shrieked, gesturing wildly enough to spill all the holy water on the walls and the floor. Perfect.
“Not confuse me with a vampire, for starters,” Crowley suggested helpfully.
“None of these can hurt you, can they?” Eireen asked, her voice carefully kept low this time.
“How did you figure it out?”
“You’re not afraid,” she admitted.
“Neither are you,” Crowley pointed out.
“I’ve been living with you long enough to… well, anything, really. So… Alana… um, Crowley… what the hell?”
“Sit down and let’s have a drink.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Crowley forced out over the maddening burn of holiness. Although to the human’s ears, it would only be hissing, the other was sure to understand.
“Who is she?” the admiral asked, throwing uneasy glances at the yellow-eyed, severely bleeding Indian girl he wished he could ignore.
“Nobody. Just do as you have been told, and you will not have to worry about her existence ever again,” the angel promised, his voice simmering with despise and repulsion beneath the calm façade.
“Let His will be done,” the soldier said morosely, before he bowed his head and walked away.
“And now, Serpent,” the angel said, turning to face the wriggling demon, “may you find consolation in my eternal appreciation of the fact that your last wish will have been for knowledge.”
Driving towards the capital after all the rival wannabe-cooks had been chased away, Crowley was still thinking of that night. Of how it ended. Of Eireen’s face, so old all of a sudden, but kinder than she had ever seen any angel appear.
“You’re in a rut. I’ve been there, too, although you probably don’t want to hear that. Anyway. You can’t just stop. Well, I guess, technically, you can… But you shouldn’t. Go and do something. Find something new – something to do until it gets better. Because it will get better, I promise you. I won’t rest until it does.”
Driving away from the capital, she thought maybe Eireen was right. She had come to this continent to find interesting new things. She would go even further to chase them. Maybe she could even take credit for the whole secret bomb test she’d just heard about. She would just have to be there – easy to do – and she wouldn’t even have to intervene. Besides, it wasn’t like they were going to kill anyone. It was all just to show off their shiny new toys. The only reason Crowley was flying over the Pacific Ocean right now was to make sure she hadn’t been made a fool of. To see if humans had indeed unlocked a new power comparable to holy wrath. Besides, she would be safe – this new power, in spite of the comparison, had nothing to do with holiness. And before ’44, she had used to love fireworks. Maybe this would make her grow to love them again.
1. March 1954 (N. S.), near Rongelap atoll
While technically it wasn’t the first hydrogen bomb detonation in the history of the world, it was still a big enough event. The sheer size and force of the explosion was far beyond anything Crowley had ever seen on Earth – and she had given a good long look to nearly all things worth seeing. The expanding cloud spoke of ingenuity and enormous effort. A magnificent, useless spectacle. Because this weapon? This would never be used. Every species on this planet had more of a survival instinct than that, and Crowley should know. So even humans had to have it. Even they would not unleash such destruction. Not even if both Heaven and Hell wanted them to. The entire race wasn’t made up of madmen.
At that point, Crowley lost her train of thought, as she became preoccupied inelegantly spitting out strands of long black hair she had almost swallowed. The wind was definitely picking up.
“Time for the demonic audience to leave,” she thought. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve put on an awe-inspiring show of your stupidest ideas today.”
With that, she spun around, rose into the air…
… and noticed the other atolls. In the perfect position for this strange new wind to rain radioactive fallout down on them. She could vaguely hear alarms going off in the military shelter… but still. She would never hear the end of it if she didn’t do something. Neither from Hell, nor from the blasted angel. If she would ever even talk to her again.
Not that existing long enough to see Aziraphale again appeared to be in the cards anymore. Crowley had blessed herself a million times since, for not immediately assuming heavenly interference into the outcome of this secret military project. Of every secret military project in the history of mankind, really.
Barely had she landed on Rongelap atoll, she found herself pinned to a sturdier tree by a heavenly sword. The blade had carefully avoided every vital part of her corporation, but it burned her like acid and weakened her significantly. It wasn’t imbued with enough holy power to annihilate demons, but the weapon was still poisonous enough for the fallout to start affecting her. So really, Crowley’s only options at this point were a slow, drawn-out discorporation via radiation sickness… or getting permanently killed by none other than the Keeper of Secrets: the Archangel Raziel himself.
Pessimism wasn’t only in Crowley’s job description; it was in her nature. So really, she could only believe in the second outcome. On the other hand, she had learned a few tricks from humanity. For example, doing really, really stupid things.
“Why are you doing this?!” she kept demanding the only way she was allowed: hissing.
Because the most utterly blood-freezing part couldn’t have been the prospect of imminent death (temporary or otherwise). Not even facing one of the most horrifying members of the Heavenly Host – oh, no. The most gut-wrenchingly terrifying part had to be the Archangel’s knowledge. The mystical knowledge that only he possessed, and that apparently enabled him to control, confine and coerce another occult being’s very essence. From the moment he had touched her – running her through with the sword – Crowley couldn’t hide her wings or change shape… and yet still, she had less of accent in hisses now than when she had been in the form of an actual snake.
Thank Go-… Sa-… Someone, Raziel found her continued defiance amusing.
“Very well, vile little demon. I should have anticipated your thirst for knowledge. It would be a commendable quality, really, if only you weren’t irredeemably diseased scum,” he offered with a smile.
“Sanctimonious bastards, the lot of them,” Crowley thought irritably.
“But you should not be so surprised, either. Even you have to know my true calling, Serpent,” Raziel droned on. Crowley could have said the sound of his voice made her flinch and squirm – yet that wasn’t entirely true. The dripping condescension didn’t do him any favours, though. “This moment – these days – will go down in history. Not as the leap they think they have made in conquering nature – what a laughable idea. No, little Serpent. I am here to teach them what they really need to learn: the consequences. They will have to see the full extent of the torture their technology brings. They will be made to face the irremediable suffering of those they have poisoned with radiation. By Heaven’s decree, I will not allow them to save these people – because on the whole, humans cannot save themselves, not if they continue down this path. And it is not yet time for them to end. It would not be by our edict, and so they must not destroy themselves before the day anointed for the Apocalypse.”
Crowley… couldn’t really believe her ears. Not because the plan she’d been told of was so unlike the usual way of thinking Above. (It wasn’t.) But because her own plan had actually worked. What would be a spy story, after all, without a monologuing villain?
Crowley let out a short, slightly unhinged laugh (she had to admit, the hissing sort of cackle sounded appropriately unsettling). Without giving her enemy even a moment to react, she utilised the full range of motion she had built up twisting and squirming all this time…
… and let the blade slice her hammering heart in two.
3. November 1956 (N. S.), an unusually dusty bookshop in Soho
A sleek young man was sitting on the only chair not covered entirely by books. He nervously pulled on his off-white shirt from time to time, and twiddled his thumbs in an unnatural staccato of clumsy moves. Well after twilight had fallen on his nigh-unblinking, sunglass-shielded stare, the front door finally opened to admit a middle-aged secretary carrying – surprise – another stack of ancient-looking volumes.
“Excuse me, Sir,” she said, substituting any expected fear of a mysterious, dark-haired intruder with irritation, “but this bookshop and the adjoining flat are my property, and however hard I try, I cannot seem to recall giving you permission to enter.”
“It’s me.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure it is. In the same vein as I am me. Do you perhaps wish to continue your philosophical discussions with the police?”
“Angel, it’sss me.”
“… Crowley?”
Silence fell upon the stuffy room again. The unusually subdued and quiet demon in the centre felt just as uncomfortable in his skin as he had when it had been brand new. (To be fair, that was only a few days prior to his visit to his old counterpart.)
“You’ve… changed,” Aziraphale said eventually. They both had more to learn about humans and their sometimes baffling conversational skills, apparently.
“You haven’t,” Crowley pointed out completely unnecessarily. But then, “I’m glad.”
“Uh, what…? Dear gi-… boy, what on earth do you mean?”
“I’m glad you haven’t changed,” Crowley repeated. He went on much more quietly, “Like I. Er. Had to.“
"Oh. Oh, uh… do you… do you want to talk about it?” the angel offered. The gesture seemed honest enough, and it was a very welcome respite from what Crowley’s existence had been like in the previous years.
“No, but we have to,” he decided. “In the spirit of our Arrangement and all.”
“Uh, yes, about that… I… my dear, I might have been too quick to judge your plans. Too… harsh in that judgement.”
“You were a right bastard.”
“There’s no need to-… ah, well, I suppose I was.”
“Right back at you.”
“Drink?”
“Yes. All the wine your shelves can hold.”
“But dear boy, the books-“
“Just pulling your leg, angel.”
After several barrels of the finest wines known to men had been miracled into existence, emptied, and finally rendered non-existent again, the small back room was home to three things: two utterly spent men-shaped beings, and their horrible, horrible drunken smell.
They could be happy drunks. If they put some effort into it. This, right then? Was not one of those occasions. Especially not after Crowley had shared every last blessed detail of his short-lived career as a self-appointed spy. Since he felt he far more than deserved a little whining (or even a lot) he finally did what he had never let himself do: think – and talk – about the tormenting, devastating silence of it all. How death was always lonely and eerily quiet, even if it lasted only for a moment. How Hell was no better – in spite of the wails of the tortured souls. How nothing had been much better than the maddening stillness, ever since he had begun to saunter, and the cosmos shattered, the melody cut off…
Aziraphale – wisely – promised to never speak of this night again, and brought out his own wings to brush them along Crowley’s. Intoxicated as they were, neither of them questioned the gesture. Moreover, they found it quite pleasant. (If they would refuse to speak of this, too, that was an entirely different question.)
Morning found them lying next to one another, pretending they could see long-since shifted constellations on the mouldy ceiling. No feathers were to be seen anywhere, and no wine was to be found, either. Only the nice, familiar scent of ancient tomes (of a bibliophile angel), and two very deceitfully human, but very grounding heartbeats lingered, filling the otherwise unwelcoming environment. It was something Crowley found he had been looking forward to, even if it wasn’t how he had imagined every minor detail. His wild dreams of earthly freedom had, for starters, included a soft and warm bed. And the heart rate he had grown used to over nearly two centuries, not the slightly too slow, always annoyingly off-beat one he had now. His fantasies had definitely included a drunken night that would be stretched into an entire week… However, he was not going to get that, either. He could hear – and wasn’t it strange how even this voice sounded just the tiniest bit too high – the angel’s breathing gradually speed up, betraying her growing anxiety over some moral dilemma. Crowley had come to know that sound well. And this time, he could guess the reason.
“I know about the crisis,” he said morosely.
“You do?” Aziraphale asked back in wonder. Sitting up already. So much for any short respite.
“It’s about the only reason I didn’t have to wait decades for a new corporation.”
“So…”
“You want to be there. Where the action is.”
“I have a moral obligation to-“
“You can just tell me. I miss the Red Sea too, you know. Plus, they will be expecting a report Below.”
“I do miss the Red Sea,” Aziraphale nodded with a strange smile on her face, and a faint rustle of currently incorporeal wings. “The good old days.”
“Yeah,” Crowley sighed. Without any further excuse, he wouldn’t say what was really going through his head. Not after all the embarrassing confessions that he’d be lucky to ever forget, let alone live down.
“I don’t miss our fighting, though,” Aziraphale said – as if reading his mind.
“We might have to do some,” Crowley warned her, a good deal of obligatory pessimism keeping his voice low.
“Choreography,” the angel replied dismissively. “It’s much easier than the gavotte, I can assure you.”
“You would say that.” Crowley laughed. He could barely wait to just be done with the newest crisis humans had managed to cook up. They had potentially very pleasant lives to come back to.
27 August 1990 (N. S.), a bedroom in Mayfair, London, eternally clean and perfect
“Back. Home.”
Aziraphale noisily turned the page, and the sleepy thoughts finally erupted into coherence in Crowley’s reluctant mind.
“We are home.”
It was, of course, the specific location he was thinking of. Inasmuch as it was on Earth, and near the only angel who was enough of a bastard to be worth liking.
He held his angel’s hand more tightly, and listened to the other’s contented heartbeat, unable to remember a moment when any of this could have felt off in any way. The rhythm was soothing, the pitch was perfect, and the moment had the intriguing potential to last forever – now that the world had not ended.
“You dozed off for a few hours, dear,” said Aziraphale, just the tiniest bit distracted from his book. Just enough to note his companion had woken up.
“Never hurts to practice some of the easier vices.” Crowley shrugged.
“I thought you liked this book?” Aziraphale half-asked.
“Angel. I could just tell the whole thing by heart.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
“Why are we not heading for the bookshop, again?” Crowley had asked late in the afternoon. “It’s much closer.”
“I would keep thinking about the new additions,” Aziraphale admitted. “And, anyway, we barely ever visit your place. Why is that?”
“Maybe because Hell can contact me there anytime?” Crowley nearly snapped. Acidic sarcasm was only marginally better, he found.
“Heaven could contact me,” the angel pointed out.
“Touché.” Crowley sighed. “But I might end up moving.”
“How come?” Aziraphale inquired. It was… honestly, it was a very human thing to do. And he sounded… just so happy. Nearly as relieved as Crowley himself. Even more amusing was the fact that the blessed angel just seemed to be beaming, projecting all of this into the world, practically infecting any human that passed them by on the eternally busy streets. Crowley hadn’t seen such an occurrence since before the Plagues. And he had to admit, this contagious joy was affecting him, too. Because it never should have been this easy to utter what he had to say.
“I have demon remains to clean up from my floor.”
The nonchalance of that statement gave the angel a start.
“You could just… um… miracle it away?” he suggested somewhat hesitantly.
“And who’s the one always saying it wouldn’t be the same…?”
“That, ah… that would be me. I’m sorry, dear. Do you just want to go to the bookshop instead? There might be something in there I never would have thought to hunt down.”
“Nah… I want to show you something anyway,” Crowley decided, a new idea humming in his mind. “We can just leave after that.”
Of course they did not leave anytime soon. Good wine and good company could make one forget things far worse than a quiet pile of ashes. Especially when said company managed to ask completely unexpected questions, such as…
“You have a bed I could use, don’t you, dear boy?”
Crowley wasn’t sure if it was possible for him to choke on something as unholy as a re-used teabag in a cold black mug. The angel had certainly made him try his best, though.
As it turned out, nearly losing all – supposedly meaningless – earthly delights had really changed some things for both of them.
“Virtue might be ever-vigilant,” Aziraphale said, after his counterpart’s survival became sure enough, “but you have told me such compelling things about sleep. Would you help me try?”
Aneurisms certainly couldn’t kill a demon, and Crowley should know – he had spent the past several millennia together with probably the most annoying angel Heaven had to offer.
Aziraphale proved to be very bad at sleeping. Too excited for the experience, probably. Asking too many questions? Definitely.
How fortunate that he proved to be exceptional in something else.
“I thought you liked this book?” Aziraphale half-asked.
“Angel. I could just tell the whole thing by heart.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
A long moment passed in complete silence and stillness. (It wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, for once.) Then Crowley took the dog-eared first edition from his companion’s hands, and carefully placed it on the bedside table. He expertly ignored Aziraphale’s amused sniggers, and closed his eyes to focus on the scene.
"The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” Crowley recited. “Then the soul erosion produced by high gambling — a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension — becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it…"
Next: Part 3!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-25 02:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-04 07:55 pm (UTC)(My other favourite moment writing this part was "if it was possible for him to choke on something as unholy as a re-used teabag in a cold black mug", because i had to google what could be considered a grave sin in tea-making :D overshare over, for now :) )
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-26 07:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-04 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-05 02:18 pm (UTC)