Happy Holidays, sarahsan!

[waxbean.livejournal.com]

Title: Carried On

Gift for: Sarahsan

Gift from:  jazzy_fay

 

 

Rating: G

Summary: Can angels love?

 

 

Whenever students of Abrahamic mythology gather together to discuss and debate their understanding of the angels, one question is always brought forth: can angels love?  Not that all-encompassing love for all of God’s creation, nor that almost painfully obsessive love for their creator and master, but love in the most individual, powerful, and imperfect way.  The answer, had one ever thought to pose such a question to one A.J. Crowley, would have been a smoldering glare, a few choice expletives, and possibly a bit of very ancient and very complex magic.  Had one with greater survival skills ever thought to pose such a question to one A. Ziraphale, the answer would have been a resounding ‘yes,’ a soft and knowing smile, and a mischievous twinkle in eyes too bright, clear, and ageless to ever fully pass as human. 

 

Angels, Aziraphale knew, could indeed love.  And did in fact love.  He certainly did, and he fondly remembered another who had loved as well.  He would never forget the moment, so long ago, that he had first spied that lovely head of dark hair.  It was a bit of a shock, of course.  While there was really no hard and fast rule on the matter, most of the angels he had encountered had all looked rather similar to him.  Yet here was an angel who was night to Aziraphale’s shining day, all sharp angles, dark hair, piercing eyes that flashed with sarcastic humor, and lips turned up into a wry smirk.  But his wings…The dark angel’s wings were a perfect match to Aziraphale’s own: large, downy appendages covered in long smooth flight feathers.  While the wings of many of the other angels ranged from muted ivories to vivacious greens, from calm blues to fiery reds, Aziraphale’s were pure, snowy white.  Just like his dark angel. 

 

Aziraphale could still remember the first time the dark angel, Craulise, had turned his back, glorious wings spread wide, awaiting Aziraphale’s aiding fingers.  Grooming was such an intimate chore, one that the angels delighted in sharing with one another, and Aziraphale felt a certain tingle of almost-pride that the angel before him had chosen to ask him for assistance.   He hadn’t bothered with niceties or etiquette, but had merely appeared out of the firmament before Aziraphale, nodded once in greeting, turned his back, and released his glorious wings.   Much scolding and chiding passed before he finally had the fluffy, feathery masses straightened and smoothed and a new friendship had been forged.

 

It would be difficult to mark the passage of time before The Creation, as time was something that would only come later, seemingly designed to help the humans, but whenever Aziraphale attempted to consider the time spent in Craulise’s company before The Fall, he would describe it as “an eternity in an instant.”  But like the humans say, all good things must come to an end.  And end they did. 

 

The rebellion.  Never before had Aziraphale so much as imagined such terror.  It simply hadn’t existed.  But for all the carnage, all the destruction, all the betrayal, nothing hurt so badly as the sight of Craulise posed so calmly on the brink of calamity.  One foot in heaven, the other in darkness.  Aziraphale had begged, groveled, pleaded as no angel before had done, for Craulise to reconsider.  It was futile, of course.  Angels lacked free will.  With a final smile that couldn’t penetrate the torment in his eyes, Craulise turned and sauntered vaguely downward, leaving Aziraphale to scream his anguish into the surrounding firmament.

 

The next time Aziraphale encountered Craulise was in the Garden.  Of course, he had no idea that the glossy black snake he knelt to touch was the demonic being’s newest form.  Not until the serpent had wound its sleek body up his leg, along his torso, and over his shoulders where it had hissed its greeting in his ear like a breathless whisper did he know.

 

There was never a moment of hesitation.  There should have been, and in retrospect, both Aziraphale and Crawly (as he was now known, much to his distaste) worried over the lack of swift and mighty retribution from Above and Below.  Still, they did not falter in the re-establishment of their friendship.  If anything, the Fall seemed to only deepen the bond between the two creatures.   Their days in the Garden were spent largely in companionable silence, Aziraphale guarding and protecting, Crawly scheming and planning, and both were content millennia before the formalization of the Arrangement. 

 

When Eve succumbed to Crawly’s temptation, Aziraphale merely clucked his tongue and shook his head, a murmured “really, my dear” his only response to the serpent’s smug hiss.  After all, it was only a piece of fruit.  Heaven, Hell, and Aziraphale all knew Crawly could have done far worse.  Naturally, when the punishment was doled out, none were more shocked than the angel and the demon. 

 

“That one went down like a lead balloon.”

 

Aziraphale stretched his wings, shielding his blonde head from the first rain, while delighting in the sensation of the tiny, cool drops of moisture as they trailed over the outermost feathers.  “I’m sorry,” he said politely. “What was it you were saying?”

 

Of course, life couldn’t quite carry on as always in the wake of the Fall of Man.  Aziraphale was recalled back to Heaven where he found himself taken to task by a rather irate Michael.  Stripped of his cherub rank, his armor taken, and his halo dimmed, he was finally sent back down as a mere principality, the last words Michael had spoken to him still ringing in his ears: “try to do some good this time.”  Crawly, on the other hand, would have come out of the ordeal smelling of roses, had flowers not been deemed categorically offensive Down There.  He was granted a human-shaped form (except for the eyes, he never did figure out the eyes), given a commendation (his first), and made it onto the black list of at least one Duke of Hell.  He was sent back up with Beelzebub’s threat to “keep up the bad work” still glowing warmly in his memory.  

 

By the time Aziraphale next encountered the demon, the humans had made it their own. Humans, he decided, were capable of beauty that Heaven would never posses, and of brutality that Hell would never understand.  Crowley, as the dark-haired demon was now known, was in full agreement.  It was this unspoken, unadmitted respect they both held for humans that led to a discussion of an arrangement, which centuries later would somehow earn itself a capital A, and would scandalize both Heaven and Hell.  To the two man-shaped beings, it was merely putting into words what had always been, while tacitly, diplomatically neglecting to mention other things that had always been.  Deeper things.  Powerful things. 

 

When the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t had come and gone, the two settled back into their routine, forged over the ages.  Aziraphale would bless and protect, Crowley would curse and tempt, and life went on.  It always did.  And when asked if angels could love, Aziraphale would smile and remember a pair of beautiful, snowy wings. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[b-c-draygon.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was beautiful. I really love how you described Aziraphale and Crowley's reactions to the same question, they really fit. I also love Crowley's name when he was still in Heaven - clever! :D

I think my favourite moment (if I had to pick one) would be "He hadn’t bothered with niceties or etiquette, but had merely appeared out of the firmament before Aziraphale, nodded once in greeting, turned his back, and released his glorious wings." -- it seems so perfectly in character for Crowley to do that.

Aziraphale begging and pleading with him is such a heart-rending image, it made me sniffle. I love it. Great work!

[sarahsan]

*melts clean off her chair*

Oh, goodness, that was just beautiful, Secret Writer!! So much lovely imagery and warmth to this piece. Perfect characterizations; I am so in love with the image of Crawly slithering comfortably onto Aziraphale's shoulders to hiss a hello. <3333

I LOVED THIS. Thank you so, so very much, my lovely secret Santa...I'm dyyyyyying to know who you are!! ^_^ <333 Thank you thank you thank you!!

[sticktothestory.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea that Crowley was given human form as a reward for causing the Fall and Original Sin.

[waxbean.livejournal.com]

that was really quite lovely -- I like the way you start off, too -- with their two different proposed reactions to the question, can angels love? I had to go back and reread that section at the end just to appreciate the lovely way that you'd set this up.

nice work, Secret Author!

[the-leechwife.livejournal.com]

I LOVE fics that mention Crowley knowing Aziraphale in heaven before the Fall!