Chapter Text
- London.
From the moment Crowley hears the distinct clicking of the passenger door slamming shut, the space between the front seats of the Bentley seems to expand. Miles away, the spot where Aziraphale had just been sitting disappearing into an abyss. You go too fast for me . What in the Hell does that mean? Crowley’s hardly enough of an idiot to think it had anything whatsoever to do with his driving, of course. It cut far too deep for it to be that simple. The words ring in his ears as he sits in the car, as the rain starts to pour, as the lights of even the dodgiest of establishments turn off, the neon ceasing to flicker. He’s got a thermos of Holy Water squeezed between his thighs. Nothing but a thick plastic cap keeping him from utter destruction, and there’s some foolish, nonsensical part of him that wishes he could just pour it over his head and never have to think ever again.
Not about his job, and certainly not about Aziraphale.
He turns the key to start the engine, deciding he ought to just go home. He hates that he wished so much to spend the night driving his Angel wherever he wished to go. He had hoped it would be very far away, and that it would take hours. But he’s got plants to water and scold, and there is nothing so soothing as sleep, even if you do it just so that the day will end. Maybe he’ll sleep a few months, if he can. Maybe then it will stop stinging so deep that it transcends his corporeal state.
“...fuck does that mean?” he mumbles as he drives, windshield soaked, terrorizing the laypeople. “ Too fast . Tell you what, he’s certainly not getting any more rides from me. Too fast . It’s…” He makes a hard right, cutting the wheel much harder than he has to.”It’s not like I’m asking him to run away with me, for fuck’s sake.” He turns the radio up, way up, the kind of volume that would hurt weak, human ears. Joan Baez’s velvet voice blares within the Bentley, and he winces and grips the steering wheel.
There's no need for anger, there's no need for blame.
There's nothing to prove, everything's still the same.
Just a table standing empty by the edge of the sea,
Means farewell, Angelina, the sky is trembling and I must leave .
He sniffs, trying with all his demonic might to waylay the stupid, stupid tears.
When he arrives at his flat, Joan’s done singing. Thank God, or whomever. He slams the door, muttering an apology to his dear, dear car, and carries the thermos inside, holding it as if it is made of the thinnest glass.
“Don’t gloat you,” he says to his fern. “It’ll only get worse now, since I’ve...whatever…” Gotten his heart broken? Maybe. It hangs on by a thread. He holds out hope that maybe one day he’ll slow down enough for it to be fixed.
He grabs the plant mister and points it at the fern, a cruel look on his face.
“You two’ve been conspiring, you and Angel. Just trying to upset me.”
He’ll blame it on anything but himself.
“ Too fast ,” he echoes, running his thin fingers over one of the soft, green leaves. “Just offered him a ride, is all. It’s not like I asked him to fucking.. .marry me, or whatever. Not like I asked him to open that god damn thermos and splash me with it. Fuck’s sake…”
Once his garden has been sufficiently abused, he flops down in his desk chair, legs splayed wide and his back slumped.
“Should just leave ,” he suggests, to no one. “Change of scenery. If I stay here, I’ll…” He’ll just see him again. He’ll just be tempted to stop by that tacky bookshop every day, bringing gifts or sweet things to say, records to beg Aziraphale to listen to. His heart on a silver fucking platter. “Right. Where’s good?” He lazily spins his globe with one finger. “Where’s there...things happening? Somewhere I can go for...who knows. Until I don’t…” Until it doesn’t sting anymore. Until it’s easier. Until he figures out what the Hell Aziraphale was talking about.
He won’t even tell him he’s leaving. How’s that for too fast?
- New York City.
He’s come to like it here. Manhattan is a bit like Hell, a bit like home. Crowded, dangerous. Smells a bit, all the time. Everything is so big. The tall buildings surround him like a barricade. A moat. Nothing can get to him here. No longing love or stinging words. Traffic’s too awful. He’s settled in well, living in a cheap studio near St. Mark’s, utterly failing at keeping to himself. He is too much a social butterfly; even in just two years he’s become a local staple, a friend to most, a party enthusiast. He gets so much work done, as far as tempting goes. Everyone around him is certainly damned for eternity. Too busy chasing highs and each other to bother doing much good. But he stays mostly on the outside of it all. He’s merely the architect of their debauchery, even though he is presented with opportunity upon opportunity to stray. He doesn’t explain to these women, Oh, can’t, I’m a demon, not really my thing, but I highly recommend you seek it out somewhere else, that would look real good for me . He just accepts the joints they pass him, and flutters off to some other dark and dingy corner.
He gives them another explanation.
“I’m spoken for,” he says, casually, quietly. Each and every time. He tells himself it is just a lie to keep his profile low, that there is no mysterious person to whom he’s devoted. But each time, when he tells that lie, he can only picture one person. Each time the sweetest of scenes: holding hands in a garden, sharing coffee in a place awash with cobblestone, sitting in his Bentley with Joan Baez playing at a reasonable volume…
“Lucky lady,” this particular party-goer says, downing her shot of gin and slamming the glass down on the nearby table. She’s annoyed. She’ll feel better soon, once the music starts again.
They have parties in a wide, tall, echoing warehouse, somehow so open and yet with a million private little corners to hide and talk and kiss. Crowley tries to fill each of these secret little spaces with something evil. And although the machinations of Hell are strong here, there is also so much beauty. So much art, so much music. So much love, even if it’s fleeting and feverish and drunk.
Even if he’s a little drunk himself, he knows he’s done a good job. The man who owns the building has given him unbridled access to the wine cellar, and Crowley’s lips and the bottom of his mustache are thickly stained with the delightful purple residue from a vintage Merlot. The air is filled with smoke and flashing lights, noise and chatter. Even a demon needs fresh air now and again.
He stumbles out the door and onto the street, half-full glass of wine in tow, knowing that this particular area of the city has proven to be quite lawless and lenient. He leans against the brick wall, tilting his head back, looking at the sky even though he knows he won’t see any of those precious stars he made. The lights of the city are far too bright. He adores that; at night, he can’t even properly look at Heaven. There’ll be no reminder of what he left behind.
Here, he can go as fast as he damn well pleases.
The parties always go on until morning, and most of the time he doesn’t bother sobering up before walking home. Best way to blend in, really. There’s not a soul around him in their right mind. Bleary-eyed and dizzy, he saunters down the sidewalk, waving a vague hello at people he recognizes from some event or another.
He stops for a cup of coffee. The radio in the cafe is blasting something new.
Half of the time we're gone
But we don't know where,
And we don't know where .
He turns it down, which makes the lone employee grimace at him. The song continues on, and he leans in the doorway, waiting for his coffee, looking out to the small park across the street. In the morning light, it looks not of this earth. Bright and pastel, every leaf and bloom and the bronze of the bench glowing in the early sun.
There is a man sitting on the bench, looking pointedly at a map.
Crowley is handed his coffee, and he promptly lets it fall from his grasp and onto the tile floor. Even as the cafe worker begins to shout, he walks out of the doorway and into the street. Cars beep and drivers yell, and he holds out his hands to stop them from coming, wanders across the road, unapologetically drunk and staggering. The cafe worker turns the radio back up, and he can hear it as he crosses the median. Let your honesty shine, shine, shine now , and he tries to speak, tries to name this ethereal man sitting so calmly on the bench.
He’s glowing as ever. His hair is a little longer than it was, parted neatly in the center, soft curls like a halo around his head. He wears a smart, tan jacket, his trousers rolled, pristine sneakers on his feet.
“Aziraphale…?” he chokes out, finally making it onto the other side of the street. There can be no mistaking it. There he is, soft and cherubic and perfect and right the fuck in front of him . “Wh--”
He looks up from his map and folds it neatly.
“Crowley!” he chirps, standing, grinning, acting as if it is not the absolute sweetest devastation that he should be here. “It’s true what they said. You’re here! I’ve been wandering around for hours now, certain I’d never run into you.”
“Wha--? You...came looking for me?” Crowley asks, blinking behind his sunglasses, falling askew. Aziraphale reaches out and fixes them properly.
“Well you...you left without a word! I was...worried.”
“I’m...a fucking demon, Angel. I didn’t get lost .”
“ How? ” Aziraphale asks, haughtily, holding up his map. They stare a moment, like a stand-off, until finally, divinely, they erupt into a familiar laughter.