Chapter Text
PART ONE: CROWLEY
Crowley hated his body. There wasn’t a singular part that he considered being even remotely beautiful. Everything was a painful reminder of his Fall, from the roots of his fiery-red hair to the soles of his feet, permanently signed with soot. His fingernails would naturally end in blackened points, and Crowley supposed it had something to do with him being untouchable. If a human were to come too close, Crowley simply had to swipe at them with his claws, and a spurt of blood across their chest would cause them to collapse into deadly silence. It was a nice protective measure, but that wasn’t why Crowley had them. All demons were issued with hands like his. Its purpose was to kill humans, lead them down a slow and painful path of death to an even slower and more painful afterlife. Crowley usually wore gloves if he didn’t have time that month to file the points down to a rounded edge.
A more dead giveaway of his unangelic status was, of course, his eyes. Crowley loathed his eyes. Yellow and spotted and slit like a snake’s. They reminded Crowley of just how desolate he had truly become. There wasn’t redemption for those eyes of his. There were no mirrors in his home, and he’d taken great care to only purchase coarse wooden objects so they wouldn’t show his reflection. He couldn’t be distracted by his own reflection. Crowley couldn’t afford to stare at himself and wallow in self-pity. It was unbecoming of a demon to feel any sorrow; the feelings of love and empathy were deplorable visitors in Crowley’s sickened mind. So instead he forced himself to feel nothing. Nothing, after all, was better than the soul-crushing, near-falling sensation of depression.
Crowley had taken a liking to burrowing up in his room nowadays. There was less of a reason to go out, what with the most interesting aspect of humanity - humans - promised to soon start dying at rates Crowley never thought he would see. He’d venture out to stretch his legs, of course, permitted the weather was warm enough, and he’d maybe look at the threadbare marketplace before sighing morosely and slinking back to his apartment for another ten days. Though certainly not poor, inflation rates had left him in a spot of bother as of late, and he could afford a third story chamber. It came with enough dreadful attributes that his mood was scarcely improved, something Hell appreciated. Hastur told him it didn’t do him any good to live lavishly. Might give him some ideas, after all, and demons like Crowley were to follow and not think. An open patch of the roof a few feet to the right of his bed made Crowley almost long for the putrid heat of Hell, especially in the winter as it was now. The floor was made of stone, as were the walls, so the heat was sucked out of the room with moot accuracy. The pile of blankets Crowley had procured did nothing for his cold-blooded nature. He wouldn’t freeze, no, but he was always cursed with more pain than usual. Aching joints, sluggish fingers, and an annoyingly numb nose.
The room was poorly furnished which made Crowley even more morose, but he could never find the ambition inside of him to actually remedy the problem. It housed a simple bed of straw, a chamber pot, a desk and chair with a few empty inkwells and broken quills, and a small, near-primitive fireplace Crowley had the mind to have installed before November hit. Conversely, there was a window near the chair and bed, bringing cold air in the night.
It helped, the fire did, on days like today, when his body was less like arms and legs and more of thrashing pain and agony. The crackling of the near rotten wood grounded Crowley, gave him something to focus on instead of the wave of stabbing sensations penetrating his abdomen. Outwardly there was nothing wrong with him. There hadn’t been, not since he’d asked why and subsequently Fallen. His skin was soft like silk and white like milk, with no physical indications that Crowley should be writhing around in bed like he was. But no matter how ridiculous the position he laid there was no rest for him. There couldn’t be. He didn’t deserve it.
The fire also provided the heat that Crowley longed for. He wasn’t unbearably hot, but it was nice to feel the warmth on the bottom of his aching feet. It reminded him of one of the Dover beaches he visited before the plague set in. The sea was cool and the sand was warm between his toes, and there had been enough children there to laugh and play that Crowley decided that he liked the beach, decided he liked that it brought out the best of humanity. He wanted to go back someday, but it was too cold now. The snow had started to settle on the ground outside, making the whole of London grey and lifeless. There was a pile of snow in Crowley’s room from the patch of missing roof. He didn’t bother to clean it up; it’d just be there again after the next snowstorm.
November really was a shitty month. It took the golden leaves of fall and replaced them with brown nothingness. Southern breezes could not find their way past the thick northern clouds, getting lost in the tip of Spain. Crowley thought about moving to Spain for a short while six years ago. It was November then, too, and the appeal of warmer weather called to him. He was decidedly done with winter and the aches and pains it brought him. Crowley was a snap away from relocating there when Aziraphale had hastily hurried into his room.
“Oh, my dear, it’s absolutely dreadful!”
“Angel, glad to see you.” Crowley nodded his head in greeting, and the door shut behind Aziraphale as he took a seat on the hard bed. Crowley hoped Spain might have some feather mattresses. His back was sore and knotted when he woke up every morning. “What’s it now? Is another library being burned? Perhaps an author died? No… too easy… ah, I’ve got it. You heard a child use your Lord’s name in vain.”
Aziraphale shot him a disapproving look. His mouth was in a deep frown, eyes drawn to his tightly clasped hands. “You’re not funny, Crowley. This is big. Really big. Please don’t make jokes at a time like this.”
“Alright, alright. Sorry. You just look so wound up, I thought… nevermind. What’s up?”
“Pestilence is coming to Europe. I’ve just overheard Gabriel talk about it.”
Crowley narrowed his eyes, striding over to the desk. His pain level was manageable today, though his legs felt as if he were being stabbed with pins and needles. He took a seat on the chair, deciding to put his feet up on the foot of the bed that Aziraphale hadn’t occupied. Elevation helped, if only a little. “You sure Gabriel hasn’t got the date wrong?”
Aziraphale shook his head, a pallid hand running through his soft curls. He was frightfully pale. “No, Gabriel wouldn’t… I think he heard it from the Metatron.”
“Ah, the mouth of God,” Crowley confirmed. “So what do I have anything to do about it? Isn’t this supposed to be a good thing for my side?” He watched Aziraphale swallow and pull nervously at the sleeves of his shirt. Cream, Crowley noted. Aziraphale was wearing cream. Everything else around the pair was dark, and the small fire was chewing happily on the emberous coals. Crowley hadn’t purchased wood in a while. The room was going to get cold soon. But Aziraphale always shone unlike anything Crowley had ever seen. He was brighter than the stars Crowley looked at, he was brighter than any candle on the desk. He was certainly the brightest thing in Crowley’s peripheral at the moment.
Their eyes met after another second or two. The ice blue irises Aziraphale sported looked alarmingly panicked. Or, rather, the edges of them did. Most of the blue had been swallowed up by endless black. Crowley didn’t know much about human anatomy. He supposed he ought to have been more eloquent with the nature of the body he resided in, but the fact of the matter was that he felt more snake than human at the best of times and more of a demon at the worst, so it never occurred to him to learn about how the human body reacts to news such as this. He did know, however, that pupils tended to dilate when met with true fear, indicating a fight or flight response in the mind.
“Azira-”
“They’re all going to die. How is that good for any of us?” Aziraphale sounded so far away, so horrifyingly quiet Crowley subconsciously reached out a hand to grip Aziraphale but stopped himself. He wasn’t sure if he could get Aziraphale back to the tiny room, wasn’t sure if he even wanted to try. Crowley drew back his hand and opted for snapping a jug of dark wine and two cups into existence. Keeping his eyes on Aziraphale he poured him a drink, handing over the goblet slowly.
“It can’t be that bad, right? I mean, humans are pretty resilient, after all.”
Aziraphale drank deeply with greedy gulps, and when he had drained the cup and shoved it towards Crowley for refilling did he speak. “They’re calling it a pandemic. First of its kind, actually. She’s quite excited for the vocabulary to be used.”
“Okay, pandemic,” Crowley repeated cooly. He filled the cup gradually this time, trying the new word out on his tongue. It sounded bitter and harsh, and the hard ‘C’ sound made everything about it seem that much more final, as if you were choking on the future like you didn’t have one. “Doesn’t sound nice.” He decided, handing the cup back to Aziraphale.
“Would you like to know what it means?” Aziraphale asked, and if he didn’t sound so frightened, Crowley would have sworn there was an edge of acid to his tone of voice. Aziraphale took a sip and spoke again without having waited for Crowley to answer. “It’s a disease that quickly and severely kills people and spreads throughout an entire continent.”
“Shit.” Crowley took a drink of wine. He didn’t know what else to say or what else to do. The coals shifted in the fireplace. He watched the orange sparks as they flew into the air in the reflection of Aziraphale’s eyes. Crowley could almost make himself out, and he looked away from Aziraphale once more. His gaze traveled to the street below.
More often than not Crowley’s view of the world outside of the window showed him a couple of variances. His building faced opposite a church, which kept him in his place when his thoughts traveled from cautiously optimistic to genuinely excited about being alive. Crowley was a demon. Demons decidedly did not get to enjoy life. What they got to do was make life full of poisonous temptations for humans, and sometimes that was allowed to bring a smile to their faces, but that was the only exception. Aziraphale, though, had turned Crowley’s viewpoint around, taught him that the old ladies who spent their days' knitting were a wondrous sight to behold. Taught him that even though life for humans looked dull and boring, they were living in the moment, not taking a second for granted.
“Can you imagine growing old like that?” Aziraphale pondered one day.
“We’re older than them, Angel.” Crowley pointed out.
“Yes, but imagine if we weren’t celestials.”
“I don’t really want to.”
“Why?”
Because then you would die, or I would die. Either way, I would have to spend an eternity without you, and that scares me more than anything else in the universe. It scares me more than Falling ever did.
“Wrinkles,” Was what Crowley settled on. Aziraphale hummed in agreement.
The church outside kept him on the right path. The stained glass windows reminded him that Christ died, but he didn’t die for Crowley. He didn’t die for those who had sinned far before any of the humans set forth on Earth. Christ, for all the pain and agony he suffered on the cross, did not do it for Crowley. In his life, he’d been nice, or he had been the time that Crowley met him, but that didn’t mean Crowley was forgiven. He never could be. Not even the Son of God Herself could look a demon in the eyes and tell him that everything was okay, that he was absolved of his sins and exonerated of all his past wrongdoings. Crowley didn’t know if he even wanted to be forgiven. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he was, but maybe if God still loved him, or at least tolerated him, Crowley wouldn’t feel the hot immortal shame banging around inside of him when he looked outside.
The church was light in color and the way they were stacked suggested to Crowley that someone had clearly loved the Lord while building it. They probably considered it a great honor to build a shrine to Her Holiness. Crowley might’ve too, had he ever been given the chance. Or maybe he’d build something for Aziraphale. At any rate, there was love in every single detail of the church, and Crowley knew this because he felt horribly empty when he looked at it. There was nothing inside of him except for the sickening feeling of falling. Sometimes he felt the same way when he looked at Aziraphale. It was a harrowing revelation for Crowley when he realized that he couldn’t feel love . He could love just fine, but it was looking at beings and buildings of love that left him in a heap on the floor, gasping for the air he couldn’t quite get to, head pounding with a vicious migraine. It was Crowley’s reminder that he was truly unloveable.
On that evening there were a few kids laughing and running around the skirts of their mothers, who were conversing by the church doors. Crowley almost felt something akin to remorse inside of him. If what Aziraphale said was true… But it couldn’t. She couldn’t do it. Not again. She couldn’t kill children as she did during the flood.
“The children?” He managed finally, the cup of wine nearly half-empty now.
“Most of them will die,” Aziraphale confirmed quietly, minutely.
“We could… Well, I mean… They can’t…” Crowley ran a hand through his hair frustratingly, puffing out his cheeks in a furious attempt to stop this all from happening. “We have to stop this, Aziraphale. I can’t watch everyone die. Not again.”
Aziraphale shrugged, reaching for the wine jug. Crowley couldn’t particularly say whether or not this was a good vintage make. It tasted like ash to him, just ash swirling in his mouth. The only thing that Crowley demanded was that it would supply enough intoxicating alcohol to numb everything. “There’s nothing we can do, dear. I’m just as distraught as you are.”
It felt like there was no air in the room. Spain was so very far away now, a distant dream. Crowley couldn’t leave London, not when the little ones were going to need someone to hold their hands. He wasn’t sure if Hastur would allow Crowley to comfort people as they took their final shuddering gasps of life, but he wasn’t sure if he cared either.
He drained his cup and refilled it. “So that’s it then. She’s killing billions of people just so we can use the bloody word ‘pandemic.’”
Aziraphale nodded and took a sip of his wine. “That, but Gabriel says we should rejoice. After all this, the humans will enter a time of renewed worship for Her. There’s going to be lots of art! A rebirth of sorts. They’ll call it a ‘renaissance’. It’ll be lovely, dear, just you wait.” Crowley noticed that Aziraphale’s voice sounded somewhat stronger in tone and volume now, and he seemed a little less pale.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Aziraphale stared at him blankly. “Well, silver linings and all that. I thought you might-”
“You thought I might what , exactly?” Crowley whispered venomously, teeth clenched together in an effort to keep his voice harsh and sharp. The walls weren’t exactly soundproof, and he would really rather not have the neighbors listen in on their conversation. “Pestilence is coming to Europe to kill humans just so… so your Lord can have a self-indulgent ego trip?! This isn’t some game, Aziraphale. People - good people - are going to die, and you’re sat here drinking wine, pretending to be afraid -”
“I am afraid. I don’t question why the Lord kills, but that doesn’t mean I don’t fear for the lives of the humans.”
Crowley slammed his feet onto the ground, biting his tongue in an effort to keep from screaming out in pain. “Then act like it! Don’t try and make a good thing out of this, Aziraphale, don’t you dare. There’s nothing good about mass graves full of corpses.”
“My only other option is succumbing to the fear! I freeze up when I’m scared, Crowley. If there’s a good thing to come out of all this death, then is it so wrong of me to focus on that while I help the people I can’t save?”
The fire had died out now, and even the bright cream of Aziraphale’s coat seemed to be swallowed up by the darkness. Crowley set his wooden goblet on the desk and resigned himself to holding his head in his hands, thumbs rubbing shaky circles into his scalp. He was hyper-aware of the copper ringlets that cascaded out of his fingers and down his forearms and back. He wanted to scream. He wanted to take a knife and cut his hair until his head was bloody and red and raw. He wanted to take the hot coals from the fire and rake them across his skin until he felt nothing but pain and saw nothing but bone because that’s all the humans would be feeling soon enough. Might as well start his penance now. He wanted to smack Aziraphale until he saw stars, shake him until there was some sense knocked loose into that feather-brain of his.
Crowley, most of all, wanted to kiss Aziraphale. He wanted to kiss him like he was going to lose him to the sickness that was going to claim the people outside. He wanted to part his lips with his own and relish the sweetness of the world on his teeth and tongue. Crowley wanted to kiss Aziraphale so he could remember him as he thought he would taste, sugary and holy and everything Crowley could not be but everything he ached for in the cold, barren hours of the morning. But now, with this new revelation, Crowley wasn’t sure Aziraphale was any of those things. Maybe his teeth tasted of burning flesh and his tongue had the tang of slightly rancid manure. Maybe Crowley, as Aziraphale had just so plainly pointed out, didn’t know him as well as he thought. After all, Crowley was under the strict impression that Aziraphale, as an Angel, should have been fighting tooth and nail to save humans from such a gruesome fate.
But then he remembered Noah and the Ark and the flood, and Crowley called himself a fool.
“Get out,” He managed shakily, left pointer finger indicating to the closed wooden door. His feet never recovered from being slammed on the floor, and the shocking pain was slowly working up to Crowley’s back.
“What?” Aziraphale sounded softly surprised.
“Get out, Aziraphale,” Crowley repeated, his voice gaining some intimidation once more. He drew a long breath in from his nose, taking time to savor the depleting warmth of the air in his lungs. Warmth wouldn’t come to him for a long time. “You’re not who I thought you were.”
He didn’t look up, didn’t care to try and see the look on Aziraphale’s face, just kept his head hung in his right hand. Crowley’s body started to tremble now, but he wasn’t sure if it was due to anger or pain. He knew that Aziraphale had left by the soft opening and closing of the door. Crowley slumped to the floor, weakened by his cursed body and his shattered mind, and he stayed there until morning.