Chapter Text
Aziraphale knew it was the wrong thing almost the moment the lift door closed.
He had been of two minds since Crowley had walked away from him—had kissed him when he was angry and insulted and confused, and then walked out on him.
On the one hand, he was … shattered. Watching Crowley walk out the door had been the worst moment of his existence, and that included those terrible seconds before Satan himself burst through the earth in Tadfield. He was in a daze. His chest felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, breaking every rib and skewering his heart on the splinters. And for good measure, they had also dropped an anvil on his lungs.
He couldn’t breathe around the agony of it.
On the other hand, he’d always understood what it was to be dutiful. Following the Metatron out of the shop had been the easiest thing to do. It required no thought, just obedience.
And Crowley had been there, watching.
Disapproving.
And Aziraphale had been angry, hurt, and rejected.
Still, for one moment, he was sure he was going to stride across the street, drop to his knees right there in front of every one of his neighbors, and beg Crowley to forgive him—as he was well aware that he’d done his fair share of the rejecting in that awful conversation.
But even as he considered this, he’d been dutifully asking questions, playing his part.
“The Second Coming,” the Metatron said, and that caught Aziraphale’s attention. Dread pooled in his stomach.
He needed more information. He decided he would ascend after all. He would find out Heaven's plan, and then he would go home.
Crowley might even be proud of him.
The thought made him smile. Just a twitch of his lips. The littlest smirk. He could be the clever one, and when he went home and made everything right, they would figure out if this was something they needed to get involved with together.
The lift doors opened, and Aziraphale’s breath left him in a gust. The starkness of Heaven’s head office was a punch to the gut in his current mood. Too bright. Too cold. Too sterile. Ironically, each breath he took felt as though he were breathing in fire; the ache in his chest redoubled its efforts to smother him alive.
Why had he thought even for a second he could want this?
But then, there would have been some satisfaction to striding into Heaven with Crowley at his side. He liked to imagine the smug, superior looks on the archangels’ faces falling as Crowley smirked back at them.
That was part of the beautiful idea that had formed in his head at the Metatron’s offer. He was sick to death of feeling any kind of shame that he associated with Crowley at all. Even now, after being outcast from Heaven for years, when Gabriel had come to his door in trouble, he’d been too scared to admit he did indeed know what it was like to have that one person who would make everything better no matter what was going on.
Aziraphale found his feet shuffling forward after the Metatron of their own accord. He himself felt ill; actually nauseated.
His step faltered. His heart began to pound. Despite the vastness of the space, he felt as though the walls were closing in.
He didn’t belong here.
“Perhaps—” he began, slowing down.
The Metatron gripped his arm; he gripped his arm rather hard, actually, propelling him forward.
“Much to do,” the Metatron said, his tone cheerful as it had been.
Aziraphale’s mind was moving too slowly, muddled by grief. The incongruence between the Metatron’s easy words and his harsh grip threw him even further off kilter.
“Just through here.”
Aziraphale had a split second to process the fact he was standing in front of a door.
There were no doors in Heaven, and yet here he was being propelled through one. Belatedly, instinctively, he tried to drag his feet. It was too late. He was through the door, and it swung shut behind him with a slam that rang in Aziraphale’s ears.
The room was darker than the rest of Heaven, closed in as it was by actual walls instead of windows. It was all the darker because Aziraphale’s eyes weren’t used to the darkness after a walk through the brightness of Heaven. But he could see well enough to recognize the two figures in the room.
Sandalphon and …
Phanuel.
Aziraphale swallowed hard, unease exploding into a sharp sense of dread. “Hello,” he said with an amiable smile. “So good to see you again.”
Sandalphon smiled in that sincere way people did when they knew someone was about to have a horrible day and it wasn’t them. “Is it good to see me, renegade angel?”
Aziraphale furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry?”
“I’ve seen no evidence of that,” Phanuel said, her voice a wispy, disinterested thing. She stepped up into Aziraphale’s personal space, taking his other arm in a grip equally as tight as the Metatron.
Aziraphale looked between them. “What is this?”
“Sentencing,” Sandalphon said, hands clasped behind his back, his grin ever wider.
“Principality Aziraphale,” Phanuel, angel of judgment, said. “You have been tried and judged guilty of crimes against Heaven.”
Dread turned to ice down his spine. Aziraphale tried to jerk his arms back, but both angels redoubled their grip. “Tried? What crimes?”
The Metatron chuckled. “It’s hardly a short list. Shall we begin with the seven deadly sins? Gluttony. Pride. Lust.”
“Lust?” Aziraphale protested, still struggling to keep up.
The Metatron arched an eyebrow. “Lying even to yourself, are you?” He tilted his head. “You’ve lied directly to The Almighty, haven’t you, Aziraphale? And you’ve questioned Her. Repeatedly. For thousands of years. That’s all your friend Crowley did, and speaking of Crowley …”
Aziraphale’s heart sank. He tried to gather his wits, but none of this made even a bit of sense.
“Principality Aziraphale. You have been sentenced to fall.”
“But I—”
“Have a blessed day.”
And the ground opened up beneath Aziraphale’s feet. He was flying.
No.
He was falling.