Chapter Text
There isn't much I haven't shared
With you along the road
And through it all there'd always be
Tomorrow's episode
Suddenly that isn't true
There's another avenue beckoning
The great divide
Ask no questions, take no side
Who's to say who's right or wrong?
Whose course is braver run?
All I know is all we had
Is over, said, and done
Friends never say goodbye
Friends never say goodbye
But if I started over, I know I would choose
The same joy, the same sadness, each step of the way
That fought me, and taught me, that friends never say
- Elton John, The Road to El Dorado
‘Crowley, please…!’
Crowley twisted and toss his head, gripping the arms of the armchair as he slept, seizing as though it was electrified, unable to wake, trapped in the thralls of the nightmare he was having.
‘Please, stop! No more, please! I’ll do anything!’
Aziraphale sounded terrified, like he was enduring unimaginable horrors, his voice filled with the suffering of one who had lived a thousand years of misery with no end in sight, not even the sweet release of death.
But inside the dream, Crowley could see neither Aziraphale, nor his own hand in front of his face. Everything was darkness. He blundered in the blackness trying to find him.
‘Crowley, come back!’
Crowley whirled round and saw Aziraphale standing there, shining like a star and smiling at him. But just as Crowley hurried to meet him, Aziraphale melted into the darkness as if he’d been struck from the Book of Life.
‘We can be together!’
Again Aziraphale appeared behind him, his face shining with hope. And again he vanished before Crowley could get within an inch of him.
Sensing the pattern, Crowley turned just in time to see Aziraphale reform from the blackness behind him. He looked beseechingly at Crowley, looking as if his heart might break, looking scared, gesticulating with his hands, his voice going high-pitched as he pleaded with him, just as he had done back at the bookshop.
‘I-I need you!’
Then, out of the void, directly behind Aziraphale, the Metatron appeared. His thin mouth twisted in a cruel smile as he placed his hands possessively on Aziraphale’s shoulders, his cold, mocking eyes telling Crowley, without words, ‘He’s not yours anymore. He was never yours. He was, and will always be, ours.’
Crowley gritted his teeth and charged forwards as if he were Usain Bolt. ‘Aziraphale!’
But the Metatron started to drag Aziraphale smoothly back into the arms of blackness. Terrified, Aziraphale reached desperately for Crowley. Crowley sped up, stretching out his hand. But the Metatron raised his own, moving it in a miracle motion, and next second the ground vanished from beneath the demon’s feet.
Their hands groped wildly, but missed.
‘AZIRAPHALE!’
Crowley was falling again, the angels looking down at him from on high, watching him fall.
There was no pool of boiling sulphur. No slamming into the hard ground. And no waking from this endless nightmare.
Despite the swooping, summersault sensation in the pit of his stomach, Crowley couldn’t feel himself rising up back into the waking world. It felt like the dream desktop was shifting, changing into something else. Then it settled. Crowley still couldn’t see anything. Until the sound of uneven, hitching breathing at his feet made him look down.
Aziraphale looked up at him from the floor, his shaking arms barely able to support him. He had dark shadows under his streaming eyes, filled with pain, anguish and fear. His once gorgeous face was covered in cuts and bruises, blood pooling down his countenance. Aziraphale raised a trembling hand that still bore his gold pinky ring, chains clinking from the shackles that donned his wrists, in a futile attempt for his torturer, whose eyes Crowley gazed through, to stay his hand, which held a cat o’ nine tails whip from Hell.
‘Crowley, please,’ whispered Aziraphale, fresh tears leaking from his bloodshot eyes. ‘Forgive me…’
Trapped in the body of the satanic scourger, where Crowley would’ve willingly extended his hand to take Aziraphale’s, instead he was forced to watch as the whip hand raised high above his head, ready to rain pain down upon the abominable angel.
‘No! Please, don’t! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please, I’m begging you!’
CRACK!
The worst sound Crowley had ever heard pierced his ears, his brain, his heart, his entire celestial being – Aziraphale screaming in pain, worse than he had ever heard the damned souls in Hell being tortured.
Because his Angel was being tortured! By the hypocritical Heavenly hosts who professed Truth, Light, and Good. And Aziraphale, who embodied all three virtues more than any angel he’d ever met, hadn’t done anything wrong, except try to change Heaven for the better. Even at the expense of his own happiness.
And this was his reward?
Crowley awoke with a jolt, Aziraphale’s screams still ringing in his ears, quickly followed by Crowley’s own yell as he found himself almost nose-to-nose with Muriel, scrambling back so fast that the armchair tipped over backwards and he backward rolled onto the carpet of the bookshop. It would’ve been comical if the circumstances weren’t so serious.
‘Mr Crowley!’ cried Muriel, hurrying over to make sure he was all right, helping him to his feet and dusting him down. ‘I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Were you having a nightmare?’
Crowley was breathing deeply, his heart racing.
‘Oh, you poor thing. It must’ve been horrible, you’re leaking. Sorry – crying.’
Crowley touched his cheek and felt tears mingling with the terror sweat. Yet he didn’t feel like he himself was crying, even though his eyes were burning, literally. ‘They not mine…’ he whispered.
The memory of his best friend’s tortured face was imprinted on Crowley’s eyes, his golden tears falling in sync with the salty, mildly acidic teardrops running down the demon’s face like reflections in a mirror. These were Aziraphale’s tears. The tears of an angel.
‘Aziraphale…!’ he gasped.
‘That’s what you kept saying,’ said Muriel, looking frightened. ‘You were mumbling “Aziraphale”. You sounded scared. Was something terrible happening to him? Was he scared?’
‘Yes,’ said Crowley, wiping their tears from his face. ‘He is scared. He was begging for my help.’
‘But, it was only a dream.’
‘No.’ Crowley pulled free of Muriel’s grip. ‘It wasn’t a dream. It felt too real to be a dream. Something terrible is happening to him right now.’
‘But nothing bad can happen in Heaven. And Aziraphale’s the Supreme Archangel. He’s Head of Heaven.’
‘Second only to God and the Metatron. I was cast out and turned into a demon just for asking a few question. You saw Gabriel’s file. He was the only one who voted against the Armageddon Sequel and Metatron would’ve demoted him to a 38th class Angel and wipe his memory. Aziraphale went to up there to change Heaven. I’m telling you, Muriel, I’m convinced – I’m certain, Aziraphale is being tortured right now! All for the crime of being Good! I need to get up to Heaven now!’
Muriel didn’t pause to ask questions. She strode over to the hand bell on the desk and rang it loudly to grab the attention of the two or three straggling customers who up until this point hadn’t been paying the two Weirdos of Whickber Street any attention as they browsed the bookshelves.
‘The bookshop is closed. Family emergency. Everybody out – and put the books back where you found them,’ Muriel ordered firmly. And when they didn’t move, ‘To the south! Quick march!’ She clapped her hands insistently.
The customers left hurriedly, Muriel chivvying them out of the doors.
‘Come on!’ she called to Crowley, who followed at once.
Outside Muriel snapped her fingers and the locks clicked, the blinds rolled down, the lights went out and the sign flipped to “Very Closed”. Then she and Crowley walked briskly across the road towards the Dirty Donkey and the lift to Heaven.
‘Family emergency?’ said Crowley as they walked.
‘It’s an emergency. And Aziraphale is family,’ said Muriel. ‘He was always kind to me. You and Mr Fell are the only family I’ve got here on earth. And you don’t abandon family when they’re in trouble.’
Crowley felt touched that Muriel considered himself – a demon – and Aziraphale as family. And the way she had ejected the customers through sheer force of will instead of polite suggestion. She had come a long way from the naïve Inspector Constable who’d arrived here.
Muriel had chucked in her white police uniform for a suit and trousers, one half dark grey and the other half light grey, red converse star trainers, a white shirt with gold angel wings, gold star ear studs and a black tire with a red stencil snake on it that matched Crowley’s tattoo.
Muriel snapped her fingers again and a blinding white light appeared within the pub.
‘Doors opening. Earth,’ announced a cool female voice as the doors slid open.
Crowley and Muriel marched in without breaking stride. Crowley thumped the button for Heaven with his fist, forgetting in his urgency to get upstairs that as a demon certain angelic privileges were revoked and he had no authority to use the controls.
Muriel pressed the button marked ‘H’, pummelling it with her finger. The doors closed and they ascended.
Crowley prowled up and down the lift from doors to wall like a caged lion, while Muriel clasped her hands together, lips moving soundlessly as if muttering a silent prayer.
Why did it take the lift so long to get there? Thora Hird’s stair lift was faster than this. Crowley was tempted to climb through the roof hatch and fly up to the top with one sweep of his great black wings if he thought it would get him there any faster.
Aziraphale couldn’t wait. Aziraphale shouldn’t have to wait. Aziraphale should be here with them, instead of enduring whatever Hell on Heaven he was going through.
Ding!
‘Heaven. Doors opening.’
Crowley squeezed himself through the gap like a snake before the doors had fully opened, Muriel following close behind.
Crowley blinked.
It was like walking into a beehive. The once showroom white aesthetic walls, floors, even the ceiling of Heaven had been painted va va voom yellow, while the pillars had been painted black.
‘Oh, they’ve redecorated!’ said Muriel happily, completely forgetting they were storming Heaven to rescue Aziraphale. ‘I like it! It’s so pretty! Aziraphale always did like yellow. It matches your eyes.’
Crowley paused at this. He had never understood Aziraphale’s fascination, borderline obsession with the colour yellow: the rubber duck, the feather duster, the rich gold pillars and back room of the bookshop, even having the nerve to turn the paintwork of his car yellow. But now that Muriel said it out loud…
Crowley held up his hands making an oval with his thumbs and index fingers. Now he could see it, especially when he angled it so that the black pillars were in the centre of the field of yellow, like vertical pupils – Snake eyes.
Crowley’s eyes…
Aziraphale missed Crowley so much he had redecorated the halls of Heaven so that they resembled Crowley’s eyes, knowing he would never look into them ever again.
Crowley lowered his hands, his throat burning and his eyes welling up with tears.
Oh, Angel…
Muriel glanced at Crowley, her smile fading, seeing the look on Crowley’s face.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ Muriel offered him a light friendly bump on his arm, like the kind Crowley had given her the last time they were here. ‘It’s nice he was thinking of you. I always said this place could do with a splash of colour – well, in my head. Suppose they think blinding white is chic. Why mess with perfection, right?’
Was this what caused the Angels to turn on Aziraphale? Over something as trivial as daring to change the décor of Heaven?
It has never been yellow. It is not going to start being yellow now! Change it back!
But it’s pretty.
Crowley sniffed, trying to pick up Aziraphale’s scent. It was there in the miracle paintwork, but the scent was old, barely registering. Crowley ventured further into the vast open space, inhaling deeply, nostrils flaring, hoping to catch a trace, even a whisper of his friend.
Come on, come on, come on, Aziraphale. Let me find you.
Crowley even went as far as to call forth his forked serpent tongue, flicking the air to catch any odour chemicals. But when he retracted his tongue back into his mouth, he found the odour molecules were as cold as the cold-blooded creature he’d been turned into, and too easily masked by the many other scents of angels.
Aziraphale was here. Crowley was convinced of it. His angelic aura was in the area, he just couldn’t figure out where.
‘Well?’ asked Muriel.
Crowley shook his head in agitation. ‘I can smell him, but he’s too far away. I can’t get a fix on him. Can you use your angel aura antenna?’
Muriel nodded and focused on sensing Aziraphale’s aura, taking Crowley’s hand so he would feel what she felt. Aziraphale always said he could feel “love.” What Crowley and Muriel felt was nothing like “love.” It wasn’t even the “I don’t like this place, it feels spooky” vibe. It was a feeling of hopelessness, despair; the wondering what the point of it all was. And not the philosophical “what”, it was the “what’s the point of living anymore” kind.
Muriel shivered, feeling cold as death, releasing Crowley’s hand. ‘He’s definitely here. It’s like he’s here, but not here. It’s like he’s…’
‘…fading away,’ Crowley finished the sentence before Muriel could say, ‘…a ghost.’
It was as if the very essence of Aziraphale was fading away. What if there would be nothing of Aziraphale left when they found him? Just an empty shell? A lifeless doll? A ghost of the angel he knew?
A fate worse than death.
‘We’ve gotta find him,’ Crowley muttered desperately. ‘We’ve gotta find him now.’
‘Oi! You two! What’re you doing here?’ a voice barked at them.
Crowley and Muriel turned to see the Quartermaster Angel marching towards them.
‘You’re a demon!’ he said accusingly at Crowley.
‘Ah, shoot,’ said Crowley sarcastically. ‘You’ve seen through my clever disguise.’
‘You let a demon into Heaven!’ the Quartermaster Angel shot at Muriel.
‘We need to speak to Supreme Archangel Aziraphale,’ said Muriel, more bravely than she would’ve been a month ago. ‘Take us to him.’
‘You forget your place – Muriel, is it? Clearly your brief spell on Earth has given you delusions of grandeur. And fashion sense. What are you, some sort of clown?’ The Quartermaster’s sharp eyes widened, looking scandalized as he recognised the suit jacket. ‘Have you – Did you vandalise the standard issue uniform that I issued?!’
Undeterred, Muriel pressed, ‘We demand to see Aziraphale.’
Even the Quartermaster Angel’s wispy sideburns bristled at her brazen audacity. ‘Demand? Demand? Who are you to demand anything, Scrivener?’
Crowley seized the irritating angel by his lapels and shoved him against the wall. ‘The only one in the absence of the Supreme Archangel who can stop me tearing your throat out,’ he snarled, hissing like a snake through his clenched teeth. ‘We came here for Aziraphale. And we will see him.’
‘It’s not possible.’
‘It’s entirely possible, Sir,’ said Muriel. ‘Even the Supreme Archangel can spare five minutes for old friends.’
‘He’s indisposed. No one can enter his office without an appointment. Or with the express permission of the Metatron.’
‘When did he last leave his office?’ asked Crowley. ‘Tell me!’
‘Since his ascension.’
‘Take me to him, right now.’
‘He will not see you. He has many demands on his time.’
‘Oh yes he will. Even if I have to use your head to break down the door.’
‘Demon!’ cried the Quartermaster. ‘Unauthorised demon in –’
‘Sssssssssssshhhhhhh!’
Crowley gripped the Quartermaster Angel by the chin and forced him to gaze into his snake eyes, whose luminous irises began to glow alluringly, shapes shifted beneath the surface giving the illusion of a never-ending snake coiling in spiralling circles around his slit pupils, subduing the angel into passive submission within seconds.
Crowley rarely delved into this snake myth of mesmerising their prey, but they were wasting time that Aziraphale didn’t have.
‘You will tell no one we are here,’ hissed Crowley, his spinning eyes drilling the suggestion into the entranced angel’s mind. ‘You will alert no one to our presence. You will go about your duties as if we were never here. Because we are not here. You will forget that you ever saw us. Do you understand?’
‘Yes…’ whispered the blank wide-eyed angel.
‘And before you do, you will tell us what has happened to Aziraphale?’
‘His presence in Heaven was essential to the Metatron’s plan.’
‘Why?’
‘To separate the two of you. Together you stopped Armageddon. Together you created a 25 Lazarii miracle. Together you are strong. Together you are powerful. Together you are a threat.’
‘So, he’s their captive?’ said Muriel.
‘What have they been doing to him?’ growled Crowley. ‘What has the Metatron been doing to my friend?’
‘Crowley Cleansing.’
Crowley frowned, confusion and dread churning in his stomach. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘They’re sterilizing him of your demonic influence. Crowley Cleansing. The Metatron calls it: Demonic Detox.’
Crowley and Muriel exchanged a brief horrified look before Muriel hastily averted her gaze, less she fell into Crowley’s hypnotic glare. So strong was their power, the merest glimpse was already enticing her to look back into him, and Muriel would have had she not held up her hand to the side of her face to shield her eyes.
Crowley glared back at the Quartermaster Angel. ‘Bring Muriel all confidential records relating to the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale, giving her full access. Then you will awaken following my previous commands. After you tell us where Aziraphale’s office is.’
‘The far end of this floor.’
Crowley snapped his fingers, re-enforcing his post-hypnotic suggestions.
The emotionless Quartermaster Angel conjured the file, handed it to Muriel and turned away from them. Then he blinked, looked vaguely around as if wondering why he was up here, shook himself of the thought, and then went about his business as though nothing had happened.
Then Crowley heard a frail voice whisper inside his head, though it seemed to speak from his heart. ‘Crowley… Crowley… Crowley…’
‘Demonic Detox…’ Muriel murmured, staring at the file labelled: re: the matter of AZIRAPHALE (ANGEL TRAITOR), unsure whether she wanted to know what that meant, not least because of the bloody fingerprints all over it. ‘Mr Crowley, what –’
But looking round, Muriel realised that Crowley had already disappeared at a run towards Aziraphale’s office, following his voice, and disappeared around the corner. Swallowing hard, Muriel activated the file and watched the celestial surveillance footage.
Crowley hurried along the long corridor that felt as though it was stretching itself to prevent him from reaching the door at the end. Aziraphale’s smell was strong now, but still diluted, and Crowley quickened his pace. The yellow walls were getting whiter and whiter as he neared the end and he could smell Metatron’s influence in the stark bleachness, coupled with heavenly white spirit.
What had they done to Aziraphale?
‘Crowley… Cr-Crow-ley… Crow… ley…’
Crowley sprinted faster towards Aziraphale’s fading voice, praying for him to find him. Not praying to Her. God had already forsaken him, abandoned him, had given him up to be destroyed. Now all that love and praise, all that faith, was being placed in the one person who would answer his prayers in his hour of need.
Wherever Aziraphale was, Crowley would come to him. Even when he never asked him to, Crowley had never and will never let him down. Not today.
At last Crowley reached the white windowless, handle-less door where the first thing he noticed was the small red box sitting on a little table outside. In gold letters were the words: Suggestion Box.
Crowley felt an iron fist grip his heart.
Well, you know, if I was the one running it all, I’d love if people asked questions. Fresh point of view.
Aziraphale had installed a suggestion box. And Crowley was prepared to bet that the only suggestion submitted and answered was the suggestion that there should be a suggestion box, as Crowley had suggested six thousand years ago.
We can make a difference.
Crowley kicked the door open so hard that it flew off its hinges.
There was nothing in the Supreme Archangel’s office, except the Supreme Archangel himself. Left alone in the dark.
Aziraphale was lying face down on the floor in the middle of the room, whether asleep or unconscious it was difficult to tell from here. The floor was covered in plucked angel feathers. As Crowley had seen in his dream, Aziraphale’s wrists were shackled, the chains nailed to an iron peg in the floor. His face was bruised and bloody, bleeding from the needle hole puncture marks running around the circumference of his head like a harrowing halo. His old beige suit and coat, which he had kept in tip-top condition for over 180 years, was torn and stained with his own blood. The worst soaked his back, where his wings used to be. Two bleeding stumps protruding from the crisscross mass of whiplashes, as if he’d been savaged by wolves. Which he had… wolves in sheep’s clothing.
‘Aziraphale…’
Crowley barely recognised his own cracked voice as he stared at his best friend, the angel he loved, lying beaten and broken on the floor, surrounded by the remains of his once magnificent white angel wings that had sheltered him from the first rain.
Crowley rushed forwards and skidded on his knees beside Aziraphale, sending bloody and scorched feathers flying, seized Aziraphale by the shoulders and turned him onto his side, cupping his bloody face in his hands.
‘Angel? Angel, can you hear me? Wake up, wake up, it’s me. It’s Crowley. I’m here. I’m here, Angel. You’re safe now.’
A weak groan answered him.
‘Aziraphale?’
Crowley stroked his cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, wiping away the dried snail trail of golden tear tracks, both to comfort him and gently ease him awake. It seemed to be working; Aziraphale emitted a low disorientated moan, his face shifting under Crowley’s hands as he came to. He felt Aziraphale burrow his sore face into his palms, like a cat starved of affection. Starved of any loving touch.
‘It’s me, Aziraphale. Come back. Come back to me, Angel. Please.’
Aziraphale opened his eyes, blinking blearily, his unfocused eyes looking everywhere, searching the darkness, until they landed on Crowley.
Crowley grinned, his heart fluttering. How he had missed those star-pupiled, ethereal blue eyes. He felt relieved; he had feared they might have turned violet. ‘Hey…’ he said softly.
He watched with mounting excitement as slowly the fog lifted from Aziraphale’s eyes as they brought a smiling Crowley into clearer focus. The Angel’s eyes widened in realisation. He drew a shuddering gasp, and then –
Aziraphale screamed.