Work Text:
…I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell…
Crowley’s somewhere around the edge of Barstow when the drugs begin to take hold…not of him, mind you; being a demon, he’s got a superior constitution for these sorts of things. Barring that time with the laudanum, which wasn’t his fault, because no one had ever told him laudanum had opium in it. He’d never had a head for opium. There’d been that other time, too, at the French court back in the 16th century, but really, who puts in a champagne fountain, brags about it being inexhaustible, and expects their guests not to take it as a personal challenge to drink it dry? 1
Crowley’s on his way back from Vegas, where he had just successfully inspired several dozen years’ worth of petty sins - envy and avarice and wrath and quite a nice bit of lust, that was fun; he already has a plan to sneak all the beads onto the busts around the angel’s shop, just to watch him squirm.2 He’s in the Bentley, of course, because she’d never seen America, and despite his other thoughts on the country, you had to admit it had roads. Lots of them. He’s cut through the desert, endless moonscapes of red and purple mountains stabbing into the sky, hair3 fluttering in the hot breezeless air, the only air current caused by him cutting through the night, no miracles needed, even, the road straight and nearly empty as he slices past strange trees skeletal in the near-darkness.
Funny, Crowley thinks. The desert out here, all red and spiked-trees, looks like humans imagine Hell to look. It is certainly an improvement over Hell’s actuality. Still, he’ll take the city any day. He drives fast, faster, so fast he almost doesn’t see the human standing on the side of the road with a large black carpet-bag throbbing with sin, a briefcase practically screaming at Crowley, and a rather fetching clear-colored visor. Crowley stops, of course. There’s nothing better for keeping Beelzebub off the radio than a passenger.4 Crowley half-hopes Beelzebub will call when the human’s in the car, though. Might be fun. The man’s nervous enough, except it’s not nerves, not exactly. “Where are you going?” he asks the man.
“Anywhere,” the man says desperately, “as long as it’s not Vegas, I’m wanted there.”
“Me too!” says Crowley. He pulls off the shoulder, spitting sand and soft dirt behind him. The man turns around to stare, clutching the bag in his lap. The man’s eyes are like a ping-pong table, pupils bouncing from one end of the windshield to the other. They make Crowley dizzy to look at, and when he notices himself swerving in whatever direction the eyes are pointing, he stops looking.
“Say!” says the man, scrambling forward on the edge of his seat, “Don’t you think you should-”
“Should what?” Crowley asks, as the man ducks, and says, “nothing - you don’t see those?” He looks behind him again, as if he can’t help it.
“See what?” Crowley says, frowning. He looks behind him too. It’s catching, it seems. “I don’t see anything.”
“Well, here, this’ll help,” says the man, “might need to take your glasses off-” and then he opens up the black bag, which is now shrieking at Crowley, spitting off fumes of intoxication, and then the man starts pulling things out: a pound of grass, fistfuls of mescaline, a bottle of ether, blotters of acid. “You strike me as a man who enjoys the mysteries of life,” the man says.
“Well, possibly,” Crowley says, and reaches out a hand, and, without looking away from the road - have to keep an eye on those plants, tricky buggers - tosses back whatever the man dumps in his hand. “You’re not supposed to-!” says the man and stops. “Say, you have done these before, haven’t you?”
“Kid, I have done things you’ve never even heard of,” Crowley says, which is technically true, given the whole of human history. Crowley considers himself an experimental enough demon, as far as these things go - human things, anyway; he’s pretty behind the times on, say, the latest torture techniques, as Beelzebub always points out on his annual reviews, as well as his office politics, his attitude, his infernal chamber music repertoire, and finally, his personal appearance.5
The man says his name is Raoul, which is clearly a fake name, but then again, so is Anthony J Crowley. Crowley generally approves of people using fake names, as a rule. Proves they have something to hide, which makes them more interesting than the average human. This man, he thinks, tuning out of his jabbering rant about bats - s’broad daylight, you have bats, you have something to worry about, Crowley thinks, reasonably enough - is certainly interesting. They barrel on, the windows down and the hot desert air leaching in, making the steering wheel and seats burning to the touch.6
What gets really interesting is when Crowley blows past a policeman backed into a dilapidated car wash, Crowley driving a speed not actually physically possible in a 1926 Bentley,7 and then with a wail of sirens, the policeman pulls out after them.
“Do you hear something?” Crowley says, frowning, looking in the rearview. He’s honestly not sure. Whatever he’s taken is starting to vibrate inside his head at a rather disturbing frequency. A glance over at Raoul shows him digging in the bag, clearly ready to throw things out of the open window, looking in the side mirror all the while.
“What are you doing?” Crowley says, and the man turns a white, sweating face to him.
“Ran into that rat-fucker trying to get into Vegas in the first place - told me if he ever saw me again-” At this point, he devolves into a stream of paranoia Crowley can’t follow.
“Look,” Crowley says, quite reasonably, he thinks. “He can’t catch us.” He presses on the gas to prove it. Raoul grabs onto the dash and looks sick. He’s muttering something under his breath. “See?”
“I can’t be here, they can’t catch me,” says Raoul.
“Alright, then. Where’d you rather be? If you could, y’know. Pick.”
“At home,” he says, faintly. “In the bathtub. With my cat.”
Crowley shrugs. Humans. He snaps his fingers, and the seat beside him is empty, except for the magic carpet bag. Crowley thumbs through it while driving, making a small noise at everything he finds in there. Enough drugs to keep a rock-and-roll band in ideas for a month. Maybe only a week or two, depending on who it was. Looking down, he doesn’t notice the police vehicles parked across the road in front of him. “Oh, fuck-” he says, glancing up at the last minute and jerking the wheel. The Bentley cuts off the road and across the sand, bouncing over rocks, Joshua trees, and cacti, coming to a rest half-on a Joshua tree. Crowley coughs, waving away a cloud of dust and smoke.8
“COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP” bellows one of the police officers, coming out of their car. With a bloody awful lot of guns, Crowley thinks. A screech of tires as another three cars pile in behind him, blocking him in, unless he wants to cut across the desert. “GET OUT OF THE CAR,” the man bellows again, a note of panic creeping into his voice.
Crowley grins, raising his fingers as they tense. This is going to be fun.
Several hours later, nearing dusk - which takes a very long time to come on, in the desert, the sun hanging over the horizon and watching his every move - Crowley, eyes burning from the dust and the high, sees a great big sign saying HOTEL CALIFORNIA. 10.75 miles. An arrow swings below the sign, pointing, ostensibly, to the cleft of a valley between two mountains. Crowley shrugs. He stops the Bentley in the middle of the sand and looks around. He hasn’t seen anyone - or anything - for nearly an hour. Not even animals, he thinks. Strange. Probably just because it’s so bloody hot out.9 He hasn’t been in the desert in centuries. He’d forgotten how much he hated it. Oh, it was easy to make the joke, snake, heat, sun, but really, it was the opposite. He had always slithered from shade to shade, watering hole to watering hole, and once the humans had figured out date wine, well, that solved most of your problems, didn’t it? The angel, though, never seemed to learn, fluttered about in the sun, sweating, his white robes sticking to him, almost sheer in spots with damp, his cheeks and the tip of his nose flushed and peeling from the sun, and he would say things, like, “Boy, isn’t it hot,” or sometimes, like that one time they were in the rainforest together, “it isn’t the heat, you know, it’s the humidity.”
The Hotel California, Crowley notes as he pulls up, is a moderately-sized white structure set in a strange hollow in the mountains. Dwarfed by the mountains behind it and around it, it stretches low and broad and white, almost Grecian in design. Two floors at most, Crowley thinks. It looks unassuming and tidy, a pale roof, pale walls, lots of doors. Crowley doesn’t give it another thought. A few acres of hard-packed sand stretch around it, before rising, abruptly, to rock. It’s as good a place to stay the night as any, maybe see what else Raoul had left for him. Nice fellow. Crowley hopes he enjoys his bath with his cat. 10 Crowley parks the Bentley directly in front of the hotel; looking around, he can’t see any other cars. Odd. Maybe there’s a garage behind the hotel. He looks at the Bentley, shoos it off. “Go on,” he says. She’ll find her way to the garage.
Still, when he turns around, dusk has fallen entirely and suddenly, the sky a deep purple flickering in the direction of Vegas, where he had come from. Bats have come out overhead; he can hear, in the absolute stillness of this place, their little chips and chatter, the swoop of their wings. He glances around. It had still been afternoon a few minutes ago, he’d sworn. He glanced back at the hotel again, almost despite himself, at the mountains above it. Something about it itches at him. Maybe he should just keep driving. He can get to San Francisco by daybreak, can get on a boat…
On the other hand, he is pretty thirsty. And he keeps seeing after-images of everything he looked at, their blurred auras,11 and they make his eyes hurt. As he watches, the lights come on in the hotel, a warm yellow glow, as if just for him. Crowley shrugs. Might as well stay. He walks across the patch of bright green lawn immediately before the hotel - strange, he doesn’t see any irrigation - and tugs on the front door.
The door opens into a vast lobby, wings stretching out left and right. Strange; the hotel had looked a reasonable enough size from the outside, but it’s larger in here, almost like a cave, or a palace. He blinks. Likely the mirrors on the ceiling and walls, reflecting a greasy black smear back at him, oozing across the carpet. It’s a comfortable enough lobby, lots of mirrors and potted plants and big vast pillars. Plastic orange furniture here and there mingles with gold-and-glass-topped tables. A deep fireplace flickers in the middle of the lounge, a tall stone chimney rising up and up and up and up - Crowley makes himself dizzy looking at where it meets the roof. Far off - it seems an eternity away - a small counter where a clerk waits for him. A deep, thick shag carpet Crowley has to fight his way through to get to the desk, which gets - he swears - further and further away the more he walks towards it. Finally, growling and putting on a burst of speed, he reaches it, leaning on it and panting. His ankle hurts from yanking it from the carpet’s grasp.12
“Welcome to the Hotel California, sir,” the clerk says, her hands clasped smoothly in front of them. “Checking in?”
“Uh - yeah - sure,” Crowley says, trying to get his shoe back on his foot. How on earth did the carpet manage that? They weren’t even technically shoes. He leans on the counter, using it to support himself casually,13 and twists around to look up. There’s a vast spiraling grand staircase, going up and up and up, it looks like six floors. Huh. It is bigger on the inside, he thinks. What will human architects think of next? Maybe he’s just stoned. He’s having trouble holding onto what the clerk tells him, even though she speaks slowly and deliberately, one finger on the glossy brochure. She must be used to guests like him. The clerk is smooth-faced - she could be any age, really, Crowley’s bad at that - and blandly polite. He glances up from the brochure once, too quick, and the woman is watching him beadily, but then when he narrows his eyes behind the glasses, she’s turning away to get a key, not looking at him at all. He shakes his head to clear it.
“Not many guests?” Crowley asks.
“Hmm? Oh, not at the moment. We’re hoping for an influx very shortly.” The woman’s grin, when it comes, makes Crowley itch. He frowns and looks down into the bag, digging through it. How much did he take?
“Mm,” says Crowley, noncommittally, because it’s nothing to him. He’ll be out of there in the morning. Or the afternoon. Or the evening. Whenever he wakes up, really. “Ta,” he says, when the woman hands him his key.
“If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call,” the woman says. “I’ll always pick up.”
Always? Crowley thinks, slouching up the grand stairs, but the thought disappears as he makes it to the hallway, which stretches on longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and longer the further he goes down it, looking for room 13 - of course-
“This is ridiculous,” he says, and snaps his fingers, and then he feels something disorienting, as if the world is fighting his miracle, which is strange, that never happens, and he leans on the wall to catch himself, and when he blinks, and raises his glasses, and rubs his eyes, he’s standing directly outside of - what else - room 13.
“Raoul, you bastard,” Crowley says, appreciatively, and lets himself in.
Crowley’s room is comfortable enough, with a vast king bed with black satin sheets, a small and entirely impractical desk and dresser, and an uncomfortable-looking chair. There’s also a large soaking tub and a walk-out balcony. Crowley tosses the bag on the bed. There’s a print over the bed, which catches his eye. Instead of the usual insipid milk girl and shepherd-boy is, instead - he frowns, leaning in - oh, that’s unsettling. It’s a painting depicting the destruction of the Tower of Babylon, a crowd scene, with the king and his court dramatically watching it. It’s not a bad painting, as far as these things go; he and Aziraphale had been there, naturally - not a whole lot else going on in the world - and had seen it all go down, and-
Crowley leans so close his nose is pressed against the painting and his eyes are crossed. There are two figures in the crowd: one all in white, with white hair, and one all in black, with red hair. “Ugh,” he says out loud, and straightens up to look at it. They’re still there. He feels something run down his spine and glances around, but the room is still the same: tasteful and expensive. Regardless, the hotel gives him the creeps.
Crowley walks back over to the bed, dismissing the feeling. America usually has that effect on him.14 “Let’s see what we’ve got here, Raoul,” he says…
The problem comes when Crowley tries to leave the next afternoon. He breezes past the empty counter - checking out is a thing that happens to other people, in Crowley’s world - and, tossing the bag in the Bentley’s passenger seat, drives across the fine grass into the desert and, looking behind him in satisfaction at the cloud of dust he’s raised, points the car at the road he’d come in on, the split between the mountains, and guns it.
And bounces back as if hitting a wall. If he’d been human, his neck would’ve been broken. If the car hadn’t been his, it would’ve burst into flames. As it is, Crowley curses, backs up, and tries it again. And again. After the third time, he gets out and looks under the car to see if he’s hit something.15 Nothing.
He starts walking toward the road. Show the Bentley how it’s done-
And then every hair on his body begins to raise.16 Scales, too. There’s a great humming vibration coming from - he licks a finger, reaches out, and touches-
he jerks it back, hissing, puts his finger in his mouth. He waffles, then ascends, momentarily, to look down at what’s keeping him in. He curses some more. A great big dome rises over the hotel itself - its carefully manicured lawn, its small cleared expanse of land - hugged by the mountains, and cutting him off from leaving. Some sort of containment, he figures. Whatever it is, it’s strong enough to keep a demon in.
Fuck. He’d walked into a trap, hadn’t he. Well, had driven in, really. He’d been lured in, like a human into a bog or a carnival game, by a swinging arrow sign.
He jumps back in the Bentley and races back to the office. Parking on the lawn, he dashes out, up the steps, and across the carpet, making sure to lift his knees high. “Oi!” he says. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, here-”
But there’s no one. No clerk, no guests, nothing. “Oi!” he yells again, turning in a circle. Nothing. He jumps the counter and rifles through the papers, finding nothing of note. The office, likewise, turns up nothing but a truly prodigious amount of branded stationery and pens, as well as a bevy of room keys. Crowley glances at them quickly, then snags a couple, just for good measure.
Crowley roams the entire hotel, then, looking for someone else. Anyone else. There’s no one. There are six floors in total, and a basement devoted to utilities: laundry, boiler room. There’s a gym, and a pool, and a kitchen. Every room, aside from his own, is empty. The doors all swing open to his touch, six floors of them, all revealing an exact copy of his own room, down to the awful painting on the wall where he and Aziraphale watch the Tower fall. Crowley had liked that tower. He’d helped them with some of the load-bearing calculations.17 Finally, frustrated, and fairly hungover, he drops down on one of the beds in one of the rooms, waking up to a bar of light moving down the wall as the afternoon fades into night.
When he goes downstairs, dinner is laid out in the dining room, along with a rather impressive bar. Leaning over it to help himself, he pours a healthy measure of wine, toasts the empty room, and downs it. There’s nobody there, just him and the glittering candles reflected ghostly on the windows and in the mirrored ceilings of the dining room.
“What the bloody hell,” Crowley says, and sets to getting spectacularly fucked up.
Over the next few days, Crowley explores the rest of the hotel and its grounds. The painting is repeated in every room, and Crowley takes some satisfaction in destroying a few of them. He paces the grounds: a small winding canal out back, clearly artificial. A deep blue koi pond with absolutely no koi. A little pagoda. A vast cool-blue swimming pool he spends a few afternoons in. Everything is perfectly respectable, the height of good hospitality, and yet utterly fucking wrong.
He walks the border of the trap, then does it again, but he can’t find any weak spots. It’s impervious to miracles. He tries threatening the sky, the hotel, the koi pond, but, except for the water in the pond boiling, nothing happens. He can’t fly out. The trap extends some thirty meters above the ground and just stops. He remembers one night, waking up out of a dead sleep, about the clerk. We’ll see about that, he thinks, looking the clock, and calling the front desk. She picks up on the first ring.
“Is there something we can do for you, sir?”
“Yes! Yes,” he says, scrambling to sit up, “I want to check out immediately-”
“Oh, I’m sorry sir, try again after 8 AM,” says the woman, and the phone cuts out. He waits up all night; as soon as it hits 8 AM, he races down to the front desk. There’s no one there. Looking around, he reaches over the desk and picks up the phone.
“Hello?” says the woman’s voice immediately, and he jumps a half-mile in the air.18
“Yes! I want to - where are you?” he says, looking around. “How is this - who are you?” “I’m sorry sir, you’re breaking up-” The woman’s voice crackles strangely.
“No, wait, I’m not-” He snaps his fingers, but the awful crackling only seems to increase, until it’s coming from inside his head, and he’s nearly shouting by the end of it, “Stop doing this, just let me go-”
The phone turns hot in his hand, and he yelps, and drops it, staring at where it smoulders slightly on the carpet. Good, he thinks. Let it burn the whole place down.
He goes out to the Bentley and tries to radio Beelzebub. First try. It’s his lucky day, he thinks. “Yezzzzz. What do you want,” Beelzebub snaps, and he hesitates. “Muck something up again, Crowley? Need bailing out?”
“I - no,” he says. They’re in a foul mood. Right. It’s probably review time, he figures. He shouldn’t’ve called. Stupid, stupid. He says, “Just wanted to report it went off swimmingly. Everything tempted. City of sin, that one is.”
“Great,” says Beelzebub. “Well done. Where are you now?”
“I’m, er, still in America. Encouraging, uhm. Intoxication,” he says, as he rolls a joint.
“So what do you need?” Beelzebub says, still suspicious. Crowley’s licking the joint closed - “Nuffing,” he says. “Just wanted to check in.”
“Thanks for wasting my time,” Beelzebub growls, and leaves in a shriek of noise that makes him jump and spill grass all over his lap. Bollocks.
Well, it’s not the worst place he could be stuck, he figures. Whoever the hell is supplying the food and wine certainly keeps them coming. Not that he eats any of the food. Just because Crowley had been behind the jello-meatloaf salad trend didn’t mean he ate any. Still, the wine is passable, and Raoul’s bag, it seems, never runs out, being seemingly bigger on the inside, much like the hotel, and the weather is nicer in the bubble, for some reason, is actually strangely perfect.
So Crowley slithers on out to his balcony, or by the koi pond, or the pool, and parties. Every so often - two or three times a day - he ramps up the Bentley at different points into the barrier, but with no luck. He tries scratching lines in the dirt where he’s tried before, but they disappear when he turns his back. The place is pristine, perfect. He calls the clerk up and abuses her a few times a night, but never sees her again. He sneaks down all sorts of times of day and night, and swears, back pressed to the wall in the lobby, that he hears someone moving around out there, but as soon as he rounds the corner there’s no one.
Finally - he thinks it’s been eight days, or ten, or maybe even fourteen, he doesn’t really know - he sits up by the pool. He can’t drive out, can’t fly out, can’t miracle himself out. He wonders if Aziraphale could summon him out. He wonders if Hell could summon him out. Somehow, he doesn’t think so. There’s something wrong here. There’s no one else here, for one. No animals. The weather is the same every day. And the light. Fuck. No matter whether he had been, on the east side or the west side of the hotel, the light had been exactly the same.
He snaps his fingers. His room phone appears beside him, not hooked to anything, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to be. He picks up the phone, and dials out.
≠≠
Aziraphale thanks the cab driver who drops him off outside the Hotel California, a cozy little Victorian cottage, with a dear little sign marking it as a bread-and-breakfast. Different wings had clearly been hodgepodged on over the years as the hotel had grown, although Aziraphale, for the life of him, can’t figure out how they get this much traffic, being this out of the way. But then again, America’s like that, bigger than it needs to be. Full of hope for the future. He hasn’t been back since - oh, was it 1889? He’d been out west then. He’d been a desperado. That had been rather fun, with all the chaps and the horseback riding and the little towns. Crowley’d been there too, although it hadn’t gone all that well for him, had it? Poor fellow. He was always getting into some sort of trouble, right from the start. It was almost like he couldn’t help himself.
And now he is up to something again, Aziraphale thinks, and sighs. Oh, he hadn’t said as much on the telephone, but had just said come on out, haven’t been to America in awhile, have you? but Aziraphale had picked up on an undercurrent in his voice. And Crowley never asked Aziraphale to come to him. He was always just - there. Wherever Aziraphale was.
Aziraphale sighs.
When he turns around to look at the departing cab - still standing under the overhang - he catches something out of the corner of his eye: a shimmering mirage between him and the desert. He squints, looking at it. Why, it looks like - he glances around; there is no one, not even a bird in the strange spiky trees; he shakes his shoulders out, raises his head and ascends, just slightly, out of his body. It’s like walking around with your trousers down around your ankles19; uncomfortable and cumbersome, but it allows him to gain a half-step on his plane and see-
It’s a great big trap around the valley the hotel is in. He follows the leads back into the hotel, where they burrow down - and then back to the dome which encircles the valley, capping it. For a very brief moment, he thinks Crowley’s lured him into a trap. Then he thinks that something pretending to be Crowley lured him into a trap. Then he thinks that Crowley’s probably just an idiot, and bad at asking for help, and then Aziraphale sighs, comes back into his body and rolls his eyes20 and straightens his vest, picks up his bag, and marches up the drive.
The hotel is the perfect imitation of a cozy house he had been in in - oh, 1839, it was Julie English’s, or maybe Mrs. Brown’s, was it? He had gone for tea. It had been a rather nice, if somewhat stilted, afternoon, where he had met Charles. There’s even the scent of violets clinging to the lace curtains in the window. There’s a cozy coal stove, roaring away, and the lobby is dark and shadowed, except - oh, the ceilings are mirrored. It is completely out of place. Still, there is no accounting for taste, Aziraphale supposes.
There’s a nice young woman at the counter - with a rather strange aura, larger than it should be, really - who is more than happy to check Aziraphale in. “Room 7,” she says, and hands him the key. “Just a few doors down from your friend.” Aziraphale takes the key and thanks her, stiffly. As soon as he’s halfway up the grand staircase, he thinks, my friend? and turns, but the clerk is nowhere to be seen. Strange. Aziraphale snaps his bag into his room and finds Crowley’s room. It’s easy enough; he just follows the music, a great thumping be-bop that Aziraphale swears shakes the picture frames in the hallways. He has to knock, hard, and contemplates bursting it open with his shoulder when the door swings open. Crowley hangs on the doorframe, wearing a black silk robe - terribly short and riskily askew - an awful red mustache, and not much else. “Ah, Aziraphale! Good. You got my message,” Crowley says.
Aziraphale wrinkles his nose at the smells pouring out of the room: marijuana smoke, too much incense, an awful amount of booze.
“Crowley,” says Aziraphale, pushing past him, as Crowley says, “Yeah, come on in, Aziraphale.”
Aziraphale stops just inside, lets Crowley close the door, and crosses his arms over his chest. He says, “what is that outside?” He points at the window.
“Oh, ah,” says Crowley, looking confused. “Uhm, well, that’s the desert. It’s-”
“I don’t mean the desert, Crowley, I’m not an idiot. I mean the great big trap you’ve brought me into."
“Ah. Look, I’m sorry, Aziraphale, but-” Crowley makes a face like he’s going to be sick, then forces the rest out. “I need your help.” He sticks his tongue out and retches, silently.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Aziraphale says, already walking away to push aside the blinds - did Crowley ash a cigarette in these? Good Lord. He wipes his hand off on his trousers absentmindedly as he looks out. He can still see the shimmer when he turns his head just to the side. He says, “Why do you suppose the clerk seemed to be expecting me?”
“The clerk-” Crowley says, and stops. He’s gaping at Aziraphale when he turns around, eyes wide and yellow, mouth open unattractively. Goodness, that mustache really is dreadful. Very demonic. He thinks about telling Crowley, then decides not to feed his ego. “You talked to the clerk?”
“Obviously. That is how hotels work, Crowley. For most people, anyway. Crowley, I was rather surprised to find you at a place like this. It seems the sort of place you would normally call twee-”
Crowley races out of the room, down the hallway, and jumps the railing to the grand staircase - “Crowley!” Aziraphale says, trailing behind him, where he finds Crowley half-over the counter, ringing the bell desperately. “Crowley, have you lost your mind?”
“There’s something with the clerk,” Crowley growls out, but Aziraphale is moving on, drawn by the smell coming from the dining room - “Look, Crowley!” he says, his stomach starting to growl. “Lunch!” It really had been a very long drive. He turns around in the doorway to look at Crowley slumped dramatically over the counter. Crowley, feeling his eyes, looks up. Aziraphale gives him a look that says, coming?
Crowley huffs, straightens up, and follows him.
They end up by the pool later, because Aziraphale wants to dip his feet in, and so Crowley sprawls out beside him as Aziraphale rolls his trouser-legs up and dips his feet into the cool water. He sighs in pleasure. Crowley’s miracled up cocktails from the miraculously empty bar - “and where is everybody, anyway?” Aziraphale asks.
“Don’t know,” Crowley says morosely. He’s changed into a ridiculous black satin shirt and equally ridiculous pants. He’s got heels that Aziraphale hasn’t seen on him in ages, making him tower over Aziraphale when he stands, a great leaning sapling.
“Well, I can’t be gone for too long,” Aziraphale says. “There’s a staff retreat in four days.” He makes a face. “Gabriel says he has a ‘special surprise’ planned for us.”
“It’s the Sound of Music,” says Crowley, confidently. He snaps his fingers, and a briefcase appears in his hand. “It’s always the Sound of Music. Sounds like I did you a favor.”
Aziraphale pretends not to hear him, but peers over his shoulder as he starts digging in the briefcase. “Crowley!” he says. “That’s full of drugs.”
“Well I bloody well hope so,” Crowley says, coming out with a crumpled joint. He glares at it and it straightens out with a little zing! He hands it to Aziraphale, who frowns at him, then takes it. Their fingers brush. He puts it in his mouth and leans forward, expectantly, as Crowley flourishes a lighter out of thin air and lights it for him. Aziraphale inhales, sits up, then exhales. He closes his eyes and turns his face up to the desert sun, lets it beat down red and warm on his eyelids, his face, his shoulders.
He can feel Crowley tugging the joint out of his hand, hears him breathe, then Crowley’s pressing the joint, wet from Crowley’s mouth, back into his mouth. “I say,” Aziraphale mumbles around it. “I don’t suppose you have any opium in that briefcase of yours, have you?”
“Nope, sorry,” says Crowley, not sounding sorry at all.21 “But I do have hashish.”
"That’s not at all the same thing,” Aziraphale says tartly, but he simmers down considerably once Crowley starts digging it all out…
They spend, as far as Aziraphale can tell - based on the way the sun moves through the sky, followed by the moon, which is very large and ghostly and feels very close out in the desert - a delightful number of days in dissolute pursuits. They have the entire hotel to themselves, and alternate between their rooms, the pool, the dining room, the lobby - Crowley sprawls over two uncomfortable orange plastic sofas pushed together,22 and Aziraphale liberates a particular armchair from the corner - and indulge. They haven’t seen each other in nearly five years, and there’s a lot to catch up on - escapades and gossip and close calls.
“You’ve changed your hair,” says Aziraphale one night, and Crowley says, “Don’t you like it?”
“I didn’t say that,” says Aziraphale.
“You didn’t have to,” says Crowley, whose hair positively leers at him. Not to mention the things the mustache is muttering to Aziraphale.23
“Well, I did prefer it the last - time I saw you,” says Aziraphale, faltering, because the last time he’d seen Crowley he’d handed him a tartan bottle of his own self-destruction and then had admitted some of his own self-destruction. You go too fast for me, which is, after all, the same as saying, I want to come too, but I need you to wait up.
“Mmm,” says Crowley.
They’re both silent. They’re settled in front of the coal stove, where a fire is always burning - the desert gets cold at night - and they stare into it in silence. Aziraphale says, casting about for something to fill the silence, which he feels swelling between them - “Crowley, do you have a painting of yourself in your room?”
“Yeah. S’weird, innit?”
“Very,” says Aziraphale. “I wonder where they came from?”
“Who knows,” grunts Crowley. Aziraphale leans back and looks at the mirrors above them. He can see himself and Crowley as if through the underside of a lake. It’s odd. He shouldn’t be here. He should be - he tries to get ahold of it but it slips away from him, slimy and skittering in a haze of hash. Like a snake.
Crowley stretches. Like a snake. Aziraphale snickers. He says, “You’re not doing this, are you?”
“Doing what?” Crowley asks, and turns bleary eyes towards him. They’re wide and round and somehow manage to look red and enflamed while being all yellow. Aziraphale’s own eyes feel like Crowley’s look, he thinks, like he’s got great big glass balls stuffed in his face. Every one of his near-thousand eyes24 feels like it’s burning and red. A proper dope fiend Aziraphale thinks, and giggles. Next, he might even ask Crowley to listen to some bebop.25 As if on cue, music starts to fill the space, soft and wavering. Crowley sways slightly on his perch, like a charmed snake. Aziraphale frowns. “Did you just do that?”
“Do what?”
“The-” he gestures, pointing up. “The bebop?”
“Huh?” Crowley sits up and listens. “Huh. Yeah. No. No, didn’t do that. Was thinking about it, though. This song in particular, even.”
“As was I,” says Aziraphale, frowning, and then says, “Well, not this song. Crowley, there’s something strange going on here.”
“Yeah?”
"And you’re not at all worried about it?”
Crowley shrugs. “What’s the worst that could happen? I don’t think anyone can actually get to us.”
“My staff retreat,” Aziraphale says, helplessly.
“You can’t tell me you actually want to go to that.” Crowley leans forward. It seems to take a very long time; at one point, he has to recollect his limbs and rein them in. Aziraphale can see it happening, and is tremendously amused by it, but he doesn’t move to help Crowley out, either, because it’s taking everything Aziraphale has just to keep all his faces and wings from breaking out. Crowley finally leans forward with his bottle of wine. Aziraphale holds his glass out with both hands. They work together to pour the wine into the glass. Finished successfully, Crowley pulls the bottle back in with both hands. Their eyes meet, and they nod in satisfaction.
“Well, no,” Aziraphale says, “I don’t, but I did tell Gabriel I would be there. What if he comes looking for me?”
“Let him,” says Crowley expansively, and gestures towards his magic bag. “We have enough to go around."
Aziraphale snickers, then covers his mouth. Crowley grins, that delighted dopey grin of his he gets sometimes when he can’t help it. They settle back and watch the fire. Aziraphale doesn’t know for how long; time’s gotten funny, here, stretching out like taffy. Or maybe it’s just the drugs. He’s not really sure. At some point, he looks over. Crowley’s fallen asleep, bottle still in his hand, his head thrown back against the back of the uncomfortable-looking plastic sofa. Leave it to Crowley to find the most uncomfortable seat in the house and claim it as his own. It was like the demon was allergic to comfort. Still. Aziraphale gestures, and a thick afghan drapes itself over Crowley’s legs. He nods, and miracles himself a book from the nearby bookshelf - how horrid, just Women’s Day reprinted over and over and over again between the nice covers - and settles in.
After another three or four days - Aziraphale thinks - and an extensively large amount of marijuana, hash, and a few quaaludes Crowley had dug up from somewhere,26 which makes the time ooze into a rather delightful mid-afternoon haze that lasts all day until it drops, abruptly, into evening, at which point, it’s time to drink - Crowley says, “What we need to do is - is-”
“Is,” Aziraphale agrees pleasantly. They’re in Aziraphale’s room, room number seven, because Crowley’s room looks like a rockstar’s been in it,27 lately. There’s something bothering Aziraphale, but he’s trying to not let it bother him too much. It’s not just the painting, which unsettles him, or the sense that Crowley’s room is so different from his, with its sleek design. It’s not even the rest of the hotel or its missing clerk. It’s - it’s - he frowns. He’s supposed to be doing something. He’s supposed to - “Oh, bollocks,” he says, and puts down the joint. Crowley makes grabby fingers at it, and he rolls his eyes and passes it over. “We really must get out of here, dear boy. Someone’s going to come looking for us.”
“Not for me,” Crowley says glumly. “Probably haven’t even noticed me missing.”
“Yes, well, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
“Is that a trumpet?” Crowley picks up his head.
“No, no, that’s just the delicious tremolos,” Aziraphale says, dismissively.
“The what-”
“You know. See-” Aziraphale gestures with his fingers. “Little animals. Hear music. I’ve got them too. Right now, even. Nice, big, brassy trumpets.”
Crowley raises his head to stare at Aziraphale. “D’you mean the DTs?”
“No! I mean, like-” Aziraphale gets up and wanders over to the window, looking out. “Like now, when I look down, and imagine I see Gabriel, and Michael, and Uriel, and oh, there’s Sandalphon…”
Crowley gets up and leans on the window beside him, their arms brushing, and looks down. “Oh, bugger,” he says.
Aziraphale says, “If you insist. You might have to do most of the work, though…”28
“No, look!” Crowley points a shaking finger. Gabriel looks up and waves at Aziraphale, who waves back, hesitantly. Crowley ducks back, leaning on the wall beside the window.
Aziraphale looks, really Looks. “Oh, bugger,” he says.
≠≠
Aziraphale musters himself to go downstairs and meet the angels, while Crowley slinks down the staircase and plasters himself around the corner to watch. Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Sandalphon all stare down Aziraphale, who smiles at them, nervously.
“Neat place,” says Gabriel, looking around. Gabriel’s got on a suede fringe jacket and a set of muttonchops and the largest belt buckle Crowley’s ever seen. It hurts his eyes to look at too much; he thinks it’s probably an angelic weapon. “Inside a temple. I love it here. Still not neat enough to get out of the staff retreat.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,” says Aziraphale, not sounding very glad at all. “I, uhm. Well, it’s an infernal trap! We must turn around and leave, as soon as we can.”
“Oh, but you mustn’t,” says the clerk, who is suddenly there, sliding keys across the counter. Gabriel reaches out and takes one, seemingly without thinking about it. Crowley curses under his breath and presses closer to the wall. He feels the textured wallpaper against his face and stares at the clerk, willing her to turn and look at him.
“Aziraphale, what are you going on about now?” Gabriel says, turning to him. “And why are your eyes so red?”
Crowley slaps a hand over his mouth. If it wasn’t so terrifying, he’d get the giggles. Hell, he might get them anyway, he thinks, a little hysterically, as Aziraphale says, “It’s um. Sand. I got sand in them.”
“Well, maybe you should stop looking at it then,” Gabriel says, and shakes his head at the others like, can you believe it.
Sanctimonious prick, Crowley thinks.
Gabriel picks his head up and sniffs, suddenly, turning towards where Crowley’s hidden. Crowley freezes. “I smell something demonic,” he says, turning to Aziraphale in accusation.
“Oh, well, that’s just America,” starts Aziraphale, as Gabriel starts to take a step towards where Crowley is-
“Ugh, what’zzzz that zzzzmell,” buzzes a familiar voice, and Crowley about discorporates as Beelzebub, Dagon, Hastur, and Ligur shiver into the space, looking around them. The angels and demons face off, sneering at each other. Crowley curses again, shrinking back further. If he goes now, he could probably get to the bag and leave. He hasn’t tried digging his way out yet, he thinks, in a rush of inspiration. He probably could, use the ice bucket as a shovel-
“Crowley!!” Beelzebub bellows, and he jumps. “I know you’re up here. I can smell you.”
Crowley curses some more, weighs his options, and then slinks out. Aziraphale looks at him miserably.
“Aziraphale!” says Gabriel. “Did you know he was here?”
“Wow, my mortal enemy!” says Crowley, pretending to do a double-take. “Avast!”
“Avaunt,” says Aziraphale, as if by rote.
“What manner of trap is this, Aziraphale?” says Gabriel, turning to him.
“That's what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Aziraphale says.
“Trap?” says Beelzebub. “Crowley, you worthless rotter, you walked us into a trap?”
“I didn’t invite you here,” he says, sulkily.
“Then you shouldn’t have been so zzzzzuspicious on the radio,” Beelzebub says. “Besidezzz, I have your annual review here.” They wave it as if dangling a little treat. Crowley groans.
“We’ve been, er. Battling for days!” Aziraphale says, a little wildly, as if he’s forgotten their story already. He probably has. He’s really very stoned, if Crowley’s any judge of it. The clerk is checking in the demons, who don’t seem to know what to do with the keys. Dagon won’t take hers until Beelzebub forces it into her hands. Ligur bites his key, then, satisfied, puts it in his pocket. Hastur stares at his wildly.
“And you haven’t gotten the better of him yet?” Michael says, with a look of disgust on her face.
“Well, you know how it is,” Aziraphale says. “My, uh, power waxes at noon and starts to wane. He has the nighttime, you know. Earth things.” He nods. Crowley finds himself nodding along with him. Satan, he’s gone mad. He’s finally done it, gone round the twist. Absolutely bonkers.
“Why’re you staying in this shack, anyway?” Beelzebub says, making a face while they look around. Crowley’s trying to ignore them; he’s watching the clerk, who is finishing up, is smiling at them blandly, is starting to walk away.
“Listen to me,” Beelzebub growls at him, “you’re not getting out of this, you little snake-”
“Hang on just a sec,” he says desperately, “this is important-” as he tries to go after the clerk.
“Oh no you don’t,” Beelzebub says, one hand on the back of his wide lapels, reining him back.
They drag him into a nearby conference room - he and Aziraphale throw each other helpless looks, as Gabriel starts steering Aziraphale away, telling him with great delight about airplane meals - and Beelzebub throws him down. “Sit,” they say, and Crowley sits. The room is a perfect replica of Beelzebub’s office in Hell, and they look around and sniff. He had sworn this room was just a coat closet yesterday, but to be fair, he can’t really remember. And then he stops thinking about anything as Beelzebub gives him a thorough review - “you’ve missed your last five,” they grin at him, nastily. Finally, it’s over, and he’s released, hours later, dazed and blinking, into the hotel lobby. His feet ache slightly from the third-degree burns, which are already healing. Beelzebub was a big believer in Holding Their Feet to the Fire. It turned out they had actually read some of the management books Crowley had sent in along with his reports. His mistake. 29 It is almost evening when he stumbles out, cocktail hour, and he’s amazed to find the demons and angels mingling, 30 most of them holding drinks, even if they’re staring at them with intense distrust. Dagon gestures Crowley over to her excitedly, probably to talk about the koi pond, he’d bet, based on the damp spots on her clothes, and as he goes, he passes Gabriel’s defensively still-full cocktail, and grins.
Aziraphale’s nowhere to be found, so after Crowley makes his social rounds, he slithers away to Aziraphale’s room and lets himself in with the key he’d nicked earlier. Aziraphale has his head in hands, and jumps when he comes in. “Crowley! How did you get in here?”
Crowley dangles his stolen key. Aziraphale rolls his eyes, then slumps back down. “I don’t know what I’ll do,” he wails. “Gabriel will notice something is up.”
“No he won’t.” Crowley grins.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not going to be noticing anything pretty soon.” He waggles an empty jar that had - as of fifteen minutes ago - contained the rest of their mescaline.
“You gave the archangel Gabriel mescaline?” Aziraphale hisses.
Crowley shrugs. “Seemed like he could use it. Besides, s’not just him. I did all of em.”
“Good Lord. We’ve got to get out of here!” Aziraphale says, jumping up and beginning 31 to pace.
“Angel,” says Crowley, looking at him across the toppled table. “Let’s be reasonable about this.”
Aziraphale’s chest heaves. Margarita drips off the edge of the table, drip drip drip, loud in the silent room. Crowley watches his eyes dart all over the place. Bad, bad. The angel’s gone paranoid. Not that Crowley blames him. Having the collected host of Heaven around while you’re stoned out of your mind - and still work for them - can’t be at all pleasant. Crowley isn’t feeling so hot himself. He watches Aziraphale - and then Aziraphale breaks for the door. Crowley vaults the table and collars him. “Oh no you don’t,” he snarls, pushing him face first into the wall by the door. “What are you going to do, anyway?” he says to the back of Aziraphale’s head.
“I - I-”
“Warn him? He won’t listen to you. Just let him have it. Maybe he’ll get more tolerable.”
Aziraphale considers it. Crowley can tell. Then the angel’s shoulders slump. “Fine,” he says. “Alright. But we avoid him, if we can.”
“Fine by me,” says Crowley brightly. “Pool? Pool. Let’s go,” and he herds him out the door.
They spend a few hours at the pool, while dusk turns into night. Aziraphale calms down considerably with another joint and a few more cocktails and the distinct lack of any demons 32 or angels.33 By the time they head back inside, Aziraphale is beaming mistily at anything he turns his face to, his cheeks a ruddy flush, and he’s walking very close to Crowley, and keeps putting his hand on Crowley’s arm, which keeps doing weird things to his insides. Or it’s the drugs. Definitely the drugs.
On their way in, they pass Gabriel trying to climb the grand staircase, very slowly. He’s sweating, a look of intense concentration on his face as he stares down at his feet, fringed jacket swinging with each exaggerated step.
“Watch out for the carpet!” Crowley says to him.
“Aziraphale!” says Gabriel, and Aziraphale steps up before Crowley can stop him. Gabriel says, “Why are you doing that?”
“Why - why am I doing what?” Aziraphale laughs nervously.
“That thing with your eyes.”
“What - I’m not doing anything with my eyes!” Crowley bites back a snicker as Gabriel leans closer and closer, until his forehead touches Aziraphale’s. “You’re funny.”
“Uhm. Thank you?”
“I like you.”
“Oh. Ah. Uhm - yes. Oh - look! There’s Michael. Must go. Bye!” Aziraphale zips off, then collapses down behind a column and drinks, heavily, from the pink Champagne he takes off a tray nearby.
Crowley says, appearing behind him, “You are doing that thing with your eyes again, you know.”
He jumps, spilling champagne out of the bottle. “What thing,” he hisses at Crowley, sitting upright and glaring at him.
“Y’know. That thing you do when you’re really drunk? Or stoned, apparently.”
Aziraphale gives him a blank look.
Crowley’s face freezes, then starts to twitch. “You mean you don’t - you didn’t know-” when he collapses in laughter, Aziraphale leaves him there. Crowley thinks about going after him as he sees him head out across the lobby, champagne bottle in hand, but decides against it. He’ll be fine. Probably.
“Crowley!” he hears. “Get over here.”
“ere, what’s he got in that bag?” says Ligur suspiciously as he goes over to the demons, huddled around the fireplace. Must’ve felt homey. Might as well be hanged for a snake as a lamb, Crowley thinks, and grins as he opens the bag. Some of the smarter demons lean back.
“Ever hear of hash, Ligur?” he says.
“Yeah. Innit what you do to humans?”
“Nah, that’s smash. Don’t you know anything?” Beelzebub says.
“I think you eat it,” Dagon says, leaning forward. Crowley looks at her, impressed. So some of these demons have culture after all. 34 Maybe not all was lost.
“Gather round,” he said, grinning, much the same way he had at Eve, all those years ago…
≠≠
This is Aziraphale’s worst nightmare. Or, well, it would be, if Aziraphale slept, which he doesn’t, because if he did, he would have dreams like this. Dreams where an entire American hotel, in the form of a very small bed-and-breakfast, is chock-full of demons and angels milling around, all of them varying degrees of sober. He’s just waiting for fighting to break out, or, even worse, for one of the demons to say, “Aziraphale, eh, is that the angel that’s always hanging about…?”
He spots Crowley wearing a tail-eating grin, wearing what passes for a waiter’s jacket and offering a cocktail to Michael. Aziraphale rushes forward, grabbing the glass as she’s about to take it - dubiously, mind you - and downs it in one. He recognizes that grin. He can deal with Gabriel, as Crowley would put it, “tripping balls.” He cannot deal with Michael in the same sort of state.
“Sorry,” he gasps to Michael, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “So sorry. I’m just so - thirsty - thwarting all these wiles.”
Michael looks at him in disgust, turns on her heel, and walks away. Aziraphale collapses.
“What’d you go and do that for?” Crowley hisses at him. “That thing was loaded full of acid!”
“Yes, I had rather figured,” Aziraphale pants. Then he freezes and says, “Acid?”
Crowley gapes at him, then pulls him behind a pillar as he continues. “Gabriel is one thing, that’s, well that’s almost funny-”
“It’s hilarious, and you know it,” Crowley says sourly.
“But Michael? Crowley, I don’t even think she’s had a glass of water! She’ll get her sword out and start rampaging, and with us all trapped here…”
Crowley shudders. “Point taken.”
“My dear, do you even think before you wile?”
“In my defense, I haven’t been capable of thinking in, like. Some time. Aziraphale, you just took a lot of acid. Like. A lot a lot.”
“Oh dear,” he says. He slumps back. Crowley’s got his arms crossed over his chest as he leans back against a pillar - Aziraphale blinks, what is that doing here? And watches him. He’s worried, Aziraphale can tell, can practically feel it vibrating off him.
Aziraphale says, faintly, “How long do I have before it - er - ‘kicks in?’”
Crowley grins then, sharp and snakelike. “Oh, you’ll know,” he says, and laughs.
Aziraphale hears his laughter a long time after he slips away.
But Aziraphale doesn’t; he spends one hour, then most of another circulating around the room, saying, “Yes, certainly,” to Michael, and “Oh, do you really think so?” to Uriel. He watches them, but they don’t show any extraordinary signs of intoxication, although he swears he sees Uriel hiding something behind their back as he comes up to them and Beelzebub out in the gardens. He sniffs, suspiciously.
“Something the matter?” Uriel says loftily.
“Thought I, er. Never mind. I’ll just, ah-” he says, and their laughter follows him inside, where he comes across Gabriel again, still trying to climb the stairs. He’s crawling, now, and as Aziraphale passes, he grabs his ankle. “Aziraphale. Aziraphale. I’m climbing.”
“Yes, you certainly are,” says Aziraphale, looking down at him.
“This stairway. It goes to Heaven.”
“Does it really?” Aziraphale shakes his foot to kick Gabriel’s hand off, subtly, he thinks.35 Maybe he should’ve let Michael take the drink after all, he thinks, sourly. Nothing’s happening. All this fuss for nothing. He looks around at the scene below him - conscious of noise, movement, looking over to see Gabriel pulling himself up on the railing. “Aziraphale!” he hears behind him, and mercifully, he spots Sandalphon. “Sandalphon!” Aziraphale says, hurrying down the steps, “Gabriel needs you, up there, there’s a good, er, angel,” he says, clapping his shoulder, and escapes.
Bollocks. He’d wanted to head to his room - no one will notice him missing, he thinks - but he’s got to find another way up to his room now. The grand staircase is clearly out of the question. There’s got to be a back stairwell somewhere - for the staff at least - but he realizes, skirting his way through demons and angels,36 with a sinking feeling, that there is no staff, is there, except that strange clerk Crowley seems to be feuding with for one demonic reason or another.
Speaking of - he turns to look for Crowley, slouching against a wall, to turn The Eyes37 on him, and sees - how curious. Crowley is ducking and weaving through the crowd, towards a door Aziraphale hadn’t noticed before, set into the wall. Aziraphale frowns and follows him. The hotel seems to change, flickering with every step: cozily Victorian - dreadfully modern - a vast temple stretching high above them - a shabby little shack where light comes in the cracks. Aziraphale catches glimpses of it in the mirrors above, horribly wrong and strange, nauseating him in pulses of color and reality matching with the music, which changes just as rapidly. Gritting his teeth and putting his head down, he sees Crowley slip through the door; he follows him, pushing through himself and coming into - a long dark vast hallway, cold and featureless, stretching endlessly before him.
“Crowley, wait!" he calls out.
“Can’t! I’m too late, too late!” Crowley says, not even turning around.
Aziraphale huffs and hurries after him. The hallway slopes down and down, it seems, makes him feel like he’s falling, and he gets the impression that he’s flashing past dozens of doorways. “How odd,” he says, out loud, “Curiouser and curiouser,” still following Crowley, just before him. “You’re going too fast for me!” Aziraphale says, and Crowley just says, “Too late!” back in a strange distorted echo, and then Aziraphale, trying to put on a final burst of speed, Crowley nearly within reach, stumbles, trips, and then he really is falling.
He falls for a long time. Strange things flash before his eyes: a burning hearth, glimpses of a Greek temple he hasn’t seen in a very long time, a full buffet of food. When he lands, it’s hard, and he’s got to pick himself up and dust himself off. There’s no sign of Crowley. The hallway is very dark, and he sees, down at the end of it, a door with a soft shining light spilling from it.
“Ah,” he says. He straightens himself up and heads towards it. Surely this is where he’ll find Crowley, he thinks, as he opens the door to see-
He’s in a garden. He blinks in the bright sunlight. Hadn’t it just been night-? No matter. It’s vast and green, sweet-smelling and warm; he can hear insects buzzing above all the flowers, bringing life to all things. He breathes deeply in, then out. “Oh that’s nice,” he says, “this is rather more like it,” and he begins to walk through the flowers, waist-high; strange, he feels almost like he’s shrinking, or maybe the flowers are getting taller; he’s not really sure, they’re almost over his head now. Funny, except for the strange flowers, this garden feels almost like- “You!” he hears and jumps about a mile. “Who are you?”
He looks all around and sees - oh dear. Lord Beelzebub reclines on - he leans closer - is that a giant mushroom? Smoking a hookah nearly as large as themself. Their eyes fix on him.
“Ah, greetings, Lord Beelzebub,” he says, looking over his shoulder. Where is Crowley?
“Who are you?” Beelzebub buzzes at him.
“I’m - Aziraphale.”
“Who?”
“Aziraphale? Guardian of the Eastern Gate? Principality of Earth? Fourth tenor in the choir?”
“No. Sorry. Don’t remember you.” Beelzebub takes a huge inhale on the hookah and blows out again in a vast buzzing swarm of smokey flies, which swarm to Aziraphale’s face and up his nose. He coughs, then again, and then the smoke cloud intensifies until he can barely breathe. He waves it away to laughter, nasty and buzzing and unpleasant, and he turns around, and the door is, suddenly, right behind him, where he swears it hadn’t been before, but he wrenches it open and bursts through, slamming it shut behind him.
He’s back in the strange dark hallway, with too many doors. “Crowley?” he says again, but it just falls into silence. Not even an echo. He starts to walk down the hallway, but it’s very dark, hard to see, and he’s got one hand on the wall, feeling his way until he comes to another door that glows faintly around the edges. It feels - well, it feels angelic. Probably his own room, he thinks comfortably, and opens it, stepping in. There’s fabric in front of his face, wads of it, and he wrestles his way through, smelling old fabrics and mothballs and lavender sachets.
When he pushes his way out, he blinks in the bright light. “Aziraphale!” Gabriel says. He’s standing in his office in Heaven with its white gleaming walls and glass desks and view down into Hell that Aziraphale always has to pretend not to look at when he’s in for his performance review. Except - how odd; it’s not a view of Hell at all at the moment, but a view of the hotel lobby, where the demons and angels circulate. He can see Crowley draped over an uncomfortable-looking plastic orange sofa, drink in the air, pontificating on something to a bored group of demons.
Gabriel spreads his arms wide. He’s standing in a truly horrible silk robe, swirled blue and gold and white, with matching slippers. “Isn’t this neat?” he says, and as he picks at it, the robe slips to reveal - Aziraphale hurriedly averts his eyes. “I just found it in that wardrobe there.” He points behind Aziraphale. “You know, the air is so strange here. You would not believe what happened to me on the stairs.”
“Yes, I rather think I might,” says Aziraphale. “I have to go, Gabriel - I’ll - I’ll catch up with you later,” he says, a bit desperately, and dives back into the wardrobe.
The hallway is even worse this time, heaving under him, and he finds he has to drop to his hands and knees and crawl along it to keep his balance. It’s most undignified, and he abstains from calling out Crowley’s name, because he doesn’t want the demon to see him like this. Thank goodness he had drunk this instead of Michael, he thinks. He can’t even imagine what she would have done. He crawls until he passes another door with light oozing out underneath it, and then he crawls back to it, and listens, pressing his face to the carpet to peer under it. He can see table legs, unfamiliar shoes, and hears the clink of china. A proper tearoom, he thinks, suddenly, and he’s suddenly so thirsty, he pulls himself up with the doorknob, and, hanging on it, opens the door to see-
three demons around a small round tea table, a great big piping samovar in the middle of them, and several bottles of vodka besides. An ashtray smolders with a hash pipe. The demons turn to stare at him through the piping steam: one with a lizard on its head, one with a frog on its head, and a small rotund dragon.
“Oh - so sorry,” Aziraphale says, backing towards the door. “I must have - ah - lost my way-”
“Here, tell us a joke,” says the frog demon. “We’re trying to improve Hastur’s sense of humor.” This one must be Ligur. Crowley’s talked about him.
“A joke?” says Aziraphale. The gray demon turns eyes on him and says nothing, silent.
“Good luck,” says the small dragon, mournfully.
Aziraphale, stupidly, says the first thing that comes to mind. “Why is a Raven like a writing desk?”
They all stare at each other, then him, then back to each other.
“Ere, I know this one,” says Ligur. “Paimon crushed both. You know. Sat on Axel by accident once. And they broke that desk.”
Aziraphale has no earthly idea who Paimon is. He says, “Er - not exactly.”
“No, no,” says the dragon. “Something about - er-” he falters.
“Tell us, angel,” says Hastur, his eyes dark, fixed on Aziraphale.
“I don’t - er - maybe let’s try another one, yes, that one wasn’t very good.”
“No, I want to know that one,” Hastur says.
“It doesn’t, ah - knock knock!” Aziraphale says desperately.
They look around. “Yes?”
“You’re supposed to say who’s there.”
“But there’s no one there. It’s just us.”
“Well, yes, but it’s a joke, you see, you’re pretending-”
“It’s the raven,” says Hastur, confidently. He leans back in the chair. He almost smiles. “I know this one.”
“Well, no, it’s not the raven, forget the raven, the raven’s not even real, it was one of those jokes that doesn’t have an answer, it’s pointless, you see-”
The demon howls in rage, scrambling for Aziraphale. As he does so, he upsets the tea table, and the shrieks of the little dragon demon, doused with boiling liquid, fill the air as Aziraphale scrambles for the door-
He slams it shut behind him and races down the hall, which heaves under his feet, still, as he staggers from wall to wall. He opens the door to another room, dashes inside, and slams it shut. Putting his back against it, he pants. “What’s happening to me?” he asks the room at large.
You’re high, Aziraphale. Also, this hotel is cursed.
“I - what - my Lord!” he says, wheeling around. Should he drop to his knees? He’s not going to drop to his knees. Mostly because he’s not sure if he could get up again if he does. He stares. He’s in the bookshop, his bookshop, except there’s an enormously large striped cat blinking at him from his armchair.
“Oh, good Lord,” he says.
Yes, exactly, the cat says, in Her voice.
“Am I - is this really happening?”
Is any of this really happening? God says. Sometimes I ask myself that. Often I ask myself that. When I’m not napping.
“I - ah - shouldn’t you know?”
How could I? If you’re all just figments of my imagination, of course you would tell me you’re real.
“Oh,” says Aziraphale, faintly. “Right. Of course.” He feels a little faint. Is he having an existential crisis? Do angels even have those?
God blinks.
Aziraphale says, “Wait, you know about drugs?”
I know about everything, Aziraphale. Yes, even that, she says, and he flushes. Don’t worry about it, She says, kindly. It’s just the way I made you. You can’t help it, you know.
“Oh. Good. I suppose.” He hopes She hadn’t watched. I closed my eyes once you started. I barely peeked, She says. God licks Herself viciously, smoothing down her chest fur. What do you want, Aziraphale? “Er - mostly to find my room. And to stop being high, if that’s what’s happening here. I wouldn’t mind being home, of course-”
Take the door to outside, She says, bored. She glances behind him. Same door you came in. She starts to disappear, stripe by stripe, as Aziraphale, nettled beyond belief, snaps, “If I knew that-”
Yes? She says, fading back in. She blinks at him.
“Ah. I’ll just, er. Find my way out, then,” he says, smiling, and fumbling behind himself. He swears as he leaves he hears Her say, If you still had your sword, you could use it to find the way!
Aziraphale mutters something under his breath that it’s probably best God doesn’t hear. But maybe She does, because he hears laughter behind him. Or maybe it’s purring. He’s not really sure.
Perhaps if he had his sword to light the way, he would know, he thinks.
≠≠
Crowley’s laying out on the hood of the Bentley when Aziraphale finds him, staring up at the stars, which are scattered overhead like sand. Crowley feels scraped out, empty. He swears he can feel the raw hole where his grace had been. Maybe it’s just all the drugs. He’s coming down, he’s almost out, and he could keep going, he could, but - what’s the point of it all? Really. When he gets out - and he will, he knows that - it’ll all be back to the same thing. He and Aziraphale on different sides of a war, end of the world, end of everything, really. And then - he feels something lift and lighten in him, feels something knock into the bottom of his boot. He half-sits up on his elbows. Aziraphale’s there, hands held before him, staring at him. His hair’s a little wild, something a little crazy in his eyes.
Aziraphale says, “You’re not going to rush away from me again, are you?”
“Huh?” says Crowley, trying to refocus his eyes from the stars, above, to Aziraphale, up close.
“Never mind,” Aziraphale says. “Shove over,” and then he hikes himself up on the hood, grunting a little - Crowley winces and mentally tells the Bentley she better not scratch - and lays beside Crowley. The hood’s narrow enough that they’re pressed into each other, shoulder to hip to knee. Crowley swings his gaze back to the stars. Aziraphale joins him.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, hesitantly. “This can’t last.”
Crowley rolls onto his side slightly. “Oh, you’ve got another four hours at least. You’re just at the low. Sorry. It really was meant for Michael. Went a little heavy.” Aziraphale is staring up at the clear sky, so purple and scattered with stars above them. He bites his lip. “Not that,” he says. “This.”
“Yeah. I mean, Hastur and Ligur seemed pretty happy when I left them, though-”
“I walked in on them having some sort of tea party,” Aziraphale says, and shudders.
Crowley frowns. “You read too many books, angel.”
“No. I mean. Well, yes. But that’s not what I mean. I mean - well, you can feel it, can’t you?” Aziraphale doesn’t want to be alone, Crowley is suddenly certain. There’s a plea in his voice. He doesn’t have to say it. Crowley knows.
“Yeah,” says Crowley, voice rough. That’s why the drinking. The drugs. The end of the world is coming. He can feel it coming, a big swooping rush like a raptor, a bird of prey, blowing his hair back from his face. It feels like rock and roll, like a heavy bass, like a bad high, rushing on him closer and closer…
“What are we gonna do, angel?” he says, voice low, and Aziraphale turns to look at him. Their faces are very, very close.
“What we always do, I suppose,” Aziraphale says, and tries for a smile, and fails. His eyes are very red, half-lidded. “Go along as far as we can.”
“And then…?”
“And then,” Aziraphale says. His hand shifts on the car hood like he’s going to take Crowley’s hand, then he thinks better of it. His chest heaves in a sigh.
“Crowley,” he says, and gestures to the hotel, which is gleaming with light in the distance. “What does it look like to you? The hotel, I mean.”
He shrugs. “A hotel, I guess. Dunno, angel. Why?”
“I just had the most curious-” he sits up and looks around for some reason, then lays back down. “You know, I think I talked to God. Better not talk about it here. To me,” he says, hesitantly, “it looks like a rather quaint bed and breakfast. Rather Victorian, you know. All those little built-ins that you hate.”
“Dust catchers,” says Crowley automatically, and turns to stare at him. “Angel, what are you talking about?” he says. “It’s clearly a modern hotel. Lots of white. Very Greek.”
“And Gabriel saw a temple. Oh, dear,” says Aziraphale. “I think we’re being tricked, you know. She said - well. Never mind what She said.”
“The clerk?” says Crowley. 38 He sits up. His mind is racing. “Trickster god? Nah, can’t be right. Why go to all this trouble? I mean, sure, the hospitality’s nothing to complain about. I mean there’s always food, and wine, and Satan, the fire’s even always going-”
He freezes. They stare at each other.
“Oh,” says Aziraphale. “Oh, that’s very good.”
Crowley hisses, a low warning in the desert night. He starts to scramble off the car hood- Aziraphale pulls him back, hand on his wrist. His touch is soft and very warm and very firm. “Stay,” he says. “For now? There’ll be time in the morning.”
“Fine,” Crowley grumbles, and settles back.
“Now tell me about that one…?” Aziraphale says, in his bright I’m-encouraging-you-aren’t-I-clever tone, pointing up at the stars, and Crowley grumbles, and sighs, because he isn’t taken in at all, and then he tells Aziraphale all about it.
They fall asleep like that. Crowley wakes around sunrise. They’re pressed together. He’s warm where they’re pressed together, and cold where they’re not. Six thousand years of friendship feels like that. He looks over at Aziraphale, who is - for once, in a number of times Crowley can count on one hand - asleep. A week-long bender’ll do that to anyone. Crowley spares a thought to Raoul Duke, then puts him out of his mind forever. There are more important things to think about, after all. He looks at Aziraphale, sun lighting the curls in his hair, the swoop of his nose. He’s snoring slightly. It’s - well, it’s cute. And not in a twee way. It makes Crowley want to crawl all over him and press his nose to that spot under his jaw-
Instead he rolls another joint, and watches the sun come up over the desert. It takes forever. It’s near endless.
≠≠
They go inside and lean on the bell. Nothing. “Oh, fine,” says Aziraphale, and with a gesture, summons a man who had been rather rude to him at the train station in Newark.
“What the-” the man says.
“Can I help you?” says the clerk, suddenly and instantly there, and they act as one, Crowley leaning across the counter to grab her by her wide lapels, Aziraphale stepping around the counter. The man Aziraphale had summoned blusters, stepping forward, his arm raised, and Crowley snaps the fingers of his free hand to freeze him in place.
“Problem with your rooms, sirs?” says the clerk politely.
“Am I right in that I have the privilege of addressing Hestia?” says Aziraphale politely.
She giggles. “Took you long enough.”
“Let us go,” snarls Crowley.
“Now now,” says Aziraphale, and when Crowley wheels a betrayed look on him, he says, “No need to be rude. Hestia really did show us some exemplary hospitality, you know.” At a pointed look, Crowley lets go of her.
She beams. “Tell your friends!” she says.
“They’re all here,” Aziraphale says dryly. “Really, my dear, I must insist that you let us go, right now.”
“You don’t like it here?” She sounds disappointed.
“It’s quite nice,” Aziraphale says, gently. “But it’s not - well, it’s not home.”
She wilts a little. “Not many places are, anymore,” she says. “There’s no place for me. And I’ve been trying hotels, I really have, but they’re so impersonal.”
“You didn’t have to trap us here,” Crowley says.
“I need people to stay here. No one comes here.”
“You need the power,” Aziraphale says. “You feed off them.”
“I don’t hurt them,” she says, petulantly.
“No,” says Aziraphale, thinking. “The opposite, I suppose.”
“This is the best I’ve felt in ages,” she says. “No one ever comes here. No one remembers this place."
Aziraphale and Crowley exchange a look. “I think something could be arranged,” Aziraphale says, slowly. Crowley thinks, then snaps his fingers.39 They nod at each other in satisfaction.
“My dear, you really must let us go,” Aziraphale says again, gently.
“Oh, you’re free to go,” she says, a little sulkily, pulling slips out of the book and handing them off. “All you needed to do to leave was to get other guests to take your place. That’s all. It’s very simple.”
Crowley wheels to gesture at a pile of demons passed out on the sofas which, as they watch, flicker between a hunk of coral, a chair made of bones and skulls, chintz chairs, hard plastic chairs. “What about them? Do they count?”
“But of course.”
He sputters. “Wh-Why didn’t you tell us?”
“It’s every guest’s personal duty to check out. How was I to know you didn’t want to extend your stay? And you didn’t return your key!”
Crowley growls and slaps it on the counter. Aziraphale, reaching into his pocket, places his there, a little more gently.
“You could stay here forever, you know,” she says a little sadly.
“With this lot?” Crowley says. “No thanks.”
“I could kick them out. Just the two of you,” she says. “Nice private getaway?”
“Wouldn’t you be here as well?” Aziraphale points out, rather reasonably, he thinks. “Oh you’d hardly notice me,” she says.
“It does sound nice,” says Aziraphale, and the way his eyes flit to Crowley’s and away feels like a confession. “But it can’t last. The world’s going to end in forty-five years, you know.”
“Not here, it won’t,” she says. “Pocket universe. It’s a whole - thing.” She gestures. “Think about it. You never have to worry about them again.”
They both consider it. Aziraphale thinks about it; days spent by the pool in the sun, drink in hand, a little stoned, Crowley half-nude and glistening in the sun. No one to bother them, no one to watch. Just what they’ve always wanted. When he turns, he sees Crowley’s considering it too, if the little smirk is anything to judge by.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” she says.
And then Aziraphale, heaving a sigh, thinks of the bookshop. Soho. Billions of people bustling around, headed to their doom, in no short order. To leave them like they had gotten on the ark and sailed away?
Next to him, he hears Crowley coming to the same conclusion.
“That is a very kind and generous offer, my dear,” Aziraphale says gently. “But I’m afraid we have to decline.”
“Do we?” says Crowley, in a low voice. “Think about it, angel.”
“I have,” Aziraphale says. “I can’t let - I can’t leave them to it."
“Well I’m here anytime,” Hestia says. “Forever, probably. You can check out anytime you like,” she says, “But I can never leave.”40
“Thank you, dear,” says Aziraphale. “Maybe we’ll see you again.”
They move towards the door, out into the sun. Aziraphale takes a deep breath in, already breathing more freely. Maybe it’s the lack of intoxicants. “Should we-?” Aziraphale says, looking over his shoulder at the heap of angels passed out around the pool.
“Nah,” Crowley says. “Tell you what,” he adds, as he pulls the Bentley keys out of his pocket, tosses them in the air and catches them, a sparkle of metal in the desert sun. “Ever been to Vegas, angel?”
“Oooh, no,” says Aziraphale. “What’s it like?”
“You’re in for a treat,” Crowley says, as they climb into the Bentley. He cranks the key, and the engine roars to life. He points it out towards the desert, towards the open road, and guns it. They race out into the wild sands, wind in Aziraphale’s hair, delightful and free, headed to Vegas, a demon and an angel and a bag full of trouble - but all of that is a story for another time.
≠≠
1. There had been, of course, that time with the fermented date wine in Babylon, when he had woken up in the King’s bathtub face down, and then the time with that mildewed plant drink in the Americas, when he had woken up on top of a sacrificial altar just in the nick of time - that was a setup and a half, the bastards - and then, of course, there had been the time with the mead Aziraphale had brewed himself - although neither of them remembered that one, so it didn’t count. To a lesser extent, there had been the time with Leo, and the time in Haiti - heh, and then the thing with the horse statue.
That last one was the angel’s fault. He had goaded Crowley into it. back
2. “Crowley, where did you get these? I know what they’re given out for,” Aziraphale would hiss, and Crowley would prod and pry, say things like, “How do you know that, angel, and by the way, what were you up to the last time you were in America-” just to see him get redder and redder, and his posture more and more uptight. back
3. And mustache. back
4. Although a few years ago, with their characteristic eerie timing, Beelzebub had called Crowley with Aziraphale in the car to berate him about his latest performance review, and they’d been so incensed over one of his reports that a few flies had spit out of the speakers in the car, swarming the small space as Crowley gritted his teeth and did ninety miles an hour in Central London and Aziraphale tried to silently swat them away.
Aziraphale had insisted on walking everywhere since that. back
5. “What’s wrong with my personal appearance?” Crowley had said. “S’very - very fashionable.”
“Do you really want to know?” Beelzebub had asked, leaning forward on their desk with a nasty grin, and Crowley had, rather fortunately, remembered he’d had somewhere else to be, after all. back
6. Crowley doesn’t notice. The man shifts constantly on the black leather seats, an expression of agony on his face, although Crowley just assumes it’s whatever he’s on.
Later, the human will discover that he has third degree burns on his back and bottom in the perfect shape of a 1926 Bentley seat. back
7. Not that Crowley is aware of that, which is how the Bentley can get away with it. back
8. See? Can’t trust those fuckers. back
9. Or it’s because he’d been driving slipshod through the desert, eschewing the road entirely. back
10. He doesn’t. It’s hard to say which of them enjoys it least, actually. back
11. Contrary to popular belief, auras do exist, and can be seen by supernatural entities.
They just have to be really, really drunk to do it.
Aziraphale had once mortally insulted Queen Mary because he hadn’t liked her aura. Not that Crowley blamed him. It was a nasty piece of work. back
12. It had only let go of his foot with a strange sucking sound. He had felt the rush of air past his ankle. back
13. He thinks. back
14. The last time he’d been in the American West, he and Aziraphale had had a great time, this sort of rival-cowboy thing going on.* Fake bar fights in the saloon, long nights out on the range, and then Gabriel had shown up and ruined it all.
*“You’re calling yourself Liberty?” Aziraphale had said, scandalized.
“Well, it is America, after all.” back
15. Or someone. The clerk comes to mind. back
16. It is a very good thing no one can see his mustache at this exact moment, because they would lose their sanity immediately. Some things are not meant to be perceived with the human eye. back
17. Not that he bragged about that part anymore. back
18. Or he would, if the carpet weren’t holding him down. back
19. How would Aziraphale know, you might ask yourself, being an angel of the Lord?
Well, sometimes Aziraphale got really bloody drunk, properly drunk, and then he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. Or his suspenders. back
20. You really can’t roll your eyes without a corporation.
Well, except Uriel. They really were very good at it. back
21. Aziraphale had discovered opium in the early second century BC and had rediscovered it in the first, third, ninth and eighteenth. It was just so pleasant. And all of those humans were really nice people. Didn’t talk much. Definitely didn’t want to purchase books.
Crowley had had to drag him out of more opium dens than he could count. The angel always put up a fight. back
22. And where he gets them from, Aziraphale doesn’t know. They clash with the Victorian decor horribly. He suspects that’s what Crowley likes about them. back
23. Positively indecent. The mustache is lucky Aziraphale is hard to offend. At least when it comes to that sort of thing. back
24. He’d had a thousand once before, a much more fitting number, but there had been the dart incident in court the one evening, and ever since then, his peripheral vision on the 19th plane had been a little shoddy. back
25. Let’s not get carried away, he thinks, and abruptly stops giggling.back
26. You might think an angel of the Lord didn’t get high.
You might be wrong. Aziraphale ate, and drank. Why stop there? It wasn’t so much different, he thought. He’d been alive a long time and had sampled most of what humans had to offer. Except acid.
Aziraphale turns down all the hallucinogens, despite Crowley’s wheedling and prying. “I do not need to hallucinate,” he says, firmly.
“Yeah, remember that time…”
“I do not,” Aziraphale snaps out, although he’s got vague hazy memories of picking a fight with a church gargoyle.
And losing. back
27. Not that Aziraphale’s ever even seen a rockstar. But he’s heard stories. back
28. Thirty years later, Crowley sits out out of a dead sleep, staring wildly at the wall. “MOTHERFU-” back
29. In Beelzebub’s defense, the elevator in the third wing broke down, and they were stuck there for three years with Paimon. back
30. Well, staring at each other distrustfully across the room and whispering to each other. But still. Progress over what happened the last time they were all in the same room together. back
31. After upending the table, the margarita pitcher, and two glasses. back
32. Demons pretty notoriously don’t trust any pit of water. Since, you know, that one time.
Part of why they all smelled so bad. back
33. Angels thought it looked unhygienic. back
34. An hour later, draped over a very large piece of coral that is surprised to find itself dug up from the Aegean Sea and used as a loveseat, Dagon says, mournfully, “I thought there’d be more eggs and potatoes in it.”
“What’re potatoes?” says Usher, who they’d apparently brought along.
“Type of drink,” Beelzebub says loftily.
Turns out the denizens of Hell got a lot more palpable stoned. Who’d’ve thought?*
*Aside from a certain principality. back
35. A few steps down, Michael snorts. back
36. Which is harder than it sounds, as most of them are cycling through a host of forms, swarms of insects and ospreys and large shrieking gusts of wind and the embodiment of middle management and a spreading pool of lava and wheels of fire he almost trips on - Excuse me, shimmers Uriel’s voice directly into his brain, and also somewhere down around his feet. back
37. No, not those Eyes, apparently, the ones he didn’t know he did, thank you very much. back
38. Not hearing the capital S. back
39. Somewhere, a man wakes up, humming a refrain: something come to him out of a dream. back
40. Crowley snaps his fingers again. The man crosses out a line and scribbles something else in. back