Work Text:
Azazel’s the one who greets him as he lands.
Typical, really. Samael’s always loved whipping up his little dramatic ironies. Except, he’s not supposed to be going by that name anymore, is he? What was it again? Satan?
“Get up,” Azazel says, popping the p and blowing way more air into that last syllable than was necessary.
“Ever heard of mint, Azazel?” he asks, wrinkling his nose as he fans away the awful stench of everything, not that it does him any good. “Your breath stinks worse than this place.”
Azazel makes a low rumbling sound, eyes glowing like embers pointed straight in his direction.
“Alright, alright, I’m getting up,” he says, raising his hands up in surrender before fumbling around for his staff, only for his hands to come up empty.
“Ah, so She took even that. Figures,” he thinks as he props himself up, hands squelching in the muck. When he does manage to get on his feet, he finds that his once pristine robes are also covered in them, and no amount of willing the stain away does the trick. In fact, it seems to spread more with each thought. Ugh, great.
Azazel titters at his efforts, sounding like something being scratched onto a smooth surface [1]. “Come. He’s waiting.”
He follows, begrudgingly, as Azazel leads him through the bowels of hell, the mud on him dripping all over the ground and leaving a trail behind [2].
Samael’s sitting cross–legged on a throne almost the exact copy of the Almighty’s, crimson–red wings fanned out like he’s sunning them, lazily regarding the Fallen buzzing around him, that is, until he catches sight of who’s entering [3] [4]. Then, his expression shifts to pure, unadulterated glee.
“Raphael! Brother!” Samael all but hollers, rushing forward to clap Raphael on the shoulder. “I’ve always known that deep down you’ve idolized me.”
“Shut up, Samael,” Raphael mutters, removing his brother’s hand from where it still rested on said shoulder [5].
“Do not call me that,” Sa— tan hisses before immediately shifting back to an affable smile. “So, tell me. What did you do that dear old Dad kicked you down here to me [7]?”
“Just asked questions, really,” Raphael said with a noncommittal shrug. “Unlike you flash bastard. Heard about all the ruckus you wreaked while I was off at Alpha Centauri. Look, we both know we’d discorporate each other within a day if I stay here, just give me an assignment topside so I can get out of your wing.”
“Speaking of wings, little brother,” Satan said, circling around and inspecting Raphael all over. “Your new ones suit you much better now.”
Wings what?
Tentatively, Raphael flapped his wings forward, pretending not to notice when he accidentally hit Satan in the face and made him spit out a primary or two.
Where once wings of rich lapis lazuli are now feathers of the darkest jet.
A snake! The bastard had the nerve to turn him into a snake! How dare he try to ruin snakes for him! Raphael had rather liked snakes. Sneaky things, yes, but they were one of his first ideas, and he’s always had a soft spot for them. He didn’t even have the decency to at least turn Raphael into a proper snake. He’s a serpent for G— Someone’s sake.
“Go up, do what you want. Just don’t make me see you here for at least a millennium,” Raphael mimes as he tours around the Garden. He hasn’t been here in a while, the last time being before he left to help design the galaxy.
It wasn’t fair. He’d created them, why did Samael get to be their patron?
What does it matter now, anyway? They’ve both been banished, patrons of nothing. Cut off from the rest of the Host until the end times.
Ah, there she is.
Eve doesn’t notice Raphael until he starts whispering in her ear. The Tree of Knowledge stands tall before them, the fruit red and sweet and tantalizingly just out of reach.
Go on. Eat it, Raphael cajoles. You deserve it.
You deserve the luxury of a choice, he doesn’t say. Of knowing right from wrong.
Eve stands on her tiptoes to pick the fruit, and at the instant she bites into it, the haze in her eyes disappears, replaced by the clarity of knowing.
Raphael leaves her then, watching behind the foliage as Eve shares the fruit with Adam, and then later on when the new Principality assigned to the Eastern Gate informs them of their banishment with quite a bit of a nervous tic [8]. He doesn’t actually see the whole thing go down, as he leaves to admire the greenery. He’d helped with that, too. And now Uriel’s gonna get all the credit for it.
All he ever did was ask questions.
“Well, that went down like a lead balloon,” Raphael says as he materializes into his humanoid form next to the Principality, watching as Adam and Eve wander out into the great desert.
“Sorry, what was that?” the Principality asks with a nervous chuckle. Definitely newly promoted, then.
Raphael turns to face the Principality. “I said, ‘Well that went down like a lead balloon.’”
“Yes, yes, it did rather,” the Principality agrees, staring back out into the horizon.
“Bit of an overreaction, if you ask me.” Raphael shrugs. “First offence and everything. You know…” And it was time to broach the topic again. Hopefully without causing another Fall. “I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway.”
“Well, it must be bad…” And here the Principality pauses, hinting at Raphael to fill in the space with a name.
Does he really look so changed, that other angels no longer recognize him? Like yeah, sure, his wings look different and his robes are too soaked in muck that they’re more black than pearly white, and… and…
The Principality’s still waiting for a name.
Shit, shit, shit. He can’t very well say “Nice to meet you, I’m the fallen Archangel Raphael the Healer, how can I help you?” now, can he? He doesn’t think the Host’s been informed of his Fall, either, so way to break that news to them. Wait, Satan turned him into a snake for kicks, right? What do snakes do again?
“Crawly!”
Oh man, he was really in it now. It’s okay, he can still change it. Probably.
“Crawly,” the Principality repeats, oblivious to the change in tone. Or maybe he just thinks all demons just randomly shout things sometimes. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have tempted them into it.”
“Oh, they just said, ‘Get up there and make some trouble.’” A little embellishment wouldn’t hurt.
“You’re a demon, it’s what you do,” says the Principality.
“Not very subtle of the Almighty though, is it?” asks Raphael, now Crawly. “Fruit tree in the middle of the garden with a ‘Don’t Touch’ sign. Why not just put it somewhere else? Like the moon? Makes you wonder what the Almighty’s really planning.”
“Best not to speculate,” replies the Principality. “You can’t second–guess ineffability.”
“The Great Plan’s ineffable?” says Crawly, incredulous.
“Exactly,” the angel nods seraphically [9]. “It is beyond understanding and incapable of being put into words.”
“Didn’t you have a flaming sword?” Crawly asks, swiftly changing the topic before he has to listen to an entire spiel about ineffability again to which he has no doubt came straight from dear Gabriel.
“Erm,” says the angel, a guilty expression settling in on his face.
“You did, it was flaming like anything,” he presses on. “What happened to it?”
“Well, uh—”
“Lost it already, haven’t you?”
“Gave it away,” the angel mumbles.
“You what?!”
Oh, this was good. Crawly thinks as he stares wide–eyed at the Principality, a grin spreading across his face. This was very good. Suddenly he wishes he could be there to see the look on Michael’s face when he finds out a celestial sword is permanently out of the inventory. And then, finally someone who’s different from all the other pricks in the Host.
“I gave it away!” the Principality repeats testily. “There are vicious animals! It’s cold out there and she’s expecting already, so I said ‘Here you go. Flaming sword. Don’t thank me. And don’t let the sun go down on you here, because there’s gonna be an almighty row if that happens.’”
They stand up there awkwardly, watching as Adam fights off a lion in the distance.
“Oh, I do hope I didn’t do the wrong thing,” the angel says worriedly after a while.
“You’re an angel, I don’t think you can do the wrong thing,” Crawly assures him.
“Oh— Oh, thank you. It has been bothering me.”
“I’ve been thinking about it, too,” Crawly says. “What if I did the right thing with the apple and you did the wrong thing with the sword? A demon can get into trouble for doing the right thing, and it’d be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad one?”
“No!” the angel’s quick to shout. “It wouldn’t be funny at all.”
East of Eden, the first thunderstorm starts pelting down on them, the first lightning bolt striking across the dark sky just as Adam cuts off the lion’s head with one strike.
“Aziraphael,” the angel finally says when Crawly takes shelter under his wing. “Though the syllables are kind of a mouthful, do you think I should change it?”
“That’ll be up to you,” Crawly says, looking up at this angel who shares part of what his name used to be. “Personally, I think it’s a nice name, so don’t change it too much if you do.”
The worst part of being a Fallen Archangel, Crawly decides, is that no matter how much he tries to make his miracles look like normal, run–of–the–mill demonic miracles, the humans can still figure out what he once was.
Take that whole business with the blind man and his family. Tobit, was it? He’d even pretended to be an ordinary apothecary, for G— for Satan’s sake, and where did that get him [10]? They still figured out that he was Raphael. Minus the Fallen bit, at least.
Then again, launching Asmodeus to the other end of the Mediterranean was a treat. Sure, preventing that girl from getting laid was funny the first few times, but after a while the joke just ran too thin. Hence, Crawly telling the next unfortunate bridegroom to burn some fish innards on the honeymoon [11].
So here he was, polishing off his second jug of — what did the humans call it again? Mead? Commiserating with himself over the fact that no matter what he was, he always ends up doing such a shitty work.
“Same again,” he yells at the passing serving girl with a raise of his cup. When he puts it down again, there’s a familiar mass of blonde curls sitting across from him, wearing ill–fitting robes made out of linen.
Crawly sobers up just enough to have a coherent conversation, but not enough to completely rid his corporation of liquid courage. “Hello, Aziraphael.”
“Er, it’s Aziraphale now,” the angel says, miracling himself his own cup. “It’s too close to the Archangel’s name, he might think I’m disrespecting him. Anyway…” The angel, now dubbed Aziraphale, pauses to take a sip of his own mead. “Oh, that’s lovely. Anyway, fancy meeting you here.”
“I’m just in the area for, you know… tempting… ssstuff…” Crawly gestures with his hands vaguely. “Why are you here, angel?”
“Were you hissing just now, you wily serpent? Oh, but I’ve just heard,” Aziraphale leans in closer, as if he and Crawly were gossiping teenagers about to share a secret. “That the Archangel Raphael was around here doing some miracles.”
“What, haven’t had enough of Gabriel and Michael at work that you want to meet another Archangel?” Crawly says, trying his damnedest to look uninterested.
“He hasn’t been heard of in millennia, Crawly!” Aziraphale says like the same gossipy teenager, only more overeager. “No one in heaven knows where he’s been since he went to create the galaxies!”
Well, you’re looking right at him, Crawly thinks. And I don’t know about the ‘no one’ bit, since I’m pretty sure Michael still remembers they gave me the one–way ticket to hell.
“And?”
“Really, my dear,” Aziraphale says as he flags down a serving girl carrying a basket of bread. “An Archangel suddenly reappears after millennia of being away, and that’s your reaction?”
Crawly shrugs. “Can’t say I care, angel. He’s from your side. My side only has Old Scratch himself for an Archangel, and you wouldn’t like to hear what kind of boss he is [12].”
“Oh,” Aziraphale says, as they proceed to dine on the warm loaves the serving girl brings them.
In a nondescript Welsh tavern in 1066, Aziraphale takes a bite from a gingerbread before speaking. “Say, Crawly—”
“Crowley,” he interrupts. He’s changed his name once, he can blessed well change it again.
“Crowley, then. I’ll get used to it,” Aziraphale says. “Anyway, my dear, as I was saying, do you… remember what it was like? Before you Fell?”
“I didn’t Fall,” Crowley says with a roll of his eyes. “I sauntered vaguely downwards [13].”
“Fine. Sauntered vaguely downwards.” Aziraphale licks some glaze off his fingers. “But do you? Remember, I mean?”
“No,” Crowley lies glibly, pushing the dark lenses further up his nose before tearing a piece off his bannock.
“Really? Nothing?” Aziraphale says, looking at Crowley with ridiculously emphatic eyes. “Well, what about… what about your name, my dear? Surely you must remember your name.”
“Would you believe me,” Crowley grinned. “If I said my name has always been Crawly?”
Aziraphale sighs, nicking Crowley’s bannock clear off his plate. “Dear, you’re going to have to learn how to lie better than that. I know for a fact that no angel has ever been named ‘Crawly.’”
“That’s what I thought,” Crowley says, swiping Aziraphale’s gingerbread in return, which earns him a slap on the wrist from the angel. “It’s unimportant. I’m… uhh… forbidden to say it as punishment. And it’s not as if you’ll recognize the name. I was a dime a dozen angel back in the day,” he adds for good measure.
“Where were you posted?” Aziraphale persists.
“The Choir, angel. Would you quit it already?” Crowley says impatiently.
Aziraphale returns half of what remained of the bannock. “I’m sorry, my dear. How can I make it up to you?”
“Well, I’m supposed to go down to Normandy this week. Tempt William to invade England or something of the sort,” Crowley replies, sipping from a tankard of an ale which in reality was mostly foam. “And sea travel is bad for serpents like me. Remember what happened in the Ark?”
Aziraphale sputters for a while at that. “You cannot possibly be asking me to —”
“The Arrangement,” Crowley counters in a singsong voice. “And you volunteered to make it up to me.”
“But, my dear fellow,” Aziraphale protests, looking so helpless that Crowley almost took back the challenge. Almost being the keyword. “Oh, alright. I was meant to be leaving Wales soon, anyway. Help Harold defeat the Hardrada.”
“Think of it this way, angel. You get to decide who rules you England. So, is it a deal?”
Aziraphale groans. “Fine, a deal then.”
An angel and a demon shake hands, and in this manner, England’s fate was sealed.
Crowley hazards a glance at the basket on the passenger’s seat of his Bentley. A distinct crying, somewhere in between the cawing of a murder of crows and the screaming of a thousand tortured souls, is coming out of it.
Of course, what else did he expect his nephew to sound like? It’s not as if his dear brother was any better at making less disturbing noises.
“Well, hello there, little beastie,” Crowley whispers to the little bundle inside when he opens the basket. “You need to keep quiet while Uncle Crowley’s driving, you hear? I don’t need any distractions.”
Ugh, he can’t believe he just said that.
Said little beastie gurgles in reply, staring up at Crowley with blue, blue eyes, the same colour and depth as the oceans. In the harsh lighting of his Bentley, the Antichrist’s tufts of fine hair glow a soft golden sheen. Crowley wonders where he got that, none of his siblings had blonde hair. Must be from his mother, whoever she was. Although, what kind of mortal would willingly carry the Spawn of Satan for nine months?
Never mind, Crowley did not want to know how his nephew came about [14].
“Wait until Aziraphale hears of you,” Crowley says.
When the loquacious nun he hands off his nephew to asks if the little beastie takes after his father, Crowley swiftly tears down the idea.
“He doesn’t.”
He’ll be better.
The ground beneath them begins to shake when Gabriel and Beelzebub pop out of the mortal plane and Adam Young, the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Prince of this World, Lord of Darkness, and Crowley’s nephew, is immediately flanked on all sides by his friends, almost by instinct. This doesn’t surprise Crowley in the least. All Archangels inspire loyalty in the beings they’ve chosen to surround themselves with. To protect, to guide, to lead, as Crowley himself was meant to do, once. Adam, by virtue of being half an Archangel, would inherit that, of course.
Crowley, for what it’s worth, isn’t frozen into place by the terror of what is to come. No, he’s frozen into place by rage. Six thousand years and more he’s been someone’s crony, unhappily following orders.
“Come up with something!” Aziraphale screams, panic giving his voice an absurdly high pitch, and raises his flaming sword as his eyes plead with Crowley. “Or— Or I’ll never speak to you, again.”
Something akin to guilt bubbles up inside Crowley, and then there’s a sharp intake of breath he hasn’t needed before.
Bring it, dear brother, Crowley thinks, and he yells as he releases all of his remaining powers, celestial and otherwise, and stops time.
“Dear,” Aziraphale–as–Crowley asks, adjusting the collar on, well, his coat, he supposes. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Well, you’ve read what Agnes said: ‘Choose your faces wisely,’” Crowley–as–Aziraphale replies, tapping at the visible chub on his midsection. “Angel, when was the last time you wore something other than tweed?”
Aziraphale frowns, making Crowley feel weird at seeing exactly how he looks when he does it. “Oh, stop it. Tweed is timeless.”
“Sure, keep telling yourself that,” Crowley mutters. “So, check out each other’s place and rendezvous at St. James after an hour?”
“Correct,” Aziraphale says. “I do hope my bookshop’s alright. As is your Bentley.”
“See you around then,” Crowley says, waving at Aziraphale before walking away.
Crowley pauses before he exits the door, however, and calls out. “Hey, angel?”
“Yes, dear?” Aziraphale looks up from where he was cooing at the houseplants.
“Er,” Crowley hesitates. What was he going to say? “Don’t… ssspoil my houseplants too much.”
“No guarantees, Crowley.”
Later, when they’re both being dragged away by their respective head offices, Crowley would wish he had said something else entirely, if that was to be the last time they’d see each other.
Aziraphale’s walking out of Hell, literally, and in Crowley’s shoes to boot, relieved that they both escaped punishments from their respective head offices when he hears it.
“Of course that snake wouldn’t be affected by holy water, he’s never been one of us,” a voice mutters, accompanied by a distinct buzzing of flies. Lord Beelzebub, then.
“No one even knows how he Fell,” Dagon agrees. “For all we know, he never did and he’s just a spy for Upstairs.”
“No, he definitely did,” Beelzebub dismisses. “But Archangels. You can’t trust a one of them. Except the Master, of course.”
“That’s why, isn’t it?” Hastur says, still using his shrill panicky tone. “Would be anticlimactic if the Master could be destroyed with a few drops of water.”
Aziraphale stops listening in. He’s reached the escalator to get to Topside, after all.
An Archangel, was it?
In a cottage in the South Downs, an angel and a demon are lounging on their living room sofa on a Sunday afternoon, the demon lazily spritzing the nearby houseplants with water while the angel hums as he reads through the local paper with spectacles. Smart ones, these humans. Nothing’s really wrong with his eyes, but Aziraphale appreciates being able to enlarge words on a page without using up any miracles.
Finally, Aziraphale exclaims. “Crowley, my dear. There seems to be an exhibit in the local museum about celestial imagery. Would you like to come?”
Crowley abruptly stops spritzing and turns to give what Aziraphale could only assume was a glare from behind those ridiculously dark glasses. “Why ever would I want to do that?”
“Why not?” Aziraphale asks in return. “Wouldn’t you like to see how humans perceive us? Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Crowley’s glare intensifies so much that it leaves Aziraphale wondering how the lenses have not yet melted right off.
They pause at a replica of a stained glass bearing the likeness of three Archangels, which Crowley is pointedly not looking at.
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Aziraphale says, admiring the handiwork. “Humans knowing about Raphael when the only ones in the Host who’s ever seen him are the other Archangels.”
“Never came back from the galaxies, did he?” Crowley asks, suddenly very interested in some putti across the room.
“You know, this doesn’t actually do him nearly enough justice,” Aziraphale says, frowning as he looks back and forth between the stained glass and Crowley. “Especially the hair. It’s completely the wrong colour and style.”
Crowley clears his throat. If they weren’t in such a public place right now, he’d be turning back into a serpent and slithering away right now. Great. Just great. Aziraphale knows. “Oh, uh, met him in Nineveh then?”
“And several times afterwards,” Aziraphale affirms, smiling. “Did they get the wings right, dear?”
“You’ve never actually seen their wings, have you? Gabriel’s more of a zircon rather than a topaz,” Crowley gestures vaguely. “They got Michael’s right, at least. Oh lookie here, he’s stepping on Lucifer. That’s typical, really.”
“And yours?” Aziraphale asks.
“You’ve seen them, angel.”
“Not Before.”
Crowley’s eyes fix on the wings of the stained glass, an odd expression on his face. “Exactly as I remember them.”
Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand in his own, squeezing it reassuringly. “Do you ever miss them?”
Crowley looks at the stained glass, then to Aziraphale, and smiles. “No. I’ve got something much better now.”
1 Much, much later on, he’ll hear nails being scratched onto a chalkboard and hearken back to this moment. He’d swear Azazel’s voice sounds way worse, though. [return to text]
2 Funny, that. Before Michael unceremoniously pushed him through that black hole, he’s always done (almost) everything ordered him wholeheartedly. [return to text]
3 Back before the Rebellion, Raphael had always admired Samael’s wings, which looked like they were made of rubies and glinted with the only slightest hint of light. Now, in this place, they looked more like they were glinting because of being oversaturated with the blood of innocents. [return to text]
4 Which was weird, because there was no hint of sunlight down here, and the only source of warmth came from the nearest pool of lava. [return to text]
5 As a rule, Raphael did not appreciate being reminded of his status as the oft–forgotten middle child, especially when it came from the mouth of the “Oh I’m His Second therefore I’m the best of us and you all serve under me” eldest brother [6]. [return to text]
6 Jury’s still out on that, actually. For Samael and Michael are twins, who came into being at the exact same time, identical in everything including the size of their egos. Both still argue in the present day over who gets to claim that coveted title whenever they chance each other. Which, to be honest, isn’t nearly often enough. [return to text]
7 “Dad” here was just a formality. God, like the Heavenly Host, is sexless unless they make an effort. Recently that effort has led to God adopting and favouring the form of what modern humans would call a woman. Satan, on the other hand, had last seen the Almighty in the form of a man, hence, the expression “Dad.” [return to text]
8 Each level in the hierarchy of angels have their own features that inform others of their rank and position in the natural order of things. For example, Archangels’ wings have colours that can only be properly described using gemstones, whilst the flaming sword that can erase Raphael from existence with just a single stroke and currently held in a sweaty grip by the angel talking to Adam and Eve proclaims him as a Principality, newly promoted. [return to text]
9 Except he’s not really a seraph, as already mentioned. [return to text]
10 He changed his mind. The absolute worst part of turning into a demon was having to swear in his insufferable brother’s name now. [return to text]
11 Unfortunately for a demon, Asmodeus had a very bad case of ichthyophobia and pyrophobia, which Crawly had discovered back when Asmodeus was his apprentice in the Garden before the Rebellion. [return to text]
12 In truth, Crawly hasn’t had to directly report to his brother in centuries, Lucifer choosing instead to relegate the task to Beelzebub. Mutual avoidance, as it were. [return to text]
13 Or even more accurately, got pushed headfirst into a black hole. [return to text]
14 In this way, Crowley was taking after the generations of younger brothers who were disgusted at any thought of their elder siblings’ sex lives. [return to text]
