Archive of Our Own

First, I'll have you know, I only ever asked questions. Powerful things, questions.

Second, I'm only writing this because my Angel (aka Bastard of the Highest Order) threatened me with a week of sleeping on the couch if I didn't.

It was on a Friday, as I recall, though Fridays had yet to be invented. But the truism still applies: don't have any business requiring governmental services on a Friday or over a weekend. Or you will be fucked.

It began well, this Friday.

Just another beautiful day in heaven. Celestial harmonies and Her utter Silence.

But at least there was something new that day - Alpha Centauri. Bit proud of that one. Good day's work, well, several sleepless nights and I was a wreck, but that morning I was just putting the finishing touches on it.

The birth of a star system has its own heavenly soundtrack. Bet you didn't know that. The stupid things simply sing at you. Ecstatic at existence, the beautiful ache of its brevity, even as stars, and the peculiar, alien exhilaration of particularity. Of having been cleaved Something from Nothing. Each star screaming with joy. Like the loudest, most raucous, rocking polyphonic Bach chorus you've never heard.

So, there I was, wrecked by these new beings, trying to shush the stars into some semblance of calm - and myself too, because I finally had some good news, that I was to have someone to help me with all this. At last, someone in heaven's holy bureaucracy had approved my application for assistance.

Definitely cause for a wahoo.

All I knew was this fellow was to be called Aziraphale - a bit on the nose, I thought, and weird if he (she? they?) already had a name, to change it now for this job. Also, pretty self-involved, right? "Helper of Raphael"? But that's the way of Heavenly Workforce Development Services, zero imagination. And anyway, I figured, I could call them Az or whatever they preferred.

Aziraphale is interrupting me now to say Az is a terrible name and if I ever call him that I can think again about him going down on me while -

This is Aziraphale. Crowley is a liar. Caveat lector.

More like: Reader, I married him?? (This is Crowley again. As if you couldn't tell from the lack of poncy Latin. Heh.)

As I was saying, I was having a moment with my new stars' and my own wahoo. And as it turned out, though I didn't know it at the time, my sweet Aziraphale was having his own moment somewhere nearby. But that is his story to tell. Here's mine (such as it is, anti-climatic, really) which I, Anthony J. Crowley, Demon, disrespectfully submit.

"Raphael -"

"What's up, Gabe-babe?" I greeted. Innocently.

"I've asked you, repeatedly, not to call me that."

He did, but I liked to see his plastic face scrunch up. "Sorry. Did you see my Alpha Centauri? Not bad, eh?"

"The Metatron wants a word."

Gabriel had the strangest expression on his face. Sort of pleased yet somehow ugly. It surprised me and I didn't like it but then we never really got on. Still, there was no specific cause for worry. I had no enmity for him and, naively, never imagined he could have any for me - why would he? For all his twattish wankerness, we were brothers.

I trailed along him to HQ without a single suspicion.

The Metatron was of course the same as always, booming voice, baby Churchill face, talking in capitalized words of Significance:

"Archangel Raphael. You are called to Answer."

"Answer what? If you want Answers, why don't you talk to God. She talks to you still - or doesn't She?"

OK, fine, I was not very agreeable. Maybe frustrated that God hadn't spoken to me, or any of us, it seemed, in eons. I missed Her. Why would your mother send a glorified personal assistant in her stead? Was she mad at you, just busy, or possibly, impossibly, ill?

The thing about the Metatron, though, there is no needling him into real answers. He's like heaven's version of ChatGPT.

"Archangel Raphael," the Metatron repeated. "You have attended meetings of the Archangel Lucifer and his Angelic Fellowes."

It's a measure of how fucking stupid I was that this didn't mean much to me at the time. So what if I had a chat or two with the intelligentsia of heaven? They were endlessly having meetings and soirees and such. It was impossible not to stumble into one of their get-togethers.

"Listen, Metatron, could we hurry this along, please? I have a few things to do today. What is it you want me to answer?"

"Questions for the Archangel Raphael, who is called upon to Answer, are as follows.

1. Do you Promise to guide and protect your assistant Aziraphale? Explain why or why not.

2. Appendix IV of the Code of Heavenly Conduct defines the scope of appropriate use of materials for Creative Angelic Activity. Provide two recent problematic examples from your own experience and the lessons learnt.

3. What is the nature of God's Grace?

You must submit your Answer via CMS, Central Messaging Service of Heaven, HQ, Building 01, at any Station 115 to 252, by close of business, today."

The fuck?

What was this, some demented essay exam for angels?

I turned to Gabriel, bewildered.

"Good stuff," he said, smiling his blandly handsome corporate smile. "About the stations. Numbers 117, 133, 171, 177, 220, and 241 are down from bugs with our new universal login tracking system and a new patch is getting pushed out later this afternoon, so best to use one of the others."

"Gabriel, what's all this about?"

"You are called to Answer."

"By God? Did you talk to Her, what did She say? Is She well?" I asked excitedly, with a full heart.

"You always have a lot of questions, Raphael. You and Lucifer really have that in common. But there are times when you should just do what is Required of you."

"I will, I will, but tell me - what did She say?"

"Speaking with the Metatron is the same as speaking with Her."

"Oh, so She doesn't speak to you, either," I said, disappointed.

Gabriel would have no more idea of what was going on than I did. Of course I had heard of being called on to Answer. But this was, I thought, a theoretical, or perhaps theological, matter. A kind of lottery sampling system that estimated through a heavenly statistical analysis the degree to which the Answerer's answers represented the essence of the Answerer. And if you think I know what the devil that means, you would be 100% incorrect. I have no idea now and I certainly didn't then either.

But first things first. I had to meet this Aziraphale. One has got to at least say hi to an angel before one can promise to keep him forever or whatever. Could be a total bastard, after all.

And I had to check on my Alpha Centauri, see that they were happy and healthy.

So, I left HQ with the three questions in my metaphysical pocket and went my way.

Let me tell you, Aziraphale is an impossible bastard to locate when he doesn't want to be to be found. I searched everywhere, asked everyone, even Called for him. Nada.

Discouraged, I flew to Alpha Centauri. I stayed there for a long while, thinking. The Questions troubled me. Her Silence troubled me. What had I done wrong? Had I? If the call to Answer was not a chance occurrence (unlikely, even to my naive mind then), what was its significance? I couldn't understand it.

(Aziraphale, I swear, if you're sitting there thinking, it's Ineffable, I'll bite you. And not in the fun way.)

I loved Her, I loved my work, and I was a fair way towards loving - all right, caring about this Aziraphale fellow, at least in a professional capacity, if only they would stop avoiding me and bloody give me half a chance. Kind of a drag to realize they were cold shouldering me already, yeah? Ditto times infinity, applied to your mother.

Anyway, I hovered there above Centauri Proxima and thought about my replies:

1. Yes. As angels, shouldn't we guide and protect all beings in our care? (Is this a trick question?)

2. My answer is, sorry, but what kind of bullshit question is this?

3. No fucking clue??

Look, it was a rough draft.

I'm much better at stars, really.

So I returned to HQ. But before submitting the answers I had a few clarification questions relating to the Questions. I was bounced from department to department, per usual, but eventually I found the forms for section 49.2.5.c. and was told official clarifications could take up to two hours. No problem, there was still time before the close of business.

Meanwhile I took another look round for Aziraphale.

Right, then. Still avoiding me.

Like God.

Back at HQ, I logged in to view the clarification message:

Do as you are told.

Fucking Gabriel.

I knew he was fielding these queries. The whole thing smelled of him. Called upon to Answer. Whoever heard of that actually happening? To angels?

Er, yeah, remember my worldview here. This was, as yet, all pre-Fall. There had been some chatter about Lucifer taking things too far but that was just how that chronic dramalama was made and most of us not-so-secretly enjoyed being a spectator to it. Whatever he is now, then, he was truly the brightest of us. Amazingly inventive. That is, when he wasn't in one of his bitter, depressive moods.

But I couldn't dismiss the Questions, entirely, even in my utter blessed naivety. Question 1 and 3 were suspiciously like something She might ask. She's always had an irritating habit of asking stuff She already knows the answers to, as if the asking, or perhaps the answering, is a lesson for you. Autonomous Learner Model, apparently.

Except, whatever the lesson is, I remain too stupid to understand.

So, I wandered, glum as a cloud.

Eventually, I went back to HQ and submitted my replies:

1. Yes, I Promise. The why is in the Promise.

2. This is not a real Question. Fuck off, Please find some happiness, Gabriel.

3. On the nature of God's Grace: 

Dear Mother,

I don't know the Answer to this. What I do know is, I'd really like to hear Your voice again, be I deserving or no.

It's been so long.

If my questions have offended, You already know I did not mean them to and I'm sorry. Though doesn't it seem funny, since I am myself being asked questions? I'd rather believe You are telling me, in Your Inimical Way, especially with this last one, that all will be well. Thank you. I love you.

Ever your impatient,

Rafe

Forty-two minutes later, a bunch of angels, including yours truly, had Fallen.

One of the reasons stars evoke longing is that their light is far away. Alpha Centauri is actually pretty close to Earth. But take Andromeda, the nearest galaxy. (Yes, that was one of mine, too, but it was one of my early swirly ones and I messed up the edges.) What you see now from Earth is from 2 1/2 million light years ago. You're seeing a projection from its past, who or what it was, and you will never know it in real time.

Not from that distance.

For a time, I feared God might be dead.

That talking to the Metatron was like getting messages from distant stars that had long died out. It was the only way I could make sense of what had happened to me, to Heaven and Hell - let alone, later on in earthly affairs, the nonsensical mandates from and about burning bushes and rainbows and the like. That had to be bad machine learning. It couldn't be God wanting these things, doing these things, saying these things. Why would She?

But I came to realize, it wasn't that God was dead.

It was that I was far away from Her.

Falling is different for each fallen angel. It isn't only vats of boiling sulfur. God's more devious than that. Mine started off very confusingly. Didn't even realize that was what was happening, the dumb fuck. I was still at HQ, trying to get an audience with the Metatron.

"The Archangel Raphael?"

"Yes, that's me."

"According to my records, there is no longer such a being. There may have been a former Archangel Raphael. Is that you? Without a valid current name, I cannot process this request. Please correct and resubmit your request."

"But Raphael is my name, Belinda. Has always been. Must be some mistake."

"Sir, it's Angelic Records Cadet Bea-Linda, and heavenly records have an error rate of 0.00002%."

"I appreciate that, Bea-Lindy. But, as you see, I am right here."

"Sir, according to the records, there is currently no Archangel Raphael."

"Is there someone I could speak to about this, er, administrative oddity?"

"My supervisor is currently out on field assignment. You'll have to go to Legal, Property Rights."

Frantically, seeing as it was getting close to the end of the business day, which for heaven is 4:29 pm, I raced round trying to find this department. Had to get this identity bungle sorted asap, else I could foresee being denied access to my own creation-technology and everything else, what with heaven's new universal login tracking system. Anyway, when I got there, there was a sign that read, Department transferred to IH Division. Please check in at front desk in Building -999.

...Frustration did not cover it.

But hang on, negative 999? Where in heaven was that?

As I'm sure you've already guessed, it wasn't. But being an innocent babe at the time (still a babe, only more devilish now) and it being so late, I thought I'd try a shortcut and go instead to immigration on the ground floor since I figured Peter, at least, must have a map.

He did, and he gave me the most peculiar look when handing it to me.

I did say I wasn't very bright, yeah?

Anyway. Highly chaotic, getting to Building -999. (My inspiration for the M25.)

I know my Aziraphale will want to know:

Did I burn?

Did it hurt?

Was I lost?

TL;DR: yes.

It started with a lot of stumbling around in creepy disorienting corridors that all looked alike. First thing I had lost, clearly, was my name. But the frustrating, and later, I realized, terrifying, thing was - I couldn't go back. Couldn't go back up to that records Nazi Bea-Linda and say, I shouldn't be here, this is all a dreadfully unlucky clerical error. A lot like Time in that regard, the road to hell. Once you go through a door, turn a corner, tumble down a flight of stairs, wade through a pool of the tears of nightmares, pitch over a sudden precipice, etc., the door, the corner, the stairs, it all disappears, like the ownership of my name.

But still, I didn't believe I was Falling.

Or Fallen. Change in status, whatever. There had been no hell before all this, after all. Not even the conception of it. But also -

Denial is the first stage of grief.

The pain only truly started when I happened to glimpse my reflection in a still, dead river. Aziraphale, my eyes before were silvery lilac. Like my wings had been.

From then on, every step was agony.

As I realized where all this was heading, I thought, if I can't reverse my steps, if I can't find my way back up to heaven, at least I can try to stop. Sat down on a rubbish pile. Had myself a pity party and then concentrated. That was the first time I stopped Time.

Stung like mad when it caught up with me, though.

So, onwards. Downwards. More stumbling, more stairs, more screaming at God, more transformation. Yadda yadda.

Not sure how long all this took. Felt like an eternity. By the time I reached Building -999, I was so fucked up from horror, distorted Time, drugs, rage, hallucinations, and that puzzler of will, the fear of nonexistence, I barely knew who I was. I remembered me, like a dream of a dream, but I was not him - or rather, there was currently no Archangel Raphael, as Bea-Linda so helpfully put it.

Raphael was a projection from my past, 2 1/2 million light years away or however far I had strayed from heaven, cut off from Her Grace.

And I would always be that exact distance away.

I had arrived in hell, and I was a demon.

Q & A Intermission

Aziraphale here again. Whilst Crowley is off for a well-deserved rest for a brief spell before he finishes up his tale, allow me to reply to a few queries that have come our way.

What questions did Raphael ask that were so bad?

Crowley will say he's forgotten. But I speak fluent A.J. Crowley and this means it is too painful and/or dangerous to address directly. I don't believe it was the questions that caused him to Fall. But you will simply have to ruminate for yourself. Do not expect them to be explicitly demonstrated.

Did Raphael's letter to God ever reach Her?

I believe so, don't you? Like the practice of gratitude that is so often recommended these days for better mental health, Grace is everywhere you look for it. This is where Crowley usually interjects that is precisely why science beats religion any day, falsification being the key to truth, not confirmation. My point is that he still gazes at the stars.

What was Aziraphale doing while Raphael was looking for him?

I was engaging in preemptive nonparticipation, dear.

Did heaven's property rights department get transferred to hell?

No comment.

Are Crowley and Aziraphale really married and do they live in seaside cottage in the South Downs?

Yes, we are married. Thank you for respecting our privacy.

Intermission End.

So.

That's it. Que sera, sera and all that. Befuddling, really. 

Humans have this saying, hell is other people. L'Enfer, c'est les autres.

Hell absolutely has an overcrowding problem, ask anyone, but apart from the gruesome desperation of the lost and the smells, the really hellish part is that you always have to be jockeying for the smallest bit of mental freedom.

For my money, it's got heaven beat for sheer groupthink.

Heaven has soldiers, hell has minions. Minions aren't really people, are they?

Some of the more interesting inmates retain something of their personality from before - Beethoven is still an irascible genius, for instance; on the other hand, he still can't hear - but the vast majority don't remember, at all, that they were people, let alone who they were. Their thoughts are consumed by what they fear their supervisor, associate, neighbor, fellow diner at the canteen, etc. thinks of them: that is the entirety of their self. There is no rest in such a state. No rest, no space, mental or otherwise, and of course, no friendship.

So, how did I manage to beat the odds?

A little luck in being assigned topside (Satan was too busy to personally take on the fieldwork in Eden), where of course Aziraphale was too.

And I practiced bullshitting, religiously, day and night. I almost never tell the truth, at least not the whole truth. What is the whole truth, anyway? You have your piece of it, I have mine, from moment to moment, and reality is merely a construct under a paradigm under a set of perspectival conditions. Bouillabaisse.

Hell's excellent training grounds for the professional bullshitter. Every con knows the trick to hiding anything, especially oneself, is to always, always tell people what they want to hear.

String 'em along, you know?

Harder than it sounds, though. Devil's in the details. Doesn't work well on selfless people or those with actual inner resources. But minions of hell?

Look, if you're reading this in hell and you're a minion, keep trying. Someday you'll make it.

Others, protect yourself and each other out there.

Because in the midst of shitty things happening and all this much-ado-about-nada, there's also: Serve God, love me, and mend. Well, I guess I don't know too much about the serve Her part anymore, but the rest? It's the only truth, is friendship. Because it isn't really Time that mends. 

I only have like 6,000 years of expertise on it. 

And for Someone's sake, don't update operating systems, lose yourself, seek services, or anything requiring paperwork on a Friday.