Work Text:
Crawley was not unfamiliar with death. He’d noticed the animals dying in the years since Adam and Eve’s exit from Eden. During the war in Heaven, he’d witnessed angels destroyed in battle. Horrifying as that had been, it hadn't prepare him at all for the invention of murder.
While animals killed each other, there was no maliciousness to the act. It was sustenance; it was ritualistic; it was territorial defense. What Cain had done was something different, something new, something sick . Crawley remembered Aziraphale’s quiet protest that there must be something wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil. Perhaps, the angel had been on to something.
He stared at Abel’s lifeless gaze as the human's blood soaked the ground, long past the moment of atrocity. In the distance, he heard thunder rolling as the skies darkened overhead, as though the storms came to mark every horrible event in human history. Just like in Eden, he hadn’t expected it to go this badly. When he’d sowed the seeds of jealousy and resentment in Cain’s heart, he hadn’t dreamed that it would end like this. Crawley had simply meant to damage their relationship, maybe cause them to row, but for Cain to kill him was wildly out of order. The demon was beginning to feel like this was a losing game. Was he really supposed to take satisfaction in this horror show?
The buzz of the gathering flies over the body began to thrum even louder. Crawley grimaced as the swarm thickened with the arrival of Beelzebuth from the very earth. He really wasn’t in the mood right now. They had become an overseer to demonic acts in the world of man and was currently part of negotiations in setting up afterlife procedures with Gabrial. Adam and Eve were getting up there in age and no one knew how much longer lived than the animals they would be. Crawley thought meting out punishment or rewards for humans after death, in reflection to how they lived their life a little rich. He secretly thought it had less to do with instilling mortal fear of death in the humans but a way to reap souls as potential soldiers to their cause: The war that would one day end everything. He tasted bile.
“Y’know,” Beelzebuth hummed softly, voice still somehow sounding like a chorus of a thousand insects. “It might take time for you to produce, but your work really is top notch, Crawley. I hear it’s almost as chaotic up there as when you tempted Eve.”
“Great,” Crawley replied, utterly failing at dropping the scowl off his countenance.
“You don’t look enthused. Is this not what you wanted?”
“It’s just…It’s fucked, innit?” Crawley shook his head, wishing he had more eloquent language for how he was feeling. “Humans killin' each other. Wasn’t the whole point was that they were supposed to be more…reasonable than other animals?”
“Sure,” Beelzebuth replied with an easy shrug. “But why wouldn’t humans think of killing out of spite? You said it yourself, right? They would have eaten from the tree eventually, even without your encouragement. Who's to say this situation is any different? Anyway, angels invented war, so don’t look so affronted, Crawley. It’s not a good look.”
The demon huffed softly, but said nothing. Beelzebuth looked to the skies as lightning streaked across the clouds. For a moment they looked almost caught up in the beauty of it all. Neither of the higher orders from either side spent much time on Earth, which Crawley was starting to resent. What right did they have to decide how he did his bloody job if they couldn’t be arsed to spend more time corporeal than it took to make a demand of him?
Their eyes unfocused and when they spoke again, it was as distant and unknowable as the moon. “You’d better get out of here. God’s coming to sort out Cain, and I don’t think you wanna be around for that. Keep an eye out for that Principality. I don’t think he’s a threat, but I can’t imagine he’ll be too friendly with you after this.”
Crawley was a practical creature, if nothing else, and when Beelzebuth sank back into the ground, he spread his wings and flew toward a mountain range close enough to see yet far enough away that he might escape the storm. His stomach clenched because he hated the idea that Aziraphale might think he was as monstrous as he was feeling at the moment. He didn’t even really know why. It wasn’t as though they knew one another that well, but he did like when their paths crossed, liked it even more when he looked at him through those dark eyelashes and smiled at him like he still deserved to feel happiness. The lust had gone nowhere, but it was starting to shape into something distressingly meaningful.
On top of a high plateau, he watched the rain. From so far off it looked ghostly and slightly eerie. Crawley wished someone would figure out how to ferment fruit already. He needed a drink.
Aziraphale didn’t appear in a flash of light or even alight on the ground as he flew up to meet him. He was just suddenly there, his voice behind him, and angrier than he’d ever heard before.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” the angel demanded as Crawley turned to face him. His heart skipped a few beats like it always did when he looked at him.
He wanted to look away and shut him out. Of course he’d known. Who exactly did Aziraphale think he was talking to? He’d instigated Mankind’s Fall from Grace, after all. Crawley didn’t though. He wanted to scream and cry and make the angel understand that he’d never meant for this to happen. It was just that these damnable humans and the Almighty had to take everything so bloody seriously. I always turned into some world shattering event. It was so exhausting and humanity had only been a thing for a few decades. He’d need to slow down or he’d be burned out by the first generation that hadn’t been directly sired by Adam and Eve.
“It’s not that simple, angel,” Crawley sighed wearily. He found himself reflecting on how he’d started calling Aziraphale by simply what he was in attempt to distance himself from the malady of his desire. It hadn’t been working very well. The word was soft and warm on his tongue.
“Well then explain it to me!” Crawley’s eyes widened as Aziraphale stomped toward him. His voice sounded stern with the stoicism expected of him.
“Listen, it’s not like I did that much. Cain had already started to become bitter, so I just…heaped a bit of resentment and envy on top. Honestly though, I didn’t expect Cain would kill ‘im over it.” Nor did he understand why the Almighty had been complicit in Cain's murderous discontent. He was beginning to think there was far less rhyme or reason to Her plan than it being simply ineffable. Crawley rather thought that God had been playing it by ear since Mankind's fall from grace.
A look of relief softened Aziraphale’s expression. Crawley idly wondered what the angel would do if he just fell into his arms and rested there for days. He liked to think Aziraphale would let him, but doubted it would mean the same as it would for Crawley. The angel was so filled with God’s love that Crawley didn’t think there was any affection left for anyone else, much less a demon.
“Oh, my dear boy,” Artizaphale shook his head as he continued to get closer. The angel's hands reached up to cup his face, a thumb brushing a high cheekbone. “You really do have the most dreadful luck.”
“You believe me?” Crawley asked, surprised and faintly skeptical. To him, despite it being true, it sounded a little mad that it would happen twice. A simple plot with a horrific conclusion. Once was a mistake, the second time was a coincidence, and the third time…Well, hopefully there wouldn’t be a third time.
“Of course I do!” Aziraphale smiled, shaking his head as his hands dropped away from Crowley’s face. The angel’s brow furrowed in confusion, as though he didn’t understand why he wouldn’t. Sometimes the milk of Aziraphale’s kindness was too rich and before he could stifle the urge, Crawley began to laugh.
It was a hysterical sound as he doubled over because what kind of existence was this? It was all so perfectly absurd. He wasn't quite wicked enough to revel in the devilry Hell demanded, nor was he too interested in finding his way back into Her good graces. When Crawley righted himself as he struggled to compose himself, he noticed the angel’s concerned expression. He looked a little lost, no surprises there.
“Don’t worry, I’ve not gone mad,” Crawley shook his head.
“Well, that’s good news,” Aziraphale replied, his expression conveying quite a bit more doubt than reassurance. “May I offer you a bit of advice?”
“Oh —Why the hell not?” Crawley exhaled a sigh still shaky with bitter mirth.
“Perhaps it might be best for you to stop…directly engaging with the humans, at least for the time being.”
Crawley scoffed. “What do you expect me to tell Beelzebuth? ‘Sorry, seems I don’t really have a taste for tormenting Mankind until the end of time?’ Be serious, angel.”
“Well — “ Aziraphale cut a sharp, stern look his way. “You could still indirectly bedevil them. Blight some crops, make it rain so much it floods their homes, or cause the udders of their goats to dry up. Surely between this whole mess with Cain and the temptation of Eve, you’ll have earned a bit of slack from your side.”
The demon’s eyebrows arched with the same surprise he’d expressed when Aziraphale had told him that he’d given his sword away. He really was terribly clever, and it made him chuckle softly. Crawley wondered what his higher ups would say to him advising a less strenuous work schedule. For all he knew, it was a deliberate machination on Aziraphale’s part. After all, if Crawley was focusing on little piddling damnations, he could make ostentatious displays of divine blessings and interventions, and might even manage to get himself promoted to a Power. It was a fortunate thing, then, that Crawley was extremely certain that Aziraphale didn’t have a single manipulative bone in his body.
"You may be on to something, angel," Crawley murmured.
He nodded as he considered the angel’s advice. It was pretty good, all things considered. Beelzebuth wouldn’t be thrilled but they probably wouldn’t push the issue too hard. He could coast for awhile on the infamy, at least until there were more humans on earth than four — Well, three now. Crawley looked at Aziraphale and stepped a little closer to him as the skies darkened overhead. He brushed a fleeting touch along the side of Aziraphale’s hand. Crawley didn’t have to say anything and neither did the angel. His eyes always spoke more volumes than his words ever did and Crawley had centuries to read them all until they were writ to his very soul.
[ the end is only the beginning ]