Chapter Text
~For, where God built a church, there the devil would also build a chapel… In such sort is the devil always God's ape. - Martin Luther~
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The lift wasn’t going up.
If Aziraphale had been in his right mind, he might have caught on sooner, but he was too far gone, descended into the madness of grief. As it was, his thoughts had been racing a mile a minute since the Metatron had laid out his proposal. Then came the awful moment when he realized he had no choice; his path was about to diverge from the one he’d walked with Crowley by his side, and the implications of that were nothing short of shattering.
In a bewildering way, it felt as though he were surrounded by forces bigger than himself. The Metatron had shoved him into turmoil; a path that might have held everything he ever dreamed of—the Heaven he’d always imagined and Crowley, unencumbered by Hell, by his side. It was an incredible thought, but a tumultuous prospect regardless. But then he couldn’t make Crowley understand, couldn’t make him see, couldn’t find the right words.
And then Crowley had kissed him, searing his whole world a brilliant, blinding, befuddling white; turning everything upside down and making it so much harder as Aziraphale’s feet propelled him away.
He had no choice.
Right?
Aziraphale had accepted this assignment knowing he would need to keep his wits about him, and when the Metatron came to retrieve him, he tried, but it was far too late by then. His every thought was scattered to the wind as he got on that lift. His mind raced and went numb at even intervals. He couldn’t make sense of a damn thing.
For four years, he and Crowley had been stepping slowly toward something Aziraphale had never let himself dream of before. They both knew it was there though they never spoke of it. Crowley started to take his glasses off when he stepped into the bookshop. Little by little, Aziraphale had given in to his urge to call Crowley for any little thing, to talk to him every day. Aziraphale wouldn’t have been able to articulate what was happening; he just knew something was. Something wonderful.
Why, then, had Crowley chosen that moment, that terrible moment when everything was falling to pieces, to barrel ahead? He’d closed the distance they’d been tiptoeing toward so suddenly and forcefully. He had to know walking away from him, leaving him behind, would be the most painful thing Aziraphale could imagine. Why had he made it impossibly harder?
It seemed cruel.
And Aziraphale had been cruel.
He regretted it so bitterly now. Guilt, grief, despair. It all consumed him.
Which was why he didn’t notice.
The lift wasn’t going up.
It wasn’t going down either. It was going somewhere … other.
But Aziraphale didn’t realize that. Not until the doors opened. Then, his eyes went wide, his scattered thoughts sharpened. He stepped back, tried to turn away from the door, but a heavy hand on his shoulder propelled him forward.
No. Not a hand.
A curled, thick claw.