Chapter Text
If Crowley could recall a moment of subtle and true transformation in his eternal life, it would not be the moment of his creation; of his labors as a creative virtue, nor even when he fell from God's grace. Travelling through his memories, he could claim that his change occurred upon the eastern wall, gazing disdainfully at the newly exiled.
“I was just told ‘Go upstairs and make trouble’.”
A casual, ambiguous instruction, even no one in hell expected that his simplistic actions would have such a colossal effect on God's Plan.
But when these instructions ceased, Crowley always remained with one idea: he had no place anywhere. Heaven banished him and hell was like that social club you attend every time you come to remember it or get a call asking you to renew your membership. Of course, you don't have to rack your brains to understand that, even if he didn't have a name of origin tattooed on his existence, he did have places to compare with something close to ‘home’.
Earth, incomparable, untamed and full of ephemeral lives that, no matter how many changes took place, continued to surprise him.
His beloved Bentley, even as he watched it burn and rise from the ashes, the thing gave him the feeling that he would always have somewhere to go, that someone would always be waiting for him.
And it is precisely this sense of ‘home’ that epitomises this true and subtle transformation. Next to him, the land and the Bentley, safe and steady, always submissive and quiet so that the demon could come and go as he pleased, but... it was like a taste of something greater, something that would make him stop feeling the abandonment of both sides.
Aziraphale, four limbs like four walls that he could enter and be sure there was always something to do, to be with him, to be together, to get drunk together, to argue, to protect each other because they both sucked at taking care of themselves.
Once this beautiful transfiguration, begun on the ramparts of Eden, had occurred, there was no turning back, and he understood the heavy reality of it when the angel, safely on his way, barely gave him a glance before turning and embracing his new position in heaven, leaving him behind.
As the demon climbed into his car and accelerated, he felt the same uncertainty he hadn't tasted in millennia.
‘What do I do now?’
‘Where do I go?’
For the first time since he had bought the Bentley, it ran out of petrol. Unbidden, he stopped, certain that there was no point in filling the tank with his immeasurable imagination, for there was no fixed destination, there was no one waiting for him. The Bentley was parked at the side of a long row of buildings, calling out to everyone but him.
“This is the final goodbye” he said, about to slam the door shut.
¡Riiiiing! ¡Riiiiing!
His left pocket reminded him of the existence of a mobile phone whose communication and contact list boiled down to just one.
He took the call, almost by inertia.
“Hello?” The sweet voice on the other end elicited no response from him.
“Mr. Crowley? I managed to get the phone in the bookshop to work! I had tried to call you earlier by turning this wheel with numbers on it, but the first two attempts didn't go as I had hoped, in fact, regarding one of them, What's ass? And why do they want me to kiss it?”
“What do you want, Muriel?” He made no attempt to hide his annoyance.
“Oh, yes, of course! I got the indication from ‘upstairs’ to take over the bookshop, I was thinking of starting by making an inventory and rearranging everything again since-”
“¡NO!”
The voice on the other side was drowned out by silence. Crowley massaged the bridge of his nose before trying to speak.
“Azi…” he stammered.
“Ngk... Look, the previous angel has inside the accountancy books the inventory, if you want to do a rearrangement, use them.”
“Oh, I see!” there was a pause.
“What are the accountancy books like?”
Crowley let out a loud snort.
“Wait there, I'll help you find them.”
After hanging up he stretched out his hand to the Bentley and with great effort managed to ‘miraculously’ fill it half a tank which led him back, perhaps he could take that as ‘a side mission’ before returning to the eternal uncertainty.