(no subject)

[anthony-crowley.livejournal.com]

Date: May 13, 2000
Setting: Manor Grounds
Status: Public (Writing Challenge Thread)
Summary: Remembrance of Things Past

Crowley had gotten into the habit of taking walks around the Manor when he was bored and Aziraphale was working. Some part of him resented the time the angel spent with paper and ink, telephones and accounts, but most of him realized that it was good for him. Aziraphale liked to be busy and useful; it made him happy which made Crowley happy, so he let it be and walked instead.

Since April showers were clinging stubbornly to May, he stayed inside, exploring the parts of the lower floors that he'd never seen, or at least he thought he'd never seen. Turning a dark corner, however, he promptly discovered he was wrong. This place looked familiar, smelled familiar. It was the part of the building that hadn't been destroyed in the fire two decades prior and it put Crowley in mind of a dark night and a baby in his arms. Stopping, he looked around. This was the corridor where he'd come all those years ago, bringing the infant antichrist to what he thought would be their doom.

He thought back to that night, remembering his panic and feelings of helplessness, the frantic plans and fleeting hopes spinning through his mind. He'd thought of Aziraphale then as he drove through the dark. The angel had been the first and only person he'd considered going to for help. He hadn't met John yet. The man would have only been in his mid-twenties. Odd to imagine that, really, him looking younger than Crowley. Crowley wondered vaguely if they'd have even had a friendship if he'd met the cocky young man back then, before deciding probably not.

Finding a door and pushing it open, the demon discovered that it did lead where he expected it to. On the other side was the small, neglected courtyard where he'd parked the Bentley and that man with taste in clothes like Aziraphale's had told him that he'd left his lights on and that they'd already started in room three. He smiled faintly, amused at how one small mistake can change the course of the world. The rain was beating on the garbage cans, a syncopated metallic rhythm and he went out into it, letting the cold water fall on him, spattering his sunglasses, soaking his suit and damping his hair. He wasn't in snake form and the air wasn't as fresh and clean and flower scented as it had been then, but it reminded him of the Garden, as so many things did. That was another instance where a chance occurrence changed the path of the world.

If they hadn't had that somewhat friendly conversation in the rain, where would they be now? Probably not friends and definitely not lovers. Crowley would have spent six millennia alone. It was a sobering thought. He tried to imagine not having all those times when he was lonely or bored or tired or distraught and ended up spending time with the angel. Between the challenge of tempting him to something, lots of alcohol, and intelligent, dryly humourous, and somewhat snarky conversation, he'd always felt better afterward. Except for the occasional hangover. What would his life be like without that? Probably a lot more demonic, he decided. And not nearly as interesting.

Not immune to the irony that his life had been just as unpredictable as any human's, Crowley stepped back inside, leaving the past behind. Dripping on the carpet and squelching as he walked, the demon moved back towards the populated end of the Manor, hoping to run into Aziraphale or John, Ellie, Gabriel, Adam, Belial, or anyone really. He was ready to make some new memories now.

Comments

I'm conveniently setting this right before my AWOLness so I can have an IC reason for Des leaving

[entropyoptimism.livejournal.com]

Destruction was playing chess with himself. It wasn't that difficult. At first he just moved the pieces at random - the beginning wasn't important, it was the end game that was interesting. He liked to map out the paths left to each piece - how many moves? What choices did they have? How many sides to the coin? And occasionally, when he had worked a piece into a position where it had no moves, he wondered if it would break. If that pawn would move backwards, the knight and the bishop in a straight line, the castle turn corners. And the queen - the queen who can go anywhere on the board - would she take that final step? Would she leave the eight-square battlefield and strike out into the tabletop wilderness, with nought but the knowledge of the choices she left in her wake?

Or would she bow down and be defeated, only to start the game anew, to go through the cycle again?

It was at times like these he thought of his brother. Not often, because Destruction inevitably looked to the future, but sometimes he wondered if Dream would have followed in his footsteps. If his timing had been a little different, if he'd explained more - could Morpheus understand? Could he have seen the moves ahead of him as something other than the check mate, and stepped off the board?

He fancied the Dream Lord did understand, right at the end. When he looked his sister in the eye, he surely knew that the choice he had made was not inevitable, that Destiny's paths branched even for him, that he had been given a choice. Destruction had shown him a choice, hadn't he? Once, twice, three times he had flipped the coin, and three times Morpheus had come down Heads, Duty, rules, the status quo. At the college with the Corinthian, when he'd tried to warn him. At the Family Meeting, when he'd announced his intention to leave.

And when Dream had tracked him down, near the end, with Delirium - had sought Destruction, although he knew the consequences that had brought his son - did he know? Did he already know, then, how badly he needed change? He must have known, or why would he have come after Destruction, whose realm was change itself: real change, not Delirium's helterskelter change that ended up right where it started... no, that wasn't fair. Del had had change enough, when she lost Delight and became Delirium.

He had enjoyed seeing her after all these years. He wouldn't have to reassume his duties just to visit her. And he needed a change - hah! He'd been cooped up in here for too long.

Abruptly, Destruction stood from his chair, the chessboard tumbling from his lap - in a single rapid-blur movement he reached down and grabbed the black Queen out of thin air, into which the rest of the board disappeared before it touched the floor. He went to the cupboard and took down the pool and his sword, placing them in the middle of the polkadotted handkerchief that Dream had given him - although it had been black, then - and looked at them for a long moment.

The sword made him think of Uriel. Uriel, who he'd liked and pitied from the start, from the Start in fact. Uriel, who was now a brother to one of Destruction's oldest friends (old, yet still lower in the mortality chain than Destruction). A kindred spirit of a sort, and someone who by rights belonged to Delirium, yet his work was all of Destruction's realm - how many screaming angels he'd seen in his time, Uriel standing over them with a painful expression as they slid into the Pit...

He wrapped up the kerchief, manifested a stick to hang it on and walked down to the grounds, musing. So Michael was a demon. Well, well, well. Destruction had seen him on many a battlefield (well, One in particular) and knew that Hell had gained a powerful knight. He'd always thought it was Humanity blowing themselves up that he'd quite his job to avoid, yet the supernatural war was sliding and overtaking, and...

Here was the gate. Open and close - you have to leave places properly, don't you. Destruction realised he'd been squeezing the chess piece in his hand tightly - he unrolled his palm and found the Black Queen crumbled to dust, and smiled at the irony, and then faded out, leaving the Cheshire-cat grin as a final blessing upon the manor for a few seconds more, before it too became mist.