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“Crowley. What’s the last thing you remember?”
He keeps his face impassive, but inside his thoughts are churning. Crowley? He likes it better than Crawly, but, well, he hadn’t got the impression that he had much of a choice. Cursed to crawl on your belly, and all that. Not that he’d needed Her reminder in the Garden; Hell had already made that abundantly clear.
Maybe it’s a test - this is Hastur, after all.
“It’s Crawly,” he says, just deferentially enough that it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to correct Hastur, but not enough to be cowering. “And… I was in Eden, causing trouble with the humans. Tempted them into eating from the forbidden tree, lying to Her when they got caught. Got them kicked out…” He does not let his voice show the hopefulness that what he did is impressive enough for this not to be an after-action punishment session; hope would get him punished all on its own.
“Excellent,” Hastur says, but it’s not directed at him, not that he would have considered that for an instant. Hell doesn’t work that way.
Something’s been twitching in the back of his head - last thing you remember? Why would that be a question worthy of Hastur’s attention? And why would he be so pleased by the answer? He looks at Time the way only he can, and there it is - the gap between that memory and now is…
Six thousand years.
Fuck.
“Heaven did this to you. Believe me, if we could do it, this wouldn’t have been the first time. But then, for all you know, it isn’t,” Hastur sneers.
Crowley has questions, mostly starting with why? But he’s not going to give Hastur the satisfaction of knowing just how much he wants the answers.
“You’re lucky I found you like this, imagine what the rest of Hell would do with you in such a vulnerable condition.”
Yeah, that’s totally not coming out of the goodness of his heart. Hastur’s enjoying it. It’s not so much concern about what the rest of Hell would do - it’s that Hastur doesn’t want to share.
“You report to me.” and that does feel familiar, “but don’t think you’re getting your old job back, you’re absolutely useless like this. I should just drop you into the Pit, but I’m shorthanded in the political temptations division.” Something about the way he says the latter part makes Crowley’s scales want to rise, and why would that be more threatening than the Pit? “Even you shouldn’t be able to fuck that up - all you have to do is find politicians willing to take a bribe, and there’s no shortage of those.”
Going to Earth for what’s essentially the first time involves a very tedious orientation process. The demon in charge of prepping Crowley seems surprised to see him, and even more surprised that he doesn’t know what a “training video” is - an entire Earth week (he’s trying to get used to measuring Time that way) watching very bad voiceover and acting, covering information that could’ve fit on a very short scroll - not that they’re using scrolls anymore, either. He wonders who came up with the idea; Hell didn’t get that many of the creative types.
The video hadn’t prepared him enough. Earth is loud and busy and crowded. And this is just one small corner of the planet. Six thousand years doesn’t seem long enough for the changes.
Hastur dumped him on Earth in clothing that seemed to be standard in Hell - tattered, dirty, layered - but is generating waves of disgust and disapproval from the humans around him. That’s easily fixed - he zeros in on the strongest sense of arrogance and entitlement from amongst the (many!) humans who look vaguely like him, and a snap later he’s dressed to match. The words come to mind when he reaches for them, but they have no context or meaning - three piece suit, tie, Oxfords. Sunglasses weren’t part of the order, but appear nonetheless.
He shadows his sartorial inspiration because he’s a good candidate for his temptation quota, and to get a feel for how to be convincing as a human. It becomes very obvious that the instructional video is sadly out of date; humans do not carry money in bags; they don’t seem to carry it at all. By the end of the day he and the mark are having drinks in a hotel lobby; the human is convinced that he’s something called a lobbyist, looking to influence his vote in Parliament. Crowley has no idea what any of that is; he’d left openings in the conversation that the human was more than willing to fill. Crowley is more interested in the human’s opinions on smart phones, which are an absolute necessity for the kind of person he’s supposed to be, which hotels are the best, and the promise of introductions to like-minded politicians.
He’d arrived with no money, no place to stay. Hastur had been smugly amused about that. “You have to earn it. Improvise. It’s what you’re good at.”
Well, he has. And he’s got one temptation down already.
His life falls into a pattern: tempt a human or two, so that he’s always got one ready for Hastur. The hotel bar is where he does his best work; humans are more open to ideas, infernal or otherwise, after a friendly drink or two. And having a hotel room means he can report to Hastur via television, which also gives him something to do at night, since he doesn’t need to sleep.
The rest of his time is spent exploring London. He discovers museums, wanders through them, hoping something might spark a memory. The trick is not to push, to let whatever remains of that ingrained memory catch the edges of experiences that once were familiar.
One night he watches a documentary on a telescope in space — and how did humans even get there? — that makes the ones in the museums look like toys. He’s fascinated with the construction details, but then they start showing images of nebulas. His nebulas. Which, from his perspective, he’d only just left behind.
That night he discovers that, given sufficient amounts of alcohol, even demons can get hangovers.
He avoids anything to do with astronomy after that.
The television calls his name. It’s too early for his check-in with Hastur, and it’s not a familiar voice. “Crowley? Where are you? I’ve been calling your car and the bookshop, and even your old flat.”
“What car? I don’t have a car.” Fiendish devices. Hell probably loves them. “And who are you?”
There’s a long pause. “Is… is there someone with you? Should I call back later?”
“No!” he snaps, and immediately regrets it. If this is another demon - and who else could it be? - he doesn’t want to sound too eager. Or disobedient. More calmly, “No, it’s fine. It’s just…” Never show weakness. “Wasn’t expecting anyone else to call. And you’re early.”
“… anyone else? Early? Crowley… I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t have time. Can I - will you be there, wherever you are, the same time tomorrow? And can I trust you to be just as cautious as I’ve always known you to be?”
As in, not tell anyone? He’s not going to, but neither is he going to admit that. This has deception written all over it - maybe it’s a test, maybe one of Hastur’s enemies is sounding him out - but he’s so far away from knowing Hellish politics to even guess at which.
“Trust me? Where would we be if demons went around trusting each other?” There. A proper non-answer that works for anything.
Or maybe not. “Ah, quite,” the faintly bemused voice says, and then the television goes back to normal.
Another day, another temptation. It all seems terribly inefficient - Crowley has barely been on the planet any time at all, and he’s already got ideas on how to speed up the generation of infernal disquiet. But if that’s what Hastur wants, Crowley is more than happy to limit himself. The phrase work to rule floats through his head, with the warm familiarity that implies it was one of his.
The television crackles to life.
“I need to be able to see you,” the voice says, and then waits, as if Crowley is expected to do something here. And then, decisively, “Right, then.” The screen switches to a vast whiteness, focused on a smartly dressed - yes, angel, it can’t be anything else. And a familiar one at that - not from some wisps of lost memory, but from the time before the Fall. “So it is you,” he says. “I was wondering.”
“Yeah, ’s me,” he says. This angel knows him - knows his new name, even. His instinct is to not reveal how much of his memory is lost, although he suspects the angel will figure it out - more clever than the usual ones, he remembers; the first one to tell him that the universe had an artificial end date, the first one to worry about asking questions. Should’ve listened then, he thinks, and there’s an echo that says that’s a very well-worn thought.
He cocks his head. “I could lie and say I’d been busy, or any other excuse I think might be convincing. And then you’d worry” - yes, that fits - “and puzzle at it until you figured it out. Or we can skip to the end. You already think you know what’s wrong, yeah?”
The brow is furrowed, the mouth pursed, the eyes darting all around, reading every detail of his expression, even the ones he’s trying to hide. Yes, they know each other. Well, knew.
“Crowley,” he says, drawing it out, as if it will vanish if he’s not careful. “Please tell me - and this is very important - why do you think you don’t have a car?”
Not the response he was expecting. Startled, he answers honestly. “Like I’m going to trust my corporation to some infernal device I can’t control? Need a lot of miracles to make something like that behave. Layers of ‘em.” He can see them in his head, and it’s not just the automatic problem-solving process going into action - he’s done this before. He frowns. “But I have, haven’t I.”
The angel looks sad at his answer, and the problem-solving process wants to fix that too, although it’s not generating any ideas that would do so. “Yes,” he says. “You did. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Eden. The tree. Causing trouble, getting an extra helping of my demonic curse.”
“And me?”
He frowns, remembering. “No, that was before. You, staring at me, just before gravity betrayed me.” It had been a tool, nothing more, not something that had any effect on angels. Until it did, and they Fell.
The angel’s face crumples, looking almost as desolated as he had back then. “Oh, my dear.” A wave of static washes over the screen. The angel darts a quick look to the side. “Oh, bother. This takes up too much power, someone has noticed. Go to the bookshop - AZ Fell and Co, in Soho. You –”
The screen goes black.
He finds the bookshop only a short walk away from his hotel. Pauses across the street from it to make sure there are no observers; if this is a key to his memories, he expects it to be guarded, but Heaven and Hell are still as overconfident as he remembers.
The shades are drawn, the sign on the door says “Closed until further notice”, but he expects the door to open for him and it does. He steps inside, closes his eyes, lets his mind go blank, letting muscle memory take over. Opens his eyes, walks to the left, past a desk to a well-worn sofa. Sprawls on it in a way that feels natural, and which gives him a perfect view of the desk chair. Anyone sitting there would only have to turn slightly to see him. He tries to imagine the angel sitting there. The image he gets is not wearing the pale dove grey of Heaven-now, or the robes he remembers from Heaven-then, but soft creams and more layers than are currently stylish, a delighted smile as he looks in Crowley’s direction.
It’s not his imagination, it’s a memory. “Angel,” he breathes without active volition, and he knows it’s a pet name, not a description, more familiar on his tongue than the angel’s name itself.
He wants to reach out and run his fingers through those fluffy curls, take the angel in his arms, pour out all the feelings he’s afraid to name. Fears the consequences for both of them if he does, and knows that’s a memory, too.
Eventually he gets up and wanders around. Nothing else prompts anything close to the feelings he gets from that little corner of the shop. The letters on the desk provide a few details he’d missed, and he’d be willing to bet that the angel has souvenirs tucked away that he would find enlightening, but they’d also be far too incriminating to be left where they could be discovered by just anyone.
“Crowley?”
He needs to see the angel, compare him to the memory from the bookshop. He considers the connection, and what the angel did to it the last time. Hastur hadn’t bothered to explain it, but Hastur underestimates him. “I can make a video connection from my end if you want. If I power it, nobody there will notice.”
The response is instant and enthusiastic. “Oh, yes, please do!”
He pushes power into the connection, wills the television to show him the angel. On second viewing, the Heavenly grey looks even more out of place on him.
“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, testing the feel of it, not sure if he’s quite ready for Angel.
“Oh!” and the delight in the angel’s voice sparks a warm glow in parts of him that he’d thought had been completely destroyed in the Fall. “You remember!”
He makes a dismissing motion. “Some. Haven’t pushed, just letting things come back naturally. More the sense of things than actual memories, really.”
He pauses. He wants to ask what were we to each other? but he’s afraid of the answer. He’s a demon. The last memory he has of angels is slithering past them in Eden, knowing that they’d destroy him if he got caught. And before that was the Great War. He can remember, as if it were yesterday, the feeling of emptiness where his sense of love used to be. Sitting in the bookshop, he realized it’s not empty now. He didn’t think that was even possible. “I saw you, sitting there. Dressed in cream and a collar with a geometric pattern.”
“Bow tie, and tartan. It’s -” he swallows, and Crowley could swear his eyes are brimming with tears. “It’s stylish.”
“It’s not,” Crowley drawls fondly, and then freezes. That was a memory, and a very well-worn one if it came back that easily. He shakes his head. “I don’t think I should go back. It’s not safe for me to remember - Hastur made it perfectly clear that they’ll erase me again if they think it failed, and next time I’ll go straight to the Pit. He said I was supposed to go this time, not sure why I wasn’t. Certainly not because he likes me,” he adds cynically.
Aziraphale’s face goes through a quick cycle from pleased to dejected and finally to reluctant approval. “I’m afraid you’re right. And I do know why, but it’s not something you would know. Suffice it to say, however much you think he hated you then, it’s far worse now.”
He nods. “Best not to tell me, then. Should we… stop meeting?” Please say no.
Aziraphale bites the corner of his lip while he considers it. “I think we should continue. How much do you know about the Apocalypse?”
“Not much. It’s about due, innit? Trying not to think about that.”
“Ah, well, yes and no. We stopped the first attempt, now there’s another. They call it the ‘Second Coming’, although I suppose you don’t remember the first one.”
Crowley shakes his head. “No, but… makes sense I stopped it. From my perspective it’s not been that long since I got in trouble for asking why everything had to end so soon.” And so much sooner now.
Aziraphale looks oddly distraught at that, but shakes it off. Crowley tries to ignore his sense of fond pride as the angel draws himself up with a determined look. “It’s a very long story, and I’ll have to leave soon. Suffice it to say that they stole your memories because they’re afraid of what we can do together, so it’s vitally important that we keep you safe.” Aziraphale opens his mouth to say something else, then stops. Crowley nods. This, too, is familiar. Personally important as well, always unspoken.
Aziraphale calls him every day, even if it’s only for a quick are you there? It used to be a weekly arrangement, but Crowley can tell Aziraphale doesn’t want to risk him disappearing unnoticed again.
Crowley looks forward to it. It’s one guaranteed nice thing to get him through Hastur’s call for the Deeds of the Day - and the not so subtle digging to see if his memory is returning. Crowley deflects everything, even things he’s learned since he got here; he’s certain Hastur doesn’t know how the memory wipe works and will be suspicious of practically anything.
Crowley does not know what he and the angel used to discuss; the less he knows, the less he has to protect. Instead, they talk about places they’ve been, together and apart - nothing more than Crowley could learn from history books. Aziraphale is particularly fond of talking about food, and Crowley finds himself exceedingly fond of watching him when he does. It doesn’t prompt memories, but it does prompt feelings, which could be almost as dangerous if discovered, but Crowley can’t bring himself to tell Aziraphale to stop. He’s fairly certain he’s never bothered to eat — thinking about it prompts no echoes of familiarity — but when he thinks about watching Aziraphale eat, that resonates. He wonders how Aziraphale came to be so fond of it.
Over the next few months, Crowley learns several things:
• They’d had passphrases for “all is well” and “trouble” (“Tickety-boo? I’ve only just started using this language, but I know I’d never say tickety-boo.” “That’s why you picked it.”) But they hadn’t allowed for a situation where he didn’t remember any of them. One of the first things they do is correct that, even though Crowley’s quite certain that he’d never be allowed out of the Pit if that happens.
• He’s lucky that past-Crowley and Aziraphale had already done most of their plotting, and had assumed that only Aziraphale would have full knowledge of the situation he’d be dropped into; all he’ll have to do is wait for Aziraphale’s well-rehearsed cues to tell him exactly what to do.
• He’d invented the miracle that allows communication through human electronic devices and taught it to Aziraphale - including tricks like the video connection that Hastur doesn’t seem to know - which explains why he figured out how it worked so quickly.
• The temptation in Eden was so impressive that humans are still talking about it. Hastur had left him with the impression that he’d been a failure as a demon.
• He still doesn’t know why Hastur hates him so much. It’s not just that Hastur isn’t actually his boss anymore, thanks to something about the first Apocalypse that Aziraphale won’t tell him.
• He’s in love with an angel. That’s the strangest one. Angels and demons are enemies. His most recent memory of the Heavenly Host is the beginning of the Fall, a sea of anger and hatred — and Aziraphale, trying very hard to hide the concern that was directed at him alone. But that wasn’t personal, not then. Angels felt love for each other but they were never in love. When this is over, he wants those memories back, no matter how painful he knows it will be.
“Wish I could remember falling in love with you.”
Crowley winces. He hadn’t meant to say that, but Aziraphale had been describing the taste of crepes in Paris with many fond looks and sounds of delight. It seems to be an especially cherished memory that includes him in ways that are glaring in their absence.
Aziraphale’s face goes through a stunning array of emotions, of which shock and concern are most prominent, then sputters to a stop on a very careful neutral.
“What?” Crowley says, because he might as well press on now it’s out. “You must know. Not that I’m asking.”
Aziraphale fidgets; Crowley flashes to the well-worn edges of a soft cream waistcoat. “Well, I… of course, we never actually said… It would be far too dangerous. We said things that might mean, maybe, if you knew…
He stops and steadies himself. “Plausible deniability, my dear. We never said the words, much less talked about any of the actual… events, as it were.”
“Really? Even after both our sides abandoned their claims on us?” He shakes his head, wondering what past-him had been thinking.
“No. We were both still very cautious. Rather too cautious,” he adds in an undertone.
“But you did know? I’m going to have very harsh words for my past self if you didn’t.”
Aziraphale’s eyes crinkle with a smile that’s soft and so very fond. “Yes, my dear. I knew. And the same was true for you.”
Aziraphale sits in the cottage and waits.
They’d been right; once Heaven and Hell had discovered how powerful they were together, there had been a mad scramble to keep the two of them separated and suppressed: Aziraphale in Heaven, isolated from everything he holds dear, Crowley removed from the playing field entirely.
But dear, clever Crowley was still a threat, even without the memories of his time as a demon. He’d still had all the memories he’d painfully recovered from before the Fall, all the skills of a master Starmaker. He was still blocked from using those skills, but when combined with Aziraphale…
Well. Heaven had been wise to consider them a threat. And now nobody is going to be bothering either of them. Ever.
For nearly a month now, Crowley has been - not sleeping, but motionless, everything important happening on the ethereal plane. His corporation is largely left out of the process, although there are occasional signs on his face indicating the effort involved, and not a small amount of pain, which Aziraphale frets over being unable to relieve. But the past week has been quiet, so that it does look as though he’s sleeping.
Aziraphale hasn’t left his side in all that time.
Crowley sits up. He looks exhausted, even though his corporation is unaffected. “You gave away your sword.”
Aziraphale looks at him, half delighted, half distressed. “That’s the first memory they took from you?”
“No. Well, nearly, but that’s not what I meant.” He smiles, and if Aziraphale had thought he’d looked at him fondly when he’d forgotten that he shouldn’t, it’s nothing to how he looks now that he remembers everything. “That’s when I realized I was in love with you.”