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jamjar, who requested a drabble but doesn’t get one.
He had spent the easy path to the Great Hall of the Angel Islington; but Richard was master of the Key now, and he made his own way.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, except that perhaps it was time for this last bit of closure. His life Below had started to take the trappings of the usual: there was a strange sort of normality in standing just behind Door as she spoke to people of importance, in remembering to hold his breath when the air turned green and which potholes would send half his leg to last Tuesday, in the way the marquis blinked sideways if there was another secret he wasn’t about to tell.
He was even becoming accustomed to the Incongruity of his new world. He was proud of himself; he had hardly even blinked two days ago, when he had been introduced to the youngest daughter of a prominent metal-weaving clan and recognized her as one of Britain’s leading popstars. (“How does that work?” he had asked her, and she had shrugged and said, “They don’t really believe I exist anyway.”)
So maybe it was just that he was ready.
What he wasn’t ready for was company. In the London Below, every building with more than two sides standing was considered valued housing, but he had been sure the Great Hall was more than enough trouble to keep even the most desperate of squatters away. Still, when he arrived, there was a small, candlelit circle in the middle of the room. Inside it were two men sitting on wooden crates and sharing what Richard had no doubt was the last bottle of Atlantis made wine.
They seemed to be men from London Above, by the style and cleanliness of their clothing and speech patterns. Also, they were talking about a restaurant Richard knew of only because he had always found it too much trouble to get in, even when he would have been visible to the maître d’. Richard wondered if it was possible to wander Down by mistake. He had, but there had been Circumstances.
Well, Richard thought, if they were part of the regular world, they wouldn’t notice him. He walked up to the lighted area and said, “Hello.”
“And hello,” replied the dark haired man. “Took you long enough. I’m Anthony J. Crowley.”
“ ‘araph’l,” mumbled the older looking man around his wine glass.
Richard was silent a moment while the sounds rearranged themselves in his head. “Raphael?” he hazarded, whispering because there are some things you don’t expect from a dusty looking man in a tweed jacket, even if you are accustomed to Incongruity.
Judging by the way he started choking on his wine, it didn’t seem to be the right answer. Anthony J. Crowley pounded happily on his back until the other man recovered enough to wave him away. Crowley made a foppish gesture and announced, “You are healed,” and the other man started coughing again, although now it sounded a lot like poorly disguised laughter.
“It’s Aziraphale, actually,” he said, once he had regained his breath. He offered Richard his hand, which was warm and slightly clammy.
“Richard Mayhew,” Richard said as the handshake ended.
“…Grand Hunter, Keeper of the Key. Yes, yes, we know who you are.” Crowley handed him a crystal wineglass. “And we know why you’re here.”
“You do?” said Richard, who wasn’t entirely sure himself. He stared bemusedly at the wineglass.
Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale said, quietly, “The wake of the Angel Islington.”
Richard glanced between them, uncertainly. Aziraphale was staring off to one wall, apparently lost in some thought or memory, and Crowley just looked back at him with a slightly sardonic expression.
“I’m sure I didn’t mean to intrude,” Richard said after a few moments.
“No, no, dear boy.” said Aziraphale. “It’s right that you’re here.”
Richard frowned. “But I’m responsi--”
“Yess,” interrupted Crowley, stressing the sibilant. “You helped destroy Islington, and good riddance, too-”
“Crowley,” admonished Aziraphale. Then he sighed and turned to Richard. “It was a good thing you did,” he said. “As far as such things can be measured.”
“It was necessary,” said Richard.
“That’s what I meant.”
“Point is,” Crowley said, dragging them back on topic. “You go to all the trouble of destroying someone, the least you can do is show up to its funeral. It’s just good manners.”
“Oh,” said Richard. He nodded slowly, as if Crowley had said something profound, and then shrugged and pulled up a crate. “And how did you two kn— Er.” Richard paused for a moment. “Why are you attending?”
“Because I want to be certain it’s really gone this time,” Crowley said. He grinned at Richard, and Richard shivered. Crowley grinned wider.
Aziraphale pursed his lips and looked meaningfully at Crowley. “Because it is the right thing to do,” he said.
“Because no one else would,” Crowley added.
“Except for us,” said Richard.
“Yep,” said Crowley.
Richard sighed. “I certainly have an interesting sense of timing.”
“Oh, time,” said Aziraphale, waving a hand dismissively, and Richard supposed that was almost an answer.
“And as we’re speaking of time,” Crowley said, “do let’s get on with this.” He picked up the wine bottle from beside his leg and poured a few ounces into Richard’s glass. Then he topped up his and Aziraphale’s wine, shaking the last few drops into his own. “And that’s the last of it,” Crowley said. Richard thought he sounded slightly wistful.
Candlelight scattered through the liquid, suffusing the area with a soft glow. “It’s from Atlantis,” Richard said, mostly to remind himself.
“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, and he didn’t sound wistful so much as bitter.
“Islington destroyed Atlantis,” Richard said.
Aziraphale scowled. “He never did.”
“What?” said Richard. “But I thought—”
“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley said. “There never was an Atlantis. It’s only a myth.”
“Can’t destroy something that never existed,” said Aziraphale, and now there was nothing at all wistful in his voice.
Richard raised his free hand to his temple. There was something almost comfortingly familiar about his current level of information vertigo, which worried him almost more than the confusion itself. “I don’t understand,” he said. “The wine—”
“Yes?” Crowley said to him. “You thought that G – that You-Know-Who banished Islington because it took the initiative to, what? Find a flaming sword somebody had left laying around and smite in His name an entire race of people plus a fairly sizeable chunk of valuable waterfront property into so much ash and fishfood? Have you read the Bible? That sort of behaviour was almost encouraged.”
He shot a wary glance at Aziraphale, but Aziraphale just looked away and took a mouthful of wine.
“Anyway,” Crowley said, turning back to Richard. “No one Up There would have taken exception if Atlantis had been added to Sodom and Gomorrah and a hundred little villages where an angel was asked to pay for his mead. That blessed idiot might have even come away with a commendation.”
Richard frowned at the last bit, but he decided to stick with the bigger question. “Then why—”
“It couldn’t even do a very good job of it,” said Aziraphale quietly. He looked up at Richard. “Not enough power, see. Especially if it wanted to keep this.” Aziraphale raised his glass in an almost salute. “Too many myths escaped. Some artefacts as well, which are currently boggling the mind of the premier anthropologist in Greece, I believe. And one of the noble bloodlines, although it doesn’t matter at this stage.”
“Atlantis never existed,” Crowley repeated. “To ravage an entire continent, murder its population and sink its land beneath a sea of salt that no life would ever again grow there, well, that’s perfectly acceptable in some circles. But to have the audacity to reach back in time and cool an underwater volcano range before it became an island, to wipe out every part that it had played in a Great Plan…” Crowley smirked wryly at Richard. “For that,” he said, “there’s a special place in London.”
Aziraphale took another sip of wine. “It told me once – twice maybe – how it had stood in the air over the city and watched as the waves rushed forward to fill the present. The past now, I suppose.” He paused for a moment, staring into the wine. “It thought it was doing right, washing the taint of their wickedness from history. Poor thing.” Crowley snorted.
Aziraphale said, “This is the last of the Atlantean wine. No one will ever drink it again, not even us.” He took another sip. “Pity.”
“You know who to thank for that,” said Crowley. He continued, “But if we could get on to that part soon, I’d appreciate it. I’ve got an appointment with a circle of, erm, clients this evening, and they have an absolutely puritanical opinion on punctuality.”
Aziraphale smiled mildly. “In that case, I suppose I’m duty bound to delay you as long as possible.”
“You’ll run out of wine, at the rate you’re drinking it,” Crowley pointed out. “And you’re not getting any of mine.”
“Hmm,” said Aziraphale. “All right. Shall I go first?”
“Er, sorry,” said Richard, who had been trying to wrap his thoughts around the fate of Atlantis. “What is it we’re doing?”
“Don’t worry, dear, it’s quite simple, really,” Aziraphale said. “You just say something short and then drink.”
“That’s good,” said Richard. He felt slightly relieved, and supposed that there had been some part of him worried about seven week funeral songs or possibly revenge rituals. “Do we, er, clink our glasses together before?”
“To chase the evil spirits away?” said Crowley. He seemed amused. Richard thought of how he had spat out every reference to Heaven in his impromptu history lesson.
“No, I’d guess not,” said Richard.
Aziraphale made a show of clearing his throat. He raised his glass slightly and said, “For Islington. That you held the Light, though it burned you.”
Crowley watched him for a moment, and then raised his own glass. “Utter bollocks as an angel,” he said, “but a decent taste in wines.”
They turned to Richard expectantly. He raised his glass as they had, and tried to think of something that wasn’t, I’m glad you will never, ever touch this world again.
“I suppose,” he said. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be working in Securities.”
This seemed to be acceptable, although Crowley fixed him with an unnerving smile. “Securities, hmm? You must have been very miserable, to trade in that life for this one.”
“Don’t gloat, dear,” said Aziraphale, patting Crowley on the arm.
Richard sipped the wine. It tasted like the summer days of his childhood, like running through a sprinkler in a perfect green yard on a day when the sun was warm and there were no clouds in the sky and he could hear the ice cream truck making its way down the lane. He thought of how no one would ever taste it again.
Aziraphale finished first. He wandered off for a minute and came back with an unlit candle, which he fitted into the neck of the empty wine bottle. He waited for Richard and Crowley to finish their wine, and then gave his construction a small smile. “Fiat lux,” he said, and the candle wick was suddenly aflame.
Crowley frowned at it. “He’s not exactly a lost soul, Aziraphale,” he said. “And in any case, are we sure we want him finding his way?”
Aziraphale stared at the candle for another few seconds, and then turned to Crowley. “It’s right that we do this,” he said.
For a moment Richard wasn’t sure if Crowley was going to laugh or throw a punch at Aziraphale, but then he stilled. “Oh,” he said. “Right then.” He stayed by Richard, watching the tiny flame, while Aziraphale wandered around collecting wineglasses and putting out the rest of the candles.
When Aziraphale was done, he walked back to them and tapped Crowley on the shoulder to get his attention. Crowley got to his feet, and he nodded once to Richard.
“I suspect we’ll be meeting again,” said Aziraphale, and Richard believed him.
Aziraphale and Crowley walked towards the great door, discussing which of them would be taking home the wineglasses. When Richard had last seen that door opened, it had lead to the farthest vacuum of space, colder and brighter and heavier than any hell man would ever imagine. When Aziraphale opened it – with, as far as Richard could see, no key and little more effort – there was a shadowed stone staircase leading upwards. Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a dissatisfied glance, and then Aziraphale closed the door and opened it again. This time, there were polished steel elevator doors on the other side. Crowley pressed the little button, and they fidgeted in universal Waiting For The Elevator body language until it came.
They stepped across, and the door shut behind them. Richard was finally alone in the Great Hall where his life had been changed or, at least, defined, although it hardly seemed to deserve the capital letters now. He still wasn’t sure why he had come, or what he was looking for.
He wondered if he’d found it.
Richard spent a while watching the candle as it cast dancing shadows where before there had only been darkness. He came back once, several weeks later, and it was still burning.
jamjar, who requested a drabble but doesn’t get one.He had spent the easy path to the Great Hall of the Angel Islington; but Richard was master of the Key now, and he made his own way.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, except that perhaps it was time for this last bit of closure. His life Below had started to take the trappings of the usual: there was a strange sort of normality in standing just behind Door as she spoke to people of importance, in remembering to hold his breath when the air turned green and which potholes would send half his leg to last Tuesday, in the way the marquis blinked sideways if there was another secret he wasn’t about to tell.
He was even becoming accustomed to the Incongruity of his new world. He was proud of himself; he had hardly even blinked two days ago, when he had been introduced to the youngest daughter of a prominent metal-weaving clan and recognized her as one of Britain’s leading popstars. (“How does that work?” he had asked her, and she had shrugged and said, “They don’t really believe I exist anyway.”)
So maybe it was just that he was ready.
What he wasn’t ready for was company. In the London Below, every building with more than two sides standing was considered valued housing, but he had been sure the Great Hall was more than enough trouble to keep even the most desperate of squatters away. Still, when he arrived, there was a small, candlelit circle in the middle of the room. Inside it were two men sitting on wooden crates and sharing what Richard had no doubt was the last bottle of Atlantis made wine.
They seemed to be men from London Above, by the style and cleanliness of their clothing and speech patterns. Also, they were talking about a restaurant Richard knew of only because he had always found it too much trouble to get in, even when he would have been visible to the maître d’. Richard wondered if it was possible to wander Down by mistake. He had, but there had been Circumstances.
Well, Richard thought, if they were part of the regular world, they wouldn’t notice him. He walked up to the lighted area and said, “Hello.”
“And hello,” replied the dark haired man. “Took you long enough. I’m Anthony J. Crowley.”
“ ‘araph’l,” mumbled the older looking man around his wine glass.
Richard was silent a moment while the sounds rearranged themselves in his head. “Raphael?” he hazarded, whispering because there are some things you don’t expect from a dusty looking man in a tweed jacket, even if you are accustomed to Incongruity.
Judging by the way he started choking on his wine, it didn’t seem to be the right answer. Anthony J. Crowley pounded happily on his back until the other man recovered enough to wave him away. Crowley made a foppish gesture and announced, “You are healed,” and the other man started coughing again, although now it sounded a lot like poorly disguised laughter.
“It’s Aziraphale, actually,” he said, once he had regained his breath. He offered Richard his hand, which was warm and slightly clammy.
“Richard Mayhew,” Richard said as the handshake ended.
“…Grand Hunter, Keeper of the Key. Yes, yes, we know who you are.” Crowley handed him a crystal wineglass. “And we know why you’re here.”
“You do?” said Richard, who wasn’t entirely sure himself. He stared bemusedly at the wineglass.
Crowley nodded, and Aziraphale said, quietly, “The wake of the Angel Islington.”
Richard glanced between them, uncertainly. Aziraphale was staring off to one wall, apparently lost in some thought or memory, and Crowley just looked back at him with a slightly sardonic expression.
“I’m sure I didn’t mean to intrude,” Richard said after a few moments.
“No, no, dear boy.” said Aziraphale. “It’s right that you’re here.”
Richard frowned. “But I’m responsi--”
“Yess,” interrupted Crowley, stressing the sibilant. “You helped destroy Islington, and good riddance, too-”
“Crowley,” admonished Aziraphale. Then he sighed and turned to Richard. “It was a good thing you did,” he said. “As far as such things can be measured.”
“It was necessary,” said Richard.
“That’s what I meant.”
“Point is,” Crowley said, dragging them back on topic. “You go to all the trouble of destroying someone, the least you can do is show up to its funeral. It’s just good manners.”
“Oh,” said Richard. He nodded slowly, as if Crowley had said something profound, and then shrugged and pulled up a crate. “And how did you two kn— Er.” Richard paused for a moment. “Why are you attending?”
“Because I want to be certain it’s really gone this time,” Crowley said. He grinned at Richard, and Richard shivered. Crowley grinned wider.
Aziraphale pursed his lips and looked meaningfully at Crowley. “Because it is the right thing to do,” he said.
“Because no one else would,” Crowley added.
“Except for us,” said Richard.
“Yep,” said Crowley.
Richard sighed. “I certainly have an interesting sense of timing.”
“Oh, time,” said Aziraphale, waving a hand dismissively, and Richard supposed that was almost an answer.
“And as we’re speaking of time,” Crowley said, “do let’s get on with this.” He picked up the wine bottle from beside his leg and poured a few ounces into Richard’s glass. Then he topped up his and Aziraphale’s wine, shaking the last few drops into his own. “And that’s the last of it,” Crowley said. Richard thought he sounded slightly wistful.
Candlelight scattered through the liquid, suffusing the area with a soft glow. “It’s from Atlantis,” Richard said, mostly to remind himself.
“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, and he didn’t sound wistful so much as bitter.
“Islington destroyed Atlantis,” Richard said.
Aziraphale scowled. “He never did.”
“What?” said Richard. “But I thought—”
“Don’t be stupid,” Crowley said. “There never was an Atlantis. It’s only a myth.”
“Can’t destroy something that never existed,” said Aziraphale, and now there was nothing at all wistful in his voice.
Richard raised his free hand to his temple. There was something almost comfortingly familiar about his current level of information vertigo, which worried him almost more than the confusion itself. “I don’t understand,” he said. “The wine—”
“Yes?” Crowley said to him. “You thought that G – that You-Know-Who banished Islington because it took the initiative to, what? Find a flaming sword somebody had left laying around and smite in His name an entire race of people plus a fairly sizeable chunk of valuable waterfront property into so much ash and fishfood? Have you read the Bible? That sort of behaviour was almost encouraged.”
He shot a wary glance at Aziraphale, but Aziraphale just looked away and took a mouthful of wine.
“Anyway,” Crowley said, turning back to Richard. “No one Up There would have taken exception if Atlantis had been added to Sodom and Gomorrah and a hundred little villages where an angel was asked to pay for his mead. That blessed idiot might have even come away with a commendation.”
Richard frowned at the last bit, but he decided to stick with the bigger question. “Then why—”
“It couldn’t even do a very good job of it,” said Aziraphale quietly. He looked up at Richard. “Not enough power, see. Especially if it wanted to keep this.” Aziraphale raised his glass in an almost salute. “Too many myths escaped. Some artefacts as well, which are currently boggling the mind of the premier anthropologist in Greece, I believe. And one of the noble bloodlines, although it doesn’t matter at this stage.”
“Atlantis never existed,” Crowley repeated. “To ravage an entire continent, murder its population and sink its land beneath a sea of salt that no life would ever again grow there, well, that’s perfectly acceptable in some circles. But to have the audacity to reach back in time and cool an underwater volcano range before it became an island, to wipe out every part that it had played in a Great Plan…” Crowley smirked wryly at Richard. “For that,” he said, “there’s a special place in London.”
Aziraphale took another sip of wine. “It told me once – twice maybe – how it had stood in the air over the city and watched as the waves rushed forward to fill the present. The past now, I suppose.” He paused for a moment, staring into the wine. “It thought it was doing right, washing the taint of their wickedness from history. Poor thing.” Crowley snorted.
Aziraphale said, “This is the last of the Atlantean wine. No one will ever drink it again, not even us.” He took another sip. “Pity.”
“You know who to thank for that,” said Crowley. He continued, “But if we could get on to that part soon, I’d appreciate it. I’ve got an appointment with a circle of, erm, clients this evening, and they have an absolutely puritanical opinion on punctuality.”
Aziraphale smiled mildly. “In that case, I suppose I’m duty bound to delay you as long as possible.”
“You’ll run out of wine, at the rate you’re drinking it,” Crowley pointed out. “And you’re not getting any of mine.”
“Hmm,” said Aziraphale. “All right. Shall I go first?”
“Er, sorry,” said Richard, who had been trying to wrap his thoughts around the fate of Atlantis. “What is it we’re doing?”
“Don’t worry, dear, it’s quite simple, really,” Aziraphale said. “You just say something short and then drink.”
“That’s good,” said Richard. He felt slightly relieved, and supposed that there had been some part of him worried about seven week funeral songs or possibly revenge rituals. “Do we, er, clink our glasses together before?”
“To chase the evil spirits away?” said Crowley. He seemed amused. Richard thought of how he had spat out every reference to Heaven in his impromptu history lesson.
“No, I’d guess not,” said Richard.
Aziraphale made a show of clearing his throat. He raised his glass slightly and said, “For Islington. That you held the Light, though it burned you.”
Crowley watched him for a moment, and then raised his own glass. “Utter bollocks as an angel,” he said, “but a decent taste in wines.”
They turned to Richard expectantly. He raised his glass as they had, and tried to think of something that wasn’t, I’m glad you will never, ever touch this world again.
“I suppose,” he said. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be working in Securities.”
This seemed to be acceptable, although Crowley fixed him with an unnerving smile. “Securities, hmm? You must have been very miserable, to trade in that life for this one.”
“Don’t gloat, dear,” said Aziraphale, patting Crowley on the arm.
Richard sipped the wine. It tasted like the summer days of his childhood, like running through a sprinkler in a perfect green yard on a day when the sun was warm and there were no clouds in the sky and he could hear the ice cream truck making its way down the lane. He thought of how no one would ever taste it again.
Aziraphale finished first. He wandered off for a minute and came back with an unlit candle, which he fitted into the neck of the empty wine bottle. He waited for Richard and Crowley to finish their wine, and then gave his construction a small smile. “Fiat lux,” he said, and the candle wick was suddenly aflame.
Crowley frowned at it. “He’s not exactly a lost soul, Aziraphale,” he said. “And in any case, are we sure we want him finding his way?”
Aziraphale stared at the candle for another few seconds, and then turned to Crowley. “It’s right that we do this,” he said.
For a moment Richard wasn’t sure if Crowley was going to laugh or throw a punch at Aziraphale, but then he stilled. “Oh,” he said. “Right then.” He stayed by Richard, watching the tiny flame, while Aziraphale wandered around collecting wineglasses and putting out the rest of the candles.
When Aziraphale was done, he walked back to them and tapped Crowley on the shoulder to get his attention. Crowley got to his feet, and he nodded once to Richard.
“I suspect we’ll be meeting again,” said Aziraphale, and Richard believed him.
Aziraphale and Crowley walked towards the great door, discussing which of them would be taking home the wineglasses. When Richard had last seen that door opened, it had lead to the farthest vacuum of space, colder and brighter and heavier than any hell man would ever imagine. When Aziraphale opened it – with, as far as Richard could see, no key and little more effort – there was a shadowed stone staircase leading upwards. Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a dissatisfied glance, and then Aziraphale closed the door and opened it again. This time, there were polished steel elevator doors on the other side. Crowley pressed the little button, and they fidgeted in universal Waiting For The Elevator body language until it came.
They stepped across, and the door shut behind them. Richard was finally alone in the Great Hall where his life had been changed or, at least, defined, although it hardly seemed to deserve the capital letters now. He still wasn’t sure why he had come, or what he was looking for.
He wondered if he’d found it.
Richard spent a while watching the candle as it cast dancing shadows where before there had only been darkness. He came back once, several weeks later, and it was still burning.
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Find a flaming sword somebody had left laying around
Genius, sheer genius! No wonder Aziraphale is feeling bad about the whole thing.
From:
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Aziraphale could so easily have been in the same boat. It is only right that he should have compassion other angels who have lost their way.
From:
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*nods* Aziraphale and Islington both thought they were doing the right thing - still do, really - and while it's not all that evident in Aziraphale's case ('though I think it's still implied), they both were wrong, inasfar as 'right' was decided by Heaven. Er. I think that sentence got away from me a little.
It is only right that he should have compassion other angels who have lost their way.
And actually, depending on how you read his character, Crowley could almost be included in that as well.
From:
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Find a flaming sword somebody had left laying around
Genius, sheer genius! No wonder Aziraphale is feeling bad about the whole thing.
I think Crowley's just snipping at him, myself. He's not as indifferent to the whole situation as he's trying to pretend, really.