Happy Holidays, vulgarweed!
Title: How Did We End Up Here
Recipient: vulgarweed
From: inkstainedarm
Pairing/Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley, Charon, Hel, one of the Fates, and some OC's
Rating: R
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley are discorporated and end up in the wrong afterlife.
There wasn't any warning. There never is, when DEATH arrives.
It was a cloudy Sunday afternoon as Crowley and Aziraphale stepped out of the Ritz, arguing about the good and bad of politics both human and divine and finding no common ground1, and while such an argument is fine and dandy while sitting in the Ritz enjoying a fine lunch, the involved nature of the argument can distract one from noticing some rather important things around them. And that can be quite the problem if you are crossing a busy Manchester street, for traffic stops for no one.
(*~*)
Jake Fornelius had meant to get his brakes fixed months ago, he really had. But between helping his mother fix the paisley (and quite horrendously ugly, to be honest) sofa, and taking care of his girlfriend's Yorkshire terrier, he hadn't been able to find the time.
So as he drove down the road, going perhaps a bit over the speed limit, he was able to do nothing but watch in horror and blare his horn as two men, one in a smart suit and the other in a tartan jacket vaguely reminiscent of the clothes his great-grandfather had greatly favored, stepped out into the road in front of him and were promptly smashed to the ground with a revolting thump. And as the brakes finally did kick in, far too late to do any sort of good, he rushed out to see if there was any sort of hope for the two men's survival, only to see that there definitely was not. And if he had listened very closely, or had had a recorder of the type favored by ghost hunters everywhere, he would have heard a tiny, furious voice cursing him and his mother and father2 as it slowly disappeared. Crowley was never one to forgive anyone for discorporating him in such a mundane way, after all.
1 'You can't argue for Hitler, angel! Not even my people would touch all the things he did!'
'Honestly, Crowley, you know as well as I do that Hitler was corrupted by War! No mortal can stand up against the Horsemen; they simply don't have the will.'
'War can only bring out their worst nature, not completely change their actual one. No, he was just plain bad to begin with.'
'Crowley, you just can't comprehend the plan, can you?'
'Don't you get all snooty with me, Aziraphale- I'm not the angel who lost his own blasted sword. And okay, if your argument is that War corrupted Hitler, who corrupted Stalin? Do you think of him as plain evil?'
'No human is born evil, they become corrupted. And actually, I know for a fact that Famine corrupted him.'
And so on.
2 And his cousin, and his great aunt, and his adopted uncle's daughter's stepsister's son, and his great grandmother's guinea pig. Crowley believed you could never be too thorough in curses.
(*~*)
Crowley materialized into a lavishly decorated room and groaned internally. He'd been telling Hell that they needed to update their look for years, and it seemed that they'd finally had- but that they'd taken the theme from a dark romance novel, which was all fine and dandy if you were a Victorian vampire, but which didn't exactly scream YOU ARE DAMNED. The room he was in had fine, velvet curtains draping down the rocky walls that somehow conveyed that sinister things lurked behind them, and human skulls were tastefully scattered around the room, laying on top of rocks and placed in indents in the walls. Crowley was well aware that he was no interior decorator himself, but when the skulls had elegant hats placed as if they were a morbid fashion display, it was definitely over the top. And to make it worse, the hellfire that Hell was so known for- that basically represented Hell- was nowhere to be seen. Dramatic lighting from pale orbs provided the light instead.
And as if the design of the room wasn't bad enough, the appearance of the demon behind the check-in desk was so overdone that Crowley wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. He had the goth look that Crowley had only vaguely encountered in underground nightclubs: eyeliner smeared across his eyes, black skinny jeans that fit him like a second skin, a fashionably ripped black and red shirt, and mussed hair that slightly covered the obscene amount of piercings in his ears. Crowley was by no means as conservative in his opinions of fashion as Aziraphale (especially as no tartan was allowed in a 50 meter radius of him unless it was on a certain angel), but at the same time, he held on to the belief that demons should appear terrifying, and that effect was not achieved when they acted like melancholy Goths. If the room's decorations were something out of a romance novel, Crowley thought sourly, here was that novel's love interest, dark past and all.
It was too ridiculous for Crowley to ignore. Most of the time, he wouldn't say anything about how this attempt to modernize Hell was going to end up with the demons in charge screaming in pain for a few centuries, as it was far easier to just watch and regretfully comment about how you'd tried to warn him, but hadn't he just ignored you, but this change to Hell's entrance was just too bad. It completely destroyed the image of Hell as the home of the damned, and Crowley found he was actually missing the old fire-and-brimstone look Hell had had for centuries. It had given the place a much homier feel.
He coughed deliberately, and waited until the demon had broken away from his constant scribbling to speak. 'Look,' Crowley began, grinning at the younger demon in a way that might actually be taken as friendly if you didn't look in his eyes. 'I don't know if you're just spawned or what, but speaking from experience, this look is not going to fly. Somehow, you've managed to escape anybody much older and scarier than you seeing this and deciding the best remedy is to slowly kill the person who made it, but you won't be able to keep it up for very long. Best to change it back to the way it was now.'
The young man raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. 'What are you talking about? This isn't-'
Crowley gestured wildly. 'This! The room. Your clothes. You yourself, in fact. This does not give the appropriate air for Hell. This looks like something out of a dramatic romance novel. The second anyone with any sort of experience- or, blast it, anyone who just knows what Hell should look like- sees this, you will be ripped apart and fed to the imps. I'm trying to help so that doesn't happen.'
'You don't understand,' the man said. 'This isn't a new look. We've had this for quite a few years.'
'No you haven't!' Crowley hissed. 'I've been down here just a few years ago, and it was still the traditional look!'
'Crowley?' a voice asked uncertainly behind him.
Crowley turned, eyes widening as he saw Aziraphale. 'What are you doing here? How the hell did you get so lost as to end up here?'
'Well, I would agree with you and say I must have somehow taken a very wrong turn, but…' Aziraphale shrugged one shoulder sheepishly. 'I don't believe it's possible for both of us to get so lost without someone deliberately making it so.'
'Both of us? Speak for yourself,' Crowley said, frowning. 'Even if the theme seems to be that of an overdone nightclub at the moment, I'm pretty sure this is where I'm supposed to be.'
'No, it's not,' the young man said with a sigh. 'Listen to your companion.'
'No, this is definitely where I'm supposed to be,' Crowley said. 'The gates I opened to come in here were the same as they've been, at least-'
'Yes, they probably were- because your people copied the design for the Gates of Hell from us,' the young man said. 'But otherwise- you, a fallen angel of an Abrahamic religion, are supposed to be on the bank of the Styx, waiting to cross into Lord Hades' realm, and not in Hell? I don't think that's the case, seeing as you seemed to be very convinced you were in Hell as you lectured me on the style.'
'What?' Crowley said, eyes narrowing as he really looked at the man for the first time. Something about his face looked familiar, but Crowley couldn't remember where he'd seen it before. After living for six millennia, faces tended to blur together.
'Well, honestly, Charon,' Aziraphale said with some annoyance, and Crowley cursed internally for not having figured it out sooner. 'This doesn't look anything like the Underworld used to with all the drapes and such you've put up, and you yourself seemed to have gotten a complete makeover. I can't see how we were supposed to recognize you straight off.' He raised an eyebrow and gave Charon a pointed once over; something Crowley found hilarious as Aziraphale probably didn't have a clue how lewd it seemed.
'I must say I love the makeup,' Crowley drawled, trying to hide that he'd still believed he was in Hell up to that point. 'Every goth girl that comes down here must ask you for tips.'
Charon raised an eyebrow. 'And did demons wear black suits and drive Bentleys back in the beginning of your religion?' he asked acidly. 'The Underworld changes with the times, just as you do. And that is beside the point,' he added. 'The fact remains that you are in the wrong afterlife, and you have no reason to be. Are there any gods that have mentioned wanting to get revenge on you for your gods' attempt to start the Apocalypse? That's the only reason I can think of for you being sent here.'
Aziraphale sucked in a breath. 'Would Hades do that?'
'No,' Charon said. 'I didn't mean Hades in particular; I meant any god not of your religion. It could have been a god from some other pantheon, for all I know.'
'If this was the best revenge the person could come up with, then they have no imagination,' Crowley grumbled. 'Even Hell could come up with a more creative and painful revenge than this, and they're unimaginative bastards stuck in the past.'
'Oh, I don't know about that,' Charon said thoughtfully. 'This might have been a better revenge than you'd think.'
Aziraphale frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'Well, unless you have any coins or really, any sort of money on you- do you?' he asked them. Both Crowley and Aziraphale shook their heads, and he sighed and continued, 'Well, then, you can't move on through the Underworld. You'll have to stay on this bank of the Styx with the other freeloaders.'
'That can't be right,' Crowley said, feeling his stomach sinking. 'Can't you, I don't know, call our realms and let them know we're stuck here so they can pay you?'
'No,' Charon said, smiling a dangerously friendly smile. 'You want to know why?'
'I have a feeling I don't, actually,' Crowley muttered, 'But I'll listen to it anyway.'
Charon continued to smile and said, 'Ignoring for a minute, that Hell would probably be incredibly amused at your predicament and would just tell me to keep you here, I can't contact either of your realms at all because both of your gods are horrible snobs and don't allow any of us pagans any access to your realms. I actually don't have a clue as to how you'd get from any of the other afterlives into your own, because as far as I know, your gods have blocked out all of the possible routes. Messengers can get into them, but as far as I know, their methods only work for the living and not for spirits. So, basically,' he finished, 'It looks like you might be stuck here for all eternity.'
'We're not mortals, though,' Aziraphale said, a tad bit desperately. 'Isn't there some other way for us-'
'You're mortals here,' Charon said flatly. 'In case you haven't noticed, neither of you have any holy or unholy powers down here. Since you're not our entities, you can't affect our realms in any way. Even if you were gods- even if it was the Antichrist himself that ended up here, he wouldn't be able to do anything.'
'If you'd ever met Adam, I'm not so sure you'd think that,' Crowley muttered. Charon ignored him.
Aziraphale sighed. 'Right, so- we're just going to have to stay on this side of the Styx? Do we have to stay in a certain area or can we at least walk around a bit?'
'Oh, you can walk around,' Charon said, 'But don't try to find a way out. If you leave here and go back into the living world, I'll send the Furies after you, and you'll be able to experience the Fields of Punishment firsthand. The demons of Hell could learn from the monsters who run that.'
'Point taken, though I think you're probably wrong about Hell,' Crowley said dryly. Aziraphale only sighed and began to walk away from Charon's desk, towards the bank of the Styx. Crowley turned and followed him.
They walked in silence for a while, until Crowley felt it too oppressive and had to say something. 'So angel,' he said casually, 'How do you know Charon? Been consorting with the enemy?'
'Of course not, and my dear, I do believe talking to you would be considered consorting with the enemy more than talking with Charon,' Aziraphale said with a touch of indignation. 'There was this demigod a while ago, who needed help finding the entrance to the Underworld, so I helped him find it. I didn't intend to go inside, but once we'd found the entrance, I figured a quick peek couldn't hurt, and so I met Charon.'
'Encouraging the worship of false idols,' Crowley said sadly, shaking his head. 'Oh, angel, you've been corrupting the youth.'
'Hardly,' Aziraphale said with a sniff. 'The Greek gods can hardly be considered false idols since they are alive and all, you know, and besides that, helping others in need is my main duty. It helps them see how the grace of Heaven in the best choice.' Deflating slightly, he added, 'And he was offering me a beautiful collection of Greek myths, written by the Muses themselves, as payment.'
'Knew it'd come back to the books, Aziraphale. Seems like they're the one thing that could corrupt you.' Rubbing a hand over his face, Crowley groaned. 'Blast it all, I need a drink. Preferably something strong enough to make me forget I'm trapped in the wrong afterlife and could be stuck there for all eternity. I don't suppose you have any way to make one appear?'
Aziraphale concentrated for a minute and then shook his head. 'I'm afraid not, my dear. It seems as though we're completely out of luck right now.'
'Fuck,' Crowley hissed vehemently, getting a disapproving glare from a smartly dressed man with a monocle. 'How are we going to get out of this, Aziraphale? I'll be damned- well, more than I am already- if I stay down here for a few years, let alone all eternity!'
'We wait,' Aziraphale said calmly, looking perfectly content to do just that.
Crowley's jaw dropped, and for a few seconds he could do nothing but stare. When his wits finally recovered, he spluttered and gestured wildly, finally coming up with, 'You have got to be kidding me. We need a better plan than just 'oh, we wait here, in this stinking cavern, for all eternity!' to get out of here!'
'I'm afraid not,' Aziraphale said. Seeing Crowley's complete incomprehension and dislike of the plan, he sighed and added, 'I have a friend who comes down to the Underworld on occasion. She can travel between the different realms, so she should be able to find us a way to return to our afterlives, or at the very least, leave this one. Assuming she feels like helping us, that is.'
'Since when did an angel have all these pagan friends?' Crowley demanded. 'Who do you know that can travel between the realms? Are you telling me you know a messenger3? How in the Hell do you know a messenger?'
'I know a messenger because unlike you, I actually go out of my way to help them,' Aziraphale said primly. 'I know a few of them, actually, but the one in particular that I was talking about is Art Wanderer.'
'Yeah, yeah, rub your goodness in, angel,' Crowley said testily, and then the full meaning of what Aziraphale had said sank in. 'Wait, Art Wanderer?' he all but yelled, ignoring the glares of the spirits around him. The woman who's psycho enough to actually be friends with War? The one that came into Hell after the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, chewed out Beelzebub and then my master in front of hordes of demons, and then just walked out of Hell without anyone trying to stop her? Is that who you're talking about?'
'She's actually a very nice girl,' Aziraphale said primly. 'Her job involves a lot of fighting, that's all. Being Poseidon's daughter and Loki's messenger means that everyone that hates either one or the other of those gods picks a fight with her, so she does tend to cause fights a lot by doing nothing but being there. It's not her fault so many gods are touchy.'
'When the gods are touchy, they go off in a huff and ignore people for a couple of centuries,' Crowley muttered. 'They don't start wars when they're touchy; they start wars when they're pissed off beyond any point of reasoning! She starts a fight any time she decides she doesn't like someone,' Crowley sighed. 'We'll probably make hundreds of enemies we don't even know by getting involved with her. This is crazy. I cannot believe the messenger you'd know would be her.'
'Well, you can take it or leave it,' Aziraphale said tartly. 'Right now, she's the only option I see for getting out of here. If you've got any better ideas, you're welcome to state them.'
'Nope, being rescued by the only mortal who fights enough to actually be War's friend sounds excellent,' Crowley said with a sigh. 'Why wouldn't it be? There's no chance of any sort of repercussions at all, just like how there's no chance of repercussions if I went around telling people to become atheists.'
'Your sarcasm isn't appreciated,' Aziraphale snapped. Taking a deep breath, he visibly pulled himself together and said with forced calm, 'If you want to get out of here, you have to use whatever you've got, and I don't hear you suggesting anything besides her.'
'She's Art Wanderer,' Crowley said desperately. 'There has to be some other way! I will never survive her.'
An old woman's spirit sitting on a rock nearby clicked her tongue disapprovingly. 'Now, now, dearie. Don't you be getting jitters at the altar. Just relax, the wedding will be fine, and I'm sure your bride is quite a lovely girl.' As Crowley gaped in shock, the old woman nodded sagely to Aziraphale. 'You make sure he doesn't go running off, now. Why, my George tried that, and he had to be dragged back by his best man! It was quite the sight, I tell you,' she said, cackling and revealing that only four of her teeth remained.
'He's not used to the idea of marriage yet, dear lady,' Aziraphale said, managing to keep a straight face, 'But I promise to keep him from returning to his promiscuous ways.'
The old woman cackled again. 'Oh, a ladies' man, is he? Well, keep him away from all the shameless hussies down here. There's such slim pickings for eligible bachelors that those girls would snatch him up as soon as they saw him.'
'We were not talking about marriage,' Crowley hissed, and fled, stomping down the bank and shoving through spirits. He stopped after reaching a bend, kicking rocks moodily into the pitch black waters of the river and watching debris travel down. Dolls with torn hair, stained, ripped togas (he thought he recognized one of them as the imperial robe of Emperor Nero4), diplomas with smudged, faded ink, computers with smashed screens and missing keys, and shoes, erasers, CD's, rings, and dishes all floated down the river, eerily silent in their travels and leaving no ripples behind. A gray hat (a homburg, he thought it was called) half submerged in the inky waters caught his eye, and he bent to pull it out.
'Don't touch that,' a voice said sharply behind him, and Crowley pulled his hand back, watching the hat float down and fade away into the darkness of the caverns. 'Touching the Styx's waters can make you lose your mind. Honestly, Crowley, don't you know anything about the Underworld?'
'Frankly? No. Not a bit,' Crowley said. 'It was never necessary before. The pagan gods stayed to themselves and dealt with their own business, and I stayed to myself and dealt with mine. I've never traveled to any realm outside of our three before.'
'Really?' Aziraphale said, surprise coloring his tone. 'I would have thought since worshipping false idols is part of your people's doctrine, that you'd have worked with them quite often.'
Crowley laughed hollowly. 'Why? Getting people to worship false idols only works if they stay Christian as well. If they completely change their beliefs and decide both our sides are false, we lose their soul because they go to the afterlife of the religion they chose over us, and our power is weakened because they don't believe in us anymore.' Aziraphale started to speak, but Crowley cut him off. 'I've had some fun with Bastet and the Morrighan in the bedroom, of course, and I've seen Ares and Loki around, and I've probably interacted with a lot more deities as well. But as to actually interacting with them- no. Especially not as our religion started combining elements of other religions into it, like when Christmas got incorporated with the old celebrations, because while I don't tend to talk to the gods directly, I do keep an ear out for any serious news, and for several centuries all the old gods were furious at their rule being overshadowed by us. I've got no doubt that they probably would have loved the chance to kill me in a very painful fashion, and as I've got no desire to be chained to a rock with an eagle eating my liver, or be slowly poisoned by Jormungandr's venom, I stayed very far away.'
'Oh,' Aziraphale said slowly. 'I never received such a harsh welcome as anybody trying to kill me, but now that you mention it, there was some distinct unfriendliness that went on.'
Crowley snorted, staring out into the rocky caverns beyond the Styx. 'Nobody tried to kill you because you're a friend of Art's. Bet you lunch at the Ritz for a year that was why.'
'I'm not going to take that bet,' Aziraphale said dryly. 'Crowley, I'm not stupid. I know she's dangerous, and I know she loves to fight and kill as much as War herself does, and I know that she's picked up all of Loki's deceitfulness. That being said, she is also as honorable as a messenger can get, and she owes me a debt. I trust that that debt will be enough for her to help us get out of here, or die trying. That's the kind of person she is.'
'If you say so, angel,' Crowley murmured. 'It's not that I don't trust your judgment in this, especially since you've apparently worked with the pagan gods much more than I have. It's that she's known for tricking her enemies into thinking they're the greatest of friends, and then betraying them and letting them die in the most horrible of ways. I really don't want to risk us being one of those types.'
'We won't be,' Aziraphale answered, a note of confidence entering his voice. 'She was extremely annoyed with your people's attempt to start the Apocalypse, and my people's attempt to continue it-'
'If that's extremely annoyed, I don't want to see her pissed off,' Crowley muttered.
'No, you don't,' Aziraphale said grimly. 'I don't know for sure, but I think she was originally a berserker from the North in her first life, before she became Poseidon's daughter. She certainly fights in the same manner when she's truly furious. But we aren't in danger of seeing that directed at us. Art respects me at least, even if she hates our theology and much prefers the pagan gods.'
'The fact that she hates our theology isn't really bolstering my confidence in this. But it's a way to get back into the living world, I suppose,' Crowley said. 'Providing we survive being rescued by her, anyway.'
'We're already dead,' Aziraphale pointed out. 'What is there to survive?'
3 Messengers were, as the name suggests, the mortals brave (or stupid) enough to carry messages back and forth to various paranormal and divine beings- and then reincarnate in order to keep the balance and keep doing it for all eternity or until the world ended. The main component of their job was to go into dangerous and/or unpleasant places to deliver things to dangerous and/or unpleasant people. Art may have been rather bloodthirsty, but she had survived many lives of being a messenger without going completely batshit insane. Others had been locked up in nice, cushy rooms after just a few lives trying to work with the notoriously devious (and sometimes downright evil) people.
4 Not that he would know. Crowley had decided that Nero was bad enough to earn him a commendation for the downfall of Rome without actually doing anything to encourage him, and had left for the slightly more friendly region of Hispania.
(*~*)
It had been about a week since they had first arrived in the Underworld, and Crowley was slowly but surely going insane. Aside from Charon occasionally throwing some desperate spirit into the masses waiting on the bank, or the Furies dragging some poor spirit away to the Fields of Punishment, there was nothing to break the monotony. At that point, he wouldn't have minded Art herself coming in and slaughtering a bunch of spirits if only to provide some slight entertainment before he was vaporized too.
Sitting beside him, back pressed against the cavern wall, Aziraphale sighed. 'Seen a living girl yet?'
'No more than I had when you asked me three minutes ago,' Crowley said dryly, trying to hide the rising dread he was feeling. Despite Aziraphale's assurances that it had only been a week, and Art probably didn't come to the Underworld every day, Crowley couldn't shake the idea that she wouldn't show up, and he would be stuck on a river bank with only the dead to keep him company.
'Well, this is quite monotonous,' Aziraphale said with another sigh. 'I don't know how these spirits have borne it so long and not gone completely bonkers.'
Crowley looked at the spirit across from him who kept trying to eat a pink rock and sobbing quietly to herself when she failed, and then looked to his right, watching the old man sitting there have a very serious discussion with himself about the merits of maple syrup versus the merits of blueberry syrup. 'I'm fairly sure they have.'
Aziraphale said nothing in reply, and they lapsed back into a moody silence, broken only by the mutterings of the other spirits. Crowley had never thought that time could move so slowly until he ended up in the Underworld5.
He had just begun to amuse himself by counting the ripples in the Styx when a rock hit his head. He shook it off, and was promptly hit by a second one, and then a third one. Bemused, he looked for some spirit (a kid, he supposed; they always made the worst ghosts. Half the poltergeists that haunted people's houses were actually teenage spirits), but saw nothing and no one close enough to him to do it.
'Is something wrong, Crowley?' Aziraphale asked, watching him with a vaguely concerned expression.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, and decided it was better to at least give it a shot. 'Are you chucking rocks at me?'
'Me? Hardly,' Aziraphale said. 'Are you sure it's rocks falling on you and not water dripping or something?'
'Where would water be dripping from?' Crowley asked grumpily.
Aziraphale gave him a patient and slightly condescending look and points to the ledges above their heads. 'Maybe there's water trapped in one of-'
But he didn't get to finish his sentence because right then, as they both looked up, a hand darted out and dropped a rock that landed squarely in the corner of Crowley's eye. He swore furiously and rubbed at his watering eye, ignoring Aziraphale's attempts to help and scowling up at the ledge and whoever was on it, noting the gleeful laughter now coming from it.
'Was that Art?' he demanded furiously, glaring at Aziraphale through his one good eye. 'Was that her, or was that just some random spirit who felt like making my life more of a misery than it already is?'
'That was Art,' Aziraphale admitted reluctantly. 'Or at least, I'm fairly sure it was; I can't imagine that too many people have an octopus ring like hers.'
'Excuse me, nobody but me can have a ring like this,' someone above their heads said. A girl's grinning head popped out from behind the ledge, followed quickly by the rest of her body as she climbed down the wall to stand in front of them. 'If they do, they probably stole it off of my dead body, and you should kill them to avenge my death.'
'I'm not particularly inclined to avenge someone who dropped a rock in my eye,' Crowley grumbled.
Art shrugged. 'You looked bored,' she said innocently. 'I thought it'd help. Besides,' she added in mock seriousness, 'That's what you get for being spies trying to take over our pantheon and convert the gods to Christians.'
'What the hell?' Crowley said, staring at her and trying to figure out if she actually meant that.
'Oh, dear,' Aziraphale murmured. 'Is that what Hades said?'
Art rolled her eyes and snorted. 'Of course. He's being a bit of a paranoid bastard right now, and his reasoning's not the greatest. He said you were here to convince him that he had to convert to Christianity or your god- or devil, whatever- would destroy his realm like He had some mortal realms or something. And I pointed out that your god can't actually affect the Underworld without sending an army of angels or whatever to fight us, and if that happened, he's got more spirits here he could use to fight than you've got angels, so it really wouldn't matter, and he went off in a huff, yelling about how ever since the Roman Empire was converted, you've probably thought you can convert the Roman gods too, and so on. Basically, it was just Hades' paranoia talking, because Heaven and Hell don't willingly ally themselves for any purpose besides starting the apocalypse, and normally, Hades would realized that. But he's been having problems with Persephone lately, and so he's touchier than normal and it really shows.'
'Wow,' Crowley commented dryly. 'I didn't realize the spirits of one demon and one angel were such a threat to the Underworld.'
Art sighed and shook her head. 'Normally, you wouldn't be. I mean, no offense, but you're not exactly the most powerful or most terrifying things down here. But like I said, every once in a while Hades goes a bit psycho and becomes convinced that everyone is trying to destroy him, and you're just unlucky enough to show up during one of those times.'
'Is he planning to throw us in Tartarus or something then?' Aziraphale asked worriedly. 'Surely if we talked to him, we could convince him that we really don't mean to be here and we're definitely not trying to harm him in anyway-'
'No, no, no, no, no,' Art said vehemently. 'Trying to talk to him is a very bad idea right now. The only reason I'm not dead myself is that he thinks if he kills me, Poseidon will find a way to demand the Underworld as payment. It's all bullshit, of course- Poseidon doesn't want the Underworld. Nobody wants this shithole now any more than they did when the gods were first choosing their realms.'
'So is that it, then?' Crowley demanded. 'If we can't talk to Hades, are we stuck here until he gets over his hissy fit?'
Art laughed. 'Oh gods, if I weren't so sure that the result would be disastrous, I'd tell you to go call it a 'hissy fit' to his face.'
Aziraphale smiled slightly. 'The gods don't tend to like being insulted or even criticized in any way, it's true,' he murmured. 'Not that I would know myself, of course,'
Art smirked. 'Liar. I know perfectly well that you've chewed out at least a couple gods before.' She turned and started to walk down the bank, forcing Crowley and Aziraphale to follow her.
'So, what are we doing if we can't go talk to Hades?' Aziraphale asked with a bit of frustration. 'Really, my dear, I think we could possibly reason with Persephone if not Hades himself to get out of here-'
'Nope, not going to work,' Art said. 'I'm not kidding when I say that's a really bad idea right now. And Persephone's sulking in her rooms, so you can't see her either.'
'So what are we doing?' Crowley demanded. 'Is this just you trying to keep us from getting bored again, or are we actually doing something worthwhile? Do you even know a way out of here?'
'Of course I know a way out of here, dumbass,' Art snapped. Her eyes flashed, and she looked like she wanted to hit Crowley, but she restrained herself with a visible effort. 'But I have to open a door to get out, and there's no way to stop other spirits besides you from going out it as well. Hades won't give a shit if two spirits disappear with me, even if they're the two spirits he's currently obsessing over, because it means you're not bothering his realm any more. But if a lot of spirits leave the Underworld at the same time that you leave it, he'll be convinced that you are trying to do something, and he'll freak out and start attacking people. And I'm trying to avoid that, so we're going down the bank to a cavern where no spirits can go into without permission.' She paused to take a breath and glared at Crowley. Aziraphale stayed silent and tried to avoid attracting attention to himself. 'That good enough an explanation?'
'Yep, that's what I needed to hear,' Crowley said with a fake smile. It looked more like a painful grimace. 'Because- no offense, sweetheart- I don't know you, and I don't know if you're the type of pagan who holds a very serious grudge against us because of our people and their doctrines or not. Aziraphale trusts you, but he's gotten discorporated by trusting the wrong people before, and as I'd rather not end up in Tartarus or as a chew toy for a hellhound for a few centuries, I'm going to be a suspicious bastard.' The fake smile had dropped from his face as he spoke, and he stared grimly back at her. 'Hopefully, that doesn't piss you off too badly, but I can't afford to take any chances.'
'Well, I'm a bit of a paranoid bitch myself,' Art admitted with a reluctant smile as she stepped neatly around a boulder. 'But you've got to understand, mate, that it's the same for me. I don't know you any more than you know me, and I tend to get tetchy with people who question me because I'm well aware that I look like a teenager, and I've had that shoved in my face more times than I care to remember. Most of the time, the only way I can prove that I know what I'm doing to people without actually cursing them or some shit is to shout over them and be condescending as hell as I explain what I'm doing, because if nothing else it offends them enough to get them to shut up. So, you got to be on the receiving end of that, and I'm sorry, but that's just how it worked out.' As she spoke, she turned away from the river and walked up the bank towards an opening in the cavern wall. As Art reached it, she placed a hand on a small Greek letter by the side of the opening, which glowed faintly and then faded. 'Come on,' she said, beckoning them in. 'This is where we messengers open the doors to the realms.'
'What about the actual entrance to the Underworld?' Aziraphale asked with a slight frown. 'Can't you just use that?'
Drawing the outline of a door on the wall of the cave, Art paused and shrugged. 'Well, technically, yeah, but it's pretty dangerous, since you have to go through a no-man's land to get to it, and there can be monsters from a whole bunch of pantheons down there. Most tend to just use this because it's easier and safer.'
'I went through it when I was helping a half blood a couple of years ago, and we didn't have any problems,' Aziraphale said with a frown. 'I don't think my aura would affect monsters, but maybe it did if people normally have a hard time using that route.'
Art snorted and continued to draw an intricate rune in the middle of the door she'd outlined. 'It wasn't your aura. It was about seventy five years ago or so and the half blood was named Jamie Kavanagh, right?'
Aziraphale looked at her, visibly startled. 'Well, yes, I think so-'
'He's one of Hades' kids,' Art said matter-of-factly. 'No monster would dare attack him when he's this close to his divine home. It's just like how sea monsters, whether they're Greek, Norse, Japanese, or whatever, won't attack one of Poseidon's kids when they're in the water. Half bloods have a divine presence when they're in the realms of their parents.' She finished drawing runes around the door's outline and inspected her work critically.
'You didn't say where that's a door to,' Aziraphale pointed out.
Art looked at him in surprise. 'Didn't I? Oh, I must have been about to when somebody interrupted me.'
Crowley groaned. 'I'm sorry, all right? Can we move on now?'
'I'm done, I'm done,' Art said, grinning. 'Couldn't resist. It's a door to Hel. That's probably the best bet, since-'
'No, that's really not a good idea,' Crowley said sharply. 'Hell isn't friendly to intruders. Hell isn't friendly to people who are supposed to be there. There's got to be someplace else.'
'Hel won't attack you,' Art said, frowning. 'Not when you're with me, because then I'd drag Loki into it and she hates dealing with him, especially since she still owes him a debt for Baldor and he never lets her forget it.'
'Since when is Hell feminine?' Aziraphale asked.
Crowley rubbed his face. 'I get the feeling we're not talking about the same thing,' he said wearily. 'Could you stop being cryptic and actually say what you mean for once? Just once, that's all I'm asking.'
'If you all actually took the time to learn about the old myths and the old gods, there wouldn't be this problem,' Art snapped. 'I'm talking about Hel, Loki's daughter who rules over the realm Hel. Not Hell, the realm ruled over by Satan, or Lucifer, or whatever you want to call him. Hel's got all the deviousness of her dad, so if anyone knows a way to get back into your realms, she does. So, we're going there to get advice from her. Hopefully she won't just feed us to Fenrir or something, but honestly, I can't guarantee that.'
Crowley sighed and scratched his head. 'Isn't there some way that doesn't have the potential to end up with us being eaten by something?'
'Nope,' Art said cheerfully, placing her hand in the middle of the door. As it began to glow, she grabbed both Crowley and Aziraphale's wrists and yanked them forward. 'Besides, being eaten's a fairly quick death.'
The door flashed and the runes passed through all three of their bodies. When the light fully disappeared, there was nothing left to see but a slightly more blackened spot on the wall and a few water droplets slowly traveling down the cave wall. There was no sign that anything had ever happened in the cave.
5 Literally. Time in realms other than the main living one in which mortals reside moves differently. The darker and more painful a realm was designed to be, the slower it moved. Hell had one of the slowest rates, naturally.
Part two
Recipient: vulgarweed
From: inkstainedarm
Pairing/Characters: Aziraphale, Crowley, Charon, Hel, one of the Fates, and some OC's
Rating: R
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley are discorporated and end up in the wrong afterlife.
There wasn't any warning. There never is, when DEATH arrives.
It was a cloudy Sunday afternoon as Crowley and Aziraphale stepped out of the Ritz, arguing about the good and bad of politics both human and divine and finding no common ground1, and while such an argument is fine and dandy while sitting in the Ritz enjoying a fine lunch, the involved nature of the argument can distract one from noticing some rather important things around them. And that can be quite the problem if you are crossing a busy Manchester street, for traffic stops for no one.
(*~*)
Jake Fornelius had meant to get his brakes fixed months ago, he really had. But between helping his mother fix the paisley (and quite horrendously ugly, to be honest) sofa, and taking care of his girlfriend's Yorkshire terrier, he hadn't been able to find the time.
So as he drove down the road, going perhaps a bit over the speed limit, he was able to do nothing but watch in horror and blare his horn as two men, one in a smart suit and the other in a tartan jacket vaguely reminiscent of the clothes his great-grandfather had greatly favored, stepped out into the road in front of him and were promptly smashed to the ground with a revolting thump. And as the brakes finally did kick in, far too late to do any sort of good, he rushed out to see if there was any sort of hope for the two men's survival, only to see that there definitely was not. And if he had listened very closely, or had had a recorder of the type favored by ghost hunters everywhere, he would have heard a tiny, furious voice cursing him and his mother and father2 as it slowly disappeared. Crowley was never one to forgive anyone for discorporating him in such a mundane way, after all.
1 'You can't argue for Hitler, angel! Not even my people would touch all the things he did!'
'Honestly, Crowley, you know as well as I do that Hitler was corrupted by War! No mortal can stand up against the Horsemen; they simply don't have the will.'
'War can only bring out their worst nature, not completely change their actual one. No, he was just plain bad to begin with.'
'Crowley, you just can't comprehend the plan, can you?'
'Don't you get all snooty with me, Aziraphale- I'm not the angel who lost his own blasted sword. And okay, if your argument is that War corrupted Hitler, who corrupted Stalin? Do you think of him as plain evil?'
'No human is born evil, they become corrupted. And actually, I know for a fact that Famine corrupted him.'
And so on.
2 And his cousin, and his great aunt, and his adopted uncle's daughter's stepsister's son, and his great grandmother's guinea pig. Crowley believed you could never be too thorough in curses.
(*~*)
Crowley materialized into a lavishly decorated room and groaned internally. He'd been telling Hell that they needed to update their look for years, and it seemed that they'd finally had- but that they'd taken the theme from a dark romance novel, which was all fine and dandy if you were a Victorian vampire, but which didn't exactly scream YOU ARE DAMNED. The room he was in had fine, velvet curtains draping down the rocky walls that somehow conveyed that sinister things lurked behind them, and human skulls were tastefully scattered around the room, laying on top of rocks and placed in indents in the walls. Crowley was well aware that he was no interior decorator himself, but when the skulls had elegant hats placed as if they were a morbid fashion display, it was definitely over the top. And to make it worse, the hellfire that Hell was so known for- that basically represented Hell- was nowhere to be seen. Dramatic lighting from pale orbs provided the light instead.
And as if the design of the room wasn't bad enough, the appearance of the demon behind the check-in desk was so overdone that Crowley wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. He had the goth look that Crowley had only vaguely encountered in underground nightclubs: eyeliner smeared across his eyes, black skinny jeans that fit him like a second skin, a fashionably ripped black and red shirt, and mussed hair that slightly covered the obscene amount of piercings in his ears. Crowley was by no means as conservative in his opinions of fashion as Aziraphale (especially as no tartan was allowed in a 50 meter radius of him unless it was on a certain angel), but at the same time, he held on to the belief that demons should appear terrifying, and that effect was not achieved when they acted like melancholy Goths. If the room's decorations were something out of a romance novel, Crowley thought sourly, here was that novel's love interest, dark past and all.
It was too ridiculous for Crowley to ignore. Most of the time, he wouldn't say anything about how this attempt to modernize Hell was going to end up with the demons in charge screaming in pain for a few centuries, as it was far easier to just watch and regretfully comment about how you'd tried to warn him, but hadn't he just ignored you, but this change to Hell's entrance was just too bad. It completely destroyed the image of Hell as the home of the damned, and Crowley found he was actually missing the old fire-and-brimstone look Hell had had for centuries. It had given the place a much homier feel.
He coughed deliberately, and waited until the demon had broken away from his constant scribbling to speak. 'Look,' Crowley began, grinning at the younger demon in a way that might actually be taken as friendly if you didn't look in his eyes. 'I don't know if you're just spawned or what, but speaking from experience, this look is not going to fly. Somehow, you've managed to escape anybody much older and scarier than you seeing this and deciding the best remedy is to slowly kill the person who made it, but you won't be able to keep it up for very long. Best to change it back to the way it was now.'
The young man raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. 'What are you talking about? This isn't-'
Crowley gestured wildly. 'This! The room. Your clothes. You yourself, in fact. This does not give the appropriate air for Hell. This looks like something out of a dramatic romance novel. The second anyone with any sort of experience- or, blast it, anyone who just knows what Hell should look like- sees this, you will be ripped apart and fed to the imps. I'm trying to help so that doesn't happen.'
'You don't understand,' the man said. 'This isn't a new look. We've had this for quite a few years.'
'No you haven't!' Crowley hissed. 'I've been down here just a few years ago, and it was still the traditional look!'
'Crowley?' a voice asked uncertainly behind him.
Crowley turned, eyes widening as he saw Aziraphale. 'What are you doing here? How the hell did you get so lost as to end up here?'
'Well, I would agree with you and say I must have somehow taken a very wrong turn, but…' Aziraphale shrugged one shoulder sheepishly. 'I don't believe it's possible for both of us to get so lost without someone deliberately making it so.'
'Both of us? Speak for yourself,' Crowley said, frowning. 'Even if the theme seems to be that of an overdone nightclub at the moment, I'm pretty sure this is where I'm supposed to be.'
'No, it's not,' the young man said with a sigh. 'Listen to your companion.'
'No, this is definitely where I'm supposed to be,' Crowley said. 'The gates I opened to come in here were the same as they've been, at least-'
'Yes, they probably were- because your people copied the design for the Gates of Hell from us,' the young man said. 'But otherwise- you, a fallen angel of an Abrahamic religion, are supposed to be on the bank of the Styx, waiting to cross into Lord Hades' realm, and not in Hell? I don't think that's the case, seeing as you seemed to be very convinced you were in Hell as you lectured me on the style.'
'What?' Crowley said, eyes narrowing as he really looked at the man for the first time. Something about his face looked familiar, but Crowley couldn't remember where he'd seen it before. After living for six millennia, faces tended to blur together.
'Well, honestly, Charon,' Aziraphale said with some annoyance, and Crowley cursed internally for not having figured it out sooner. 'This doesn't look anything like the Underworld used to with all the drapes and such you've put up, and you yourself seemed to have gotten a complete makeover. I can't see how we were supposed to recognize you straight off.' He raised an eyebrow and gave Charon a pointed once over; something Crowley found hilarious as Aziraphale probably didn't have a clue how lewd it seemed.
'I must say I love the makeup,' Crowley drawled, trying to hide that he'd still believed he was in Hell up to that point. 'Every goth girl that comes down here must ask you for tips.'
Charon raised an eyebrow. 'And did demons wear black suits and drive Bentleys back in the beginning of your religion?' he asked acidly. 'The Underworld changes with the times, just as you do. And that is beside the point,' he added. 'The fact remains that you are in the wrong afterlife, and you have no reason to be. Are there any gods that have mentioned wanting to get revenge on you for your gods' attempt to start the Apocalypse? That's the only reason I can think of for you being sent here.'
Aziraphale sucked in a breath. 'Would Hades do that?'
'No,' Charon said. 'I didn't mean Hades in particular; I meant any god not of your religion. It could have been a god from some other pantheon, for all I know.'
'If this was the best revenge the person could come up with, then they have no imagination,' Crowley grumbled. 'Even Hell could come up with a more creative and painful revenge than this, and they're unimaginative bastards stuck in the past.'
'Oh, I don't know about that,' Charon said thoughtfully. 'This might have been a better revenge than you'd think.'
Aziraphale frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'Well, unless you have any coins or really, any sort of money on you- do you?' he asked them. Both Crowley and Aziraphale shook their heads, and he sighed and continued, 'Well, then, you can't move on through the Underworld. You'll have to stay on this bank of the Styx with the other freeloaders.'
'That can't be right,' Crowley said, feeling his stomach sinking. 'Can't you, I don't know, call our realms and let them know we're stuck here so they can pay you?'
'No,' Charon said, smiling a dangerously friendly smile. 'You want to know why?'
'I have a feeling I don't, actually,' Crowley muttered, 'But I'll listen to it anyway.'
Charon continued to smile and said, 'Ignoring for a minute, that Hell would probably be incredibly amused at your predicament and would just tell me to keep you here, I can't contact either of your realms at all because both of your gods are horrible snobs and don't allow any of us pagans any access to your realms. I actually don't have a clue as to how you'd get from any of the other afterlives into your own, because as far as I know, your gods have blocked out all of the possible routes. Messengers can get into them, but as far as I know, their methods only work for the living and not for spirits. So, basically,' he finished, 'It looks like you might be stuck here for all eternity.'
'We're not mortals, though,' Aziraphale said, a tad bit desperately. 'Isn't there some other way for us-'
'You're mortals here,' Charon said flatly. 'In case you haven't noticed, neither of you have any holy or unholy powers down here. Since you're not our entities, you can't affect our realms in any way. Even if you were gods- even if it was the Antichrist himself that ended up here, he wouldn't be able to do anything.'
'If you'd ever met Adam, I'm not so sure you'd think that,' Crowley muttered. Charon ignored him.
Aziraphale sighed. 'Right, so- we're just going to have to stay on this side of the Styx? Do we have to stay in a certain area or can we at least walk around a bit?'
'Oh, you can walk around,' Charon said, 'But don't try to find a way out. If you leave here and go back into the living world, I'll send the Furies after you, and you'll be able to experience the Fields of Punishment firsthand. The demons of Hell could learn from the monsters who run that.'
'Point taken, though I think you're probably wrong about Hell,' Crowley said dryly. Aziraphale only sighed and began to walk away from Charon's desk, towards the bank of the Styx. Crowley turned and followed him.
They walked in silence for a while, until Crowley felt it too oppressive and had to say something. 'So angel,' he said casually, 'How do you know Charon? Been consorting with the enemy?'
'Of course not, and my dear, I do believe talking to you would be considered consorting with the enemy more than talking with Charon,' Aziraphale said with a touch of indignation. 'There was this demigod a while ago, who needed help finding the entrance to the Underworld, so I helped him find it. I didn't intend to go inside, but once we'd found the entrance, I figured a quick peek couldn't hurt, and so I met Charon.'
'Encouraging the worship of false idols,' Crowley said sadly, shaking his head. 'Oh, angel, you've been corrupting the youth.'
'Hardly,' Aziraphale said with a sniff. 'The Greek gods can hardly be considered false idols since they are alive and all, you know, and besides that, helping others in need is my main duty. It helps them see how the grace of Heaven in the best choice.' Deflating slightly, he added, 'And he was offering me a beautiful collection of Greek myths, written by the Muses themselves, as payment.'
'Knew it'd come back to the books, Aziraphale. Seems like they're the one thing that could corrupt you.' Rubbing a hand over his face, Crowley groaned. 'Blast it all, I need a drink. Preferably something strong enough to make me forget I'm trapped in the wrong afterlife and could be stuck there for all eternity. I don't suppose you have any way to make one appear?'
Aziraphale concentrated for a minute and then shook his head. 'I'm afraid not, my dear. It seems as though we're completely out of luck right now.'
'Fuck,' Crowley hissed vehemently, getting a disapproving glare from a smartly dressed man with a monocle. 'How are we going to get out of this, Aziraphale? I'll be damned- well, more than I am already- if I stay down here for a few years, let alone all eternity!'
'We wait,' Aziraphale said calmly, looking perfectly content to do just that.
Crowley's jaw dropped, and for a few seconds he could do nothing but stare. When his wits finally recovered, he spluttered and gestured wildly, finally coming up with, 'You have got to be kidding me. We need a better plan than just 'oh, we wait here, in this stinking cavern, for all eternity!' to get out of here!'
'I'm afraid not,' Aziraphale said. Seeing Crowley's complete incomprehension and dislike of the plan, he sighed and added, 'I have a friend who comes down to the Underworld on occasion. She can travel between the different realms, so she should be able to find us a way to return to our afterlives, or at the very least, leave this one. Assuming she feels like helping us, that is.'
'Since when did an angel have all these pagan friends?' Crowley demanded. 'Who do you know that can travel between the realms? Are you telling me you know a messenger3? How in the Hell do you know a messenger?'
'I know a messenger because unlike you, I actually go out of my way to help them,' Aziraphale said primly. 'I know a few of them, actually, but the one in particular that I was talking about is Art Wanderer.'
'Yeah, yeah, rub your goodness in, angel,' Crowley said testily, and then the full meaning of what Aziraphale had said sank in. 'Wait, Art Wanderer?' he all but yelled, ignoring the glares of the spirits around him. The woman who's psycho enough to actually be friends with War? The one that came into Hell after the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, chewed out Beelzebub and then my master in front of hordes of demons, and then just walked out of Hell without anyone trying to stop her? Is that who you're talking about?'
'She's actually a very nice girl,' Aziraphale said primly. 'Her job involves a lot of fighting, that's all. Being Poseidon's daughter and Loki's messenger means that everyone that hates either one or the other of those gods picks a fight with her, so she does tend to cause fights a lot by doing nothing but being there. It's not her fault so many gods are touchy.'
'When the gods are touchy, they go off in a huff and ignore people for a couple of centuries,' Crowley muttered. 'They don't start wars when they're touchy; they start wars when they're pissed off beyond any point of reasoning! She starts a fight any time she decides she doesn't like someone,' Crowley sighed. 'We'll probably make hundreds of enemies we don't even know by getting involved with her. This is crazy. I cannot believe the messenger you'd know would be her.'
'Well, you can take it or leave it,' Aziraphale said tartly. 'Right now, she's the only option I see for getting out of here. If you've got any better ideas, you're welcome to state them.'
'Nope, being rescued by the only mortal who fights enough to actually be War's friend sounds excellent,' Crowley said with a sigh. 'Why wouldn't it be? There's no chance of any sort of repercussions at all, just like how there's no chance of repercussions if I went around telling people to become atheists.'
'Your sarcasm isn't appreciated,' Aziraphale snapped. Taking a deep breath, he visibly pulled himself together and said with forced calm, 'If you want to get out of here, you have to use whatever you've got, and I don't hear you suggesting anything besides her.'
'She's Art Wanderer,' Crowley said desperately. 'There has to be some other way! I will never survive her.'
An old woman's spirit sitting on a rock nearby clicked her tongue disapprovingly. 'Now, now, dearie. Don't you be getting jitters at the altar. Just relax, the wedding will be fine, and I'm sure your bride is quite a lovely girl.' As Crowley gaped in shock, the old woman nodded sagely to Aziraphale. 'You make sure he doesn't go running off, now. Why, my George tried that, and he had to be dragged back by his best man! It was quite the sight, I tell you,' she said, cackling and revealing that only four of her teeth remained.
'He's not used to the idea of marriage yet, dear lady,' Aziraphale said, managing to keep a straight face, 'But I promise to keep him from returning to his promiscuous ways.'
The old woman cackled again. 'Oh, a ladies' man, is he? Well, keep him away from all the shameless hussies down here. There's such slim pickings for eligible bachelors that those girls would snatch him up as soon as they saw him.'
'We were not talking about marriage,' Crowley hissed, and fled, stomping down the bank and shoving through spirits. He stopped after reaching a bend, kicking rocks moodily into the pitch black waters of the river and watching debris travel down. Dolls with torn hair, stained, ripped togas (he thought he recognized one of them as the imperial robe of Emperor Nero4), diplomas with smudged, faded ink, computers with smashed screens and missing keys, and shoes, erasers, CD's, rings, and dishes all floated down the river, eerily silent in their travels and leaving no ripples behind. A gray hat (a homburg, he thought it was called) half submerged in the inky waters caught his eye, and he bent to pull it out.
'Don't touch that,' a voice said sharply behind him, and Crowley pulled his hand back, watching the hat float down and fade away into the darkness of the caverns. 'Touching the Styx's waters can make you lose your mind. Honestly, Crowley, don't you know anything about the Underworld?'
'Frankly? No. Not a bit,' Crowley said. 'It was never necessary before. The pagan gods stayed to themselves and dealt with their own business, and I stayed to myself and dealt with mine. I've never traveled to any realm outside of our three before.'
'Really?' Aziraphale said, surprise coloring his tone. 'I would have thought since worshipping false idols is part of your people's doctrine, that you'd have worked with them quite often.'
Crowley laughed hollowly. 'Why? Getting people to worship false idols only works if they stay Christian as well. If they completely change their beliefs and decide both our sides are false, we lose their soul because they go to the afterlife of the religion they chose over us, and our power is weakened because they don't believe in us anymore.' Aziraphale started to speak, but Crowley cut him off. 'I've had some fun with Bastet and the Morrighan in the bedroom, of course, and I've seen Ares and Loki around, and I've probably interacted with a lot more deities as well. But as to actually interacting with them- no. Especially not as our religion started combining elements of other religions into it, like when Christmas got incorporated with the old celebrations, because while I don't tend to talk to the gods directly, I do keep an ear out for any serious news, and for several centuries all the old gods were furious at their rule being overshadowed by us. I've got no doubt that they probably would have loved the chance to kill me in a very painful fashion, and as I've got no desire to be chained to a rock with an eagle eating my liver, or be slowly poisoned by Jormungandr's venom, I stayed very far away.'
'Oh,' Aziraphale said slowly. 'I never received such a harsh welcome as anybody trying to kill me, but now that you mention it, there was some distinct unfriendliness that went on.'
Crowley snorted, staring out into the rocky caverns beyond the Styx. 'Nobody tried to kill you because you're a friend of Art's. Bet you lunch at the Ritz for a year that was why.'
'I'm not going to take that bet,' Aziraphale said dryly. 'Crowley, I'm not stupid. I know she's dangerous, and I know she loves to fight and kill as much as War herself does, and I know that she's picked up all of Loki's deceitfulness. That being said, she is also as honorable as a messenger can get, and she owes me a debt. I trust that that debt will be enough for her to help us get out of here, or die trying. That's the kind of person she is.'
'If you say so, angel,' Crowley murmured. 'It's not that I don't trust your judgment in this, especially since you've apparently worked with the pagan gods much more than I have. It's that she's known for tricking her enemies into thinking they're the greatest of friends, and then betraying them and letting them die in the most horrible of ways. I really don't want to risk us being one of those types.'
'We won't be,' Aziraphale answered, a note of confidence entering his voice. 'She was extremely annoyed with your people's attempt to start the Apocalypse, and my people's attempt to continue it-'
'If that's extremely annoyed, I don't want to see her pissed off,' Crowley muttered.
'No, you don't,' Aziraphale said grimly. 'I don't know for sure, but I think she was originally a berserker from the North in her first life, before she became Poseidon's daughter. She certainly fights in the same manner when she's truly furious. But we aren't in danger of seeing that directed at us. Art respects me at least, even if she hates our theology and much prefers the pagan gods.'
'The fact that she hates our theology isn't really bolstering my confidence in this. But it's a way to get back into the living world, I suppose,' Crowley said. 'Providing we survive being rescued by her, anyway.'
'We're already dead,' Aziraphale pointed out. 'What is there to survive?'
3 Messengers were, as the name suggests, the mortals brave (or stupid) enough to carry messages back and forth to various paranormal and divine beings- and then reincarnate in order to keep the balance and keep doing it for all eternity or until the world ended. The main component of their job was to go into dangerous and/or unpleasant places to deliver things to dangerous and/or unpleasant people. Art may have been rather bloodthirsty, but she had survived many lives of being a messenger without going completely batshit insane. Others had been locked up in nice, cushy rooms after just a few lives trying to work with the notoriously devious (and sometimes downright evil) people.
4 Not that he would know. Crowley had decided that Nero was bad enough to earn him a commendation for the downfall of Rome without actually doing anything to encourage him, and had left for the slightly more friendly region of Hispania.
(*~*)
It had been about a week since they had first arrived in the Underworld, and Crowley was slowly but surely going insane. Aside from Charon occasionally throwing some desperate spirit into the masses waiting on the bank, or the Furies dragging some poor spirit away to the Fields of Punishment, there was nothing to break the monotony. At that point, he wouldn't have minded Art herself coming in and slaughtering a bunch of spirits if only to provide some slight entertainment before he was vaporized too.
Sitting beside him, back pressed against the cavern wall, Aziraphale sighed. 'Seen a living girl yet?'
'No more than I had when you asked me three minutes ago,' Crowley said dryly, trying to hide the rising dread he was feeling. Despite Aziraphale's assurances that it had only been a week, and Art probably didn't come to the Underworld every day, Crowley couldn't shake the idea that she wouldn't show up, and he would be stuck on a river bank with only the dead to keep him company.
'Well, this is quite monotonous,' Aziraphale said with another sigh. 'I don't know how these spirits have borne it so long and not gone completely bonkers.'
Crowley looked at the spirit across from him who kept trying to eat a pink rock and sobbing quietly to herself when she failed, and then looked to his right, watching the old man sitting there have a very serious discussion with himself about the merits of maple syrup versus the merits of blueberry syrup. 'I'm fairly sure they have.'
Aziraphale said nothing in reply, and they lapsed back into a moody silence, broken only by the mutterings of the other spirits. Crowley had never thought that time could move so slowly until he ended up in the Underworld5.
He had just begun to amuse himself by counting the ripples in the Styx when a rock hit his head. He shook it off, and was promptly hit by a second one, and then a third one. Bemused, he looked for some spirit (a kid, he supposed; they always made the worst ghosts. Half the poltergeists that haunted people's houses were actually teenage spirits), but saw nothing and no one close enough to him to do it.
'Is something wrong, Crowley?' Aziraphale asked, watching him with a vaguely concerned expression.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, and decided it was better to at least give it a shot. 'Are you chucking rocks at me?'
'Me? Hardly,' Aziraphale said. 'Are you sure it's rocks falling on you and not water dripping or something?'
'Where would water be dripping from?' Crowley asked grumpily.
Aziraphale gave him a patient and slightly condescending look and points to the ledges above their heads. 'Maybe there's water trapped in one of-'
But he didn't get to finish his sentence because right then, as they both looked up, a hand darted out and dropped a rock that landed squarely in the corner of Crowley's eye. He swore furiously and rubbed at his watering eye, ignoring Aziraphale's attempts to help and scowling up at the ledge and whoever was on it, noting the gleeful laughter now coming from it.
'Was that Art?' he demanded furiously, glaring at Aziraphale through his one good eye. 'Was that her, or was that just some random spirit who felt like making my life more of a misery than it already is?'
'That was Art,' Aziraphale admitted reluctantly. 'Or at least, I'm fairly sure it was; I can't imagine that too many people have an octopus ring like hers.'
'Excuse me, nobody but me can have a ring like this,' someone above their heads said. A girl's grinning head popped out from behind the ledge, followed quickly by the rest of her body as she climbed down the wall to stand in front of them. 'If they do, they probably stole it off of my dead body, and you should kill them to avenge my death.'
'I'm not particularly inclined to avenge someone who dropped a rock in my eye,' Crowley grumbled.
Art shrugged. 'You looked bored,' she said innocently. 'I thought it'd help. Besides,' she added in mock seriousness, 'That's what you get for being spies trying to take over our pantheon and convert the gods to Christians.'
'What the hell?' Crowley said, staring at her and trying to figure out if she actually meant that.
'Oh, dear,' Aziraphale murmured. 'Is that what Hades said?'
Art rolled her eyes and snorted. 'Of course. He's being a bit of a paranoid bastard right now, and his reasoning's not the greatest. He said you were here to convince him that he had to convert to Christianity or your god- or devil, whatever- would destroy his realm like He had some mortal realms or something. And I pointed out that your god can't actually affect the Underworld without sending an army of angels or whatever to fight us, and if that happened, he's got more spirits here he could use to fight than you've got angels, so it really wouldn't matter, and he went off in a huff, yelling about how ever since the Roman Empire was converted, you've probably thought you can convert the Roman gods too, and so on. Basically, it was just Hades' paranoia talking, because Heaven and Hell don't willingly ally themselves for any purpose besides starting the apocalypse, and normally, Hades would realized that. But he's been having problems with Persephone lately, and so he's touchier than normal and it really shows.'
'Wow,' Crowley commented dryly. 'I didn't realize the spirits of one demon and one angel were such a threat to the Underworld.'
Art sighed and shook her head. 'Normally, you wouldn't be. I mean, no offense, but you're not exactly the most powerful or most terrifying things down here. But like I said, every once in a while Hades goes a bit psycho and becomes convinced that everyone is trying to destroy him, and you're just unlucky enough to show up during one of those times.'
'Is he planning to throw us in Tartarus or something then?' Aziraphale asked worriedly. 'Surely if we talked to him, we could convince him that we really don't mean to be here and we're definitely not trying to harm him in anyway-'
'No, no, no, no, no,' Art said vehemently. 'Trying to talk to him is a very bad idea right now. The only reason I'm not dead myself is that he thinks if he kills me, Poseidon will find a way to demand the Underworld as payment. It's all bullshit, of course- Poseidon doesn't want the Underworld. Nobody wants this shithole now any more than they did when the gods were first choosing their realms.'
'So is that it, then?' Crowley demanded. 'If we can't talk to Hades, are we stuck here until he gets over his hissy fit?'
Art laughed. 'Oh gods, if I weren't so sure that the result would be disastrous, I'd tell you to go call it a 'hissy fit' to his face.'
Aziraphale smiled slightly. 'The gods don't tend to like being insulted or even criticized in any way, it's true,' he murmured. 'Not that I would know myself, of course,'
Art smirked. 'Liar. I know perfectly well that you've chewed out at least a couple gods before.' She turned and started to walk down the bank, forcing Crowley and Aziraphale to follow her.
'So, what are we doing if we can't go talk to Hades?' Aziraphale asked with a bit of frustration. 'Really, my dear, I think we could possibly reason with Persephone if not Hades himself to get out of here-'
'Nope, not going to work,' Art said. 'I'm not kidding when I say that's a really bad idea right now. And Persephone's sulking in her rooms, so you can't see her either.'
'So what are we doing?' Crowley demanded. 'Is this just you trying to keep us from getting bored again, or are we actually doing something worthwhile? Do you even know a way out of here?'
'Of course I know a way out of here, dumbass,' Art snapped. Her eyes flashed, and she looked like she wanted to hit Crowley, but she restrained herself with a visible effort. 'But I have to open a door to get out, and there's no way to stop other spirits besides you from going out it as well. Hades won't give a shit if two spirits disappear with me, even if they're the two spirits he's currently obsessing over, because it means you're not bothering his realm any more. But if a lot of spirits leave the Underworld at the same time that you leave it, he'll be convinced that you are trying to do something, and he'll freak out and start attacking people. And I'm trying to avoid that, so we're going down the bank to a cavern where no spirits can go into without permission.' She paused to take a breath and glared at Crowley. Aziraphale stayed silent and tried to avoid attracting attention to himself. 'That good enough an explanation?'
'Yep, that's what I needed to hear,' Crowley said with a fake smile. It looked more like a painful grimace. 'Because- no offense, sweetheart- I don't know you, and I don't know if you're the type of pagan who holds a very serious grudge against us because of our people and their doctrines or not. Aziraphale trusts you, but he's gotten discorporated by trusting the wrong people before, and as I'd rather not end up in Tartarus or as a chew toy for a hellhound for a few centuries, I'm going to be a suspicious bastard.' The fake smile had dropped from his face as he spoke, and he stared grimly back at her. 'Hopefully, that doesn't piss you off too badly, but I can't afford to take any chances.'
'Well, I'm a bit of a paranoid bitch myself,' Art admitted with a reluctant smile as she stepped neatly around a boulder. 'But you've got to understand, mate, that it's the same for me. I don't know you any more than you know me, and I tend to get tetchy with people who question me because I'm well aware that I look like a teenager, and I've had that shoved in my face more times than I care to remember. Most of the time, the only way I can prove that I know what I'm doing to people without actually cursing them or some shit is to shout over them and be condescending as hell as I explain what I'm doing, because if nothing else it offends them enough to get them to shut up. So, you got to be on the receiving end of that, and I'm sorry, but that's just how it worked out.' As she spoke, she turned away from the river and walked up the bank towards an opening in the cavern wall. As Art reached it, she placed a hand on a small Greek letter by the side of the opening, which glowed faintly and then faded. 'Come on,' she said, beckoning them in. 'This is where we messengers open the doors to the realms.'
'What about the actual entrance to the Underworld?' Aziraphale asked with a slight frown. 'Can't you just use that?'
Drawing the outline of a door on the wall of the cave, Art paused and shrugged. 'Well, technically, yeah, but it's pretty dangerous, since you have to go through a no-man's land to get to it, and there can be monsters from a whole bunch of pantheons down there. Most tend to just use this because it's easier and safer.'
'I went through it when I was helping a half blood a couple of years ago, and we didn't have any problems,' Aziraphale said with a frown. 'I don't think my aura would affect monsters, but maybe it did if people normally have a hard time using that route.'
Art snorted and continued to draw an intricate rune in the middle of the door she'd outlined. 'It wasn't your aura. It was about seventy five years ago or so and the half blood was named Jamie Kavanagh, right?'
Aziraphale looked at her, visibly startled. 'Well, yes, I think so-'
'He's one of Hades' kids,' Art said matter-of-factly. 'No monster would dare attack him when he's this close to his divine home. It's just like how sea monsters, whether they're Greek, Norse, Japanese, or whatever, won't attack one of Poseidon's kids when they're in the water. Half bloods have a divine presence when they're in the realms of their parents.' She finished drawing runes around the door's outline and inspected her work critically.
'You didn't say where that's a door to,' Aziraphale pointed out.
Art looked at him in surprise. 'Didn't I? Oh, I must have been about to when somebody interrupted me.'
Crowley groaned. 'I'm sorry, all right? Can we move on now?'
'I'm done, I'm done,' Art said, grinning. 'Couldn't resist. It's a door to Hel. That's probably the best bet, since-'
'No, that's really not a good idea,' Crowley said sharply. 'Hell isn't friendly to intruders. Hell isn't friendly to people who are supposed to be there. There's got to be someplace else.'
'Hel won't attack you,' Art said, frowning. 'Not when you're with me, because then I'd drag Loki into it and she hates dealing with him, especially since she still owes him a debt for Baldor and he never lets her forget it.'
'Since when is Hell feminine?' Aziraphale asked.
Crowley rubbed his face. 'I get the feeling we're not talking about the same thing,' he said wearily. 'Could you stop being cryptic and actually say what you mean for once? Just once, that's all I'm asking.'
'If you all actually took the time to learn about the old myths and the old gods, there wouldn't be this problem,' Art snapped. 'I'm talking about Hel, Loki's daughter who rules over the realm Hel. Not Hell, the realm ruled over by Satan, or Lucifer, or whatever you want to call him. Hel's got all the deviousness of her dad, so if anyone knows a way to get back into your realms, she does. So, we're going there to get advice from her. Hopefully she won't just feed us to Fenrir or something, but honestly, I can't guarantee that.'
Crowley sighed and scratched his head. 'Isn't there some way that doesn't have the potential to end up with us being eaten by something?'
'Nope,' Art said cheerfully, placing her hand in the middle of the door. As it began to glow, she grabbed both Crowley and Aziraphale's wrists and yanked them forward. 'Besides, being eaten's a fairly quick death.'
The door flashed and the runes passed through all three of their bodies. When the light fully disappeared, there was nothing left to see but a slightly more blackened spot on the wall and a few water droplets slowly traveling down the cave wall. There was no sign that anything had ever happened in the cave.
5 Literally. Time in realms other than the main living one in which mortals reside moves differently. The darker and more painful a realm was designed to be, the slower it moved. Hell had one of the slowest rates, naturally.
Part two