Happy Holidays, Lynndyre!
Title: Colours dip't in Heaven
Written for: Lynndyre
From: A Secret!
Pairing/Characters: Aziraphale, Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: General
Notes: thank you thank you thank you a million times my amazing and last minute beta: Lunasong 365. They were wonderful and supportive and really went way beyond. So thank you. Thank you mods, for running this and helping me and being patient with me. Thank you so much. And thank you Lynndyre, for your brilliant prompts! I never thought rading Dickens and Austen and learning about Victorian literature would come in any kind of use, but here we are. Hopefully you like the story!
Summary: Crowley's taking a break, and people keep seeing Aziraphale. Instead of Mr. Fell. It's not entirely Aziraphale's fault. In fact, he's quite sure it's entirely Crowley's fault for sleeping through it all. Prompts used: Bystander pov on Aziraphale or Crowley in a moment when what they really are shines through (or art of those moments), and: Victorian Aziraphale, while Crowley was asleep. What could an angel get up to in London, playing both sides of good and evil? Optional darkness, Victoriana, historical true crime, spiritualism movements, etc. I included some powerful Aziraphale, caring Crowley, competence, friendship, historical stuff, and wings.
“Well, this isn't right. This isn't right at all. Is this Milton one of ours, or one of yours, Crowley?”
Aziraphale is sitting in a very beautiful, elegant, but uncomfortable chair, flicking through a text. The chair belongs to Crowley. As does the room holding the chair, and the house holding the room. Crowley himself is lying face down on the carpet in front of the fire.
“RR,” Crowley says, around a mouthful of carpet.
“Ah. What did he do?”
“Wr th.”
“Yes. I see. Justifying the ways of God to men is not really done. That is just the kind of thing that would land you in hell.”
Aziraphale closes the book and shakes his head. Such beautiful writing.
“I don't like this century,” Crowley says. “There's something in the air.”
Aziraphale is too busy contemplating Milton to pay much attention. That was his first mistake. His second mistake was not realising Crowley's theoretical thinking was far from theoretical.
**
“So how far,” Crowley says, from the chair he's sitting in, “does this go?”
It's Aziraphale's club, and no one's supposed to talk. Crowley's been sat in that same chair for two hours, legs crossed, narrow trousers neatly creased. He is, as always, perfectly in style. Aziraphale blinks at the two gentlemen glaring at Crowley, and their angry countenances turn instantly to gormless pleasure.
“Oops,” Aziraphale says, trying to undo it. “What?”
“Our little agreement. Would it, for example, include me doing good, to balance my evil, if you were out of action?”
“I suppose so,” Aziraphale says.
The two gentlemen are now smiling beatifically at each other, sighing to themselves, so relaxed in their squashy chairs they're almost sliding out of them. Aziraphale gives up and turns back to Crowley. But Crowley's gone.
Aziraphale doesn't notice his two mistakes until he calls on Crowley, and doesn't find him home. Aziraphale goes into the house anyway, deciding to wait. He goes through to the living-room and finds Crowley, in the middle of the floor, asleep. There's a sign propped up on his stomach:
Do Not Disturb Until Next Century
(if you are Aziraphale, remember our agreement)
Aziraphale carefully doesn't swear.
Chapter One
The chatter in the drawing room was rising to fever pitch. Mr. Jones, the butler, was sliding through the crowd distributing glasses of sherry and sweet wine liberally, adding to the noise and excitement. The lower the stock on his tray got, the higher the level of noise. Lord James Alfred Henry Remmington-Calthrop the fourth, affectionately known as 'Mr. James', or even 'Jim', was thunking gaily on the piano in the corner, something inappropriate from the theatre. The older people were gathered around the newest painting to adorn the wall, something busy and joyous by William Powell Frith, while the younger people were whispering together, a lot of giggling coming from the women present. All this was going on when George suddenly piped up from his spot in front of the fire.
“I say, what about a séance? Hetty says one of the kitchen servants has quite the knack.”
The two mothers examining the painting immediately bustle to their daughters, hurriedly keeping in check Miss Lavinia and Miss Mary's instinctive, and quite improper, clutching of the two gentlemen. Mr. Robert and Mr. James are far too well-bred to do anything but step back and allow Mrs. Smythe and Mrs. Percival to calm their squealing daughters, who are, anyhow, a little too young. Mr. James takes the arm of Miss Hershaw, the governess, instead.
“Are you afraid, Miss?” James asks.
“Not a bit, and please let go my arm.”
James lets go of her, laughing, and snatches up Miss Amy Rand instead, daughter of the house, who giggles and sighs in just the right manner.
“Well, Robbie,” James says, “what do you think? A séance to keep the girls happy?”
“I should say so,” Robbie says. “What do you think, Pa?”
“Hmm?” Sir Rand sucks up too much pipe smoke and coughs, turning from the picture to regard his son. “Oh, yes, quite. Whatever you think, Robert. Where has your mother got to?”
“She's gone to the kitchens, to find Matilda,” Amy says, still light-headed from drink and attention.
“I do hope you’re intending to marry my daughter, Jim, if you continue to carry on that way,” Sir Rand says, but good-naturedly, already turning back to his painting, “so what do you think, Knightly?”
“Frith is always entertaining, and tends to be complimentary. It's a beautiful family scene. I do still prefer your Doré, though.”
“Ah, 'Paradise Lost' and all those fallen angels,” Sir Rand says. “Yes, well, Mr. Doré is a fine artist, in his way. A little too gloomy for the young women who inhabit this room so often, though.”
“Yes, I see. I do always find myself on the wrong side when I read 'Paradise Lost',” Sir Knightly murmurs, “but no, that is a discussion for another place and time.”
Sir Knightly and Sir Rand are now swept out of the discussion and up into the group again, the young women merrily cajoling them into seats around the table. The dour Matilda from the kitchens is sat at the top, hands on the table, glaring around at them all in her slow, unblinking manner.
“Well, Tilly? Do let's get on with it,” Miss Mary says.
The lights flicker and Matilda takes advantage and wavers her voice, swaying her body. Sir Knightly goes to turn the gas down a little for atmosphere, and blows out the lamp on his way back, dimming the room further.
“You must hold hands,” Matilda says. “It makes the energy bigger. Come on, quick, I feel a spirit!”
She sways back and forwards, hands covering those of Miss Mary on the stylus, the graphite slipping and twitching on the paper.
“Is anyone there?” Matilda says, then lets out a guttural moan.
The lights flicker again and Matilda gives a drawn-out shriek, then straightens, empty-faced looking around the circle. There are a few giggles, and Robert says, “I say!” then “oof!” when George elbows him.
“Are you a spirit? Is there a spirit here?” Mrs. Rand asks, knowing the way these things work.
“Yes,” says Matilda, voice lower and grating.
A collective shiver runs through the group.
“I haven't the energy to talk,” Matilda says, voice weaker.
“We've got this!” Mary says, trying to raise her hands.
The stylus scitters, then starts to write. Mary shrieks.
“A,” reads Mrs. Smythe, “n-o-l-d”
“An old!” Robert says, sitting forward, “an old what? What's old?”
“M-a-n! Man!” Lavinia says, “Oh, dear God, it's real!”
“W-i-l-l,” Hetty says, “will. An old man will...”
“Enter,” Amy reads, “enter? What?”
Three sharp knocks on the drawing room door make everyone jump, and Mary shrieks again. Mr. Jones comes in with a man behind him.
“Mr. Horace Fell, sirs and madams,” the butler says, bowing.
“It's true! It's real!” Amy says, clinging to Robert, hysterical. “Oh no, we're all going to hell!”
“That seems highly unlikely,” Horace Fell says, “and I should know. What's all this, then?”
The butler withdraws. Matilda, aware of her wandering audience, lets out a deep, guttural groan, and moans once or twice, re-drawing their attention. The table jitters and the stylus moves again.
“D-e-a-d,” Robert reads, “dead. I say, Matilda, that's not quite on.”
Matilda's staring at the paper with the same horror everyone else is. She withdraws her hands from Mary's, and the pencil keeps on going.
“Dead, dead, dead,” Mary says, along with the scritching pencil. “Stop it Tilly!”
“It's not me, miss. This is a real haunting!”
“Oh dear,” Mr. Fell says, “I'm terribly sorry. This sort of thing does tend to happen, I'm afraid. It's to do with... well. Never mind. Mary, I think perhaps you should let go of the stylus.”
Mary does as she's told and Mr. Fell touches the top of it. The pencil falls to the table top and the lights flicker again. Everyone turns to stare at Mr. Fell, and for a moment his familiar shape and soft, warm form are transposed by the dark, and by the atmosphere of the séance. Hetty screams. Then the lights come right up, the lamp re-lighting itself, and Mr. Fell is bright and familiar once more, full of kindness and comfort.
“Good evening,” he says, “I seem to have rather interrupted.”
“Not at all,” Sir Rand says, rather shakily, “we were just indulging in some silliness, for the women folk.”
“I see,” Mr. Fell says, taking a seat at the table. “Shall we continue?”
“No!” Amy says.
“I think we've had enough,” George says.
“I certainly have,” James says. “That last bit was quite frightening.”
“We were discussing 'Paradise Lost' earlier,” Sir Knightly says, quickly moving the gathering away from the séance. “You're a fan, aren't you, Mr. Fell?”
“Yes, of a sort,” Mr. Fell says, “though I'm not sure how much was intended... ah well.”
Sir Rand, to cover up the fact he has no idea what Mr. Fell is talking about, and just in case what Mr. Fell is talking about should be something Sir Rand ought to know about, says, “Quite right.” The pencil scitters on the table and Mr. Fell's hand jerks out, slamming down on top of it.
“Perhaps we should tidy this away?” Mr. Fell says, letting the pencil go.
The pencil scribbles a word, then stops again. Mr. Fell pockets it, along with the paper, folded neatly. Matilda scrambles to clear everything away. As soon as there's no chance of things starting back up again, the young men assert their lack of fear and goad the young women. The group again breaks up. Hetty tells everyone, quite loudly too, that James was shaking, so James tickles her sides until she re-creates her shrieks.
“Stuff and nonsense, of course,” Mrs. Smyth says, “but it amuses the young people. Quite untruthful, the whole thing.”
“Would you say so?” Mr. Fell says. “Well, I'm sure you're right.”
“You think differently, Mr. Fell?” Mrs. Rand asks.
“I think many things,” Mr. Fell says. “I do believe there are spirits, somewhere, and sometimes someone accidentally does contact one. Of course, it helps if...well.”
“It's funny,” Mrs. Carmichael says, speaking for the first time, slowly and measured. “When you first walked in, just for a moment, it was like the room was filled with light. And then, when you moved closer, that's when the pencil...and the lights came back up without...”
Mrs. Carmichael gives Mr. Fell a long look. Mr. Fell just smiles at her, sipping his sherry, as Mr. Rand blusters about knowing how the trick's worked. Mrs. Carmichael mentally readjusts her plans for getting Lavinia married off to Fell, and looks around at George, weighing him up.
Chapter Two
The transaction was fast. The stranger keeps telling Maggie the rozzers might come up any minute, so Maggie's as quick as she can. Once she's given the money, though, she hesitates.
“You promise 'e's going' somewhere safe, sir? You promise me?” Maggie says, holding onto her bundle tight.
“I already did, didn' I?” the bulk of man snaps, grabbing the bundle.
Maggie holds on. A woman steps out of the shadows, though, and she looks fairly well-to-do. She's got a nice dress, anyway.
“I promise I'll look after him,” the woman says.
Her voice is nice, too. Maggie lets go of the baby. The man snarls and clips her around the head, and she falls to the ground, wet soaking into her already muddy dress. She staggers back up to her feet. The two figures are retreating; she can hear the man laughing. She can't see her baby. Her Ma would never have let her keep it in the house, and at least he's alive. He's going to have a good life with that posh woman. Still, Maggie follows them down the street and into the alley.
“Excuse me,” A voice says, smooth, upper-class, refined, and cold. Maggie freezes.
It's not her it's addressing, though.
“Bugger off, we've got places to be.”
Maggie opens her eyes at the female sounding voice, and sees her posh madam transform into just another cockney whore, the dim lamplight from a window showing the dress to be torn and hitched-up to show a thigh on one side, her voice rough and coarse, her hair neatly done but falling in lank, greasy tresses where the do's coming out. Maggie chokes.
“I know you do,” the smart voice says, “but I still ask that you excuse me.”
The voice belongs to a figure in the shadows, out of the lamplight. It's barring the way. The baby starts to cry and Maggie covers her mouth to stop her shout when the man growls at it and hits it.
“No,” the smart voice says; musing, soft. “I think that's enough.”
“Move your arse!” the woman says, kicking out for the man's shins.
There's a moment of stillness and silence, and then the figure seems to grow. Up and up, filling the alley, shadows drawing in and reshaping, belching more shadow like smoke, wings encircling the two up ahead of Maggie.
“I asked you to stop. Harriet Bard and Thomas Smithson, you have gone far enough,” the voice says, no longer soft or murmuring, a crack in the air like thunder, rather, rolling and booming, “quite far enough. The souls you sell have come for you now, and you will die in the dark knowing nothing but fear. Harriet and Thomas, I name you, as your mothers did, and just as they I curse you. Give back the child, and run. Run!”
The wings withdraw and Maggie gapes. A bundle is thrust into her arms and then the two people take off, boots clattering on the cobbles, a wailing moan coming from the woman's mouth, the man out-and-out screaming. Maggie looks up at the shadow-figure, afraid it's coming for her now, too. She clutches her son to her and waits.
A gentleman comes out of the alley, clothes neatly pressed and worn well. They're about twenty years out of date, but still expensive and well made. She recognises richness in his soft stomach and healthy skin.
“Evening,” he says to her, touching his hat.
“Evening,” she manages.
He pauses beside her and gently moves the rags away from the baby's face. There's a bruise across his face now, but he's not crying anymore. His eyes are shut. The man touches two fingers to the baby's brow and hums. Warm seeps into Maggie's bones, warmth like she hasn't felt since the hot summer. It sweeps through her, drying up the desperate tears that have been threatening all evening. The baby wriggles and cries, and the man draws back, smiling.
“He's a healthy little thing, isn't he?”
“Yes,” Maggie manages, “dunno what I'll do wiv 'im, though.”
“I would suggest an orphanage, if there were any that had any right to that name. If you trust me, however, I do know someone who desperately wants a child, and has the resources to give him a good home. He's not a rich man, but he is loving, and his wife is intelligent and kind.”
Maggie nods.
“I 'ave no money left though, sir.”
“Not to worry. Here,” the gentleman scribbles on a scrap of paper, “name and address. You get yourself down there and say I sent you. It's not too late. Then you get off home.”
He gives her a whole pound and sends her on her way. It's funny, but she feels the warmth in her the rest of the night, and for ever after she can just feel her son, alive and well and growing, right inside her heart, even though she never sees him again. She never regrets giving him up, but it's good to feel he's well and safe.
Mr. Fell turns away from the girl and heads back the way he came, back to the house he discovered. Three dead children, their small bodies laid out ready for he couldn't guess what. He kneels beside them and, for the first time in centuries, he really prays to his God.
“Aziraphale,” a voice replies, “what have I told you about this?”
Aziraphale blinks. He hadn't been expecting a reply. The Metatron doesn't usually take the time to give him a telling off anymore, usually he's just ignored.
“I know,” Aziraphale says, “not every soul. Just these three, just take these three. I know the Son can't reach into Purgatory, but you can. Just these three, they didn't deserve this.”
“We'll want something in return.”
“Of course.”
“These people have forgotten Us.”
“I can't do anything about that, but good is still…”
“This 'Paradise Lost', it's very popular.”
“Yes, people do seem to like it.”
“Mr. Blake was especially vocal.”
“Ah. Yes.”
“We'd like 'Paradise Lost' to lose some of its shine, Aziraphale.”
“Maybe next century...?”
“Just do it.”
Aziraphale promises to do so, but the Voice is already gone. Mr. Fell gets off his knees and leaves the bodies in their final resting place. They can come to no harm now.
Years later, when Mr. Fell is starting a literary movement with Tommy Eliot and Ez Pound, and Milton comes up, he gets the chance to take a little of the shine away. Just a little. Between Milton and Crowley, 'Paradise Lost' is stuck out of time, a huge chunk of religiosity and poetic exemptions that humanity cannot let go of. Neither side ever really manages to claim it.
Chapter Three
The theatre rises with a gasp, as the man on the stage ascends, floating on air. He comes down gently and the applause deafens. Mr. Robert and Mr. James yell with enthusiasm, turning to exclaim to Mr. Fell.
“Isn't it fantastic? Isn't he fantastic?” Robbie shouts.
“He's marvellous!” Jim shouts.
“Yes,” says Mr. Fell, “yes, he is. I haven't seen anything quite like it. And not a bit of magic, not a bit. Very impressive.”
His two companions slap him on the back. Mr. Fell thanks them for bringing him, then hurries through the crowd, somehow walking in a straight line without dodging or pushing people aside. The crowd just bends around him. He arrives at a backstage door with his clothes still neatly pressed.
“Can't come this way, sir,” a waiter tells him, smiling.
“I just need a moment. Mr. Maskelyne is expecting me, I can assure you.”
The waiter looks unsure, then leads him back into the bowels of the theatre. It's quieter in here, but not much. There are still people hurrying back and forth, shouting to one another. The waiter knocks on a door.
“Who is it?”
“Someone says you're expecting them. A Mr...”
“Fell.”
“A Mr. Fells, sir!”
The door opens and the magician from the stage peers out, squinting at Mr. Fell.
“Just the one,” Fell says, “Just Fell. Horace Fell. If I might...”
He pushes into the room and smiles around him. The magician closes the door and returns to taking off his make-up.
“Well? If you pushed your way in here, you must have had a reason.”
“I want to learn. I want to do magic your way. It's really very impressive.”
Maskelyne looks Fell up and down twice, then sits.
“Call me John, then.”
“Horace.”
Three months later, Mr. Fell is standing behind the curtain, waiting for his turn. He's vibrating with excitement; it's his first time on stage. Even though he's just going out to pick up after a trick, it's still thrilling. He steps onto the stage just as John brings down a stage knife, right into the waiting assistant. There's a momentary pause, and then the blood flooding the stage makes John back away with a 'good God'. Mr. Fell hesitates a split second, processing the ways in which the trick might have gone wrong. Then he steps out onto the stage.
From the audience there can be seen a figure, leaping across the badly lit stage. There's blood everywhere and the audience has its breath held, waiting for the revelation of the trick. It's taking its time coming. They watch the figure, who kneels by the bleeding man. The magician is staggering around. There's bright, white light and the figure kneeling is transformed for a moment, great wings beating across the stage and out into the audience, curving up to the ceiling; attached to a body both hulking and graceful, both light and dark. The room thrums, and then goes still again.
The man stands, and the assistant stands with him, and the blood is gone. The crowd cheers as hard as they can. John stares, face to face with Aziraphale, the shadow of his wings is still visible, blood on the feathers. Aziraphale blinks and blinks again, righting things one by one. He should have let this man die. He just couldn't, couldn't let the magic fade.
Mr. Fell is not invited back to the magician's rooms again, and when he tries to see Mr. Maskelyne, he is barred. The show gets a reputation for devils and someone starts calling that night 'Paradise Lost', to get at the feeling of being on the wrong side of things.
Chapter Four
Aziraphale makes his slow way back to Crowley's four story town house. He's weary. A century of balancing light and dark has worn him down. He sits next to the still figure of Crowley and picks up the sign, playing with it.
“I've just started off a downslide of events that will culminate in a great war,” Aziraphale tells Crowley's sleeping form. “I've had enough of your side of things.”
Crowley stirs, and Aziraphale breathes out in relief.
“Apparently,” Aziraphale tells Crowley, “the colour of my skin means I'll forever be 'Mr.', and that's the least offensive thing they've thought up. I gave them children without homes, and they came up with the most horrific things to do to those children. I gave them people with no hope and no future, and they...I see now how easy your job is. I do not want it. I don't like knowing how easily they fall, and the myriad ways they find to hurt each other.”
Crowley sits up and Aziraphale lets out a sob, burying his face in his hands.
“I never knew how ugly and twisted and awful they are. You never make them that terrible.”
“They do it all themselves,” Crowley says, voice hoarse. “C'mere.”
Aziraphale moves closer, and Crowley doesn't hesitate to wrap him in a hug. It's been centuries; they know one another well enough for this. Angels aren't supposed to cry, but Crowley's seen Aziraphale do it before. Something about humanity.
“A war, hmm?” Crowley asks, ignoring the tears as much as he can when they're falling on his bare skin.
“A pretty big one,” Aziraphale says. “Perhaps I shall sleep through this one.”
“They'll be watching us. A war means we'll be busy, and others'll be up here, doing their bit.”
“They do like a good war.”
Crowley gets to his feet and brushes himself off. He shuts his eyes and reaches out, getting a feel for the new century, then looks down at himself in disgust.
“I'm rather out of fashion, dressed like this,” he says.
Aziraphale trails after him to the bedroom, still damp-eyed. Crowley re-dresses himself, shaking his wings out, letting his true form show for a while as he chooses what to wear.
“Do you remember before you fell, how you looked?” Aziraphale asks.
“No, not really. Never noticed much difference, but I think that's part of falling.”
“You always come back to this shape, now,” Aziraphale says, ruffling up the feathers of one wing.
“It's my base form, isn't it?” My true form. When your lot use their Grace on me, this is what I become.”
“You shouldn't have a true form. You are essence, not form. Milton was right. Our essence, and yours.
'...so soft/ And uncompounded is their essence pure,/ Not tried or manacled with joint or limb,/ Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,/ Like cumbrous flesh'.
He puts it quite beautifully. And then he goes and spoils it by giving your dark overlord a true shape and form. He got that wrong. I wondered why, but it's you, isn't it? You told him about this, about form and shape. And not about essence.”
“I forget.”
“I think it's beautiful, this shape. Either way.”
Crowley smiles and straightens his feathers. Aziraphale shakes himself out of his human form and spreads out in the room, filling it with warmth and light. His wings, as usual, are entirely dis-arrayed.
“I bet you used these to impress people, and now everyone's going to think we're the ones with untidy wings,” Crowley says, tugging the feathers in Aziraphale’s wings, trying to make them lay more flat.
“We should get drunk, Crowley. Before the war starts.”
“Good idea. We need to drink everything in the house that's no longer fashionable, anyway. I suppose opium's out of fashion, too. I can just feel it.”
“Such a terrible drug.”
“Made my job easier. And yours; don't deny that Coleridge thing was entirely on you. Xanadu! Ridiculous, but quite like you. I know you used to go chat with him when he was under the influence.”
“Perhaps.”
Crowley finally decides what to wear. Aziraphale stays out of form, morphing and changing for a while, but Crowley likes his human body and utilises it as much as he can.
“I can feel this is going to be a fantastic century,” Crowley says, once they're stretched out in the drawing room, “I can just feel it.”
Chapter Five
Grief twists. We twist with it, but the world does not. The universe is like dough, and the twist is like kneading. It opens up air pockets, small places for Grief to exist in, the body of the dough the rest of time and place. There's no chronology, no coherency, just moments spread out. Pockets of air. The rest is suffocation, waiting, inertia. Grief finds everyone, before too long, and twists, twists, twists.
The rain is vertical. A ninety-degree angle with the earth that, if anyone bothered to measure it, would prove to be absolutely accurate to the millimetre. The cliché of the rain falling on a graveyard was not lost on the mourners at the open grave. The priest was trying to get through the prayer, but no one recognised it and their attention was wandering. Their grief was mild and they were focused on the sandwiches, tea and cake that were promised when the priest finally finished her seemingly endless prayers.
People started to drift away even before the first handful of dirt was dropped with a dull thud and wet splash. The priest followed quickly, and the grave diggers leant on their machine, waiting for the final mourner to leave. The figure was small, but only because of the hulk of badly designed church looming over her shoulder. In reality, she was large. Six foot with size ten feet and a stomach protruding over them. She huddled by the grave, small in the shadow of the church, and ignored the grave diggers' cleared throats. Grief was at work on her.
“Maybe we should just spell it. She'd not notice,” Crowley grumbles, hunching in his coat.
“Hush, let her have her moment,” Aziraphale chastises.
Aziraphale sits on the digger, hands on his knees, meditating. Crowley's sucking on a cigarette, spelling the air around him clear of rain, muttering.
“Why are we doing this again?” Crowley asks, between curses.
“The woman being buried owns a particular, manuscript copy of 'Paradise Lost' that you need to get hold of before some expert appraises the property and discovers the particular influence Mr. John Milton was under when he wrote. Unless you want the version where Milton writes “Him the Almighty Power hurled headlong flaming from th'Ethereal Skie, because he was in a might mood, and Lucifer was a bit of a bull's pizzle”, to get out. I particularly like the passage where Satan makes three attempts at getting over the gates of Hell before Crawley comes along and spells them open for him.”
“Yes, well, Milton was fantastic company but knew little of how things really went. I thought it would be good to have at least one true version.”
“Indeed. However, if it should get around, there's no doubt that someone would at some point get around to showing it to The Great Lord of Darkness.”
“Ah. Yes. That. Why can't we just saunter up to the house while everyone's busy out here?”
“Because as far as I am aware the text is in the church hall for the wake, brought out in a pile of papers that show the deceased to be a rather good writer. Which I found out for you.”
“I still don't see-”
“You wouldn't.”
Crowley's head and shoulders begin to smoke along with his cigarette, distracting him. Aziraphale opens his eyes and turns towards the grave.
The single mourning figure is, unbeknownst to Aziraphale, a person who goes by the name of Grit Oblong. She was called Grace up until it became abundantly clear she had none. Her father went to the cinema sometime around that moment of clarity and saw a specific film, and when he got home he decided his daughter had a good bit of true grit. She was known as Grit from that moment to this.
Grit Oblong is thirty three years old, and works at a pound stretcher that exists everywhere. She has three GCSEs and an A-Level. Her grandmother framed the A-Level, so technically Grit only has the three GCSEs. She knows, though, that the rain hitting her at right angles is called ‘pathetic fallacy’, knows it’s a cliché for it rain at a funeral. Incidentally, she has also read, and understood, 'Paradise Lost', and knew about the copy in the church.
The woman in the grave at her feet is the woman who Grit loved boundlessly. Love, for Grit, was a late, quiet little thing. It sneaked up on her and slowly settled into her bones, seeping into the deep places inside her, finding the love for her home. Her Oxford. The cold stones that whisper stories under her fingertips. The cobbles that she can feel in the soles of her feet and know exactly where she is, which she read in a book once and recognised, and smiled. The meadow whose earth, whose ice and winds, whose sun and heat, whose river, is eternity. Her city, her home. Her heart and blood and head.
The love for the woman now in the ground mingled with all that, rooting Grit here. For the first time Grit shared her city, shared the small nooks tucked away from the thoroughfare of students and tourists. The view from Shotover, standing up there in the weak autumn sunshine, wind blowing their hair out like streamers. The bones of the city, standing against the old wall up the alley between George Street and Castle Street, holding hands, chaffing each other's fingers for warmth, laughing about the preacher telling everyone to look for Jesus.
“Jesus is over in Ship Street!” Margaret had called, making the crowd badgering the preacher roar with laughter.
Margaret. Margaret, Margaret. The name rings in Grit's head, out around the church yard, out across the city. The city creaks with grief and Grit's head comes up. She looks around and stills. She expected two impatient, awkward men waiting to fill the grave. That's what had been there last time she turned. But now, the spirit of the city in her eyes and her heart; wide, wide open to Margaret, Grit can not only see. She can See.
The rain is still coming down hard, but sat atop the JCB is a figure made of blinding, beautiful light. Figure is the wrong word, though. Bright, bright, white light that radiates that air around it, ever-moving, ever-metamorphosing, pliable, playful light. Light that is joy and pleasure, and keen, sharp intelligence. Grit's breath catches as the shape spreads, merges with the water, pares from it, dancing around it, licking up, up, up, then settling again.
“I think she can actually see you,” a rough voice says.
Grit's attention is drawn from one figure to the next. This one is light, too, but duller, tempered. The shifts are more subtle, the centre harder to find. This time the light is avoiding the rain, ever splitting and reforming around it. There's darkness, too. Soft dark, winding, entwined with the light. Tangled together, inexorable.
“The inexorable sadness of pencils,” Grit thinks out loud.
She blinks, and the shimmer has gone. There are the two men, again. The one in long black coat and sunshades, the other dressed like a Teddy Boy from the fifties.
“That's Roethke, isn't it?” the Teddy Boy says, coming over.
He's still illuminated, radiating warmth. Grit nods, going to him automatically, drawn to his comfort.
“You read a lot,” he says, smiling, “it's pronounced in-ex-or-able, not un-ax-ible. Come, it's time.”
“I loved her.”
“Yes, I can feel that.”
Grit nods. She looks at the second man. He's much, much darker. She can still see a shimmer around him, monstrous shapes flickering in her periphery when she glances away, the heat and roar of somewhere beating out from him.
“Oh, no,” he says, “you stay with Azi. He'll be much healthier for you.”
“Don't worry,” Azi says, “Crowley's not being generous. He's just got another end goal in sight today. Will you say goodbye?”
Grit turns back to the grave, and Grief gives that twist, taking away in one swift movement half Grit's memories, a chunk of her self-hood, several strands of her identity, and a large amount of what innocence was left in her. She turns back, looks at the angel and the demon, for she recognises them, again.
“You can have the poem. Please leave me the rest,” Grit says, then turns and walks away.
She can feel Azi for a really long time--his essence stretching across the road and through the gate and down the lane, all the way back to the house. The air vibrates with his close presence, the warmth of him warding off the rain.
Grief twists, one swift movement taking too much along with Death. But Grief, however powerful, cannot take what's deepest in us. The ring of a slab pavement hundreds of years old. The peal of bells that W H Auden, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Johnson, heard centuries before.