are you normal or can you recite the entirety of good omens s2 ep1 (yes that specific ep) with sound effects and exact faces because you've started over so many times and you never finish it bc im obviously the first one i don't evenâ excuse me oooiiii yes was that you oh err hi yeah if you don't mind could you hold this while i crank it all up um which way up does it go well like that just hold it tight there you goâ
Something something the way that Crowley introduced himself to Aziraphale the first time they met in the garden and reacted as if they had never met before. Something about him later behaving as if he did actually have those memories of their time in Heaven together and trying to pass it off as being someone different now. Something about Heaven's way of punishing angels that go against the plan by erasing their memories. Something about Crowley seeing Gabriel without his memory and saying "ask him properly." Something about "remember it now" "it hurts, to remember. my head isn't built for that" "I know. Do it anyway"
Something about "I know. Looking at where the furniture isn't"
Okay so I maybe kept thinking about this and ended up doing a thing đŹ
(Most of the CWs are just the same as season 1 and 2. The only one I would add is there is pretty regular pain for Crowley. And he is intentionally choosing to feel that pain, not out of a desire for self-harm. So, I suppose, trigger warning for non-suicidal self-harm. And, I guess, a little bit for torture without deep explanations or lingering on it? Kind of?)
pull towards heaven by JRaylin441 (read on ao3 x)
Gabriel says that it feels like an empty house.
Crowley always thought of it more like losing a tooth.
Lucifer hits the crust of the earth, right in the middle of the desert. The sand poofs up around him, caught in his hair and his eyes and his lungs, but Lucifer is a burning comet hurtling to the ground, his wings burning and blackening behind him. The ground wonât stop him. The rocks shatter and the earth parts and Lucifer is falling further than he could ever imagine and there is a crater yawning open to make more space to fall.
He lands.
Face crushed in damp rock and sand in his lungs. There are enormous caverns beneath the earth. Why did no one know about these? What does it mean, that there are secret caverns already existing beneath the realm of humanity, seemingly in wait?
Questions again. Always the questions. As if he could ever slow his brain down enough to make it stop.
Questions.
Yes, questions. Theyâre important. Definitely very important.
Questions. Theyâre good. Because. Because! They help you find out information.
Information like. Why is he in this cave? Why does every part of his corporeal form hurt? Why is there sand in his hair?
He isâŚpretty sure that something bad happened. He thinks he was upset. His face is wet, which means heâs been crying, which means something bad probably happened. Thatâs what tears mean. Heâs almost positive thatâs right.
Thereâs somethingâŚsomethingâs there in the back of his brain. It feels like he could answer all these questions for himself, if he could just look hard enough.
There is a sudden, zapping, agonizing tremor that rips from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes. All the muscles in his already aching form tense and release, so that heâs jerking on the floor and grinding his face into the rock.
He feels like he should be embarrassed about this. This is probably shameful. Right? Oh. Sure enough, there are people around. Thatâs where the embarrassment is coming from. There are other people who are stumbling to their feet. Ashen, soot-covered wings stretch out behind them, steaming in the damp air.
Who are they, again? It seems like everyone fell down into this cave. That canât be good. Someone should probably do something about that.
Everyone in the cave keeps looking at him. He sure wishes he knew what they were looking for.
Or even, really, who theyâre looking for.
Because it seems like heâs forgotten his own name.
*~*~*
Okay, so saying that it feels like losing a tooth isnât exactly right. It would be more accurate to say that loosing a tooth feels like losing your memory. Order and causality and all that.
*~*~*
Crawley still canât quite figure out whatâs been going on. Thank goodness everyone else seemed to have a few more of their wits about them, because some of the other people who ended up in that cave with him seemed get it together. Theyâve already been cobbling together some sort of order down there. This Satan fellow showed up and started shouting orders, and people fell in line pretty quickly after that.
They call him Crawley, since he figured out a while ago that he enjoys spending his time as a snake. They tell him to go up there and cause some trouble. Crawley isnât exactly sure what they mean by that, but it sounds wonderful to go up and see some new part of the world. Away from the dark, dank, cold caves. When he feels the first rays of sunlight warming the rich black scales down his back, Crawley spends a solid two days unmoving and indolent, paralyzed by the miracle of the feeling.
He's sleepy and his body feels better than it ever has, but his brain can only stand to be at loose ends for so long, and eventually it makes its way back over to those strange gaps in his history. Prodding just a little at the absence.
A flash of light, brighter even than the sun on this rock. A glaring whirl of colors. It is miraculous and it splits Crawleyâs head in half. His serpentine body writhes against the hot rock, suddenly boiling hot and uncomfortable.
Right. Cause some trouble. Canât be too hard.
And, it turns out, it really isnât. Crawley canât think of anything to do right away, so he stalls for time and talks to Eve. And, because heâs Crawley, he has questions. Like whatâs so special about an apple? Why would it be there if you werenât allowed to eat it? What would even happen if you did? What do you think it would taste like?
And then, suddenly, itâs all going down like a lead balloon and the humans have been kicked out of the garden while Eve is pregnant. Crawley knows the other demons are going to be excited. He somehow managed to destroy paradise for the humans without even intending to. Crawley tries to feel excited anyway. Heâll spend the next few minutes getting his head together. And then heâll make his way back down to Hell and celebrate with the rest of them.
Thereâs a figure standing on the wall over the garden. A figure in white, with white wings, outlined with the sun to the point of glowing. Crawley feels the light on his scales and is making his way over before he can think of it.
Heâs an angel. Of course, heâs an angel. Crawley knew that. Obviously.
And heâsâŚnice. Heâs warm. Heâs terribly worried about the humans and he gave away a flaming sword, just like that, just to keep them safe from the life Crawley unintentionally handed to them.
âI canât see whatâs so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway,â he asks, because Crawley is a pile of questions with some skin wrapped around it.
âWell, it must be bad,â the angel replies, and then he pauses so kindly. As if heâs waiting for something.
âCrawley,â Crawley supplies, because itâs the only thing he can think to add in this situation. The angel looks hesitant and briefly confused, but he manages to continue.
âCrawley,â and he says the name softly. A little like a question itself. âOtherwise, you wouldnât have tempted them into it.â
And yes, the angel looks deeply troubled by the question, but heâs one of the only occult beings that Crawley has met thatâs actually willing to discuss different possibilities and offer an answer. At least up to a point. When it seems to go a little too far, the word âineffableâ is set like a barrier between them.
The angel smiles nervously toward Crawley and it hits like a lightning bolt down his spine, superimposing itself over another smile for just a moment before heâs back on the wall while his head aches like some word that hasnât been invented yet.
*~*~*
Because it used to be that losing a tooth didnât feel like anything. Until Crowley got a little too frustrated with it all around 500 AD and decided to pawn some of the feeling off on humanity for once.
That distinct feeling of something off. Of something different. The way that thereâs an absence so glaring that you canât possibly ignore it. And sometimes it hurts to touch it or go investigating. Youâre tearing open the raw nerve. Youâre slowing down the healing process. And even so. Itâs impossible to stop worrying at it. To stop touching it and flinching back at the pain and touching it and flinching back and touching it and flinching.
*~*~*
Crawleyâs been poking and poking at the holes in his memory whenever he finds himself bored. He gets flashes of Heaven now and again. At this point, heâs cobbled together a vague image of what he must have been up to for that vast eternity before earth. Something about stars and nebulas and light. Heâll get images here and there of faces he interacted with. It seems like, as far as his patchy memory is concerned, Crawley spent much of his time in Heaven working quietly in his office and imagining every possible way the base elements could be combined to produce something beautiful.
He remembers asking questions. He remembers a few warning glances. He canât remember what the final straw was.
What does it mean, when your entire life is defined by penance for a crime you donât remember? What, exactly, is the point then? Was this pity? Or torture? Or a mere accident?
Heâs getting frustrated with the other denizens of Hell and the way they never seem to understand a word that comes out of his mouth. The more time Crawley spends with humans, the more he finds that he likes them, the more he watches them die, the further he grows from anything his fellow demons could understand.
They donât like the whole thing with Job. Hard for something like that to go unnoticed.
Hell doesnât, generally, as a rule, spend much time searching through the details of what Crawley is up to. The difference, this time, is that Satan made a bet with God. And he really thought Hell would win. Isnât very fond of the fact that they seem to have crashed and burned anyway. So, they go through the record of miracles, trying to pinpoint where it all might have gone wrong.
Crawley tries to argue that he was corrupting Sitis. That she is going to doubt God and the angels as a direct result of Crawleyâs actions.
The demons appreciate that, actually. They commend Crawley on his creativity. They decide not to permanently discorporate him.
A compromise, they say. Remember when you were so good at following instructions there at the beginning? We were all angels, once. Some of us remember how to do the same things.
They wipe his memory.
*~*~*
Of course, Crowley doesnât make losing a tooth as bad for the humans as it actually is. A quick jolt of discomfort. An irresistible draw back to the source of that discomfort. A constant call and response.
Something is different. Something is missing. What is it?
It hurts. It is the absence of something you no longer need. Something you are growing beyond.
Why does it feel like that? Has anything changed? Will it be different this time?
It hurts.
*~*~*
Heâs not sure how many times Hell erases his memory. It took them some 2000 years to do it the first time (heâs almost sure of it) but once theyâve tried it out, it seems theyâve opened the floodgates.
Crawley is living with a cattle prod in his brain. It sends bolts down each of his nerves. He should probably ignore it or avoid it. But the cattle prod is guarding all the interesting stuff.
That, and itâs getting to him. He thinks itâs probably gotten to him several times before. The way that demons or humans will approach him and begin speaking as if he should know who they are. He plays distant. Plays ignorant. Plays arrogant. Anything to cover the weakness in the gaping holes in his memory.
He wonders how heâs survived this long, when Hell is so boring and humans die so quickly. He dwells on it and questions and tugs at his brain. It burns and aches and he is trying to cram ethereal memories into an occult body. They are burning him from the inside. And he canât leave the questions alone.
And, every time he asks these questions, he gets the same answer. A thread through his time on earth. The angel living it alongside him, even if they only see each other every few centuries.
Aziraphale.
By the time Crawley sees him again, itâs been years. Probably a very specific number of years but his head is scrambled eggs and fuck if he can spend the time to pin a timeline down.
The point is, the point is, that heâs been pulling himself back to himself again and again in those years. And heâs been discovering, and then rediscovering, and then discovering his rediscovering that heâs in love with Aziraphale. Has been for ages. Probably since the Beginning.
Hard to pin down timelines.
Crawley is a creature riddled in holes that is dragging itself from day to day in the hopes of seeing this one particular angel.
âCrawley,â Aziraphale calls him, and Crawley is only running at about 30% of his memory right now, but he can remember the first time he was handed that name, a snake on the floor of a damp cave, surrounded by demons who remembered more about life than him.
âOh, I changed it,â he says, surprised by the words but not the idea.
âChanged what?â Aziraphale asks, because Crawley found the one other being on earth that might like questions almost as much as he does.
âMy name. Crawleyâs not really been doing it for me.â Because there is the identity he was handed when he first lost his memory, and there is the creature that grasps hard onto the cattle prod and refuses to let go until it remembers something worth living for. And he wants to give Aziraphale a piece of that person. âA bit too squirming-at-your-feet-ish.â
âYou were a snake,â Aziraphale points out, the bitchy darling. âSo, what is it now? Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?â
More beautiful questions.
âCrowley,â he says, because it feels right on his tongue. Crowley, because itâs close to what they tell him he is, but not quite there. Crowley, because if he ever runs into Aziraphale and doesnât remember him, he still wants the name that Aziraphale calls him to register as his name.
âOh,â says Aziraphale, as he goes back to watching the crucifixion. And Crowley could kiss him, but he wonât. Not at 30%. Not when heâs only just introduced himself to Aziraphale.
*~*~*
âI know you.â
âYou do not know me.â
âI know the angel you were.â
âThe angel you knew is not me.â
*~*~*
Life goes on. Crowley gets better at hiding his failures from Hell. Gets better at taking credit for all the horrible things humans come up with. Gets better at figuring out where Aziraphale is going to be.
The Arrangement is a gamble, but itâs also one of the best things Crowleyâs ever done. Because he gets to see the angel more than once every few centuries. Itâs lunches in Paris and coffee in France and Crowley watches the angel glut himself on food while Crowley gluts himself on Aziraphaleâs attention.
Thereâs something about the way that AziraphaleâŚpauses. Just after heâs taken a bite of food he enjoys. Heâll stop, close his eyes, breathe in deeply through his nose. As if to make sure heâs using every sense possible to experience the thing heâs enjoying. It also gives Crowley several moments of uninhibited access to staring at Aziraphale, close up, while he wonât notice.
And then, of course, the way he will open his eyes again, with the edges all crinkled up in smile lines, and look right back at Crowley. He grins and offers Crowley a bite, every time, even though he rarely partakes of anything but the alcohol.
So what, if Crowleyâs mind greatly resembles a set of curtains someone has let their cat treat as it will. There are gaping tears and gashes, but Crowley can live with that, as long as he can worry at the empty spaces until he regains every single memory of Aziraphale. They glow too brightly for his demonic mind, but itâs not as if it can be more ruined than it already is. Itâs not as if Crowley wouldnât be willing to pay the price, even if it did.
And then, see, itâs 1827 already, and thereâs this girl. And she has a best friend that sheâs trying to look after. And the friend dies, on Crowley and Aziraphaleâs watch.
And the girlâs going to kill herself. Crowley drinks the laudanum to stop her. He drinks the laudanum to give himself an excuse for the inexcusably good deed heâs about to do. He drinks the laudanum because heâs never tried it before and he has a question of what itâs like and he might as well get it answered before they take everything away from him again.
He saves the girlâs life. He gets her set up to make something of herself, if she wants to. He gets to see that look that Aziraphale gets in his eyes, that wildly hopeful and smug look that pops up any time Crowley âprovesâ that heâs capable of something demons really shouldnât be capable of.
He gets to revel in Aziraphaleâs attention for several wonderful minutes.
Before they drag him down to Hell.
*~*~*
âAsk him properly.â
*~*~*
They donât like the laudanum excuse. They reach their claws deep down into Crowleyâs brain and donât pull back out until heâs properly Crawley again. They send him back to earth with a minder meant to follow him around and watch for any possible insubordinate behavior. And Crawley is eager to please, but he still loves questions. He doesnât mean to be insubordinate but, then, he never really did, did he?
*~*~*
âRemember it now.â
âIt hurts to remember. My head isnât built for that.â
âI know. Do it anyway.â
*~*~*
Crawley is on a mission for Hell and they want him to corrupt a priest and he asks if it wouldnât be more efficient to simply set loose several flies in the pulpit, so that the irregular buzzing and waving hands interrupt and distract everyone in the church.
There is a flash of a laughing smile, a bright light, an agonizing pain.
They bring him back to Hell.
Crawley is on a mission for Hell and when he walks into a cafĂŠ with his minder just behind him, another patron smiles at his approach. They tell him that they havenât seen âMr. Crowleyâ for months. There is staggering pain, there is confusion, and there is the creeping fear of the disapproval radiating from the demon who follows him everywhere and whose name he has forgotten.
They bring him back to Hell.
Crawley is sitting in some flat in preparation for the next stage of his mission for Hell. His minder is in the room too. They are sitting in two stiff and uncomfortable chairs and waiting for the human night to pass so that their target will be awake and ready for Stage Four.
There are holes in Crawleyâs brain, and he finds himself drawn to them. Worrying at them as a warning spark grows to an aching shock grows to a lancing pain. His minder sits quietly across the room and Crawley holds his body so still as he steps fully into that pain, into the too-big memories. There is white light. There is an angelic smile in a soft and loved face. There is love and there is meaning and there is purpose and there was Shakespeare and there was Job and there was Noah and there was the wall and the pain is boiling along each of Crowleyâs veins, but he canât stop now because thereâs something there, thereâs something still there, thereâs a question left unanswered and if he could just-
The veil rips
And he is Crawley and he is Crowley and he is the Serpent of Eden his wings are aflame and he is plummeting from Heaven and crashing face-first into Hell with no memory of how he arrived there and he is standing in Heaven trying to ask why they asked him to put so much work into the cosmos if they were only going to destroy them all before the true beauty could arrive and he is Lucifer he is Lucifer Morningstar he is the Light-Bringer and thatâs right. Thatâs right, he said that, didnât he? He said let there be light and then the cosmos came to life around them and Aziraphale was there he was there too and the light of the art Crowley had made was reflected on his face and he was so beautiful and Crowley hadnât even been able to see it back then and Aziraphale says that now, doesnât he? He says let there be light whenever he has the chance, and he glances over at Crowley when he does and what is he thinking when he does that?
Crowley is sitting in his flat and he is apparently also gasping and shaking and smoking and his minder doesnât wait to ask why. Crowley scrabbles into the furthest depths of his creativity, the thing that none of the other demons have ever shared with him, and scrabbles for anything he can do to stop this.
They bring him back to Hell.
Crawley is on a mission for Hell and his corporeal form is aching from some horrible physical exertion that he canât remember. There is a faint tremor running through his limbs, and little shivery painful sparks keep tingling up and down his spine. He keeps trying to find where itâs all coming from, to pin it down, and when he finally grabs ahold of it, the pain explodes into white light behind his eyes, and he doesnât remember anything else.
They bring him back to Hell, presumably.
Crawley is on his third mission for Hell that he can remember, and he feels like heâs been doing a pretty good job of it. Theyâre supposed to be leaving to tempt someone into lustful thoughts in a few minutes, but Crawleyâs minder (whose name he canât seem to remember) apparently filled out Form 786A instead of 786F, and now they dropped Crawley into this flat that Hell apparently maintains on earth while they go to file the new paperwork.
So, Crawleyâs waiting, exploring this weird, empty place with all its dying plants and strange furniture, when he sticks his hands into his pockets. There is a crinkling sound.
In Crawleyâs pocket, there is a small scrap of paper. It seems as though someone has folded and unfolded this paper many times before. Which is strange, because Crawley doesnât think heâs ever seen it before. Itâs even more strange that the paper seems to be written in his own handwriting.
Crowley
Iâm you, you idiot. Do what Hell tells you and STOP messing with your memories when you arenât alone.
Follow orders. Get rid of the minder. Go to St. James Park and wait by the river until he finds you. You need protection from the rest of the demons. You know what that means.
And for Satanâs sake, put this back in your pocket. Iâm not sure how many tries itâll take.
And itâs a little confusing, because thatâs almost Crawleyâs name, but it feels more true than his actual name. And there are creases on creases on creases on this paper. And there are holes in his head that hurt when he touches them.
*~*~*
âYou will, I am sure you wonât be surprised to learn, be cast out of Heaven to live as a demon in the outer darkness. Although, as a kindness, your memory of your time as Lucifer will be erased.â
But it wasnât that, was it? It wasnât kindness. Because he remembers, at least right now, and he knows what Heaven and Hell have been saying about Lucifer all this time. And itâs not true. He sauntered vaguely downwards but he was cast down from Heaven in a shrieking comet. He tempted the other angels into rebelling but all he ever did was ask questions. But how could anyone prove that? How could he defend his point when he canât even remember that itâs him heâs defending? They can make it a nice story, a lesson for others, when he doesnât exist to defend himself.
*~*~*
Crawley is standing at the edge of the river in St. James Park. He has been standing at the edge of the river in St. James Park for three weeks. There are two folded pieces of paper in his pocket. One is significantly more worn than the other.
Crawley doesnât know what heâs waiting for. Part of it is honestly that heâs happy to be out of Hell and out of surveillance and watching ducks. Another part of it is that the letter in his pocket told him to do this. The final part is that heâs been spending the nights of the past few weeks carefully picking at the seams of his fraying mind. There is a face. A well-loved face. And he does not know if that is who he is waiting for and he does not know who it is. He just knows that the first time he unearthed a memory of him it felt as though every piece of him clicked into place.
And then, suddenly, there is that same well-loved face, in a new outfit, with the sun shining down and catching in his watercolor eyes.
And, well, itâs maybe nothing, but he calls Crawley Crowley, just like the letter. And it sounds even better in his voice, and in a flash of blinding agony Crowley remembers that this is an angel standing in front of him.
The angel keeps using the name Crowley, again and again, as if to flaunt the fact that he knows some part of Crawley that Crawley does not even know about himself. Thatâs fine. The angel can hold on to every part of him, as far as Cawley is concerned. Heâll keep it safe while Crawley works his way back to it himself.
Apparently, they have an Arrangement, which the angel is ever so kind to explain in a way that makes Crawley wonder if he knows about the forgetfulness and the poor memory.
Of course. Of course, this is the person he would send himself to. If Crawley had any say in it, he would always be near this angel. He wants to freeze time and talk to the angel about ducks and current fashion and the way he recently discovered bright sunlight feels on his skin.
But, heâs trusted the letter this far. So, he hands over the other piece of paper, asking for holy water. Because thereâs nothing else the letter could possibly be referring to.
And.
Well.
The angel doesnât seem to take it very well. And heâs shouting and accusing Crawley of fraternizing of all things. And Crawley doesnât even know whatâs going on or how they got to this point in the conversation. He just wants to stop it all and make the angel explain whatâs happening.
But, you know. He canât pull together the words or the memories fast enough to figure out how to say it. And the angel storms off, the paper left to float in the water. Crawley burns the paper and mocks the angel and he doesnât even know his name.
*~*~*
âI donât know. Iâm justâŚâ
âI know. Looking at where the furniture isnât.â
*~*~*
Crowley gives himself a present. The world is changing, and there are things in his name now, and itâs getting harder and harder to maintain two different identities if he canât count on his memories to stay conveniently accessible. He gives himself a present of 100 years. He lets himself hold onto one final century of keeping his identity on earth and in front of Aziraphale separate from his identity in Hell. And when 100 years have passed without them wiping his memory (as far as he knows as far as he knows as far as he knows), he changes his name in Hell. Because, despite everything else, they do tend to respect a good title change, Down There.
On long night alone in his flat, Crowley trawls the ruined landscape of his memory, dredging up all his memories of Aziraphale and light and showing him the stars for the first time. They ache as he pulls them up, but he canât allow them to fade. Canât risk missing out on one and never even knowing to miss it.
Thereâs an antichrist that isnât actually the Antichrist and an apocalypse that isnât actually the Apocalypse and suddenly he and Aziraphale have made it out the other side of it all. Hell and Heaven were so angry that they skipped the memory reversal and went right to permanent discorporation. And theyâre sitting at the Ritz and Aziraphale keeps doing that thing where he sighs as he takes a bite of food and closes his eyes and inhales through his nose and Crowley wants to curl up inside that expression and live forever.
And, well, for four years, he sort of does. He doesnât have the flat anymore and itâs just him and the Bently and their parking space, but Crowley lets himself visit the bookshop three times a week and stay the night two of them. And things are cautiously, carefully, fragilely good.
Crowley lets himself hope.
*~*~*
âI donât think you understand what Iâm offering you.â
âI understand. And I understand a whole lot better than you do.â
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