Delivering the Antichrist
I just came across a brief speculative one shot on AO3 concerning Crowley’s line “I delivered the baby” that had me rocking back in my chair overcome with Ideas and Pondering.
It’s pretty well established that Lucifer/Satan is the father of the Antichrist, we know that, but there’s very little even posited about who was the mother or even the surrogate for the Antichrist. And according to what I recall from the book, the Antichrist still maintained some level of occult/otherworldly power after renouncing Satan as his father, so we can reasonably assume that whomever the mother was, they were at least some level of a supernatural being.
So...
What if ‘delivering the baby’ entailed not a basket and a courier job, but something a little more... Labor intensive.
Like, Crowley gets a summons from the Head Office, goes off, finds out he’s being volun-told for a very Auspicious Position. And, well, it’s bloody damned Satan, the big Kahuna Down Below, and for all that Crowley has managed to keep in the ‘good’ graces of the Management, he can’t very well turn down such a prestigious ‘honor’. It’s not fun, it’s not something he wants, but if there was ever a time to grin and bear it, it’s at times like this when there’s no other safe choices to make.
And Crowley makes it back to Earth, immediately decides the Last Thing he wants to do is get his Angel mixed into all this, so he leaves a vague message at Aziraphale’s bookshop about a long distance job he’s having to undertake, nothing Arrangement worthy but he’s going to be gone for a long while, don’t wait up. Crowley effs off with the skittish mulishness akin to a cat finding a spot to lick its wounds after a nasty fight, and manages to keep under the radar for a good few months before things take a turn (as things do). And Crowley is miserable and tired and lonely and he sneaks back to London to poke in on Aziraphale, not actually looking to do anything more than maybe peek in a window to make sure things are alright but it looks like no one’s actually in at the moment, maybe he can just pop in for a moment to make sure...?
Aziraphale returns to his bookshop to find his missing friend conked out on the couch in his back room, looking exhausted and worn out and not at all himself in a manner that has the angel immediately bristling with protective guardian instincts that never really went away when he left the gate. Crowley wakes up, feeling more rested and comfortable than he has in months, wrapped up in a thick soft blanket with a pillow tucked under his weary head, rumpled clothes miracled into a pajama set that’s just the right amount of snuggly. It’s more caring and comfort than he’s felt in what feels like a lifetime and Aziraphale returns with a tray of tea and small nibbles and Crowley can’t help it, he’s so TIRED and his Angel is right there, being all fussy and wonderful-
It’s not the first time Aziraphale has seen Crowley emotional or even sad, but it IS the first time he’s seen it without any bluster or cover ups, the demon too tired and stressed and lonely to even bother trying. And Aziraphale doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t even really think about it, and as he sits with his friend all but sprawled in his lap, gently running his fingers through auburn curls, he hears the barely audible mumbled confession and make a personal vow to find the Spear of Longinus and stab it right up Satan’s backside.
With everything piling up, it doesn’t take much convincing to get Crowley to stay at the bookshop with Aziraphale, and as time passes, the pair of them living in close quarters, things slowly come to light and things shift in understanding. It’s comfortable and almost painfully domestic and it soothes something longing in the soul neither of them knew they were missing.
But it doesn’t last, and when the time comes, Crowley has to go through with delivering the Antichrist and then is forced to go through with the baby swap on top of it all. It hurts more than he cares to think about, let alone admit, and the stress of it all puts him around the deep end for a little bit. The Universe adjusts, the Antichrist still ending up in not quite the right hands, and Crowley stumbles into the bookshop after everything two sheets to the wind wishing not for the first time that snakes could cry. Aziraphale is there, a comfortable welcome constant, and that more than anything else helps with the aching empty spot where something Crowley didn’t want but came to love despite the beginnings has been ripped away from him.
They still go through the eleven years struggling to balance infernal and celestial influences with the wrong child, since the defenses of the Antichrist surely would hide the boy no matter whatever connections, and Warlock is mostly raised by a Nanny who is equal parts almost suffocatingly doting and eerily distant while the Gardener teaches a very young boy about consent and safety and how to be a Good Person. When the Hellhound fails to appear, Crowley barely manages to keep his composure, torn between relief and panic, and it’s only thanks to Aziraphale’s steady presence that Something Drastic doesn’t happen.
Heavenly and Hellish Hosts both carry on as the Great Plan entails, the Four Horsemen ride, a Hellhound is named Dog and a witch is found. A bookshop burns and a demon dies. But Crowley can’t drink himself into a stupor, he can’t, he has to find the Antichrist, he has to-! Losing Aziraphale and his everlasting support is like being cut down at the knees and stabbed through the heart, but for all his grief, there are two boys out there that deserve to have a world to live on, one he raised and one he delivered. Agnes Nutter’s book of prophecy survives, and Crowley had been helping with the whole deciphering/triangulating thing once Aziraphale talked him through what he was trying to do with the book’s help, so he knows where to go, where to be.
The Bentley still burns, Aziraphale finds Madame Tracy, and Crowley doesn’t even bother to care that the body is a timeshare when he hugs his Angel. Then they’re racing across the air field in the stolen Jeep, and there’s four children and little terrier dog facing down the avatars of Humanities greatest horrors.
A boy stands in the middle of it all, and he turns towards the sound of the noisy engine or maybe something else and honey-gold meets yellow. Crowley very nearly wrecks the Jeep at the force of the connection he feels, protective and primal and deep, and the Antichrist beams like the sun.
“Mum!”
There’s a boy, a precious beautiful boy, warm and safe and alive in his arms, and suddenly serpents can cry because those are tears blurring his vision as he buries his face into sun lightened curls. Warlock is still a dear child in his own right, one can’t raise a boy for near eleven years and not get attached, but Adam- Oh, Adam is the missing note, the lost cog, the presence meant to fill that emptiness.
“I found you, I finally found you-!”
Aziraphale watches the reunion with tears in his borrowed eyes, Madame Tracy delicately dabbing at the moisture with the edge of her shawl. But there are still the Horsemen to fight, and a Great Plan to halt.
Only this time, when an angel and a demon join hands with the Antichrist to face Satan and shout him back down into Hell, the boy is comforted, feeling a love he always knew existed but never got to meet until now.
“Mum?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“When I grow up, will I have eyes like yours?”