Forgivable

CHAPTER THREE: The Ghost of Him Everywhere

       Crowley preferred the nights.
       During the day, when the sun was shining and the street below was crawling with humans, so busy, bustling, he felt compelled to be out himself, to be doing something. It came from spending too long in the company of an angel, one who always wanted to be doing something or going somewhere.
       He frowned at the thought.
       But the darkness of the nights suited his mood. No one expected anything of you, at night. He'd been sitting on his throne for hours, though it could have been days and he wouldn't have known the difference.
       Eventually he opted for a change in attitude and stood, paced the room with long strides, the pale stone a soothing emptiness that suited his empty thoughts. He would pace for a bit, and then maybe he'd go for a drive. Restlessness and listlessness combined to make his skin crawl, and he let out an angry grunt.
       When the angel had left, Crowley had driven out of London - down to Cornwall, along the coast, getting up to two hundred and twenty miles per hour, pulling over to scream demonically into the boiling sky that followed him like a trail of smoke, brewing lightning storms out over the open ocean. He'd howled until his throat was hoarse, had spiraled in his fury, had wanted to go back to the bookshop and smash everything there, though of course he could never have done that. The anger had driven him, and he had driven in anger across southern England. He'd thought about going to another planet entirely - Alpha Centauri was off the table, now, but Teegarden's Star b looked promising - where he could rain down destruction endlessly until his rage was spent.
       But in truth, it was spent almost immediately. He'd wandered back to London and returned to his flat, filled with a cold emptiness that had blackened to a dark despair which grew with every day that passed.
       He'd popped by the coffeeshop once, but apparently Nina hadn't noticed that the angel was gone, and she asked too many questions about it - had he talked to Mr. Fell? How had it gone? Seeing Maggie behind the counter with her had lifted his spirits briefly, but then left him feeling lonesome. He hadn't returned since.
       Mostly he drove. Except for the one visit to Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death, he'd avoided Soho, but he drove all over London, the Bentley's radio blasting, the thrill of the danger of tearing through the streets of Clerkenwell and Islington and Camden Town the only thing he really felt at all, anymore.
       He hadn't realized until that final, awful day - that catastrophic rupture in the bookshop - how little meaning his existence had. No, that wasn't right. It wasn't that his existence had no meaning. It was that everything in it that mattered was wrapped up in the angel - in his sweet, loving expression, his sword-sharp wit, the pure, innocent delight he received from engaging in human activities and dragging Crowley along with him. In the easy comfort the two of them had developed over the millenia - even in the familiar comfort of the bookshop, always the same, always smelling of books and freshly brewed tea and Aziraphale.
       When that had been ripped away, Crowley had been left with an endless parade of empty, bland days and nothing to fill them. No reason to leave the flat but habit, no reason to do anything worth telling someone about. Who would he tell? It was bleak, and he hadn't decided yet what he was going to do about it.
       A wan light was filtering in through the window now. Crowley walked over, pulled aside the blinds and peered out. The sun had come up.
       "Hooray," he drawled to the empty flat, "another day," and dropped the blinds.
       The demon picked his sunglasses up from the desk and snugged them on, then prowled across the flat. As he passed through the room with the houseplants, he saw that a few of them looked wilted. He turned away and stalked out the door.
       It was early, but humans had already begun to fill the sidewalks.
       Opening the door to his Bentley, Crowley thought he'd go south today; he hadn't been through Brixton in a while. He put the car into gear and peeled out into traffic as a Volkswagen slammed on its brakes to avoid crashing into him. He heard shouts behind him and cranked up the radio to tune them out. You go too fast for me, Crowley.
       He wouldn't say that driving cleared his head, exactly, but at least it provided a changing view. Maybe he'd miracle up some frozen peas and go feed the ducks.
       As the Bentley rounded a corner it lifted up on two wheels, and as it settled back onto the road, it flashed past a man walking down the street - a man with an off-white jacket and curly white hair.
       The car screamed to a halt as Crowley stomped the brake pedal to the floor. He thrust the door open and jumped out, striding back toward the man with quick steps, the scent of burning rubber sharp in his nose.
       There were too many people. He pushed past them desperately, trying to find the man again. He snapped his fingers, and the crowd parted before him like the Red Sea for Moses. "Ange-"
       It wasn't Aziraphale. The man was too short; he wore black pants and had a trimmed white beard and dark, frightened eyes. The coat was new, the waistcoat pristine, not soft and worn from centuries of use.
       Disappointment started in the demon's chest and crawled into his throat, choking him.
       The human was shying away from Crowley, who realized that he had stopped in front of the stranger and was just standing there, panting.
       "Aargh!" The man flinched as Crowley threw his hands up. He stalked back towards the Bentley, where the tires were still smoking. Folding his long limbs back into the car, Crowley turned the ignition and put his hands on the wheel, sighing heavily.
       Of course it hadn't been Aziraphale. The angel was long gone. Crowley should have known better, but the hope and relief at the sight of what he had thought was a familiar form had been so sharp, so deep in his gut; he had been pulled to a stop as involuntarily as he had always been pulled to the angel. He couldn't have done anything else.
       Damn this city, all these people - damn that angel, that idiot angel for leaving him like this, leaving him to see the ghost of him everywhere while he was up in Heaven, not thinking of Crowley.
       There was a tap on the window. Crowley looked out and saw a man peering in. He rolled down the window.
       "What," he growled.
       "Are you all right?" A pale face looked into his, a kind-looking face with pale eyes below thick black brows. The man was dressed in black, and a strip of white was tucked into his collar.
       A priest.
       Crowley cocked his head. "What?"
       "I said, are you all right? You look distressed." The young man glanced back at the burning tire tracks, then quickly away.
       "Yes. Fine. Tip-top." Crowley studied him. The man appeared to be a real priest, a human priest. He started to roll up the window.
       "Can I help in any way?"
       Crowley stared at him through the sunglass lenses. "I very much doubt it, unless you've got a direct line to the..." he waggled a finger in the air, pointing upwards, "your Commander in Chief."
       The priest smiled at him kindly. "I don't know about a direct line," he said, "but I'm quite sure that my, er, messages make their way there one way or another."
       "I wouldn't count on it."
       "Father Harding," the priest said, holding out a hand.
       Crowley looked at the outstretched hand but didn't take it. "Charmed." He rolled the window up another inch, but once again, the priest spoke.
       "I don't usually approach people on the street, and I hate to presume, but something told me to speak to you." He thrust a thumb over his shoulder. "That's my church. We are always welcoming to new congregants in need of counsel, or the Sacrament of Penance."
       Crowley had begun to sneer, but now he barked out a surprised laugh. "The Sacrament of Penance. You're offering me confession?"
       The priest dabbed at his forehead with a cloth, still bent towards the car door. A brave young man. "Well, yes."
       "I don't think that's necessary, Father. God already knows my sins, and I don't think She's going to reconsider Her position on them anytime soon."
       The priest blinked at him. "Well," he said, "if you change your mind..." he gestured towards the church again. "You are welcome here."
       Crowley scanned the building, the old belfry, the cross standing proudly at its peak. "I'm not," he said, "I'm really not."
       He rolled the window up, and this time the young priest didn't stop him. Crowley pulled out, weaved around a bus, and turned south.