The Angel's Curse

A Demon in Despair

"--I used to bring you sunshine, now all I ever do is bring you down--"

"--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed snake is king--"

"--Did you think you were pure..."

The radio was of no help to Crowley as he lay sprawled on a pristine white leather sofa in his luxurious Mayfield flat in London, a bottle in his hand and several more on the floor around him and on the table in front of him.

He absently gestured it off, staring at the ceiling through blurred vision. Hiccuping, he dragged himself up off the sofa, intending to wander drunkenly around the flat, lost in a depressed haze of self-loathing.

His own voice whispered in his mind, "Unforgivable, that's what i am... Part of a demon's job description."

Crowley sniffed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and tilting the bottle to his lips with the other.

He didn't know what he was drinking, but he expected it to be strong and bitter and burning, and that's just what it was.

He was too, except for the strong part.

He trudged into the bathroom for no apparent reason, and leaned unsteadily against the sink. He reached up towards his face, meaning to take off his sunglasses, and instead poked himself in the eye. The shades were still in Aziraphale's shop. He hadn't worn them since the angel had removed them from his face with a gentle hand.

The demon let out a quiet moan of despair as his swampy mind forced him to relive everything that had just occurred, for about the four-thousand-and-fourth time, despite his attempts to hinder it with ungodly amounts of alcohol.

Oh, he'd hindered it, alright, but he hadn't stopped it.

As Essie pinned him again and again in his mind's eye, she turned into other people.

First it was the Archangel Gabriel pinning him, his hands like lead weights on Crowley's white-clad shoulders.

"You're a bad angel, Raphael," he grinned with malicious delight. "Say goodbye to that principality you've been so friendly with lately. You'll never see him again, unless he's smiting you when Armaggeddon comes!"

Then the violet-eyed archangel shoved him, hard. Crowley cried out, whimpering like a child as the flames consumed him and he fell, he Fell, away from Aziraphale and into the boiling pits of sulfur to join Lucifer and the guys, he hadn't asked to be a demon, no, he'd just hung out with the wrong people, and he didn't need Aziraphale, he had lots of people to fraternize with, angel--

Gabriel had become Aziraphale, and now he was leaving him, storming away because he assumed that Crowley was being selfish, asking for a suicide pill to get him out of trouble should it come. Aziraphale, seeing him as the snake he was.

Crowley shut his eyes, shaking his head vigorously, trying to rid himself of the images his muddled mind were showing him.

This wasn't a good idea, seeing as it just made him feel sick.

He coughed, his head spinning, and turned on the faucet to splash himself with some cold water. He set the bottle, nearly empty, down on the counter, then cupped his hands underneath the cool flow and unceremoniously flung it upon his face.

It did nothing. Dripping, he looked up at the mirror above the sink at his reflection.

He looked a mess. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and there was a smear of bloodred lipstick across his mouth.

Crowley made a sound as if he had been punched in the gut, and frantically clawed at the lipstick. It came off, but very slowly. He panted as he wiped at it with the back of his hand, each movement driving nails into the back of his head, but he refused to stop until he had gotten all of it off.

Then he grabbed the bottle and staggered out of the bathroom, towards the bedroom.

Breathing heavily and shaking from a million different things at once, he broke down. Crowley slid down against the side of the bed, clutching the bottle to his trembling chest. As he sank onto the floor, his arm bumped against a side table with a plant on it and knocked it over.

The mirrored glass bowl shattered on the ground.

Crowley started violently, staring at the broken glass on the floor among bits of dirt and the leaves of the plant with huge eyes.

Then, slowly, he reached over towards it and picked up a piece of glass, turning it over in his hands. He caught sight of his reflection in the glass shard, his slitted yellow eyes gazing brokenly back at him.

You SNAKE!

His vision blurred with a fresh flood of tears at the memory of Aziraphale's voice.

His eyes, his snake eyes, they reminded him of who he was and that he couldn't ever change that.

His grip on the piece of glass tightened.

Anthony J Crowley was a demon. He belonged in Hell.

Tainted, you're tainted, sang the cynical voice in his mind, only it was in his heart now too, spreading like venom from a serpent's bite.

It was that, it was venom, it was in his blood, always was and always would be. He had been a fool to think he could escape it. He had believed, for a few thousand years, that Aziraphale could change him.

It was he who had been trying to change Aziraphale.

Yes, yes, cackled the voice in his head and in his heart, his breaking heart. You, serpent, you've been manipulating that angel. You love him, you do, but that's not enough to escape the bottom line.

"And what's that?" hiccuped Crowley, his voice thick and cracked with so many kinds of pain. He was beginning to believe the venom's words.

You'll never be good enough. The bottom line is, you're a demon and he's an angel.

You belong in Hell.