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Orders come in secretive whispers driven through his skull, through the scattering of ashes in fireplaces and by the scrolls taped to the feet of annoyed seagulls.
Crowley honestly isn’t sure if the seagull thing is an improvement as the beast batters him around the head with the fury that only a winged rat diverted from its scavenging and forced into the embarrassing role as a carrier pigeon could bring. For that matter, why couldn’t they just use pigeons? The beast screeches in his ear and flaps furiously around his home as he tries to corral it back out of the window. See, this is why he doesn’t fill his home base with loose knick-knacks prime for the shattering.
The gull finally takes off, scattering feathers and igniting a neighbour into irritated shouting with its cacophony. Crowley sighs and rips the scroll open, ignoring the congealed blood used to seal the paper with a wonky stamp. He reads it through. Frowns. Turns it upside down, in case that will make it present a more sensible semblance of meaning. Checks the back, sure that there will be some additional information that clarifies the requested act.
Huh.
There’s probably just some context here that he is missing.
Crowley shrugs and heads off to ensure the pantry of the orphanage in the next town over remains reliably stocked through the coming harsh winter. Some of the kids must be slated to grow into mercenaries or gamblers or good old-fashioned murderers. Can’t have a soul beholden to Hell if they die young.
In a neighbouring country, the angel Aziraphale weaves a temptation of gluttony that results in an entire town throwing a festival, rejoicing in the intake of the recent harvest. He pats himself on the back for a job well done, giddy at the excitement and companionship in the air and thinks nothing more of it.
The next unusual order arrives on the back of a swan and Crowley is fairly certain somebody is just working their way through the animal kingdom to piss him off by now. The honey badger had been completely uncalled for. They hiss at each other and chase each other around the room before he finally manages to wrest the sulphur-tainted scroll from their back. The swan gets in a few good pecks in the process and saunters back out of his door, satisfied with its victory.
Crowley lies on his back and unrolls the scroll and spits. Upside down, back to front. Oh bless this all to Hell and back. He debates chasing after the swan and tying the scroll back onto it with a giant penned question mark scrawled across the back but he doesn’t fancy his chances wrestling the creature again.
Across the globe, Aziraphale turns a monk’s head and sighs at how easily the devoted will surrender themselves to sin. The monk’s fellows note their companions loss with regret and to the angels relief, their own faith solidifies in their hearts.
Meanwhile, Crowley perches outside a church, blessing all and sundry as he waits for a priest to hurry up and finish the damn sermon already so he can get on with curing the local nun’s blindness. Maybe she’ll be disappointed with the reality of the world when she can see for the first time in her long life, maybe she’ll become more easily distracted from the pursuit of praising God when colour fills her vision. He doesn’t really care, he lost interest after the third hour perched in the yew tree waiting for the congregation to pass below.
The demon receives a commendation for turning a devotee to the path of sin and an angel receives a commendation for ensuring the true reward for what is in humanity’s heart. The angel sighs in relief that the act held meaning and a demon just hopes he isn’t required to hang in a bloody tree over a churchyard for another full day.
A skunk delivers a note bound in golden thread and if the demon was able to smell anything beyond the eye watering spray the creature had subjected him to, he might have wondered at the scent of ozone tainting the paper. Instead he unrolls it and throws a fit, incinerating the scroll into ash in his hands. Unfortunately, the burning of the infused orders only taints the air further and Crowley has to take a long, distraught soak in the nearest river before he’s capable of following the command without being shunned by every human in the vicinity.
An angel takes ownership of a scroll coated in oil and ash and very politely doesn’t mention the smell to the young runner boy who likely dropped it by accident. He opens the scroll, hums thoughtfully, and slips on his coat as he steps outside to divert a wealthy merchant as Heaven wishes.
Aziraphale clouds the path ahead with rolling fog and frowns as the merchant imposes his will on his animals instead of following the intuition he has kindly blessed the horses with. The proud man becomes lost, his produce rotting before he can reach the market, turning helplessly in circles while his cart horses follow his insistence. He loses his investment and Aziraphale cannot help his disappointment that the man failed to trust in Heaven’s guidance to lead him true in such a trial.
Crowley hates, hates blessed ground he decides, trying to convince himself to land on the structurally unsound roof. He throws out another demonic miracle, twisting attention away from him as he beats his wings nearby a proud cross and blesses the paper pushers to Heaven and back. The ground yawns either side and he’s already felt the burn when he tried to climb up the outside of the building and he’s not sure he wants a repeat of the experience.
He gingerly lets his toes skim the surface and when that doesn’t simmer as badly as he feared, he gradually lets his weight drop onto the roof. Breathes a sigh of relief. The structure creaks and he releases a yelp of panic as his wings spread again, the surface under his left foot caving. Maybe demonic miracles will slowly desecrate this house of worship over time. Maybe Hell is finally listening to him and starting to consider wider scale interference on a less personal basis. It’s the only explanation he can come up with as to why he’s been assigned to fix the blessed ruin of a ceiling on God’s own land.
Doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it.
The magpie is the last straw. It hadn’t looked that dangerous, relative to the coyote they’d sent the time before, but that was before it went and stole the ring Aziraphale had bade him look after. He’s not proud that it managed to out-fly him but small birds are nimble and can fit into spaces demons can’t. He curls in a satisfied coil and burps. The angels ring dangles off the end of his tail but the scroll was still attached to the magpie when he swallowed it. Oops. What a terrible, unforeseen loss.
Aziraphale finishes up his temptation of street urchins and collects his ring from the demon he had left it with. While he commiserates with their situation, that particular piece of jewellery holds too much sentimental value to risk its loss. He’s certain they will turn around and pay their dues in kind once they are comfortable with the wealth they pilfer, spreading more kindness than the brief sin they invoke. Besides, he had made sure to guide them to the greediest of targets, to offer the victims the opportunity to practice humility.
A week further on, the angel rankles at the light scolding from Heaven he receives, bristling at the implication that he hadn’t even tried to follow the given request. He bites back his irritation, concedes that he must have made a misstep somewhere along the line and moves on. The demon never hears anything further from the mission he is still in the process of digesting and takes it as further proof that his Home Office isn’t even paying attention.
The goat had ambushed him and the goose had given him the run-around for the majority of the day and the black mamba is just an insult. He snatches the scroll from between the confused snakes jaws, ignoring the reptile as it slinks out of the basket it had found itself in and slithers out the door to go terrorise the local township. He sees the word ‘blessing’ and stops paying attention, storming to the local telegraph office. He cracks his fingers, tries to put his disbelief and frustration into words and hisses at the paper holding his orders. Fingertips hover over the waiting message and he growls and snatches up the scroll. Blessing a penitent family makes no damn sense to him but at least he doesn’t have to climb atop a church again.
Aziraphale misplaces a Bible from a devoted widow's home and winces as she flies into a devastated rage. Paging idly through the book to distract himself he realises he recognises the misprinted version he holds and sighs in understanding. He was told to remove the lone Bible from the community after the local pastors passing but nobody said he couldn’t keep it after.
Time rolls on and Crowley holds the wildcat by the scruff of its neck as he presses the landline to his ear and praises humanity for giving him a direct way to contact Hell without the need to track down and mesmerise a manic beast.
“Hey, is that the assignments office? Two things. Telephones exist now, please for all that is corrupt, bloody use one and stop sending rabid animals after me. Also – what the fuck?!”
There’s a tense silence down the line, the sort that holds the promise of glorified pain.
“Is there a problem with carrying out your orders?”
“Yeah, I’d say so,” Crowley hisses, holding the cat further away from him as it yowls threateningly, “and I don’t appreciate whatever bullshit betting spree is going on down there regarding my ability to carry them out. Did I do something to you to make this personal or is this just undirected sadism?”
“If you’re incapable of carrying out Hell’s will a replacement can be sought.”
The retort is absolutely dripping with threat but Crowley gave up his ability to worry about their response as soon as he opened the letter.
“Good luck with that,” he snarls, “Can’t expect you’ll find many volunteers ready to get up close and personal with a baptism.”
The silence this time is much more fraught with personal confusion. He can hear several sheaves of paper being untipped and the clattering of various office equipment below the squeal of drawers.
“Oh no,” his contact on the other end of the line breathes, “Oh bloody bat in heaven, I didn’t.”
“I can still hear you,” he drawls. There’s the panicked eruption of somebody snatching the phone back up and swearing under their breath.
“No mistake,” the administrative demon lies through their teeth, “Carry on.”
“Wait a – ” he protests as the line goes dead. The wildcat uses this same moment to decide that it’s had enough of being manhandled and swings around in his grip to sink its claws into his wrist. He lets it go with a yelp. It’s about how he should have expected his day to go really.
Aziraphale is just settling down with a nice book and a fresh cup of cocoa when Crowley bursts in and slaps a piece of paper down on top of his desk. The cup wobbles and Aziraphale frowns at it. The cocoa very politely does not spill.
“Got new orders. Want to trade?”
“Really, Crowley,” the angel huffs, carefully folding his book closed, “The Arrangement is for convenience sake, not so you can go foisting your less preferred missions onto me.” He leans over to look at the scroll nevertheless, no need to deny his curiosity when the demon is presenting his orders so openly. He squints. “Why a baptism?”
“Some sort of mix-up,” Crowley huffs, falling into a nearby chair, “Won’t admit to it, so it’s my fault if it doesn’t get done. I’ll buy you dinner? What about that nice Italian that opened up about a decade ago, a few streets over?”
Aziraphale picks up the scroll daintily, wary of too much contact with something so recently bound from Hell. He twists it, looking for hidden messages.
“They’re morons, angel, it’s happened before. I thought they were messing with me but never assign to malice what can be put down to incompetence.”
“Why is there fur stuck to this?”
“That’d be from the wildcat,” Crowley waves dismissively, leaning forward, “Look, curing a nun, climbing a church, they’re at least within the realms of possibility. This is just stupidity incarnate.”
Aziraphale really looks as though he has several questions he wants to ask but he settles on, “Italian?”
“We’ll get their best red,” Crowley agrees quickly, relieved, “Make a night of it.”
The angel who had been looking forward to a quiet night in after lowering the inhibitions of several club patrons – ah, young love – concedes to this new plan. Standing in the church, watching the young child be blessed within the waters of life, Aziraphale weaves a blessing of long life and inspiration into the mix and beams as the family cries joyfully. Crowley is rather generous with the wine that night; his books could wait until the morn.
Raguel flushes as his pen-pal begins filling the correspondence sheet with their distinctive scrawl. He glances up quickly to make sure nobody is paying attention to the disembodied writing appearing on his office pad before allowing himself the indulgence of reading their words.
We messed up. Demonic field agent received orders to perform baptism. Got suspicious.
He frowns uncomprehendingly at the pad before his eyes widen and he flicks frantically through his own submissions to Heaven’s permanent field agent. He definitely remembers writing the requirement for a baptism but the reserve file lists...oh blessed Lord, an instruction to incite lust amongst the young. He snaps the file closed quickly.
Just as he’s beginning to worry that commanding such an act from a fellow angel is enough to make his foundations in Heaven a bit slippery, a notice uncurls softly against his desk. He stares at it and picks up his quill to repeat the note to his worse half.
Baptism attended and blessed, assignment successful.
The reply dances across his page in record time.
How the holy hell in all that is tainted?
I thought this was it. I thought we were done. Hail Satan and the crazy bastard that pulled it off.
He stifles a smile and feels his own dread begin to uncurl.
We need to stop bringing our work with us. Too dangerous. His words sink into the page, twining into existence on a sheet in Hell.
Amen to that, you feathered freak, comes the acerbic reply. Giving me acid reflux is not part of The Deal. Hurry up and teach me about a new beast of destruction before I fall out with you.
He contemplates, rebutting her barb as he mentally bypasses the animals he’s already shared with her.
God’s creatures are beautiful, one and all, and do not deserve such a designation assigned to them.
Saying that, I believe the hyena would amuse you greatly.
The response when it comes is a slow scrawl, almost a physical interpretation of a drawling lilt.
Go on...