Chapter Text
Aziraphale stood in the elevator with Metatron. The silence was loud. Aziraphale felt a bit weird – fuzzy. Like none of this was actually happening. Even with that, his curiosity got the better of him.
"So...the second coming...what's that about?" Aziraphale asked awkwardly. He intertwined his hands, placing them in front of his waist as he swayed.
Metatron looked at him and smiled before saying, "Well, you're an angel aren't you? I'm sure that you've heard about it at least once."
Aziraphale nodded. "Y-yes I know...I just...why? Why is this the next step? Why not something...I don't know...simpler?"
Metatron crooked his eyebrow upward and tilted his head toward Aziraphale. His voice turned from its light carefree tone to a more condescending one.
"It's just that. It's the next step. Are you questioning God's judgment?" Metatron leaned forward, appearing to be more menacing.
Aziraphale was quick to reply. He put his hands out in front of him and waved them defensively.
"NO! No, no, of course not. I was just...curious...was all." Aziraphale found himself leaning away from Metatron, feeling almost scared. The earlier fuzzy feeling began to melt as reality started to sink in.
"You know that human saying...how did it go? Curiosity killed the cat!" Metatron seemed proud to be using a human saying, as if it was an impressive feat.
Well, that saying was actually incomplete. It's curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. Aziraphale thought to himself but quickly pushed that thought away. Now is no time to be worrying about correcting proverbs you have more pressing matters to attend to...
All of this got Aziraphale thinking, it reminded him of when Crowley had questioned God's judgement and fell as a result. So I guess curiosity did kill the cat... Aziraphale thought. His mind kept wandering back to one particular topic. Specifically one person… Crowley.
Aziraphale was just now beginning to process what had happened and what he had done. Oh... oh my, Crowley kissed me... Aziraphale thought as he stared at the Earth button in the elevator. His hand moved back to his lips as he thought of Crowley's kiss one more time. Then he remembered what had happened beforehand that led to all of this mess.
Metatron looked at Aziraphale. It seemed like he was about to open his mouth to speak, but the door to the elevator opened instead.
This time Heaven wasn't the vast white space Aziraphale was used to seeing. It was a lot more...busy. Angels were running all over the place. Papers were scattered everywhere. Everyone seemed to be panicking. A few of the higher ranked angels were trying to keep order, but they just ended up yelling at everyone instead. Aziraphale recoiled at the sudden noise. He had not been expecting such commotion.
Metatron stepped out of the elevator and exclaimed, "ORDER!"
To Aziraphale's surprise, everything stopped - the yelling, the scattering of papers - all of it just stopped. All attention turned to Metatron and then to Aziraphale. A few gasps were heard over the sudden silence. Aziraphale heard whispers and muttering amongst some of the angels, with words like "traitor" and "native."
Aziraphale tried to brush these comments off, but something about them stuck to him. His mind wandered again to Crowley, but after a few seconds he was snapped back into reality as he heard Metatron speak.
"Greetings angels, I have good news!" The whispers and muttering stopped as all eyes turned now back to Metatron.
"Welcome our dear friend, Aziraphale, back from the clutches of evil." There was another moment of silence broken by a few claps from around the room full of angels. Aziraphale cringed at how awkward this whole interaction was. He had forgotten angels don't usually communicate face to face unless it's absolutely necessary.
Aziraphale also didn't like the way Metatron had phrased his welcome. He made it sound like Aziraphale had been held captive by Crowley, which wasn't true in the slightest.
The few claps died down and the silence resumed. It was so quite that it was loud. Aziraphale waited for something, anything to break the silence, but he jumped when Metatron suddenly laughed loudly.
Metatron pulled Aziraphale out of the elevator, a bit more aggressively than Aziraphale would have preferred, but he stayed quiet. He hadn't even realized he'd forgotten to step through the elevator door.
Metatron patted Aziraphale, heavy-handed, on the back as they walked through the angels. The shocked expressions on their faces only made Aziraphale more and more nervous. Still, no one made a sound. Some of the angels even seemed to move away from Aziraphale when he passed by them.
Aziraphale swallowed hard. The fuzzy feeling was completely gone.
790 words
By Liam Grey