Chapter Text
“I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“You’re here. That’s a start,” says the priest.
“Not necessarily a good one,” says Crowley. “Probably not. But I’m already here, so. Right, let’s see if I can remember how this goes. Bless me, father, for I have sinned – don’t bother, actually, floor’s burning enough as it is. Don’t have to forgive me, either – I mean, you can try but don’t feel too bad when you can’t. Unforgivable is sort of in the job description.”
“You won’t mind if I try, will you?”
Crowley shifts in his seat.
“No, s’pose not. Wasting your time is all.”
“Let me see for myself. If I am, it’s my time to waste.”
“Fair enough. Look, the sign outside says all are welcome and come as you are, but I won’t hold it against you if you don’t mean it. Just in the interest of transparency and managing false hopes, I should say, you cannot save me. If you’d rather be spending your time on someone you can, I will not hold that against you.”
“I mean it. You’re absolutely welcome here, as you are. Something brought you here, something called to you. In my books, right here with you is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
“Right. I suppose this is the part where I tell you about my sins, then.”
“If you’d like.”
“Well, if I listed them all, we’d be here all day. All week, possibly, so let’s not. There is,” he begins to say, the rest of his sentence turns into a grumbling hum.
“Something in particular on your mind,” the priest encourages.
Crowley lets out a heavy breath.
“You could say.”
He doesn’t continue right away. The priest waits for him to be ready.
“Ruined the best thing in my life recently. Wasn’t all me, I mean, many complicated external factors, but, er,” he trails off. “Doesn’t matter now, I suppose. It’s done for either way.”
“Sounds like it matters a great deal.”
“Yeah, well. Can’t help but wonder what I could’ve done different. If I could’ve changed things,” he says and pauses. “Lately I’ve been wondering whether I was wrong to want in the first place.”
“And what was it that you wanted?”
“Something I could never have,” says Crowley. In lower tones, almost in disbelief, he utters, “I asked him to give up Heaven for me.”
He goes quiet for a little while, but the priest does not say anything to break the silence. Waiting for Crowley to continue again. Crowley does, now with his head in his hands.
“Don’t forgive me, father, but I love him, I do.”
He surprises himself by saying the word. He’s never said it before – not even to his bedroom walls, not even to his bathroom mirror. He’s said it now, with a voice that was broken and quiet, yet said it anyway.
What’s even more surprising is that he continues, “And I wanted him to love me. In, nuh, in more ways than he’s allowed to. The way I love him.” And the way he loves Aziraphale is 98% pure, but the 2% that remains has been rotting his heart clean out for the better half of the last 6000 years at least.
“I knew of the consequences that could come to him, and I wanted him to, anyway. I,” his voice breaks. He lifts his face from his hands; stares at them shaking. He looks up, open-mouthed with trembling lip, and continues below his breath, “I kissed him, anyway. I asked him to stay. Not here but with me. I asked him to give up Heaven for me.”
It’s quiet. The priest is waiting to see if Crowley will continue. Crowley does not.
“Love is not a sin,” the priest says, the way a person talks on some dark road, trying to help a wild animal with a broken hind leg.
“This love is.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh, they’ve made it pretty clear.”
“Who?”
“Oh, you know. The powers that be. All of the above – and below, for that matter.”
“Mm,” says the priest, “I don’t doubt that’s what you’ve been led to believe, but I assure you that no love is a sin.”
“No offence but higher authorities disagree.”
“Romans 13:10 tells us love is the fulfilment of the law.”
“Also says love does no harm. This one has definitely done harm.”
“How so?”
Crowley sighs, “Where would I even begin?”
“The beginning?”
“Way too long ago.”
“The present, then?”
“Right. Well. Do I sound like someone no harm has come to?”
The priest hums. “You want to tell me more about this harm? Where it comes from. What it feels like to live with.”
Crowley lets out another deep breath, “What do you think it feels like?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“He didn’t, obviously,” Crowley says instead, “Stay, I mean. He didn’t stay with me.”
“I imagine that hurt.”
“Oh, like Hell – and trust me, I’m something of an expert,” says Crowley. “You know the last thing he told me before leaving?”
“Tell me.”
“I forgive you,” spits Crowley, half-mocking, half-trying-to-make-sense-of-it.
“What do you think he was forgiving you for?”
“I don’t know,” the answer comes quickly. The dismissive tone that usually lets him move on in an uncomfortable conversation. But the priest doesn’t say anything. Waiting again. Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t know,” he sighs, “I, mrgh, well. I guess,” he pauses, “I guess for not going with him. Or for asking him to stay with me. Or both, I suppose. For not being who he wanted me to be. Or,” he lets out a breath, “or for kissing him. For coming between him and God.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Well, not as such – but it’s been implied and inferred a good few times.”
“Love,” the priest begins, interrupting himself, “pardon me, I didn’t get your name.”
“Anthony.”
“Anthony, love does not come between us and God. Love brings us closer to God.”
“And how do you know that?”
“It is written that the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us that. Likewise, Galatians 5:22-23 tells us the fruit of the Spirit is love, and against such things there is no law. 1 John goes as far as to tell us God is love. It also tells us if we love one another, God abides in us. And Romans 12:9 tells us to let love be genuine. Anthony, you cannot change who you love – to let love be genuine is to accept that.”
“So, you’re all ready for your book report. Doesn’t mean you actually know what God thinks.”
The priest hums. “No, I suppose not. I speak in a human way. None of us are quite capable of knowing the mind of God.”
“Then why even try?”
“That’s a good question,” says the priest, “Well, to me it’s the same as asking why try to be a good person when you know you won’t always get it right. I believe God wants a relationship with all of us and invites us to seek Them in many ways.”
“She ever talk to you? God, I mean.”
“I’d like to think so.”
“That’s a no, then.”
“In the most literal sense, I suppose it’s a no.”
“Yet here you are. With your little white collar and all. For a God that won’t even speak to you.”
“This is the path I believe God has called me to.”
“She hasn’t literally, though.”
“I believe God knows I didn’t need a calling as literal. I have God’s love and Scripture to guide me and that is enough.” He says that with a certainty that doesn’t mean to but stings anyway. Stings enough that Crowley’s getting ready to leave.
Before that, though, if only to get a jab in, he says,
“That book you’re so fond of has some real dodgy stuff in it.”
“I go along with the Bible as far as I can,” says the priest.
Crowley sits back down.
“Could get into a lot of trouble for saying something like that,” he says.
“I’m not too worried.”
“I wasn’t, either. Look where that got me.”
“Look. Everybody negotiates with the Bible. Some do it consciously, others unconsciously, but we all do it when we look for meaning in the good book. It is not a univocal text, that is simply the truth. It’s not even a book, it’s an anthology of books written by people who lived a long time ago. Yet, like Jesus said, ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find. We tend to find what we are looking for.”
“So, you found love, I suppose?” Crowley asks, in the exact tone of voice that a child has in school when they’ve realised they are actually very curious about a given topic, but far too cool to let that interest show.
The priest chuckles, “An abundance, yes. I found a guidebook for revolutionary love.”
“Revolutionary?”
“That’s what they call it these days when you want to feed the hungry and set free those who are oppressed.”
“Yeah, sentiments like that are sure to get you in trouble,” Crowley chuckles.
“Ah, sure look it. Should trouble come, I’ll endure it. I live in love, and love bears and endures all things. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
“1 Corinthians 13 again?”
The priest smiles, “So, you are familiar.”
Crowley makes a dismissive sound.
“I’ve been around for a long time. Sure, I’ve read it a few times out of boredom,” he says.
“And what did you feel when you were reading?”
“Marginally less bored,” quips Crowley.
The priest doesn’t say anything until Crowley realises he’s going to have to come up with something more substantive.
“I suppose,” he starts, “it’s a more pleasant read when you believe it. I mean, sure, I believe the general sequence of events, I know that’s how it all happened. Some of the details were off, but more or less.”
“So, you do believe in God?”
“Oh, I know God is real. Just as surely as I know She wants nothing to do with me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Oh, She’s made it abundantly clear. Here’s the part I don’t get, though, right? Why make me like this just to cast me out? If I’m the clay and She’s the potter, why mould me like this just to hate me? I only ever asked questions. That’s all it took back in the day. And this,” he breathes in through his teeth, “this love, it’s always been just as inevitable. I couldn’t avoid it any more than you could avoid breathing. Why do the scorpion and the frog drown?” he pauses. “Because it’s in the scorpion’s nature. But who chose the scorpion's nature? Not the scorpion. Not the frog.”
“Why do you assume they’ll drown?”
“That’s how the story goes.”
“You could tell a different story,” says the priest. He slaps his knees, “Look, Anthony. God doesn’t hate you. God made you, fearfully and wonderfully, because They wanted you around. There is a place for you in this world. You are not a mistake.”
Crowley turns his face away. “Nuh,” he sounds.
“The love in your nature is not venom. It’s not going to drown either of you. And, it is not good for man to be alone.”
“I’m not a man,” Crowley grabs the opportunity to deflect.
“Pardon me, I did not mean to assume. What I meant is, it’s not good for anyone to be alone.”
“Better for everyone when I am.”
“That’s not true.”
“You have no idea. You’ve never asked anyone to give up Heaven for you.”
“I have some idea. And,” the priest says, sensing that he’s about to lose Crowley, “God does love you. God loves everyone, and you are not the only exception, Anthony.”
“Correct,” Crowley chuckles, “I am one of many exceptions.”
The priest makes a dejected sound. Crowley gets up.
“Sorry about wasting your time, father. You’re too much of an optimist for your own good. Thanks, anyway. It was nice to hear, even though it isn’t true.”