No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

endless list of Good Omens AUs (5/?)

“Of Fallen Angels & Faith Forsaken”

Anthony J. Crowley loved living in the city, and he loved his job – but he often found that he hated all the noise, and he hated his coworkers even more.

Being a defense attorney at a prestigious law firm in London had its perks, obviously; he was able to live in a posh flat, he could afford ridiculously expensive electronics that he rarely used (and that was if he could even figure out how to get them to turn on), and – thankfully – having copious amounts of money earned by getting sleazy, corporate criminals off meant that he could afford to take a week for himself, now and again. He wasn’t sure he would stay sane otherwise. Working alongside slime like Hastur and Ligur, who kept a running tally of who got the most murderers off despite knowing they were guilty, tended to give one a dreadful headache. Crowley was a firm believer in giving everyone a fair trial, no matter how heinous the individual - but those two blockheads didn’t need to enjoy it quite so much.

Yes, no matter how much he enjoyed his upper-class London lifestyle, Crowley still enjoyed the peace and quiet of the country every now and again. It left him free to sip wine by the fire; to skim thin, stylish volumes of complicated poetry; and to have his thoughts entirely uninterrupted by Hastur and Ligur’s potentially contagious idiocy or the honking and/or shouting of impatient London drivers. Not to mention, his country cottage had a garden that he was really quite proud of; he’d tended the rose bushes and the hydrangeas for years and they were really coming along rather nicely this season.

That is, they were – until suddenly his peace and quiet was rudely interrupted by the sound of something smashing into his garden with enough force to shake the cottage and everything in it. Crowley’s sunglasses – which he wore indoors, even at night – fell askew when his leather sofa jolted from the impact.

His first thought was that a meteorite had fallen; what else could have hit the ground with that kind of force? Jumping to his feet, he’d tossed his poetry volume on the glass coffee table and sprinted toward the back door, visions of crashed alien space ships dancing in his head. What he found when he hurried outside was not a meteorite, nor was it otherworldly.

It was more… ethereal than alien.

The first thing Crowley noticed was that his rose bushes were utterly destroyed; whatever had fallen had hit the ground at an angle, tearing the bushes from the ground entirely while also ripping up a great deal of the lawn – before crashing, limbs akimbo, into the hydrangeas.

Crowley had cursed and let out a miserable groan at the sight of years’ worth of hard work ruined before his eyes finally landed on the culprit.

The way he tugged off his sunglasses was not un-Alan-Grant-like, which may have had something to do with the Spielberg marathon he’d had yesterday while day-drunk but likely had a great deal more to do with the fact that what had crash landed in his garden, clearly from very high up, was man-shaped, glowing, and had wings.

The figure, presently unconscious, was surrounded by a golden, rather Heavenly light, and its wingspan was massive – although both wings appeared to have been painfully damaged in the fall. It was then that Crowley realized other parts of this… this creature could be damaged, as well, which finally propelled him into action. Springing down off of the deck, he hurried over his torn-up, still-smoking lawn to where the creature – which, for the most part, looked like an ordinary, if beautiful, man – was sprawled out.

Its eyes were closed, but the face was covered in scratches and abrasions and a trickle of blood was leaking from the nose; likewise, the right shoulder looked to be dislocated while the left leg was very clearly broken. It was only the barely discernible rise and fall of the creature’s chest that assured Crowley it was even alive after such a fall.

What was he supposed to do? He could hardly call an ambulance for a fallen, battered creature with broken wings (which had left a trail of feathers all over the garden), nor could he call animal control for something so clearly man-shaped. There was only one logical possibility for what this creature could be, but Crowley – who had been a lifelong atheist – had a difficult time coming to terms with the word and its weighty implication.

This creature, with its white wings (presently spattered with blood) and ethereal glow (which seemed to be fading the longer it lied there) was… an angel.

A fallen angel.

An angel had fallen into his garden, which meant it was all real; God, Heaven… Hell. That thought made him feel terribly uneasy, so he pushed it aside, absently giving the broken angel another once-over. He wasn’t exactly dressed like an angel; there was no flowing white tunic or robes, but instead mud-stained and tattered tan trousers, an equally torn tan jacket, a tartan sweater vest (that seemed to be terribly soaked with blood and slashed near his stomach), and a truly horrid tartan bow tie. Angels dressed like his grandfather? That was unexpected.

Also unexpected was for the angel’s blue eyes to open, prompting the light surrounding him to flare almost blindingly before it snuffed out completely. The wail that followed was nothing short of agonized – rightfully so. The blood-smeared wings tried to flap, failing miserably and drawing a pained, breathless sob from somewhere deep inside of the wounded angel. Crowley was instantly reminded of a moment in his childhood when he’d come upon a dove that a group of children had mangled on his way home from school. He recalled the way it had struggled with its broken wings to fly, terrified he was going to inflict more torture upon it; troubled, young Crowley had tucked the bird into the breast pocket of his school uniform to keep it warm and took it home where he could nurse it back to health.

The bird had been relatively easy to help. An angel? That was going to be harder. Much harder. But he had to help, didn’t he? It had fallen into his garden, and his cottage was the only residence around for miles. He preferred seclusion for his holidays. If he didn’t help, no one else would – and if he wasn’t already going to Hell, he certainly would be if he let an angel die.

“Don’t try to move,” he spoke without thinking, functioning largely on auto-pilot; in truth, he was still having trouble processing that this was actually happening. “You’ve had… a fall, it would seem, and you’re a bit… er… banged up.”

“I can’t fly,” the angel babbled, panic clear in his bright blue eyes. “Why can’t I fly? Where am I?” and then, after a beat: “Who am I?”

“Your wings seem to be broken. No surprise, given the damage you did to my garden,” Crowley intoned, with just a hint of bitterness, before explaining, “You’re in South Downs – and I’m afraid I can’t help you with that last bit.”

“South Downs?” the angel asked, breathless with pain, panic, and obvious confusion. “That can’t be right. I should be… I should be in… Oh, I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember-?!”

“If I had to take a guess, I’d say you knocked your head about,” Crowley suggested, absently reaching a hand out to graze the angel’s bloodied curls in search of any pressing head trauma. The angel flinched away from his touch like a frightened animal – which, in truth, he sort of was.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Crowley sighed, letting his hand hover, unsure of whether he ought to proceed or draw it back. “I’m trying to help. You crashed in my garden and there’s nobody else for miles, so you’re stuck with me. Unless you want me to leave you here, lying in my hydrangeas?”

The angel eyed Crowley with clear uncertainty which slowly melted into resignation. What choice did he have?

Read the full fic on AO3 // PLAYLIST

There was a motion at the door. A huge, black-bearded individual with a golden smile and a genuine antique Gatling gun stood there, with a cohort of equally huge although less impressively armed men behind him.
“This strategically important hotel, for years a symbol of the fascist imperialist Turko-Greek running dog tourist trade, is now the property of the Italo-Maltese Freedom Fighters!” he boomed affably. “Now we kill everybody!”
“Rubbish!” said the pianist. “Is not strategically important. Just has extremely well-stocked wine cellar!”
“He’s right, Pedro,” said the man with the Kalashnikov, “That’s why my lot wanted it. Il General Ernesto de Montoya said to me, he said, Fernando, the war’ll be over by Saturday, and the lads’ll be wanting a good time. Pop down to the Hotel de Palomar del Sol and claim it as booty, will you?”
The bearded man turned red. “Is bloddy important strategically, Fernando Chianti! I drew big map of the island and is right in the middle, which makes it pretty bloddy strategically important, I can tell you.”
“Ha!” said Fernando. “You might as well say that just because Little Diego’s house has a view of the decadent capitalist topless private beach, that it’s strategically important!”
The pianist blushed a deep red. “Our lot got that this morning,” he admitted.

- Good Omens by Terry Pratchet & Neil Gaiman

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