I'm Gonna Set Things Right Again (Good Omens fanfiction)

Anything. Death, too

Crowley stood there on the sidewalk, leaning against his beloved Bentley for a long while after the elevator doors had closed behind Aziraphale and the Metatron. Then, he got into the car and sped out of central London with a velocity that the infamous ninety miles per hour was nothing in comparison to. The speed would surely have given the Angel a heart attack, had he been there. Only, he wasn't.

The demon drove around the country like that, for Satan or God or Somebody knows how long. He had no destination, his sole purpose with the activity being swishing past the endless fields and soaring through the country lanes so as not to self-combust due to the anger and disappointment coursing through his veins.

In reality, he also sensed a pang of overwhelming sorrow, but he would not have admitted that to himself for all the bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the world. Sorrow was quite unbecoming for a demon.

Only when reaching the outskirts of the village of Tadfield one day did he step on the break for the first time. He was in the settlement that, according to the Angel, felt loved.

Well, he himself did not feel loved, for sure.

"Aaargh," he snarled as soon as this thought had crossed his mind, pulling over to the side and jumping out of the car mere seconds before turning himself into a living thundercloud, sending lightning bolts and billowing smoke into the air, just like he had done... well, he hadn't exactly kept track of how many days or weeks earlier.

The only reason that he had not allowed himself to explode inside the car was that he loved the Bentley far too much for that. However, being this close to accidentally setting his car on fire due to a lack of control of his emotions made him realize something: he could not go on like this.

Darting about in the country aimlessly just wasn't doing it for him. He needed a constant in his life. For six millennia, his constant had been Aziraphale, and now that he was gone, he needed something else.

Perhaps the Mayfair flat would do. It was where he had been living between the beginning of the twentieth century and the Armageddon't after all. He was not quite certain if Shax had agreed on him reclaiming it in the end, but it was not like he cared much either. If he would find some half-witted demons in there, he would throw them out headfirst without hesitation. He just could not bother with them.

Deciding on this, Crowley popped in the driver's street, jump-started the engine, and took off towards the capital.

He found his flat just like he had left it before he and Aziraphale had chosen their faces wisely, so to speak. Well, some dust had gathered here and there, but that was not something that a snap of his fingers could not sort out. Another snap, and his plants who had been compelled to make the Bentley's trunk their habitat in the past few years were arranged along the walls, just like before.

The Extremely Big Book of Astronomy was still laying on the table in his study. Acting on a sudden impulse, Crowley waved his hand about, sending the pages to arrange themselves into a complicated pattern, all hanging in mid-air. They made for a nice decoration.

In the beginning, Crowley did not as much as look in the direction of Soho. But then, as the days passed, he grew increasingly restless. He started taking walks, first in the Buckingham Palace Garden, then in The Green Park. He fed all ducks and swans that came his way, occasionally conjuring up some peanuts for the squirrels as well. And once he started, there was no stopping. Of course he went across the road from The Green Park to all of a sudden find himself in St James's Park one day, and venturing into the Angel's old territory came as a natural next step.

However, the bookshop was a taboo for a long time, even as he milled about in Chinatown, lounged in various bars, or visited theatres in the West End. But, alas, God, Satan or some unknown force work in mysterious ways, and those ways led Crowley into an area that he had sworn never to visit again. He had not paid much attention to his surroundings, only stepping dead in his tracks when something caught his eyes.