We'll Cherish All These Simple Things, Wherever We May Be

Crowley's Adventures in Discorporation

This one is for my amazing demonic "niece" BringDeathUponMe . I am so glad to have met you, and my life is better with you in it. Merry Christmas dear, I hope this makes you smile.

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Well this was all bloody fantastic.

Dagon was sitting at a desk across from him, a smug look on their face as they slid an outrageous amount of paperwork towards him. Crowley eyed the pile warily.

"What's all this for?"

"Discorporation paperwork." Dagon grinned, revealing a mouth full of too-sharp teeth. Crowley groaned. Great, just great, this was what he needed right now. Bloody paperwork.

"Look, Dagon, how about we just-"

"Not so fast serpent." Dagon spat, "You may be some sort of holy-water proof hybrid, but clearly you're still demon enough that you ended up right back here with me. The way I see it," they laughed, "down here you're still under my jurisdiction. So, paperwork. Get going, we have an eternity after all, thanks to you."

Of course, Aziraphale had told him what had happened down here during their little masquerade- over their fourth bottle of wine after they were done at the Ritz. The way Aziraphale had made it out, it seemed like every demon in Hell was terrified of him now. But clearly the angel had been mistaken. Or Dagon was bluffing, he wouldn't put it past them. It's not like they were known for their honesty. Crowley would have laughed, had this not been such a severe situation. Trust Aziraphale to overdramatize something like this. Crowley sighed and picked up a pen, which immediately began to leak in his hand. He shook off the ink from his hand and began to inspect the first form. He took one look at it and groaned. Dagon was certainly Master of Torments and Lord of the Files for a reason.

This was going to take a while.

Time flows differently in Hell. That was a basic fact that all demons (and new human souls) learn. What might have been twenty seconds on Earth could be more than twenty years in Hell, and no matter when you arrived you were always Too Late. This is to say, Crowley had absolutely no idea how long he had been stuck there filling out arbitrary forms, but he was quickly beginning to grow annoyed. There had been fifteen pages worth of signing papers that solely served to degrade him for doing something as stupid as getting discorporated and inconveniencing everyone else around him by having to go about and re-build his human body, and writing down every single alias he had in the past six millennia. Finally, there was a page dedicated in its entirety to one question:

Reason for discorporation (and why we should bother giving you a new body):

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose, how the fuck was he supposed to explain this one? It's not like he could just say that he was out buying a gift for an angel and that he had gotten distracted and forgotten to clear the road before crossing and had gotten hit by a car. That would just get him ridiculed by the entirety of Hell, and the demon who is immune to holy water can't just go around getting discorporated that easily. He had to think up a worthy excuse. Suddenly, an idea struck him, and Crowley smirked. He picked up the leaky pen and began to write.

The angel swung at me with her sword and I ducked, laughing in her face.

"You'll have to do better than that!" I yelled as I kicked her legs out from underneath her, sending her crashing to the ground. The angel glared at me in rage and pointed her sword at me, sending a beam of holy light crashing straight into me.

"You may be immune to holy water, but nobody is immune to that." She sneered. Then my vision went black and I woke up in Hell.

Crowley had written the better part of five pages explaining a severely over-dramatized fight with some minor angel who had decided to punish him as Hell could not for the whole averting the apocalypse thing. He shoved the paperwork to Dagon, who looked delighted and displeased at the same time.