Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. –Paradise Lost

Here comes the fire
Our funeral pyre, baby
It's all over
We're all gonna DIE -The Divine Comedy [1]

In the end, the Ineffable annihilated the heavens and the earth.

Of course, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and a certain pair of representatives from either side of the celestial aisle had worked hard for centuries to make sure it was much, much later. Unfortunately, even after joining forces and narrowly averting the closest call since the first Fall, early in the 21st century the other shoe finally dropped. The War happened, though Aziraphale and Crowley missed most of it due to an extended, drunken 'Goodbye, World' party which lasted most of the last two or three years of creation. But they did wonder, eventually, who would win. And with that concern came the more important question of what exactly would happen when whoever won did whatever they did to the other side, because regardless of the outcome, the retribution was certain to be swift, complete, and terribly, terribly final.

Being well-practiced in the fine art of denial, the two of them tried to ignore this uncomfortable subject as completely as possible. They spent more and more time together in the darkening weeks before the end, talking about everything from the greatest fashion disasters of the eighteenth century to the moral uncertainties of crossing a deserted street against the traffic light. It didn't seem to matter what they talked about as long as they didn't stop. Every so often, the weight of the whole thing would press down on them, and Crowley would drag Aziraphale out to two or three of the most extravagant and drug-riddled end-of-the-world bashes thrown by those few In The Know. Aziraphale would tolerate this for a while for Crowley's sake, trying to engage stoned members of the Foredoomed Sect of the Terminus Generation [2] in conversation, but turnabout is fair (if not precisely angelic) play, and he would eventually drag Crowley out to some deserted pond at sunset to observe the quiet splendor of Creation. It turned out that Crowley wasn't really the quiet splendor type, and they would end up getting drunk again and watching the sun come up, which was often splendid but rarely quiet when Crowley was available for critical commentary.

The pond was far less entertaining without the ducks, but like all sensible creatures at that hour, the birds were tucked away, sound asleep and keeping warm with their heads under their wings. Aziraphale had long envied the ducks this maneuver, which he considered to be the waterfowl equivalent of the fetal position. And although on occasions he had privately tried, he had never quite managed to tuck his head under his own wing. Crowley woke up unexpectedly one night after dozing off in a haze of tequila by the pond and found Aziraphale grunting with effort, both arms wrenched behind his head, trying to pull one battered wing over his shoulder. The demon laughed until he couldn't see Aziraphale's bright pink face any longer.

"Don't worry, angel," he chortled, snaking an arm behind Aziraphale and patting him on the shoulder. "I'll be happy to oblige you any time you want feathers pulled down over your eyes." This sent him into another snickering fit, so that he very nearly missed the contemplative smile that emerged through the deepening blush of Aziraphale's skin. The angel spared a glance for Crowley's hand, still resting an inch from his neck, felt the warm weight of the arm around his back.

"Would you really?" he said, in a completely transparent attempt at nonchalance. Crowley sobered suddenly as his eyebrows nearly met his hairline. They really were quite drunk.

Things got a bit odd after that. In the morning, the fine art of denial was aggressively invoked.

Eventually, the sun went down on the very last evening of the world, and the rising moon found them together once again. They were sitting in a restaurant, trying to keep their spirits up without the senses-dulling effects of alcohol and failing miserably. Each assumed that he would be notified as to the final outcome of the War, but as neither had yet heard anything beyond 'It's over,' they were lying low and trying to stay under the radar for as long as possible. Aziraphale tried valiantly to keep the conversation light, but it was proving difficult when they invariably wound up right back on the same cheerless topic. It seemed there was nothing else to talk about.

"I can't see Hell letting anybody on your side live," Crowley remarked over their rather unimpressive sushi dinner. He seemed intent on impaling all the limp pieces of ginger onto a chopstick by application of brute force.

"Well, we can't die, so..." Aziraphale countered, delicately lifting an eyebrow.

Crowley gestured vaguely with his gingered spear. "Continue to exist, then. You get so caught up in semantics, angel."

Aziraphale nodded gloomily. "I suppose that might happen if our side won, as well. Though they'd probably think it more fitting if they just flushed everyone they didn't like down into Hell and closed off the entrance, since it's supposed to be so, er, hellish. Poetic justice is very big with them at the moment."

Crowley snorted. "Poetic justice! As if they know anything about that at all. We got all the good poets and they know it. Bitterness does not suit well the image of the heavenly host – you should tell them to do something about that, clean house a bit. When– you know. If your side won." He set to work dragging the ginger through Aziraphale's remaining wasabi, making a colorful orange- and green-caked shish kabob.

"I don't see what's so poetic about being frozen in ice or chewed up or burnt, really," Aziraphale argued. "They got enough of the physical pain on Earth, wouldn't you say? It just isn't very original, if you ask me; people can come up with much more efficient ways to hurt themselves."

Crowley stared at him. "Are you making suggestions for the improvement of tortures in Hell, angel? Because they could use some creative thinking down there." He grinned in that way that Aziraphale always found disturbing on a level he didn't quite dare to explore.

"No!" he sputtered, "of course not, I wouldn't dream of doing anything of the—" He trailed off, seeing that Crowley was waving his hand and chuckling wearily.

"I was joking, you idiot. And Dante got it all wrong, anyway; they aren't really circles, you know. Or even levels, exactly, it's all personalized, that's the latest thing right now. You hate broccoli, you eat broccoli. You fear clowns, you get chased by clowns. Your lot should look into it. Might spare you a few millennia of The Sound of Music, at least."

"Heaven has personal touches," Aziraphale said loyally, signaling the waiter somewhat desperately for more hot tea. "All right, the activities are a bit cookie-cutter, but people can do what they like, however odd that might be. There's one young man who likes nothing better than tearing around the grassy areas shaped like a dog." He shook his head. "I mean, what kind of paradise is that?"

Crowley sighed and leaned back into his chair with a frustrated thump. "What kind of paradise is any of it, angel? Really, has anyone actually won this war? They're going to destroy everything that's worth anything in all of existence, and no one even knows why. I don't see what's so offensive about Earth. This place can be both hell and paradise enough for you, me, and every mortal being lucky enough to be born onto its filthy surface."

Aziraphale thought hard about arguing for the sake of his allegiances, but concluded he'd better say it now or hold his peace forever. And ever and ever. He leaned forward confidentially. "I know," he said in a near-whisper. "I know it's a terrible thing to question the ineffable plan, but it would be such a perfect place to spend eternity." He examined his own clean plate and wished briefly there was something left to stab.

"We could split it up," Crowley suggested. "Part of the planet would be heavenly and part would be hellish. The only drawback for you is that Hell would get all the good sushi places because that dolt Michael has a weak stomach. Or he did when I left, anyway."

"He still does." Aziraphale nodded. "He tried Mexican after the Aztecs left, and they still talk about the fuss he made. I don't think he dabbles in food anymore."

"Anyway, that's it," Crowley said. "They'd never go for it. No more Earth, no more sushi dinners, no more driving the Bentley, no more creative gardening.

"No more having tea in the back of the bookshop," Aziraphale added despondently.

"No more feeding those blasted ducks."

"No more trying new restaurants."

"No more waking up naked in the middle of nowhere with a bitch of a hangover and your feathers getting stuck in my mouth."

They were both silent following this pronouncement, in the way that silence can be like a small explosion.

"That was only the one time," Aziraphale said finally, in a voice that was meek even for him.

"Yes. And that, angel," Crowley replied, leaning forward again, "is exactly the problem."

Aziraphale couldn't meet his eyes, though that may have had something to do with the sunglasses.

"I—uh. Yes, though I'm not quite sure precisely what—er," said Aziraphale. He seemed shaken, even frightened, as though whatever had happened had left him unable to use some of his limbs. Crowley said nothing, apparently enjoying the angel's awkward discomfort. "I will... miss you, Crowley. Rather a lot," Aziraphale finally managed, and groped for the freshly filled teapot.

"No, you won't," Crowley said. "If my side won, you'll be mercifully obliterated and I will be stuck in Hell for eternity. If your lot managed to win, though I really can't see how, then you'll be drinking ambrosia and playing with dogs, and I will be stuck in Hell for eternity. You may be noticing a pattern here."

"Well, what can I do about it?" the angel asked miserably. "The rules have been set since the beginning of creation: once fallen, no angel can return to the heavenly realms."

"You could always Fall," Crowley suggested, toying with his remaining chopstick.

Aziraphale choked on his tea. "So we can both be stuck in Hell for eternity?" he gasped. "You're mad!"

"It's better than being alone all that time," Crowley muttered. The bill arrived as Aziraphale silently contemplated the many levels of demonic insanity, and Crowley pulled out a sleek, eel-skin wallet. He threw approximately twelve thousand pounds[3] onto the table in front of the astonished waiter, hissed "Keep the change," through a grin showing all of his sharpest teeth, and stood up. Aziraphale remained where he was for a moment longer while the waiter scurried off.

"Crowley, I would make a terrible demon," he said, looking up pleadingly.

"I know," Crowley sighed. "It was just an idea." Aziraphale looked even more miserable as he got to his feet, started to speak, then just stood there looking constipated.

Crowley reached for his loaded chopstick, stuffed the mass of ginger and wasabi into his mouth and chewed appreciatively for a moment before making a terrible face. He ignored Aziraphale frantically flapping a napkin at him and spat the whole mess out onto his empty plate.

"Crowley, that's disgusting!" hissed the angel in a loud whisper. Crowley just scowled.

"I don't even have a taste for fiery food anymore! How am I supposed to eat brimstone for the rest of eternity?" He stomped out of the restaurant in a furious temper, leaving Aziraphale running to catch up.

As in any cosmic battle worth recounting, the good guys won.

The last dawn came, as dawn quickly does when you want the night to go on forever more than anything else in the world. There was a huge, noisy mess involved with the final arrangements; all the healthy and wounded angels were required to report in at specific times to be counted or put into triage, and of course everyone wanted to be treated last, which caused an almighty clusterfuck for a good hour and a half. The demons were shuffled off to a holding area for consignment to Hell. Most appeared to be looking forward to a nice rest rather than being particularly burdened by defeat, though there were the odd bitter losers here and there who had to be dealt with, and flashes of smiting were apparent. There was so much to do – the bookshop, the Bentley, the packing of the moon and dismantling of the sun – and so many frantic beings involved that there was not really time for a proper farewell between friends. So in the end, there were no tears or clinging good-byes, just a long glimpse of Crowley standing very still in the center of a huge and rapidly shrinking maelstrom of pulsing hellfire, the shrieking souls of the damned, and a few extremely ugly imps resembling garden gnomes. He'd removed the ubiquitous sunglasses to reveal yellow eyes with sparks of flame at the center, burning with the same unholy light as the closing vortex. They found Aziraphale staring back until the portal had vanished.

When the last plume of black smoke had dissipated, and the multitudes of the heavenly host had cheered and sung and gone off to have a genteel cup of ambrosia, Aziraphale remained at the site, sitting quietly on the ground and staring into the distance for a very long time. He kept his wings hidden. He was uncomfortable with the feel and sight of his own feathers, and besides, they would only remind him unpleasantly of happier, more complicated times.

The angel quickly discovered that even after pulling himself together and turning up to watch the rest of the celebration, his portion of endless bliss was coupled with a strange hollowness. He imagined that this must be how those mortal drug addicts had felt when they took a lethal overdose, poor creatures. Oh, certainly, it felt great, best thing in the world really, couldn't ask for a single addition to this astounding rendition of "Climb Every Mountain" except maybe for a pair of earplugs and a sharp stabbing knife. But there was a further wrongness underneath it. Paradise was everything he'd been promised and more, there could be no complaints there. As expected, it was wonderful, and as expected, it was dazzling. It was beautiful and joyous and full of pleasant company, and also as expected, it was horribly, infinitely lonely.

Crowley was not faring much better in the deep, black pits of Hell, but at least he had known going in that constant misery was a large part of the deal. And while Aziraphale wandered aimlessly as he looked for a way to distract himself from Heaven's in-flight movie, Crowley had plenty of work to do. 'Work' meaning endless torture duty on a slow rotation from one tacky nightmare to the next. Despite his assurances to Aziraphale that the whole fiery blackness thing was merely cosmetic, there were a few stubborn souls who just wouldn't believe it was Hell without a few scorch marks up-close and personal, and so Crowley was currently hunched by a pool of fire he was supposed to be maintaining, prodding at the escaping flames with a stick. A passing red demon with sharp-looking horns saw him flicking lava against the walls and stomped over.

"Crawly. What in heaven do you think you're doing?" the demon demanded.

"I'm maintaining the lava. What does it look like I'm doing?" Crowley replied sullenly.

"It looks like you just got out of that flash black car you used to bang around in and are looking to spend a lazy day on Earth shirking your duties, is what it looks like."

"You remember my car? Why, Hastur. I didn't know you cared," Crowley said with a smile.

"Stop that! That is exactly what I mean. You need to be taking a form that is befitting the name of demon. Put on a few flames. Have some respect for yourself, for cryin' out loud. Satan knows, nobody else does."

"And exactly what form would that be? Extreme sunburn with sharpened head-boils? Or is that privilege reserved for the Dukes?"

"You want to watch what you say to me, Crawly," Hastur growled. "I en't forgotten about Ligur, and neither have my superiors. You're supposed to be on probation. Why they're giving you special treatment is beyond—"

"Special treatment?" Crowley broke in with a bitter laugh. "Special treatment involves suddenly shunting me over to a deserted, stinking pit of lava for half an age? I suppose the stick is the really special part, is it?"

"No, the special treatment is your next assignment, you old belly-crawler, so shut up and pay attention," Hastur said. "We took in a very particular new resident recently, says on the roster he's to be specially harmed, and Down Below thought you might know what buttons to push."

"And how on earth would I know something like that?" Crowley asked, utterly confused.

"Because you knew him, back when you was prancing around with the mortals. He used to work for – you know – the Other Side, an' that."

"A priest?" Crowley asked. He hadn't really made a point of hanging around the clergy.

"No," said Hastur. "A, uh...." He looked around, apparently worried he might be punished for speaking such a word right in the heart of the Pit. "Angel," he confided. "The one what was formerly stationed topside."

Crowley stared. "Aziraphale? Down here? On the torture roster?"

"That's the one," Hastur said with a nasty grin. "And the best part is, he don't even—"

But Crowley was no longer exactly present to hear what Aziraphale didn't even. An erupting plume of fire had risen up from the lava pit to engulf him, accompanied by a rock-shaking rumble. Sparks exploded into the air, sizzling and bouncing off the walls like expensive fireworks. There was a loud bang as displaced air rushed to occupy the space where Crowley had been standing, and then Hastur was left alone in the cavern, looking at a flaming trail of light that would do the Millenium Falcon proud. A bubble of lava burped its way to the surface with a sputter.

"Flash bastard," muttered Hastur.

***************
[1] The band. Not the book. Although Dante's book was, of course, saying basically the same thing.

[2] When they weren't getting stoned – okay, in addition to getting stoned, the sect's activities included chanting, fundraising, and coming up with variations on the theme "THE END IS NEAR" for their hand-painted signs. (Also available on t-shirts, posters, and coffee mugs in the gift shop.)

[3] Obviously, the wallet's size was deceptive. This was by no means all the cash the demon was carrying at the time, but a few thousand were reserved for a particularly rare vintage of wine which he intended to smuggle into Hell to tempt the alcoholics. At least, that was his story if anyone asked.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale knew that something was missing from his new life, but he felt it would be an impossible task to try to work it out by cataloguing his millennia of activities on Earth. He did wonder about Crowley and how he was faring in the closed-for-business phase of Hell's existence; knowing Crowley, he assumed the demon was living up all his favorite sins, reveling in debauchery and laziness and... debauchery. Aziraphale frowned. He really shouldn't be concerning himself with the fate of demons, as had been mentioned to him once or twice since the End. Demons were only memories now, after all, and everything in existence was eternally bright and beautiful. He tried to push nagging thoughts of Crowley's sinful pastimes out of his mind and focus on what could be bothering him in all this celestial perfection.

Frankly, the place was exactly as he remembered. He watched a group of skaters on a heavenly approximation of a frozen pond enjoying themselves for a while, spinning and leaping and laughing their heads off. His feeling of restlessness continued, but it took quite a while (possibly six months, by the old Earth time) watching the skaters to finally pinpoint the source, so simple that he was amazed he hadn't seen it. The problem was, of course, that his earthly services were no longer required in the slightest. No one ever fell down and needed an angel to cushion or mend or comfort. No one ever got into an argument and needed to have their nerves soothed and the sunset deepened. In Heaven, everyone was perfect. In Heaven, life was incredibly boring.

Aziraphale supposed he was expected to be enjoying his retirement, though, and it made for much less bother if he just tried to behave accordingly. He strolled around the pond and beamed at the participants, but overall this made him feel worse than useless. After a while (an hour? a hundred years?) of ice skating, someone decided the pond would be a pleasant place to wade and relax, and so it thawed and warmed and was surrounded by trees and grassland. The angel found that, unfortunately, standing by a liquid pond made the hollow feeling in his gut take on a gnawing quality which was a hundred times worse, and was at last drifting away with the former skaters, feeling more miserable than ever, when a booming voice called to him.

"Aziraphale, East Guardian. Repair thyself to me."

Aziraphale very nearly cursed, which would have been a grave mistake indeed, as the beckoning voice belonged to one of the highest commanders in the angelic ranks, the archangel Gabriel. Gabriel had a lot of smiting power and very, very good hearing. He shuffled over and tried to assume a pleasant expression.

"Aziraphale, from afar we have perceived thy distemperate conduct and inquietude. Thy wings are cloaked and thy raiment soiled, and reason follows you not, for truly there can be no befoulment found within the walls of the kingdom of Heaven."

Aziraphale shuffled his feet and looked at the ground. He thought the smear on his robes was probably wasabi, and frankly, he didn't really want to clean it off. One wouldn't want to completely forget about sushi, after all.

"Speak, Aziraphale, and be relieved of your burden, for you encumber the saved with disconsolation and false cheer," Gabriel prompted. Damn, he'd noticed.

"Well, Archangel," Aziraphale stammered. He couldn't exactly say that Heaven lacked a little something and he kind of preferred the old, sinful boundaries of Earth to the perfection of ineffable paradise. He settled for the first thing that came to mind.

"I suppose I've just been wondering, and of course it isn't really my business at all, but I would rather like to know exactly what... what happened to the damned who were defeated and sent into that, er, furnace of whirling hellfire." With Gabriel, he had found, it was best to jazz up your speech a little. Even if it wasn't really up to par with the language of the original, he felt the attempt was appreciated, rather like speaking to the French. Gabriel frowned slightly, as though he couldn't quite believe a real angel would ask such a simplistic question.

"In the midst of the continuance he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease," he said slowly, "and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." [4] It sounded like a recitation that had been repeated over and over for a hundred thousand years until it was drilled firmly into the minds of every angel in the ranks. Aziraphale was completely lost.

"Ah. Okay, well, that sounds pretty horrible. Er, nice job."

Gabriel didn't seem to be buying it. "I am come to shew thee; therefore understand the matter, and consider the prophetic...." Aziraphale tried to pay attention, but Gabriel was so very oratorical, and anyway he was distracted by a faint rumbling sound in the distance. It reminded him of an electric kettle just beginning to boil, which brought such a pang of homesickness for Earth that he missed a fairly large chunk of Gabriel's speech.

"...shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined..."

The angel shuddered slightly. Floods, that wasn't good, Cro— demons hated swimming. He wondered if there was anything in Hell that would float.

"Know, therefore, and understand, that...."

The rumbling was growing steadily into a roar. Aziraphale could see a deep red light in the distance. It appeared to be coming toward them very, very quickly, and growing larger as it approached. Even Gabriel stopped pontificating for a moment and turned to look. It seemed to be a wayward ball of fire... hellfire, if Aziraphale knew anything about it, and a certain previous associate had made certain that he did. Impossible, of course, in Heaven, but it certainly looked authentic.

The object hurtled directly toward them, trailing black and red flames like a burning comet. Aziraphale began to consider diving to the ground as a precautionary measure, but didn't want to appear undignified in front of Gabriel, who was staring in a quite inglorious manner with his mouth hanging open. Aziraphale had just taken a large step backward to avoid being completely obliterated when the ball of flame halted directly beside them and hovered there, by this time flaring a good three stories high. A tall, blazing figure materialized out of the inferno and regarded them through a fiery veil.

"What are you doing here, angel?" yelled the figure. "You're supposed to be wandering around blissfully on the golden streets! Dispensing free love and drinking bad wine!"

Aziraphale felt his jaw drop open to match Gabriel's. "Crowley?" he squeaked in a voice that sounded nothing like his own.

"Well, who else would it be?" the conflagration fumed. "Who else is going to cross all over Hell and half of the underworld to pull your arse out of the frying pan?" He turned to Gabriel. "And would you kindly piss off, please? Laying it on a little thick there, weren't you?"

Aziraphale was horrified. "Crowley! You can't say that to an archangel, he could kill you!" he hissed. He grabbed the figure's arm, forgetting that Crowley was currently on fire, and immediately let go with a yelp.

"He is not anything of the sort. He's a dimwitted demon called Dagon who doesn't know the first thing about character development. Aren't you, Dagon?"

"I am not," Gabriel muttered, but his eyes were on his sandals and his mouth was twisted into a sulky pout. Aziraphale stared for a moment, and then tried very hard not to panic. It didn't work.

"Where are we? Who are you? Why am I here?" he babbled, trying to look in every direction at once.

"Angel! Calm down! It's me, look," Crowley insisted, and suddenly he was human-shaped again, expensive black coat and expensive black sunglasses in place, gripping the angel's arms just below the shoulders. Aziraphale still looked terrified, but he did stop twisting around like he was being attacked by bats.

"What happened?" the angel asked. "This is Hell? How did I get here?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Crowley replied, loosening his death grip on Aziraphale's arms slightly. "You don't normally miss your own Fall."

"I did not Fall!" Aziraphale insisted.

"That's right, he's on the torture roster," Gabriel agreed helpfully. "To be tortured." They both turned to look at him.

"Are you still here?" Crowley asked in a voice laced with venom. "Because I used to be in charge of this heavenly hell thing, and okay, Gabriel was always a bit of an ass, but you are overreaching big time, Dagon. 'For the overspreading of abominations?' What is that crap?" He turned back to Aziraphale. "And I know you've been a little out of touch, angel, but I can't believe anyone who actually knows Gabriel would fall for that."

"Er, actually... he got worse once the seventeenth century got going. He was great friends with King James."

Crowley made a face. "This is supposed to be in Heaven, right? The ultimate Paradise? And Gabriel the Improved is there? They actually inflict him on people?"

"But I still don't know how I got here," Aziraphale interrupted, trying to steer the conversation back onto topic. "Without knowing I was Falling or... or being damned, or whatever." He stared at Crowley's coat buttons sadly.

"Well, they did take down that sign on the gate with the 'Through me the way into the suffering city' thing on it," Crowley suggested. "People kept leaving before they'd gone in properly. But I still would have thought you'd notice going to Hell, at the very least. You have to want to come in, or at least be considering some pretty serious sinning to be brought through by force. What on earth were you thinking about when they closed that last portal?"

Aziraphale bit his lip.

"I don't remember," he lied. [5]

"Well it must have been something pretty damned—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Aziraphale broke in hastily. "I just want to get out of here and back to Heaven where I belong."

"In case it escaped your attention, Aziraphale, Heaven is apparently your own personal hell," Crowley said. "I'd say you have some pretty major issues to deal with before you go anywhere." He still had one hand on Aziraphale's shoulder, and the angel felt his fingers tighten minutely.

"I shouldn't be here! Something horrible will happen if... well, just look at me, I don't belong in this place. At least in Heaven I'll be carrying out my final duties by... by being there."

"Duty," Crowley spat. "That's rich. Duty. According to the roster," he pulled a heavily laden clipboard out of the air and waved it so a few pages flipped over the back, "you appeared to be 'distressed, bored, and pitifully lonely' when you thought you were there, doing your duty. Gabriel here was probably the high point of your decade."

"The real thing will be different," Aziraphale said. "I just need to talk to them, they'll sort it all out."

Crowley started to argue, realized he was talking to Aziraphale in one of his stubborn moods (rendering argument utterly pointless), and stopped himself. "You want to leave? Fine," he huffed, and stomped away. After a last glance at the deserted pond, Aziraphale followed.

The window looking out upon Heaven was 1) highly illegal and 2) extremely difficult to see anything through. Crowley explained that an early theory of torture had stated that the damned should be forced to watch others enjoying the wonders of Paradise through the window so they would become increasingly bitter and unhappy. This backfired when the accepted ideas of both places changed after a few millennia with the advent of personalization. Other people's ideas of Heaven didn't look all that attractive to your average hellbound soul, and the frankly lagging standards of Hell just didn't seem that bad in comparison. So the window was forgotten, apparently, by all but Crowley, who had been sneaking in ever since the End to tune up the connection whenever he could manage to escape Hastur's watchful red eye.

"Why were you doing that?" Aziraphale asked him while they waited for someone to wander by on the other side.

"I thought we could chat," Crowley replied. "Seemed like it had been a while."

"Oh, my dear, that would be just lovely," Aziraphale exclaimed. "Will it work when I go back, do you think?"

"Probably not as well as it works now, with both of us on the same side of it," Crowley said, wearing his 'I'm still pissed off and don't you forget it' scowl. Aziraphale turned primly back to the window.

"Oh! There's Uriel! Hallo? Uriel! URIEL!" he bellowed, rapping on the window. The image of heaven flickered like a badly tuned television set.

"Don't do that!" Crowley yelled. Aziraphale stopped rattling the pane but hovered in front of the glass, still yelling for the other angel's attention. Crowley pushed back his sunglasses and tinkered with something to the left of the portal as Uriel disappeared from view. All at once there was a blast of golden light and slightly discordant choral music, which hit the unfortunate demon right in the face.

"Augh! Jesus Christ!" he yelled, throwing his arms up to shield his eyes from the glare.

"Hush!" Aziraphale cautioned. "He'll hear you!"

Crowley muttered something best not repeated as Aziraphale began yelling for Uriel once more through the golden light. He had almost lost any hope of reaching him when an angelic eye and approximately one quarter of a face appeared in the bottom right corner of the window.

"Hello?" said Uriel. "I say, is anyone in there? Perhaps a tiny, trapped kitten?"

"Oh, Lucifer, there's another one," Crowley moaned, and buried his head in his hands.

"Uriel, it's Aziraphale! Can you hear me?" the angel yelled.

"Aziraphale? Yes, I can hear you," said Uriel. "Really, my dearest, there's no need to shout. What is this funny little thing? It looks rather grimy on this side; I should really tidy up a bit over here...." The quarter of a head began to slide out of the window's view and Aziraphale grabbed at a corner in desperation, scattering the signal once again. Crowley cursed and dove back under the left side.

"Don't go, Uriel! I need your help! Urgently!" the angel called, only slightly more softly. Mercifully, Uriel's face swam back to its previous position.

"Whatever can you need help with?" he asked through the static. "Paradise has been won, and all is in perfect and holy order. We have overcome the darkness and confusion; it's a new world, and we have only just begun the rejoicing!" he enthused. Crowley privately thought he looked a bit manic.

"There was a slight, ah, mix-up with the sealing of the portal, Uriel," Aziraphale explained. "I was accidentally pulled into Hell and now I can't seem to find the way out."

Uriel's entire demeanor changed instantly. "You're... in Hell?" he asked in awe.

"Yes, and it's simply horrible here. I really must be getting out of this place as quickly as possible. I'm sure you understand." Crowley seemed unconscious of the low hissing that had escaped him at the words "simply horrible" and did not show any sign of stopping. He glared at Uriel, who appeared to be unaware anyone was eavesdropping.

"But Aziraphale! We were told – you can't come back!" Uriel stammered. Aziraphale's pleading expression changed to one of disbelief.

"You—what?"

Uriel looked like he'd rather be anywhere in the former universe but here, but pushed stoically onward. "They've sealed the gates, no one else can get in at all. I do believe they mentioned an angel had Fallen there at the end. They told us – no, it's not kind to repeat, but – but they don't want you to come back, Aziraphale. I'm sorry."

Aziraphale's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Uriel's visible eye blinked.

"Aziraphale, are you there? ...Aziraphale?"

The angel still didn't answer. Unable to look at his forsaken expression any longer, Crowley leaned forward into the frame. "No, Uriel, he's not here anymore," he said in his most diabolical voice, which was low and silky and still made Aziraphale profoundly uncomfortable. He flipped his sunglasses back on once he was certain Uriel had gotten a good, hard look at his glowing eyes. "I have flayed the skin from his body with barbed glass and thrown him into our pit of scorching lava. If you listen carefully," he confided in a whisper, "you may just be able to hear the screaming." He nodded at the widening angelic eye. "Have a really great eternity," he added, grinning, and flipped a switch. The window sagged a bit and went black.

Aziraphale had either composed himself somewhat or was in deep denial. "There was really no need for that," he said in a low, flat voice. He looked very shaken.

"Well, he was being an ass," Crowley said. "He deserves to feel like shit. All of them do. Self-righteous bunch of pricks."

It was a mark of the depth of the angel's shock that he didn't even wince at this comment. "Still, it wasn't actually his fault," he said. "He didn't like having to tell me."

"Shooting the messenger is one of the most petty and unfair acts one can commit," Crowley replied. "It is an art form of which we are very proud. You should learn to appreciate it if you're going to be a good demon."

"I am not going to be a demon," Aziraphale said, still in that flat tone.

"Well, the alternative is staying on the torture roster, and frankly I'm afraid another bout with Gabriel the Ponderous would send you mad." He looked closely into the angel's face. "If it hasn't already."

"No," Aziraphale said wearily. "No, it hasn't. Unfortunately."

Crowley stood, and pulled the angel to his feet. "Come on, then. You're going to need a bit of training up. A lot of training up. How fortunate that we have so much time."

"Are you actually suggesting I push her?" Aziraphale asked in a horrified tone. The young woman was kneeling precariously on a narrow board three feet above a pool squirming with filthy rats.

"That's the idea," Crowley replied. "Either that or you chase her in the clown car. But I think you made the right choice. Got to maintain some fragment of ethereal dignity, after all." The girl made a hysterical whining noise and clutched tightly at the board. Aziraphale started to reach out to her in sympathy, then remembered that it was most emphatically not allowed and took two steps back. He wrapped his arms around his chest and hugged himself, staring.

"Just think of what a bad person she was in life," Crowley prompted. "We may not know the specifics, but something dastardly was going on in that fiendish little head of hers, don't you forget it."

"Crowley, something dastardly was going on in your head twenty-four hours a day back on Earth."

"And look where I ended up," Crowley agreed. "It's not like she can see you or come after you later. Come on, it's just a few ordinary rats with slightly razor-like teeth. Piece of cake."

Aziraphale took one more look at the terrified woman and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Crowley. I can't do this. If Hastur wants to put me on the torture roster and toss me in lava or something, then fine. I just can't work here. You do it, if you must; you're much better at this."

"Hmph," said Crowley. "Well, if we're being perfectly honest here, angel, I was stationed at this point prior to my progressive lava-maintenance position. And actually, ah, I decided this wasn't really my style. It's much too James Bond." He looked at the scene with distaste, waved his hand in a gentle smoothing motion, and the rats and board disappeared. The girl was sitting on the ground, looking at a stack of books.

"Oh, Crowley," said Aziraphale, sounding close to tears. "Books! You really are such a—"

"She doesn't like to read," Crowley broke in. "At all. This will be terrible for her." The girl picked up the top book and began thumbing through it with interest.

"Of course she doesn't," Aziraphale agreed dreamily. "This is the perfect... wait a moment. If you were able to get rid of the rats, why were you trying to get me to push her in?"

"Well, angel, it's like this," Crowley said, sounding very serious as he steered Aziraphale out of the girl's cavern. "Staring at the same pool of lava for a hundred years can do things to your head. And I had wondered, before I heard you were here, whether I might be slipping a bit. I thought that maybe I should work on – you know – being more evil." He shrugged. "And if you were able to push her into that pit when I wasn't, then I'd be forced to realize I was actually just a coward, put myself on the torture roster and jump into the nearest lake of fire."

Aziraphale glared at him. "That nightmare was just a test? To see whether I was more evil than you are? That's—that's—"

"Cruel," Crowley supplied. "Unfair. Lacking in good taste. But was it hellish? I wonder, angel, indeed I wonder."

"I should never have listened to you after what you said to Uriel."

"That sycophant? He's fine! He'll just be eternally grateful that he wasn't the one that ended up here," Crowley said defensively. "It will make him a better angel. It always worked beautifully with the plants."

"Well, it looks like a very different story when you're a person who maintains any level of principles," Aziraphale sniffed, his nose so high in the air he nearly tripped into a deep crevice.

"I do have principles!" Crowley insisted, grabbing the angel's arm instinctively as he stumbled. "Somewhere," he amended, looking vaguely around.

"And do these principles instruct you to wander around the underworld performing experiments on hapless souls?"

"No, actually I spend most of my time avoiding Hastur." He sighed. "I'm just not into the torture aspect, Aziraphale. What I really miss is tempting people. I was good at it, if I do say so myself."

"Mm," Aziraphale said. His lips were pressed primly together, and he was still frowning, but his eyes had a faraway look.

"And sinning in public," Crowley added with enthusiasm. "Some of that was lots of fun."

"Oh, really, my dear, it's terribly overrated. You end up feeling worse afterward than you did before."

"Who in the world told you that?" Crowley asked, wide-eyed. "Have you tried it? This could be your great chance, you know. You're a demon bound to Hell for eternity in the service of the Adversary. Go on, sin a little. I can make a few suggestions if you aren't sure where to start." The discomforting tone of voice was back, and Aziraphale moved a little faster in order to avoid looking at the leer he was certain accompanied it.

"I don't know why you're starting with me," he said. "I have never given in to your outlandish temptations."

"Right," Crowley said. His voice dropped to a low mutter. "That was only the one time."

That explosive silence settled over them again, and Aziraphale swallowed nervously. The working of his own throat seemed very loud to his ears. "We were quite inebriated," he said delicately. Crowley only raised his eyebrows and continued to look at the ground just beyond his own feet as they walked. Aziraphale struggled with his conscience for a moment before his curiosity got the better of him. "Do you remember the – ah – details at all?"

"Well, not very well." Crowley shrugged. "That is, no. Not really. You?"

"Not at all," the angel said, rather too quickly.

"Well, then. Who'd have thought we'd be so forgettable?"

"Yes," Aziraphale said, a little sadly. Then, because he was concerned that he'd hurt Crowley's feelings, he added, "I do rather wish I remembered a bit more."

Crowley stopped walking. When Aziraphale turned back, he saw that the demon's expression had an unfamiliar edge to it. "Oh, angel. You really are losing your touch," he said. "You've given in already."

Crowley started toward him, and Aziraphale saw "REMINDER" written in every line of his posture and expression. He would have taken a few hasty steps backward if he hadn't been too frightened to move. He didn't know why this little sin – at least, he thought it must be a sin – terrified him so badly, unless it was the whole demon-with-intentions-in-the-bowels-of-Hell thing. Crowley, he reminded himself, not just a demon, but when he looked at Crowley he still saw dangerously glowing eyes and a damnably seductive body in sharp, sooty clothes drawing closer and closer to his only slightly contaminated virtue. He tried at least to look away, to maintain some small level of moral repression like a good angel; after all, he'd trained himself for so very long not to give in to temptation.

And then, too quickly to be avoided, it was too late.

*************************
[4] Daniel 9:27. No, seriously. This is from one of Gabriel's standard speeches, and actually, a lot of Gabriel's further explanation here is quoted word for word in Daniel chapter 9. Apparently, Daniel was just as thick as Aziraphale when it came to interpreting just what in the name of somebody the archangel was on about.

[5] The rather desperate thoughts in Aziraphale's head at the time were actually not nearly evil enough to warrant a Fall. If he had, in fact, been cast out, it was because he had some strong desire to enter Hell and just chose a phenomenally bad moment for his epiphany. As far as missing the Fall, well, there was rather a lot going on at the time.

Chapter Text

Aziraphale had wondered ever since he was rescued from the torture roster why he'd found Hell's version of Heaven to be so unsatisfying. With the slight exception of not being able to leave, he couldn't really think of anything that was particularly different from the original. And while he'd found the place a bit dull, certainly, on his visits there, he had never been miserable in the way he was after the End.

He gave in to Crowley's advance, accepting a surprisingly gentle kiss with a stiff formality that melted as quickly as the proverbial snowball, and as he let those too-warm arms wrap around him possessively he thought he may be getting an inkling of what the problem had been. Also, he remembered, and more than remembered; it was as though a dam in his mind had been wrenched open. His head was suddenly full of tipsy laughter and the delightful shock of a knee-weakening kiss delivered as he leaned against the Bentley for support. And there was more, much more, after that, the memories pulsing suddenly through him like a rush of blood, and everything buoyed by an intense feeling of rightness that was so far away from what he thought of as sin that it was absurd they should be compared.

He was about to let his hands, which had been curled into fists at his sides as he braced for impact, rise up and return the embrace when Crowley broke off, taking a large step back. The demon looked flustered and angry, and was breathing in an irregular pattern, though it was rather more surprising that he was breathing at all.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale asked, reaching out.

"No," Crowley said in a low voice, "I didn't— oh. Oh, fuck."

"Er," Aziraphale said. The hand he had offered hesitated. He wasn't sure how it would look, extending one's hand to someone who had just cursed so graphically. Then he became aware of the distant humming noise, rapidly growing to a hellishly familiar buzz.

"Oh," the angel echoed. "Oh... dear."

"Yes, there they are, sir," Hastur's voice said, reverberating between the cavernous rock walls. "Looks like someone is very, very late returning to his post, eh?" He sounded positively gleeful.

"Fuck," Crowley repeated, somewhere between a hiss and a moan. Aziraphale forgot about appearances and grabbed his hand, then hastily let go and took two steps away. Crowley looked like he'd just been betrayed by his best friend. Which, from his perspective, was more or less true.

Hastur came into view, accompanied by a towering column of fire, which buzzed with an all too familiar resonance. Aziraphale and Crowley, who were supposed to be beyond such things, had to shield their faces from the heat. Aziraphale reached automatically for his flaming sword, realized he didn't have it, then wondered how on earth he had gained the instinct to reach for a flaming sword in a crisis. He felt rather brave.

"Angel," Hastur boomed as he came to a halt in front of them. Aziraphale started at being addressed in such a way by someone he didn't know. Title or not, he'd always considered it a fairly private nickname.

"You are hereby cast out of Hell by order of the Prince of the Infernal Realms," Hastur continued.

"Really?" Aziraphale asked hopefully.

"What?" Crowley burst out. "But he Fell! There's nowhere else to send him!" Hastur shot him a nasty look.

"He can't go on the torture roster, no," he explained, sounding rather put out. "But he's no demon. I mean, it takes real ineptitude to be worse at the diabolical arts than you, Crawly, but he's managed it."

"Where am I going, then?" Aziraphale asked nervously.

"Well, first we thought about Limbo," Hastur began. "Quiet place – well, more than quiet, really, pretty dull. No, that en't it, either, what I meant to say is it's a whole bunch of noth—"

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ," said the tower of fire. The ground vibrated and several small rockslides of flaming brimstone tumbled down a nearby slope.

"Pardon?" Aziraphale said politely. "I didn't quite catch that."

"'He says you are to be condemned to the desolate realm of Purgatory for the remainder of eternity," Hastur translated. "A punishment approved by your side as well, I believe, so don't bother asking them for help. I have it all right here. Official." He pulled a long, glowing document out of the air and waved it about, grinning at the sparkly trails of golden flame left in its wake. Aziraphale watched it with an anguished expression.

"I don't believe it for a second," Crowley snarled, and snatched the document out of Hastur's hands. He scanned it with a frown for a few moments, then handed it slowly back. Aziraphale slumped. Hastur looked even more smug.

"So," Aziraphale said gloomily. "What's Purgatory like, then?"

Instead of a response, the nagging buzz grew, becoming both louder and more penetrating, reaching a mind-numbing barrage of vibrations that rattled them all until their vision blurred. When it subsided again, the tower of flame was gone. A squat, scarred, hobo-like creature stood in its place, matted and filthy with eyes like bottomless pits, and in one hand it held the string of a sickly white balloon. [6] It may have once worn white clown paint, now peeling like dead skin and hardly visible. When it opened its mouth to speak, Aziraphale saw rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth, like a shark's.

"It izz a plazze of waiting," buzzed Beelzebub. "No demon nor any angel hazz dezzired to enter from the time of itzz creation."

"That's because it's so detestable to our kind," Hastur added helpfully. "Horrible, filthy, dull place. Just middling, you know. Not really good, not much evil. Boring as anything. Full of swing souls."

"I see," said Aziraphale, thinking of the depression that had marked his lifeless stay in the false Heaven with a sinking heart. "And what are the souls there waiting for?"

"Zzalvation," the creature said. "Which shall never come." It tugged on the string of its balloon, grinning as the bloated thing bobbed slowly up and down. Aziraphale wondered what would happen if it popped, then decided he really didn't want to know.

"Actually," he said instead, "that isn't quite how the place was explained to us in Heaven. It was rather confusing, but I'm quite sure an end to its punishment was mentioned...." He trailed off hopefully.

"You must've heard wrong," Hastur growled. He turned toward Crowley, abruptly swinging a set of prison-style restraints that had appeared in his hand. "And speaking of punishment, you, my friend, are down to be chastened for shirking your duties."

"You're not seriously going to make me wear manacles," Crowley said in disbelief.

"Oh, this is only the start," Hastur replied with a grin.

"Ah. Well, good," said Crowley. "Quicker to start, quicker to end, eh?" He laughed weakly.

Hastur shrugged. "If that's the way you want to think about it. Only end's not quite the right word. More like get worse. I know you en't checked the roster lately, Crawly, seeing as you haven't been turning up for duty, but you're on it. At the very, very bottom. Right in with the other traitors." He began snapping bits of chain on with little metallic clicks, and Crowley winced. So did Aziraphale.

"Traitors?" Crowley asked, wide-eyed. "What have I done that warrants a punishment like that? So I missed a round or two of roster duty, but I was training our new recruit there. He's making, er, really great progress. He could be a first-class demon with a bit more work. In... um... two or three thousand years we shall have him." He grinned hopefully.

"Training, eh?" Hastur drawled. "That weren't what it looked like to me." He sneered at the angel over his handful of chains.

Crowley's mouth fell open. Aziraphale might have gone into shock if he wasn't already almost too dazed to process words. Hastur consulted a second document that gave off sparks like the golden one, but with a more sinister red smolder.

"Besides 'consorting with the enemy' – ahem – and I quote," he continued, "you are 'convicted of illegal contact with yet another adversarial being in a restricted portion of the Domain, neglecting a torture you should have completed three assignments ago and then undermining the torment with disgraceful methods which we cannot now rectify, failing to take a shape befitting a demonic being, and not conducting yourself in the proper manner of a servant of the realms of Hell.'" He rolled up the scroll and it vanished.

"Oh," Crowley said.

"Enough," the clown-thing buzzed. "Thizz path shall now be opened once and then clozzed forever."

"Of course it will," Crowley muttered. Hastur yanked on one of the metal bits and Crowley glared at him.

The process was startlingly like the opening of the doorway to Hell, only without the cheering chorus of angels. Aziraphale watched Crowley instead of the lightning this time, wondering if it was worth leaping on Hastur and trying to wrest Crowley free and run for it, likely getting all of them obliterated or worse by the demon clown. If there was truly no way out, then above all, he didn't want this horrible farewell to be like the last one, no more than a glance through a chaotic jumble of voices and dimensional portals and flying garden gnomes. But Crowley wouldn't even meet his eyes this time, only stared glumly at the ground and rubbed at the places on his arms where the restraints pinched.

Aziraphale's concentrated effort to catch Crowley's attention was broken by a peculiar, rhythmic rattling noise. He was intimately familiar with the sound, and yet he couldn't place it for a moment. The portal still showed only blackness, but a cold breeze was drifting through along with the rattle. It felt absolutely wonderful after the endless time surrounded by flames, and he closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath of the damp and chill. Then the low rattling sound picked up speed and smoothed out, and as the blackness of the portal began to waver, Aziraphale realized why he recognized it.

It was the unmistakable and entirely unique purr of a London taxicab.

He opened his eyes to see that the shifting blackness was the movement of the cab pulling away from a curb to reveal a darkened street, distant lights, and the murky shape of something that could easily be St. James' Park across the road.

Aziraphale looked to Crowley for confirmation that he wasn't losing his mind. The demon was staring into the portal like a starving man at a forbidden feast.

"But that's – that's Earth," Aziraphale said numbly.

"Mm, yes, I suppose they are fairly similar," Hastur conceded. "Not quite sure what the difference is, really. Most of the living there at the End came here anyway. Stupid buggers prob'ly didn't even notice."

"But it's Earth," Crowley repeated, earning himself another vicious yank on the chains.

"It is not, you idiot. It is Purgatory, neither hell nor paradise but an unfulfilling blend of the two." He thought about it for a moment. "It's really closer to Hell, actually. It's Hell lite."

"How many people are in there?" Aziraphale asked, unable to look away from the softly glowing lights.

"Oh, billions, I dunno. Maybe some do go somewhere else eventually, because a lot of them come through the place and it doesn't get that much more crowded. Like I said, we prefer to stay away from it."

"This 'going somewhere else,'" Crowley said slowly. "Would the process be anything like earthly death?" Hastur only shrugged. Aziraphale noted with alarm that the clown thing had moved closer to him, and he took a step away from it, toward the portal. He had the nasty suspicion that it was going to try to push him through.

"So, now that we've all satisfied our curiosity, let's get to it. Ready to go back to 'work,' Crawly?" Hastur asked in a mock-jaunty tone. "Oh, wait, I'll be doing the work. You'll just be reaping the rewards." Crowley wrenched his eyes away from the portal and turned to him with a horrible smile.

"Oh, yes. Just make sure I've got my special lava-maintenance stick to keep me company. With that I can handle anything." He eyed Hastur up and down, and then, apparently deciding it really couldn't get any worse for him, added, "You stupid bastard. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that looks? The red skin and horns is so 1835."

Hastur only smiled. It looked much more genuine that Crowley's had. He took a couple of steps toward the threatening darkness of a jagged crevice, and tugged on a chain leading to the manacles. Crowley yanked back, but took a step in spite of himself, throwing a desperate look back that landed on Beelzebub. The clown just moved closer to Aziraphale. Something had to be done.

"Well, uh, goodbye, Aziraphale," Crowley called. He sounded quite forlorn. "Have a nice time in Purgatory. I would say I'll try the window if Hastur here gets bored after a few millennia, but I think your friend broke it. I'm afraid you'll have a really terrible time of it in there with the... the books and the sushi and—" his voice nearly broke, "—the cars." Hastur tugged again. He seemed to like the rattling noise the chains made. "I suggest you hurry," Crowley added, when Aziraphale didn't dive for the exit. "Before someone changes his mind."

"My dear, I really couldn't," said Aziraphale.

"No, you couldn't," Crowley agreed readily, twisting back toward the portal.

"Yes, he could," said Hastur, pulling harder.

"No," Aziraphale repeated. "It wouldn't be right."

Everyone stopped where they were. Crowley looked extremely torn. There was a weighty pause while Hastur fumbled with his handful of chains and looked for a place to lock them down while he dealt with Aziraphale, and Beelzebub whispered something very nasty to his balloon while looking on in apparent amusement.

"Look," Crowley said with a sigh, meeting Aziraphale's eyes for the first time since his little 'reminder.' "I don't know if you're expecting some kind of noble, self-sacrificing speech from me or what, because obviously I would never, ever do that. Because – you know – I'm a demon." He looked rather shiftily at Beelzebub, the white balloon now bobbing eerily of its own accord.

"And even if I were inclined to do that, I couldn't do it in front of the boss," he continued in a loud hiss, running the words together as though he were speaking in some kind of code and the Lord of Hell was not standing ten feet away. "But listen to me very carefully now, because this is likely to be the last thing I ever say to you, angel." He looked terribly uncomfortable, as though he were forcing the words out through a constricted throat. "Were you to not take the opportunity to get the fuck out of here, pardon the expression, it would be, hands down, the most imbecilic thing you have ever done. And that is saying quite a lot. Frankly, I wouldn't want to share a hell with someone that dense. I know that Purgatory looks really—" he made a painful face, "—horrible, but trust me, it can not possibly be worse than the things they would do to you down here." He stole another furtive glance at the creature's balloon. "Not even close," he added with a shudder.

"It doesn't matter," Aziraphale said. "I've apparently signed on as a demon, willingly or no, and am therefore bound to the service of your friend with the balloon here, among others. And as a devoted demon I can not possibly carry out orders that would bring about the inevitable downfall of Hell."

The general sense of confusion in the cavern deepened while Beelzebub began to chuckle, a wild, rattling burr. Crowley found a response first. "No, angel," he said slowly. "We are saving Hell by sending you out of it. This is an entirely selfish act to avoid the place becoming infected by happiness and tweed. You're mucking things up. Now get out."

"Or at least explain," Hastur added. He didn't want it to appear in front of his superior as though he wasn't investigating every possible risk.

"Gladly," Aziraphale agreed, ignoring Crowley. "You see, having been here for such a short amount of time, with really all of my basic instincts intact, I would be compelled, in whatever plane I existed, to perform my angelic duties. Clearly that is not an option here." He glanced nervously at the clown, which had opened its many-fanged jaws so wide it appeared they must be on rotating hinges. Its eyes never left the point on his neck where a mortal's jugular would be.

"So go to Purgatory," Hastur said. "Be a nice little do-gooder there. Though you'll lose the will after a while. Always happens. Horrible place." He shuddered.

"Even so, were I there I'm sure I would be motivated for a very long time. Millennia, perhaps. And so you can clearly see the problem." He took a small step away from the portal, horribly aware of the mad eyes following him. "You did mention that the souls there are transient. Billions of them, correct? Which begs the question, if they are only passing through, where do they go? I can think of only two options, really." He raised his eyebrows.

There was a rather long silence and some shuffling of feet on Hastur's part. The balloon bobbed and a far-off sound like an avalanche rumbled toward them and subsided. At last, Crowley could take it no longer.

"Heaven or Hell, you moron!" he finally burst out. "For fuck's sake, what do you have to do to be made a Duke of this place? Stick something sharp up your nose?"

"Anyhow," Aziraphale broke in, before Hastur could do anything that would cause permanent damage, "the bottom line is that if I go in there, I'm going to start converting souls. Alone. To Heaven's advantage. With absolutely no opposition whatsoever. Understand?"

"Ohhh," Hastur said slowly. "Yeah, I got it. So we'd run the risk of losing a few billion souls. Only thing is, angel, the End has already come. War's over. Why the hell should I care if they all go to Heaven? It just means less roster duty and paperwork for us."

Aziraphale seemed taken aback. He turned to Beelzebub hopefully, looking for a disagreement, but the hunched thing only continued to smile.

"Zzloth is one of our mottoes," it gurgled.

"Ah. Right," Aziraphale muttered. Beelzebub began closing the gap between them with a menacing shuffle.

"Well, pardon me," Aziraphale put in desperately as he stumbled backwards. "I thought perhaps you were tired of always being at the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak."

"No one's keeping score anymore, angel," Crowley said, sounding very tired. "But it was a good try. Now get the hell out."

"I see," Aziraphale said, and stopped moving. He looked at the floor of the cavern for a moment, composing himself. When he raised his head, the look on his face was darker than Crowley had ever seen on the angel. Darker than any he'd seen on most half-witted demons, for that matter.

"Well," Aziraphale continued, in a slow, precise monotone, "I suppose I should have known better than to think that lazy fuckwits like you would know a good deal when they saw it."

What passed for eyebrows on the clown's scarred face rose slightly.

"Do call me when Beelzebub gets his useless head out of his arse," Aziraphale remarked casually to Hastur. He considered for a moment. "On second thought, don't. I'll feel better knowing you thick fucks will never know what you're missing."

Beelzebub's buzz became something deeper, more like a growl. Hastur and Crowley both trembled a bit, but Aziraphale only looked at him disdainfully.

"Oh, am I upsetting you? You know, you're far too proud of that big, fiery column you turned up in to be making threats, in my opinion. Back on earth the mortals had a quaint little phrase – a vulgar expression, but common is obviously a concept you're intimately acquainted with – to describe that sort of fixation. It's called 'compensating'. You know." He nudged the clown's misshapen shoulder with one jovial elbow, and Crowley gasped. "For a weakness. A kind of impotence." He winked.

"Az—Aziraphale," Crowley choked out. "Stop. Ssstop." For once, the snakelike sibilation was more of a panicked stutter than a hiss. Aziraphale took no notice, instead glancing up at the balloon, which had swelled to rather obscene proportions and was distorting as though something inside were fighting to get out.

"Aww, is de wittle clown's bawwoon going to pop?" Aziraphale snickered, standing his ground three feet from the entrance to Purgatory. He leaned forward into Beelzebub's face. "I'd call you a megalomaniac but I'm afraid you'd think I meant it as a compliment. So instead I'll call you an inferior. Third-class. A worm with delusions of significance." He chuckled in a way that some would have recognized as Crowley's patented Most Evil Demonic Laugh. "Is anyone still frightened of clowns, these days? Really? I don't think they are." He shook his head. "You're letting those damned souls play you like a broken tuba. And you know what that sounds like, don't you, Beezy?" He leaned forward for a confidential whisper in what passed for the thing's ear. "It sounds like shit."

"Oh, dear god in heaven," Crowley prayed under his breath.

"I don't know what you're complaining about," Aziraphale said, turning to him with a curious look. "You taught me everything I know, after all." Crowley whimpered.

"That is pretty nasty," Hastur muttered to Crowley. "Maybe they should let him stay on... come back after a trial period or something."

"You don't want to know what I would do to you if I ever got back here, Hastur," Aziraphale spat, turning on him. "I'm actually looking quite forward to it. I hear that people can learn to love the taste of their own dismembered body parts. And I'll make sure you tell me just how much you're enjoying it." He leaned in and grinned. "In... excruciating... detail."

"Um... boss?" Hastur said nervously.

"Yezz," Beelzebub finally spoke up. "He izz quite lacking in the proper rezzpect for his zzuperiors." He glanced at Crowley. "And thizz one has instructed your behavior?" he buzzed thoughtfully to the angel. Crowley cowered and looked pleadingly at Aziraphale.

"Yep," Aziraphale replied.

"I was wrong about you, angel," Crowley growled. "You're a much bigger bastard than I ever thought to give you credit for. Well done. And I hope you take that compliment in the spirit in which it was intended."

"Quite," Beelzebub agreed, and nodded to Hastur. "They can zzhare his punishment." Merely the tone with which he said "punishment" spoke volumes of pain, darkness, and total hopelessness for the possibility of escape. Aziraphale smiled a terrible, mad smile, which Beelzebub watched like a man taking in a show at a vaudeville palace.

"Am I on the torture roster?" Crowley asked suddenly. "Because things would make a lot more sense if I was. I could accept that. Just tell me I'm already in the middle of it, Hastur, go on. Please."

"Crowley, I believe your influence has been more zztrongly felt than you imagined," the clown said. "You've made remarkable progrezzz. In the ages of torment to come, you will work to further damage thizz angel's darkening morality. I do like to remind our oppozzites that their most virtuouzz onezz land the hardest when they Fall." He looked vaguely thoughtful, and one clawed hand came up to scratch at the scabby flesh of his chin. "Perhapzz there izz something after the End to azzpire to, after all."

"Right," Crowley said, his voice trembling slightly. "I'll just continue to make my angel into more of a monster than he's already become while I'm having my eyeballs scrambled with a needle. You're too good to me, boss."

"Yezz," the clown agreed. "I am. Now go."

Hastur wrestled the struggling Crowley around to face the darkness of the caverns while Aziraphale cracked his knuckles loudly, making the sharp sounds echo from the crevices. Crowley couldn't resist trying for a last glimpse of the portal and kept twisting in Hastur's grip.

"Hold still, you bloody idiot," said Hastur. "Ten minutes ago I'd wager you'd have given your blackened little soul to stay with that maniac. 'Course," he lowered his voice to a mutter, "can't really blame you now. I mean, I wouldn't want to be locked up with him, either. Angel, my shiny red arse. Gives me the creeps, he does." Crowley twitched reflexively at the word 'angel' and Hastur's keys fell to the ground. "Oh, hell, sod this," he said. "I'm doing it the easy way."

"Huh?" Crowley said, not really paying attention. With a wave of Hastur's hand, the manacles were gone from his arms.

"There," Hastur said. "Now, am I going to have to shove you through that thing or would you rather have a running start on him? Frankly, I'd take any advantage I could get. Bloody nutter." Crowley looked from Hastur to Beelzebub to Aziraphale, who was still grinning like an unhinged monkey.

"I'm—I'm going—?" he sputtered.

"For now," Beelzebub replied. "And I expect progrezz reportzz. We will be watching." He made a nonchalant pulling gesture with his hand, and Crowley was dragged forward on his toes, arms flailing. There was a jarring wrench as dimensions shifted around him, and then he was standing in the cold, damp air of Purgatory. Aziraphale appeared beside him.

"We'll be in touch," said a buzzing voice near his left ear, and with a pop, the opening closed and they were alone.

"Well!" Aziraphale said, a little too brightly. He sounded close to hysteria. "That worked out rather well, I thought." Crowley turned, still panting slightly from shock, to stare at him.

"I don't think I know you," he said, standing well back.

"Oh, Crowley, really. I hope you weren't thinking I was bringing you here so I could actually do the bidding of that horrible thing." He laughed, a brittle noise that still sounded far to close to madness for Crowley's comfort.

"I don't know how you knew you were 'bringing me' anywhere, angel. How did you know they would do this?" Crowley asked, taking another step back. "I thought we were both off to the Pit to take the long way down, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, I didn't, really," said Aziraphale. "I was hoping they'd just let me stay on. I suppose they could have put me back on that list of theirs, but well." He sighed. "To be perfectly honest, my dear, nothing could possibly be worse than that Heaven illusion, and at least – at least I might have some hope that we'd – run into each other. Between, um, appointments." Crowley's face worked through several expressions before settling on 'outrage'.

"You remember what I said in there, about you being an imbecile?" he growled through gritted teeth. "I meant that. I meant every word."

"Well, anyway, it's all worked out," Aziraphale said, the beginnings of a real smile forming on his lips. "Look, we'll just... go on here as we did before. It's really quite amazing, it all looks just the same. And it does feel so good to be out of that place. I know we're in the middle of the street and all, but just for a moment...." Glancing around, he took a deep breath and flung his arms out, unfurling his wings and stretching them to their maximum breadth. He hummed with pleasure, flexing the feathers gently in the cool air.

They were as black as pitch.

"Nngk," Crowley managed in a hoarse rasp.

"So you needn't worry about any of that silliness," Aziraphale continued, eyes closed as he stretched. "I was really just doing my job. Insulting demons is encouraged, surely—"

"Angel," Crowley broke in. "Your wings."

Aziraphale stopped rambling and glanced up over his shoulder. Crowley braced himself for an explosion.

"Oh," he said. "Strange, I don't feel any... does this mean I'm a demon?"

"Well...," Crowley began.

*******************
[6] The evil-clown-and-balloon idea was stolen without remorse from Stephen King. Then again, sai King had stolen it from Azrael, so tit for tat really.

Chapter Text

"I'm a demon," Azirpahale repeated. He was speaking in a near-whisper, but his voice began to rise as he continued. "I'm a foul...a loathsome... hellbound... demon. I'm damned." He began to twist his hands together in agitation, looking back at his wings every few moments for confirmation. "I'm actually cast out, on purpose, and I never even meant to Fall— why is this—I don't—"

Crowley hesitated. This certainly sounded more like Aziraphale, except perhaps for the 'loathsome' thing – that was a bit much - and though he considered the black wings to be a very bad sign, he didn't feel anything different about the angel. And watching Aziraphale fighting tears was making something with claws begin to struggle inside his chest. Against his better judgment (not to mention his demonic nature), he held out his arms. Aziraphale fell into them, now nearly sobbing.

"I went too far. It was the swearing, I know it was. I shouldn't have called him a fuckwit, should I?" Aziraphale mumbled into his shoulder. "It's so crude." Crowley could feel tears on his neck. He held on tightly and buried his fingers in dark feathers.

"And dismembering Hastur. That seemed a bit over the top, too," Aziraphale continued, between shaky breaths. "I'm an angel, I can't go around making threats like that. And I liked being an angel! What kind of life can I have now? Will I have to hurt people?" Crowley rubbed his hands over Aziraphale's back and tried to pretend he knew how to give comfort. On impulse, he kissed his temple and immediately cursed himself. That certainly wasn't what was required. Aziraphale tensed slightly in his arms.

"Perhaps it's no wonder I Fell," he said, in a very different tone. It sounded small and defeated, rather than panicked. Crowley didn't consider this an improvement. "Perhaps I was wrong about the virtue of certain... wishes." He sighed, and then Crowley felt slow, tentative fingers working their way up his back, making him shiver. "On the other hand, demons... demons can do whatever they like, can't they?" the angel asked. "Without fear of consequences. As long as it's not... not helping anyone. Right?"

Crowley tried to look at him, but Aziraphale's face was still tucked firmly into his shoulder. Or, rather, his neck, and... actually, approaching the jaw, now.

Perhaps that was what was required.

He fought back the hysterical laughter that was threatening to break out of him – really, this, after six thousand years of failed temptation on top of everything else tonight, was too much. But, well, six thousand years was a very, very long time to wait for something only to reject it over a few minor absurdities, and he still wasn't entirely convinced this wasn't all some elaborate deception of the torture roster. Better to act now and hope the illusion would hold off a few minutes before dissolving. He slid his arm closer, intending to brush fingers through the angel's hair until he could be tempted into tilting his head properly, and frowned. The hand he'd pulled back from the downy feathers was heavily smudged with soot.

"Ah," Crowley said, looking at the patch of feathers he'd just been clutching, now a thin and dirty grey rather than black. He hesitated. Aziraphale was still tracing his way across various sensitive places near his ear, then without warning shifted slightly and was now planting feathery kisses that just brushed the corner of Crowley's mouth. Thinking that he had become a demon. Thinking it didn't matter. His lips were very soft.

"Damned if I do...," Crowley muttered, and kissed him.

Kissing was much better with Aziraphale actually participating. In fact, it was even better than 'that one time' next to the duck pond, when Crowley had awakened to find the angel doing contortions with his wing and claiming it was anatomical research. He grinned a little at the memory, which Aziraphale felt and grinned back, becoming rather more enthusiastic.

Crowley completely lost a few minutes in a haze of kisses and feathers and blue eyes, and when Aziraphale finally pulled back, he had a rather demonic glint in his eye. Crowley was impressed.

"Would you like to continue this back at mine?" the angel asked between gulps of air. "I would be willing to bet that it's there. And if not..." he shrugged, "well, we can always convince someone to let us have a room at the Ritz. I hear their suites are quite well-furnished."

"Um," Crowley began. He wasn't used to playing the temptee, and he was frankly a little concerned at how well Aziraphale was doing. He fingered another couple of feathers just in case, and saw the soot brush cleanly off of them at his touch. An unfamiliar knot that may have been vaguely akin to guilt twisted into being in his belly. "Aziraphale, actually, there's, ah, something you should know."

"Mmm," Aziraphale mumbled, letting his teeth graze the place just by Crowley's collar.

"I, uh. Oh. Yes. No. No. Stop," Crowley ground out, and Aziraphale finally looked up, a little hurt. "Your wings. They... they don't seem to actually be black. See?" He held up a soot-covered hand regretfully.

Aziraphale stared, then reached back and dragged his hand across a feather. A dirty white was revealed, and he gasped. Crowley looked down at the pavement and silently cursed everything he could think of, particularly whatever passing fever had seen fit to saddle him with a plague of temporary integrity. The angel began to laugh with relief.

"Oh, this is wonderful!" he choked. "It's all right! I didn't Fall! It's all all right!"

"Yeah," Crowley agreed, looking woefully at his blackened hands. "Great. You can go back to being pure and all. Good to have you back."

"No," Aziraphale whispered, pulling his chin up. "This. It's all right." He beamed, and kissed Crowley again.

They did eventually decide to check on the angel's flat. Very eventually. It was there, with a new delivery of forgotten book orders waiting on the front step. They even discovered the Bentley parked across the street, right where Crowley had left it on Earth. When it came into view he let out a very un-demonlike whoop and ran heedlessly into the street, nearly causing several accidents involving early-morning delivery trucks. He flung himself into the car and leaned back in the seat, writhing a bit to work himself deeper into the leather. He was muttering to himself as Aziraphale approached, and was only coaxed out by a gentle finger tracing down his face and hovering under the top button of his shirt.

They found excuses to spend most of their time together for several days after that, in one place or another, though Crowley liked to complain that it made it hard for him to do his job properly.

"You have no idea how difficult it is to cause havoc and disorder and disillusionment every day when one always wakes up with one's arms full of warm angel," he complained one evening as they stood by the pond in the park.

"Well, I wake up in the clutches of a hell-spawned demon," Aziraphale replied. "I'd say that puts us pretty close to even."

Crowley smiled and tossed the ducks another crust. "I suppose so," he said. He looked around at the couples and businesspeople and children passing by, winding down their days and heading back to safe houses and warm dinners. "It's really very strange how little is different here, you know? It makes you wonder if anything actually happened at all. I mean, what the hell was the point? Is this Earth?"

"Who can tell?" Aziraphale replied. "I really try not to think about it too much, my dear. The ineffable plan is not for us to understand."

"Do you ever wonder whether the ineffable plan is really just a huge practical joke?" Crowley asked, somewhat bitterly. "That was some mess we all went through just to come full circle to where we started."

"Not exactly where we started," Aziraphale reminded him with a small smile. "And yes, I do wonder. Constantly. But you didn't hear me say that."

"Your secret is safe with me," Crowley said. "Until I need to blackmail you, of course."

"Naturally," the angel replied. He looked out across the pond, watching the reflection of the sunset colors while muted traffic sounds rattled on in the distance. "The ducks are going to bed, I think. We should probably be off before the sun's all the way down; really, one of these days I am going to have to open the shop. You're a terrible influence on me, staying in bed until noon."

"I haven't heard you complaining," Crowley grinned. "Yes, I can see a few are already in the Duck Fetal Position, as you call it. All their heads in downy comfort under their wings. How's that envy thing working out for you?"

"I'm not a bit jealous," Aziraphale said. "I have an excellent solution that doesn't involve any dislocated joints, as you should well know."

"Really?" Crowley frowned, turning back toward the park exit and slipping his arm around Aziraphale's waist. "I didn't realize you'd worked that under-the-wing thing out."

"Of course. I just sleep with my head tucked under one of yours. I think that's really much better."

They wandered out of the park, heads together as they talked. Their silhouettes melted in with those of the other Londoners, all the ungoverned crowds streaming gratefully towards home.