Chapter Text
It sounds like one of those riddles with no answers, like the fallen tree one, or the heavy boulder.
But really, if God is powerful enough to completely rebuild the universe from scratch without Heaven and Hell, does that mean God can’t exist in this universe?
Well, She still does. It’s hard to have a creation without its creator, yes?
Oh, science will say it was the Big Bang, and yes, that’s a true fact, but who do you think started that little explosion? Who do you think put the building blocks of creation, of matter and life and everything else, into such a spectacular light show?
She was alone where She was now, Heaven was no longer Her domain.
But that was alright. She had Her new room, where She could observe the new universe, with all its stars and planets, and teeming with life that’s scattered across vast distances.
Of course, God’s focus always came back to Earth. It had been Her favorite project back in the day, an experiment that had gone the way She wanted it to go, for the most part. Humans tended to make a mess of things, along with a certain demon and angel who really liked their lives on Earth.
The new Earth, it ran like the old one, with so much more history to it. Dinosaurs were fun to make into a reality rather than as a joke. And seeing human evolution had been quite interesting, such clever primates.
Still…
Her attention would drift to something in the room with Her. Something she kept from the former universe, right when it was nearly done going pear shaped.
It was small, glass, with a polished wooden base. The glass was round, full of water and sparkles, with a little Earth inside of it.
But it wasn’t just the Earth.
The base had two lines circling around it, one white, one a dark green.
Heaven, Hell, and the former universe, all trapped together in a snow globe. She had planned on it being destroyed, it was Her Great Plan, after all. But those two, Crowley and Aziraphale, they had given Her thought.
Why make a universe and then destroy it in such a short amount of time? What’s the point?
Heaven and Hell clearly did it for favoritism, for who was the better gang. Who would come out on top in their egocentric wars. But why did God want it destroyed?
For the game of it, probably.
She loved games, especially ones of her own creation.
Looking at the snow globe, She could see the reflection of the Earth model behind Her in the glass. It was like the one Heaven used to have, She could observe everyone down there easily.
Picking up the snow globe, God looked it over, and smiled to Herself.
She was bored, and She had a game She’d been wanting to try, one that would be interesting to see played out with the players She’d picked for it. Tapping the glass, the Earth inside shifted and changed, She saw an image of a drunk, emotionally drained demon in an alley. Another tap, and God was looking at a fretting Supreme Archangel, worryingly pacing about by a white desk.
God had said that when She’d create the new universe, those two would no longer exist, as they were of Heaven and Hell. That they were sacrificing themselves for humanity and Free Will. They were not going to exist anymore, that’s what she had told them.
However…
God lied.
Which God can do, who would stop Her from doing so?
It was easy to give them what they wanted, but God felt that things… could go in a variety of directions if She didn’t quite give them everything they wanted. The universe trapped in there was stuck in a loop of the last few days of its existence, but never getting to the point where those two were reunited.
Why make it so easy?
The game started before She really gave it a thought. She liked when that happened.
She wanted to see what would happen if… yes, if She toyed with things a bit, a shift in the timeline, just a small one, to see what would happen. Would those two repeat their actions? Would they do it again?
Would they make a decision?
With a small wave of Her hand, a box appeared next to God, a lovely shade of red, and She lifted the lid before gently putting the snowglobe inside.
“Now, let’s see what move they’ll make.” God smiled in a way that would make any player at the table squirm in their seats and look for an excuse to back out of the game.
–
“We’re gonna have to do something about the garden.” Anthony said with a small huff, looking at the weeds before him, growing amongst flowers left behind from previous owners and nature itself. He’d take a better look at things if it weren’t for the fact that it was raining. It had started shortly after they finished getting the last boxes from out of the moving van, and it hadn’t let up since.
“That’s an easy fix, dear.” Asa said from where he was standing in the kitchen, carefully unwrapping mugs from a cardboard box. “But at the moment, we have work to do inside.”
Turning with a small smile, Anthony moved from the doorway and shut the backdoor, taking in the kitchen, with its soft, faded walls of red, and the wooden cabinets that Asa stood in front of. The sun coming from the window at the sink glinted off the ring on his left hand. It was still so shiny and new, barely worn a month.
Hard to imagine that just over five years ago Anthony had walked into that little corner bookshop, inside his everything was standing there, ready to assist him. Even tried to sell him a copy of his own book, for half price! The signed copy of Anthony’s book was in a box in the living room, it was going to go on a shelf with other little bits and bobs that were reminders of their relationship.
He’d never thought he’d get something like this, and yet, here he was. He approached, moving to help Asa with putting dishes away, a radio nearby playing music, to which both were singing to, laughing when they couldn’t sing a part correctly.
“Anthony, one of these days you’re going to have to accept that you cannot and will not ever be able to properly sing along with David Bowie!” Asa laughed as he moved to lower the volume when it moved onto the top of the hours news, no need for that.
Anthony snorted and approached him, leaning in close. “Will that be the day that you’ll finally stop calling The Velvet Underground ‘bebop’?”
“Never!”
“Figured.” He then gave his husband a kiss, which was eagerly returned.
Only for a knock to catch their attention. They both looked in the direction of the front door, confused. “Did you order food?” Asa asked.
“No, think it's a neighbor?” Anthony frowned, then heard the knocking again. “I’ll check. Coming!” He called out, hoping whoever it was heard him.
He moved through the cottage to the front door, looking through the small window in it. There was a man there, dressed in a uniform, getting rather drenched. Anthony opened the door and noticed he was from a company called ‘International Express’, huh, he wasn’t familiar with that one.
“Good afternoon, sir.” The man smiled.
“Ah, no need for the sir.” Anthony shook his head, though returned the smile. “Package, I’m guessing?”
“Yep, just sign here.” Taking the clipboard that was handed to him, Anthony signed then handed it back. A second later, his arms were full of a large cardboard box, a soaking wet one too. “Sorry, the rain suddenly came down in buckets as I was driving up the lane! I do hope nothing got damaged.”
The professor clucked his tongue. “Nah, probably just the cardboard took it, I’m sure there’s about ten layers of protective stuff around whatever is in here.”
The mailman said his goodbyes and headed back for his truck as Anthony closed the door, looking at the box. He heard Asa call out, asking who it was. “Mailman, apparently. We got a package.”
He brought it to the kitchen and put it on the island. The address label seemed perfectly bone dry, seeing the label of ‘Mx and Mr Crowley-Fell’ and their home address. But the return address was a mess of ink, they couldn’t make out anything from it. “Do you think it’s a gift from a friend? Like a housewarming one?” Asa asked as he took a knife, cutting into the tape.
“Maybe? But I thought we got stuff from people before we left?”
“Maybe it’s a little extra! Unless you ordered something?”
“Nothing that I recall.”
The box was opened and under the packaging peanuts, they could see red. Carefully, Asa removed another box, with gold writing on the side of it.
“‘Ineffable.’” Asa read aloud, frowning. “Huh?”
“Open it, let’s see what’s so ineffable.” Anthony snorted, flicking a peanut off the lid, watching it fall to the floor.
The lid was removed and both looked inside, a bit surprised to see what was carefully packaged within. Asa reached in, taking out the item. “A snow globe?”
It was beautiful, inside was a red and white building, looked like a corner shop. In front of it was a black car, old, vintage. Anthony thought it might be a Bentley, though he was guessing on that. “It’s rather pretty, oh look!” Asa tipped it, showing that the bottom had a switch and a little key to crank.
Flipping the switch, it turned on the lights of the shop and the headlights of the Bentley. “Ooh, that’s darling! Ah, I think this is a bookshop! Look, you can read the sign!”
“‘A.Z. Fell?’ Heh, that’s you! Someone made us a custom snow globe! But your shop wasn’t red, or this fancy. And we very much don’t have a fancy, old car.”
“I rather like it, looks comfortable.” Asa grinned, doing that little wiggle he did when he was excited. “And maybe one day you’ll get a nice car like that.”
“Ha! Yeah, sure.” Anthony grinned and took the snow globe, looking it over as Asa returned to unpacking. “I wonder who sent this, might have to ask about.” His attention was on the windup key now, there was nothing around it or on the bottom to indicate what song it would play, if it played one.
“Oh dear.” He heard Asa say as he opened a box. “I think I mislabeled this one. It doesn’t have our bowls, this is the knickknack box.” He pulled out the copy of Astrophysics for Everyone, giving it a small pat. “I must have mixed up the boxes, it’s been a busy few weeks!”
Anthony nodded as he turned the windup key a few times, and a song started to play from the inner music box. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. It sounded rather lovely though. Setting down the globe, he looked back into the box and noticed something. “There’s an envelope in here.”
“Ah? A message from our mysterious gift giver?” His husband asked, coming back from the living room where he’d gone to see about the mislabeled box, still holding the book in his hands.
The envelope was black and it was one of those ones you just unfold, the message written on the inside. It was even sealed with wax, how fancy. Anthony popped the wax seal, which was a silvery white, the pattern on it a set of wings. He opened it and looked confused at the message, written in golden ink.
‘WATCH YOUR STEP’
“Watch your step?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What’s that?” Asa asked, his voice sounding worried.
“A weird code? Maybe?”
“No, no… the music.”
Anthony heard it now, the music. What had been a pretty little song, suddenly started to sound distorted, like something was wrong with the music box.
Like it was melting.
“Oh, the snow globe!”
Looking at it, Anthony’s eyes widened at the sight. The little shop had burn marks on it now, the lights inside were flashing and flickering, and the glitter now looked more like smoke, like it was on fire even though it was in water. He also noticed that it was moving, shaking.
“Anthony, get away from it!” Asa moved to push the shaking snowglobe away from them, just in case anything happened.
But as soon as he touched it, there was a brightness and then-
Anthony felt himself fall as the light seemed to blind him, and he slammed down hard on the ground, hitting his head in a way that made his teeth hurt. He let out a wheeze at the pain and the horrible ache in his eyes. He swore his ears were ringing…
Wait, ringing doesn’t sound like that.
That sounded like a warning sound. It was a cacophony of horrible alarm noises, echoing all around him, and he swore the blinding light was flashing red now, but he didn’t dare open his eyes. He didn’t want to risk looking at the light again. “Asa-!” He called out over the sounds, patting the ground. Where was Asa? He has been right next to him! He continued to blindly feel around.
This didn’t feel like their kitchen floor, that was an old wooden floor, to match the rest of the cottage. This felt cold, smooth, like the floor of a hospital, or an office building.
“Intruder!” Someone shouted over the alarms.
“How is there an intruder, is it one of He- oh!” Came another voice. “Oh no, another human soul got into headquarters.”
“Someone turn off that stupid thing!”
And the sounds stopped, the lights stopped flashing, but Anthony refused to open his eyes. Instead, he curled up, his head pounding from the migraine he got from the injury and whatnot. He probably got a concussion, great, just what he needed.
“Not often human souls wander in, did the Supreme Archangel do something again?”
“Not that I know of, and the mortals know better than to come here.”
“I heard the alarm, did something- ah! What happened?!” Said a third voice, sounding alarmed.
“Settle down Muriel, it’s just a human.” Came the first voice, sounding exhausted.
“Humans can’t come up here! Not without very special clearance!”
“Yes, we know that.” Said the second voice. “Do we need to let him know?”
“I’m sure he’s already on his way… ah, yes, here he comes.” Said the first voice, sounding more irritated now.
What was going on? Who were these people talking like he wasn’t in the room, and where was Asa? He tried to reach out again, only finding the floor, and what felt like that weird envelope.
“What in the world just happened?” Came a voice that sounded so beautifully familiar. “Muriel, Michael, Uriel, what’s going on?”
“A soul wandered in, hasn’t happened in a while.” The first voice replied. “Did you open the Gates again, sir?”
“That was one time! Oh dear, let’s see what happened. Why are they on the floor?”
“Not sure, it was just found like that when the alarms went off.”
Footsteps approached and Anthony could hear someone gently coo at him, the fourth voice, and felt a warm hand on him. “Are you alright, my dear- oh! You have a form! A body!” The warm hand was gently squeezing his arm, as if making sure that this was true.
“‘Course I have a body…” Anthony winced. “The migraine’s reminding me of that fact. Asa, what happened…?”
He cracked his eyes open, feeling a horrible pulse from his head at this, and stared at the figure before him, dressed not in a comfortable cardigan and yellow button up, but in a suit and tie which didn’t work for someone who looked so much like-
“Angel?”
“Crowley?”
TBC