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After a while, Lucifer cleared his throat. “How long do You plan to run it?”
God looked at Her watch, which was a reflection of Azrael’s eternal clock (though it also showed the time in all Earth’s time zones, and worked underwater. Same human who’d done Crowley's watch, come to think of it).
It chimed. “That’s long enough, I think.”
She waved a hand, and the angel and demon reappeared.
Crowley staggered and fell to his knees. Aziraphale, grasping for a walking stick that was no longer there, collapsed against one of the bookshop’s pillars.
“Ah,” said God. ”Welcome back.”
They stared at Her, wide eyed. Crowley’s chest heaved. Aziraphale pushed himself upright. He reached up and felt his hair, then down to pat his waistcoat, like someone in a dream. His lips moved around a phrase that looked like thirty years.
“What did you think of the prototype? I thought it came together rather well… for a first draft.”
“Fucking hell.” Crowley looked around wildly. “Aziraphale. Are you all right?”
“A moment.” A look of concentration came over Aziraphale’s face, and then a flaming sword appeared in his hand. He moved so his body was slightly in front of Crowley’s. “Ah. Yes. Right as rain, dear boy.”
Crowley leveled a shaking finger at God. “You… that… that was a dirty trick.”
God’s laughter had a musical undercurrent, like the tinkling of little bells. “No, that was a beta test. Do you think new universes just spring into existence fully formed? There’s a process, you know. Protocols.”
“Have to have protocols,” Lucifer added, nodding.
“Management puts together a trial version and runs it in a closed time bubble– as you saw. Then there are bug checks, feedback committees, quality control… the red tape can take millenia, honestly. It’s quite the headache. That’s why I was delaying the transition in the first place. I’m owed some time off and there’s a lovely resort in the Butterfly Galaxy that I’ve been dying to visit.”
“What’s the matter?” Lucifer asked. “You got to be in on the ground level as initial testers. You’ll have valuable equity when this goes public, plus a bonus for providing the business concept.”
Crowley looked blank.
“It was your idea,” God translated.
“My idea? My idea? You said we wouldn’t exist there! That we couldn’t! And then you bloody well went and stuck us in human bodies with… with gastrointestinal systems, a-and lungs, and… and kidneys! I never asked for kidneys! It was not my idea to have to go to the lavatory five times a day!”
“More, there at the end,” Aziraphale said mildly. He seemed surprisingly calm, but the hand holding the sword was white-knucked. “What with your prostate.”
“Goin’ everywhere in slow motion. I spent so much time commuting,” Crowley went on, teeth clenched. “Sitting. In. Traffic.” Anthony had spent a dozen years of his human existence driving to and from work along the M25, which was– although no longer overtly evil without Crowley’s infernal influence– still a congested tangle from morning to night.
“We had to pay full price for tickets to the West End,” Aziraphale remembered mournfully. “For mezzanine seats. When we could afford it.” Without taking his eyes off of God or the now-chuckling Lucifer, he reached back and took Crowley’s hand, pulling him to his feet.
“Pillboxes,” Crowley growled. “Visits to the GP. Dr. Morrison said give up the wine. Said my liver was dodgy.”
“He made me do Atkins. No more brioche. Or scones. Or raspberry tarts.” Aziraphale held the flaming sword with a little more intention. As one, they glared at their Maker.
“Ah. It’s too bad about the lack of demons, really,” Lucifer murmured. “Think of the opportunities! Diversification of fleshly temptations combined with the ramping up of external pressures to deny oneself. A market that’s ripe for expansion if I ever saw one.”
“No demons… no angels… no Heaven or Hell. But…” Crowley stared, open-mouthed. “You never would’ve even known it. Everything was the same. They invented you.”
“Yes. Isn’t that interesting? Proof of concept.” God patted her meticulous curls. “They think, therefore I am.”
Aziraphale took a deep breath. As a business owner himself, God suspected he was putting things together more quickly than his partner, who looked like he was about to lose his lunch (it had been a strawberry Ensure shake with added fibre, and had taken some effort to keep down in the first place). “You said it was a trial run. A test. It wasn't real. You were testing us!”
“You caught yourself in your own net, I’m afraid. You can’t plan something of that magnitude and expect not to participate in the rollout.” God laughed again.
Crowley muttered something that sounded like, “Bloody London mobile phone network all over again.”
Aziraphale ignored him. “Why?” he asked.
God gave him a sharp look. “You two thought you knew what humans wanted. You were consumed by the idea of doing good for the world, even though you didn’t understand what your choice would really mean.” She smiled. “It was very idealistic, I’ll grant you. You remind me of Myself when I was younger. But without the chance to experience the life you were choosing for the humans, at the end of the day you’re just two more deities playing games with their existence.”
“But You–”
“That doesn’t make you worse’n Her, but it doesn’t make you better, either, does it?” said Lucifer.
The sword sagged. Aziraphale and Crowley looked at one another for a long moment. Then Crowley put his face in his hands.
After a moment, God cleared Her throat. “Personally, I would like to move in a different direction. The new world wasn’t different enough from the old one to be worth deploying without some major overhauls. Head office isn’t looking for redundancy.”
“Don’t scrap it,” Lucifer objected. “It’d make a good vacation spot. I’d love to get off the grid for some R and R once in a while.”
“We could build in the unused shell space outside this dimension, I suppose,” God said thoughtfully. “We lean on the ‘no deities’ aspect, offer total insulation from prayer notifications and supplication alerts…”
“Get a pickleball court set up in one of the empty celestial spheres,” Lucifer added.
“‘Scuse me,” Crowley said. “You said before you could… well, that you could put it all back. Our world, I mean.”
God shrugged. “I get my bonus in either case. Is that what you want?”
The angel and demon looked at one another.
___
They asked again for a private room, but God, who’d created an entire test universe today, was tired and simply gestured them to the back of the bookshop. She and Lucifer could hear them murmuring as they drew up plans for their private retreat. “We’ll have to offer some sort of messaging system,” Lucifer said thoughtfully, “that’s not on the prayer channels. Event coordination, dinner planning, sort of thing.”
“Sure, but if we lean on the ‘back to essentialism’ aspect, we can advertise it as a chance to connect with your true Self– ‘You Are What You Bring In With You’.” God spread her hands, liking the way the slogan sounded. “A solo meditation journey. We’re all so busy, and most Gods I know would jump at the chance for “me time”.
“Why not both? Allow for isolation, but add socials and group outings a la carte. For a fee, of course.”
“I like the sound of that.”
She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but what could She do about it? She was God.
“It wasn’t all bad, was it?” Aziraphale was saying. “Being… well, being them, I suppose.”
“Havin’ to do the dishes every night after you made an absolute Hellscape of the kitchen? Arguing over the litterbox? Driving a Ford Fiesta? I can’t say there’s nothing I would change, angel.”
“That’s not exactly what I was referring to.”
Crowley sounded put out. “Know that,” he muttered. “This is confusin’. Got two different sets of memories.”
“Asa wasn’t me,” Aziraphale said softly. “Or rather, I’m not him. But he is me, now… I mean, I remember everything. That is… oh, sod it. I remember being your husband, Crowley. I remember being happy.”
There was a long pause. “You were happy with Anthony,” came the reply. “Or rather, Asa was.”
“You and I never really had a chance.”
Another pause. “I think… I think being human was like tasting the apple,” Aziraphale continued at last. “There’s a great deal we didn’t know about it. So many things weren’t easy, small things I’d never considered– like keeping up with the Hoovering, or getting a decent drink at the Shepherd and Dog. But Asa loved…” he paused. “Asa loved his life,” he continued, though it came out stilted and didn't sound like it was what he'd intended to say. “Even with all the difficulties.”
“That’s life, innit?” Crowley said. “It’s a bugger to quit.”
“The people down there on Earth– our Earth, I mean– loved their lives, too. Not only the humans, but the animals, and even the plants, I suppose. Some plants. Yours always seemed a bit nervous, though I can’t think why they would be.”
There was a noise that sounded almost like a chuckle.
“The angels and demons, too,” Aziraphale said. “None of them asked to trade in what they had for some new, shiny, Godless universe.”
“Just a minute,” Crowley said. “Got an ethical question… Mum!” he shouted. “Okay if I call you Mum? Listen, the people we met when we were Anthony and Asa… were those real people?”
“Just projections,” God called back. “We don’t make organisms from the ground up for simulations.”
“Right, thanks!” He lowered his voice. “That’s all right, then.”
“I thought maybe we could have another chance trying to sort it all out, Crowley. If you’re willing. I… well, I should like that very much.”
“As hereditary enemies?”
This is why you Fell, God thought. You’re more stubborn than a bull in a clover patch when your pride is hurt. I never pushed you, you jumped.
But Aziraphale was stubborn too, and more importantly, when the chips were down, he was usually very brave. He made an impatient noise, then Crowley made a startled noise… and then there was nothing but the soft, slurping sounds of two human-shaped mouths mashing up against one another. God made a face.
“As us, you pertinacious serpent,” Aziraphale said at last. “Asa loved Anthony. But I love you, and I have superior right.”
“Ngk. Yeah. Yeah, okay,” Crowley said, sounding dazed. “‘S long’s you do that again.”
More slurping noises. God audibly cleared Her throat. A minute later, the pair slunk back from behind the shelves, red in the face. “We’ve come to a decision,” Aziraphale said.
“A different one, that is.”
“Excellent.” Lucifer thrust a piece of paper under Crowley’s nose. He’d always enjoyed pulling up contracts. “Agreement to assign patent rights to ‘Godless Universe 3051-SB to the parent corporation, and release all personal claim to the IP and subsequent developments in the direction of an upscale, multi-dimensional, cross purpose retreat for Gods and sundry other supernatural forces.”
“Do we still qualify for stock options?” Aziraphale asked sharply.
“Could do a quarter percent. Vesting schedule of one thousand years with a standard two-century cliff.”
“Make it one percent.”
“Half.”
“Angel, let it go,” Crowley said, and he scribbled his signature.
“Really, Crowley. It’s in our best interest to be financially situated for our new positions.”
Crowley looked at Aziraphale.
“As guardians. The humans need us. Not for meddling, but for protection. Plus, the former angels and demons are going to need a helping hand.”
“They can sod off.”
“Crowley.”
“All right, all right. D’you think Joshua might be in the market for a pair of godfathers?”
The angel’s smile seemed to brighten the whole room.
God sighed. “If everything’s in order…” She closed Her eyes, accessed her internal menu bar, and selected System Restore.
___
She visited, of course, every so often. She’d been watching Crowley and Aziraphale circle each other for millenia, and She found herself surprisingly invested in the outcome, just like She had been in Chuck and Blair’s romance when she let herself get hooked on Gossip Girl. Things seemed uneasy at first; Crowley returned to his flat and took solo trips up and down the coast in his big black car, while Aziraphale buzzed around Whickber street, nudging and prodding life back into the fading block and helping Her wayward son navigate modern life. She spotted them once on a bench in St. James’s park, looking solemnly at the lake, not speaking… but after a moment, Crowley reached out a hand towards Aziraphale, and Aziraphale took it. A few months later, there were several retired demons living in Crowley’s flat, and the remains of his plant collection had been given pride of place under the Bookshop’s oculus. Crowley slept in the little bedroom on the second floor while Aziraphale, almost manic, taught classes in basic table manners for demons or discussed literary passages with Jesus or wrote furiously in his journal. Several more months passed, and then one evening Crowley emerged looking sleep rumpled and resolved, eyes bare, and took Aziraphale into his arms. The angel fairly collapsed with relief and longing, and God really hadn’t meant to watch what happened next, but again, She was God. Suffice to say, no one slept that night, nor the three following nights. The bookshop remained closed, and God wondered if She’d been underestimating the appeal of a physical body after all. Perhaps She’d try it, one of these millenia.
She got busy with arrangements for the grand opening of the wellness retreat (“You Are What You Are!”) after that, and it was several years until She next caught up with events on Earth. The bookshop was warm and lit both day and night, a rotating staff of ex angels and demons tending to the humans who came in seeking knowledge, companionship, or simply solace. Her son was working his way up the ladder of local government, aided and abetted by the former Antichrist. Gabriel and Beezlebub, apparently having gotten word of the new arrangement all the way out in Alpha Centauri, returned and set up shop in Savile Row, terrorizing and delighting the avant-garde crowd.
As for Aziraphale and Crowley? She had trouble locating them at first, but She could spot the fall of a tiny sparrow, so it took her only minutes to find the cottage that overlooked the sea, surrounded by apple trees, walls choked with wisteria and climbing roses. A vintage Bentley sat in the gravel drive. The house was empty, but she saw two airborne forms in the distance, high above the waves, sunlight glinting off black and white feathers. They described complicated patterns in the air, and after a moment She realized they were dancing.
Her phone chimed. “Horus and Set booked rooms in the same block,” Lucifer said without preamble. “Need you to come do damage control.”
“Be right there.” She sighed and turned away. There would always be endless universes to care for, and this one seemed to be in good hands. Not the hands of deities, though they'd briefly played the role. Not angelic or demonic hands, not anymore. Not human, but intimately aware of the human experience. She doubted the world could have asked for better surrogate mothers.
As for Herself, She had a business to run. She would have to leave them to it. She straightened, mentally pulled up some talking points in “Beyond Thunderbolts: Conflict Resolution in Multi-God Environments”... and vanished.