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Anthony was slowing down.
Asa had known he had been slowing down for some time, really. Even if he hadn't dared to admit it.
For a man in constant orbit, perpetually on the move, a reckless speed demon in his youth, it was a shock to witness. It had started gradually, earlier nights and afternoon naps. Asa had been happy to indulge him. On their usual walk along the coastal path they found themselves turning round sooner than before. Taking a break partway up the hill to “admire the view”. Anthony was taking smaller portions, shuffling instead of striding, his mind quick as ever, but his body struggling to keep up.
It was like the man was fading away. Grey where once was vibrant red.
Nothing specific, no symptoms, no diagnosis, but a hint at his frailty, an increasing awareness of mortality, an approaching end.
Asa had himself had a scare a couple of years ago, a “routine” operation later, and he was almost back to normal, but it had made the pair of them more focused. Conversations had been had, paperwork drawn up.
Everyday, Asa was so grateful to have found his other half, his missing piece of the puzzle. They had built a wonderful life together, but nothing lasts forever, he knew that too well. “A story doesn’t have to go beyond the last page of its book,” he wondered where he’d heard that before; he’d have to look it up later.
His cold hands carried two hot mugs of cocoa across the back lawn. It was a late spring evening, only a few clouds passing overhead as they settled down to watch the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. A bright light streaked across the inky black sky, and Asa couldn't resist the urge to make a wish. Even if it was only meteorite debris from Halley's comet and not an actual star shooting across the sky, it was still magical as far as he was concerned.
Asa wondered at it all, the majesty of the endless universe, and they were just two insignificant specks that had somehow found each other in the midst of it all. It made him feel very small, and that was actually a comforting thought. Just two grains of sand on a beach. They were everything to each other and nothing in the grand scheme of things. Looking to his clever but sceptical beloved, Asa asked if he had ever wondered if there was anything more than this. He gestured to the cosmos, the glittering stars above them and the infinite void of space.
“I don’t need anything more than this,” Anthony spoke slowly and deliberately. “I— I have the universe out there, and I have you.”
Asa clasped his hand contentedly.
“I have everything I ever wanted.”
And Asa was content. He was, but sometimes, especially on nights like this, he couldn’t help feeling an impulse to ask for more. To request a second helping, to demand another bite of the cherry. Gluttonous, some might call him, had called him in fact, but then he met Anthony, and he had preferred to celebrate, not shame his lover’s hedonistic side.; Anthony revelled in Asa’s joy for the finer things in life, and Asa had managed to stop feeling so guilty for his greed.
This was a good life. Why should he wish for anything more? He could regret very little, only maybe that he and his husband hadn’t met sooner. But even that story he would struggle to rewrite; a better meet-cute he couldn’t hope to imagine. So why was he staring at the rapidly burning up debris and longing for his wish to come true? Because, as he looked into the ashen face of his love, he knew they weren't done here yet.
I wish for more time.
Somewhere in the cosmos, an old book tipped open, the pages flipped to the very last page, where written in a childish scribble were the words that made it all possible.
Asa went to sleep with his arms wrapped around his love. As he had done nearly every night for the last twenty years. The slow rise and fall of their chests, the unconscious beats of their hearts tapping out their steady rhythm, the same as they always had, but as they drifted off to sleep those rhythms slowed until they stopped altogether. As their corporations simultaneously ceased to function, however, their minds carried on, lost in a familiar dream.
They had each had this dream before, although they never discussed it, the same recurring dream since childhood. Once little Anthony had told his Mum about it and she’d laughed and called him a demon indeed. Asa had shared it with an old flame and been psychoanalysed mercilessly for his own subconscious labelling him an angel.
Sometimes they would wake up having watched a play by Shakespeare they knew they had never seen before, and on checking, they would find they recalled the story accurately. They would unexpectedly recall historical details they had no business knowing. In pub quizzes, their teammates would look to them for obscure knowledge that seemed to be plucked out of the ether. Dreaming about the cosmos was probably why Anthony had first considered Astrophysics as a career, that and his supportive O Level Physics teacher. And Asa knew the plot of books before he read them, familiar as old friends. But most magically of all, of course, they knew each other, they always had, as if since before the dawn of time.
Their shared dream – or was it a memory? – continued to play out: an alternative life, a fantastical world with immortal, powerful beings. Apocalypses and Antichrists, miracles and mundane meetings to feed the ducks. Six thousand years, even longer if you included the before. Heaven and Hell and the Garden of Eden. And then at the end of the world, a final head-to-head between themselves and those who would see it all destroyed. They were told they had been given a choice, a chance to make their own decision about the fate of the world, but the dice had been loaded, the cards stacked against them. In reality, they’d had no choice at all.
In the privacy of a different bookshop, one that looked more like a garden than a store, the two of them had been granted a quiet pause away from God Almighty and The Adversary, and they had to devise a plan. Something better than the great pustulating bollocks of The Grand Plan. The universe had ended, Michael had already thrown almost the entirety of the Book of Life into the fire ending herself in the process, they were going to have to be smart.
It was lucky that Asa – or was it the angel Aziraphale? – was a master of sleight of hand. It was fortunate, too, that Anthony J Crowley, demon, was a trickster with more imagination in his little finger than all of Hell put together. And it was handy that Aziraphale had been a collector and curator of stories, as well as fancy stationery. When the last books in the universe were left in the bookshop owner's possession, his demon had known they had an opportunity to rewrite the script, to get what they both wanted, a chance to ask their questions and maybe a chance to try again.
Standing in the shade of The Tree of Knowledge, Aziraphale looked into the serpentine eyes of his hereditary enemy and best friend. He only wanted one thing, and that was Crowley. But Crowley needed freedom from the toxicity of Heaven and Hell, true free will, not for himself but for all of creation.
“Do you still have your crank?” Aziraphale asked hopefully.
"Wot, this ol' thing?” With a flourish, Crowley pulled out the Bentley starter crank from a pocket dimension somewhere within his jacket. “If only we had the new book–”
Aziraphale theatrically produced a previously empty book, one they had already begun writing in, along with a pen from somewhere up his sleeve. “Ta da!
“Ha! Fell the Marvelous strikes again!"
“And for my next trick, my beautiful assistant will simply…” Aziraphale walked over to Crowley, laying the open book out and holding it still with both hands. The former star maker drew a simplified clockwork mechanism and labelled it The Universe in his scratchy handwriting. Aziraphale happily nodded along as the clever demon fastened his crank to the paper and slowly began to unwind, cogs turning anticlockwise. “Say when,” the demon said, as if he were mearly pouring milk into Aziraphale’s cup of tea.
Outside, through the shop windows, Aziraphale could see Whickber Street rematerialise, shop by shop, body by body, pigeons and dustbins and all. A figure in a striped beige cardigan, carrying a never emptying pizza box, waved at them both through the dirty glass.
“When!” Aziraphale shrieked. “Oh, Crowley, I think you’ve done it!” He leapt to the back door, pushing aside two boxes of now blank books that had been blocking the route for years, in clear violation of fire safety protocol. Sliding the bolt open, Aziraphale beckoned The Messiah in from the cold.
“Joshua, I’m so happy to see you!” Aziraphale smiled. Crowley shoved some books off an old wooden chair and offered him a seat.
“Nice place you’ve got here, I’ve never seen an apple tree in a building before. So many changes since I was last on Earth! Elaborate cheese and bread?”
“I’m good, ta,” Crowley replied. “Listen we don’t have long. Times ticking forward again, and somewhere out there Michael's working her way through the book. You’ve already been ripped out of the Book of Life once Josh, but we’ve got the sequel right here.”
“We are writing a story my dear, you were always so very good with stories. Would you do the honours?” Aziraphale passed his pen over to Joshua who stared incomprehensibly at both the metal tool sticking out of the page and the book itself.
“Let me just get that.” Crowley released the crank and hid it about his person again.
“I’m only a carpenter’s son, I can’t write” Josh said, “but if you’ll do the writing, I’m happy to tell the tale. Although I do have to warn you, it will mention fish; most of my stories do…
“There were once three baby boys, separated from their parents at birth, they grew up in wildly different families. One was looked after by a demon and an angel, who showed their love for him in stories and songs, and although his upbringing was extraordinary, he turned out to be a very normal human boy. One was fostered and sadly neglected. His hard start in life, and his general clumsiness, left him angry, and sometimes he was a bully to those smaller than him, but he had a fondness for tropical fish that proved we can all show kindness in our own way. And one rebelled against his destiny to save the world, and will do so again.”
Under Aziraphale’s beautiful, if slightly illegible, copperplate script, new handwriting appeared. Untidy and only occasionally joined-up letters formed words, and the three of them watched as a sentence became clear.
Aziraphale laughed and replied out loud, “Yes, yes you can bring Dog too.” Then remembering that the author of the question wouldn’t be able to hear from wherever he was, he wrote the words down. As soon as he dotted the full stop a knock at the door could be heard, and then a bark, and Joshua opened it to welcome in The Antichrist and his Hell hound, Warlock Dowling, and a very confused looking lad called Christopher Johnson. Adam cheerfully helped himself to the still warm margarita and conjured up three chairs next to Josh. The other two eyed the food suspiciously, but on discovering it was never ending proceeded to eat until they were stuffed, which as they were teenage boys was a considerable quantity of pizza.
Crowley made eye contact with Aziraphale. "Of course! It has to be humanity that saves themselves. We couldn’t do it alone last time, we won't do it alone now. But this time something needs to change. We aren’t going through another Armageddon again angel, not in another five years, not in another five thousand. We can’t stop it if it's just going to be another pause. This time we have to make it so They can’t try again.”
“I agree, my dear, but how?”
“We’re stronger together, we learned that before.” Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand in his and could feel the surge of power between them.
“And you are strongest of all with humanity on your side,” Joshua added wisely. “I don’t want this all to be over. The world isn’t perfect, but it isn’t hopeless either. If we are going to stop the end times once and for all we need Them to think They've won. They need to believe that you have given up. That you would sacrifice yourselves – you know how much She likes self-sacrifice,” Aziraphale couldn't help looking at Joshua's pristine hands with a shudder. “Mother and her partner will never stop their games of one-upmanship and you can't beat them if you follow their rules. We have to trick Them into playing by our rules in this game of skill and chance.”
“My sperm donor likes to cheat,” added Adam. “He is greedy and selfish, but that's his weakness, it's what he expects from everyone else. He won't be expecting you to be selfless.”
Warlock smiled. “I watched you two for years; you fooled them all. Nanny, you were the most compassionate caretaker. Everyone thought you were some scary banshee, but you were my guardian angel. I saw how you looked at Brother Francis here, honestly, the most incompetent gardener in the world – I can't believe you encouraged slugs and snails in our garden – but you, evil incarnate, loved him.”
“I, erm, well…” Crowley flustered.
Aziraphale patted the demon's hand, “I love you too, my dear.”
“I don't know nuffin’ about any of yous, but I dunno, good luck, I guess.” Johnson said through a greasy mouthful of mozzarella.
Adam took a hold of the new book, uncapping the pen and turning to the last page. He wrote the words that Joshua spoke, the two of them using their power together.
“She said 'Everything ends.'” Aziraphale stated.
“And I said 'I don't accept that.'”
“Then I believe we've come to a decision.”
“You’re asking God to create a Godless universe?” She asked, surprised but apparently considering it.
Satan smirked at their audacity.
“Neither of you could ever exist in such a universe. You understand?”
“Wait, you're not going to indulge them in this nonsense, are you?” Satan frowned, incredulous.
“You two fully comprehend the cost?”
Crowley didn’t quite answer her when he replied, “We know what we are asking for.” Their hands found each other and they held on tightly. Aziraphale took a deep breath.
“Say goodbye then.”
Before they could dematerialise along with God, the Devil and all that remained of their world Aziraphale touched his fingers to his lips, something he had done once before. But this time as he felt the echoes of Crowley’s kiss, he kissed back, passing the embrace to Crowley, and touching his soulmate softly on his lips.
And then they were gone.
It was like the transition from wakefulness to sleep, a gradual loss of consciousness, slipping away, until all that was left were two points of light orbiting each other and then even they vanished.
One more time…
In the South Downs the sun rose early, streaming through bedroom curtains. Anthony J Crowley muttered something under his breath about careless angels who forget to pull the black out blinds down, but was quickly soothed by the smell of coffee on his bedside table and a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“Morning love,” the angel in question greeted his husband, snuggling back under the warm duvet and putting his cold feet too close to the demon. Crowley clicked his fingers and warmed the bed. “Thank you, dearest.”
Aziraphale wrapped his arms around his love and pulled him close. He snuggled into the vibrant red hair, breathing in his smoky scent. “I love you.”
“Love you too, angel,” Crowley replied and kissed his angel back.