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“Jussst leave it here in the hallway,” Crowley mumbled groggily, then stopped. In front of him in the doorway stood – not a delivery courier as he’d guessed, but someone familiar and definitely unwelcome.
The visitor was fairly tall, and gave the impression of being taller due to his hat and tidy upswept curls. He was well-dressed for a demon. His friendly, jovial smile might have been effective had it not been for the fact that the last time they met, this demon had come concerningly close to destroying everything Crowley held dear.
If only Crowley could remember his name. It’d been a sore point last time. Crowley hastily summoned a smile he hoped conveyed delighted recognition of an old friend, pointing with both index fingers: “Ah yes! Monkey in the waistcoat. To what do I owe the honour?”
Just the tiniest twitch of the eyebrow, but the demon clearly decided to let it go. “Good morning, demon Crowley! (or should I say, bad morning),” the visitor joked. “Any chance I could pop in for a brew? I’ve something to discuss with you.”
“Furfur!” Crowley snapped his fingers, remembering. “Not really used to early morning visitors…” It was 8am on a Saturday. He’d been hoping for a lie in.
“No rest for the wicked, eh!” Refusing to take the hint, the demon placed a boot over the threshold. Worn but well-cared-for vintage leather.
“Coffee then?” Crowley resigned himself and led the demon up the stairwell and into his flat.
They entered the kitchen, a spacious but oppressive room with sleek built-in appliances, black granite countertops and zero clutter. There was no table, only a breakfast bar that stood in the middle of the room with the grim finality of a sacrificial slab. There was a skylight, but the light that eeked in through it had a sickly green-blue hue.
Crowley opted to prepare the coffee in a moka pot on the stovetop. He could simply miracle it, but he had standards. Furfur looked fascinated as the gas flames licked beneath the pot but not inside it. “Fancy that.” His fascination grew as he tasted the drink. “Proper brew, that,” he said, impressed. A drink that didn’t leave his hands and throat severely scalded was an unexpectedly pleasant novelty.
“I take it this isn’t a social call?” Crowley attempted to steer them back on track. He was still trying to banish the bleariness from his eyes and brain. He was good at assessing threats, and didn’t sense anything malevolent from Furfur beyond the general low-level malevolence befitting a demon, but there was plenty of reason to keep his guard up.
That trick on the doorstep, for example.
There were protections in place at his flat against uninvited guests – nothing too elaborate, nothing that would stand up to a real display of force, but enough to provide a little resistance, buy him some time in case of an emergency. Furfur had bypassed these protections with ease. Crowley hadn't invited him in, not explicitly; Furfur had simply asserted his own welcomeness. That was a subtle kind of power to wield, and Crowley was impressed. To him it indicated a demon who shouldn’t be dismissed at face value.
“Not a social visit, no – you’re a sharp one – though of course it’s great to catch up.” Furfur leaned forward slightly across the breakfast bar. “We’re trying to unionise.”
A tiny smile curled at the corner of Crowley’s lips. “What?”
“One of the lads got the idea from one of your reports. Made mention of the strikes, didn’t it? So I said, old friends us, I’ll just drop by and get some more information. And here I am. So how does it all work?”
Crowley’s grin grew wide. “Oh, they’re going to love that Downstairs. Demons unionising. Hoo hoo!”
“Let them,” Furfur said resolutely. “The way I see it, I spend eternity slogging away at my desk, providing a consistently miserable service to the damned, and what have I got to show for it? No recognition, no opportunities for career progression, we don’t even get weekends. I had to get an Eric to cover for me.”
“You want my advice, best strategy in Hell is to avoid recognition. Trust me, you don’t want the boss’s attention.”
“Says you,” retorted Furfur. “They love you down there, we’ve seen your reports, presentations. Never hear the end of it. And here you are in this swank apartment, napping.”
“Touché,” Crowley allowed. “I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
“Clearly,” Furfur said. His eyes landed pointedly on Crowley’s pyjamas.
His tartan pyjamas.
Fuck, thought Crowley, and it must have showed on his face.
Furfur was one of Hell’s more fashion-conscious demons, with his fancy hairdo and deliberate retro style. And his suspicions about Crowley and the angel were pretty much confirmed at this point, even if he couldn’t prove it. Crowley could see him putting two and two together. He knew Crowley didn’t wear tartan, and he knew who did.
“I could report you,” he said.
The visitor quickly scanned the flat, his demonic senses checking for any other presence, but there was none to be found. Crowley certainly couldn’t explain that they’d been a Christmas gift from the angel. Hell would probably think it worse than if they had been – the demon cut off the train of thought just before it could cause an undemonic blush that also wouldn’t help him with his case.
Instead, Crowley reached for the first excuse that came to his lips, and clearly he spent too much time around Aziraphale because he found himself saying, “Tartan’s stylish.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Crowley drawled.
Furfur leaned forwards. “I know about you, Crowley,” he said. It had stung, being laughed at by all his superiors, knowing he was right. “You and your fancy man. One rule for you, one for everyone else, is that right?”
Furfur: one of the most amiable demons you’d ever meet, and even he hated Crowley’s guts. Just his luck. It wasn’t as if Crowley had even done anything to him; no, he’d just been collateral damage on the route to a nicer office. And then Aziraphale had had the gall to outwit Hell’s most hardworking receptionist, and now Furfur blamed Crowley for being embarrassed in front of the Dark Council.
The way Crowley stacked up enemies without even trying, he should get a badge for it.
Crowley sighed. “You’ve just hit on the reason a demon’s union will never work. It all relies on this little human concept of solidarity.”
“Solidarity?” Furfur repeated.
“I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine, yanno?”
“I’ll stab your back if you’ll stab…?”
“No.” Crowley sighed. “Well, yes. Exactly. Your regular hellspawn isn’t going out of his way to stand up for his fellow demon. Quite the opposite, actually.”
Furfur’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying I should have solidarity with you?” He spoke the words as though they left a bad taste, as though his teeth would rot just from uttering them.
Crowley leaned forwards on his elbows across the breakfast bar. “What you’re talking about is collective action. Requires cooperation.” He gave the visitor his steadiest stare, the one that said, here’s my patience, don’t test it. “So say you’ve got ten thousand demons, all want a pay rise, and somehow you convince them all to join up. You’ve got to have a majority, strong majority, otherwise it won’t work.”
“Strong majority,” Furfur repeated. He’d taken out a dog-eared notebook and was scribbling this down.
“Right. Gotta let the boss know what you’re protesting about. So you all sign a petition, and you find some bugger stupid enough to deliver it–”
“That’d be Eric,” Furfur nodded.
“–and first time it gets rejected. On Earth, he’d probably get fired, in Hell… same result.” Crowley winced. “Spokesman incinerated, okay. So next you have to cause some disruption.”
“Disruption,” Furfur noted down. Then he looked expectantly again at Crowley. “How?”
“You tell me,” Crowley challenged him. In his opinion, this was where it all fell down. On Earth, workers won sometimes when their strikes and pickets and direct action caused enough disruption to the general machinery of the workplace, metaphorical or sometimes literal, to be noticed. But in Hell, that machinery was so rusty and dysfunctional that you could probably set the whole place on fire without anyone really noticing.
Furfur appeared to be grappling with the same problem.
To help him out, Crowley added: “The humans go on strike, for example. Or they work to rule – that’s where you study all the rules and policies and procedures and then follow them stubbornly so that you waste everyone’s time.”
“Been doing that for years,” Furfur dismissed. “We could… We could…” He scraped the barrel for something, anything that might have a noticeable impact. “We could all start being nice to people?” he suggested tentatively.
That drew a laugh of genuine delight from Crowley. “Brilliant,” he said – it would be! “So all you have to do is convince ten thousand demons to put down their pride and start being nice to everybody. And then see how the boss reacts, of course. Sure you’ll have your promotion in no time.”
Furfur considered this for a moment. “Seems like it’d be a lot less work to just dob you in,” he said, returning to the previous topic of the pyjamas.
Well, yes. The union idea was a non-starter obviously. “I am trying to help you, here,” Crowley said. “Old friends and all.”
Interestingly, that did seem to have an effect on the demon. He regarded the pyjamas again. “Stylish, you say?”
“Stylish and demonic,” Crowley added.
“Prove it.”
“Alright.” Crowley agreed, accepting the hole he’d dug for himself. He’d need a little time, but perhaps he could earn some with an offer of friendship. “Why don’t we meet in a fortnight, we’ll grab a pint, I’ll introduce you to some very stylish people Hell would approve of and you can tell me how the union’s going?”
Hell’s most personable demon smiled amenably. “You stab my back, I’ll stab yours,” he said, once again botching the phrasing, but the intention was pleasant. Crowley’s demeanor didn't change, but internally he sighed with relief. They’d reached an understanding.
***
“This is worrisome,” said Aziraphale.
Lately, the omens had been mixed.
The good: they’d seen more of each other in the last thirty years than they had in any other millennium of human history. Everything had changed so fast, in a single, whirlwind evening really, when they’d faced down the twin threats of discorporation and discovery. Their scrape with both had had the unexpected result of proving to themselves and each other that even as their greatest fears began to manifest around them, they could triumph together. Trust, shades of grey, a promise to retire the act.
It had ushered in a new level of intimacy, accompanied by new dangers and newfound determination. They could no longer pretend they weren’t a team. These days, they could hardly bear more than a week out of each others’ company. Making up for careful centuries, they found every excuse to spend their evenings together – and more and more often now, no excuse at all. It wasn’t enough: more time together seemed only to open up hungrier desires. Crowley found himself watching the angel’s mouth, his hands; longing for the moments when his eyes softened and his voice lowered; found that moments of accidental contact persisted in his thoughts for hours afterwards. Well, he was a demon. But most thrilling of all, he’d begun to believe that slowly, carefully, Aziraphale was reaching back.
Very slowly. Very carefully.
The bad: taking more risks meant they had more to fear. More to hide, more to lose. Both of them had a talent for pissing people off. As their clandestine relationship grew, Aziraphale would fret. Crowley preferred it when he did so out loud, seeking the reassurance he could offer. He’d shrug it all off for the angel’s sake when they were together, but at night his thoughts would race as he tried to keep ahead of possible scenarios. Sometimes he’d awake with a start at imagined threats.
It was all completely worth it, of course. But surely you could be forgiven for wishing things could be easy for once.
They’d attracted suspicion from the likes of Furfur – who had greater plod than most demons, the ability to focus doggedly on a goal, making him a more dangerous enemy than most.
And then there were the… signs. Coincidences? Portents, perhaps.
They were sitting in an alcove of the World’s End tavern in Chelsea. Aziraphale had dragged them there after seeing the name in a book – The Diary of Samuel Pepys – opened to a random page. He’d wanted to see if it was still here. And upon finding it was:
“It can’t be a coincidence,” he’d insisted.
“Happens all the time,” the demon reassured him. “Doesn’t mean anything. It was in the book all along, whether you read it or not.”
“No,” Aziraphale insisted, “it’s a basic principle of bibliomancy. The act of randomness allows new meanings to come through. It’s up to us to interpret them.”
“Okay,” said the demon gamely, “then the universe is telling us, time to get sloshed.”
They’d obeyed this cosmic message.
Now they were arguing comfortably together from either side of a large array of empty glasses.
“You’re overthinking it, angel,” Crowley told Aziraphale.
“But, demons, poking around again! And now this,” Aziraphale waved a vague arm around the pub’s interior. “You can’t deny it’s omi…ominominous.”
Crowley made a skeptical face. “S’only Furfur. Look what happened last time. Lost all credibubble– crebabili– they won’t take him seriously again.”
“You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed all the” – Aziraphale hiccupped – “portents.” He lowered his voice dramatically. “References to Armageddon.”
“It’s a pub.” Crowley grumbled. “In a book.”
“It’s been happening all the time.” He swayed back, folding his arms stubbornly, staring Crowley down: “What about that street preacher we walked past on our way here. Prophesying End Times.”
“They do that every Tuesday.”
The angel sighed wistfully. “I wish I had an accurate book of prophesy.”
“There isn’t one.” Everybody knew that, otherwise they’d be all over it.
“There is, one,” the angel insisted, a new spark of enthusiasm igniting in his eyes. “Written by a 17th century witch. Only it never sold. All the copies were destroyed.” He hiccupped again for emphasis.
“Bloody typical.”
“As always! The greatest talent withers in obscurity,” Aziraphale quoted, the bitter edge to his words making Crowley suspect he was alluding again to his forbidden magic tricks.
“We like obscurity right now,” Crowley said firmly. He ran a worried palm through his mullet and let out a long exhale. “Of all the guys to hold a grudge. I remember when he used to play the accordion.”
“If only I could get my hands on a copy, we could prepare for what’s to come.”
“For bananas.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Wassat?”
Realising they’d both got lost in separate, worried trains of thought, the demon reached instinctively over the table for the angel’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. The angel gazed warmly at their hands for a long moment, a soft smile on his face, before suddenly withdrawing his as though electrified. “Time to sober up,” he said abruptly.
“Yeaahhh,” frowned the demon, and they did.
They sauntered out of the pub and began their journey back to the bookshop. On their route, something caught their eye.
“That’s new…”
“Didn’t that used to be a record store?” said Aziraphale sharply.
Above the shop in huge pink rubber letters was the word, SEX.
They glanced at each other.
“Want to check it out?” asked Crowley.
“Crowley! I do not want to check out the SEX shop.”
The demon groaned. “Don’t say it like that, it’s a shop called SEX. You always make things sound way worse.”
“It’s my way with words,” smirked Aziraphale, already crossing the street towards the shop. Crowley followed him. Neither of them could abide being out of the loop when it came to London gossip.
***
What it turned out to be was a clothing store.
However, neither of them had seen clothing quite like this before.
Crowley circled its small interior like a vulture, trailing a claw along the clothesracks. T-shirts hand-printed with obscene slogans, transparent PVC miniskirts, trousers crisscrossed with straps and zips and hardware. Torturously high-heeled ankle boots in blood-red leather studded with long silver spikes, displayed up the wall. Everything was red, black, white, blue.
Aziraphale stood just inside the doorway, observing. The air smelled latex-sweet.
“Need any help, gents?” The store’s proprietor strode over to them from the back of the narrow shop. Despite her short stature, Crowley felt compelled to adjust his own posture, mustering all his swagger to equal her coolness. The woman was striking. She wore red lipstick, her eyes were ringed in stark black eyeliner, her pale hair spiked upward from her face. She was wearing an extremely fluffy white cardigan over an extremely short black minidress, tight white leggings and heeled grey boots. The hazy, innocent softness of the cardigan somehow added to the outrageousness, the provocativeness of it all, and Crowley found himself thinking involuntarily of angel’s wings.
“Can you sing?” she asked Crowley.
Taken aback, Crowley just managed a hiss in reply.
“Don’t take offence,” she said. “Standard question we ask all our customers. If you look the part. You’ve got a nice face.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley saw Aziraphale’s smirk. Did she know what an insult that was? “Thanksssss,” spat Crowley, rolling his eyes.
“Your friend looks like he’s in the wrong shop,” she said.
“Oh, he’s not my friend. He’s just–”
“A reporter!” beamed Aziraphale. “This hip young individual, whom I’ve only just met, told me that this is where it’s All Going On.” The words were punctuated with an expansive hand gesture, fingers spreading wide. “So.” The angel even had the nerve to bat his eyelids as he gave her a bashful, winning smile. “Would you perhaps care to tell us, me, what exactly it is that’s Going On?”
The woman nodded, businesslike. “Anarchy,” she said. “When you start expressing yourself, with fashion, with music, that’s when you realise, all these rules we carry in our heads, they’re just made up bullshit.” She smiled, clearly feeling that this explained everything.
Crowley held up a couple of t-shirts on their hangers. One featured a union jack tilted on its side, the raw edges of the fabric curling and laddered. The other bore an image of a fat cherub surrounded by clouds, the word BALLS printed diagonally across it. “This isn’t a clothes shop?” he frowned.
“Well it is,” she said, “but what we’re doing is emblematic of so much more.” She huffed in Aziraphale’s direction. “You journalists write all sorts about punks, but have you even been to a show? I bet you haven’t.”
“I must confess, I have not.”
She thrust a leaflet into his hand. “Write what you want,” she said, “but make your own opinion. Don’t just go with the flow and accept what everybody is saying.”
They were still not much closer to knowing what it was that everybody was saying, but never mind – another idea had occurred to Crowley.
“You’re a fashion designer,” he observed.
“I am. I give it my all,” she said. “Not everybody’s cup of tea, but you look like you get it.” She looked him up and down, scrutinising his outfit. “Need some heels though. You’re wasting all that height.”
Crowley’s snarl died halfheartedly as she thrust a pair into his hands. “It’s fine,” he said, embarrassed.
“Not to me,” she said with a scathing look at his current footwear.
“Do you ever,” Crowley made sure to fix her with his hypnotic snake gaze, “use any tartan in your designs?”
She didn’t succumb to the snake gaze – a sign of a uniquely strong-minded human – there was no change, no far-away glassiness in her voice as she replied. But it turned out to be unnecessary anyway as the mention of tartan seemed to fire up her imagination instantly. She drew in an excited breath. “That’s a thought! Classic. But subversive.” She looked as if she wanted to hurry off immediately to start sketching and draping.
“Well, we won’t keep you,” Crowley drawled.
Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a look as the designer turned away from them heading for the back of the shop, too wrapped up in inspiration to bother with any pleasantries. Put them back, Aziraphale mouthed. I will not be party to shoplifting.
“Pretty sure she wanted me to have them,” Crowley mumbled back out of the corner of his mouth, still clutching the shoes as they shuffled out of the shop.
***
“I liked her,” Aziraphale said once they were back on the street.
Crowley glowered darkly. His demonic pride was still stinging from the whole encounter, his mood only barely improved by his tenuous attempt at petty crime. “You would,” he muttered, “she’s in on your tartan delusion. Stylish my arse.”
“She said you have a nice face.”
“Don’t.”
The angel’s eyes were mischievous and bright as they took a moment to linger all over Crowley’s scowling face. “Home then?”
– meaning the bookshop, and they headed there.
***
Shax and Furfur sat on decaying velvet chairs in front of a mirror so foxed with corrosion that it was barely usable. This was one of their favourite lurking spots to avoid their duties during Hell’s midnight rush.
Hell’s toilets are not divided by gender, demons having none, but are instead split into prideful and abominable. The latter has piss-stained floors and walls covered with indeterminate goop, as well as handy watering stations for all manner of slimy pondlife. The former has the decaying elegance of an abandoned opera house, complete with an antichamber where demons could sit to gossip while they powdered their beaks.
Shax and Furfur were both prideful demons.
Shax was sharpening her nails with a file, while Furfur was attending to his hairdo with a little comb. The air was thick with dust, rust and the overbearing, nauseating scent of violets.
“How was your time on Earth?” Shax asked. An insatiable hunger for intel gleamed in her beady eyes.
“The demon Crowley’s got a nice little setup,” Furfur snarked. The word nice was derisive.
“You’re envious,” Shax said. She rummaged through her makeup bag and began to apply glossy black varnish the colour and viscosity of crude oil to her nails. Her lips curled in a smile. “Me too.”
“Proper demon emotion,” Furfur agreed. “But fair’s fair. He talked me through the union thing.”
Shax rolled her eyes. Hadn’t he dropped the idea yet? “Stop setting yourself up for failure,” she scolded.
“It’s hit a snag, anyway,” said Furfur. “The Erics aren’t so keen since I explained how they’ll likely be set on fire.” It had seemed unreasonable to him, as it was something they did every day at work anyway. “They won’t do it. Not even for the greater evil.”
“So entitled,” Shax said with disgust.
“We’ll bash it all out when we meet up next week,” said Furfur casually.
“You’re seeing him again?”
Furfur’s chest puffed up a little. “Mentoring, I think. Then there’s the whole tartan business to sort out.”
Shax’s voice sharpened even more. “What are you talking about?”
“He was wearing,” Furfur raised a meaningful eyebrow, “tartan pyjamas.”
Shax’s lips set in a thin line. “I see.”
“It’s that Azizzleoff, again,” Furfur said. “But I can’t prove it. He says it’s just fashion.”
Shax hummed a short, skeptical note, her mind working quickly on several thoughts. “Firstly, it’s Azira-fell. As in,” she smiled nastily, “it’d be a shame if the angel Fell.”
“You know, whatever it is that’s going on between him and that angel,” Furfur thought out loud, “I do think maybe it’s just personal.”
“Certainly.” Shax began to blow on her nails to dry them. “Tartan’s been out for several decades,” she said.
“Maybe it’s having a revival,” Furfur said. The receptionist always had a soft spot for vintage.
“No,” Shax shook her head decidedly. “Our demon friend is always up to the minute.” She turned her talons this way and that, admiring the gleaming black paint. “Cutting edge,” she said.
“He said he’s going to introduce me to a lot of stylish people in tartan,” Furfur relayed.
“Bring me,” Shax insisted. “We can judge together.”
Furfur nodded.
“You know,” Shax persisted. “Whatever it is that’s going on, he doesn’t have to be an enemy. He might be a convenient friend.” Her eyes narrowed. “And from what you’ve inferred, he probably needs those too.”
“I always thought we were friends,” Furfur complained again. “I never would have worn that little red hat. Makes you worry they were all taking the mick.” He’d begun to replay it: comments from some of the guys in his legion about his shiny boots and buttons; the things he’d done for peanuts; all put down to youthful hijinks at the time. Had the joke been on him?
“Kind of thing you’d expect from the Metatron,” he grumbled, “not your fellow demons! Least of all him, with what he’s apparently been up to.”
“He’s a snake,” said Shax.
“He is.”
Shax gave him mercy from his thoughts, distracting him with the question she’d been excited to ask. “So, did you bring back any souvenirs from your trip to Earth?”
This was the bit they most looked forward to, whenever one of them managed to slip upstairs. Human contraband.
“Ooh, did I now?” Furfur reached into his messenger bag and triumphantly pulled out a copy of Vogue. Shax clasped her hands together, delighted. A wicked smile lit up her face.
“And…” Furfur reached into the bag again, and pulled out two 35mm film reels. “New releases.” Handwriting on the cases revealed them to be Jaws and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“Excellent,” said Shax, voice silky with anticipation. They both loved movie nights. Getting trained up as a projectionist, and then making off with the cinema’s equipment, had been the motive behind several of Furfur’s previous Earth visits.
“I’ll let that demon know you’re coming,” Furfur told her to close out that conversation. “Maybe we can make a day of it up there.”
“That would be nasty!” she hissed, voice full of approval at the idea.
***
Back at the bookshop, Crowley and Aziraphale were inspecting the flyer. It was for a punk rock gig in Manchester.
“Oh, I’ve heard about this,” Aziraphale said. “Teenage gangs causing all kinds of mischief. It could be perfect for your alibi.”
“Manchester’s good,” agreed Crowley. “Home territory. Well-known demonic hotspot.” The city was one of his favourite projects. He was currently designing a multistory car park so labyrinthine that visitors would lose years of their lives wandering aimlessly through its twisting maze, occasionally stumbling across hellish dimensions and formless, antediluvian creatures in the lower levels. It charged £10 per hour. He was going to roll them out on every street corner.
The phone rang, startling them both.
“Hello, this is A.Z. Fell and Co,” said Aziraphale, answering the phone. “Whatever you want, we don’t have it.”
“Good evening,” said Furfur, in the businesslike voice of someone who used the telephone at work, “may I speak to the demon Crowley?”
“He isn’t here,” hissed Aziraphale. “Why would he be!”
“Always worth trying,” snarked Furfur, getting the words in before Aziraphale hung up firmly.
Aziraphale glared across the room at Crowley. “They’re calling you here.”
“He’s just being an ass,” Crowley said.
“I don’t like it,” Aziraphale said. Then, more gently: “They might hurt you.”
“S’only Furfur,” Crowley repeated. “He’s too sensible to try anything against policy. And we outwitted him last time.”
“Only because I was there to save you,” Aziraphale insisted. Then excitement crept onto his face. “Maybe I should come with you.”
“No!” Crowley argued. “Absolutely not. No unnecessary risks.”
“What about you taking unnecessary risks when you invited him into your apartment?”
“I told you, I didn’t! He just sort of barged his way in. Affably!” Crowley spat.
Aziraphale sighed. He gave Crowley a Look and spoke clearly, patiently: “Does he think this is a date?”
Crowley made a sequence of flummoxed noises. “Date?” he eventually spluttered.
“Mmm.” Aziraphale waited.
Crowley thought for a moment. “I don’t think so,” he tried. “I think I’ve offended him far too much for that.”
“Mmm.”
“Stop doing that,” Crowley complained. “So what, you’re jealous?” Aziraphale gave his best pout, and Crowley threw a cushion from the sofa at him. “It’s not a date,” he said. ‘It’s an interrogation.”
“Ah, so you admit it!” The angel pointed a triumphant finger at him.
“Admit what?”
“That you’re in a pickle and you might need my help.”
“I think it would be much safer if you–”
Another ringing sound interrupted them. “What on Earth’s that?” the angel asked.
“It’s a prototype,” said Crowley, pulling out a state-of-the-art portaphone from his jacket. These hadn’t even hit the shops yet. He pressed a finger to his lips, glaring at the angel, as he answered. “Hello, this is Anthony J Crowley speaking.”
“Since we’re friends, can I call you J?” replied Furfur.
“Whatever,” Crowley said.
“I tried that Azira fellow,” Furfur told him, “but he said you weren’t there.”
“Obviously,” hissed Crowley. To show his intention to keep silent, Aziraphale had pressed a hand over his mouth and was giving him an arched-eyebrow look from across the room.
“You never told me where we’re meeting.”
“Manchester,” Crowley said. He consulted the flyer. “At the Lesser Free Trade Hall. To see the, uh, Sex Pistols.”
“Can I bring a friend?”
Crowley pointed at the receiver and mouthed to Aziraphale: see. Not a date.
To Furfur, he replied, “Anybody I know.”
“The demon Shax? She’s a coworker of mine.”
“Oh yes, I know her – the bird one, very pointy?”
“Just the one.” There was the hint of a grumble in Furfur’s voice and Crowley supposed he had rubbed salt in the wound by remembering the other demon.
“Well the more the merrier,” said Crowley. “Tell her to dress punk. Ta-ta!”
He ended the call.
“You have a portable telephone,” Aziraphale observed. He shook his head at the modernity of it all. “I don’t think that’ll catch on. It would be terrible! People would be able to talk to you all the time.”
“Yes,” Crowley growled, because he’d just experienced this particular effect of the portaphone. “It is a downside.”
“Who’s Shax? Is she dangerous?”
“She’s ambitious,” Crowley said. He only knew her name because she’d gone through a recent phase of handing out business cards. He could remember her making a beeline for him during the coffee break at some tedious conference Downstairs, right after watching his presentation about the M25. He’d been on his way to the screaming room, but she’d been in his path, and so eager to quiz him about every aspect of his work tempting humans that she’d used up the whole break. She struck him as a voracious learner with her own agenda.
Like Furfur, she was willfully impervious to hints. She was sharp, literal and practical. She’d probably read How to Get Ahead in Business and go around decapitating people. It showed initiative.
“I guess we’ll find out what kind of a threat she is,” Crowley concluded. “Ugh, I’m sorry angel.” His face fell suddenly, all the energy draining out of him. “This all came out of nowhere.”
“You’re hardly to blame.” Aziraphale bustled over to join him on the sofa, gentleness in his voice. “You know, it’s not your fault you’re the only,” – he reached for a word other than ‘nice’ – “decent person down there.”
“I’m not. I’m as demon as the rest of them. But thanks,” Crowley gave a small smile.
“We will show them,” said the angel kindly, placing a warm hand on his knee, “that these are baseless accusations.”
Are they?, Crowley thought about mumbling, but didn’t dare. He just watched the hand on his knee, his face expressionless; and then after it was withdrawn, stared at the spot where it had been.
***
Tartan pyjamas. Crowley’s downfall was being too soft for his own good.
It was nice, having a long, cozy sleep in soft red flannel, waking up warm and refreshed. Then getting up, making his morning coffee, alone in his flat, the independent demon that he was. There was a plausible deniability to it all. They were just pyjamas, he didn’t have to think about the angel who’d given them to him, he didn’t have to feel cared for and tucked in. He certainly wouldn’t think about the fact they’d been a present, because demons didn’t get presents, because demons were demons. They were just a random pair of pyjamas, when you thought about it, which he didn’t because what kind of person would overthink his pyjamas?
Getting found out like this was rather like if your co-worker, the over-friendly one you avoided because of his stupid jokes, somehow got his hands on your teenage diary. And he didn’t actually tell you what he’d read in there, you weren’t sure how far he’d pried, but now every time he grinned at you your brain would supply the subtext. It was mortifying.
One way of dealing with that scenario would be to own it. To loudly confess all your most embarrassing thoughts, accept the cringe as an original sin we are all born with and refuse to let it have power over you.
You could bluff. Whatever was written in there, it didn’t matter that much. You already forgot all the follies of your youth and there was no point in bringing them up now. None of it kept you up at night. You probably wouldn’t even know what he was talking about.
Or you could appease your adversary, laugh at his stupid puns and try to forge an unspoken trust between you. Then you’d go around forever fearing office parties, never knowing when and how he would deploy the ace he had up his sleeve.
Or you could talk about it directly.
Crowley hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
It would at least be more dignified if he actually was concealing a steamy forbidden love affair defying both Heaven and Hell, rather than, essentially, a 6000 year long crush. Something that made him look cool and daring, rather than slow, scared and impossibly soft. But pyjamas it was.
***
In preparation for the concert, Crowley lurked outside SEX to check on the tartan situation. There was a tartan jacket displayed in the window – and he had to admit, it did not look fusty at all – but it was hard to see further inside the shop because of the pink chicken wire installed across the windows and doors to prevent them being smashed by passers by.
Crowley would rather avoid going in there again, so he skulked nearby, reassured when he saw a chaotic gaggle of kids leaving the store, one in a tartan jacket, another in tartan trousers.
They ogled him back as they passed, and his demonic self was impressed by their death stares. “Nice tartan,” he drawled, to encourage them or rile them up. One spat at him, another gave him a grin full of metal. He wondered if punks felt the same way as demons about the word ‘nice’. To his surprise, he was actually starting to look forward to the gig.
***
At home in front of the mirror, he planned his outfit.
Deciding that subtlety was not a virtue, he opted for a red tartan jacket and red tartan trousers, with a red tartan kilt over the top for good measure. He took inspiration from what he’d seen: blocky up-and-down silhouette, plenty of straps and hardware. A few snaps of the fingers, adjusting the details, the fit, and… it did actually look pretty cool.
Hair was next. His favourite style he’d seen on the punk girls: a big tangled gravity-defying cloud that gave the impression of having just fallen out of bed. He smudged on some makeup haphazardly with his thumbs, aiming for a slightly deranged effect.
Reluctantly, he tried on the shoes. Ugh. They were great. They turned his feet nearly vertical, adding an extra six inches of height. He felt – kind of invincible.
An image flashed in front of his eyes of Aziraphale dragging him back to the shop, making him do the dance while the angel and the fashion designer stood there with crossed arms. I was wrong, you were right, tartan is stylish.
***
“You look lovely! Like a biscuit tin!”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Crowley hissed, spinning around at the sound of the angel’s voice. “Are you wearing the…”
“The SEX clothes? Yes, I am.”
Groaning at the phrasing – he must be doing this on purpose – Crowley regarded the angel. Black leather, a studded collar, huge half-moons of eyeshadow. It was like they’d both dressed the wrong way round.
Crowley resigned himself. “Ever lurked before? Stick to the walls, don’t make a scene. I’m supposed to be alone.” He pushed the angel into the venue.
Then he waited on the street corner, leaning casually against the bricks, until Shax and Furfur appeared. Furfur wore a long black leather overcoat, yellow tartan trousers and his hair was a putrid bright yellow. Shax wore red leather and latex and was clutching an assortment of boutique shopping bags with ribbon handles.
“Good to see you Furfur! Shax!” He greeted them both warmly: hugs and air kisses, having decided flattery was the way to win them over. “You smell evil,” he complimented.
“New perfume,” Shax enthused, holding up a tiny black gift bag. “It’s tested on animals!”
“First time in Manchester?”
“Love what you’ve done with all the smog!” said Shax.
“Work in progress, of course,” Crowley said as they headed inside. “Come back and see the Northern Quarter in fifty years’ time. I’ve got a bet with Beelzebub about how many toy poodles you can tempt humans to keep in one glass building.”
As they entered the event space, Shax scanned the venue. “I thought you said it was fashionable,” she said sharply. “There can’t be more than thirty people here.”
“Fifty,” Crowley argued.
“Maybe,” Furfur nodded, fair-minded as ever. “Counting the bar staff, technicians, bouncer–”
“The point is,” Shax cut in, “we expected something impressive.”
“You’re missing the bigger picture,” Crowley drawled. She was right, the crowd was underwhelming. At least the few who’d shown up had followed the dress code. “It’s not just about numbers, it’s about who’s here. Exclusive crowd,” he lied.
“We’ll follow up,” Shax threatened.
Wincing for the havoc he was about to unleash on the UK music scene, Crowley cast a quick demonic miracle: everyone in the room would have an influential music career, regardless of whether they wanted one or could even play an instrument.
“Looks to me like a bunch of kids,” Furfur commented.
“Kids can be very demonic,” Crowley insisted. “Take our master’s son, for example. How old’s he meant to be when it all kicks off?”
“Eleven,” said Furfur promptly.
“But he’s a special case,” Shax argued. She grabbed the arm of a young punk who was walking past carrying some musical gear, spinning him to face them. “Are you an antichrist,” she snarled.
Considering this for a second, the boy jutted his chin into the air and said, “yeah. Yeah I am, ok. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a demon,” said Shax, who had no time for subtext. She gave him a smile full of sharp teeth.
“Well, piss off,” the boy said, shaking his arm free from her claw. “We’re on in a moment.” And he swaggered off towards the stage.
Shax looked impressed.
“How’s the union going,” Crowley asked before she could find anything else to complain about.
“We’ve kind of abandoned the idea,” Furfur said. “After that speech at the open meeting about equal opportunities for Eric.” He smiled a heartwarming smile: “You know, I realised that having lesser demons to terrorise is what makes the job worthwhile.”
The music began.
The main way to describe it was loud. The band were full of energy, jumping and jerking about, pulling faces and antagonising the audience. Someone threw a bottle at them and they whooped exuberantly, upping tempo.
Crowley glanced sideways at his companions. Shax was bobbing her head back and forth in birdlike appreciation. Furfur was watching intently, hands folded behind his back. He looked like he was already composing the write-up for Underground (the countercultural quarterly magazine assembled and printed in one of Hell’s back rooms and distributed furtively among the more discerning demons; Furfur was a frequent contributor on photography, film and music).
“Going well?” A round figure sidled up to him.
“I told you to keep your distance,” Crowley warned quietly. “You’re not sneaky.”
“Just checking in. In case you need any help.”
The angel was about to sidle away when he was stopped by a firm hand on the back of his collar. “That’s the angel,” said Furfur.
“Really?” said Aziraphale, apparently emboldened by his disguise. “Would an angel do this?” He twisted round, arm already in full swing. Furfur dodged and the angel’s fist collided squarely with a random bystander’s face. “Sorry.”
All hell broke out.
It seemed to Crowley that the people in the room had simply been waiting for an opportunity to launch themselves at each other and let out some energy. Aziraphale stepped politely out of the way and vanished into the shadows as a scene of chaotic, indiscriminate violence unfolded in the space where he had been.
Shax snarled appreciatively, diving in, while Furfur watched the scene with an approving look, angel forgotten. Onstage the band, encouraged by the frenzy, took their moment between songs to announce that they were about to play something new. Crashing drums and guitar kicked in. “I am an antichriiiiist, I am an anarchiiiiist!” yelled the frontman, proudly adopting the moniker.
Crowley grinned with relief. The evening had been a success.
***
“What did you think of all that?”
Furfur and Shax were on their way home, ambling through Manchester’s narrow streets.
“Fun!” Shax said. She’d drawn blood in the brawl.
“Plenty of evil, I thought.”
“The angel was there,” said Shax.
“I know,” said Furfur. He frowned thoughtfully. “Still can’t decide what to do about the demon Crowley. Decent chap really.”
“I say let’s keep him sweet.” Shax drank in the night air, full of rowdy noises and occasional police sirens. “Oh, it’s nasty up here!”
“Think we’ll ever make it to Temptations?”
“Never doubt it! Especially with an influential demon on our side.”
“Hobnobbing.”
“Networking.”
With a final, envious look at the human world, they called the lift. “Got everything?” asked Furfur. Shax took quick stock of their many bags, their haul, and nodded. Then the lift doors closed.
***
Crowley and Aziraphale drove home – no. Back to the bookshop. He should stop thinking of it like that.
They had plenty to celebrate.
“You planned that,” Crowley said, rehashing the moment when Aziraphale had attempted to punch Furfur. “You had no intention of lurking.”
“I’ve been waiting to do that for decades,” Aziraphale confessed. “I’m sorry I missed.”
“You’re a liability.”
“Thank you, dear.” Aziraphale placed two mugs of cocoa on the coffee table and brought out a tin of shortbreads. “I thought this would be fitting,” he said. The tartan tin.
Crowley watched him devour several biscuits, and suddenly rethought the angel’s earlier comment about his outfit. The way Crowley was currently dressed, there wasn’t much of him left to go red, but it did at such a wicked thought.
“Did you hear them mention the antichrist?” Aziraphale asked between biscuits. He was back to his usual fretting then.
“They only got the idea because of Shax,” Crowley said. “Nothing to worry about.” A thought struck him. “Hey, how come a pub called World’s End is a portent, but a shop called SEX isn’t?”
Aziraphale looked up at him. “Whatever do you mean?”
His blush deepened. “Are we going to get rid of the outfits? It’s…”
“It’s what?”
Indecent. “Bedtime.”
With a quick miracle, Aziraphale banished the makeup and leather. They were replaced with pyjamas, a quilted robe and slippers.
The demon summoned forth his own pyjamas. “I suppose these are allowed again,” he mumbled, getting comfortable.
The angel, never willing to drop a subject, prompted: “You were saying something about portents.”
“Nothing really. Just a passing thought.”
The angel waited. Ok. Fine.
“You say there are all these signs, more than usual. We don’t know, might be nothing, but if something’s coming, and we don’t know when – and you said it’s up to us to interpret them – and, limited time…” The demon sought for words. The angel put a hand over his, encouraging.
Crowley continued. “And we’re putting all this effort into hiding our, this. I know you say I go fast. I go fast. But I would like– perhaps– to have a bit more to hide.”
Aziraphale took this in. “I see.”
The demon looked at him with yellow eyes. “Is that it?”
Aziraphale smiled. “It was enlightening, meeting some of your demon friends.”
“They’re not my friends,” said Crowley automatically.
“I think they are,” said Aziraphale kindly. “In their demon way.”
“What do you mean, enlightening?” Surely this was a future conversation. Unless the angel was rejecting him gently, offering a way out through the change of topic.
“I don’t generally make a habit of socialising with demons. Only you. But I understand now that demons are, how should I put it,” the angel spoke slowly, choosing his words like a traveller tests new ground. “Impervious to hints.” His eyes sparkled blue. “And I have been hinting.”