Two days later there was a knock on the bookshop door, well after hours.

Aziraphale was curled up on the couch with a book, one of his old favorites. He didn’t have the energy to read anything new just now. Crowley was wrapped around him, all long limbs and serpentine curls, despite his seemingly human form. He’d done a lot of napping over the past two days; taking care of Aziraphale during his strange, Falling molt had taken a lot out of him. Aziraphale himself still felt not quite right, and he wasn’t sure how much of that was tiredness and the lingering echoes of vanished pain, and how much was the fact that he was a demon now.

But however changed he might be, he couldn’t imagine being so changed that he wouldn’t want to be with Crowley. They hadn’t been apart for a second during those days, and now that they could touch, they’d spent most of it, waking or sleeping, finding ways to do so. Whether it was a brush of hands over the table at lunch or cuddling up on the couch together as they were now, they’d touched as often as they possibly could, each of them simply soaking up the long-denied contact.

“We’re closed,” called out Aziraphale, though even that wasn’t really necessary, since it was ten at night and the door was locked. He had no idea why anybody would be knocking in the first place.

“So I can’t purchase a fine old volume of, say, Georgian erotica here? How disappointing.”

The voice was deep and rich, the sort of voice that got called things like “mellifluous”, and it wasn’t at all familiar to Aziraphale, but Crowley went rigid and said “Oh fuck,” before extracting himself from Aziraphale and the couch with enough haste to leave the former angel more than a little ruffled.

Crowley bolted into the bookshop proper, and Aziraphale picked himself up and followed, feeling a knot of anxious fear join the hollow feel of his lack of grace in his chest.

When he came in sight of the visitor, he saw a tall, broad-shouldered man of early middle age, dark hair just touched with elegant silver at the temples, in an impeccably tailored modern suit, coat and shirt both jet black, tie deep burgundy red. His eyes for a moment seemed almost ordinary, a slightly reddish brown, but Aziraphale immediately perceived that this was an illusion, and saw that the real eyes were pure crimson from one side to the other, with neither pupil nor sclera. They also glowed faintly, hellish energy leaking out from them as if it were under pressure and needed an outlet.

“What are you doing here?” said Crowley, and Aziraphale could tell he was trying to be brave, but also that he was utterly terrified.

“I’ve come to welcome my new employee, Crowley. I know that when you joined us things were much less formalized, but there’s paperwork these days. The Lords of Hell do love their paperwork.” The man held out a manila folder to Aziraphale, but Crowley stepped between them, hissing.

“Don’t touch him.” Then, with a twist of his lips, Crowley added, “My Lord.”

“Nonsense, Crowley, call me Lucifer.” The man smiled with perfect, white, even teeth, and Aziraphale felt the world spin around him for a dizzying moment. Satan, the Archangel of the Abyss, the Son of the Morning, the King of Hell, the Father of Lies, was standing in his bookshop.

Lucifer waved the envelope again. Satan, the Archangel of the Abyss, the Son of the Morning, the King of Hell, the Father of Lies, was standing in his bookshop, having come to bring Aziraphale paperwork.

Tentatively, Crowley reached out and took the thick envelope. He regarded it as if it might bite him, but when it remained only paper, he finally handed it back to Aziraphale.

“Weclome to Hell!!!” was printed on it in bright red Comic Sans, with three of the letters slightly misaligned from the rest[3], and beneath that, in a clashing font and a bizarre bruise purple ink, “You Don’t Have to Be Damned To work Here But It Hleps!” There was a smiley face sticker with demon horns on it stuck jauntily under that.

---

3. If they’d all been misaligned it would have just looked sloppy, but only three of them being off gave one the maddening urge to make them line up with the rest.

As something of a connoisseur of the printed word, the sight of it made Aziraphale want to find a shredder, but he refrained, only looking curiously at Lucifer.

“Lucifer. Why are you here?” said Crowley stiffly.

“The paperwork, I believe I said?” Lucifer lifted both eyebrows, looking amused.

“But why you?” hissed Crowley, despite the total lack of sibilants in any of the words, still obviously on edge.

“Curiosity, I suppose. I wanted to see two such remarkable beings.” He gave Aziraphale a nod.

“Oh, certainly, just wanted to have a look after we ruined your Armageddon, totally natural, nothing else going on.”

Lucifer chuckled. “No hard feelings, Crowley. It may well be for the best.”

Crowley blinked at him suspiciously. “But…” He twitched when Aziraphale took his hand.

“Crowley, my dear, if, er, our Lord wanted to burn down the bookshop around us and kill us both, I’m certain he’s quite capable of it. But he is acting like a gentleman, and it will accomplish very little to respond churlishly.”

Crowley made a little growling sound at the back of his throat, but said nothing.

Lucifer chuckled again. “Honestly, it’s only curiosity. I may be the Father of Lies, but I don’t lie all the time.” He winked. “Lies are more effective when you nearly always tell the truth. I’m genuinely curious. I wanted to meet Aziraphale in particular.” He inclined his head ever so slightly. “It’s a pleasure. Or have you chosen a new name yet?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Oh, no, I’m still using the old one for now. Am I required to change?”

Lucifer shrugged. “I never did, just added more on top of the old. But most demons do. There’s a spot for it on the forms.”

“My Lord…” Crowley’s voice was strangled, still struggling with disbelief, and he was still shifting to edge between his boss and Aziraphale, any time either of them moved. Aziraphale sighed, hoping that Crowley wasn’t going to make this all go pear-shaped.

“Call me Lucifer,” he repeated, and smiled, seeming entirely amused by all this. “Crowley, my lad, do you know anything about the genre of Devil fooling stories?”

Crowley tilted his head, his predominant expression still confusion. “…yes?”

“Then you know that ordinary humans get one over on me all the time, and I don’t hold grudges.” Lucifer beamed at the two of them, though there was a predatory gleam to the smile. “Admittedly some of the stories I made up myself. Thinking that it’s possible leads to hubris, to humans believing that they will be the special one, they will be the one to make a deal with the Devil and come out on top. I like going up there and doing it personally sometimes. The one-on-one touch is entertaining, and I don’t have your flair for mass marginal damnation.” He gave Crowley a nod and wink. “Mostly I win. But some of the stories are true. Some mortals really have managed to cleverly trick me, and when they do, I always let them get away with it. I admire the mortals smart enough to pull it off, I don’t want to slap them down for entertaining me so. I see no reason why it should be any different for demons.”

“I see,” said Crowley, for want of anything better to say.

“You probably wouldn’t have gotten away with your little switcheroo if I’d been there, but I wasn’t there, and you did get away with it, so congratulations! If Beelzebub or even Gabriel asks, I will be very baffled about how a demon could be holy, or an angel hellish, and shall opine that you’re both far too unpredictable and powerful to trifle with.” He gave Aziraphale another wink. Then he turned back to Crowley, though it wasn’t much of a turn, since Crowley was still standing as if to protect Aziraphale from Lucifer, futile as that might be. Aziraphale couldn’t help but be warmed seeing it, even if it was also alarming. He didn’t really want Crowley to fling himself between an angry King of Hell and himself.

“I always did like you Crowley. You have imagination, creativity, cleverness, all that. It’s very lacking in most demons, much to my dismay. Do you know what it’s like, trying to arrange for mortal temptations using people who’ve never had an original thought in their lives? It’s only the predictability of certain mortals that makes it effective at all. Dear Beez has some low cunning, but even they’re not really all that creative. But you are. You do the most delightful, ridiculous, fascinating, astonishing things sometimes!”

Lucifer’s eyes were suddenly boring into Aziraphale’s, and he added with a low, almost leering tone, “And Crowley, lad, you’ve done something no other demon has ever done. You’ve made an angel both fall for you and Fall for you.” He managed to pronounce the capital letter somehow, Aziraphale could hear it. “I do hope you’re fully enjoying the fruits of that particular endeavor, now that Heaven’s Celestial Energy isn’t keeping you at bay?”

“Oh, ah, well…” Crowley actually flushed.

“It’s been a very trying few weeks…my Lord.” Aziraphale hesitated over the title, but decided better safe than sorry. “But we were certainly enjoying ourselves when you arrived.”

“Delightful, delightful. I’m quite glad. A little earthly pleasure is bad for the soul. Which is just what a demon needs.” He grinned again. “Truly, I should be thanking you two. I’ll admit I was looking forward to Hell On Earth, but Hell itself is so dreadfully boring. Armageddon fizzling may be partially my fault, as well, I’ll freely admit that. My little boy—so clever, you can see me in him there at least, dear thing!—had it right. I wasn’t a father to him. If I’d wanted him to grow up fully in my demonic mold, I really should have seen to his upbringing myself. But no matter, really. Hell On Earth would have been fun, but just plain On Earth is always entertaining, and it’s not as if I can’t try again, a few years down the line.”

“Ah. Yes, of course,” said Crowley limply, looking more than a little confused, still. His seldom-glimpsed boss, Satan himself, had barged in to more or less start monologuing at him, which was confusing Aziraphale too, truth be told. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of Lucifer’s ramble. He didn’t exactly disbelieve any of it, but he didn’t trust it a single inch, either.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what else humanity has in store for the future. And to what else you two come up with.” His eyes fixed on Aziraphale again. “Your welcome to Hell is genuine, my child.” His lips quirked upward; he knew exactly what he was invoking with that turn of phrase. “You may go there without fear. Or at least without fear of official reprisal. On Hell’s books you and Crowley are both in, well, I can’t call it ‘good graces’ because we’re not good and we certainly don’t have grace, but you get the idea, I’m sure. Unofficial vendettas are as sanctioned as always, though, so I’d stay away from Hastur, at least, if you do pop in for a visit. I may pop by here now and again as well.” His eyes swept the cluttered shelves. “I wasn’t lying about my interest in Georgian erotica, either. And I hear the dining around London is excellent! But for now I must be off.”

He nodded at Aziraphale again, and to Crowley, and then was out the door, leaving only the faintest whiff of sulfur behind him.

The pair of demons stood and blinked at the closed door behind for a while.

“Did… Did Satan just give you a Hellish welcome packet and congratulate us on foiling him, or am I hallucinating?” said Crowley.

“I seem to have a Hellish welcome packet here, and the shop smells of brimstone, so… I think so?” Aziraphale looked at the suspiciously thick envelope again, with its appalling label, then set it beside the register to deal with later. Then he wrapped his arms tightly around Crowley, both seeking and giving reassurance. “I suppose I should look into stocking some Georgian erotica. My collection is very lacking in it,” he added, almost absently, then shook his head. “To be honest, that went far better than I could have hoped my welcome to Hell would, my dear. But now I think we both need a good, stiff drink. And a long cuddle. How’s that sound?”

“Yeah. Sounds tickety-boo, angel.” Crowley’s eyes were a little wild behind his shades, and he shook himself suddenly. “Fuck, he’s scary even when he’s dialed it down like that.”

“Indeed. Though I think I still prefer this to being welcomed by Beelzebub. Or Hastur. Can you just imagine?”

“Ha!” Crowley’s bark of laughter was perhaps just a little too bright, but he settled down again on the couch as Aziraphale got out a wine bottle, and the two of them shared a drink, as companionably as they had ever since the invention of alcohol, save that now they sat with their knees touching, brushed fingers often, leaned in close as they never had in all those thousands of years.

It seemed like such a waste, that Aziraphale hadn’t Fallen all that time ago, that they hadn’t had this closeness immediately. Yet he knew he’d needed every one of those six thousand years to get to this point, to the point where he could tell Heaven to go stuff themselves, to the point where he could embrace being a demon with anything other than utter horror.

Hearing his own thoughts, Aziraphale shook his head and took a deeper draught of his wine. “How did it all go so wrong?”

“Angel?”

“The Great Plan. Heaven. I was just thinking that it would have been better if I’d Fallen six thousand years ago. We could have been together. But was Heaven… Was it the way it is now, then? When did it happen? When did it stop being a place awash in God’s love and turn into some kind of cleaner imitation of Hell? When did angels become so bad?”

Crowley sighed. “Dunno if you’ll want to hear it, angel, but I don’t think it ever was the kind of place you thought. It was good for you when you fit in there, good for you when you toed the party line. It never was good for those of us who didn’t. And take it from me, Michael’s always been like that. I didn’t know Gabriel back then, but I bet he was too. Heaven doesn’t change. Neither does Hell. Not unless something really shakes them up. It’s Earth where the changing happens. It’s Earth that changed you and changed me.” Crowley slid his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, then took another long swig from his glass.

“I started talking to you for a bit of a lark, you know. I was bored, there were only two humans yet, and I didn’t want to go back to Hell. I kept popping up just to bother you. Just to poke at your righteousness, because you were a smug, righteous angel, just like the rest of ‘em. You really were, you know. Giving away the sword was an early sign—that surprised me! But for a long time… Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah, the business with Moses and the firstborns, the conquest of Caanan and all that with killing every man, woman, child and animal… Woof. You kept defending it all, saying it was right and good for all these people to suffer and die, because it was God’s will.”

Aziraphale felt a pang. “I’m sorry, Crowley.”

“Nah, don’t be. It’s all you knew. You’ve changed a lot since then, though. And so have I. I dunno that I can even put a pin in when it changed, but I stopped coming around just to puncture your righteousness, you know? I started coming around just to…be around you. Still what I want, angel. I want to be around you.” He smiled and leaned a little more firmly against Aziraphale’s side.

Aziraphale didn’t answer with words, but he slid an arm around Crowley and pulled him in tight. To be around Crowley was all he wanted either. Heaven and Hell and even Earth didn’t really matter. This, the two of them together, was enough.