Stuff

And Everything Else

It was dark. Aziraphale had the unpleasant sensation of a million trillion atoms buzzing back into place. He could see nothing past his… nose? He thought there was a nose. Which was odd in itself; that wasn’t supposed to be.

“Crowley?” He ventured.

The sardonic groan that answered him from the void was reassuring.

“I say, Crowley! I thought we were dead!”

Somewhere below his left ear, Crowley wheezed. “Not dead, discorporated. Though I’m starting to wish it, got a whopping great headache.” 

“But - why? How?”

“S’wot bloody happens when reality explodes, I should think.”

“No no, how are we still here? I distinctly remember nobly extinguishing ourselves from existence in a rather stirring act of self-sacrifice.  You were there too, don’t you remember? Demands were made of the divine, the nature of reality was debated, certain feelings were disclosed…”

The angel stopped short, a sudden swoosh through the darkness seeming to indicate that his newly re-formed wings had shot up.

“Crowley!” he gasped. “Do- do you suppose that’s what saved us? Is our bond stronger even than the dissolution of time and space?”

Aziraphale couldn’t see his rangy companion but he could just feel the ironical arch of those brows.

“That’s one theory” came the languid reply. “Or could be… I dunno, could be that both our names are still written in the Book of Life.”

Something about his tone said he was suppressing a self-satisfied grin. Aziraphale swiveled toward him.

“Whatever do you mean? There’s no interference of the divine, remember? The new universe doesn’t have a Book of Life.”

“Right, but this universe does.” The demon flexed a wing experimentally. “This universe sticks around so long as the book does. We wrote a new one, if you’ll recall. And what do you suppose it says?”

Aziraphale strained to remember, and found his lips moving over the words like a half-forgotten rhyme. “There were four of them in that bookshop, which was the whole world…” he whispered.

“Exactly. Four beings… including yourself. Including yours truly. Still listed, still very much existing.” 

Aziraphale tried to concentrate. He could feel the last of his molecules reassembling, and it made his fingers tingly.  “But God said-”

“She said we can’t exist in the new universe. Didn’t say anything about the old one then, did she?”

“But- but Crowley!” cried the angel, wringing his hands, “Then what was the point? You said you wanted a new earth!  A new start, without the meddling of the divine! You said a world without free will isn’t worth living in.”

“I did, and it isn’t. Think, Angel. Four of them in that bookshop. Where are the other two? The prime meddlers, if you will."

Aziraphale paused and blinked about into the void.

“Why yes - the devil and the lord herself, what’s become of them?

“It seems,” Crowley droned, sounding very much pleased with himself, “that when we requested an impromptu celestial reset they both jumped at the chance. Became rather occupied mucking about in an alternate universe where they don’t nominally exist, or some such. Probably a confounding affair with vague doppelgängers and the likes, if I know them.

Aziraphale started. “They left, just like that? To go exist in another universe?”

“To go not exist in another universe. But they’ll never not be entirely. S’long as there’s good, long as there’s evil.  You wrote it yourself, God was here the whole time. Bit of a paradox but it’ll do in a pinch.”

“So” began Aziraphale, slowly, “if they’re off being nonexistent in another universe…”

“Then they’re not interfering in this one, just so happens” finished Crowley. His eyes twinkled, Aziraphale knew they did.

“Crowley!” he cried, somewhere between scandalized and impressed. “You mean to tell me this whole time- that it was all a ruse to get heaven and hell to finally leave the world alone?”

“What,” said the demon, “did you really think I was just going to throw away 8 billion people? Ninety trillion perfectly good star systems?  And after all the trouble we went through trying to save them the first time.” He sniffed. “Ruddy waste if you ask me.”

“Why Crowley, you dear thing!  I…. I don’t know what to say! You’ve saved the day! You’re a miracle!”

“Alright, alright,” he grimaced. “Don’t rub it in.”

“Don’t be modest, dear boy! Why, you’ve saved the entire universe!”

“We did, Angel,” he muttered. “Us.”  

Aziraphale placed a hand on what he thought must be Crowley’s shoulder and squeezed it fondly.

“Though…” said Crowley, thoughtful, his tone sharpening abruptly, “I suppose I don’t have to tell you any of this.”

Aziraphale straightened. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Just that you jumped onboard with my throw-out-the-universe-and-die pitch awfully fast. You really mean to tell me you didn’t want to save the world just as much as I did? Have a little go at subverting divine will?” 

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

Crowley’s voice was closer to his ear now. “Awfully convenient, wasn’t it, your happening to write our names down in the Book of Life like that. Without knowing it would save us.”

The Angel pursed his lips. “I… may have had an inkling.”

Crowley threw up his hands. “Of course you bloody knew! So why the charade? Do you get off on listening to me re-explain it all?”

“Oh, but Crowley!” the angel huffed, flustered. “It’s just, you do so love saving me.”

“I want you to know that I’m rolling my eyes, Angel,” said Crowley, “even if you can’t see it.” But he did not sound displeased.

Aziraphale brightened. “Well, to business then! The universe, you know - it’s rather… missing at the moment. How are we supposed to get it back?”

He felt Crowley shrug. “Rewrite the book, I suppose. I think there’s still a pen in my - yes, seems I’ve got my pockets back.”

“Re-write the entire universe! That will take ages! Eons!”

“You have somewhere else to be?”

The angel looked about into the vacancy. “Nowhere at all, it seems. I’ve nothing but time. Or lack thereof, I’m not sure time exists yet.  Well then… how shall we write the world?  Put back everything just as it was?”

“What, you want to put everything back? Including Gabriel?”

“Now Crowley…”

“Ooh and let’s leave out slugs. Never could stand them, all squiggly-like. Maybe we start with ‘No Gabriel, no slugs.’”

“Gabriel stays. And I don’t know, I rather liked slugs. All the overlooked things. They were… important.”

“Fine” drawled Crowley. “Have it your way. Here, I’ll start it off.”

“But what will you write?”

“I dunno, does it matter? Best of times, worst of times. Dark and stormy night. Call me Crowley. Take your pick.”

“Mind your penmanship!”

“I can’t bloody well see, now can I?"

“Wait! I’ve a good opening." Aziraphale groped about until he located something distinctly pen-like and something distinctly book-like. And he said the words as he wrote “Let… there… be - light.”

There was, and it was good.  But also rather far away. The faint glow seemed a small question on a non-existent horizon.

It was enough for them to make out the gray outline of pages, though. Crowley contemplated their lines of script for a moment, then plucked back the pen back and hurriedly scrawled “And everything else.” He handed it off to the angel for approval, looking doggedly pleased.

Aziraphale pulled at a curl. “Perhaps a bit vague?”

“Sure, but it’ll save us buckets of time. 'Everything else' ‘bout covers it all. Humanity, polar bears, airplanes, Queen albums.” Crowley shuffled. “…Love. All that rot.”

They stood side by side in the yawning gray. Aziraphale suddenly found himself unsure what to say. So they gazed into the elongating dim, and they waited. The light was growing stronger, minuscule but steady. Somewhere far away and faint, Aziraphale thought he could hear the call of birds.

“Everything else. It’s coming closer,” said Crowley.

“I expect it is.”

“Taking it’s time, isn’t it?”

“Patience, now. The universe wasn’t built in a day.”

“Seven, if I recall.”

The light continued to grow, as did a great far-off din of jungle noises and the muddled song of rushing rivers.

Crowley bounced on his heels.

Aziraphale hesitated. “Crowley. Was it… all an act?”

“Hrm.”

“You know. The part where you looked at me like that, was it real? Just before we discorporated. Like you weren’t sure if the universe really would end, or if everything would work out, but that it somehow didn’t matter just then. The way you were looking at me, it was as if I was the whole universe.”

Crowley had assumed the demeanor of a deflated beach ball. “Are you really going to make me say it?” he muttered. “Last time I tried to tell you it didn’t work out so well.”

Aziraphale felt suddenly small. “Tell me what?”

The demon studied his feet. “Oh, that I love the world, but… s’not much good to me if you’re not in it.” He looked up at Aziraphale then, helpless, and it was a question.

It was almost here now, the Everything. The steady swell of light, the din of waters and winds and animals; a cacophony of life, surging towards them.

In the growing bright Aziraphale could finally make out the bedraggled figure next to him clearly. Crowley looked like he had been through every ring of hell and back and tripped down every escalator of heaven to boot. All for his sake.

The angel faltered. “Oh, Crowley. I’m sorry, dear fellow. So sorry for leaving you. I never should have gone. Only, I wanted so badly to put things right for the world but I ended up making a terrible muddle of things instead. You must know I never wanted to go - that it was all for you, because of you. That of all the things I love in the world, I love you the most. Oh, what dreadful ideas I get sometimes, running off and leaving you with no one but house plants and gangsters for company! Why if only I had stopped to think-”

Crowley's gaze softened as he looked at the babbling angel, adoring. The universe was closer now, so close, and the sheen of a thousand expanding nebulas danced in his eyes.  

“I’m sorry, Crowley,” Aziraphale stammered on, “terribly sorry.”

It was with infinite fondness and not even a hint of irony when Crowley touched his face and murmured back “I forgive you.”

The Everything rushed upon them then. And when they kissed it was with the brilliance of every star and a symphony of madly whirling planets and the chaos of a trillion galaxies exploding into being. There was a giddy leap of waves, and the great sigh of leaves in summer and friends calling out to one another and the tiny shuffling of every insect; a great burst of sunflowers and love songs and feel of their hands as they touched and the dizzy corkscrew of time itself. Reality brimmed over with with nightingales and orangoutangs and libraries and mugs of tea and the great contented shiver of all the things that ever were or would be as they clinked back into place.