The iron maiden wasn't so bad, Crowley realized, watching his blood trickle down out the bottom, as seen through a tiny eyeslot. The wheel had been worse.

    "We're not sure if He'll see you," said the seraph, leading Camael and Aziraphale up a flight of steps. They were out in the "open" Heaven now, so everything was white, fluffy and Roman. Aziraphale had lived in Rome when it was the greatest city in the world. It had been boring.
    Ahead of them was a temple, all pillars and arches and a domed roof. By the standards of the realm, it only looked mildly holy.
    "We think He may have gone out for skeeball a while ago," the seraph went on, as they reached the top on to a narrow platform before two golden doors. "He might not be back yet."
    God had a thing for skeeball. No one knew why.
    "Thank you," said Aziraphale.
    The seraph nodded, then he flew up to join the other seraphim circling the building.
    Camael looked at Aziraphale expectantly. The lower Principality took an unnecessary breath and knocked, very meekly, on the door.
    It opened.
    "Ah... Lord?" Aziraphale tried. "I don't wish to disturb You, but--"
    "LOOK OUT!" came a voice from within.
    Aziraphale had enough presence of mind to duck. A small wooden croquet ball came rocketing out of the open doorway. Camael, who had been several feet behind Aziraphale but hadn't thought to react, got hit full in the face. There was a crack as the ball impacted.
    The ball fell to the ground in thirty pieces.
    Camael rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Just my luck, splinters..."
    Pain didn't exist in Heaven. This was fortunate, with God's aim.
    Aziraphale poked his head inside the door. The interior was designed like an English garden, sky and all. Well, for the moment, anyway. The Creator changed it quite frequently.
    Presently the green was set up for a croquet game. God, mallet slung over His shoulder, started walking towards him. He was waving cheerfully.
    "Aziraphale, old boy! Good to see you!"
    The angel entered shyly, with his superior entering after him, picking pieces of wood out of his skin. The door shut behind them and then faded out of existence, becoming part of the garden.
    God slapped Aziraphale on the back. "How have you been, My boy? Keeping up with your bookshop, eh? Jolly good."
    Aziraphale smiled politely, because that was just the sort of thing you did in this kind of situation.
    The Almighty turned to the other angel. "Camael, boy! Sorry about that ball there, just can't seem to get the bloody thing to go right. Daft ol' thing." He hefted the wooden mallet. "Lovely game, though. Nearly as good as skeeball. Do either of you play at all?"
    "I used to," Aziraphale confessed. Not very well, he added mentally.
    "Well, keep it up, dear boy, you'll get better," said the Lord, smiling encouragingly. When you were with God, you just as well didn't have an internal monologue. He looked at each of them. "What can I do for you two? You seem awfully depressed."
    "Ah-- well--" Aziraphale stammered.
    "Up for some tea? Just had some made. Jolly good tea." Without waiting for an answer, the Creator spun around (nearly hitting Aziraphale with His mallet) and headed down a cobblestone path. The Principalities followed automatically.
    They reached a small glass patio table, around which some spare chairs had spontaneously appeared. God didn't serve the tea, it just appeared at each of their places on the table, in delicate, white china cups.
    Sitting down, Camael said, "Er, Lord, we really didn't wish to bother You on such an unimportant matter--"
    "Oh, don't be silly, My boy," said He Who is Called I Am. "You know I'm always willing to listen."
    "Aziraphale had a request," Camael said quickly. It was like verbal Hot Potato.
    Aziraphale stiffened, finding the focus now on him. There was no sense preparing an answer because God heard all the failed ones going on in your mind. So Aziraphale just spouted the first one that came into his head. "I don't want to go to Hell," he said flatly.
    The Creator looked genuinely surprised. "Why, old boy, why would you be going there?"
    "Aziraphale has done... questionable things, my Lord," Camael said stiffly.
    "Ah yes, that whole business," said God, sipping His tea. "Bloody big row over nothing, I thought."
    Camael gaped.
    "You mean..." he said slowly, choking on the words, "...You're not... angry?"
    "Why, no!" The Almighty appeared shocked at the suggestion. He spooned some sugar into His tea. There hadn't been a sugar cup before, but there was one now. "I thought it was rather nice to see them getting along. They always squabbled so..."
    Aziraphale was bright red.
    God saw this and chuckled jovially. "Now, there, old chap, nothing to be ashamed of." He leaned forward, arms crossed on the table, and said in a slightly lower voice. "But, ah... I wouldn't try that again, if I were you. Not like that." The Creator winked.
    The angel nodded dumbly.
    "Now!" said God, once again in His good-naturely, boisterous tone. "Who wants biscuits?"

    Some time later, down in Hell, a small mass of shadow lurked along the cracked stone floor. It weaved between lines of damned souls, around pikes, over devouring pits, until it reached a little torture circle in the corner.
    It got the attention of the black-masked torturer and extended a translucent, clawed hand, which held a small slip of paper. The torturer took it and, standing upright, read it.
    Then he read it again. And sighed. He looked down at the various bloody chunks of body parts scattered around the curved floor.
    "Orright," he said to his assistants. "Let's sew him back up."
    They groaned.

    A pale blue winter sky looked over a waving field of tall, brown grass.
    Part of the sky contorted and twisted, opening up like a tear. Which it was, albeit one in time and space.
    An angel dropped out, falling to the ground with a heavy thud. He sat up wearily, holding his head and groaning.
    Shortly after, it happened again. This time a demon came out, trailing smoke. When he landed face-first, he lay there grumbling blesses and curses for a long time, while the angel watched him distantly.
    They should have been overjoyed to see one another, falling into one another's arms and proclaiming eternal love. But the conventions of literature were struggling in the face of Crowley and Aziraphale's present intense loathing for one another. On account of it being entirely the other one's fault for everything they just had to go through.
    "You bastard," Crowley croaked, his face in the dirt. "That bloody ineffability thing doesn't work."
    "For someone who's always describing about the horrendous tortures of Hell, you look pretty well off," Aziraphale said haughtily.
    The demon turned to glared at him, with his teeth bared. He had a full set again. "That's bloody regenerative powers, that is. Do you think it'd be much fun if they cut you to pieces once and that was it? No. They do it over and over." He pulled himself into a sitting position. "What the hell did you do, sit around and have tea?"
    "Of course not." He could say this with a clear conscience. With how much God had gabbled, Aziraphale hadn't even considered touching the tea.
    "What did you do, then?" Crowley hadn't gotten his sunglasses back. He was very upset by that.
    Aziraphale shifted a little. "Argued, mostly."
    "You talked," the demon sneered. "I got the full Bosch treatment and you got to talk."
    "If it's any consolation," Aziraphale said impatiently, "it was all very uncomfortable."
    "Uncomfortable," Crowley repeated faintly, speaking as one who was cut vertically in half about fifty times before he started losing count. But he gave it up, shaking his head bitterly. What could be said? That was Heaven for you.
    They stood up with help from each other, and brushed the dirt off their clothing. Aziraphale looked distastefully at the smudges on his white pants.
    He sighed pensively. "He says it's great we're getting along."
    "Getting along?"
    "Only a messenger here, dear boy."
    "I should kill you," said Crowley, glowering. "Or get as close to it as I can, anyway. I went though Hell because of you, you know."
    "Lovely. I suppose it had nothing to do with you trying to tempt me, then."
    Crowley seethed. "It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been so damn tempting."
    Aziraphale stared at him in shock. Crowley froze. He hadn't just said that, had he?
    Thinking quickly, the demon added in a mumble, "When... I'm drunk... that is."
    The angel relaxed a little, and then smiled, looking away. He laced his hands together, saying cheerily, "I see. You're not in love with me at all, then." It wasn't a question, although it hinted that it could become one.
    Love? What the hell did that have to do with anything?
    "No!" Crowley belted out sharply. "That's not a very demony thing, is it?"
    Aziraphale looked at him sweetly. "Well then, my dear, why did you hold on to me when we were being called away?"
    "It was only logical," Crowley said. "When you're a manifestation of an abstract concept, physical objects aren't real enough. Hold on to a desk when you're called, your fingers will fall right through it. To something occult, the only tangible thing is another occult--"
    "Or ethereal."
    "--being," the demon finished. He glared at Aziraphale resentfully for the interjection.
    The angel, oblivious, seemed to be considering something. "Not even your Bentley?"
    Crowley hesitated. "Well... maybe the Bentley." Pause. "But it was too far away."
    Aziraphale nodded sympathetically.
    They stood in silence for a while.
    "Er... what else did He say, anyway?" Crowley asked.
    "Not to try it again."
    "Oh."
    "At least, he said not to try it again 'like that.'"
    There was one of those awkward silences where both parties are quiet not for a lack of things to say, but for too many things to say all crowding to be said first.
    Crowley scratched his chin. "Would you like to go to lunch?"
    "I have some cataloging to do back at the shop."
    The demon knew with relative certainty that this wasn't true, but he went along with it anyway. "And how about after?"
    Aziraphale looked at him questioningly. "Don't you have some tempting to do?"
    Crowley grinned. "That's the point."
    There was a slight pause, and then Aziraphale said, "You'll never manage, you know."
    "You'll never get me to repent, either." This was a well-established fact. They'd had six thousand years to draw the conclusion and were quite assured of it now.
    They looked at one another.
    "It could be a new Arrangement," Crowley said brightly.
    "Yes, I thought the old one was beginning to lose its capital," the angel agreed.
    And with that, they shook hands. Then Crowley drew the angel's hand up to his lips and kissed it. Aziraphale looked at him in embarassed astonishment, and after a moment, Crowley smiled again.
    "Got you there for a second, didn't I?"
    "You certainly had me worried," Aziraphale said severely.
    Something occurred to the angel. He looked up. "Only..." he said, worry edging his voice, "where are we?"
    They looked around. It was just open field, with just a hint of a single black road off in the distance, and no road signs to be seen. They walked towards the road anyway.
    "Somewhere out in the country?" Crowley suggested vaguely. His direction sense was telling him London was north-east of their current location, and he repeated this to Aziraphale, who agreed. "It can't be too far. We could fly."
    "Not enough cloud cover, I'm afraid," said Aziraphale, after looking up.
    "Teleport?"
    "I really don't feel like that."
    "What do you suggest we do? Walk?" Crowley demanded.
    "It's a nice day," Aziraphale answered cheerfully.
    "Are you kidding? It's freezing."
    "Nice," the angel repeated, smiling contentedly.
    "Bugger this. I'm teleporting."
    "No you won't." He sounded happy, because he knew he was right. Crowley wasn't going to leave him behind, for fear of upsetting him.
    They reached the road and started walking along it, in a vaguely northward direction. They walked in silence for the most part, interspersed with small chatter on nothing very much. What had either of them to say? Aside from one of them being repeatedly dismembered and the other having a very uncomfortable conversation with a too-jovial deity, they really hadn't done much lately.
    The one highlight was when Crowley looked at his watch.
    "It's the thirty-first," he said.
    "Already? Goodness, I can't believe we were gone that long."
    "I can," the demon said darkly.
    After some time, they heard a car approaching behind them. They stopped and turned to look.
    It was Crowley who noticed it was driving on the wrong side of the road.
    As it neared, it veered over to the left side and came to a halt beside the two. Inside the car, as far as either one of them could see, were five young, particularly exuberant humans of both gender. The driver, who was sitting on the left side of the car, rolled down his window, and loud music spilled out into desolate air. The boy snapped his head around to the girl sitting next to him and said something indistinct, but after he'd said it the girl turned the music down low.
    "Where're you guys headed?"
    He had a Yankee accent so thick you could float rocks in it.
    But angels and demons can adapt quickly. If they knew all languages, then all accents of one language was hardly an issue.
    Crowley, in a perfectly natural American accent, said, "Nowhere in particular."
    "We're heading to New York!" said the girl in the shotgun seat, leaning over to be near the window. "For the New Year's Eve party!"
    "We've got extra room," the driver went on. He looked about twenty. "We can take you as far as the next town, if you like."
    "What's the next town?"
    "New York," said the girl, grinning.
    The angel and demon glanced at each other. Then Crowley shrugged. "Sounds fun."
    "Except," Aziraphale said nervously, holding up a hand, "no Prince."
    "Oh, we hate Prince."
    "Well, then we're in good company," said the angel happily.
    After some minor rearranging of the occupants, wherein one of the girls of the back moved to the front and the other two boys in the back had to seat themselves uncomfortably close together so that Aziraphale and Crowley could sit together, the car was on its way again.
    "New Year's Eve with Americans," Aziraphale muttered under his breath.
    "It could be worse," Crowley murmured back.
    "What're your guys' names, anyway?" asked the driver, over the music. The kids in the car could have sworn they had been listening to U2, but none of them remembered the band's songs including "Bohemian Rhapsody".
    "Anthony Crowley," said the demon levelly. "This here's Ozzy."
    Aziraphale gave him a weird look.
    One of the girls in the front had turned around in her seat and was looking at Crowley. "Gad, I just love your eyes. Where'd you get contacts like that?"
    Crowley just smiled politely, because that was just the sort of thing you did in that kind of situation.
    And the road stretched out ahead of them.
 
 

THE END
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Finished at 8:46 PM, 07 January 2003.

I got my brother Good Omens for Christmas, but I'm the one that ended up reading it.

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