Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hell, despite what common sense would dictate, was incredibly efficient. Or as efficient as an administrative bureaucracy could be, as there are some limitations to the method. Hell would know, it invented bureaucracy, after all¹.

So perhaps it would better to say that Hell was hellishly efficient, which had the advantage of both being true and circumventing any lack of efficiency bureaucracy carried in and of itself, since that lack of efficiency was frustrating to a torturous degree, and therefore hellish as well.

Being a hellishly efficient bureaucracy, Hell never made mistakes. Which meant to say, if an error occurred, it wasn't a mistake, because the process was always right, so there was no error in the first place².

All of that resulted in a situation known in bureaucratic processes as ‘I don't know what this is or where it comes from, but all the stamps are in order so I have to give it my stamp and don’t need to give a shit.’ It was an incredibly efficient method, and it never resulted in any mistakes³.

The problem with all of that was that bureaucracy was prone to causing what others, of neither angelic nor demonic inclinations, would call mistakes. And when that happened, things tended to escalate rather quickly. If it was so with things of lesser importance, one can imagine how bad this could get when dealing with ethereal and occult forces.

For example, someone who was under the protection of a very powerful creature might end up punished due to a clerical error.

That someone might be one of the entities somewhat responsible for preventing the Apocalypse.

That someone might even be Crowley.

And that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was, of course, the punishment itself.

How that happened was perhaps as ineffable as the plan that may or may not have included teasing an Apocalypse only to send everyone home for tea⁴.

However, it was possible to reconstruct at least a few of the steps that lead to Crowley being punished despite being protected by a shift in reality.

It began like this: on Sunday the 21st of October 4004 B.C., at precisely 9:13 A.M.⁵ the Earth was created. It was scheduled to be destroyed some six thousand years later.

But we can probably skip those six thousand intervening years. Suffice to say, the programmed Apocalypse was thwarted by an angel and a demon that fell in love with humanity and with each other, possibly in that order⁶. Although it should be pointed out that both were aware of their own feelings, and neither was aware of the other's feelings⁷.

Well, actually the Apocalypse was thwarted by a little boy named Adam, but said angel and said demon helped by being mostly out of the way, which had to count for something⁸.

And said boy, now, forever and since the beginning of times known as Adam Young, previously known as the Antichrist or rather the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, made a point of fixing the world to its pre start of the end of days status.

One of said fixes was making sure that no one was punished for their parts in the Apocalypse. Especially, that Aziraphale wouldn't be punished by Heaven and Crowley wouldn't be punished by Hell⁹.

Both sides were fine¹⁰ with that.

To understand why, one should note that not doing something is considerably easier than actually doing something. So it was the policy of both Heaven and Hell that, when they could get away with ignoring anything they didn't want to be bothered with, then for all the effects that thing wouldn't exist.

That was how Aziraphale survived for so long to begin with, since he had that tendency not to follow the rules since Eden. Or yet, he always followed a very specific set of rules of his own devise, and subject only to his own interpretation. It was rather convenient.

Crowley also took advantage of that, although he had more of a chance to be randomly tortured if he didn't keep everyone happy. Or at least confused enough not to know they weren't happy.

At any rate, the lack of a competent oversight worked for both them and their respective sides. In as much as they had sides, which meant to say, the sides they nominally had before the Apocalypse and promptly abandoned to fight¹¹ side by side.

So, after the world didn't end, their lives were essentially the same, except with fewer reports¹².

Or at least that was the case until a few months after the Apocalypse.

The day that Crowley died.

In a fashion¹³.

But to get to this point, one must understand the bureaucracy of Hell.

Imagine an office. No, worse than that. Imagine the kind of office that would make Amazon Warehouses¹⁴ seem like a pleasant place to work at. Now imagine a desk, so cluttered that the demon behind hadn't been seen since 3004 B.C.¹⁵, and most of Hell even forgot they existed. Which was a good thing, you can't torture who you don’t know existed.

You won't be asked to imagine the demon, because no one remembered enough about them to make a proper description. They had a name. Probably. It was hard to be sure after so long all alone. But they had a job, that they were sure of. And that job was the most important thing in their life.

They were tasked with stamping every request that came through with a standard clearance stamp code AY6897917623¹⁶, which meant it could be sent to the next department.

On that particular day¹⁷, they stamped the request to have "demon Crawly, serpent, first tempter" permanently destroyed for the offense of "preventing the death of human child Anthony, aged 3, in the 17th of January 254 A.D., causing said child to grow into sainthood¹⁸". The request was somewhat backlogged, but that wasn't their concern, so they just passed it along.

It is important to notice here that whatever Adam Young, formerly the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, did to protect Aziraphale and Crowley, meaning changing reality so that they would be left alone, missed this request. Although it's impossible to know for sure why, one possible reason was that reality itself had forgotten about that piece of paper, and so couldn't be made to disappear it.

Which was how, months later, a lesser demon, who had never before visited Earth, was given orders to break a magic seal and deliver Crowley to his punishment.

---

Crowley was walking that morning, on his way to meet Aziraphale. Now, this was unusual for two reasons, the first of which was that he preferred to drive, the second of which was that he was in a good mood despite walking alone when he could be driving. That had nothing to do with the fact that he was meeting Aziraphale, and everything to do with the fact that there was no reason why he couldn’t be driving¹⁹.

It was a good thing that he was walking, because had he been driving, then things wouldn’t end well for the Bentley, and that would be Crowley’s biggest regret.

As it was, he was only three blocks away from Aziraphale’s bookshop when a rat began rising from the ground.

“Oh shit,” he said, looking around for a place to hide. Finding none, he adjusted his shades and made his worst evil face. He hoped Hell had forgotten all about him, but maybe he was just lucky enough for Hell to have forgotten what he did.

The rat finished climbing from the ground, looked around, and then materialized what could perhaps pass as a human person to someone who was standing far enough way and not wearing their glasses²⁰.

“Hail Satan,” he tried, more like a question than anything else.

“Hail Satan,” she said, then continued, not raising her eyes from her clipboard, “Demon Crawly, serpent, first tempter?”

There wouldn’t be much of a point in lying.

“I guess that’s me. Any good news²¹?” He tried for smooth, but he never got the hang of it.

“Your punishment has been approved. If you have any questions or complaints, shut your mouth or save them for after the punishment has been completed.”

He didn’t have a chance to say anything before she tore a piece of paper from her clipboard, breaking the seal and revealing the sigil that she then threw at Crowley.

Just like that, Anthony J Crowley was gone, for all intents and purposes dead, and his last thought was that he wished he had seen his angel one last time.

---

Now, perhaps you are thinking: what just happened? If you paid attention, the order to punish Crowley was originally that he would be destroyed, permanently. The type of punishment that required Holy Water and that even Hell frowned up, and the punishment that was carried out didn’t involve Holy Water. In fact, it was just some good evil old Hellish curse. However, the key element here is that Hell, as was already stated, is a bureaucracy.

And so, through the months following the stamp that was previously mentioned, the request went through the proper channels of Hell, which included passing through most places at least twice, and through one infamous place six hundred and sixty five times²². During that time, through a series of clerical errors, the original request of destruction turned in: discorporation, turning into maggots, having snake eyes transferred to hands, have snake feet transferred to head, feathers plucked, and finally landing on corruption.

Now, corruption is not exactly what it might sound like, for one very simple reason. Hell stole the concept from Heaven²³. It certainly wasn't the most apt name.

If Crowley had been consulted, he might have suggested they call it ‘factory reset’. Of course, since this was the first time said punishment was being carried out, and since it was being carried out against Crowley, he wasn't consulted. It was probably for the best, as if he had been told of his punishment, he wouldn't think of a clever name for it, and instead would immediately run away.

Also, it should be noted that, as a demon with an imagination, he would be extremely difficult to find, as the last place any demon would look for another demon was shrunk to the size of a lie and hiding on an angel's curls²⁴.

So, any punishment of Crowley would be best dealt with if he didn’t know what to expect. Any clue of a punishment and he would likely find a way to escape it.

---

Where Anthony J Crowley once were, now rested Crawly, looking around like he was seeing the world for the first time²⁵.

“Punishment dealt. Don’t forget to rate my services, I need it for my quarterly millennial evaluation,” she said, and then crawled back to hell.

All of that left Crawly extremely confused. Last thing he remembered, he was told to go to Eden and cause some trouble, but this didn’t seem like Eden at all. Eden was supposed to be a beautiful garden, and he was looking forward to that, as much as a demon could look forward to anything. It was a dirty secret of him that he found plants rather fascinating.

Still, he had been told that there was a desert around the Garden, so maybe that was where he was. He had assumed the desert would be sand, and probably not as populated, but that was above his paygrade²⁶. He hadn’t asked many questions about his assignment, since asking questions was what got him into trouble in the first place.

Not knowing what else to do, Crawly decided to slither forward and hope for the best. Whatever happened, it couldn’t be worse than Hell, by definition.

The first thing he noticed was that people seemed scared of him²⁷, even though he wasn’t particularly scary. At least he wasn’t trying to be, he wasn’t even colorful like most venomous snakes, but entirely black. He also wasn’t a huge snake²⁸, although he was long enough to circle a human a few times.

Still, as much as he wasn’t trying to be scary, it wasn’t necessarily a problem for a demon to be scary, so he did nothing whatsoever to change his appearance. Maybe beng scary could count as causing some trouble, although it seemed far too simplistic for him.

The secret that Crawly already knew, but wouldn’t dare to voice even to himself, was that he wasn’t like other demons, and didn’t enjoy what they did. So maybe it would be ‘normal’ for a demon to enjoy scaring people, but to him it seemed in bad taste. It wasn’t that he felt bad about it, but he didn’t enjoy it either.

He really wasn’t expecting there to be so many people already. From what he was told there were just the two humans that would start their species, but there seemed to be a lot of them now, and out of the Garden even. He would ask, but he preferred to limit his interactions with Hell, now that he was finally given an assignment that took him out of there. And besides, he was a little afraid that he had taken too long to get there, and the humans had simply reproduced too fast²⁹.

The entire situation seemed strange, and not what he was expecting, but that was no good reason to stop and ask for directions. Hell didn’t look kindly to that sort of thing, they expected you to know what to do and do it without question³⁰.

So he kept slithering, no questions asked, hoping that at some point he would arrive where he was supposed to be. Maybe he should give himself a body shaped like the humans? That fashion was starting to trend in Hell, but still wasn’t entirely widespread, and he had never done it before, personally³¹.

The demon who talked to him on Earth just then, he didn’t know her personally, but it was his freshest memory, in a way that his memories from Hell just before didn’t seem to be, had a human shaped body, but she didn’t look human. Even to his eyes she seemed off, so he wasn’t sure he would be able to make a passable body for himself, not without knowing more about humans first.

This could be his objective for a later time, he needed something more immediate now, the kind of thing he could report on the next time he was contacted.

Something drove him to keep moving forward, as if he had a direction, but he blamed that on snake senses. Maybe they could tell where the closest garden was³², he didn’t know much about the biology of snakes, despite in a way being one³³.

He just hoped he could find the right humans to tempt soon.

---

Half an hour before, Aziraphale was in his shop. This was in no way unusual or remarkable. He was waiting for Crowley, who was supposed to meet him for lunch, something that had become increasingly more frequent since the world didn’t end. Aziraphale hoped that by next year he would be able to convince Crowley to have three meals a day with him³⁴.

There was a freedom now, for them to enjoy the company of each other, that perhaps wasn’t there before. Or perhaps it had always been there, but they simply hadn’t tested the boundaries enough to know it had been possible.

Aziraphale had began to suspect long ago that neither Heaven nor Hell cared all that much about what either of them did with their free time, as long as things kept happening and reports kept coming, and they had both pushed their luck on that regard more than once.

Still, there had always been a fear that at some point they would cross some invisible line and it would finally be too much. If that happened, he had a feeling this wouldn’t result in a Fall. Heaven could be as creative with punishment as Hell³⁵, the only difference was that it would do so while still claiming to be righteous and never unnecessarily cruel³⁶.

But after the world didn’t end, he figured there was nothing that the two of them could do that was worse than going against the Great Plan, and that didn’t result in any punishment, so they were probably safe. Especially because, as far as Aziraphale was concerned, things could only go so far.

Oh, he loved Crowley, he didn’t have a problem admitting that to himself. And not in the way that he was supposed to love all of the Creator’s… creations³⁷. For starters because he wasn’t all that certain that he even could love everyone, despite his status as a being of love. There were some real bastards all around³⁸.

But he loved Crowley specifically, and that was saying something, because angels aren’t supposed to be able to love anyone specifically. It went against the ideal of loving everyone equally. Even if Aziraphale suspected that most angels loved everyone in theory, but not so much in practice.

So there was enough love on his part for their relationship to change into something different. Whatever shape that might take.

And he wanted other things from their relationship. Sometimes, when they were so drunk that Aziraphale almost started reconsidering his instance on sleep, he wished he could ask Crowley to curl up next to him, and maybe Aziraphale would want to sleep like this, or maybe he could read a book one handed while petting Crowley’s hair with his other hand.

Of course, Aziraphale wasn’t innocent. One can’t live in Soho for so long without learning quite a bit about all the ways two men-shaped beings could show the more physical aspects of their affection for one another. He even had some curiosities on that regard, but not necessary desires.

He wanted contact with Crowley, to show his love in a physical way, but didn’t particularly want that contact to be sex. At the same time, he wasn’t sure if that was out of the table, but he tried not to think too much about what he would be willing to do if Crowley wanted, when he couldn’t even bring himself to hug Crowley.

At any rate, that wasn’t the point. The point was that Crowley didn’t love him⁴⁰, so any time spent thinking about what a physical display of affection between them would entail was wasted.

Oh, Crowley cared about him, as much as a demon could. And Aziraphale was beginning to suspect that was about just as much as an angel could care. But Aziraphale could sense love, and he had never sensed anything from Crowley, and he had been paying attention for the last two or three thousand years⁴¹.

Not only that, but Crowley couldn’t sense love, he couldn’t even understand Aziraphale’s ability to do so⁴². If Aziraphale lusted after Crowley, maybe it would be different, but all the physical contact that he craved was tied exclusively to love, there was no lust there.

So Aziraphale was sure that Crowley thought of him as a friend, and that was enough, that had to be enough. They still had each other, even if not quite as Aziraphale would wish⁴³. And at the end of the day, perhaps love, especially romantic love, wasn’t necessary for a caring committed relationship⁴⁴.

Aziraphale was thinking about all of that⁴⁵, arranging his books to occupy his mind while he waited for Crowley, when he felt as if he had been stabbed.

A sharp pain spread through his chest, and if he was human, he would assume he was having a heart attack, but that was one of the advantages of his powers, the health of his corporation was always more or less in a good condition⁴⁶. So it wasn’t a heart attack.

The only time he had felt anything similar was during great disasters, times when people died in such huge numbers and so fast that the amount of love in the world dropped drastically and rapidly. Still, it had never been this fast, not even at the time of the Ark, and that was the fastest a large group of people ever died⁴⁷.

The world was less loved, people and things in the world were less loved, but he couldn’t think of anything that would do this, not this fast. Close to half of all the love in the world seemed to be just… gone. That had to mean billions of people⁴⁸, dying at the same time.

It was impossible, nothing could cause that, not even when the world was ending had he felt like that.

Aziraphale froze, panicking while thinking that perhaps this was it, that this was the attack from Heaven and Hell against Earth that Crowley had predicted. He had to find Crowley, they needed to discover what was happening, and find a way to reverse it. If this was the final great battle, then they were on the same side, on the side of humanity, and they had to fight.

Aziraphale ran out the door, not bothering to close it⁴⁹. He didn’t think of calling Crowley, but he didn’t have to, Crowley had to already be on his way there, and he was hoping to find him halfway.

During the entire time, it never occurred to Aziraphale that maybe there was another, simpler explanation for what was happening.

Sure, killing a large number of humans was one way to decrease the love in the world, but not the only way. Another way was simply eliminating one occult being that had six thousand years of love for Earth, for humanity, for Aziraphale, and for so many of the things that he associated with being human. A love this old, and carried by a being that shouldn’t be capable of love, but was, was enough to make a strong impression.

Of course, Aziraphale didn’t know that, because by the time that he started looking for Crowley’s love, he was so used to sensing it all around him that it was impossible to see that it was even there. It was like trying to see if blood could change the color of water by putting a couple droplets in a glass that was already mostly filled with blood.

So while it was true that Crowley couldn’t sense love⁵⁰, he could feel love. And Aziraphale was too busy having his biases about the capacity of demons for feelings seemingly confirmed to stop to think about what he had been sensing for so long.

If Aziraphale had realized this sooner, then perhaps a lot of grief could have been avoided, and he could have saved Crowley sooner⁵¹, but he was who he was, prejudices he had to confront and all.

---

¹Heaven liked to claim it created bureaucracy, which was why it was so efficient. Anyone who ever had contact with the bureaucratic process knew that to be false on both accounts. Including angels.^{[return to text]}

²In that way, as in many other ways, Hell was identical to Heaven.^{[return to text]}

³The losses of limbs, discorporations and destructions that resulted from this process without anyone being able to explain the justification or origins of said process weren't mistakes, as mistakes weren't possible. At least that was the institutional discourse in Heaven. Hell, on the other hand, was exactly the same. Can we establish that? It will save a lot of time in the long run.^{[return to text]}

⁴The tea, in this case, was metaphorical. Neither angels nor demons drank tea, as a rule. One angel and one demon drank tea, on occasion, although both were more amicable to wine.^{[return to text]}

⁵Due to a little problem of alarm clocks not working properly, probably due to lack of invention of time as a concept before that moment, the Earth’s creation started a little later than planned.^{[return to text]}

⁶It was cause for much debate.^{[return to text]}

⁷It’s important to keep note of that, it will come back later on, as something that could have avoided problems. In fact, a lot of problems that came before could also have been avoided by a conversation that lead to the confession of said feelings. At least problems of a personal nature, since most problems regarding the Apocalypse couldn’t have been avoided at all.^{[return to text]}

⁸At least in the sense that, had them been competent at their jobs at all, or even done more to prevent the Apocalypse in general, the Earth would probably have been destroyed.^{[return to text]}

⁹Technically speaking, it was possible that they could have gotten around that by having Heaven punish Crowley and Hell punish Aziraphale, but neither side would have thought of that.^{[return to text]}

¹⁰No, seriously, they were. Less paperwork this way.^{[return to text]}

¹¹Fight, in this context, meant being willing to face Heaven and Hell holding hands and knowing that they would cease to exist, but would do so together. That they didn't actually cease to exist and the fight consisted mostly of giving confusing speeches didn't detract from the feeling behind it.^{[return to text]}

¹²They weren’t officially told to stop with the reports, but sending them less often was a good way of not reminding their respective head offices that they still existed. And by less often they probably intended on never.^{[return to text]}

¹³Don’t worry, he gets better.^{[return to text]}

¹⁴It should be noted that at this point in history, Amazon hadn't yet been founded, and as such, hadn't had the opportunity to turn into a devilishly dystopian monstrosity. However, it is an apt description for three reasons. One, because its evil deeds could reverberate through time. Two, because Capitalism would throw a fit if his biggest accomplishment had been ignored by the sole reason of not yet existing (he was still sore over losing the horseperson gig to Pollution, and was holding out for Famine to retire). Three, for some distant reason that can never be explained, the mention of Amazon somewhat resonates with this story in an adjacent kind of way.^{[return to text]}

¹⁵On that occasion, Hell experienced its first tornado, due to a sudden influx of souls, and the demon could be briefly seen while the wind threatened to toss them away.^{[return to text]}

¹⁶The demon who came up with that code thought she was very clever, and always hoped someone would discover how she came up with it. As other demons, with rare exceptions, weren’t as good about seeing the future, no one had figured it out yet.^{[return to text]}

¹⁷Two days after the set date for Apocalypse. They were really trying to get some work done, now that the world wasn't going to end, at least for the foreseeable future.^{[return to text]}

¹⁸In Crowley's defense, he was just passing through Egypt and happened to see a child lost in the desert. He couldn't imagine the world of trouble that could cause him. And besides, he did try to tempt the bloke later in life, it wasn't his fault if some people preferred being Hermits. Crowley, who had since done many demonic and not so demonic things, forgot all about the incident.^{[return to text]}

¹⁹The last time he went to see Aziraphale, which was two days before, he nearly hit another car, which wouldn’t be so concerning if not for the fact that it could have damaged the Bentley. He wasn’t distracted thinking about Aziraphale, so distracted that he couldn’t focus on driving. He also hadn’t left his car behind because he was afraid that might happen again. And he definitely wasn’t in such a good mood because he was meeting Aziraphale, which would be ridiculous, they did this all the time, and it didn’t mean anything. The reason why all of these were true was because the denial of a demon with imagination enough to explain things away was a powerful thing.^{[return to text]}

²⁰The whiskers weren’t the problem, but the patches of hairy grey skin falling off so nonchalantly would raise a red flag. It was ok, she liked it that way.^{[return to text]}

²¹The news were never good. It was Hell, it had a reputation to keep.^{[return to text]}

²²It was infuriating.^{[return to text]}

²³Heaven's punishment was called purification. They were both equally terrible, but at least purification made some sense as a name, from Heaven’s perspective. Not because it involved anything being purer, but it fit well with Heaven’s image.^{[return to text]}

²⁴His hair, before anyone gets ideas. As much as Aziraphale wouldn't mind helping a friend in need to hide, he would draw the line at his pants. Probably.^{[return to text]}

²⁵Because he was.^{[return to text]}

²⁶In a manner of speaking, since demons don’t get paid. Capitalism is an entirely human invention, and he’s still bitter that his role in destroying the world isn’t well recognized enough.^{[return to text]}

²⁷Crowley, like almost all demons, knew how to make humans not notice anything different about him. Crawly, on the other hand, didn’t even know that was necessary, and so didn’t see a problem in slithering around London as a snake.^{[return to text]}

²⁸Well, he was fairly long, but once one knew ethereal and occult beings, any snake was small by comparison.^{[return to text]}

²⁹How fast could humans reproduce? As a demon, he didn’t have a clue.^{[return to text]}

³⁰In this case, Heaven wasn’t like Hell. It was worse.^{[return to text]}

³¹Back when he was an angel, the human shaped form still wasn’t in fashion, and even if it had been, he refused to remember anything about that time. The memories were still there, he just refused to acknowledge them much in the way one is expected to do with strangers on public transportation, if those strangers happened to be your mostly emotionally, sometimes physically abusive family, and if you were thrown out of the house for not conforming to their strict doctrine and told in no uncertain terms that there would never be a place there for you. Perhaps this metaphor got a bit out of hand.^{[return to text]}

³²It should be easy, as there should be only one in existence. Of course that wasn’t the case.^{[return to text]}

³³He wasn’t a snake as much as Crowley wasn’t human, but he also was a snake as much as Crowley was human. It was complicated.^{[return to text]}

³⁴When he was alone, he didn’t eat as often, but he loved eating with Crowley. Even if Crowley only accepted to actually eat around half the time.^{[return to text]}

³⁵Which is to say, nowhere near humans.^{[return to text]}

³⁶Necessarily cruel was a whole different monster.^{[return to text]}

³⁷He was sure that at some point he spoke a language in which these two didn’t share the same root, but he couldn’t remember which one.^{[return to text]}

³⁸Most humans he could forgive, only a few were truly unforgivable, and he didn’t know all that many demons, but there were some angels that were near impossible to stand. He wouldn’t go as far as saying he hated them, but, if you got him drunk enough, he might confess to not even being willing to piss on them to put out Hellfire³⁹.^{[return to text]}

³⁹Crowley got him to say that. Unfortunately, he was also too drunk to fully appreciate this, and so got distracted by wondering aloud if angel piss was Holy and therefore could put out Hellfire, which lead to a heated debate. Neither of them could remember anything about this the following morning.^{[return to text]}

⁴⁰As far as Aziraphale knew. He didn’t know much.^{[return to text]}

⁴¹It never occurred to him that he wasn’t paying enough attention, nor that he started looking for it too late.^{[return to text]}

⁴²Aziraphale reached far too many bad conclusions.^{[return to text]}

⁴³He didn’t know what exactly he would wish. Preferably a romantic relationship, but not necessarily.^{[return to text]}

⁴⁴Even though the word queerplatonic hadn’t been created yet, people had this type of relationship for a very long time, because reality wasn’t limited to vocabulary. Aziraphale was somewhat aware of that.^{[return to text]}

⁴⁵He shouldn’t, but he was. He had been thinking about Crowley and love more often, since they were free now for the first time in their existence. That was wonderful to think about, how free they were.^{[return to text]}

⁴⁶Not perfect though, but he enjoyed the little ‘defects’.^{[return to text]}

⁴⁷Probably, he wasn’t always good at keeping track.^{[return to text]}

⁴⁸He lost count, but was mostly sure there were a couple billion people by now. It was past five billion total, but Aziraphale didn’t know that.^{[return to text]}

⁴⁹The door was polite enough to close and lock itself, since its owner wouldn’t appreciate being robbed.^{[return to text]}

⁵⁰He could, on the other hand, sense wants and desires, but that was neither here nor there. Although it was useful when he wanted to order some dessert he had no intention of eating, only to tempt Aziraphale with it.^{[return to text]}

⁵¹Not by much tough.^{[return to text]}