The Bentley cut through an evil veil of rain, its tyres hissing over wet asphalt while Crowley drove at a speed best described by insurance companies as “premeditated.”

Somewhere behind him, several traffic cameras were making brave but ultimately futile attempts to establish exactly how fast the car had been travelling.

The Bentley, which had developed opinions about surveillance technology sometime around 2009, had already decided the answer was “not your business.”

London was full of Aziraphale-shaped holes. Spacetime had lately developed the annoying habit of manifesting angelic faces on toasts, ethereal yet slightly chubby figures across tables and celestial voice giving food advice whenever a menu is in sight. (“Mmmm, that seems scrumptious!”)

Crowley had once believed that immortality would at least spare him the indignity of ordinary heartbreak. Instead, it appeared merely to grant heartbreak more time to become inventive. And the Bentley was definitely not helping.

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh, baby, can't do this to me baby
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here

*switch*

How do you think I'm going to get along
Without you, when you're gone
You took me for everything that I had
And kicked me out on my own
Are you happy, are you satisfied
*switch*

But life still goes on
I can't get used to living without, living without
Living without you by my side

“Come on. Aren’t there different songs?” Crowley complained. (“Crowley, is that Bebop?”)

The universe, which lately had become far too interested in causality but still didn’t lose its fondness for narrative mischief, responded by what happened next.

White light flooded Crowley’s vision. There was the bookshop, alone, in a weird unreality of nothing. The universe had gone missing around it.
Shelves stretched upward beneath warm lamplight. Books filled them from floor to ceiling, except the books were wrong. Blank. Empty. Their content was null because there was nothing to be written.

To his relief, there was Aziraphale, standing near the counter besides a figure of himself. He looked tired.

Do they have each other at last, after literally everything else was burnt?

He saw angel began to write on a blank book and realization hit him hard.

We can just make another Book of Life.

… And then God arrived because Aziraphale summoned Her. What?

Questions. God offered one for each of them. The problem of evil was dodged? The last remnant of fairness was surely lost in Her omniscience. 

Accusations. Something he really may say to Satan, if there wasn’t any punishment.

A garden. How familiar. Reminded him the gloomy old days with a single silver lining.

They talked for less than five minutes no no no

A figure definitely not himself wanted to keep Creation ruined keep everyone dead and build a new godless one with fucking free will his nonexistent brain screamed and screamed and

Neither of them would live to see it

The regret on his angel’s lovable face no this figure cannot be his angel his angel cannot die

The regret

The vision shattered.

Crowley slammed back into his body when a phone buzzed in his pocket. An iPhone, whose logo was his design, or at least he had given that inspiration.

One message from some unknown number with the alias Omega: You have seen the ending. Now decide whether it deserves to happen. 

“Oh,” he said aloud, “someone is going to have to answer a lot of questions.”

(While the demon was distracted by his phone, with booming voice of a horn, a bus drifted into his lane with the suicidal confidence unique to London public transport.

(Look out! You may hit something!)

Crowley tried to swerve around it, expecting a smooth brush past. Such things used to happen automatically around celestial beings. Reality had once possessed narrative instincts. It knew, for instance, that when a demon in sunglasses accelerated stylishly through rain-soaked streets, the traffic ought to cooperate. 

Nevermore. chanted Reality, as the Bentley rushed directly into where another car had occupied and didn’t seem to conveniently be aren’t-there-from-the-beginning.

It took him a five-Lazari miracle to prevent a horribly troublesome serial car crash. But to his ignorance, what would also be troublesome is that twenty-seven separate humans began forming mutually incompatible witness statements.

Unfortunately, curiosity is among the best of human natures.)

Crowley realized several things after contemplating on what happened then.

First: it certainly was a vision, not a daydream or any human trick. The divine watermark can't lie. There may be less than a dozen Beings capable to give a vision that detailed to a Being as powerful as Crowley. The sender called themself Omega. Who could that be？

Secondly, he really loved free will. If there were literally only those two options, free will for a universe of human or a deterministic eternity only for the two of them, he would opt for the former. But that’s false dilemma.

“Just… won’t get it that way. Not if literally eeeveryone diesssssss. Angels. Demons. Dolphins high on endorphin. Goblin gorillas gobbling bananas. Gotta get sssssssober.

Leaves shivered.

“I need to talk to angel.” Crowley thought aloud.

It was at that exact moment that the doorbell rang. The fabric of reality gave out its last breath of highly improbable coincidence.

Aziraphale stood on the landing in a set of soft beige suit with tartan bowtie. He was carrying a cream-coloured file under one arm.

“Crowley, I’ve been sent.”

“By whom?”

“Michael. Heaven has noticed that reality is becoming… unusually reasonable and thus sent me down here to investigate. … May I come in?”

“You’re already in my business, so sure.”

There was a brief silence, as the two found their place on two separate customized ergonomic high-backed chairs with red velvet cushion. Crowley turned to face Aziraphale, as the chair had wheels.

“So… We are… us, again?” the angel twisted, unsettled as the two of them had different physique.

“Are you asking for forgiveness, angel.”

A prolonged silence.

“Yes, I am. I know it hurt you, deep down, when I left you for the post in Heaven. I was just trying to do the right thing. And I’m, I'm, I'm really sorry! Should have come to you immediately after that. Not now, after months.

“Heaven knows what you would feel if I can’t come to you for years! But, but I have changed things! Made the Second Coming plan more peaceful, for example. Approved more healing and less smiting. Reduced paperwork.”

“You know what Heaven is like. They don’t give you a chance to change things. It’s just, another plan within a plan, an ineffable card game.” Crowley hissed.

“I doubt that since after my promotion a whole one more percent of human turned out saved instead of damned.” Aziraphale almost pouted. “Michael tripled my pay for that!”

The snake of Eden heard that and lowered his head, thinking.

“Still, I’m sorry and want to apologize properly. If you want to see the, the apology dance, I — I may as well be willing to do it.” Aziraphale’s face twisted as though making a burdensome decision. “I am asking for your forgiveness, Crowley.”

“Oh, come on angel.”

“I need to hear you say it. Please Crowley.” The angel radiated earnestness. And after a brief pause:

“You were right, you were right, I — ”

“Don-don-don-don’t do the dance.”

“Well?”

“Ehh. I forgive you.”

“Sorry, I didn’t —”

“I forgive you.” He stated clearly. That’s just not a big deal, not after he found out what horrible thing he would do if faced with a vanishingly unlikely false dilemma condition.

“I have something to tell you, too. You ever had a vision sent to you?”

Aziraphale blinked. “Well, yes. Once or twice. Mostly as assignments. Some are warnings, or omens. Or temptations, if it was delivered by someone in Hell who was particularly poor at nuance. Why?”

“Because I just had a proper one. Its texture, it was like some kind of prophecy, but I can tell a warning sign from yeah-that’s-gonna-happen-better-mentally-prepare. Definitely warning. And the sender called themself Omega.”

A trace of horror appeared on Aziraphale’s face. “Crowley, you know who else calls themself Omega, besides that One?”

“Lots of. Fanfiction writers for example. But few are able to send me a vision that detailed. Gotta be some Archangel. Or whoever ranks higher than dukes of Hell. Lemme share you.”

There hands touched. Something transmitted from a demon to an angel. And the angel quietly exclaimed: “Holy moly.”