Finally both of them had got their way: Paymon had stolen massive amounts of alcohol for their enjoyments, using his demonic powers as he pleased. There was real Champagne from France, 100-year-old Talisker Whiskey from Scotland, Californian Wine, and so on and so forth. Crowley had turned a blind eye to the corrupted souls and fires that happened along the way.

Now, they were lying sprawled on the floor of the Mayfair flat, sensationally drunk. Well...at least Crowley was. Paymon on the other hand wasn't. Of course his companion hadn't noticed. He was, after all, knowledgable on all the arts- including acting. In fact, it was his favourite form of art, as the most corrupt souls were excellent actors. It was basically lying on advanced levels.

"Back to Alpha Centauri." Crowley slurred.

"Wha' bout it?" the other demon replied in an equally hard-to-understand tone.

"Whassit like up there?" The demon lifted a hand, projecting a slightly blurry version of the universe onto the ceiling. He navigated through space by moving his wrist.

Paymon smiled and fixed the image with a blink of his eyes.

"We had a deal, remember?"

"Yeah but...but you go first. I don't wanna talk about the A word..."

Paymon hummed.

"Well...i's pretty up there...but lonely. Wouldn' wanna go there all alone. The loneliness gets to after a while."

"You don't say..." Crowley said, a little bitterly.

"Right, I keep forgetting you've been all alone down here."

"Yeah, sort of..."

Paymon rolled over to look at Crowley.

"Wha's happened to you? You always were such a fierce ol' fiend."

"6000 bloody years, that's wha's happened."

"Don't think that's true. Hones'ly, my bet would be on the chap who popped round the other day. You've not been the same since."

"You're not going to stop until I tell you, are you?"

"Fair's fair."

"That's...that's fair." A drunken sigh. "His name's Zira-Az-Ziraphale. He's an angel. The only one down here. An' when you spend 6000 years with someone, all alone...you kind of fall in love, you know. Problem is, he's an idiot. Guess both of us are."

"Wait..." Paymon slurred. "You've been dating an angel all this time? How is it you're still alive."

Crowley blinked slowly.

"For the same reason you are, I'm guessing."

"Doubt it..." Paymon muttered meaningfully.

"Besides, I thought you didn't care about the rules."

A shrug. "So what happens now?"

"Don't know. I don't want to think about it, to be honest. I'd rather you tell me more about what...what space is like these days...it's always been my favourite."

And so he did; but not because he had ever really been there, but because it was his job to know secret things- and to the inhabitants of the Earth, space was definitely a secret.

•••

Days passed. Aziraphale lost track if time as he followed lead after lead, chasing fading memories like a cat chases the red dot if a laser pointer.

He had to find the nameless angel. He knew he was real! He knew they had met! Even though he had forgotten him for a long time, Aziraphale still felt the connection they had had. He would even go so far as to say that he felt himself falling in love with this shadow- this ghost. He was familiar; felt like home.

Eventually, he had no choice but to give up. That was to say, he didn't give up the search, he just gave up torturing his computer and his brain. And like so often, that was when the answer came to him.

Earlier that week, when he had contemplated his and Crowley's relationship, when the angel's warning still rang in his mind like an explosion, Aziraphale had realised that he had seen him before- way back, when Eden was still an idea on a blueprint, not long before the Revolution. Now, his name was nowhere to be found in the files of heaven. So what if he had fallen, and changed his name?

Aziraphale's heart beat faster with excitement. There was only one person who would know, and whom he could ask. Only one person on earth.

••••

The world seemed to have changed in the past couple days. When Aziraphale stepped out of his bookshop, he felt jealousy where he once felt love, and anger where freedom should have been. People didn't smile when they saw him, they just narrowed their eyes, and somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed and dark smoke climbed up into the sky.