Aziraphale drew a shaky breath. He clasped his hands as if in prayer, took a reverent step back and felt his knees struggle under the weight of religious ecstasy. The wayward Principality, whose unorthodox convictions had left him feeling disconnected from his celestial brethren, found himself in touch with Divinity once more.

Before him on the desk stood a bottle of Dalmore 64 Trinitas. Yes, the very one. A single malt scotch that was closer to the stuff of legend than reality. An ordinary human being could be forgiven for not having heard of it; with only three bottles of this 1868 vintage in circulation, sold at £100,000 apiece, it was as inaccessible to them as the coast of Atlantis on a non-apocalyptic day. But to a pair of six thousand-year-old supernatural entities who had the power to manipulate reality with the click of their fingers… Well, suffice to say one of those three bottles had found its way into their cupboard in a manner that was, in Aziraphale's modest opinion, some of his most inspired work to date; although he did find it hard to look Crowley in the eye as he disclosed his method, and painstakingly avoided checking his post for the next few weeks in fear of a strongly worded note from Gabriel.

For reasons that hovered somewhere between guilt and reverence, Aziraphale had refused to ever open the bottle. Crowley had tried every trick of temptation at his disposal, but Aziraphale was unmovable. "I will bathe in Hell's brimstone rivers before I drink it," he told him, and that was the end of it.

He should have known better, of course. The walls had ears, and God a juvenile sense of humour. Aziraphale had tried to argue on the grounds that the bath he enjoyed Below was a completely sulphur-free experience, but his heart wasn't in it, and when Crowley reminded him that 'brimstone' had been a metaphorical expression ever since Hell cut down on special effects for budgetary reasons, Aziraphale relented happily enough. At any rate, if there was any occasion that deserved such an extravagant celebratory gift, the prevention of Armageddon doubtlessly topped the list.

"Hello, beauty," purred Crowley, tracing his long fingers along the curve. "Look at that colour." The bottle seemed to preen under praise, its contents glowing a lovely shade of dark amber.

Looking over his shoulder, Aziraphale licked his lips. "It's time."

And just then the anticipatory silence in an antique bookshop in Soho was ruptured by a ringing phone.

Drawing from his reserve of divine restraint, Aziraphale picked it up. "I'm afraid we're quite definitely clo—"

As it turned out, there were some who felt that stopping the Apocalypse called for a grander celebration than a quiet nightcap for two.

"A party, eh?" said Crowley.

"Just a small get-together, only the eight of us that had been there. You heard her." Aziraphale knew that Crowley had. Extraordinarily sharp hearing was of great assistance to the business of temptation.

"She's American, and a witch. They know how to celebrate. Are you sure it won't be too 'cinematographic' for your taste? I seem to remember—"

"Yes, yes, I know," Aziraphale rolled his eyes. "I was loath to see the End Times being played for kitsch—"

"Between you and me, I thought the Four Riders looked chic. I had no idea they'd rebranded. A contemporary spin and no more picking up horseshit, what's not to like?"

"—but," Aziraphale trudged on, impervious to diversion, "it's going to be family-friendly. Adam and his friends will be there too."

Crowley didn't reply. He twiddled with the phone cord, his long fingers slowly harassing it out of its coils.

"Besides," Aziraphale continued, ignoring the note of uncertainty that had crept into his voice, "we won! We've averted Armageddon, and we're the only ones who remember. I can forgive a bit of pomp on an occasion like that."

But Crowley showed no sign of interest. Aziraphale scrutinised him, his eyebrows knitting up with worry. "Since when do you turn down a party?"

"I don't like short notices, is all," grumbled Crowley.

Aziraphale looked sheepish. "Yes. Well. It's like birthdays, you know. Can only postpone so much until it gets embarrassing and you're no longer in the mood. Tomorrow's as good as any."

"Right," said Crowley, not looking at him.

They didn't have any plans, of course. They never did. For one thing, being of celestial stock allowed a degree of spontaneity in one's affairs that mortals could only dream of. Wherever in the world they went, there was always a table for two waiting for them. More often than not, however, this penchant for whim was merely cover for discretion. Making plans was a dangerous thing. It left traces. The very essence of intention solidified in the air, endured and carried, rippled through time and space so the world could witness. The angel and the demon had no such luxury. In all the known universe there was no friendship more forbidden than theirs.

Aziraphale understood.

Gently, he pried the cord out of Crowley's hands, forcing him to look up.

"We've got all the time in the world now, Crowley," he said. "Even if one day…" the angel shrugged, as if to intimate that the possibility that had just occurred to him was so terrible it didn't bear saying out loud, or too distant to be worth mentioning — or perhaps both. "But it doesn't matter," he went on. "The cat's out of the bag. There's nothing left to hide. And even if there was, I wouldn't want to." He swallowed. "I want to put this behind us, turn a new page. We both need this. And so do they, I think."

Aziraphale knew he would have his way. He usually did, whenever he truly set his mind to the matter. Crowley was still looking at him, his mouth pursed in consideration, and the angel didn't rush him. He never did. Only looked at him with large, beseeching eyes, until the demon sighed in defeat, collapsing on the sofa with a melodramatic twirl.

"All right, fine, I'm in. So long as there'll be drinks. Although," he added, ruefully, "I doubt I'll ever be able to enjoy another single malt scotch after this one."

"So do I…" sighed Aziraphale. He perched next to Crowley. "Which is precisely why we're not having it now. I spotted a fine collection at Madame Tracy's. No doubt she'll think this a worthy occasion to liberate that Rémy Martin from her cupboard. Let's give her a fair game, shall we?"

Crowley looked at the bottle forlornly.

Aziraphale couldn't help but smile. "Do remember, my dear: fruit ripened with longing tastes all the sweeter."

Crowley turned to him. His eyes lingered, and Aziraphale held his breath, momentarily entranced as he always was by the exquisite weight of being under his rapt attention.

Crowley smiled savagely. "Funny, that. My lot say the same about sin."

One would think that an angel and a demon who occasionally abused their powers to arrest the flow of time itself could manage to arrive at a party pin-sharp.

One would be sorely mistaken.

Crowley insisted it was Aziraphale's fault for getting carried away in his favourite chocolate shop, trying to select a box of truffles that was worth the world (almost) ending — which was a bit of a high order, so eventually he settled for simply "mouth-watering". Aziraphale, in turn, argued passionately that it was the demon who dragged his feet so he'd have an excuse to go twice over the speed limit, but ended up misestimating.

Aziraphale wasn't entirely wrong. Crowley did have every intention to lay the speedometer needle flat on the bottom-right side. However, the vile deeds of his past came back to bite him in the rear. Even when it wasn't ablaze in a ring of fire, the M25 was still a wretched trap it had always been — and Crowley only had himself to blame. He had long accepted it as a necessary sacrifice for the greater evil and tried to ignore the collateral damage that was his own car travel experience; until the final stage of the curse was initiated, swallowing the motorway up in flames, and it was his dear old Bentley that saved him, shielded his body behind its trusty frame and paid the ultimate price. Even though the ineffable reversal of Saturday night brought it back along with everything else, this could not be forgiven. Not ever. Very soon Highways England was going to find themselves struck by a sudden inspiration for new development schemes.

"Good heavens, at last," said Aziraphale as the flow of traffic that had trapped them in a glacial trudge for the past half an hour finally picked up. The moment an opening appeared, the Bentley shot forward like a champagne cork, and Crowley slumped back in his seat, exhaling the breath he had been holding for… well, it was a very long exhale.

"I told you," said Aziraphale, "evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction." He smiled at Crowley in a way that nearly befitted his angelic nature (that of a being infinitely holier than thou and not afraid to show it), but there was warmth in that smile that no angel would ever bestow on his hereditary enemy.

On a different day, Crowley might have admitted he himself was getting tired of this whole evildoing business. After six thousand years on the job, he was forced to come to terms with one disturbing fact: Hell had no imagination whatsoever (a sad thing to say about people who essentially were the inventors of the original counterculture). They wouldn't recognise a creative initiative if it bit them in their mouldy bollocks. They might pat him on the back and send an occasional letter of commendation, but no one Down There truly shared his vision. No one could relate to his vocational philosophy.

Aziraphale had once, after one too many a drink, confessed to the same struggle. He, too, occasionally felt disillusioned by the monotony of his work. But it was the work of doing good, and that itself gave the angel a deep sense of intrinsic reward that sustained him through duller decades. Crowley had no such anchor. All he really wanted was to have some fun. Even if his contract did allow him a substantial degree of creativity, too much of his time was wasted on menial drudgery. The fact that he was immortal was no compensation. What good was eternal life if you were just a dog on a very long leash?

But no more. Now, after six thousand years, Crowley suddenly found himself unemployed — an unprecedented prospect for a demon. A prospect that opened up infinite possibilities. No more endless grind of petty sins just to fill the log. No more ball and chain of Hell's criminally incompetent bureaucracy. It made him dizzy just to think of it.

He knew this wasn't the end, not really. There was a reckoning yet to come.

But not today.

Crowley tightened his grip on the Bentley's wheel, squinted in concentration and wrapped his mind around the tires. He gave a pull, a sort of mental heave, and suddenly the sound of asphalt friction was gone. They were about two centimetres up in the air.

The Bentley turned, so smoothly it could only have been possible in flight. The speed of it should have flung them out of their seats, but just for a few moments Crowley took centrifugal force under his command as well, and they sat straight while the world around them bent outwards. He laughed like a demon, without running out of breath.

Still grinning, he looked at Aziraphale, ready to enjoy the sight of him clutching at the roof in terror — a retribution for his quip earlier. To his surprise, the angel grinned back, with not a hint of fear on his face.

Would you look at that, thought Crowley. Only eighty-five years, that's how long it took his best friend to start trusting him behind the wheel. But he was used to letting the angel take his time. This had always been their pattern, from the very beginning. And, he had to admit, the slow path had its own pleasures…

For the most part, Anathema was not the type of person who liked to look back. You could say it came with being a practising descendant of the only prophet in history who never missed her mark. Like all of Agnes's descendants, Anathema had lived her life by the book. While other people revisited their diaries to savour fond memories of past days, she poured over her book of the future and got lost in what was yet to come; whether or not she could fully understand it. Lived that way, life came with few surprises, and when you saw your present slide over the stencil of your foretold future in a perfect fit, it was easy to believe everything happened just the way it should have, so there was no point in ruminating.

But now "The Nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" was no more. The original was fulfilled to completion, and the sequel went up into smoke; and with its demise came the terrifying freedom to just… let things happen, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, the weight of every decision seemed to go up a stone, and Anathema now felt a need to weigh them in her hand over and over, explore the surface with her fingertips, as if expecting to feel a hidden message she could decode and predict the outcome of.

She had her limits, though, as any self-respecting witch should. There really was no need to get so existentially strung up over a party. Agnes Nutter was, word had it, quite fond of those herself. Even managed to have a bit of fun with her last one… At any rate, Anathema could not recall a single entry in the book where a party served as a precursor to tragedy, and that was good enough for her.

After establishing that, she could now occupy her mind with smaller concerns of domestic variety. How long should she let the Them stay before their parents got worried? Was garlic bread a mistake, a terrible faux pas to one of her guests? (No, she reminded herself, that was vampires, not demons). What exactly were a witch, a technologically-challenged wages clerk, a retired fortune-teller, a sergeant of an imaginary army, an angel and a demon, and an Antichrist boy with his three friends going to talk about?

As it turned out, she needn't have worried at all. People weren't wrong when they said true friends were found on battlefield.

The start was a bit bumpy, as expected. As soon as everyone was present and seated, the image that emerged was that of an exhibition room an incompetent curator had stocked indiscriminately with no thought for how the pieces would look next to each other. The guests seemed to be conscious of the mismatch, too. Their backs were stiff against their seats, and every pause in conversation stretched and sagged under its own weight.

But nothing worked so well to bind an unlikely company together as food and drink. The angel and the demon turned out to be culinary connoisseurs with the world's longest record, yet still able to appreciate a simple, classic roast. Their less worldly-wise companions tucked into their plates with no less gusto, and by the time the main course was finished, laughter flowed easy in the room. It was not yet a friendship, but a promise of one, and Anathema felt like she could trust each and every one of them to keep it.

When the sleepy comfort of full bellies lulled the talk, it was time for drinks. Six champagne flutes and four glasses of lemonade clinked together, and the first toast came: to future, precious future that was so very nearly stolen from them. No longer something vague and abstract in the distance, it was right there before them, that great, big, shining gift of potential just waiting to be unwrapped. And that's what they all did, together.

Madame Tracy was going to quit both of her trades and put her freelance entrepreneurial skills to a more conventional use; in what field exactly, she had yet to decide, but she confessed she'd always felt a draw towards interior design.

Mister Shadwell looked significantly more dapper than when Anathema last saw him; the way Madame Tracy kept reaching out to lovingly fix his collar or brush off stray crumbs from his chest left no question as to whose influence it was. He looked a bit shy, wearing this new persona like a pair of leather shoes that hadn't been broken in yet, but his smile as he nodded along to Madame Tracy chattering about their dream bungalow was words enough. He refrained from accusing his fellow guests of witchery or taking undue interest in how well-endowed they were in the nipple department, politely averting his eyes whenever Crowley or Aziraphale performed a little logistical miracle to keep things running smoothly. He did, however, mumble his concern as to what was going to befall his vast collection of the Witchfinder Army memorabilia if he were to move.

"Well, there's always museums," said Crowley. His expression suggested it wasn't the likes of the British Museum he had in mind.

Only the Them seemed carefree and oblivious to the magnitude of recent developments.

"I don't see what's the end of the world got to do with anything," said Wensleydale. He slurped the last of his chocolate milkshake, then pulled out the straw to lick it clean. "There was no end of the world, so it's just like the day before yesterday. The future existed back then, because we didn't know nothing about any of that. And then it didn't, but now it does again, so it's okay."

With a twitch of jealousy, Anathema realised that, to their young minds, averting Armageddon was just another fun day outside that Adam thought up for them; nothing to have an existential crisis over.

"Children!" Aziraphale shook his head, admiringly. "They'll survive anything. Ah, the beauty and resilience of youth… Remember us at that age, Crowley?"

"We were born middle-aged," the demon reminded him.

"Yes, my dear, I remember. I meant in a manner of speaking."

And with that, the spotlight passed over to them, and Aziraphale picked up right where he left off at the airbase. The last of the sausage rolls and garlic bread had long since vanished off the table, to be replaced by tea and pavlova, and the angel was still orating, delighted to finally have an audience willing to be treated to the full account from the very top. Or, at least, the adults were; by the time he got to the 1600s, the Them had moved on to examining the rest of Anathema's occult collection they hadn't seen yet. Crowley took their absence as liberty to pipe up with some of the less savoury details every now and again. He didn't touch his own dessert, Anathema noticed, but made sure his friend's plate never emptied, thwarting Pepper and Brian's attempts to monopolise the pavlova with a glimpse of his demonic snake form.

"… so there's this little cottage in the South Downs we've got our eye on." Having finished the last of Crowley's pavlova, Aziraphale leaned back on the sofa, clasping his hands together. "We booked a viewing for next week. The owner said it needed repainting, and the garden was in a right state, but that's just as well, keep us busy for a while."

"I've seen what you call 'gardening', angel. I'm not letting you anywhere near those hydrangeas," said Crowley.

Aziraphale turned to the hostess. "What about you two, then?"

Anathema froze. After two glasses of champagne and a few sips of Madame Tracy's cognac (the bottles stubbornly refused to empty; she strongly suspected divine or diabolical intervention was at play), her head was swimming pleasantly, but Aziraphale's words pierced through that warm daze like a beacon in the fog.

She turned to Newt beside her, silently pleading for rescue, but he, too, was looking at her expectantly.

She swallowed. "Oh, I… I didn't have time to think about it yet…"

It was only half a lie. Three days ago when she cupped her hands around the mound of ashes that had been "Further Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter" and felt their dying heat, she had known it was coming. Normal people had goals, she knew. They made plans. They had an imaginary idea of their future, but being potential rather than predetermined was exactly what gave it meaning. They had to work for the future they wanted. And so Anathema would have too.

She just didn't know how.

The next day, she fell off her bicycle and broke her glasses. She didn't have a spare pair because she'd always known when it was going to happen (once in 1992, then again in 1998 and 2005 — if anybody asked). The frame was intact and the lenses didn't fall out, only fractured into an intricate gossamer pattern; and became fragile like one too, so she had to retire the pair to the drawer and get used to squinting at the world like a drowsy bat.

Despite the eerie symbolism, Anathema felt relieved. It was hard to contemplate major looming turns of life when reading the labels on her spice bottles was headache enough.

But Crowley fixed her glasses (Aziraphale offered first, but she gently turned him down, not having forgotten the previous experience), and her excuses were running out.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it, love," said Madam Tracy. A strong hiccup made the brandy sway dangerously close to the rim of her glass.

"Well, you'll have to, eventually," said Newt.

"I know." Anathema sighed, defeated. She'll have to sort out her rent soon, for one thing. Did she want to stay? (Yes, she did - she realised she'd known this ever since coming here.) She'd have to get a job, then. Surely, if she was no longer a 'descendant', she shouldn't live off the family fortune for the rest of her life. But what job, exactly? Anathema was quite out of touch with the market these days, but she wasn't feeling very confident about the density of Wiccan shops per square mile in these parts. Why couldn't Agnes Nutter have been born in Glastonbury instead?

"I'm completely lost," she whispered.

Newt took her hand. "Don't think about it right now," he said gently. "We're celebrating. And I've got a little something, just for the occasion. It's just… well, it's silly, I just thought it might cheer you up."

He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a small bag.

"Fortune cookies!" He beamed.

Nine faces stared at him with polite confusion.

Newt shrugged. "Look," he said, sitting back down next to Anathema. "You want to know what the future's got in store for you, so here you go." He shook the bag. "It's not quite Nice And Accurate Prophecies, but it could still scratch that itch, you know? You just have to believe."

Anathema couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh or storm out of the room. To be honest, that was the reaction Newt's thought process triggered in her most of the time. But it always came with a spoonful of endearment, just enough to make her stay and take a second look at him. And she always found what she was looking for.

"You're completely bonkers," she told him, but her hand was already reaching out. She glared at the bag for a few seconds, loath to let it be a surrogate for her precious guide, even as a joke. But her practical side won through. She shrugged and opened the bag. "I suppose we could give it a try. There's enough for all of us."

"Newt's right," said Adam. He and the other Them had come back to the table, having sniffed out that something fun was about to take place.

He took the bag from Anathema and fixed his eyes on it. "You just have to believe," he echoed.

Everyone in the room blanched a little. Every pair of eyes met another and looked away immediately, unsaid thoughts pooling between them into an invisible, elephant-shaped cloud.

No one fully understood what happened the day the world didn't end. It was all just as well, at first — they were alive, and very much determined to appreciate that state of affairs to the fullest. Acknowledging the sheer unlikelihood of it felt a bit ungrateful, really. But when they finally bit the bullet and tried to piece the story out, they were left grasping at blank pages.

It would be wrong to say they knew nothing, though. It was a bit like how seeing a hole in the shape of something could still clue one in on what had made the hole, despite having no idea what had been where the hole now was. That was what the post-Armageddon world looked like: it had a trace of an Adam-shaped hole in it. A hole he created and filled up with nothing more than his own mind.

Anathema knew he still retained some of his powers. They seemed to be fading, but not fast enough. Two days ago he came to her and asked for some books on the power of wishful thinking. After some gentle prodding, he admitted that he was still unintentionally manifesting things into existence. Anathema had never seen a boy his age look so scared of himself.

But Adam didn't look scared now. On his face was the same cheeky, big-hearted grin he had greeted her with the first time they met. This was the face of a boy who always got what he wanted.

Mister Shadwell was the first to recover.

"Come now, ya pansies," he said, raising his chin loftily. "It's nae end of the world."

Adam held out the bag, and Mister Shadwell took the first cookie. It came in the traditional red-and-gold-wrapper.

But the wrapper wouldn't come off. Mister Shadwell eyed the boy with a look of suspicion whetted by decades of practice.

Adam only shrugged. "I think it will open for each of you at the right time. You'll know when the time comes."

"That's right, love. No rushing the future." Madame Tracy gave him a conspiratorial smile as the rest of the group followed the sergeant's lead and emptied the bag.

"I do hope those things will be less cryptic than Agnes," said Newt nervously.

At the very least, thought Anathema, they're unlikely to have her ancestors' running commentary on the details of her private life.

"Aziraphale? You all right?" asked Crowley.

Everyone turned to the angel.

"What? Oh, yes. Perfectly fine, yes. Tickety-boo."

But Anathema could swear that sheen of sweat on his forehead had not been there moments ago.

Aziraphale saw her look and waved it off. "It's just a bit hot in here."

Madame Tracy picked up a bottle. "More Rémy on the rocks, my dear?"

Aziraphale accepted a glass just to have something to hold on to. His collar felt uncomfortably tight.

Only seconds ago, he felt a growing heat in his breast pocket where the cookie was. Somehow he knew, instinctively, that the cookie would not be ignored. The heat bloomed into a fluttering throb that became a second heartbeat in his chest, accelerating until it became the buzz of a hummingbird's wings. Thankfully, the sound was muffled by his waistcoat, and no one noticed. He miracled everyone to look away from him as he fished the cookie out.

Only then did he notice his celestial name sigil on the wrapper. It glowed faintly with the colour of stardust.

Aziraphale drew a shuddering breath. Still holding everyone's attention suspended elsewhere, he tore the wrapper off, broke the cookie in half and unfurled a little strip of paper hidden inside.

That seemed to seal the magic it was infused with. Right after the meaning of the words sank to his mind, the Aziraphale felt an ineffable pull to fulfil them. And the task laid before him was positively the most terrifying thing he had been subjected to in the six thousand years of his life.

After drinks, Anathema invited everyone outside to watch the sunset. The sky was a gorgeous watercolour dance of amber and mauve, more pristine than anything Londoners could hope to see when they looked up above their homes on a balmy summer evening.

And Crowley was getting bored.

It was simply one of those unavoidable interludes at parties when you found yourself drifting in the gaps between bubbles of conversation, quietly listening in and not finding anything worth joining. Anathema was chatting with Madame Tracy on the merits of Tarot versus runes for divination; Newt had let himself be talked into a round of blind tag with the Them (a decision he was doubtlessly regretting, if the amount of pavlova he'd helped himself to was any indication); Aziraphale was preoccupied — of all things! — with listening to Mister Shadwell drone on about that witch-hunting army of his. Crowley steered further away from those two than the others. For one thing, he'd realised not long ago that the "network of highly trained human operatives" both he and Aziraphale had boasted of was, in fact, the same group of people... that didn't exist. The angel didn't seem to have worked it out yet, and Crowley had rather it stayed that way — for the remainder of the evening, at least.

Aside from that, there was the inescapable fact of Shadwell having been the one who had discorporated Aziraphale and burned his bookshop to the ground. "Let bygones be bygones" was a saying invented by Heaven. Even after his best friend and his bookshop were safe again, Crowley did what any self-respecting demon would do and began nursing a low-grade grudge he intended to keep up for the rest of his life.

So he slunk away, his head pleasantly buzzing with the brandy, but not enough to keep the restlessness at bay. Before long he found himself in the kitchen, inspecting Anathema's houseplant collection. It was rather less grand than his own, but it felt good to rest his eyes on some domestic greenery. Crowley had always preferred houseplants; the outdoor plants were too independent for his liking. But this lot seemed to have a haughty air about them. He itched to give them a good verbal walloping, but he knew it wasn't his place. If Anathema Device wanted to mollycoddle her houseplants, she had every right to do so.

Crowley gave the uppity plants one last disdainful look and turned away.

He saw Aziraphale standing in the doorway.

"There you are," said the angel. "Was wondering where you'd gone off to. Not planning a demonic wile, are you?"

Crowley spluttered. "Of course not! It's my day off. When have I ever worked on a day off? It's what you lot do, you joyless suckers." He paused. "Although, I s'pose… All of my days will be 'days off' from now on," he said pensively. "Which reminds me, we should really get round to looking into our status someday soon. If we're lucky, they won't even bother getting us off the payroll, but if either side is pissed off enough, we're gonna find ourselves in a legal—"

The end of that sentence died in his throat when Aziraphale took his coat off. Avoiding his eyes, the angel folded the coat in half and held it above the nearest chair to drape it on — only to change his mind and start smoothing it over instead, pressing down on the lapels and checking the seams.

Crowley squinted at him with growing concern. "Aziraphale? You all right?"

Slowly, Aziraphale walked towards him.

Aziraphale tried to swallow, but his throat felt parched as the soil behind the walls of the Garden of Eden. How many times had he stood on those walls, their guardian, looking down on the barren waste beyond? He was there on that fateful day, too. Those poor wretches only ate an apple. He would have been cast out a thousand times over for what he was about to do.

"Angel…" The lines above Crowley's mouth shifted from concern to amusement. "You look like you're about to commit a wile of your own!"

Was there any use in trying to deny it?

In lieu of an answer, Aziraphale stepped even closer.

When he breached Crowley's personal space, he was rewarded with a whiff of his cologne. He knew that if they stood like that for much longer, that fragrance would seep into his clothes, and his own scent into Crowley's; an ephemeral bond of synthetic chemistry.

His electrified senses caught the faintest shift in the air when Crowley's body tensed. But the demon didn't bolt. Not even when he felt Aziraphale's hands on his shoulders, pressing gently down, trying to steady himself as much as him.

"There's something I need to do," Aziraphale breathed out.

An eyebrow popped up above the sunglasses.

"I need you to trust me," he begged.

Crowley sniffed derisively. "When haven't I?"

"Well—"

"That was rhetorical."

"I'm serious!" Aziraphale dug his fingers in. Any second now, and the last of his courage would evaporate, and the demon had no idea what was at stake…

"Yeah, I can see that."

Crowley looked him up and down. And then down and up again. Aziraphale squirmed under his scrutiny. A bead of sweat dropped on his collar. Crowley's nostrils flared.

"Stay very still," said Aziraphale.

Aziraphale's hands were the most graceful thing about him. The rest was a little plump, a bit bumbling in that endearing way, but those hands could unroll a thousand-year-old manuscript without it crumbling to dust. Those hands could hold an oyster and slip it into his mouth without spilling a single drop of sauce.

Those hands were resting on his shoulders, quiveringly, like two doves unsure how to take flight. They felt very warm.

It felt like aeons until they finally stirred. One of them slid lower, coming to rest on his left lapel — even now, the angel couldn't resist caringly smoothing it down. Crowley swallowed.

He closed his eyes and felt Aziraphale's lips on his.

The sleepy hum of an old fridge, the only sound in the kitchen, was drowned out by the thundering of blood in his ears.

Angels and demons did not need blood or heartbeat, strictly speaking. But Crowley had always thought it was a nice touch to this whole "feeling alive" thing. And at this moment he wouldn't have traded it for the finest single malt scotch in the world.

It was over before he could blink twice.

Crowley stared at his friend, speechless.

One would expect a demon to be a connoisseur of kissing. And they wouldn't be wrong. Kissing was, after all, a timeless trick in the art of temptation. A shortcut, even, if you will.

But nothing in his six thousand-year-old career could have prepared him for kissing an angel.

It might be an occupational hazard, the resolutely unsentimental part of his brain told him. Polar opposites and all that… They could have imploded. Or exploded. Possibly both. They could have ended the universe.

Well. There was only one way to find out.

Crowley felt Aziraphale's hands slipping from his waist and caught them in his own.

"Angel," he said slowly, "who taught you to kiss?"

Aziraphale blushed. "N-no one."

"Thought so."

Aziraphale gasped with indignation. "If you didn't like it—"

"That's not what I said."

If this was one of God's little games, She might as well get Her money's worth.

Crowley ripped off his sunglasses.

If anyone had happened to walk in on the pair of them and get an eyeful, they wouldn't have seen anything too out of the ordinary. Perhaps a limb stretching itself a tad longer than it should have been able to, or a hip bending in a somewhat unlikely angle. Or even — if they were lucky — a shadow of two pairs of wings, hidden from the mortal plane but lustfully entangled in the metaphysical one.

Still, one couldn't be too careful.

"For the love of Satan, keep it down," hissed Crowley, grabbing Aziraphale by the hair at the nape of his neck like an unruly kitten. "I can't keep miracling everyone away. Can't contens… concen…"

Aziraphale crushed his mouth to his and silenced them both.

He grabbed Crowley's hand, still suspended in a finger click, and brought it to his back to rejoin the other one. The demon complied only too happily. He let his middle and forefinger snake down his spine. Aziraphale shivered and pressed his face into Crowley's neck, returning the pleasure with a trail of kisses.

He felt Crowley's throat grow taut, and hurried to move his mouth just there, above his Adam's apple, to feel the vibrations of his moan against his lips. His hand travelled down to Crowley's chest, coming to rest at that tantalising spot of hair. He scratched it, and Crowley writhed against him like a cat. His fingers dug deeper into Aziraphale's hips, as if trying to press their way beyond the lie of the skin into the truth of the bone, and that ache was life itself. Crowley's tongue, that nimble apparatus of temptation, slithered behind Aziraphale's earlobe, and it came to him that Eve never stood a chance.

Somewhere amidst this glorious, overpowering chaos of tactile discovery Aziraphale felt a thigh press between his own. The final string of celestial inhibitions snapped off and he leaned forward, pressing himself into Crowley's body until his heartbeat became his own. His hand on the small of Crowley's back slid lower until it felt the border between silk and leather. He squeezed the firm muscle underneath, and Crowley arched his back to give him leverage. He yanked Aziraphale's collar out of the way and nibbled at the soft skin above his collarbone, soothing every bite with a kiss.

Truth be told, Aziraphale had more of a Principality in him than he liked to let on. He still remembered what it felt like to hold that flaming sword. Divine fire burned no gentler than its infernal sister, and the bearer too was made to feel its wrath so that he never raised his sword lightly. "Only through the tears of suffering can you see God smile", it was said. But how could one dare to raise their eyes to the Almighty when their hand closed around that throbbing heat, filling their cold, clean insides with the kind of rapture that had no word for it in the language of celestial beings?

A yearning he hadn't felt for six thousand years seized him now; he longed to grasp—

"Okay, angel, enough. That's enough," said Crowley. His voice made it plain it wasn't anywhere near, but his words jolted Aziraphale back to reality all the same. Slowly, he extricated himself, wincing at the loss of Crowley's body heat that had briefly become his own.

Crowley leaned against the wall with his eyes closed and took a deep sniff to steady himself. He buttoned up his collar with one hand, picked up his sunglasses and put them on with ritualistic deliberation.

"Let's get back before anyone misses us," he said.

"Good Lord," said Aziraphale shakily, seeing the state of himself. He began buttoning himself up. Crowley stared shamelessly, unblinking like a snake. He could feel his irises contracting back to their normal size.

He saw a torn-out button pop back into place and smirked. To his delight, Aziraphale decided to look up just then. The angel tutted indignantly and turned away, but not before Crowley saw his face flushing red.

Crowley shrugged. He smoothed over his black silk shirt, tucked it back in and found his jacket.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Have you seen my bow-tie?"

Crowley turned to him, and had the good grace to look sheepish. No, he hadn't seen his bow-tie. He wanted the blasted thing out of the way so badly he'd accidentally miracled it gone.

"Here, let me just—" Crowley walked over to him. A click of his fingers produced a brand new bow-tie in his other hand. He tied it up around Aziraphale's collar himself. "There you go. Brand new."

Aziraphale eyed it sceptically. "It's red. Not tartan."

"Oh." Crowley blew out his lips. He wasn't sure he was professionally (or emotionally) capable of conjuring up tartan. But he knew how much it meant to the angel. Perhaps if he just concentrated really hard…

But Aziraphale beamed at him. "It's all right, dear. It's, er, it's still nifty."

Suddenly, he looked worried. "Do you think anyone will notice?"

Crowley looked at his radiant face, flushed cheeks, and eyes brimming with bliss enough to nourish another Garden of Eden for millennia.

"I'm sure they won't."

Three days later, just as Anathema was about to call it quits and toss her uncooperative cookie into the fire, it ripped open — right there and then, as if sensing an immediate threat to its inanimate existence.

Holding her breath, she uncurled her message.

"What's it say?" asked Adam, rocking back and forth on his heels.

"I thought you only popped over to return the book?" Anathema grumbled at him. The boy gave her his most dazzling smile that did nothing to deny her suspicions. It really would have been too much of a coincidence…

"How bad is it? Can I have a look?" asked Newt.

"Fine," she sighed, and passed it over to him.

Newt straightened it out again and pushed his glasses up.

Put me downe, ye dafte girle, and lette notte the Wayes of thy Future be governd by a peice of baked dough, was written on that thin strip of paper in 17th century ink-and-quill penmanship that looked awfully like—

"Well, there you go, then," said Newt, impressed. "Good old Agnes. I knew she could tell it like it is if she wanted to."

"But it couldn't have been Agnes who wrote that!" As soon as she said it, Anathema felt a tickle of doubt. Honestly, when it came to Agnes, who could ever know?

Adam shrugged. "Wonder who mine'd be from," he said wistfully. His cookie had been empty, for the same reason the eye of a storm was calm.

"I think it's just made to look like it's from Agnes, because that's who you've always trusted the most. You needed to hear it from her," Newt offered.

Anathema let that sink in. Then she smiled ruefully. He was right, of course. And so was Agnes.

It was time she moved on.

"Explains why mine looked completely different," mused Newt. "Like it was written on a typewriter. Not that I can make heads or tails of it, anyhow," he added, distraught. Go to the kitchen and fetch the lemon water. What the hell was that about?"

Adam and Anathema murmured in agreement. She looked at him with the sort of pity a parent would feel for their child if they won a prestigious contest only to find out that the prize was a £10 gift card for Aldi.

Newt ignored her. His mind went back to that fateful evening.

It wasn't the content of his message that had left him unsettled. Unlike Anathema, he had never put much stock in prophecies and such, and when faced with one, he'd much rather it was something as straightforward and benign as this. He set off to fulfil it immediately. It didn't even occur to him not to; it was as if the words etched themselves into his cerebral cortex and there was no getting rid of them until he made their wish reality.

Only, when Newt opened the kitchen door, he found himself an intruder.

He tried not to gawk. Really, he did. To his great relief, the lemon water jug was on the countertop, just two steps away. Newt tiptoed towards it and reached out. And then he felt something like a cold air current rush over his head. Instinctively, he bent over and looked back to see what it was that had just flown by. But he saw nothing — except, bizarrely, an antique horseshoe that hung above the door now glowed orange, as if fresh off the anvil.

Despite being unharmed, Newt gathered quickly what this ominous display was for; let no one say he couldn't take a hint. He turned on his heel and darted out of the room. But not before the scene by the plant pots in the back had drawn his eye once more. He felt a prickling of inadequacy mixed with admiration, much like what a young amateur violinist would feel when watching a virtuoso in the act. The baser, less noble part of his brain that always looked out for him against his wishes snapped a mental picture for future reference.

"Well, it can't be anything bad, I think." Adam said. Newt froze in his seat, terrified for a moment that the boy had somehow seen into his mind and witnessed what it had just replayed.

But Adam went on: "I think I understand how it works now. Things I've always been able to do. It's leaving me now, I can feel it. Won't be long. But I still had some left that day. And this time I knew what I was doing," he grinned. "It's all in the mind. Like that Murphy's book you gave me," he told Anathema. "The power of sub-conshus mind. I wanted to help, so the fortune cookies gave you something you needed."

Newt and Anathema considered it.

"Well, I've got to hand it to you, kid," sighed Anathema. "At least you didn't wake the kraken this time."

"Still not seeing it, to be honest," mumbled Newt, but deep down he knew that was a lie.

"Sometimes things only start making sense in the bigger picture," said Anathema sagely. She took his hand and smiled. "Thank you. It really was the perfect 'Not-Apocalypse' gift after all."

"I just hope the others didn't have a bad time of it," said Newt, blushing.

"I wouldn't worry, if I were you. Think about it, they've just witnessed the End Times. What could possibly scare them now?"

"Lord and Satan forgive me," whispered Crowley, watching the contents of Dalmore 64 Trinitas disappear into the swirls and folds of cake batter in the mixing bowl.

"Now, now," said Aziraphale calmly. "There's no need to blaspheme."

"I'll tell you what's blasphemy — destroying a century and a half old bottle of scotch that cost £100,000! What would you call that, hmm?"

"Destroying? You're baking a Dundee cake with it. It's going to be scrumptious!"

"I might as well pour it out into St James Park lake." Crowley clenched the wooden spoon, fighting the urge to spin it across the countertop. He knew how much Aziraphale hated mess — even in the kitchen where mess was an integral part of the process whose results were the chief pleasure of his existence.

"Scrumptious", Aziraphale repeated, leaning closer. His voice sank into a purr. It tickled the back of Crowley's neck. Suddenly distracted from his misery, Crowley looked behind him. The angel's eyes were fixed on the wooden spoon whose tip glistened invitingly with pale brown substance.

Crowley swallowed.

"I don't even like Dundee cake," he protested faintly. But it was no use; he could feel his ire ebbing away against his will. His fortune cookie's message itched in his mind like a mosquito bite, and part of his demonic self that defined him to the core, the part made entirely of cold, solid pragmatism (though cushioned, as he fancied, by an elegant leather cover that set it apart from the crude, low-brow aesthetic of other demons), whispered to him to go on and get it over with, only then would he have peace.

That was what Crowley told himself, at any rate, as he let go of his rational objections with a great, big sigh and went on with the mixing.

Aziraphale beamed at him.

"Sacrilegious bastard," muttered Crowley. But the angel couldn't see his face, and it occurred to him that he didn't need to keep scowling so hard.

After almost two hours the abomination was ready. Crowley tried to avoid looking at it directly, as if it wasn't a cake but a white dwarf star that threatened to melt his eyeballs if he let his gaze linger. However, it wasn't easy as he was miracling the cake to float out of the oven onto an elegant porcelain cake stand.

Crowley picked up the now-empty bottle. For some unfathomable reason the message demanded that he use up all of it. He couldn't even begin to imagine what the end result would taste like.

He sighed. "Cheers, angel."

Aziraphale looked at him imploringly. "Are you really not going to give it a chance?"

"Ngk," said Crowley. He crossed his arms.

He waited for the angel to tuck in. That was why he had powered through this ordeal, after all. If Aziraphale had let him know with so much as a blink, a disdainful scrunch of his nose, sceptically pursed lips that he didn't approve, that he thought it a mistake, he would have damned the whole thing to high heavens. He would have torn that blasted message out of his brain and incinerated it into quantum dust.

But Aziraphale made no move towards the cake stand. He stared at Crowley, his face crumpling with dejection. His eyebrows rose to accommodate his eyes that suddenly seemed to grow bigger.

Crowley's arms dropped in frustration.

"Don't do that," he begged.

"Oh, Crowley…"

"Just eat the bloody cake."

"I can't bear you not getting anything out of this. Not now, after everything… It's not fair."

Crowley couldn't agree more.

Which is why he promptly seized the moment.

He didn't bother with a knife. A tiny, perfectly symmetrical piece separated itself from the rest of the cake and floated into his waiting hand.

Clearly thinking his persuasion succeeded, Aziraphale flashed a winning smile.

Crowley chuckled at his friend's gullibility.

"Not fair, you say?" he drawled. "Well, I'm sure I can think of some consolation prize."

He didn't let trepidation show on his face, aided as usual by the cover of his sunglasses. Nor did he let it cramp his hallmark saunter as he came closer. The aforementioned pragmatic part of his mind screamed at him that what passed between them three days ago was a fluke, a fragile seed thrown at him by unseen forces too callous and indifferent to let it sprout and grow. Neither of them had mentioned it after coming back, or acted any differently towards the other. Crowley had almost convinced himself he'd dreamt it.

But he saw Aziraphale's throat bob, and his own mouth watered in vicarious anticipation. Aziraphale's eyes latched on to his fingers, following their trajectory arch toward his lips with the same unabashed curiosity they showed in that hallway in the birthing hospital-turned-corporate retreat a few days ago, in another lifetime… The memory of that moment emboldened him. His fingers were soft and steady in their landing.

Aziraphale's eyes fluttered closed, but Crowley's wouldn't, not in a million years.

The angel's lips parted to receive the offering, and Crowley slid the piece in, gently pressing with his thumb until it came to rest on Aziraphale's upper lip. He traced its curve, brushing away crumbs trapped in the soft fuzz just above the vermillion border. When he reached the corner of Aziraphale's mouth, he felt the tickling warmth of his exhale.

Crowley took a step back. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the angel, awaiting his verdict.

Aziraphale fished out a tartan handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed at his lips.

"Well?" asked Crowley, more harshly than he'd intended.

Aziraphale blinked. "What would be the use of me telling you? You wouldn't believe me anyway."

Crowley's mouth fell slack.

Aziraphale giggled. "Why, yes, my dear. That leaves you only one way to find out, doesn't it?"

Another piece slid out and floated into the air.

With only a hint of shyness, Aziraphale held out his hand. "Would you object terribly if I returned the favour?"

Crowley did not.

"It was your doing." Crowley jabbed an accusing finger at Aziraphale's chest. They were sprawled out on the sofa. It had taken some convincing to get the angel to give up his rod-straight posture for something more comfortable and cuddle-friendly. A novice to the art of sprawling, he was still a bit stiff, like a book that had never been fully stretched open before. Slowly, though, he seemed to be relaxing into the cushions, aided by Crowley's expert shoulder massage.

"Pardon?"

"You miracled the cake. There's no way 750ml of scotch in a cake this size should have tasted like that."

Aziraphale affected a scandalised gasp.

"I should have fed that thing to the ducks while I had the chance," muttered Crowley under his breath.

And then he froze. "That's it. DUCKS!"

Aziraphale startled so hard his head bumped into Crowley's chin, and they both yelped.

"What is it about ducks this time?" sighed Aziraphale.

Crowley really did have a lot to thank ducks for, now that he thought of it. So many blissful hours spent throwing crumbs, an innocent excuse for clandestine meetings with the angel… And he did try to drown a few, back in the day (not in earnest, of course — ducks couldn't drown, they just had their head feather-styles ruined for a few hours). Wasn't it about time he paid off his debts?

Little did he know of the consequences his generosity would have. The cake was, in fact, scrumptious, there was no denying. And the ducks turned out to have a refined enough palate to appreciate it… slightly too much. No longer was the Russian cultural attaché's black bread the uncontested winner in those parts. All the ducks of St James' park now flocked to a certain otherworldly pair to feast on their plentiful bounty while offerings of black bread turned to mush and sank to the bottom of the lake, unclaimed. In an unexpected turn of events, the Russian attaché took it rather personally; decades of diplomatic career had honed his mind for suspicion. To make matters worse, the angel and the demon had noticed his growing distress and miracled themselves inconspicuous to avoid unwanted attention. The poor man then started to prowl the park in attempt to discover the whereabouts of this villainous trickster who had conspired to destroy his cover (for he, too, enjoyed his clandestine rendezvous). As weeks passed, he grew increasingly irritable and distracted from his work, and even began lashing out — at his subordinates at first, and later at his fellow attachés of other countries. International tensions were on the rise once more, only this time there was no benevolent Antichrist to resolve them. The inadvertent culprit had to take care of it himself with a tricky demonic miracle.

Bugger, thought Crowley. He was never going to do anything nice for ducks ever again.

But it was a beautiful, balmy day, he and Aziraphale were reclining on chaise longues in the garden of their newly bought cottage in the South Downs, sipping strawberry daiquiris, and there was nothing in the world that could have soured his mood just then. He scoffed into his straw and shooed the thought away.

Yes, the ducks could sod off for all he cared. He did, however, send Adam a gift (a toy spaceship). He owed him one.