Chapter 8: Biblical Love Letters

~~Aziraphale~~

Aziraphale was having a hard time concentrating. Muriel had ordered in a perfectly lovely breakfast, and the three of them were sitting at the table. Muriel and Crowley weren't eating; instead, they were talking about their harrowing escape. There were plenty of things Aziraphale could have added to the conversation if his mind hadn't kept drifting back to the bed. The feel of Crowley's skin against his. The sweet kisses they had shared and the more heated ones that followed. And while they had stuck to the plan of less, it had sure been a lot more than Aziraphale had realised. The fact that there was more to be had was almost too much for him to process.

"Angel?" Crowley's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Yes?"

"You all right? You look flushed."

Aziraphale nodded and took a sip of his tea to compose himself. Crowley met his eyes and whatever he saw in them pulled his mouth into a grin. Which did nothing to help Aziraphale to stop thinking about those lips.

"It doesn't make sense. Heaven is going against God's will? Oh, dear," Muriel said, her eyebrows tightened together in worry.

"I'm not so sure Heaven knows," Aziraphale said, finally engaging in the conversation. "The Metatron knows some of how Crowley and I are connected. But I'm not sure he knows everything."

"So if we show him the file, the one you found when you put our files together. Then they'll stop. It's clear that we're supposed to be here on Earth together, ay? They will have to leave us alone. Those are the rules, right? What God has decreed, Heaven does."

Aziraphale couldn't help but smile at Crowley's optimism. Even with his distrust of Heaven, he wanted to believe that they would do what was right when presented with indisputable proof of God's will.

But Aziraphale had watched them torture Crowley to get what they wanted from him. He wasn't as certain.

"Feasibly, it could happen. But I don't have the files, and I don't foresee Heaven letting any of us stroll back in to retrieve them. For all we know, they could be destroyed. If The Metatron found the joint file, he could have gotten rid of it. If it wasn't something he wanted known."

"I could go. They might not know I'm in leagues with you yet," Muriel offered.

"In league, just one," Crowley replied.

"Right, in league. I could snip in and snip out."

Crowley just shook his head and chuckled at that.

"We have let you entangle yourself far too much. We don't know if they saw you leaving with us. I will not let you endanger yourself any more than you have. I will be forever grateful for your help, but I won't have you taking any more chances for us. You've been a far better friend than we've deserved."

"I've never had friends before. It's all very exciting, isn't it?"

Aziraphale reached and gave their hand a pat. He had truly become fond of them, and the way Crowley smiled, he had clearly developed a bond as well.

"S'what are we going to do? If we can't get anyone up there to listen to us." Crowley sat back, looking somewhere between not caring and utterly defeated.

"Maybe we can," Aziraphale answered. "But right now, we are at a disadvantage. We don't know what this connection can do. What we can do. But I think we should find out."

"You reckon we should do a miracle together?"

"Yes. A really, really big one."

As it turned out, coming up with a miracle they could perform in the bookshop that would be something more than either of them could do alone was rather difficult. Muriel had suggested to them making an elephant appear in the bookshop. It wasn't anything either of them couldn't do alone, so Aziraphale had figured they'd just wanted to see an elephant up close. After all Muriel had done for them, he made it happen. But only for a few minutes. There were some messes even miracles couldn't fix. He would already be smelling the creature for weeks. The scent lingered in his memory even if it vanished back with the animal.

"When we tried to hide Gabriel, we tried to do a little and more happened. What if we try to do something little together and see what else happens?" Crowley suggested.

Crowley walked over to the bookshelf and picked up one of Aziraphale's bibles, the "Buggre Alle This" version. The blessings on the books had been long removed. Aziraphale had made sure the bookshop was safe for Crowley from the moment he opened it in 1800.

"Let's rewrite some history," he said, grinning, and he tossed it to Aziraphale.

After some back and forth, they agreed, mostly, what they would put in the book. They had agreed since Aziraphale had already added himself into the text.

"You put your first act of disobedience in here? How did I not know this?" Crowley said, clearly giddy as he read verses 25 through 27. "You surprise me, angel."

"Yes, well, I may have let my pride get away with me."

"Nah," Crowley said, smile still wide. "This wasn't about pride. It was about disobedience. You were upset about something. What was it?"

Aziraphale waved his hand in the air. "Who can remember? It was ages ago. Can we do this miracle now?"

Crowley reached over and took his hand, surprising him, and then he remembered they needed the connection to perform the miracle. Aziraphale cleared his throat and tilted his head upwards. It felt strange; he had done many miracles that were in defiance, but this was the start of a direct act against Heaven. He wasn't doing any real harm, not yet. But he knew he might have to, and that made complex feelings swell in him.

When he looked back down at the bible, there were the new words.

25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?

26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.

27 And the Lord did not ask him again.

28 Upson seeing what the angel had done, the Serpent of Eden was greatly pleased and found he was Smitten.

"You were not," Aziraphale blushed as he looked down at the entry. He leant weight to the miracle but trusted Crowley to make the entry.

"Not like I am now, angel. But the spark started when you gave away that sword to protect Adam and Eve. Jesus gets a lot of credit, but you saved humanity first."

Aziraphale's first thought was to deny, to say blasphemy. But it was true. He'd never really thought of it that way. They were just two people who needed his help. Them being the only people who existed hadn't been part of the equation for him.

They stared down at their entry alongside God's word, or Aziraphale's words in this case.

"As fun as that was, my dear. What more could it have done? There are only a few copies, and I wouldn't know how to find the others to see if they were also updated."

"Muriel, grab another bible from the shelf; any one. Think bigger, angel," Crowley said.

Muriel handed over the King James Bible, and Crowley flipped through until he found the page. He seemed almost surprised himself, and then he held it out for Aziraphale to see.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said as he read the passage, along with the preceding three they had just miracled into the one bible. "Do you suppose?"

They spent the next thirty minutes pulling down each bible in his collection and checking for their passage. It was there in all of them.

"We shouldn't leave it there, right?" Aziraphale said.

The truth is it thrilled him to see it there. Crowley had left a tiny love letter for him in a book millions of people read every day. It was beyond flattering.

"Bloody right, we're leaving it. It's an accurate account of what happened."

Aziraphale felt himself blushing, and he wondered if there would ever be a time that Crowley wouldn't be able to cause that response in him. Then he thought about the kissing and doubted his responses to the demon would ever stop.

Crowley clapped his hands loudly. "That was fun. What's next?"

Muriel giggled and clapped their hands as well, clearly as excited as Crowley was to see what they would do next.

Crowley suggested they could manipulate the weather, but they already had such power in that, Aziraphale worried that spreading that might lead to consequences and a fall out they didn't want to have to deal with. If they accidentally levelled London with a tornado, the bookshop might stop being a safe haven. With no walls or roof and all.

"We could try and bring someone back from the dead," Aziraphale mused.

"And risk unleashing an army of zombies on England? Pass."

"We could … summon an angel or a demon."

Aziraphale could see Crowley mulling this over. Hell could summon theirs back, and Heaven could recall the angels, but there was no record of anyone on either side being pulled to Earth.

"To the bookshop? I don't know, angel. That's pretty risky. What if we do it? What would we do with them? We'd be inviting whoever it was in."

"I could help," Muriel stated.

Aziraphale smiled. "I don't want you caught in a fight if it came down to that. Crowley is quite right. We should think of something else."

"No, you can summon me," they said.

"If you go back to Heaven, and they know you're with us …"

"Then you'll pull me right back down. This way, I can look for the file, and if I am in trouble—floof—I'm gone."

"It might not work; what if we can't pull you back?"

"Aziraphale is right; it's very dangerous. Which is why we should summon you from Hell instead."

This was a bad idea. Aziraphale had been party to many bad ideas in his time, but this one was not only bad but bordered on lunacy. If a demon caught Muriel in Hell, the sweet angel would be in much worse shape than if they'd been caught in Heaven. But Hell wasn't looking for them, and Heaven might be. So instead of protesting against a fight he'd already lost, he watched Crowley play dress up.

By the time Muriel was done, they were hardly recognizable. Their hair had been teased into a large matted mess around their head. Inside the nest of hair, Crowley placed a crow. Dark makeup, or was that soot, was applied liberally around their eyes and one streak dragged down their cheek like a blackened scar.

Their earthly clothes were replaced with a long black jumpsuit that flared out wide on the legs. They almost looked like one of Hell's soldiers, if it wasn't for the large grin on their face.

"You have to scowl," Crowley said, looking at them sternly.

"Right." Muriel nodded, and then scrunched their face up, looking like they were sucking on a lemon more than intimidating a lost soul.

"Yup, this was a bad idea," Crowley acquiesced, turning to grab himself a drink.

"I can do this." Muriel turned their eyes toward Aziraphale now.

"Go on then, my dear. Show me your demon face."

Muriel took a moment, and then a sombre look fell over their face. Their eyes hardened, and Aziraphale's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Very good!" Aziraphale beamed. "If you can keep that, it might just work."

"Where did that face come from?" Crowley asked, taking a sip of his drink.

"I read a book the other day. Where The Wild Fern Grows. And I did not care for the ending. It made me … upset. So I used that feeling."

For the first time that day, Aziraphale felt confident in the plan. Crowley would direct Muriel to an entrance that was rarely used. No one should notice them. There were rooms they could slip into and stay unnoticed until Crowley and Aziraphale summoned them back.

It would take Muriel roughly thirty-five minutes to get into Hell from the bookshop. They tacked on another fifteen just in case they needed extra time to avoid anyone on the way in.

If all went according to plan, Muriel would be out of the bookshop for fifty minutes. And if things went wrong, Aziraphale wasn't sure how he'd live with himself.

"We could kiss for a bit … to pass the time," Crowley suggested about five minutes after Muriel left.

He didn't understand how Crowley could be so crass at a time like this, but when he met his eyes to scold him, he could see the words were a defence. He was worried. Aziraphale took his hand, accompanying him to the couch to sit.

"Is the way you told them to go really deserted?"

"Yeah, I used to take that way to drop off stuff when I didn't want to run into anyone."

"Then I'm sure they will be fine." Aziraphale tried to put as much surety in his voice as he could muster. He hoped he was right.

~~Muriel~~

Muriel felt their heart race. They were barely a block from the bookshop, and they had recently snuck a demon out of Heaven, but that was different. This was alone. Aziraphale and Crowley were counting on them. And they'd never been to Hell.

They took the back alleys like Crowley had told them to. With the demon disguise on, they were quite conspicuous and drawing attention toward the stairway to Hell—yes, they had one too—was unadvisable.

But as Crowley had said, the entrance was both hidden and abandoned. The door tucked behind a false wall in an abandoned warehouse. Muriel opened it and made their way down the stairs. The heat was the first thing they noticed, not like a warm fireplace, more like a sauna turned on several degrees too hot. The air felt smoky in their lungs, but it was manageable.

The door at the bottom of the staircase opened to a long hallway. Dark and dimly lit, lined with doors and the mildew of a place forgotten. They slipped into the first room they came across and closed the door behind them.

The room was dark but they could make out an upturned table and chair. They considered righting the chair to sit in it but then noticed the black sludge over it and chose instead to stand.

There were no issues making their way into Hell, so that meant they had about fifteen minutes until they would be summoned. If nothing happened, they were to wait no more than ten more minutes, and then get out the way they came in.

Feeling rather safe in the abandoned room, Muriel let the excitement of the situation wash over them. They had gone from scrivener to an undercover spy. It wasn't hard to imagine some exciting scenes like ones they'd read in the books in Aziraphale's shop. They even combined their fingers into a gun shape and pretended to dodge and shoot at the invisible bad guys.

They spun around, tripping on the leg of the fallen table and crashed down hard on the ground.

"Oi, what was that?" came a voice from down the hall.

Muriel's eyes got bigger, and then scrambled back into the darkest corner they could find. They had to fight the instinct to perform a miracle and hide, but Crowley had warned them against it. He wasn't sure a Heavenly miracle would work in Hell, and if it did, it might be noticed.

"Nothing here," said the voice again.

Muriel could hear the doors in the hallway opening and closing as they checked each one. Their heart thumped in a way they hadn't experienced before. The sounds were getting closer. They grabbed the chair from the floor and righted it, sitting down just as the door opened.

"Hey. What're you doin' in 'ere?"

"Oh, hello. I mean … do you mind?" Muriel started shakily but then found their footing.

"No one is supposed to be down here." The demon took a step into the room; Muriel could see its face was covered with tiny bugs. Its companion entered as well, a rat-like looking creature that stood about three feet tall.

"I needed a break. From all the … evil … things I did today. Many, many deeds." Muriel nodded their head to emphasise their point.

The two stared at them for a moment, and then the rat nodded its head.

"I get that. I had to put seventy pins into one eyeball today! Do you know how hard it is to fit seventy pins in a single eyeball?"

"Yes … I do," Muriel answered. "I had to put many pins in many eyeballs. Because I am a demon and that is what demons do."

Bug face tilted his head, studying them, and then shrugged. "We better get back," he said to the rat.

They each spared one more glance back at Muriel before they walked through the door. Muriel heard them converse in the hall.

"Have you ever seen them before?"

"No."

"Something is fishy."

The door knob rustled again but Muriel didn't see them come back in the room. They were pulled up in a whirl, and the next thing they knew, they were standing in the middle of the bookshop with an angel and a very smug-looking demon.