A/N: Hopping on a bandwagon which has doubtless lapped me several times by now, but hopefully not too late to join the party.

Enjoy!

xxxxx

Buggre All Thif Everything

xxxxx

One of these days, Crowley thinks.

There is a book on the table, so old it's barely a breath away from dissolving into very old used-to-be-book-shaped dust. Aziraphale, naturally, is staring at it with entirely human delight, corners of his mouth crinkling as a truly glorious smile begins to build itself on his face. His lips are ruddy from the cold and tea-damp.

The sardonic smirk on Crowley's face is flawless, unassailable, or at least it feels like it is because the angel isn't looking at him (or more accurately, through him).

One of these days, he thinks, he will finally do just as he pleases, and bedamned to the consequences, dire as they will certainly be.

(He is a demon. Surely the Darkest will forgive him for doing his job.)

It isn't like the world will end.

xxx

When at last they finally do give up and fall into each other, however, they remember halfway through why they held out for so long.

It is one thing to break an angel, and another to heal a demon, but when both occur simultaneously the effect is very like that of a deep-ocean maelstrom except on a mind-bogglingly larger scale. Aziraphale gives way for sin on one side and pushes back with salvation on the other, and as Crowley gives into that he pushes back a little harder, and they fall effortlessly into a dizzily spinning dance of unimaginable power, both falling and rising at once, earth and heaven rapidly compressing to crush them between the walls of existence.

This is forbidden for a reason, they realize all too late, clinging to each other at the heart of world's end.

xxx

"Well, that was probably not the best idea we've ever had," Aziraphale says primly three hundred and seventy-one years later.

The earth is beginning to recover. There are flowers, now, which is exciting because bare rock gets boring very quickly even for angels, and demons. Crowley is delighted. He pretends he isn't, but that is mostly out of sheer habit, since it isn't as though there's anyone left to watch his descent into disgrace (or ascent into grace, as it were, neither of them were really sure anymore) with disapproving eyes. God has long since turned his attention elsewhere and the Devil never cared to begin with.

"We've had worse," Crowley says absently, peering down at a particularly lovely patch of bluebells. "Look, bees."

Aziraphale opens his mouth to dispute this-- not that there are bees, there clearly are, he can hear them buzzing and see their fat bodies tumbling around merrily around the swaying blossoms so it would be silly to say there weren't; the bit about having had worse ideas since obviously they've never managed to end the world before, accidentally or otherwise-- but shuts it again when he notices that Crowley's eyes are a strangely luminous shade of serpent-gold today. Being a metaphorically minded ex-angel, Aziraphale promptly tries to make correlations-- like a sunset in late summer, or a particularly fine ice wine, or that elderflower honey Father Albez used to make back in the sixteen hundreds when time still existed-- but they all fall short, here in this place God forgot.

They say Lucifer was once an angel. Looking at his friend now, Aziraphale believes it.

xxx

If they had been counting time-- they weren't-- they would have reckoned it about four hundred years in the making, but here it was.

"Well, I was wondering what God was doing," Aziraphale says uncomfortably, fiddling with his thumbs and trying very hard not to look at the thing flopping frantically on the beach at Crowley's feet.

"It's hideous," Crowley points out, completely unnecessarily.

Aziraphale shifts his weight from one foot to the other and makes a face at the sky, wiping it off a moment later when he realizes what he's doing in half-unconscious horror at his nerve. "The Lord works in mysterious ways," he says lamely.

Curling a lip in disgust, Crowley kicks the thing back into the surging sea and wipes his hands reflexively on his spotless Armani suit. Seven hundred years hasn't changed his taste in clothing, at least.

"Mysterious. That's... one word, I suppose. I prefer mine. Come on, let's go make curry. I'm ravenous."

"You're always ravenous."

"Yes, well, I used to subsist entirely on the concentrated misery of billions streaming into my lungs-- the finest ambrosia, really, the more of them there were the better it got-- and lately there hasn't been anyone to be miserable except you... what I mean to say is, you try fasting for seven hundred years and see how you feel."

That earns him a perfunctory kick in the shin, which almost hurts.

xxx

"How far the mighty have fallen," murmurs Crowley almost wistfully, reaching around to try again for the dozenth time that hour to scratch that elusive spot on his back. He claims something in the bark is giving him an allergic reaction but Aziraphale is fairly certain it's a bug bite.

Bugs are not supposed to bite demons. They're on the same side. Apparently these bugs, however, have no memory of any such accord.

Sighing, Aziraphale locks his ankles around a lower branch, reaches over, and begins sawing resignedly at Crowley's back with his fingernails through the thick black fabric.

The ex-demon makes a half-strangled noise of delight and arches awkwardly into the deliciously painful assault, one leg flailing incoherently through the leaves in an effort to keep him from falling twenty feet out of the tree into the boggy mess below. "Ooohhrggh."

How very far, echoes Aziraphale in his mind without a trace of irony.

Below them, a black-furred clan of simian Somethings tumble gleefully in the spring-damp dirt, depositing messy piles of small white flowers torn stem and root from the ground onto each other's heads. To their unseen watchers, it looks like nothing so much as a pre-sentient version of king of the hill, complete with daisy-chain crowns.

"Another six thousand years or so, I figure," Crowley comments when he regains the power of speech. "Things look to be moving somewhat faster than last time, I think."

"Indeed," agrees Aziraphale, then turns away to hide the bitter smile he can't quite help. It's an odd reversal of roles-- or perhaps Crowley's simply rubbed off on him over the course of seven thousand years-- but while Crowley is merely amused by the comically brainless reemergence of mankind, Aziraphale is pessimistic, almost ambivalent, remembering how well the last go-round ended.

It is his sincerest hope that this time, God will have a better idea where he's going with the whole blessed thing.

xxx

"You know, I think He set us up," says Crowley, picking his teeth with what looks horribly like the wishbone of a small bird.

Tearing his eyes away from the unhygienic spectacle, Aziraphale clears his throat and stares at nothing. "Oh? How so?"

Crossing his legs dramatically, Crowley points a finger into the air and takes a deep breath. "Well, see, he's tried to make it all our fault," he begins. "The world ending and all."

"It was our fault," Aziraphale points out, already confused.

Crowley shakes his head vehemently. "No, come on now. Do you really think so? We're talking about God, here, His Worshipfulness, the Almighty Blaggard, the Biggest Kahuna. He created the world. Now he's creating it again. Do you really think he would have left the power to destroy his pet project in the hands of one of his lackeys-- no offense--"

"None taken," Aziraphale says reflexively, although truth be told, his skin still itches with the desire to wield his sword in God's defense... if he could find it, that is.

"--let alone one of his disowned son's? I mean, I can understand how what we did would cause some karmic what-the-buggery, but destroying the entire world? Highly implausible. If that's all it took some yobbo with an eye for angel backside would have done it aeons ago. I repeat, it was a setup. We were framed."

"We are incarnations of highest good and evil," protests Aziraphale weakly, more out of habitual defense of his employer than any real conviction. "Matter and anti-matter. We were not designed--"

"You're missing one very important point here," Crowley says, a bit too quickly, a hint of dark glee beginning to spread over his face in obvious anticipation.

Aziraphale sighs. "What point?"

"Do you remember that one night in 1206 BC?"

"...No."

"With all the strange peaty grog that looked like runny snot?"

"Which one?" says Aziraphale, exasperated. "We spent half that whole millennium sloshed out of our trees, it could have been--"

"And the odd mushrooms that tasted like old boot?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Aziraphale begins to say, but pauses halfway through with a look of dawning horror. "That was a dream," he states, slowly but with the desperate conviction of a man who cannot afford to be wrong. "I ate strange mushrooms. I thought I was in Hell. There were dragons."

"Those parts were dreams."

"Dragons," repeats Aziraphale frantically. "Dragons do not exist anywhere but on the Hell plane! I saw them! Lots of them! Therefore, logically, I was either in Hell-- which is clearly impossible considering the fact that I am an angel of the Lord and can't exist there without shrivelling up like a skinny raisin-- or I was out of my barking mind!"

"Well, you were," concedes Crowley, "but I wasn't, and I assure you that not everything you did that night took place in your head alone."

Aziraphale stares in mute horror, feeling what little colour usually inhabited his face evacuating southward. "Oh God," he says eloquently. "I really-- we really--"

"Yes," interrupts Crowley, "we did, and you may recall that when you woke up the week after, the world was still perfectly intact, if somewhat the worse for wear."

The obvious meaning of this occurs to Aziraphale despite all his resistance to said occurrence-- if they had done this before and the world had not ended, then why had the same thing been met with fiery cataclysm this time?

"Because we were framed," concludes Crowley with immense satisfaction and not a little bitterness.

Aziraphale finds that he doesn't have a single thing to say to this.

xxx

By the time the angels start coming down to shepherd the muddily awakening masses, Aziraphale has nearly forgotten what it was like to be one. They seem to him completely beyond comprehension: blindly faithful, completely convinced of the righteousness of their orders from on high no matter how barking mad they appeared to anyone with even a shred of common sense, beatific and vacuous like scintillating but ultimately soulless diamonds. They drive him mad within a matter of decades.

"Was I always this insufferable?" he asks Crowley during a rare moment alone. "Honestly, they're--"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry," is all he has time to say before they come for him again.

Perhaps it is some kind of divine penance that he should have to teach civilization to humanity again. The angels seems to think so, urging him with saccharine smiles and the sharp edges of their divine swords until he cowers into submission with ill grace. They could easily do it themselves but he understands from what little cryptic information they will give him that this is an order from the very top and cannot be disobeyed. Aziraphale is reluctant, and grows sharply more so in short order.

The moment they figure out that the crude weapons they use to hunt can also be used on each other, Aziraphale sees like a flashing strip of film the long play of history unreeling from this moment on, all the wars and hatred and plague and bad music and worse books and untimely, gruesome death. It takes his breath away, paralyzes him for a good fortnight with sheer horror.

Crowley does him a mercy soon after and kidnaps him, dragging him like a trussed chicken to a lonely mountaintop in the middle of the ocean and dropping him ungently on the jagged summit. "Are you really going to let this happen again?" he rages, not taking the gag off, or perhaps forgetting it was there. "Are you really going to teach them how to be exactly as they were so we can do the whole damned thing again, all for the sake of salvation from a God who's a backstabbing, blamedodging, irresponsible blackguard who isn't worth the spit on your shoes? Old friend, you know I have no love for him on principle, but I honestly don't understand what you see in him. He buggered up the whole thing the last time around and couldn't bear to admit it, like a teenager who crashed his parent's car and blamed it on the dog, not that I'm saying you're a dog. I've known humans more honourable than him. I've known dogs more honourable--"

Sighing, Aziraphale dissolves the rope and gag with a blink and stands up to dust the volcanic ash from his lovely new ecru linen robes.

"--perhaps he has some sort of ineffable plan, you were always saying that, I don't know if it's true or not but if it is it's a damned stupid, botchy plan, not our fault if it fell in on itself, he probably used that shoddy white paper glue to hold everything together anyway, he's enough of a cheapskate, but my point is-- are you really going to--"

Aziraphale cuts him short by laying his two long, white hands on either side of Crowley's blotchy, furious face and smiling. "Bugger it for a lark," he says, and kisses him firmly.

"Bloody right," says Crowley wonderingly after a moment, his eyes reflecting the sunlight like startled gold coins.

I dare you, Aziraphale the ex-angel thinks in God's general direction, but is fairly certain the old bastard isn't even listening anymore.

xxx

They have a house again. A cottage, really, perched precariously on the edge of a towering cliff on what used to be called Maui but hasn't been named yet this time around. There are no trees to break the warm, sweeping rush of salty sea wind, or to interrupt the vast wheeling blue overhead.

But for the gulls and the thundering surf hundreds of feet below, it is very quiet.

"Do you figure He forgot?" muses Crowley, frowning. "I mean, it's been a hundred years since we told Him where to stick it. You'd think He would have-- by now--"

"He probably just doesn't want us back in his house stirring up a ruckus," theorizes Aziraphale reasonably. "I mean, if you were God--"

A grin flashes across Crowley's sallow, pointed face. "I suppose you're right. If I were Him, I wouldn't want us showing up every few decades, mouthing off and sneaking into the broom closet when polite company comes to call and telling all the little ones about all the naughty things they shouldn't know for another dozen lives yet."

"I wouldn't," says Aziraphale primly, then amends, "well, not the last one, anyhow."

Crowley raises a supercilious eyebrow. Aziraphale cracks instantly.

"Oh, all right, I would, they deserve to know... it's not right that they should have to muck for centuries for his entertainment when they could do it in a tenth the time, I've never understood why--"

"Because," Crowley interrupts with serene timing, "He is a right bastard."

"He's not all bad," Aziraphale says softly, sadly.

Crowley shrugs. "Neither was Lucifer. The trouble comes from the pretending."

Aziraphale turns to look out the window across the vast ocean towards what will someday be America, or something like it, and lets out a long, gentle breath. "I don't suppose it matters to us anymore in any case. Here we are, just as we were, and it seems we always will be."

"Not just as we were," corrects Crowley with a devilish smirk and a wink. "Not quite."

"No," replies Aziraphale after a moment with a truly angelic smile of his own, "not quite."

XxxxX

A/N: I never, ever get tired of rereading this book, with or without my slash-goggles on. Every word they say to each other is sheer delight to me.