Chapter Text
Blush & Blu sat on a cozy block of Colfax Avenue, nestled between Izu Sushi and Voodoo Doughnuts. Why she had decided to settle in Denver, Colorado was a question she frequently asked herself whenever January weather brought bitter cold and gray skies. It was too early in the year for snow, yet the thick soles of her boots smacked noisily against the damp pavement as she raced the icy wind down the street.
The gold rings looped through her braids glinted in the glow cast from street lamps and strands of multi-colored lights, remnants of a holiday she had never once celebrated. She could ignore these, but she could not ignore the car parked just outside the bar. It wasn’t every day she saw a Bentley in Denver. This one, with its collection of parking tickets tucked under the windshield wipers, looked oddly familiar. It was, however, entirely the wrong color.
“Sorry, I’m late,” she said to Evelyn as she stepped hastily through the door, yanking off her coat, thankful for the warmth of the bar. “Did you see the car outside…?”
She stopped the moment she heard the music issuing from the bar’s sound system.
Typically, Blush & Blu restricted itself to a Spotify-curated mix of Top 40 pop hits, with the occasional Abba song tossed in. This is why the melodramatic tones of Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing” gave her pause. She loved Whitney, but this was not the vibe.
“What gives?” she asked her coworker, handing over her coat while Evelyn rolled her eyes.
“That person keeps asking the DJ to play breakup songs,” Evelyn directed a significant nod toward a figure slumped against the far end of the bar. “I think they’ve managed to chase off several customers already.”
She looked Evelyn in the eye as she replied, “Alisha never takes requests.”
Evelyn merely shrugged, the strangeness of the situation leaving no impression on her. “All I know is that the last song was Toni Braxton's ‘Un-break My Heart.’ If they keep this up, we’ll have to close early.”
She had finally taken a good look at the troublemaker. Spotting the head of dark red hair, she smirked. The Bentley outside was starting to make sense. That color, however…
“I’ll take care of it,” she said to Evelyn before waving away the barback and taking her place before their dissipated guest.
Their head rested tragically against the countertop, one hand nursing an empty rocks glass while the other mirthlessly beat a rhythm in time with each “nothing, nothing, nothing” that Whitney crooned over the speakers. A casual observer might have observed the tight leather pants, masculine cut black jacket, and short, wavy red hair and assumed that the individual was a man. She knew better, and did not hesitate to say in greeting, “What’s good, baby girl?”
Crowley lifted their head from the counter, black sunglasses resting slightly askew. They tapped their glass and slurred mournfully, “Another scotch, Lilith.”
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’d had enough,” Lilith replied, though she reached behind the counter for a bottle of Ardbeg. “That your car I saw parked outside?”
Crowley grunted.
“Why’s it yellow?”
Crowley spoke as though the words were being ripped from the very depths of hell itself, "It's pretty."
Lilith decided it was best to leave that one alone. Instead, she asked, “What brings you to the States? I thought you hated America?”
“Do I need a reason to drop in on the only friend I have left in the entire world?”
“We aren’t friends, baby girl. Besides, aren’t you forgetting that angel of yours?”
Perhaps it would have been wiser just to ask about the Bentley, because the moment she mentioned the angel, Adele’s smokey voice screamed across the speakers, “WE COULD HAVE HAD IT AAALL! ROLLING IN THE DEEEEP!”
“No…” Crowley muttered underneath the singer’s lamentations, “No, it’s all over between us.”
Lilith didn’t believe a word of it. She had seen Crowley like this before. The first time had been in 48 B.C.E. just after the library of Alexandria had burned to the ground. It had been the folly of mankind of course. In particular, one Julius Ceasar. The tragedy of so much knowledge lost to the sands of time would have upset any scholar. But for the demon Crawley, it became the cause of a very specific problem.
“He blamed me!” they had complained, steeped in wine whilst whining to Lilith. “Or my kind, as he was so good to call it. As if everything bad that happens has to be my fault, when humans are more than capable of inventing atrocities all on their own! I’m not the one who decided to lay siege to Alexandria! It was all that idiot Julius Caesar’s fault!”
Lilith had spent the better part of a week condoling the demon before continuing her journey North from Cairo. Despite Crawley’s complaints, by the time she saw them again in Rome, less than a hundred years later, they were happily describing the delightful dinner they had passed with “my angel.”
“ He tempted me ,” they had said gleefully, “Those were his words, mind you. We had oysters. Well, he had oysters, and I drank wine, but it was marvelous .”
There had been other spats and other reconciliations over the years. Crowley always had a story in which the angel was mentioned. Lilith had no reason to believe that the present maudlin scene was any different from those that had come before it. For all their whinging, this was nothing more than her favorite demon experiencing a very slight hurdle in their relationship.
And so, in the great tradition of bartenders since the dawn of time, she settled in for a night of listening to Crowley’s complaints, and to offer what consolation she could.
“How did you find me?” she asked, topping off Crowley’s drink before leaning against the counter.
“There are less than thirty sapphic bars in America…” Crowley mumbled, their face pressed into the wooden surface of the bar.
“So what? You’ve just been driving cross-country, stopping at each one before you found mine?”
“Worked, didn’t it?”
Lilith was unconvinced. “Hell isn’t keeping tabs on me, are they? Because if I found out they are, after what happened last time, Beelzebub is gonna…”
“Beelzebub’s gone,” Crowley interrupted.
“Gone? Not discorporated? Where would they even go?”
“Alpha Centauri, most likely. Ran off with Gabriel. Probably lightyears away by now.”
Lilith had lived a long time. A very long time. Longer than any human being. Longer even than Methuselah, though she still met him for coffee from time to time. With all her experience of life on Earth, she didn’t think it was possible for anything to surprise her, anymore. But this pronouncement of Crowley’s had her struck dumb.
“Gabriel?” she repeated. “As in the Archangel Gabriel?”
“That’s the one.”
“Run off with Beelzebub, Duke of Hell?”
“Yup.”
Lilith paused, waiting for the punchline that never came. Crowley wasn’t joking.
“Okay…” she said, reaching for a second glass and pouring out a drink for herself, “You need to tell me everything .”
Considering it was a story that spanned several thousand years, this took quite some time. Fortunately, Lilith was a very good listener. She made almost no interruptions as Crowley described the Apocalypse, and how she, her angel, and the Antichrist had effectively stopped the end of the world.
Things were good for a while after that, the global pandemic excluded. Although, once July came round and Crowley awoke to a world still in quarantine, they managed to convince their angel to let them stay over. What the two of them did for the rest of the time until the shops reopened and life resumed, Crowley rather conveniently forgot to mention. Instead, they began to talk about Gabriel, and how it was him, and his stupid amnesia, that got Crowley into their present predicament.
“So Gabriel and Beelzebub go about their business, and that’s great for them,” Crowley slurred drunkenly, “Mazel tov, and all that. But then angel goes to have a chat with Metatron…”
“I never could stand him,” Lilith said, interrupting for the first time in over an hour.
“Right?! And while he’s out, I’m stuck in the bookshop with Nina…”
“The one that runs the coffee shop?”
“Yeah. She and Maggie decided that we needed to have a sit down. And then Nina says… Well, she says a lot of things… About me and angel and how we never really talk to each other…”
“Oh, I like her. She sounds intelligent.”
Crowley scoffed. “Well, she doesn’t know angel, does she? Not like I do… He comes back from his little chat with Metatron, all excited and smiley like he does, and he tells me he wants to go back! Back to Heaven! Metatron offered him Gabriel’s job!”
“But he said no, didn’t he?” Lilith asked, deep down already knowing the answer that led her baby girl to her bar.
Crowley downed the rest of their drink and slammed the empty glass down on the bar, “That’s just what I said! But it’s worse than that! He asked me to go back with him! Become an angel again! And when I said no, that we should just… stay as we were… stay in the bookshop… He looks at me… At me! His friend of six thousand years! And he says nothing lasts forever. ”
Lilith drew back, sucking her teeth. That did sound bad.
“So what did you say?”
“Well, I said… I said… I said a lot of things. Can’t really remember them now. But it did not go well… He begged me to go with him. Leave all this…” Crowley waved their arm through the air, indicating with one simple gesture all of existence. “Leave it all behind. And I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t do it, Lil…”
They lapsed into silence. Lilith waited for them to continue, but they did not. Finally, after taking another sip of her own drink, she asked, “Then what happened?”
Still, Crowley was silent.
“Baby girl?”
Crowley had pressed their face into the countertop once more. Their mumbled answer was incoherent. Anyone other than a demon would have passed out from the amount of alcohol in their system.
“What was that?” Lilith pressed.
“... I kissed him.”
Lilith waited for more, but that seemed to be it.
“And?” she asked.
“And? And what? I was desperate, okay! Granted, it’s not how I pictured our first kiss would be…”
“Excuse me? Did you just say first kiss?”
“Of course! What are you on about?”
Lilith wanted to slap her across the face.
“Crowley, darling, my sweet baby girl, how long have you been pining after this angel?! You’re going to sit there and tell me that after all this time, you never so much as kissed him? Not even a peck on the cheek? I thought the two of you were basically married!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Crowley protested, lifting their head from the bar. Lilith wasn’t sure if the redness in her cheeks came from the booze or embarrassment.
While she wondered if demons could blush, she asked with exasperation, “Was it at least consensual?”
“... Call it a surprise.”
“Christ…”
“Let’s not bring him into this.”
Lilith ran a hand over her face, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay. Let’s get back to it. He wants you to go to Heaven, yeah? And you said no. Then you kiss him. What did he do?”
“Offered me forgiveness.”
“Good! Okay, we can work with that. And what did you say?”
“... I told him not to bother.”
“Oh, baby girl…”
“I was distraught. Can you blame me? I mean, I had just… We could have been… I’d thought we were … And he just left …”
This argument was far more serious than Lilith had first assumed. She stared at Crowley, who was now so wonderfully inebriated, it was a miracle they had not fallen off the barstool onto the floor.
“I think it’s time you tell me the name of this angel of yours,” she said. After all this time, Crowley had only ever referred to the being as “my angel.” In fact, it had taken a while for Lilith to realize this was not a euphemism, and that Crowley was referring to an honest-to-God Holy Being.
“I don’t want to tell you,” said Crowley.
Lilith was astonished. Why Crowley should feel embarrassed now, after spilling their guts out for several hours, was a mystery to her.
“Why?”
“Because you’ll… Just because!”
“Baby girl, if you don’t stop beating around the burning bush, I swear…”
“Aziraphale, alright? His name is Aziraphale.”
“Aziraphale?” she repeated. “The guardian of the Eastern Gate? The one who fucked up and let me escape? That Aziraphale?”
“See,” said Crowley awkwardly, “I knew you wouldn't approve.”
“Evelyn!” Lilith shouted abruptly. “I’m going on break! Think you can handle things for a few minutes?”
“Sure, because it’s so busy in here…” Evelyn replied sarcastically as Lilith pulled her coat back on and began marching toward the door.
“No, Lil… Don’t…” Crowley began to protest. They tried to rise from their barstool but were too drunk to make it very far.
“You stay here and sober up,” Lilith advised. The door of the bar swung shut behind her, cutting off the first words of No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak.”
Lilith was, strictly speaking, not a demon, though she often consorted with their lot. She was not an angel, either. She was human. The first human, in fact. Now, many people are under the impression that the Almighty created Adam first. This is a common misconception. Anyone who has read the book of Genesis is well aware that there are two creation myths.
“God created humankind in her image, in the image of God she created them; male and female she created them.” Lilith and Adam were a pair. Both created in the image of God. Both formed from the earth itself. The Almighty had plans for them. They were to have dominion over the fish in the sea and the birds of the air, over all the cattle and the wild animals of the earth. And all the Almighty asked in return, is that they go forth and multiply.
Lilith had other ideas. Without ever tasting of the Tree of Knowledge, she found a way out of Eden and commenced her journeys around the world. How she had managed to live this long was a mystery, even to her. Perhaps, having never known death before she left the garden, it had simply never occurred to her that she was supposed to die.
Regardless, the Almighty, seeing how Adam was far easier to manipulate, chose to create Woman again in Eve, using one of Adam’s ribs for starters. And well… We all know how that went.
Lilith, being entirely human, could not create a miracle. She could, however, travel freely between Heaven and Hell. Beelzebub had always been particularly fond of her, and let her come and go as she pleased. When Lilith thought of the Lord of the Flies now, cavorting among the stars with their angel lover, she felt a little saddened that there would be no more kiki together over tea. Still, it was no great loss. Lilith never stayed in Hell for long. It wasn’t her scene.
Despite these frequent trips to visit her demon associates, Lilith had never been to Heaven. Not once. All the same, she knew how to get there.
She didn’t have to go far after leaving the bar. She walked toward the entrance of Voodoo Doughnuts, always open till the early hours of the morning, its white light spilling onto the street. But when she opened the door, she was greeted not by the sugary-sweet scent of fried bread, but a blindingly bright, spotlessly clean elevator. She stepped inside, pressed the only button with rather more force than necessary, and waited with impatience while the lift climbed ever upward, far beyond the height that the building she had entered would seem to allow.
She reached the very top, the doors slid open silently, and a soft pinging noise reverberated through the vast space. Lilith, in her thick boots, sheer tights, and black coat, seemed out of place in the crisp white, impossibly clean interior of what seemed, for all intents and purposes, a very tall office building. But Lilith refused to feel out of place anywhere. She continued forward as though she owned the place.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
Lilith’s eyes fell on Michael, still as masculine presenting as ever. How disappointing. The archangel stood as still as a church statue, staring at Lilith with unfeigned disgust.
“Oh, fuck off, Michael. I don’t answer to you. Where’s the man in charge?”
“The Metatron?” Michael asked, annoyance dripping from every syllable. Clearly, he was upset that he’d been passed up for that promotion.
“You know who I mean.”
For a moment, Michael looked as though he were prepared to argue. But then his shoulders relaxed. He even managed a smile.
“You know what? This isn’t my problem. You’ll find the Supreme Archangel just down the hall there.”
Lilith proceeded in the direction Michael indicated. She didn’t see anyone further down the hall but didn’t let that stop her. She rehearsed what she wanted to say in her head over and over until she spotted two figures in close consultation.
“Hello, Aziraphale,” she said icily.
She hadn’t seen the angel in over six thousand years, and yet she knew that he recognized her from the way the smile fell from his face.
“Lilith!” he gasped, “What are you doing h…”
“Do you want to explain to me why there’s an inebriated demon in my bar?”
She had fully intended to rip Aziraphale a new asshole… Or rather, his first asshole. She wasn’t sure if angels had assholes. She had never given angel anatomy much thought. But Azirphale’s reaction was not what she expected. The moment she mentioned Crowley, his eyes lit up, and he stepped eagerly toward her, asking in a quick, breathless voice, “You’ve seen him? How did he look? Did he say anything about me?”
Lilith, confused and still thinking about angel anatomy, replied hastily, “She’d be a lot better if you weren’t such a… such an asshole.”
“Do I need to be here for this?” Uriel, the angel Azirphale had been speaking to, asked with derision. “Aziraphale, I thought you said you’d handled that Crowley business?”
Lilith rolled her eyes. “Is that what you call handling her? Aziraphale, I swear…”
“Please don’t,” Aziraphale begged, “There’s really no need…”
“Aziraphale…” Uriel began in a warning tone.
“Yes, alright!” cried the Supreme Archangel, grabbing Lilith by the arm, “Just… Give me a moment, will you?”
He began dragging Lilith back in the direction she’d come from. Uriel merely shook her head but did not object. Lilith supposed she couldn’t say anything, now that Aziraphale was the one in charge. That didn’t mean that she was going to let this go without objection. No one had manhandled her without her consent.
“Let me go!” Lilith ground out. She dug her heels into the sleek tiles and tried to shake off Aziraphale’s grasp, but the angel was surprisingly strong.
“I will if you go quietly! Now, Lilith… I don’t know what you’re doing here, but…”
“I’m taking you back!” Lilith declared, “You’re going back to her, and you’ll explain yourself! You are going to explain to Crowley how you could throw away six thousand years of friendship, or whatever you want to call it, with nothing but the words ‘nothing lasts forever.’”
Aziraphale froze. The hand that still held Lilith’s arm trembled violently.
“That is not what I meant…” Azirphale said in a hushed voice. “I didn’t mean to… I had to say all of that! To protect him!”
“This is what you call protection?” Lilith spat, “From what, Aziraphale?”
“I would have thought you of all people would understand! You left Eden… Left Paradise! I mean, I still don’t entirely understand your motives, but still, I left the gate open for you. And I would have thought, after all this time…”
“Wait, wait, wait… You need to back up,” Lilith interrupted. “What do you mean, you left the gate open?”
“Oh, my dear! I could see how unhappy you were in Eden. And it was clear that Adam wasn’t exactly your type, was he? So I just left the gate open for a bit. Turned my back and watched Adam name the animals for a few hours. And by the time I turned around, you were gone.”
Lilith, more impressed than she would ever admit, asked, “You would do that? Defy the Almighty? Angels have fallen for less, you know.”
Aziraphale scoffed. “Oh, please. I was assigned to a gate. Gates are designed to open , so I opened it. There was nothing defiant about it! Though, admittedly, the Almighty did see fit to, um… Seal up all the gates after you left. I had to carve out a hole when Adam and Eve were evicted…”
Lilith was starting to see Aziraphale in an entirely new light. Perhaps there was more to the angel who had managed to bewitch her sweet baby girl than she thought.
“What’s really going on here, Aziraphale? What is it you’re protecting Crowley from?”
“I can’t talk about it,” Aziraphale said, looking nervously around the blank, white space surrounding them before he resumed walking. “Not here… But don’t worry. It’s all under control. I have a plan!”
Lilith had never heard a less convincing statement in her entire life. Before she could voice further protests, Aziraphale shoved her back into the elevator.
“Take care of Crowley,” he said softly, “He hasn’t got anyone else. And tell him…” He paused, glancing again over his shoulder, as if afraid of being overheard. “Tell him when I see him again, I’ll do the dance.”
“What dance?” Lilith asked, but the doors had already slid shut.
She had the entire ride back down to earth to think of their conversation. Something big was happening, that much was certain. Something far more significant than a love affair between a demon and an angel was concerned. Crowley had spoken of thwarting one Apocalypse. Perhaps Heaven was planning another. Whatever the case, one thing was perfectly clear. Aziraphale was in way over his head.
“You sober yet?” Lilith demanded, strolling back into the bar without removing her coat.
They must have done, for they were far more steady on their feet as they leaped up and got into Lilith’s face. Crowley glared with such force that Lilith could almost make out the yellow of their eyes behind their dark sunglasses.
“Lilith… What did you say to him?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
“And where are we going?”
“We’re going to get your boyfriend back. Maybe save the world in the process. What do you say?”
Crowley stared at her, then shrugged their shoulders. “Sure. Sounds like fun.”
Their pity party was officially over. As they stepped onto the curb, they gathered the parking tickets in one hand, setting them ablaze instantly. The car, previously a bright, cheerful yellow, turned back to black in the blink of an eye.
“Do you need to stop anywhere before we go?” Crowley asked, sliding into the driver’s seat.
“Nope,” replied Lilith carelessly, falling into the seat beside them. “Do you know where we’re going?”
“I think I have an idea,” said Crowley darkly.
The Bentley rumbled to life. From the car’s radio, the intense synth of Journey’s “Separate Ways” accompanied the sound of squealing tires as they peeled away from the curb, leaving nothing behind but the afterburn of red tail lights in the deepening night.