Chapter Text
Welcome! Everything is Good!
Anathema had been starting at those lime green words for the better part of a minute and still, she couldn’t quite comprehend what they were doing there, on the wall. Or rather she couldn’t comprehend why she was sitting in a rather well-lit waiting room when just a second ago she was riding her bike home, in the middle of the night. And even worse she couldn't comprehend why she felt quite so calm about all of it.
A door to her right inched open and a slender man in sunglasses moved into view.
“Anathema Device? My name is Crowley come on in”
Now Anathema had never been particularly religious, spiritual is what she would call herself if pushed, which meant that she read her horoscope in the paper and subscribed to a rather enormous amount of occultist magazines. This had prepared her for a ridiculously large number of unlikely occurrences, this, however, was not one of them.
“You, Anathema Device, are dead,” said Crowley, with a surprising level of calmness for the words he was delivering “but don’t worry, your wonderful actions on earth have earned you a spot in The Good Place”
“oh right, lovely” Anathemas mouth felt like it was on autopilot, this should be freaking her out, but it wasn’t, she hoped it wasn’t all going to register in a second and drive her insane.
“You see” Crowley waved a hand conjuring up what closely resembled a touchscreen board, only without the board “when you die you have acquired a total number of points from your actions on earth and you did enough good to get here” as he speaks his words are represented by string of numbers and a list of deeds that Anathema can vaguely recall.
“But enough about you” Crowley leant across the table conspiratorially “let's have a look around”
Heaven, or The Good Place, looks absolutely nothing like Anathema would have imagined if she had ever been told to imagine heaven during her time on earth. In place of clouds and harps, there appear to be pastel-toned streets and a rather alarming number of crepe shops.
Crowley sauntered ahead of her pointing to various landmarks and waving to the people that line the streets and Anathema thinks that she may finally be beginning to freak out.
“I'm sorry to ask, but are you like, an Angel?” she asked deciding it was a fairly safe question to ask her odd guide.
The look on his face is one she can't quite place but would rank somewhere between shock and horror.
“oh no! I’m just an architect! I designed the neighbourhood!”
“you designed this?” Anathema took another look and to give Crowley credit she could appreciate some good city planning when she saw it and she could certainly see it now.
“Every tree, house and shop was designed to be perfect for the residents, it's my first job you see so I need it to go perfectly" Crowley had dropped his voice confidentially at this information, so Anathema smiled as reassuringly as she could.
“It looks fantastic, but is there…”
“Ah, ah, ah” Crowley cut her off “if you have any questions then all you need to do is ask Aziraphale”
"Whose Aziraphale?”
“Hello,” said a voice at Anathemas shoulder and she spun around nearly knocking over a small middle-aged man in a creme suit who has appeared next to her as if from nowhere.
“Aziraphale” explained Crowley “is your guide here, just ask for him and he's happy to answer any question you may have, he knows everything there is to know," Anathema thought she might be imagining it but a hint of pride seemed to slip into Crowley's voice as he spoke.
“I'm always happy to assist” Aziraphale continued as if they hadn't interrupted him “would you like a cup of cocoa?” He held one out to her that Anathema could almost swear he wasn't holding before
“oh forgot to mention” Crowley waved vaguely “Aziraphale can also create anything you want, just ask”
Anathema refused the cocoa, but accepted a map of the neighbourhood, though Crowley didn't seem keen to let her explore but instead steered her toward a more residential area leaving Aziraphale to finish the cocoa himself.
He came to a stop in front of a small but idyllic cottage coated in flowers and vines, the image of the house of her dreams.
“your forever home” he announced and Anathema couldn't help but grin
“and inside” he continued nudging her arm “is your soulmate”
“my soulmate? That's a thing?’
“of course! Now this person has been matched to you personally, based on a huge amount of factors so I know you are going to love him”
Feeling more than a little overwhelmed, Anathema was unceremoniously shoved into the house by Crowley, it was perfect, of course, decorated exactly how she would have decorated her home if she had been a little more English and more open about her occult interests.
“Newt!” Crowley called “that's your soulmate, he's perfect, a genius computer engineer, he invented a system that would easy recognise hate speech on all social media platforms, he was also a philanthropist and spent almost all his spare time volunteering, at a food bank, or in animal shelters” Crowley lowered his voice and added “he is also exactly your type” with a rather unnecessary wink.
Crashes from the room ahead of them attracted their attention and the two of them hurried into what turned out to be a kitchen where a nervous-looking young man was picking up a pile of pans he appeared to have knocked onto the floor.
“ah Newt,” Crowley said unfazed “this is your soulmate Anathema”
“Lovely to meet you” Newt held out his hand to her and as she studied him she Crowley was completely wrong about him being her type, however, he was also completely right, which was a little disconcerting. He was definitely tall, dark and mostly handsome, however, he also looked as if he’d recently been pulled throw a hedge backwards and was dressed like a teacher, who was trying to be cool and failing miserably. He also looked completely terrified which didn't exactly add to the effect.
“Wonderful” declared Crowley, "so I will leave you two to get to know each other"
“of course..” Anathema started but he was already gone leaving her alone in the idyllic cottage with someone who looked on the verge of a panic attack.
“I've heard so much about you” Newt started his voice wobbling somewhere between cheerful and hysterical “you're really great’
“and you seem pretty amazing too” Anathema decided, he was in The Good Place after all and her soulmate to boot, and she as a rule didn't argue with these things “would you like a cup of tea?”
…
Crowley flung himself into his chair with a satisfied grin.
“looks like we are off to a swimming start” he declared to no-one in particular.
“You had better be” the screen let into action showing Beezlebub’s face floating several feet in front of his “you know you had better succeed or your life is on the line”
“Ugk yeah no I know” Crowley sat up straighter and forced himself to look professional“ this is going to be great, comply revolutionize torture”
“anything else is a failure" Beelzebub assured him “we'll be keeping an eye on you”
“ngk no sure” Crowley promised desperately as Beezlebub’s face faded from view.
“Aziraphale” he called into the open-air
“yes” the familiar voice echoed from behind him
“its time to initiate phase one: welcome party”
…
Newt was having a terrible time, which was odd, considering he was in heaven. However, he definitely wasn’t supposed to be in heaven, so there was that. The name on the file Crowley had presented to him was his, it's contents were not, he had actually been a rather unadventurous wages clerk, not any kind of genius philanthropist no matter how much he might have wanted to be one.
And worst of all there was now a legitimately good person in his kitchen making tea who thought she was his soulmate.
“I need to tell you something,” he said voice moving a thousand times faster than his brain.
His maybe soulmate turned around looking cheerfully curious, and Newt desperately, so so wanted to be who she thought he was, but he wasn’t and he was pretty sure lying was somewhere in the seven deadly sins, so he was going to tell her.
“I'm lactose intolerant," that had not been what he’d meant to say and now she was looking even more confused.
"that's fine," she said clearly nonplussed "this is heaven there'll be alternatives"
“okay right chill” Newt offered lamely, cringing internally, so he had lied, well he hadn’t actually lied he just hadn't told the truth which he was sure was totally different. It had to be.
“what this” Anathema held up piece of paper that seemed to have just appeared spontaneously on the table, which was something that had happened all too often, so Newt figured he should at some point stop been surprised.
“oh, our neighbours are having a welcome party!” she declared and he forced himself to smile and nod hoping he looked at least a little calmer.
“It'll be good to get to know the others” she continued “and each other”
Her smile was a little too warm and Newt knew that at least this was one weird thing they could talk about.
“do you not find this whole soulmate thing a bit odd?” he asked
“no?” Anathema looked truly confused, “this is just one of those heavenly things, fate and all"
"yeah, but like how do they know?" Newt asked desperately "like I barely know you and we have to live together?"
"I'm sorry?" and now she's looking offended, can this day possibly get any worse?
"you know, forget about it!" Newt figures maybe questioning thing too much is a sign he shouldn't be here in which case he is absolutely screwed "I probably just need to get used to it!"
"yeah" Anathema is smiling now and he's a little relieved and a lot guilty, "and I reckon the party will be the perfect place for that"
...
As he arranged a pile of ornamental cupcakes, Aziraphale came to the conclusion that he probably shouldn't be doing this.
Granted he had come to this realisation multiple times since he had half volunteered, half been tricked into helping Crowley build this fake heaven to screw with a bunch of humans.
It was, he was sure, a better option than hell, or The Bad Place, but then again, he was an angel and he really shouldn't be torturing humans in any form, even the most gentle way.
Still, this was only four humans, he could cope, and if this did all go wrong he did at least have a safe alternative and a place to fall back to.
Crowley however...
Aziraphale tried not to think too much about what would happen to Crowley if this all fell apart. He hadn't known the demon for long but he had quickly learnt to appreciate his quick thinking and bold ideas, as well as his far nicer approach to eternal torment. The idea that this frankly rather brilliant creature could be melted into hot goo if this went wrong was enough to turn Aziraphale's non-existent stomach.
So he was going to help and do his part, he owed that to Crowley and, he reminded himself, it wasn't as if these were particularly good humans.
...
The welcome party was gorgeous, of course, in fact, it was good enough that Anathema could partially overlook her nervous wreck of a soulmate and agree that maybe she was in heaven after all.
She hadn't actually seen the host, a woman she was pretty sure was named Tracy but was assured by everyone she ran into that she was wonderful, which seemed to be a word used to describe everyone here.
The house was very different to hers, bigger and brighter, and impeccably decorated, she admired a very impressive stack of brightly coloured cupcakes as Newt darted off to get drinks. Say what she would about her soulmate, he was at least enthusiastic and nice, which was a low bar sure, but an alright starting point.
She decided that she might as well relax. She was in heaven after all and if she needed to take a break, she had the rest of eternity to do it. So she resolved to settle in for a welcome break from deadlines and worries.
Newt had barely rejoined her with two glasses of some extremely fancy looking cocktail when her dreams of a calm evening were ruined by a frantic looking Crowley dashing over to them.
He looked rough obviously concerned, and when he spoke he was slightly out of breath "Newt I need your help now"
"whats going on?" Anathema asked, not keen to relinquish her soulmate without explanation.
"its the computers in here, they're meant to be used for karaoke later but I'm terrible with human technology and I think I crashed them, I need Newt to get them up and working, he's the only one I think could of who could do it"
Newt had tuned very pale but responded resolutely "yeah sure I can take a look"
"You can come along too Anathema" Crowley suggested "two human heads are better than one as you say"
He leads them into a side room where a system, even Anathema can recognise as spectacular, has been set up. The screens seem to be showing a karaoke game but its blurry and glitches every other second.
"I'll leave you humans to it" Crowley called and promptly abandoned them
"right," Newt said looking terrified and moved to examine the wires, this Anathema reckons, should be good for him something he can do.
"ah this is it!" he decided, leaning a hand on the system as if on cue all the screens glitched at once and faded to black with a threatening hiss.
"what happened," she asked
"I don't know" Newt had somehow turned even paler and looked like he was about to be sick.
"I thought you were the genius computer engineer?' Newt winced visibly and Anathema’s blood turned cold
"I should have told you earlier I just panicked"
"what is it?"
"I'm not who you think I am"
"Who are you then?' Anathema asks still willing this not to be happening
"Well my name IS Newt Pulsifer but I'm not a computer engineer, I'm a wages clerk"
"you mean?"
"I'm not meant to be here, I'm not meant to be in The Good Place"