Chapter Text
The noonday sun shone straight down, so that even the temple's shadow barely touched the market, baking people and goods alike. Crowley's carnelian beads were a welcome touch of coolness against the bare skin of his chest as he glided between stalls, causing an extra sheep's cheese to fall into a basket here, sliding a temptation to short-change into a trader's ear there, getting a virtuous maiden to check out a married woman as he meandered past, enjoying the discord rising around him. He was between official jobs, but every little sin on the scale counted.
It was the last place he expected to run into an angel, head bent over a tablet. But there he was, somehow more solid, more real than any of the humans around him, as if the world had needed to bend just a little bit to accommodate so much reality in one place. His shoulders glowed with perfumed oil, his hair grain-golden, as if it hadn't occurred to him to blend in.
"Aziraphale!" Crowley hissed.
"Ah, hello." The angel looked up, and his brow creased. "Have we..."
Crowley widened his eyes.
"Ah! Crawly!" the angel said, with a tad too much bonhomie than was probably advised for greeting one of the Fallen. "Fancy meeting you here, of all places."
"It's Crowley these days. And you're the one who shouldn't be here." Despite all common sense, Crowley slid his arm into Aziraphale's. He herded the angel out of the marketplace, in the opposite direction to the temple. "Big sacrifice to Dagon in just a few hours, and I heard he's rising up for it. Not a good place for an angel."
"It's kind of you to let me know," Aziraphale said, a little bemused as he stumbled along in Crowley's grip, along narrow sidestreets. "Dagon? Should I recognise the name?"
"You know. Was a Heavenly scribe in the old days. Bit fishy."
"Ah, yes, E-"
"For Satan's sake don't say his old name."
"I'm sorry. I suppose it is rather bad manners. They actually worship him? What's in it for them?"
"All kinds of things, really. He started off doing some weather stuff, and now he's been hailed as the father of gods and all sorts. Getting a bit big for his britches, I'd say, but the Powers That Be seem to approve and he's made it to Underduke, on the Dark Council and all. You don't really want to be near the temple while a big cheese on our payroll is visiting, sensible Principality like you." Nor, Crowley thought, did a sensible demon want to get caught in the company of an angel if Dagon decided to go for an afternoon stroll. Yet here he was, suddenly very conscious of the soft skin of Aziraphale's arm in his, the bumping of their shoulders together as they walked. It was a kind of warmth completely different from the burning sun, both more comfortable and more dangerous somehow.
It was nice. Nice was not a safe word to associate with The Enemy. He'd heard of cities smited by angels, all the humans dead, even the little humans who surely could not have done much to offend heaven. Lightning, fire, plagues, flood. Only… only it was hard to associate such stern and heartless righteousnes with the angel who had given Adam his flaming sword. Azziraphale was one of the good guys, Crowley was somehow rock-bottom sure of it, which wasn't always true of the Good Guys, properly capitalised.
They were probably far enough away by now to evade infernal attention. Crowley sank with some relief onto a bench outside a tavern. Aziraphale hovered, obviously wondering if it was all right to sit down too. Crowley waved him to sit across from him, still questioning his own sense of self-preservation. They weren't in Eden anymore.
It gave him a good chance to get more than a fleeting impression of how Aziraphale was looking these days. A bit different to Eden. Less muscle tone, for one thing, and an expansive, comfortable kind of plumpness in his thick arms, the curve of flesh where it met the sash of his kilt, the plushness of his bared chest. Crowley had met all kinds of humans at all stages of life and from all parts of the world since his Eden days, and as a result he could peg Aziraphale's corporation closer to what he could as a serpent. Aziraphale looked "older" than Crowley's corporation, lines of wisdom and laughter around his mouth and eyes. He registered as a pampered minor noble or merchant rather than a warrior, someone who ate well and didn't do any heavy lifting. Other stuff spoke to a life of comfort as well, the lapis-lazuli beads echoing the blue of his eyes, the heavy perfume that clung to him, almost masking the scent of his sun-warmed skin. His colouring was entirely wrong for the region, although not as wrong as Crowley's eyes, to be fair. It could pass as albinism, perhaps.
Crowley realised he was staring, and turned to order two jugs of beer from a young man who had come out to see to them.
"I should pay for myself," Aziraphale said, letting the words trail off expectantly.
Other things came from spending time with generations of humans, and Crowley knew precisely what answer was expected. Evidently, Aziraphale had learned some things too.
"Consider it part of my job," he said obligingly. "Tempting you to the consumption of alcohol."
"It serves its purpose," Aziraphale objected mildly. "Hydration with less risk of contamination by disease, for example. Our side are all for it, in moderation."
"Moderation?" Crowley let his yellow eyes gleam, accepting the challenge.
Some hours later, Aziraphale's peaches and cream complexion was more like strawberries and more strawberries, and Crowley kept forgetting to keep his tongue in his mouth when he talked.
"Itssss clever, it is. Get grain wet until it sprouts little tails. I used to have a tail," Crowley added morosely. "Used to be all tail."
Aziraphale helped himself to more beer, on Crowley's tab. "Not all tail. You had eyes. And teeth. Sharp teeth." He swilled down some more of the sweet-sour beer. "I like your new corporation better."
Crowley's cheeks flamed, for some reason. "Wasn't sure you'd know it was me, even with the eyes. Can't seem to change the eyesss."
"That, and you still speak with a forked tongue, dear boy, like the deceiver you are. Besides, you're still a bit…" He waved a hand, rather wobbly. "Serpentine. If it isn't rude to say."
Crowley considered the question, through the fuzz of alcohol. The beer here wasn't very strong, but he had downed more than several humans had the capacity to drink. He wasn't entirely plastered yet, but every thought and movement and syllable seemed to take more concentration than usual. "Might be a bit snakey," he conceded. No matter what he ate he remained unfashionably lithe, and it was easier to pass as human in places that had invented boots.
He liked passing as human. Be recognised as an angel, fallen or not, and humans tended to demand all kinds of things from you, and insist on worshipping you, which was embarassing. All right if you were someone like Dagon, who enjoyed lording over them and inventing paperwork for the temples, but Crowley found it was more fun to actually hang around with them than terrorise them. Still, it was better to have them twig you as a supernatural being than a snake. Curse of Eden and all that. Make one little temptation, and they held it against you for good.
"Have you ever had your head stepped on?" he asked, following the thought. "Wake up in Hell with a heaven, 'scuse my language, of a headache, and you should see the length of the forms you have to fill in to get a new body."
"Quite a harsh punishment for an apple you didn't even eat yourself," Aziraphale said sympathetically, "although it's not my place to question the Almighty. And it does allow you to get a good few revenge bites in on heels, I understand."
"Or ever eaten dust?" Crowley went on, ignoring him as the vortex of self-pity opened up. "Coats your tongue sssomething awful."
"Have a date instead," Aziraphale offered, with deep generosity considering Crowley was paying.
That got Crowley's thoughts back on their former track. "Little tails on the grain. Then while the seeds are baking in the ssssun, you get some datess, see, and mash them up, and some bread and honey… or was that first? Anyway, then you have beer!" he finished triumphantly. He had a nagging feeling he had missed or glossed over some steps in the recipe, but nothing important. "Clever humans, making alcohol."
"I think you'll find that it's a miracle of God. Turning sunshine into alcohol via sun and plants and yeast and… bees..." Aziraphale seemed a little uncertain of the process himself.
"Humans. Give humans the world, and they find ways to make fun things." A distant scream wafted on the breeze from the direction of the temple, and he shuddered. "And other ssstuff."
"They're good at stories, too. Things they make up, and tell each other. Things that happened in a different way, or never happened at all. Some of them are very good. Better than anything--"
Aziraphale broke off suddenly. Slightly blurry yellow eyes met blue, and there was a moment of something Crowley couldn't quite define, all of a piece with the way Aziraphale's hair curled softly against his forehead, the wetness of beer on his lower lip, and the way his thighs looked perfect to hook his own over, soft and thick. He could, after all. People shaped more or less like them tangled legs together or sat on each other's laps and no one thought anything of it, these days.
People shaped more or less like them weren't fated enemies, or at least not while doing the lap sitting. Crowley had overstepped by even taking Aziraphale's arm.
He dismissed the thought, and signalled for more beer. Couldn't hurt to have a catch-up with a rival agent, he told himself. They could both tell their own side it was information-gathering and that they'd learned more from each other than they had given away. Brilliant idea, really. Maybe they should do this more often, if he could get Aziraphale to see it the same sensible way he did.
The sun dropped, and the short shadows became long before Aziraphale stood, sighed, and sobered up. "Well, this has been pleasant, but I must be running along. Good deeds to do and all that."
"Sssssure." Crowley tried to bring the blurry figure of the angel into sharp focus. "Do this again some time?"
Aziraphale hesitated, then said, "I don't see why not," in a firm tone that suggested he saw just why but was going to anyway.
Crowley watched the lonely figure of the angel move away. Lonely. That was an odd thought. Nothing about Aziraphale suggested he was lonely. Who could be lonely in a world as full of interest and humans as this one? Not Crowley, certainly, and probably not Aziraphale either.
Any impulse to slither after Aziraphale and take his arm again was that blessed seeded grain and fermented dates talking.