Work Text:
The entire process, though time-consuming, had actually gone through fairly smoothly in the end. The one who had once given him a flaming sword now gave him a meaningful look, but that was about it. On the whole, Heaven was quite approving of the notion that they might have an envoy on Earth. After all, no one else would have been willing to do it. And it’s not like they knew the real reason why he wanted to go.
Aziraphale didn’t know either. Or at least, he pretended not to know.
What mattered was that it was happening. He would be given a human - or mostly human - body, and free reign to live on Earth alone, where at the very least he might not be the object of divine vigilance all the time. He could get away from it all. Just for a little while, he told himself. A few decades, perhaps a couple of centuries at most, and then he would return with a clear head, ready to be the humble and obedient angel he knew he could be.
God knows why He created humans to be born with the first words their soulmate would speak to them imprinted permanently on their skin. Or maybe even He didn’t. Perhaps it was just an idea that was set into motion for no other reason than to exist. It was all rather... ineffable, after all.
Aziraphale’s feet touched down on Earth for the first time. He struggled to stand on them, pulled down by an invisible force. Gravity, he knew, and he couldn’t stop a giddy smile from tugging at the corners of his lips. This was it. This is what it feels like to have mass. It felt so strange. Real in a way he’d never felt before. Physical. He saw, but he didn’t see everything - only what lay in a single, limited field of view. He heard, but he didn’t hear everything - only what reached the delicate, shell-shaped organs on either side of his head. His wings, folded around his torso for decency, now receded, and Aziraphale quickly conjured something else to hide his new body. It was shaped vaguely like what humans would eventually call a robe, and it was made of what Aziraphale understood to be plant matter. He had done quite well recreating it, and from a short distance away it would even be impossible to tell that it was a bit fuzzy around the edges like watercolour paint.
He had hair now. Aziraphale felt it touch his shoulders as it cascaded down, but there was no sensation in the hair itself. Was hair supposed to be numb? Moving one of his new arms as carefully and stiffly as though he were posing a mannequin, Aziraphale touched his hand to it. It was soft, and surprisingly pleasant, and as the angel combed his strange, untrained fingers through it, he decided that it probably should be incapable of tactile feeling.
Smell. The new sense overcame him in a sudden wave. This was what he had been missing? It was so wonderful, and powerful, and overwhelming, and- Taste. It followed shortly after, infecting his mouth with something similar to its precursor, yet different. Aziraphale was over the moon. Something in his chest was pumping a frantic, rhythmic beat that pulsed through his whole body. He watched in awe as his hands formed fingernails, his arms grew soft, downy hairs; he watched and listened and smelt and tasted and, with limited success, balanced. And in hushed awe, he said, This is incredible. But the words didn’t come out.
This is - No.
This - Nothing.
Something in his neck flexed eagerly, and Aziraphale touched a hand to it. He was getting the hang of moving these limbs, he noticed. Instinct opened his mouth and sent a grunt of shock vibrating through his larynx.
Ah, sound comes from the throat , Aziraphale realised. He couldn’t just think the words anymore, they were utterly silent and private now, until he used a part of his body to project them. It was odd, and exciting, and the second thing that he did with it was laugh. He laughed, and he kept laughing, and he knelt to the ground still chuckling, overcome by the imperfect, messy beauty of it all. Half in a daze, Aziraphale reached his hand out - a real, physical hand - to touch the glorious earth.
And then he noticed something. Something just out of sight on his forearm. He quickly flipped it to face upwards, and furrowed his brow at what he saw. There on the tender skin, blooming like soft brown bloodstains, were the beginnings of a pattern. They darkened, and expanded, and took on more and more of a clear shape.
Oh no . Aziraphale gasped in morbid realisation, his other hand flying to his mouth. This body was, mostly, human. Which meant-
But it couldn’t mean that, it couldn’t! No matter what body he was in, he was an angel! He couldn’t possibly have-
But he could. And he did. The proof was right there, etching itself onto his right forearm as he stared in disbelief. And Aziraphale first felt dread. And in the next moment, Aziraphale first felt fear. All-consuming, world-shattering fear. Because before the last delicate lines of script even finished connecting into the characters of a language known only to celestial creatures, Aziraphale knew what they said. He knew, because he had already heard the words before, when the first droplets of rain were striking at the shelter of his wings in the Garden of Eden. He collapsed, shaking and heaving, bracing himself up with both arms as tears sprang to his virgin eyes. He used his voice for the third time, to swear for the first - uttering the rudimentary syllable of a curse older than words. It couldn’t be, he insisted to himself. He was an angel.
But it could be, and it was. Because the words now deepening to inky black on his arm, completed, read:
“That one went down like a lead balloon."