Chapter Text
It was a nice day.
The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and, when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
A divan made entirely of handcrafted Persian saddlebags curled around Anthony J Crowley who, as usual, was smoking an ineffable amount of cigarettes. The smoke lazily blooming from the most recent burning butt hung in the air, intertwining with the slats of buttery sunshine spilling in from the garden. From where Crowley was sitting, if he craned his neck just right, he could see the bright yellow blossoms of the Indian laburnum draping from shivering branches.
With frail wings spread, birds flitted past the silken curtains. They soared out of sight the moment they had appeared like ancient gods in a Japanese shadow play. If he listened closely, he could hear the droning of bees and the distant call of the vanished birds, but the studio was blanketed in a thick, stuffy layer of insufferable quiet. He groaned and sat up, gesturing vaguely to the angel painting in the center of the room. “Ngh, angel, say something. It’s too quiet in here,” he said.
The angel, who was called Aziraphale, didn’t even look up from his work. “I have to concentrate, you know, Crowley. I can’t keep entertaining you whenever you fancy yourself dull,” he said, leading with a sigh. The kind that comes from your toes and collects all the loving frustration in your heart you have for an unrequited crush.
“Well, well then, at least sing or… or get us a drink. Yes, get us a drink,” Crowley said.
“I am not getting us a drink. You told me you wanted your portrait done today, and I’m going to finish it before we do anything else.”
“You don’t have to finish it now, just today.”
“I’m finishing it now , Crowley.”
Crowley tossed his head back and echoed the punctuation of Aziraphale’s statement with another hellishly irritated groan. “Why are you always so difficult , angel?” Crowley said.
“Difficult? I’m difficult? You have a twisted sense of irony,” Aziraphale said. He put down his paintbrush and wiped his hands on his kerchief, turning to Crowley. “If you would just give me a few more minutes, I’ll have finished your eyes, and then I’ll make us up some lemonade and tea cakes.”
“Let me see it,” Crowley said, gesturing vaguely toward the painting. He hadn’t known until recently that Aziraphale had taken up learning the arts. Or, at least, a common medium in which the arts had found a foothold. Of course, skill in said medium was another matter; it was uncommon and therefore very not cheap, so this was the first portrait Crowley had gotten done of himself. He could have tempted someone to do it, but headquarters would have found that a selfish display of his powers. And while selfishness was a praiseworthy quality for demons to possess, it was only when they used it to procure souls for their master that it could be labeled as praiseworthy. That was why Crowley had stuck to spitefully stealing paintings from the Louvre for the past half century.
Then Aziraphale had said over lunch one day, “I would like to paint you, my dear.”
After a bit of surprised spluttering, Crowley had agreed and tried to offer Aziraphale something in return, but the angel simply smiled. “I’m fairly positive you don’t have anything I need,” he said.
“I could think of something,” Crowley said, though he had nothing in mind and likely wouldn’t think of anything until after his customary afternoon nap.
He hadn’t conjured up a suitable trade by the end of lunch, but they made plans for Crowley’s sitting next week since Aziraphale had to nip over to Edinburgh and perform a miracle or two or three.
It had been good for Crowley too. He had taken a train to Glasgow for some demonic miracles of his own, but he had found nothing much to do to the humans that the humans weren’t already doing to themselves. What a tepid city, Glasgow. It was one of his more fiendish accomplishments.
Another accomplishment would be to stretch his legs or even change positions, but every time he tried, Aziraphale shooed him back into the stiff pose that had contracted his muscles all morning. He was beginning to lose interest in his portrait. He had a mirror in his bathroom, and furthermore, he knew he was handsome. Why did he need a splat of paint on canvas to remind him?
“No! Just sit still a moment longer, please,” Aziraphale said. His eyebrows squirmed together, worrying his forehead with a pale bouquet of wrinkles and fine lines. Crowley wondered if those lines ever stuck around after the angel finally relaxed. Crowley himself had begun fretting about signs of age — a very human thing to do, but what could one really expect of a demon who’d been on Earth since The Beginning? Sometimes, he would pause in front of a mirror and take stock of himself vainly as a demon should. A nice jawline, a full tuft of ginger hair, long legs in dark slimming pants. He would then stoop forward and squint and think, Is that a wrinkle or has it always been there? Thoughts like that had a way of sneaking into your mind whether you were immortal or not.
Crowley tried to settle back in his chair and temper his expression. Cramps tingled along his body like spiders, entirely there for a moment then simmering below the surface when he tried to work them out. He could really go for lemonade and tea cakes now.
“Angel, are you done yet?” he asked.
The angel pinched the bridge of his nose, obviously over Crowley’s incessant complaining. “Oh, you demons. All hellfire and brimstone until you have to do something you don’t want to do,” the angel muttered, mixing paint on his palette.
“What does that even mean?”
“Well, you know. Hubris and all that. Doesn’t do you any good.”
Crowley rolled his eyes and made a good show of it. “Still don’t know what you mean.”
“Hubris, you know, that’s what you’ve got. That’s why you Fell. Think big of yourself until it all starts to go wrong.”
“Hubris, eh? Nah, I Fell ‘cause I hung around the wrong people.”
Aziraphale ignored him. “Hubris. Ah, it’s stood the test of time. The Greeks were overly fond of it as a theme to drive their epic tragedies. Which reminds me, how about we journey down to the theater this weekend? I hear Oedipus Rex is making its rounds.”
“Not Oedipus ,” Crowley groaned. “It’s stupid and ‘s not funny at all.”
“Well, I happen to think it’s a fantastic play though the whole bit with him marrying his mother is… ah…”
“Dysfunctional? Creepy? Weird as all hell?”
“Quite… damning.”
Crowley barked a laugh, the kind that starts in your toes and tears through the rest of your body like the pointy end of a sword. “I believe you’re right, angel,” he said.
Still troubled about Oedipus and his doomed romance with his mum, Aziraphale continued painting. The birds outside trilled an opera as the sun reached its zenith. Midday had come without a midmorning snack, and Crowley found this stunning. Aziraphale never skipped a designated meal or even a self-scheduled snack. “You’re not peckish yet, are you?” the demon asked.
The angel didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped back from the canvas, tilted his head this way and that, then deemed his work acceptable enough to be seen by somebody else. “I’ve finished,” he said. He beamed at Crowley, gesturing for the demon to take a peek.
“I thought you said you were doing my eyes,” Crowley said.
Aziraphale looked at him cheekily. “I was,” he said, “but I had finished the rest of you already.”
“Hmm, you can be a bastard,” said Crowley approvingly. He gratefully slid off the saddlebags and sauntered over, flicking his glasses atop his head so he could better grasp the colors.
The portrait was beautiful. He was looking up at the ceiling, sunshine gleaming like an aura around him, his hair a halo of flickering flames. The angel had captured his slender legs and waist in such intimate detail that the thought of Aziraphale studying him so thoroughly made the demon blush. But the most astonishing thing of all was the way he held the cigarette; it was tender, the unlit end dangerously close to his ever-so-slightly parted lips. Crowley’s heart, if he had had one, would have stopped beating entirely upon seeing the painting, but he was saved in that regard by the fact that he was only a man-shaped creature, not entirely a man.
He glanced at Aziraphale and felt the overwhelming need to kiss him. Everywhere. His lips, nose, chin, neck, shoulder… but he settled for a clearing of his throat and, “Uh… I, uh… Didn’t expect that amount of talent.”
“Well, it was a pleasure to exercise my creative muscles,” Aziraphale said. He beamed up at Crowley and then headed out of the studio, stopping at the doorway. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Come now, let’s get a spot to eat, my dear.”
Crowley cleared his throat again. There was a tickle there, something warm and fuzzy that he thought demons shouldn’t ever feel. “Right, yes, of course,” said Crowley.
He took one last look at the portrait. A blush crept across his cheeks, teeming at his ears. He had known Aziraphale for six thousand years, and somehow, he had forgotten that Aziraphale had known him for six thousand years as well. Nobody else could paint something that was so characteristically him, especially not with Aziraphale’s skill set. He was good, yes, but this was no hyperrealist painting. It had bright, swirling colors that contrasted softly with the harsh, sharp lines of his clothing, his jawline. It was in no way brilliant, but familiarity leaked out of every shape, line, and whorl of paint. Heat climbed from his toes and spread through the fairways of his whole being. What feeling it invoked, he couldn’t tell; he only knew he liked it.
With another clearing of his throat, the demon smiled to himself and followed after Aziraphale. “My treat,” he said cheerfully.
If Crowley would have looked at the painting after he said it, he would have noticed the slightest hint of fading around the cigarette. Or maybe he wouldn’t have. You can never know what someone will notice and what they won’t.