Chapter Text
In the warmth and comfort of his bookshop, Aziraphale turned the problem over in his mind.
Crowley had a secret.
Well, he was an eldritch creature; secrets came with the territory, really, but mostly, Aziraphale was not on the sticky side of the demon's web of secrecy. He had been, in fact, for the better part of six thousand years, Crowley's primary secret, and the demon was his.
Now, knowing, well, suspecting, no, truly knowing Crowley was keeping him in the dark about something deeply unsettled the angel. The feeling had been growing slowly, very slowly, over the six millennia of their unlikely friendship, and he felt things were all coming to a head.
What could he be hiding? What could be more secretive even than the Arrangement? Why hide from him? With the end of all things having come and gone, largely unnoticed by nearly everyone else on the planet, is there anything left that he himself wouldn’t trust Crowley with? What would it take to push him so far?
Dreadfully unsettling thoughts today.
Best to keep occupied. Idle hands were the devil's playthings. Well… unlikely with angelic hands, but the truth beneath held fast. Aziraphale settled into the antique writing desk he preferred to do his most careful work on, bending himself to the task he had set himself to some three weeks before. It had been a very long time indeed since he had done any traditional copying in the style of the medieval monks, but in a flash of inspiration that was anything but divine, Aziraphale felt it was about time the Buggre Alle This Bible had its own, hand-illuminated copy. His anxious thoughts eased off a touch, as he resumed work on a detailed illustration of the late, unlamented Master Scagges.
The first time he'd noticed something was up (down?) was in 1175… after the Garden, that is. 2829 B.C.E on the new calendar. Tyre was a young and bustling city just out of a particularly intense rainy season. He'd run into Crowley, then Crawley, heading in to stir up some trouble in the local economy while he'd been sent in to bless and protect the city which should have, if all went well, lasted for thousands of years, becoming one of the best commercial centers in the world. He sometimes wondered, somewhat scandalously, if someone from his people and someone from Crawley's people were comparing notes.
Besides the two of them, of course. They’d been trudging through an abandoned, water sodden field on the outskirts of the city, Crawley cursing it, Aziraphale blessing, plants withering and blooming and going to seed all around them while they debated the merits and demerits of their respective employment.
“The things you say, Crawley!”
“What? That this all seems like pointless exercise? The two of us thwarting each other through time?”
“God's plan is not pointless,” the angel protested.
“It does rather wind around a bit though, doesn’t it? And where do ducks come into it all, I have to wonder.”
“Just after snakes, I assume.”
“No need to get personal, now. Although, euh, perhaps you have a point. She had to know where it's all going, so She would have had to know the War was coming. Why not,” he stepped in front of Aziraphale, stopping him in his tracks, and a third of the stalks vanished entirely, “just not Create us in the first place. Save some trouble.”
Aziraphale stepped around him and the stalks returned, golden grain gleaming in the sun, which also seemed to brighten considerably when the angel smiled up at it. “I think it would be wiser not to question your own existence, don’t you?”
“Nah, She doesn’t listen to me anyw-" Crawley had stiffened all of a sudden, then let out a string of curses so vile Aziraphale swayed on his holy feet, cringing.
"Crawley, what-?"
"Gotta jet. Sorry." He vanished, an odd whiff of sulfur lingering behind.
Jet? Aziraphale wished Crawley would stick with idioms from this century. Forever trying to peek ahead at social trends. The word sounded positively bizarre in Phoenician.
"Well, that was unusual."
The plants would have agreed with him, if only they could have. They liked Aziraphale. Much better than the other. The grain rustled softly, but there was no wind.
Aziraphale hadn't seen Crowley again for a decade, and that only in passing. At the time the demon seemed distracted... no, stranger than that. Nervous? Surely not guilty.
Guilty?
Well, Crowley was often guilty of one thing or the other, but he certainly didn't project that feeling outwardly... or ever acknowledge it as a possibility. He would have put on quite a display, had Aziraphale even suggested that it was. Crowley did, however, acknowledge guilt as a major flaw in his angelic counterpart. They had disagreed on many things, and ended up quickly going their separate ways.
At their next meeting, Crowley seemed his normal self, and as eager to put the incident behind them as Aziraphale himself was, and he thought no more about it.
“Ahh, Crowley!” he called out brightly, spying the old tempter in a bustling Corinth marketplace.
Perhaps he hadn’t been heard.
"Crowley?" He waggled his fingers in a cheerful little wave, unease settling deeper when the answering wave lacked any hint of sarcasm.
Crowley could project sarcasm with any number of physical gestures. Rare were the occasions it didn't leak out somewhere.
He seemed decidedly put out on this occasion, though Aziraphale could not fathom why. Well, perhaps a little kindness would smooth things over.
"Hello, Crowley! Out for an afternoon temptation then? I found this little stall in the marketplace with these khalal dates and they are scrumptious! You see they harvest them early, so they still have this lovely, crunchy texture, not too sweet, and they are just, mmm, miraculous. Well, near enough anyway." He proffered up the basket with a wink and watched, pleased, as a smile attempted to crawl across Crowley's face, before it was stubbornly quashed.
Nothing too serious then, surely.
After a moments hesitation, Crowley propped open the lid. "Hmm. Well done, I'm sure." They both knew he wasn't particularly interested in food, but it was a familiar step that they could fall into easily.
"Not a temptation, per say," he shrugged easily. "Just tidying up some unfinished sssssins," he drawled, flicking out his tongue, just to needle. Aziraphale beamed at him and paid it no mind.
A genuine grin blossomed on the demon's face as he neatly plucked out a date and fired it with unnatural force into a bottle resting on a table behind the wine merchant, who was peddling his wares, and his charms, to a pretty young wife.
Someone's pretty young wife, anyway.
The bottle shattered and the man spun around, forgetting his pursuit in favour of hollering at the completely innocent jeweler nearby, who promptly lost his temper and decked him, starting a scuffle. Aziraphale sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward as no less than four opportunistic thieves made off with unprotected merchandise.
Crowley knocked back a swig of his newly acquired wine with a swagger of victory before handing off the bottle to his companion. Aziraphale took a delicate sip and miracled a few apology coins in the wine sellers pocket. He would be surprised and delighted... when he came round.
"You are such a stick in the mud," Crowley scolded, grinning fit to burst. "Don't think I didn't notice that. You can't fool me, angel."
"Don't think I didn't notice what the wine merchant was up to before you threw my date,” he snipped back easily.
"I'm sure I have no idea what you're referring to." Aziraphale felt his lips quirk up in amusement as deep fondness welled up in his spirit.
Crowley.
The man-shaped rapscallion sauntered on, with a touch more saunt. It would suit him, when they got around to inventing jeans, or so Crowley assured him.
"Sssides, I tempted him to it in the first place."
"Oh, I see. So you're doing some self- thwarting now?"
"Sure. You can return the favour in the Holy land next month. Below wants me there. I want me... not."
"Well, I suppose, I could, if you were to do some healing of the sick in Athens. Any particular reason?"
"Aside from the fact they call it the Holy land?" Crowley shook his head. "It's a long way on camel, what don't like me anymore than horses do, they're due in for a slew of rain, and Hastur likes the desert, so he's much more likely to pop in for the recounting of the *Deeds of the Day*." He made a face like he had a bad taste in his mouth. "I dunno... what's the appeal, anyway? Don't you ever get tired of reporting in? Sending memos you lied like Hell on?"
Aziraphale straightened up slightly, frowning at him. "I do not *lie* in my reports, Crowley. I... merely... emphasize other, more pertinent truths. 'M an angel," he added, in case it had been forgotten.
Abruptly, he stumbled, startled, when the demon laughed and gave him a little shove. "See, that, right there? That is why you would be so good at my job!"
"I *really* wish you would stop saying that."
"But it's just so true! You've genius for rationalization. All that angelic goodness and light bends itself nicely to tempting, really. Humans like to listen to you. I mean, can't see it being a technique we could use across the board. Most of my lot couldn't think their way out of a Chinese finger trap-"
"A what?"
"Chinese finger trap, gonna be all the rage in a thousand years or so."
"Ah."
"And I don't see Beelzebub being able to charm anything-"
"The smell of rotting corpses can be a bit off-putting."
"I keep telling them that. Who listens? Nobody, that’s who. Anyway, the point is, you would be a real asset for Downstairs."
"So you're recruiting me now?"
"I don't know," he peered at him, golden eyed and mischievous. "Are you tempted?"
Aziraphale pinged a date off his forehead.
"Can't blame a devil for trying."
"I absolutely can," the angel laughed, steering them in the direction of an early lunch.
Lunch had been a playful affair, beginning with Aziraphale scolding Crowley for wasting a perfectly nice date, and ending with them tossing grapes in each other's mouths in increasingly ridiculous and physics-shaming ways until the pressure of baffled humans staring at them outweighed the fun of the game. Aziraphale noted a young man had begun taking wagers.
"Best be off, I would say."
"Hmm...” the demon whispered to someone and gave them a friendly shove towards the speculator. “Oh, right then."
Crowley stabbed a black fingernail towards a raven swooping over head. "Oi! What's that, a raven? They say the harvest will be good when you see a raven after rain!"
As one, the small crowd of onlookers broke into a heated debate on the ability of ravens to predict the viability of the harvest while angel and demon slipped away unnoticed.
Their aimless path meandered towards a little stream where a trio of boys were having races, letting little leaf boats float along the current. Aziraphale quietly blessed them, smiling. Crowley let that one go, unthwarted.
"Wonderful creatures, children. So much potential for good.”
"For good and evil both, angel. You aren't so fond of them when they grow up to be cruel men."
"Not so, my fri-, Crowley. I love them still, as She must do. I just don't love their choices."
Crowley frowned at him, serpentine eyes narrowing. "I'm not so sure," he gestured vaguely skyward in silent indication of the Almighty, "... must do. Not a particularly *patient* hand with those who invoke Her wrath."
They weren't so far after the fall of Pompei, and the sorrow was still fresh for them both. Well, Crowley’s pain ran ever towards wrath, but the angel could understand how that went.
"Maybe we just don't understand what Her patience is," Aziraphale posited. "After all- Crowley?" The golden eyes had snapped wide in panic before quickly shutting against Aziraphale's concern. When they opened again an instant later, there was no trace of the alarm that had so suffused him.
"You know, I'm really not in the mood for any kind of theological debate right now, angel. Catch you on the flipside!"
Gone again, leaving an absence felt more deeply than it should have been. "Until the next time, then," Aziraphale told no one.