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Unbeknownst to those who had been cast out, after the war in heaven, the angels no longer glimmered from head to toe. Instead, their gold became concentrated. A splash across the cheekbone, a gathering in the dip of the collar, alchemised into lavender in their irises.
Their gold was functional, like a badge of membership. Something to indicate side, rather than anything... Else.
Anything higher.
Curiously, Aziraphale didn't appear to have one.
//
With 'appear' being of course, the operative word.
//
If he ever found himself in a situation where he bled, they'd find it.
//
The Fallens saw themselves in those like them. Their colleagues, their confidants, their allies - all just rippled reflections of their own undoings. It was one of the many things that doomed them to an existence of bitterness. The isolation necessitated by being at constant civil war with your own side because you were at constant civil war with yourself.
They saw shadows of the charred feathers on their backs in the creases between their noses and their cheekbones, saw the angry red absence of gold that now blossomed like poison ivy on their skin in the folds of their foreheads.
They bared their teeth and their self loathing against those they'd whispered their clandestine doubt alongside, and when they could manage it, they spat on them, clawed at them, screamed at them, snarled at them -
The Fallens called the former archangel [redacted] Crawly, because they were a snake and they hadn't much imagination. The former archangel [redacted], conversely, hadn't the energy to come up with a name for themselves. (They also wanted to save their imagination for important things.)
They weren't a snake all the time. Sometimes, they were an echo of their former self. A version of their celestial form of which their eyes were chemically yellow instead of ethereally golden, their hair was a life-destroying carbon flame rather than a life-sustaining oxygen one and their bones jutted out against their skin like they was looking for a way out. Nothing about that form was harmonious, it felt as though it was - at best - tentatively skirting along the edges of what was allowed within functional reality. It didn't know how many vertebrae it was supposed to have, it didn't know how the hips were supposed to fit together. It creaked out its inquisitive protests and clicked in annoyance, and each time Crawly shushed it because -
Well. It was obvious, really.
The snake form felt more right - like it fit. There was no internal battle for dominance, and nothing to oh so painfully compare it to. Crawly supposed this was part of their punishment.
The most comfortable form is the most humiliating.
(slither towards the light, damned one,
slither towards it and beg.)
"Get up there and make some trouble," someone faceless and familiar with a voice like hot coals said. There was something deeply dismissive in the tone, something beguiling and mocking as though they knew that Crawly didn't want to, and didn't fit in. It was a challenge, that they were expected to fail.
The former archangel [redacted], however, was nothing if not obliging, so with a jovial smile that they may come to regret, they went up there and made some trouble.
//
In their own way.
//
"Eat the fruit," Crawly hisses, and Eve bites her lip.
She is so beautiful, so fragile, so new and exciting and so painfully like Her. Crawly coils around themselves to push the ache in their gut right down to the tip of their tail.
"Just a bite," Eve whispers, eyes shining with clarity, and Adam's eyebrows knit together.
He is so beautiful, so fragile, so new and exciting and so painfully like Her. Crawly's tail throbs and they drill it into the dusty ground.
Crawly smiles (as much as is within a snake's capabilities) as the sky splits in two and Her voice ricochets off every molecule of Her creation.
"Fancy meeting you here," they think bitterly.
She, of course, is too busy being bloody ineffable to reply.
//
(if humans know the difference between right and wrong
they might have a fucking chance)
//
"Didn't you have a flaming sword?" Crawly drawled curiously, aching to ask a million more questions, but God quite literally knows where that gets him.
"Er-"
"You did, it was flaming like anything, what happened to it?"
(I need to know. Because it's not just a sword is it? It was once but it's not anymore, it's the most blatant fucking metaphor in the admittedly short history of metaphors, but by Jove will it stand the test of time. It used to be mine and it was so wonderful to feel it radiate warmth and light in my hands, but now it's yours because I don't deserve it anymore because I'm bad, bad, bad. What happened to it Aziraphale? Do you get that it's the thing that you and I were made of, and shared between each other like the secrets we weren't supposed to have, and now it's what you and you alone are made of and get to keep all for yourself because a demon isn't allowed to be made of lo-)
"Gave it away."
"You what?"
"I gave it away."
Oh.
Oh.
And for the second time in a relatively short amount of what will soon be known as time, the former archangel [redacted] fell.
//
(if the humans have a flaming sword
and allow it to mean
everything crawly forces it to mean
they might have a fucking chance)
//
There's more to it than that though, isn't there?
//
He gave it away, because he didn't want it without me.
Crawly basks in the thought. Lets it melt into the desert sun and wash over them, soak into the molecules of space between their cells. A smile tugs their lips and they let it soothe them, treating it as a balm and ignoring the fact that it's laced with the bitter poison of you'll never know for sure if that's true, and neither will he.
They lie on the sand, fingers threading through the jagged grains, and try to feel the soft grasses of heaven. They claw at the walls of their imagination and pry out the phantom of their favourite angel, try to shackle him to the ground beside them.
They miss playing games.
//
Regret is a thread that runs from the top of his head to the tip of his toe, clogging every blood vessel.
You made him forget.
Relief is a stream that runs from the top of his head to the tip of his toe, cleansing every blood vessel.
You let him forget.
//
A good deed can't possibly hurt this much.
Perhaps they'll make a decent demon after all.
//
Aziraphale and Crawly left the garden.
//
It was cold without the flaming sword.
//