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Aziraphale and Crowley had been sitting in comfortable silence in the back room of the bookshop for about an hour. Aziraphale absorbed in a book, Crowley playing a game on his phone.
Crowley yawned. The kind of yawn that cracks your jaw and his eyelids drooped.
“You know...” Aziraphale said softly, not looking up from his book. “There's a perfectly good bed upstairs if you'd like to partake of it.”
Crowley's eyelids popped open. “I might just take you up on that, Angel.” He reached for his blazer that was draped over the back of the sofa but as he pulled it towards himself, the pocket caught on the edge of the table that was tucked in behind the sofa and when he jerked it free, there was the unmistakeable sound of stitches ripping. “Ngk!” Crowley groaned.
“Don't worry about it.” Aziraphale closed his book and stood. “You go on up to bed and I'll fix it.”
Crowley gave him a tired smile and handed off the blazer as he headed for the door marked Private that would take him to the flat upstairs and the comfy bed he was sure Aziraphale had never slept in. “Thanks Angel.”
Aziraphale smiled. “Sleep well.”
---
Aziraphale checked the shop door was locked, washed and put away their wine glasses and then turned off all the lights before heading up the stairs himself. Crowley's blazer in his hand, the book he was reading tucked under his arm.
The burst stitching on the pocket wasn't too serious Aziraphale noticed when he settled himself in his sitting room armchair. Thankfully the fabric hadn't ripped as well so he could easily repair it, the human way. It took him about ten minutes to stitch up the pocket.
He was just tying off the end of the thread when the blazer slipped across his lap. He made a grab for it and as he did so, a black wallet escaped from the inside pocket, threw itself towards the floor and landed with a thud, flopping open.
Aziraphale reached down to retrieve it and as he did so, he noticed Crowley had a driver's licence tucked into the window pocket. He smiled when he glanced at it before lifting the wallet up and bringing it closer for a better look.
In the picture, Crowley had slightly longer hair than he did currently and hazel eyes that to Aziraphale looked totally wrong. He glanced at the date of birth, 18th April 1971. Huh, he thought to himself. He would have expected Crowley to try to pass himself off as someone at least in their thirties.
He went to close the wallet but as he did so, the edge of a thickish piece of paper that was tucked into the bill fold caught his eye. Slowly, he gripped it and slid it free, surprised to note it was a sepia toned photograph of himself.
Crowley had loved photography from the beginning and had known all the pioneers of the day. Wedgwood, Talbot, Reade, although as it turned out he had ended up sleeping through a great deal of the biggest developments in those early days.
Aziraphale had shown him this small portrait the first time they met up after his extended nap. Crowley had wanted to see how the work of those pioneers he so admired had advanced.
Aziraphale's portrait was rare for one of its time. The length of time required to sit perfectly still for a portrait in those days usually resulted in a subject that wasn't smiling. However, sitting perfectly still was no problem for Aziraphale and therefore he was indeed smiling.
He remembered Crowley being very impressed with the quality of the image and asking him endless questions that had made him glad he had gone to the trouble of asking the photographer almost all the same questions himself.
Turning the portrait over, he was surprised to note on the back, his name, scrawled in the photographer's handwriting. So, this wasn't a copy of the original as Aziraphale had assumed considering the pristine condition of a nearly 200 year old piece of paper that was kept in a wallet. Crowley was clearly using some power not of this earth to keep it that way. He was touched to say the least.
A few days after Aziraphale had shown him the portrait, Crowley had returned with one of his own. He had wanted, he said, to compare them. See how the technology had improved, which it had indeed. For one thing, Crowley's portrait was in colour, his golden eyes on show, the photographer had apologised for that, blamed odd lighting.
Although smiling for the required length of time, would no longer be an issue, it had been no surprise to Aziraphale that the demon was not.
It wasn't until later that evening, after several good bottles of wine had been shared that Aziraphale noticed Crowley had not taken his own portrait with him when he left. Aziraphale's portrait however, was missing.
Smiling at the memories, Aziraphale tucked the image back into Crowley's wallet and the wallet, back into his inside pocket. He then looked up to the mantle above his fireplace where the photograph of Crowley sat in a silver frame. He had always wondered if Crowley still had his portrait and it made him feel all fuzzy inside to know that, not only did he still have it, he carried it with him.