Chapter Text
Crowley had never climbed a tree before. His strategy was not to fall. He gripped the trunk and slid vertically, bunching his muscles, clenching and releasing to drag himself along the bark and into the first rung of branches.
He’d found one of the avian princes – the one with white hair, a color he had never seen before – in the garden. If you could call this a garden. It was nothing like his own. The prince was sitting in the tree reading a book. Crowley could taste the scent of him and if he concentrated he could hear his pulse.The words of his father simmered in his mind, reminding him that at 200 beats per minute, it only took one bite to kill an avian.
Crowley hated them all.
The serpent could have struck the avian from below, bitten his heel or the meat of his calf beneath the loose cotton shift he wore. Crowley’s gaze slid from the wrist to the crux of the elbow, the armpit, the neck. Pulse points throbbed like stars, beckoning him closer. He followed the line of the avian’s throat to his jaw and earlobe. There were feathers in his hair. White, woven seamlessly into cropped curls. Crowley had always thought those were a myth. The serpent wrapped himself around the base of the branch nearest the prince. He had never seen an avian so close, one that wasn’t dead or actively trying to kill him anyway. In profile, the serpent could see that his right eye was badly bruised, swelling along the socket. His forearm was bandaged with clean, white gauze. He was very clean. His features were soft and round.
Crowley lifted his head, inching closer, but even now, even without consciously realizing the serpent was nearby, the avian shifted away from him, turning a page in his book.
“Aziraphale!”
A voice pierced the garden, a clean and hard baritone. The avian started suddenly, gaze darting in the direction of the sound and settling – for the first time – on the serpent. He cried out in surprise and Crowley snapped his head back, hood flaring instinctively. He coiled into the groove of the trunk and regretted, for the first time, that he’d come to this place. Fuck. His muscles tightened, holding the strike pose, and for a long moment they stared at one another. The avian’s pulse danced in his throat, 245 beats per minute and climbing, eyes wide and showing too much white.
“Aziraphale?”
“Just- just a minute,” the avian – Aziraphale - called back to the voice, his own soft and unsteady. The source of the baritone was growing closer. Crowley could hear it moving from the balcony beyond the white oak he’d climbed into the garden. Aziraphale smoothed his fingers along the binding of his book. Crowley read the title of it, embossed in gold, and committed those words to memory (he told himself he was looking at the avian’s hands, lest he draw out a sword from his robes and cut his head off - but there was no sword). Aziraphale spoke again, softer still, “You’d better hide. Don’t let my brother catch you.”
The furtive urgency in his voice took the serpent by surprise. And while the prince did not appear to be lithe or graceful, he slipped out of the tree with the ease of one who was raised in high places. Crowley watched him disappear from view with his book under his arm, and he listened to the voices retreat. Aziraphale led the baritone – his brother – away, permitting Crowley to make his escape from the garden.
In retrospect, the serpent would blame his fixation on youthful indiscretion; they were both young, the day they met in the garden and, he supposed, innocent – or as innocent as either of them could be, considering. He would say it was bad luck, the first time he’d really wanted to hurt someone and fate had put him up against Aziraphale, who’d spared his life without even knowing his name.
Five years passed. Beelzebub sent him to the Eastern Gate – less of a physical gate than a threshold in the desert, serving to separate the human world and their own. There were four such gates, and defending them from the continuous threat of human encroachment was about the only thing any of them had ever agreed upon. No battle had ever been fought in this territory.
It took him three days of travel to reach the Gate and when he arrived, it was as miserable as he remembered with one glaring exception: he was not alone. The air was hot and dry, the sun beating down on Crowley’s back as he joined the avian on the wall. He wondered who a prince would have to piss off to earn this dubious honor, repeating those ancient words, layering magic into the wards that had existed since before the war.
“Hello, Aziraphale.”
The avian blinked at him, lips parting in surprise. “Ah...”
“Crowley,” he supplied helpfully.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale repeated. There were questions in his eyes and the furrow of his brow, but he swallowed the words – more’s the pity, Crowley thought - and looked away.
“I'm surprised you're out here alone.” Avians tended to flock together which was extremely irritating, and made it nearly impossible to break their formations. Alone, they were much more manageable.
“I can take care of myself.” The shift in tone was smooth as steel and Crowley realized Aziraphale had misunderstood his observation as a threat - and reacted accordingly. Reserve slid over his once expressive face like armor, blue eyes distant and hard, unreadable and alien to the serpent. His posture was as firm, and somehow he had made that soft body unyielding. The transition was unsettling to watch.
“I meant nothing by it,” the serpent conceded, his own posture relaxed and non-threatening, “Neutral territory and all that.”
Aziraphale didn't seem inclined to take Crowley's word for it but the posturing receded. Duty was stronger than instinct and, as Crowley had no intention of leaving just yet, the avian turned his attention to his assigned task. They stood in silence together for a long time- well, he stood in silence. Aziraphale repaired the wards without fully turning his back, cautious. Crowley watched him – he made no effort to be subtle. There was nothing else to look at in this damn desert. Light steps, gentle, rounded gestures. Hours passed and as the serpent made no sudden movements and did not attempt to threaten him, the tension gradually eased out of Aziraphale's body.
The work was finished. Humans passed by in cars, rumbling over the patch of black asphalt streaking through mounds of sand less than fifty yards from the Eastern Gate. Well, that was progress.
“Nothing brings people together like a common enemy,” he mused.
“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale seemed to have given up on pretending to ignore him. A muscle in the corner of Crowley’s mouth twitched as he felt the avian shift next to him, glance at him.
The serpent didn’t repeat himself, but he gestured with a lazy tilt of his head in the direction of the highway, “Humans.” A common enemy.
“Ah.”
Crowley resisted the urge to snap his fingers. “Have you been?”
“Have I been…?”
“Out there,” he drawled, gazing out over the desert, “The human world.”
“Of course not.” The response was so emphatic that the serpent raised his eyebrows, inviting the avian to go on then. “It’s forbidden.”
“Ngh.” Crowley shrugged. “It wouldn’t be forbidden if it wasn’t worth doing.” Personal motto.
Aziraphale frowned. “That is not true.”
“No?”
“No.”
Crowley shifted conspiratorially towards Aziraphale and ignored the avian’s flinch, the way he would not look him in the eye – a practiced defense mechanism, “Don’t you think it’s strange?” he murmured, “Keeping humans out of our world, naturally,” it made sense, “Just look at the mess they’ve made of their own. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be allowed to cross over every now and then...”
The avian disagreed. “Better not to question it.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Aziraphale seemed flustered, which amused the serpent, “It can’t be good to cross over, or else it wouldn’t be a place of exile.”
“Exile?” That was a new one.
“Well, yes,” the avian glanced at him, then away, “That’s the law. If you are cast out, you must go to the human world. Your wings are clipped.”
It must have been worse than it seemed, by the tone. “So you can’t fly?”
Aziraphale nodded, pursed his lips, “It’s more than that. You can never come back. Physically, it’s not possible.”
“You’re talking about the Keep,” Crowley was familiar with the design both personally and in a general sense – the avian citadel and most of the city was suspended in the air, only accessible by flight, “The ground floor is sealed off and sanded, it’s impossible to climb.” It was an effective countermeasure – it had kept his people from attempting to siege it.
“Yes.”
So even if an exile did find their way out of the human world, the unlucky sod would be unable to get into the city. “Fucking hell.”
“You don’t have this law?” It was the avian’s first question, tentative.
“We don’t exile,” the serpent explained, “Traitors get a death sentence. The trials are quick. No… disfigurement,” he was not as enthusiastic about torture as his peers, “Not until after death. Wouldn’t want the skin to go to waste.”
“You skin your own people?”
“After they’re dead,” he repeated defensively.
“That is disgusting.”
“It's economical.” And it made a very strong statement – intimidation and bravado were half the battle. The rest of it was blood and violence. “Look at these shoes.” Slick, black snakeskin, custom red soles, comfortable and water-resistant. Couldn’t do much about the sand, unfortunately.
“I’d rather not.”
Ah, but now he couldn’t help but notice them. Crowley smirked. “Jealous?”
The avian did not respond. Silence fell between them and while it was not comfortable, it wasn't unpleasant. “How do you know about the Keep?” Aziraphale asked finally.
Crowley realized he had said too much about the ground floor, but he didn’t particularly care to keep it a secret. “I’ve been there,” he replied simply.
“What?”
For someone who’d asked such a leading question, the avian sounded very surprised. He supposed it was a fairly impressive accomplishment and not one he’d had the occasion to brag about (he had never mentioned it to anyone). “Don’t look so shocked,” he teased, “You were there too, remember?” No? “Five years ago, in the garden,” nothing yet, “It was spring. You were sitting in a white oak tree, reading a book, ‘The Owl and the Nightingale’ and other selected stories. You told me to hide...”
“From Gabriel,” Aziraphale said faintly.
That must have been the brother in question. “Yeah.”
“That was you?”
Crowley was pleased. “In the flesh.”
The avian didn’t say anything for a long moment. He seemed to be processing the fact that the black serpent in the tree and Crowley were one in the same. Then, “What on Earth were you doing there?”
Crowley’s smile faltered. He wasn’t eager to relive the moments leading up to their first meeting, but he had brought this up so… “My mother had just died. Avian bow. She bled out almost immediately,” he said tonelessly, the words running together to prevent any ill-advised attempt to express sympathy, “I came there to kill you- not you, specifically, anyone would’ve done,” someone had to pay for what happened to her, “But you made an easy target.”
"Oh."
“You looked like you’d gotten into a fight: your right eye was swollen and your forearm must’ve gotten cut up,” Crowley’s gaze strayed to the site of the phantom injury, half-obscured by the avian’s sleeve. If there was any scarring, he wasn’t in a position to see it from here.
“I remember.” Aziraphale’s voice was so soft, barely above a whisper.
“Anyway,” Crowley cleared his throat, “I took one look at you and I...” truth be told, he took more than one look but he'd already told Aziraphale more than enough. “It wasn’t your fault. You were like me.” And he had never killed anyone before. He couldn’t start with someone so... “Why did you tell me to hide? You must have known what I was...” No ordinary snake would’ve made it into that garden.
“Well...” the avian hesitated, “I suspected.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Gabriel would have killed you.”
“And?”
“And it didn’t seem right,” he said, with the helpless gesture of someone having a hard time putting it into words, “You looked… frightened.”
“I was not frightened.”
“Forgive me,” Aziraphale replied, “I’m not an expert on serpentine body language.” Was he being sarcastic? “Still, you hadn’t done anything to me. And I… I thought there had been enough death.”
Crowley nodded as the avian's voice trailed off. “Yeah.” Me too. Too bad nobody else got the memo. Five years later and they were no closer to ending the war than they were back then. Still fighting. Still dying. He had blood under his nails more often than not – and he wasn’t as squeamish as he used to be. A somber mood settled over them both. Aziraphale left soon after but Crowley stayed to watch the sun bleed out over the horizon. Exile didn’t seem so bad, he thought to himself gloomily, compared to what he had to go back to.