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“They’ve invented a new thing. Called gender.”
Aziraphale blinked, pursing his lips in thought, as he tilted his head slightly towards the serpent coiled discreetly around his neck under his robe.
“Gender? What is that?”
“No idea,” Crawly said, “something to do with the physical form.”
“Ah,” Aziraphale nodded. They’d found lots of words so far to describe themselves. “What’s it to do with, then?”
Crawly made a noise that signified frustration – “sort of the whole plate, I believe.”
Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“Listen,”, Crawly’s voice devolved to a hiss, before he regained composure. Aziraphale felt him slither around to nest by the other side of his throat, while he suppressed a shiver from the caress of cold scales against his skin. “I don’t know. I’ve only picked up on two of them, so far.”
“How many are there, do you think?”
“If I say I don’t know something, it means I don’t know,” Crawly groaned, and Aziraphale felt as if he could hear the eye-roll in his words. “But anyways. Man and woman.”
“Man and- hang on,” Aziraphale held up his hands, as if to steady his thoughts, “Isn’t Man what the Almighty named all of them?”
“Yeah, but I guess it’s not specific enough. You know humans.”
“Hm.” Aziraphale dropped his hands again, glancing around from the tree he was sat underneath, just to check if anyone was getting suspicious. “What is woman, then?”
“Don’t know either. They had a hard time deciding for me.”
“Deciding?”
“Yeah,” Crawly followed the movement with his eyes as Aziraphale plucked an apple from a low hanging branch, while still attempting to feign indifference. “’Cause, since it’s more specific, they also made individual spaces for the different labels. Like, man and woman separate, or whatever. I happened to come across one of these locations.”
“Hm,” Aziraphale nodded once more, taking a bite of the apple – then biting that piece in half, and offering the other for Crawly to nibble on. “Why is it important?”
“Don’t know,” Aziraphale heard, and then the small crunch of a fruit being munched on by a creature who wasn’t by any laws of nature meant to munch on fruit. “Anyways, they ended on woman for me.”
“Is that… Good or bad?”
“I still can’t tell. I don’t think it matters, for now.”
“Do you think…” Aziraphale paused, nose scrunched up in discontent. “Do you think I’ll have to have one?”
“What, don’t want one?”
“I just… I don’t entirely see the point.”
“I can take yours for you, if you’d like.”
Aziraphale blinked. “Does it work like that?”
“Probably not. But can I, though?”
Aziraphale considered it, tilting his head back against the bark behind him. Would Heaven want him to participate in this… Gender business? Suppose not. They were against indulging in most other human activities. Like eating.
“Yes, alright,” Aziraphale agreed, taking another bite of the forbidden fruit. “It sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. You go ahead.”
“Thanks,” Crawly said, and Aziraphale pulled back the hand that had been holding the apple for him. “I hope they try and give you man. I’d like to have both.”