Chapter Text
The title comes from a song by Edie Brickell and Steve Martin
Painter would you paint my portrait
Paint me wearing the finest clothes in town
Make me look like I'm somebody
Make me a little younger than I am now
…
Make it a work of art
A real sight to see
Make it a work of art
A real masterpiece
Don't forget my dear companion
Put someone who loves me by my side
Will you please remember me
Remember me this way
Will you please remember me
I want to be remembered this way
Painter would you paint my portrait
I want to be remembered this way
‘Oy, Aziraphale!’
Aziraphale paused in his contemplation of the group of women weaving plant fibres together and glanced up. There at the mouth of the cave stood the demon, his sworn enemy and opponent.
‘Oh, Crawly. What are you doing there?’
‘Come and look.’
The demon waved him up and Aziraphale went willingly. The demon may have been his sworn enemy, but he was also the only other immortal being who’s company he actually enjoyed. He always seemed to find the most interesting things. He went up to the cave and peered inside.
The humans were learning to do the most amazing things. They seemed to have a rudimentary language now. The women out there were working out how to create fabric right in front of his eyes. The next valley over had just grown their first crop of wheat. Now what was happening?
‘What’s she doing?’ Crawly asked, pointing inside the cave. One of the humans that lived there had dipped their fingers into some paste and was smearing it all over the walls.
‘I’m not sure,’ Aziraphale said, coming slowly into the cave. He somehow seemed to bring the light with him, so the smeared paste on the wall lit up. He looked at the marks on the wall as the woman glanced up at Crawly, then used her fingers to create swirls of red all round the black figure she had drawn. ‘It’s you!’ Aziraphale said delightedly. ‘She’s created a representation of you. Look, that’s clearly your red hair. Oh, well done. It really is like him.’
The woman grinned up at him, then took some yellow paste and swirled it around another figure, all in white.
‘And that must be me. She’s put you and me on the wall!’
‘Why?’ Crawly said dubiously. He’d learned to be very suspicious of paperwork, and this – recording – of him seemed far too much like paperwork to him. She got up and spoke to him, whispered in his ear for a moment, and then left. Crawly watched her go, his face looking like he’d received a revelation.
‘What did she say?’ Aziraphale asked.
‘She said – in her way – she said this way we would always be remembered. No matter what happened to us, everyone for all time would always know we existed, because now there was a picture of us on the wall.’
‘How extraordinary,’ Aziraphale breathed, looking back at the picture of the two of them on the wall. ‘Here we are, you and me, forever.’
‘Forever.’ Crawly said strangely. But when Aziraphale turned back to him, he had gone.
It was Italy. It was the Renaissance. Aziraphale and Crowley were drunk. Crowley was raving about the painter he’d met. These were the happiest times. They had wine and food, they had good company (each, privately, agreed that the other’s company was the best) and there was lots going on around them to talk about. These hot afternoons segueing into lazy evenings spent talking were the highlights of two lives that had become very busy lately. What with corrupt popes and new religious leaders popping up all over the place, a demon and an angel hardly had a moment to themselves. But today was not about business. Today, Crowley really, really wanted to tell Aziraphale about his new friend.
‘Not just a painter, though, old Leo.’
‘What do you mean?’ Aziraphale asked, concentrating very hard on pouring wine into his glass.
‘He thinks,’ Crowley said, tapping his head forcefully. ‘About things. ’Bout blood and muscles and machines to go underwater and up in the air and stuff.’
‘He thinks?’ Aziraphale said.
‘Yeah. As well as being a bloody amazing painter. His brain – his brain right – his brain must be massive. Bigger – bigger than – bigger than….what’s got a big brain?’
‘Whales?’
‘Can’t be whales cos then it wouldn’t fit in his head. But – I know! I know, you’re going to meet him. Right now. Right this second.’
Crowley dragged Aziraphale up from the table as Aziraphale poured a pile of coins onto it.
‘We can’t just drop in on him,’ Aziraphale said. ‘He might be busy.’
‘Can. Cos he’s a friend – and I know! Brilliant idea! Brilliant!’
‘What?’
‘We’ll get our portrait painted.’
Aziraphale stopped dead in the street, pulling his arm away from Crowley.
‘We can’t have our picture painted together. People would see it. Your side would see it! Your lot loves art. You’d be seen with me, you’d get into trouble.’
‘Separate then. In the same room, painted at the same time, but separate pictures. C’mon, Angel, I’ve seen your face in all those fluffy angels sitting on clouds in chapels. Wouldn’t you like a proper picture of you?’
‘Well, strictly speaking posing as fluffy angels is part of my job,’ Aziraphale said. ‘But – actually, yes, I would like that. And I would like to meet Mr da Vinci.’
Which was how, an hour later, a sobered up Aziraphale and Crowley found themselves in an attic, shaking hands with a rather strong man with a rather intense gaze. Crowley chatted as Aziraphale wandered around, reading through scraps of paper (once he had the hang of the mirror handwriting) and stunned by the range of subjects covered – a note on balloons on the edge of a page full of studies of eyes, a design for a flying cart on the back of a sketch of an anatomised man.
‘My friend was right, Mr da Vinci,’ Aziraphale said. ‘You really have the most extraordinary mind.’
‘A gift from God,’ the man said, almost by rote. In these times, it was wise to attribute skill to God, not humanity.
‘I rather doubt it,’ Aziraphale said. ‘She finds minds like yours to be rather dangerous.’
Leo peered at him. Remarks like that bypassed most people. Not Da Vinci, who took careful note.
‘Painting,’ Crowley said. ‘Would you mind, Leo? Just a couple of chalk studies, like that little sketch you gave me the other day. The two of us, but separate portraits, mind.’
‘But,’ Aziraphale said, stepping forward. ‘Would you mind giving them the same background? Perhaps linking them in some way? So that one day, possibly, they could be hung together as one picture?’
He blushed as he said it, and didn’t look at Crowley. Leonardo did though, and this man who saw everything saw the surprise, and the tenderness, and the hopefulness.
‘I understand the issue entirely,’ he said softly. ‘Please sit at the table, side by side, half turned towards each other. It shall seem like two separate portraits, perhaps alike, but when hung together, it will be obvious they belong together.’
They sat down in silence.
‘Angel…’ Crowley said.
‘I continue to have hope we will be allowed to be friends one day,’ Aziraphale said firmly. ‘As long as you are careful and don’t get yourself in trouble with Hell in the meantime.’
Leonardo darted forward and placed an apple in Crowley’s hand. Crowley looked up sharply but Leonardo merely smiled innocently. Then he placed a scroll in Aziraphale’s hand.
‘Now we have the objects that define you as individuals. One more thing is needed.’
He glanced around the attic and then grabbed a book and placed it on the table.
‘Please rest your hands on that, one on either side. This will define you as a pair.’
Aziraphale glanced down at the book.
‘Ombre e luce,’ he read from the title.
‘Shadow and light,’ Crowley translated softly. ‘Well, I guess that defines you and me alright, angel. Complete opposites, always fighting each other.’
‘No,’ Leo said sharply, setting up his easel. ‘The Church is fond of saying that light defeats darkness but artists know differently. They know light and shadow work together to create beauty and wonder, that one cannot exist without the other, that they are a matched pair who must never be separated. Now please hold still while I draw you.’
Aziraphale always treasured this memory. Sat beside Crowley, the sun pouring in through the skylight, illuminating all the wonderful scribbles stuck all over the wall, being painted by a true genius. Leo talked as he worked, and Crowley talked back, happy and relaxed.
Once Leo was done, he held Crowley’s portrait out to him, and Aziraphale’s to him – but Aziraphale reached over and took Crowley’s portrait.
‘I’d like to have yours, if you please, my dear.’
‘And how would you explain that if Gabriel came knocking?’ Crowley mocked, to cover the sudden surge of emotion inside him.
‘Identification of the enemy,’ Aziraphale said brightly. ‘Quite vital to be able to show other angels what my opponent looks like, so I shall keep this, if you are amenable?’
‘Suits me, angel.’ Crowley took the portrait of the angel and put it in his pocket, firmly warning it to stay in pristine condition forever. Aziraphale took the portrait of the demon and wrapped it tenderly in linen and placed it carefully in a bag to keep it safe. His fussiness over it wrenched Crowley’s heart.
‘There will come a time,’ Leo said to him, in a low voice.
‘Doubt it, mate,’ Crowley replied. ‘But thanks for the pictures.’