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Crawly’s first thought was that perhaps Upstairs needed to recalibrate their coordinates again; for it was ten minutes at the most before the angel was back on the wall again. But then, the angel didn’t look in the slightest bit confused, so Crawly had to assume that the reappearance was deliberate.
“Lost another sword, have you?”
The angel huffed. “No.” He cleared his throat. “But I did forget something.”
“Oh?”
“My name.”
“Well, I can’t help you there, angel.”
Another huff. “No. I meant… I haven’t given you my name.” He continued, looking down as if addressing his own feet rather than Crawly: “And that won’t do at all—standard procedure, you understand, and I—well, I imagine you’ll be expected to write a report of—ah—events, and if you just say that you spoke with an angel, well, that could be anyone. Best to—to be thorough. Specific, rather.”
Crawly did not point out that there was only one angel on Earth, one who could certainly not be mistaken for just any old angel. “Spit it out, then.”
The angel looked up. Even in the darkness of the storm, his eyes looked very blue. “Aziraphale,” he said.
Aziraphale. Crawly turned it over in his mind. It felt very… He only just stopped himself from thinking ineffable. He couldn’t deny that it felt right, though, as if the angel couldn’t possibly be called anything else, and he considered that with a touch of envy; for Crawly always sounded a bit wrong, even inside his own head.
“Aziraphale,” he said. “Suits you.” And he meant it.
In reply, Aziraphale simply cleared his throat again before sitting down.
Crawly followed his lead, letting his legs dangle over the edge of the wall. The rain was freezing—refreshing, but not exactly comfortable against his skin. It was a new sensation, however, and so he experienced it with interest.
Aziraphale seemed to be doing the same; he let the water collect in one cupped palm, then tilted his hand so that the water ran down his wrist. “Some,” he began quietly, jerking his head upwards, “think that the rain is God’s tears.”
Crawly noted, with growing curiosity, that this was said with more sarcasm than was healthy for an angel (that is, any at all). “But you don’t think so?”
Aziraphale looked at him sharply. “It doesn’t matter what I think.” The thunder rumbled, but it sounded distant, now: no longer right over the top of them. Aziraphale’s expression cleared a little. “No,” he said, “no, I don’t think so.” He sighed, stretching back on the wall so casually that Crawly could almost pretend that they were two colleagues enjoying their break together. “To tell the truth, Crawly—”
Oh, careful, there, Crawly thought, you’re an angel; you always tell the truth.
“—I think we just still have a few imaginative souls Upstairs.” Aziraphale sighed again, almost wistfully. He dried his hand meticulously with his robe. “It’s only water.”
Crawly gave it some thought. “Is that better or worse than it being Her tears?”
Aziraphale gave him a sidelong glance, as if doing his best not to smile in amusement. “Is it always questions with you?”
“Sort of my modus operandi.”
Aziraphale laughed like the sound inevitably sneaked out of him. “Yes, that does follow, my dear.”
(It was the world’s first ‘my dear’, and to Crawly, it sounded just as right as Aziraphale’s name had done.)
“I don’t think it’s better or worse. It just…” Aziraphale shrugged. “It just… is.”
To his surprise, Crawly found he understood. The rain suddenly felt less chilling, more pleasant. He wiggled his toes and, after a spell, decided to chance it. One more question.
“Ang—Aziraphale. Not to be rude, but…”
“Fancy that, a demon being rude. Whatever will they think up next?”
“But,” Crawly pressed on, “why are you… um, back here, exactly?”
A worry had crept up in the back of his mind that perhaps Aziraphale was bluffing, and he couldn’t get back into Heaven at all, but that would mean—
“Oh!” And Aziraphale smiled, eyes lighting up, far too genuine to be an act. “Yes, that. Well…” He shuffled closer on the wall and spoke in an undertone, as if in awe. “They’re all in an awful flap Up There.” He favoured Crawly with another lingering look. “You’ve certainly caused quite a stir.”
“Oh, putting all the blame on me! That’s typical, that is,” Crawly said, and barely stopped himself from bumping Aziraphale’s shoulder. As it was, they came very close to touching, and yet Aziraphale did not pull away.
“They don’t know what to do with me, my dear.” (Oh, yes, Crawly thought, he much preferred the sound of that to Crawly.) “I was destined to guard Eden, but…” Aziraphale gestured around them. “There’s nothing much left to guard.” He worried his robe between his fingers. “Oh, I do hope I’m not…” He wrinkled his nose. “Redeployed.”
And Crawly heard that for what it meant: against all the odds, it seemed that this angel, like him, had grown rather fond of being on Earth.
“Say you’ve got to keep an eye on me,” Crawly said, trying to shrug through abruptly tense shoulders. “I wasn’t given a time limit on ‘making some trouble’, y’know, so…” He imitated Aziraphale’s gesture. “I could be up to all—all sorts of… things.”
There was a deafening silence.
Crawly cringed. “All right, forget it, was just a—”
“And are you?”
Crawly blinked. “Am I what?”
Aziraphale was staring at him. “Up to something.”
“W-well.” Crawly floundered under the angel’s intense gaze. “I—”
“Because if you were,” Aziraphale said, eyes gleaming, “then I’m afraid I would have to report it. Nothing personal, you understand, just…”
Crawly hazarded a guess. “Standard procedure?”
Aziraphale gave the world’s most enthusiastic nod. “Yes, precisely. Why, I…” He wiggled in place, as if that would somehow suppress the wide smile on his face. “I’m certain I would be given a permanent position.”
The angel’s smile must be infectious, for Crawly grinned back. “No desk job for you, then.”
“Quite so. Right! Your official statement, for the records. Are you up to something?”
“Yes. No—nothing in motion yet,” Crawly said truthfully, but tried to make it sound as foreboding as possible. “But, oh, I have…” He tapped his head. “All the… wiles. Schemes. The whole lot.”
“You’d better hop to it, then,” Aziraphale said, and he playfully nudged Crawly’s foot with his own.
Despite the coldness of the rain, Crawly felt an inexplicable heat, a spark in his chest. He kicked back. “Demons don’t hop!”
“Ah,” Aziraphale said, laughing again, “they certainly do in my book.”
He stood up as he spoke, with a renewed purpose; and Crawly had the feeling that life was about to get far more interesting.