Work Text:
4004 BCE
The first winter was well underway and Aziraphale found that he didn’t much care for it. The nights were long and uncomfortable, and he had no real occupation to distract him. Life was abundant—everything had left the Garden and multiplied as if the Earth had been around for thousands of years—but it needed very little input from Aziraphale. He didn’t even have a Tree to guard.
It was still more interesting than Heaven, though, so without orders to the contrary, down on Earth he stayed.
Adam and Eve had left the valley near Eden and he had followed them, kept an eye and an occasional miracle on them from a safe distance. When they had started to make a home, he had removed himself to the mountains to keep watch. The air was biting and bitterly cold; he kept a fire, which ate no wood, burning at all times to keep the frigid winter out of the stone of his cave.
There was not a great deal to do except to commune with an unresponsive God and fret about the future. Aziraphale was particularly good at the latter. He could have slept, as he knew the humans often did, but when he tried it, he found that he did not grasp the appeal. So he mostly fretted, and pondered which miracles he could provide to Adam and Eve, and wished it weren’t quite so quiet down on Earth. The last being he’d spoken to had been that demon at the wall—and once the rain had let up, even he’d made himself scarce.
One sleepless night, he heard something moving in the darkness. He had frequent visitors: bears too lazy to hunt, lynxes or panthers looking to dry out their coats from the frequent drizzling rain and slush, and one very persistent gazelle who had brought her injured young one to him for healing and now showed up every few nights, normally with a dead branch or some other gift. But it was none of these that appeared in the firelight moments later: it was the thoroughly bedraggled form of the demon from the Garden.
Aziraphale sat up straight in surprise.
“Crawly?”
“Oh, hullo Aziraphale,” Crawly said, barely looking up at Aziraphale as he slumped into the cave. Even his voice sounded bent over with weariness. “Budge up and make room at the fire.”
Dumbfounded, Aziraphale did as he was bid, not even pausing to consider the fact that there was, in fact, a great deal of room at the fire already. Crawly plunked down close to him in a sodden heap of sharp-jointed limbs and huddled as close to the fire as he could. After a moment, Aziraphale’s wits returned to him; he squeezed Crawly’s shoulder with a tentative hand, and the demon was instantly dry.
“Eh?” said Crawly, looking at his own clothing in bemusement as if the thought of a miracle hadn’t occurred to him.
Aziraphale belatedly let go of his shoulder and shook his hand.
“I’ve worked hard to keep this cave pleasant,” he explained. “Wouldn’t do to have puddles.”
“Right,” Crawly said.
They sat in silence for long moments while Crawly continued to soak in the heat of the fire. Aziraphale watched him, perplexed. What on Earth—he paused a moment to appreciate the phrase he’d just invented—was the demon doing here? Walking in like he did this every day? He was no longer soaked through, but he seemed weary, and he listed towards Aziraphale as he sat, like he might fall over and asleep at any moment.
“Don’t like this sleet stuff,” Crawly said after a while, gesturing to all the weather going on outside of the cave. “Like snow even less. You seen it?”
“No.”
“Ugh, it’s awful. Cold and clingy, gets in your eyelashes.”
That did sound mightily unpleasant, but Aziraphale found his thoughts lingering on the image the words painted: of Crawly, cheeks bright in the cold and long hair garlanded with wispy white flakes. It was a far cry from the huddled demon beside him.
“You’re just…hanging around?” Crawly asked when Aziraphale made no response.
“Keeping an eye on things, yes.”
“Seems boring.”
“Warm, though,” Aziraphale said, and Crawly looked up whip-fast, incredulous, and then laughed, and the sound of it please Aziraphale right down to his toes.
Crawly recovered his composure and spoke again. “Spent any time with the humans?”
“No, I don’t think I’m meant to interfere. What’ve you been up to?”
“Traveled around a bit,” Crawly said casually. “Seeing the place. Bloody dull without more people, though.”
“They’re, er, working on it,” Aziraphale said.
“Delightful,” Crawly said. Then he nodded at one corner of the cave, not too far from the fire. “You use that for much?”
“Hmm? No.”
“Great.” Crawly stood and walked over to it. Without another word, he laid down and closed his eyes. Before long, his body had relaxed and his breathing had slowed. He was, to all appearances, asleep.
“Huh,” said Aziraphale. He watched him a little while to see if this was some sort of joke or ruse, but no—the demon only slept, his features gentle, the pinched weariness gone. The firelight danced on his ember-red hair.
Aziraphale urged the fire to be a little warmer and turned away.
The next morning was bright and clear, although it was still much too cold to be deemed pleasant. Aziraphale was out and about with the sun, walking down to the valley and bestowing a quick blessing on some of the crops Eve had put in, to make them hardy enough to last through the cold and bountiful come springtime.
When he returned to his cave, he found Crawly awake—which was surprising enough all on its own, since he’d assumed the demon would scurry off after getting his rest. But no, not only was there a still demon in his cave, there was also a mountainous heap of pillows and cushions, on which Crawly was lounging in what appeared to be utter comfort.
“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale demanded.
Crawly waved a lazy hand. “No need,” he said, not opening his eyes. He was in an undignified sprawl, legs akimbo.
“Where did these come from?”
“Byzantium,” Crawly said. “About four thousand years from now. Not sure how I did that. Not sure what Byzantium is, if I’m honest.”
“You, what, stole them?”
“Probably,” Crawly said, sounding tremendously unconcerned.
“And what precisely do you think you’re doing in my home with them?”
“Inventing cardinal vices. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Cardinal vice. Sounds important. This one—” he gestured grandly at himself and the pillows “—is Sloth.”
“Not larceny?” Aziraphale asked archly.
“No, I don’t think that one’s very grand,” Crawly replied, unbothered by Aziraphale’s tone. “Saving it for the really neat ones. Just got to think of them first.”
A moment passed.
“Can’t give this one to the humans too early, I suppose,” Crawly said thoughtfully. “It’d be a shame if they died out because everyone realized it’s way more fun to sit around than go out and…reap, or whatever it is they’ll need to do with their crops.”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes, the effect of which was rather lost as Crawly had resolutely kept his eyes closed and his posture utterly relaxed for the whole conversation.
One could only stand around being ignored for so long, even if one was an angel; eventually Aziraphale gave up and went on with his day.
In fact, he went on with his next several days, until those days stretched out into a few weeks. Every time he looked in the corner, the demon was still there. Crawly would occasionally talk to him, but as far as Aziraphale could tell, he never once got up—it was quite possible he never even opened his eyes.
“Wanna try it?” Crawly asked one day, a little more than three weeks since deciding to take up residence in Aziraphale’s cave.
“Try what?”
“Lounging.” The demon rolled over from where he’d been facing the wall and stretched slowly, making a great show of it.
“Thank you, no.”
“Come on,” wheedled Crawly. He was actually looking at Aziraphale for the first time since the night of his arrival.
“No.”
“It’s nice! All that sitting around on the stone can’t be comfortable.”
“No.”
“Is it because I said it was a vice? Giving it a try isn’t a sin, you know—you’re far too industrious to actually give into sloth. I don’t know how you’ve managed to make busywork, but you have.”
Aziraphale rolled his eyes and didn’t respond.
“Look—” Crawly sat up a little and pointed to a brand-new pile of cushions that extended the heap “—I got these special, just for you.”
“Oh, very well,” Aziraphale said at last. He walked over.
The new pillows disappeared.
“Too bad,” Crawly said.
“I–what?”
“How are you feeling?” Crawly’s tone had turned clinical. He looked at Aziraphale with open curiosity.
“What?”
“How are you feeling?” the demon repeated. “I’ve spent the last couple days thinking up Envy. Wanted to see if it works.” He lounged aggressively, wiggling down into the pile of pillows as if to show off.
“I don’t think that counts,” Aziraphale said. “Offering a person a thing and then taking it from them isn’t quite the same as if they coveted the thing on their own. I’m more in the neighborhood of Disgruntlement.”
Crawly pouted a little, then shook his head. “Fair point. I’ll get the hang of it, though. Good thing we’re workshopping this.”
In an instant, Aziraphale’s hackles were up. “We are not doing anything,” he said. The very idea! It was preposterous.
He turned on his heel and left the cave. If Crawly said anything, he didn’t hear it.
By the time the sun went down that evening, Aziraphale had set himself up in a new cave, with a new fire. He hadn’t minded the demon’s company—insubstantial as it had mostly been—but implicating Aziraphale in his scheming and wickedness was several steps too far.
The night stretched on, even longer than usual, and several times, Aziraphale reminded himself that he was not watching for anyone to appear in the entrance.
One lovely morning the following spring, when Aziraphale was watching the world go by from the mouth of his new cave, he saw a familiar figure walking up the mountainside. When the demon realized he was being watched, he paused a moment and waved his hand. Aziraphale marveled at the new gesture and decided to try it out himself: he waved back, and he thought he saw Crawly smile.
When Crawly reached the cave, he stopped just outside the entrance and looked in.
“Nice place,” he said. “Could use some pillows, though.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Aziraphale said, and Crawly grinned a little sheepishly.
“Not to worry. Listen, I—hang on—Am I allowed to apologize?” Crawly cocked his head and looked around as if he expected the cave to answer. Then he waved a hand in dismissal and continued. “One way to find out. I’m sorry,” he said, sounding only a little as if the word pained him, “for…whatever it was. Besmirching your good name.”
Aziraphale looked at him in surprise.
“And trying to tempt you to Envy, I guess,” Crawly added as an afterthought.
How extraordinary. The apology floated in the air for a moment. Crawly looked at Aziraphale; Aziraphale at Crawly.
“I…forgive you,” Aziraphale said once he recovered his wits.