Chapter Text
“Absolutely not!” Aziraphale’s voice pitched through the fog-laden clearing, disappearing into the cedar branches. “I am shocked that you would even imply such a thing. We are not even having this conversation. Not another word.”
The demon was disappointed, confused, and not about to argue with the steady stream of words raining down on them. “Right.”
“Right.” Aziraphale’s eyes widened, nose scrunched and lips upturned. He walked away, clanking and clattering in his armour as he did, the final say on his dissatisfaction.
Crowley turned to their people in the fog and rolled their serpentine eyes. They shrugged and started back for camp. “Come on, then. Time for lunch, lads.”
Food had been terribly scarce the past two years but the troupe always made do, finding fish in the rivers even off-season, and foraging carrots, mushrooms, and crab apples despite the bitter frosts. The occasional boar wandered close enough to hunt without the landowners’ suspicion.
The gods smiled upon them, in clear support of their cause.
It was in a demon’s best interest to let the humans keep believing that they’d been sent by some benevolence—a knight defected from Arthur’s court, born of man and monster. It helped everyone look past their yellow slitted eyes and the peculiarities of their habits: the never being seen to eat, for starters, and how they slept most of the day. They never needed assistance with their armour and, at night, they stared mournfully at the starless greydust sky, unblinking.
In the hidden dale where they made camp, flanked by protective fells rising above the treeline, the cooking fires already burned and precious little meat simmered in a large pot on the brightest flames. Quick hands set about bundling linen cloths with long strings, wherein the nettle puddings would cook until tender for the knife. The fresh green scent of chopped red-veined sorrel and the sharp bite of chives perfumed the air as Crowley passed. Despite the smoky damp, these were all the smells that carried on the winds. Another little luxury the demon allowed themself, having more than enough of filth and putrescence every time they had to check in at the festering halls of Hell.
Away from their band, they ducked into their tent at the far end of the camp. With a snap, their black armour disappeared neatly into the wooden chest kept as a low table. A silk-trimmed tunic replaced it, fitted at the wrists. Black, of course, and belted with a strong strip of red fabric over tight woollen hose.
They scratched their nails through the waves of their damp hair, helmet curled and clinging to their forehead and neck. The demon fixed the red strands into something halfway presentable to their iron-blooded mirror, mercury-backed and reflecting green; so like the green long-stolen in the endless dark, the changeling child left limping and yellow in its place.
Crowley tore their eyes away. “What a morning.”
Another snap of their fingers and flames leapt to, burning charcoal and a few glossy drops of myrrh resin in the braziers set to either side of a wide bench at the centre of the tent. Crowley collapsed onto the bench and reached for the silver snake brooch they’d kept since the debacle in Rome. As they pinned the tunic in place, Crowley thought about that first time they’d been missing their stone home out in Caerfyrddin, with its river views and the apple trees they tended to with unbearable patience. They had made a home tucked away from the Angles and the Saxons, shortly before the Romans invaded and brought too many stinging reminders. Crowley had been just as eager back in the first century to have their assignment over as they were now five hundred years later.
Won’t be much longer, they thought and tried not to dwell on why or what it meant to have received their final orders for the Wessex Project. Also tried not to parse what it meant to run into Sir Aziraphale of the Table Round so close to the end of the job. The angel had done the approaching, no less—not that he knew it to start, seeking out the Black Knight as he had been.
It had been a few hundred years of seeing each other only in passing, typically whenever Crowley might pop off to different parts of civilization for whatever assignment they had. A quick hello, a hesitant smile, a nod. But never any time spent together.
Because of Rome.
Shouldn’t have had those oysters. Tricky mollusks.
Crowley sighed, deep down to their bones, the phantom of brine on their lips. They coiled into the blankets on the bench, curling tight to their stomach. They dragged up a heavy sheepskin from beneath and hunkered down into the little nest for a midday nap.
They drifted off, enjoying dreams of walking barefoot on rocky shores and the scent of apple blossoms on the salt-spray wind.
Over the years stuck in Arthur’s kingdom, Crowley had indulged more and more in the respite of sleep. They’d fully grown to love it. What they did not love was that sleep getting interrupted. Especially not for food. So when the demon heard one of the men puttering about in the tent, setting an unfamiliar warm-smelling dish on the wooden chest, they flailed in the man’s general direction and mumbled, “Not today. Lemme sleep.”
The man tutted. “I didn’t come all this way,” he said, “just to be shooed off like a common kitchen boy.” His voice was too prim to be one of Crowley’s troupe.
The demon shot upright, tossing aside the sheepskin in their momentary panic. The haze of dream-edges evaporated in the dawn of recognition. “Angel.”
Aziraphale sat beside the chest, one muted eyebrow raised in question but not alarm.
Crowley noticed the downy hair, curling to his shoulders in ringlets to put any highland sheep to shame. They noticed the armour was gone, now a bleached linen tunic draped to the knee with fine woollen hose tucked into leather turnshoes, the fur-trimmed cloak discarded comfortably by his side, as though this were his own tent deep in the forest.
The demon’s breath caught at the heavenly sight. They’d had lifetimes to dream of Aziraphale there when they awoke, doe-eyed and doting. But they could not say as much—such emotions weren’t fit for hellthings—and so instead they asked, “Why the devil are you in my tent?” Crowley pulled their sheepskin up to their chest, half scandalised.
Aziraphale smiled with benevolence. “Frumenty.”
Crowley scoffed. “What, peace and tranquillity? Here?”
“The porridge, Crowley.”
Sure enough, on the chest sat two bowls, steam rising. Crowley scented the air and tasted rich cinnamon beneath cracked wheat and milk.
“W-where did you get black corinth?”
Aziraphale lit up brighter than the burning braziers, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Ah! Yes! Well. When I arrived at my camp, it dawned on me. My misunderstanding. I… I had one of my men cook up some porridge. He said it was a bit of a miracle he just so happened to have all the ingredients with him.”
“Mm-yes, I’d say so.” Crowley tussled with the rising smile at his corners.
“I was hoping to, uh, share?”
Crowley gave the table a thorough looking at: the porridge was still hot, despite however far away lay the pot that birthed it, and set in two neatly poured bowls, each with their own intricately carved wooden spoon. Showing off for no one in particular.
Showing off... for me? Their heart clattered beneath their breast, all dropped and fumbled, off-kilter from the settling shock of finding Aziraphale there. Really there. And offering food. Crowley had certainly thought they’d never be invited to share a meal together after… all of that. Let’s not fuck this one up, right, mate?
“This isn’t business,” Aziraphale said quickly into the extended silence. “I meant what I said earlier. But I don’t see why we can’t catch up? Unless that nap you were taking is more pressing…”
“No! No.” Crowley swung their legs out from under the sheepskin. “Not at all. Nothing, er, pressing.”
“Oh, good!”
“Yeah, all right. Let’s try a bite then.” Crowley stood and began rearranging their bench, bringing it to the make-shift table, fetching another from across the room for their guest.
My guest.
Crowley sighed with delight as they muttered, “Corinth. Really, Aziraphale.”
“Sugar seemed a bit of a stretch,” he said and took the offered seat.
“Hmm. However would you have explained that one.” Crowley leaned on their elbow, long fingers splayed under their chin and a smirk on their wide mouth.
A light flutter of the angel’s dark lashes sent Crowley’s heart stuttering. Helpless, they turned to staring determinedly at their steaming bowl of porridge.
“Go on, then,” said Aziraphale.
“Huh?”
“You should eat it, not glare at it.”
“Wh-I… I’m not glaring.”
They had been glaring. Just a bit. It wasn’t that Crowley didn’t want to eat the porridge—they were even looking forward to the first few bites—but the intensity with which the angel watched and waited made them so strangely shy about the prospect. Every movement and sound, each twitch of the lip would be under sharp-eyed scrutiny. There would be no hiding how they felt about every bite. Which, when one didn’t enjoy being seen to eat on a good day, gave the demon a major case of stage fright.
Crowley put on a neutral face, pretending they didn't know how Aziraphale hungered for their reaction. They casually scooped the thick oats, breathed in the creamy, earthy aroma, and steeled themself for the taste as they closed their mouth on the wooden spoon.
Yes, the rich smoothness rolled easily on their tongue, the sweet and tart mixing with the cursedly ever-present ash.
“I do hope you like it,” Aziraphale fretted. “I… I may have gotten the exact amounts wrong when I gathered the ingredients, but Wendel could be a world-class chef if—”
“Aziraphale…”
“—given ample opportunity and training. And I’m—”
“Aziraphale,” Crowley tried again.
“—always telling him that he should consider studying in Gaul—”
“Angel.” Crowley reached across to Aziraphale, settling a hand atop his knee. “It’s good.”
Aziraphale’s round shoulders relaxed, warming Crowley more than the coals in the brazier at their back.
“You didn’t have to go out of your way like this,” they added. “You’re always welcome. With me. Don’t need an excuse.”
“Yes but I wanted to. Not that I mean to imply—This wasn’t going out of my way.”
Crowley burst into laughter. “Quite literally, you had to turn around and come back.”
Aziraphale pursed his lips and levelled his gaze. “Anyway,” he said and reached for his own spoon. “I’m glad you like it. Wendel said the secret is a pad of butter melted in.”
As the two ate, they chatted. If Aziraphale was a bit more enthusiastic about the food than Crowley was, neither commented. And Crowley, for their part, made certain to take a few bites more than they might have otherwise. It made Aziraphale happy, and how could they deny him that? Whenever he was really and truly there, the demon felt they could deny him nothing.