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April 17th, 1474, Cavernago
Crowley leaned back in his seat. The loud brass music nearly drowned out the chatter and laughter of the other people. Nearly. He could still hear some of their words when they danced close enough to him. Their conversations ranged from politics to daily family gossip (though, given with whom Crowley was in the room, family gossip and politics went hand in hand).
Next to him, Aziraphale took a sip of his wine, while looking after the couple that had just waltzed by them. From all Crowley had picked up, they had talked about the currently ongoing Civil Wars in England. He didn’t particularly care though. England wasn’t his problem right now. At the moment his problem was that he was supposed to be in Spain by Hell’s orders. But Aziraphale really wanted them both to attend this banquet for the Danish king (Christian or whatever his name was). Crowley hadn’t yet figured out why.
‘You know, I think I have to go there soon’, Aziraphale said.
Crowley, still deeply lost in his thoughts about him disobeying Hell’s orders again, asked: ‘To Spain?’
‘What? Oh, no. To England’, Aziraphale said, pointing in the direction of the couple from before.
‘Oh… yeah. I’ll be going back to Spain later today.’
‘Yes, of course, my dear’, Aziraphale said, ‘You have to, don’t you.’
‘Mhm’, Crowley answered.
‘Well, thank you for coming here nonetheless’, Aziraphale said with a bright smile.
Crowley, taking every opportunity to tease him, said with a grin: ‘How could I say no to one of your temptations, angel?’
Aziraphale looked at him with a slightly annoyed expression. ‘I have not tempted anyone, Crowley. I have merely asked you.’
‘Er, sure’, Crowley said.
‘And you make it sound like I am going around tempting people. Which I do not!’, Aziraphale emphasized the last word.
Crowley just nodded mockingly and grinned at Aziraphale until he turned his head away.
At that moment some servants were entering the hall, bringing yet another course (the last one) which drew the other guest back to the table.
‘Ah’, Aziraphale said with an enthusiastic smile, rubbing his hands together.
‘Is this the part where you tell me why you wanted me to attend?’, Crowley asked.
‘Yes’, Aziraphale said as each guest was served a small plate with white… stuff in it.
Crowley furrowed his brows. He was sure he has never seen a dessert like this before.
‘There it is’, Aziraphale said with a proud smile, gesturing towards their plates as if that was the only explanation Crowley needed.
‘There is… what?’, Crowley asked.
‘The dessert!’, Aziraphale said.
‘You asked me to come to Italy… for a dessert?’, Crowley asked stunned. He really hoped Aziraphale had a better reason than that.
‘It’s a new dessert’, Aziraphale explained, ‘you can only eat it here, when Christoforo di Messisbugo prepares the meals. He calls it ‘lattemele’.’
Crowley looked back at his plate. The dessert didn’t seem special at all. It was just some white, fluffy… cream?
‘Try it!’, Aziraphale encouraged him, ‘it is really delicious.’ As if to emphasize that, Aziraphale took a spoon full of it into his mouth and nodded elated.
With a sigh Crowley also dug his spoon into the cream and tried it. It… didn’t have a strong taste. The cream was fluffy and the sugar on top gave it just a bit of sweetness. Crowley also noticed that his lips got a bit oily. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see Aziraphale expectantly starring at him.
‘It’s… good?’, Crowley said, not really knowing what Aziraphale expected, ‘Could be sweeter, though.’
‘Well, that would be too much sugar then, don’t you think?’
Crowley shrugged. ‘Too much is just enough for me, angel’, he said.
‘That’s gluttony, my dear. And don’t you dare try to tempt these good people here into that’, Aziraphale exclaimed, more as a joke while mockingly wiggling his spoon into Crowley’s direction.
Unluckily, Aziraphale misjudged the smoothness of the cream and through the wiggle-motion a bit of cream landed on Crowley’s cheek. Both of them froze for a moment, before Aziraphale quickly glanced around the room. It wouldn’t be very helpful if anyone saw Aziraphale flicking the dessert at Crowley. Just like family gossip and politics weren’t far from each other in this social circle, food wars could easily become real ones.
Luckily no one seemed to have noticed anything (and even if somebody did, theoretically they could’ve just miracle-ed that memory and any potential follow-up actions away, but it would’ve been interesting explaining such a miracle to Heaven or Hell).
Aziraphale grabbed a tissue from the table and started whipping the cream off Crowley’s cheek. ‘Quick, before anyone notices’, he muttered.
‘Angel!’, Crowley hissed and took the tissue from Aziraphale, ‘Not very inconspicuous.’
He whipped away the last bits of cream off his cheek, so no one would start talking about table manners. It might not start a war but wouldn’t be less annoying.
‘My apologies’, Aziraphale murmured.
Crowley just waved his hand. ‘Forget it. Instead tell me if you really asked me to come all the way from Spain to Italy so that I can try a dessert you think tastes good!’
‘I thought you would like it too’, Aziraphale said and was at least decent enough to look both apologetic and embarrassed.
Crowley had to roll his eyes. Usually, he had no problem with spending a banquet with Aziraphale, but Hell specifically requested him to be in Spain right now. And yet here he was, in Italy.
‘Just like I thought you would like the rest of this banquet. Di Messisbugo is famous for them, you know?’, Aziraphale continued explaining, ‘I hope I didn’t get you into any trouble, my dear!’
Crowley took another gulp of his wine. ‘Hell usually doesn’t notice my days off’, he said.
Which is true. He shouldn’t get into any trouble. Still! It was about the principle. He went against specific orders from Hell for some dessert that wasn’t even sweet enough.
Crowley just finished his wine as Aziraphale said: ‘If you want me too, I will visit you in Spain as an apology. After I’ve been to England, if you don’t mind.’
Crowley looked at him for a long moment before saying: ‘Sure. I should stay there long enough.’
Aziraphale smiled. ‘Wonderful. Then I propose we should finish our desserts. And…’, he leaned towards Crowley with a conspiratorial smile, ‘maybe your ‘lattemele’ will be sweet enough for you now.’
Crowley took another spoon of the cream and, miraculously, it was sweeter. He smirked. What a wicked angel, encouraging gluttony.