Chapter Text
The garden is nice.
Aziraphale supposes that was the entire point of the place, but that didn’t make it any less true. It hummed and bustled and sighed and rustled with everything new and green and growing. In Heaven every sound sang the same, and it always had, and it always would. Every angelic voice was pitched to match in flawless ethereal harmony forever. It was undeniably beautiful, but after a few millennia, its loveliness began to stagnate a bit in Aziraphale’s estimation. It seemed to sound an awful lot like emptiness.
Especially after the Rebellion.
It had not taken Aziraphale long to realize that he had no great fondness for war. There hadn’t been much of a choice about fighting in it, though. Heaven couldn’t simply roll over and let the demons take control of the universe, after all. He had apparently done his part well enough to get assigned to the Eastern Gate of Eden, but the victory had felt as hollow as their Heavenly choirs.
They had lost fellow angels. To both the Fall and the fight that followed. He knew he should not question the Almighty’s decisions. He knew that Lucifer and his ilk were traitors bent on destroying all of God’s new creations. And yet, whilst all the other angels reveled and rejoiced at the ruin and damnation of their former brethren, all Aziraphale could feel was grief.
Being in the garden is better.
None of the new animals make any serious demands of him. The whole of the Heavenly Host is largely focused on the initial pair of breeding humans and what they might be up to, which means that he has mostly been left to his own devices. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to stand in the vicinity of an apple tree and occasionally waggle his finger at anything that comes too close. He likes to sit in the shade and feel the solid realness of the place surrounding him. He likes to smell the sweet freshness of the water and the wind and the plants. He likes that the light shining down on his face is warm and golden, and when the long days finally draw to a close and the sun sinks behind the garden walls, he likes to stand in silence and watch the stars.
He hopes that the humans are enjoying them.
The serpent arrives on the sixth hour of the sixth day.
Aziraphale never worked on the designs for any of the garden’s snakes, but he still knows that this one is different. It’s absolutely enormous for starters, but besides that, it also happens to exude an air of malevolence that none of the other occupants of Eden seem to possess. Its yellow gaze lacks the rest of the animals’ simple-minded innocence. And it keeps staring at him.
A demon, then.
Even with the war and its centuries of battles, Aziraphale has never actually killed anything. He would prefer to keep it that way. The peace between them is still fragile, the ink on the truce they signed still metaphorically wet upon the page, with both sides still bruised and aching. Itching for an excuse to lash out at each other once more. Any other angel might have seen this as a good enough reason to start something, but he does not have any direct orders to attack the members of the opposition, and so he won’t. The plants and the animals here are all still newly-made and delicate, and he is meant to be protecting them. Starting an all-out brawl in Eden would create yet another battlefield, and decimate the garden. But perhaps even more than that, he simply does not wish to fight anymore. Flaming sword be damned.
Aziraphale is to guard the Eastern Gate, and the Tree of Knowledge, and thwart the wiles of Evil. He can do all of that without smiting anything. Besides, the demon has not seen fit to do much more than skulk around, watching the humans and himself and the apple tree without doing much to interact with any of them.
It hardly seems worth killing them over.
He half-heartedly shoos them away with the sword a few times, when it looks as though they might be about to try something, and the snake slithers off without complaint. No words exchanged. No threatening postures. Almost as if the demon is not particularly interested in fighting either.
It feels like a rather uneasy stalemate, but Aziraphale finds it much more tolerable than the alternative. By the end of the day, he is tentatively hopeful that this is the way things will continue for some time. The pair of them circling each other, going through the motions of fulfilling their duties without ever actually landing a hit for either side.
And then the sun goes down, the humans go to sleep, and the serpent unfurls itself into a shape not so different from Aziraphale’s own.
The angel is standing on the wall, looking down into the garden. The demon steps out of the shadows of the trees below and tips their head back, angling their gaze towards the sky. They cut a strange, lanky, angular figure, and they move as though they haven’t used a pair of legs for getting around in quite a long time. The whole of them seems to sway as they walk, black wings stretched wide to help them keep their balance, brushing gently through the foliage as they go. Their robes are as dark as the surrounding night, and the angel might not have noticed them at all if it hadn’t been for their hair. Wild and bright and flickering behind them like the flame from Aziraphale’s sword.
Out in the open, the moonlight paints the edges their features in silver, and if the angel had actually needed to breathe, he might have been in real trouble, because the whole of him freezes on the spot.
Brow furrowed, lips parted slightly, and golden eyes wide with wonder and grief and unfathomable longing, the demon stares up at the stars with a face that Aziraphale had only ever thought to see again in dreams.
He should maintain his distance, he knows. He should hold himself away. But something in the center of his being is raw and wounded in a way he hasn’t felt since before the Rebellion, and when those brilliant yellow eyes finally slide down from the starlight and find him in the dark on the wall, he is fluttering down to join them before he can quite help himself.
The demon tilts their head at him curiously when he lands in the grass a few feet away, but they do not seem particularly afraid. They do not threaten him, but they do not greet him, either. They do not call him by his name.
“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale asks at last, having thought of nothing better to fill the gaping silence between them.
The demon shrugs carelessly.
“Head office just wants to keep the playing field even, I reckon. Prove that even though we lost, we’re not gone. Got to keep the Almighty on her toes. Or something like that, I dunno. She probably doesn’t even have toes.”
Aziraphale manages not to roll his eyes, but it is a near thing.
“No, I meant what are you doing here?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you! Why did they send you here, instead of…someone else?”
The demon laughs, and it is a sharp, mocking sound.
“Who else should they have sent instead?” They wonder.
‘Someone I didn’t know. Someone I didn’t-’
“Oh, never mind!” He snaps at them instead, heat rising in his face. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. You’re a demon.”
“You thought that Hell might send someone up here who wasn’t?”
“No, of course not, I meant-” He nearly bites down on his own tongue to stop the sentence from completing itself. He meets their gaze. Holds it longer than he should. Looking for traces of lost things. A hint of deep brown in a field of yellow. “Do you…know who I am?”
“Course I do!” The demon grins toothily. Aziraphale’s throat tightens as surely as if they had wrapped all ten of their long fingers around it and squeezed. “You’re the Angel of the Eastern Gate. God’s chosen little cherub to mind the Tree of Knowledge. Very important, I must say. Very imposing. You must have made quite an impression with the right people during the war.”
He is not certain if he feels more staggered by disappointment or annoyance, but his wings droop just the same. He glances away. Tugging at the sleeves of his tunic in agitation, floundering a bit as he struggles to think of a reason not to leave.
“You say that, but you don’t seem to be particularly intimidated by me.” He notes glumly.
“Hm, should I be?”
“I am the one with a sword,” he reminds them.
“And are you going to use it on me?” The demon wonders with a wide, curling grin.
Aziraphale makes a face.
“Well, It would serve you right if I did!”
They laugh at him, not sounding the least bit cowed. There’s no meanness in it this time, though. None of their earlier mockery. If anything, they seem genuinely amused. Golden eyes catching specks of starlight, reflecting their delight.
He opens his mouth, their name bright and burning on the tip of his tongue, but he thinks better of it, in the end. Purses his lips tightly and swallows it back down. The fallen angels had lost their names along with their grace and…everything else. It wouldn’t be right to use it now.
“What were you doing out here, anyway?” He asks instead, sounding terse and feeling haggard. “The humans are both sleeping, you’ve got no one to lure in with one of your evil schemes.”
“Oh, I dunno,” the demon shrugs again, still smiling, “There’s always you, isn’t there?”
Aziraphale stiffens, expression souring exponentially.
“That is not funny,” he huffs, sticking his chin out and puffing himself up a little as he turns away. He stretches his wings wide, intending to retake his position up on the wall. The demon takes a half step closer, edging around him before he can get away.
“Look, I didn’t mean it like that, alright?” they say in a rush, holding up their hands in a gesture of peace, “Nothing in my job description involves tarnishing anybody’s halo, I’m just here to ruffle some feathers, that’s all. And…”
“And?”
Their gaze slides back up towards the sky.
“And I wanted to see…”
Aziraphale follows their line of sight. It really is quite beautiful. The colors are not nearly as vivid as the view from the nebula he remembers them making when they first met, but it is certainly nothing to turn one’s nose up at.
“You wanted to see the stars?”
“Nng, well… Yeah.” They grunt, looking a bit uncomfortable about it and scratching a spot on their nose. “Believe it or not, the view from Hell leaves a lot to be desired.”
“You don’t say.”
The stand together in silence for a time. The demon watching the heavens. The angel watching them in turn.
“You know… You can see even more of them from the wall.” Aziraphale mentions casually, finally turning away and spreading his wings again to fly off.
“Was that an offer?” The demon wonders.
“It was a statement,” he replies coolly, “What you decide to do with that information is entirely up to you.”
Without a second look back, Aziraphale flaps his wings and takes off. It is a short flight back to his initial perch, but he makes sure to keep his eyes fixed on the empty wilderness beyond the garden walls. He doesn’t wish to give the impression that he is hoping for the demon to follow him up, after all.
Barely a minute passes before a fluttering of dark feathers has the demon landing deftly on the wall beside him. They give a low appreciative whistle, turning this way and that as they try to look in every direction at once. Aziraphale fights the urge to smile.
“Well, you certainly weren’t lying about the view from up here.”
“I never lie,” Aziraphale sniffs, “I’m an angel.”
“Of course not,” they smirk, “Otherwise you’d be just like me, wouldn’t you?”
“Well…that is…” He trails off, but the demon seems to have gone back to looking at the stars, so it doesn’t seem to matter much that he is lacking a witty reply. The yearning has crept its way back into their expression, and Aziraphale aches to see it despite himself.
“Do you…remember anything at all from when you were an angel?” he wonders.
“Mm, I remember… Not much, honestly.” They confess with a deep exhale of breath they had no need to be holding. “Just enough for it to hurt. Which was the point, I imagine.”
“They said it was meant as an act of mercy.” Aziraphale says without much conviction.
“Did they, now?” they chuckled dryly, “And does that seem merciful to you?”
“I don’t know,” he admits with a shake of his head, “I suppose it is kinder not to remember all the things you must have lost after the war. There are few things I would not mind forgetting.”
“Even if those memories are what make you who you are?”
“Well, it isn’t as though it changes your soul, does it?” Aziraphale asks, giving them a sidelong glance.
“I’m not so sure,” they grunt in reply, “I mean…I know I’m not the same as the angel I was created to be. I can’t be. Not anymore.”
“But maybe someday… I mean, the Almighty could always change their mind.”
“Even if she did, I wouldn’t.” They hiss out, sharp and fierce. Aziraphale flinches slightly, and they relent somewhat. They sound both resigned and determined as they continue. “Choices were made. Bridges burned. The angel that I was before… They don’t exist anymore. They’re gone. Forever.”
Aziraphale feels cold and heavy. As if his wings could not even begin to bear his weight if he tried to fly off to somewhere else. He can tell that his expression is starting to crumple in on itself, so he turns away.
He remembers, even if they cannot. The way their face lit up with unbridled joy and wonder. Wings and arms and hair all bouncing with delight. Always moving, always reaching out with curiosity and optimism. Watching new nebulas and galaxies and solar systems bloom in the empty darkness of space. Watching him.
Soft hands. White feathers. Crisp clean robes. Gold-limed beauty in both word and silence. Questions and hope and creation. Everything gentle. Everything new.
They hadn’t put a name to anything. There was no word for it yet. It hadn’t been invented. But something about their companionship had struck the very chord of their existence, and the resonance of the harmony they made together felt strong enough to shake the very stars.
Or at least, Aziraphale thought it had.
“I…I’m sorry to hear that.” He squeezes out at last.
“Are you?” The demon wonders, peering at him curiously.
“I am.” He says quietly, refusing to meet their eyes.
“Well…stop it.” They say, their mouth twisting up into a frown. “I didn’t ask for your pity.”
“Of course.”
“…”
“…”
“…You’re still doing it, aren’t you?” They accuse after a few more moments of awkward silence, narrowing their eyes at him.
“You are not the only one who lost things in the Great War.” Aziraphale snaps.
The demon blinks at him, slightly taken aback.
“No…I suppose I’m not.” They huff, shaking out their wings a little. “And you have to remember all of it.”
“I do.”
“I guess I’m the lucky one, then.” They chuckle darkly. “First time that’s ever happened.”
“How do you know that you are the lucky one if you can’t remember anything?”
“Nnngh, well… That’s…a fair point.” They concede with another long breath. “I still remember the stars, though. That’s something.”
‘The stars, but not me,’ Aziraphale smiles bitterly.
“They are beautiful,” he notes instead.
“I think I might have made them,” The demon tells him, golden eyes scanning across a billion specks of light, as if trying to gather every last one, “Not all of them, mind you, but a fair few. Mine were further out, I think. Hard to find them from here.”
“Well, so long as you don’t cause any trouble, you can look for your stars as long as you wish,” Aziraphale says.
“I think…that they remind me of someone.”
Aizraphale freezes.
“Oh, really?” He asks, striving to sound casual even as his voice rises a full octave. “Who?”
“Hm, not sure,” they hum, mostly to themselves, “I feel like I’d know them if I saw them, though.”
Aziraphale’s eyebrows shoot towards his hairline, but the rest of his features remain remarkably unimpressed.
“Would you indeed?”
“Nngh, pretty sure.” They pause for a moment to consider things. “Then again, might be best if I don’t. Probably lead to something messy. That’s the trouble when you don’t remember people. No way to know what the last thing you said to them was. Don’t much fancy the idea of some angel seeing my face and smiting me on sight because of some row I can’t remember.”
“You know that this person is an angel, then?” Aziraphale presses.
“Well, I know they must have been before, you know, all the fighting, anyway,” the demon shrugs, “We were all angels at one point, weren’t we? But I suppose they could have fallen, too. Doesn’t seem right, though. I think they would have found me already if they had.”
“Perhaps they were lost during the war?”
“…You might be right,” they agree, slowly, “But I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“I think…if they were completely gone, it would feel less…”
“Less what?”
“Less…everything.” They say, making a fluttering gesture with their hands to emphasize the point.
“I see,” Aziraphale says, even though he is not entirely certain that he does, “So, are you going to try looking for them? You star angel?”
They shake their head at him.
“Can’t see much point in it, really.” They tell him, a smile curling up the edges of their mouth that does not reach their eyes. “The angel they knew is gone, like I said. And so are my memories. I don’t even know what we were to each other. Best of friends. Worst of enemies. Annoying workmates. Doesn’t matter. It’s all gone. It’s too late to get any of it back, now. All that’s left is the stars.”
“All that’s left is the stars,” Aziraphale repeats quietly, a tremor running through his voice, “And even they will be fading out soon. It’s nearly dawn. Come on, we should both get back to the garden and go our separate ways before the humans wake up. Don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. We are enemies, after all.”
The demon grins at him, wide and sharp and toothy, spreading their wings wide before fluttering back down into the greenery.
“Aren’t we just?”