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“You interrupted me earlier, when I wanted to tell everyone about how we came to be at Tadfield airbase together for Armageddon.”
“It wasn’t the time, angel. It was more important that we talk about a way to leave Tadfield airbase with the world intact.”
“Well yes, I know that.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “So do you want to hear it?”
“What?”
“The story of how we met?”
“I know how we met, angel.”
“You know your version. You’re very smart, Crowley, I think you know that no two people experience an event the same way, let alone hundreds of thousands of lifetimes’ worth of events.” Aziraphale touched Crowley’s hand tentatively. A poke, almost, except soft and with all of his fingers. “So do you want to hear my version?”
“I suspect I’m not being given a choice.” Aziraphale crossed his arms. “Yes, I want to hear it.”
––––
One morning (it was always morning in Heaven) I was basking in the adoration of God, as usual, and then all of a sudden I wasn’t. I noticed that my feet were in soft, dewy grass, and then I noticed that I had feet, and legs and arms and a face and a whole body really. There were two people standing in the garden, and they were sort of crying and cowering, wearing leaves over their genitals. It was a man and a woman, she was with child. You of course got to know them better than I did, I only got stationed there once it had all already kicked off. I was meant to keep them from coming back. I didn’t know that yet, I hadn’t really been given any instructions. So I said “be not afraid,” like you do, and I started to walk towards them, when I heard the voice of the Lord, and She basically told me I was responsible for evicting these people and making sure they stayed gone, that I was supposed to point them in the direction of the next oasis in the desert and send them on their way. When I was done receiving this message my flaming sword was in my hand. I couldn’t help but laugh, it seemed like such overkill, but who was I to question, you know. Well, I suppose you don’t know, do you, that’s rather your whole deal, as it were. Well it might be yours to question, but it wasn’t mine, so I walked over to them, I told them again not to be afraid and of course it did nothing. Eve was crying. Adam looked terrified. I gave him the sword. I couldn’t help it, I knew what was out there! Not just the ferocious beasts we have now, there were all manner of terrible prototypes in that desert! And what a waste if after all that they perished. I knew She wouldn’t let them perish, but I thought maybe She was working through me in that moment. I handed him the sword. I told him to be careful with it and to travel in the direction that I pointed him. They nodded and thanked me and cried some more. I nearly cried myself.
So I was feeling awfully mournful for those people and hoping that I hadn’t pushed the envelope too far by providing them the sword instead of raising it against them, and I went over to the gate where She had told me to watch for if they tried to return or if anything else tried to get in. I guess I wasn’t doing a very good job, because suddenly there was something right beside me, turning into someone in front of my eyes. It was you, of course. And you said, “Well that went down like a lead balloon,” and I didn’t quite hear you because I was distracted by the sight of you. I had fought in the last war, so I was sort of vaguely familiar with what a demon looked like, but I didn’t remember seeing you, and I thought I would have remembered seeing you. So I asked you what you had said and you repeated yourself a little louder. And we sort of chit-chatted, and then you asked me about my sword and I admitted to you that I had given it away. I was so ashamed of myself, because I had already been worried that it had been the wrong choice, mind you, and then when you were smiling at me I thought I must have really bollocksed it up big time. But you told me that if I had done it, it must have been the right thing to do. And for whatever reason, despite it being terribly faulty reasoning, it made me feel better. It started to rain, and we both sort of looked up at it, and then, doing what was apparently already typical me having been on Earth for maybe fifteen minutes, I gave of myself for someone who was out of favor with God. I sheltered you under my wing. I couldn’t think of any reason why not, and I could hear you humming tunelessly to yourself, and I saw that it was good.
But I suppose that to explain how we got to Tadfield it would be best to jump to London, early 1600s, wouldn’t it, that’s when we first agreed to start running errands for each other. Our Arrangement. You had that hideous goatee. We went to see a rehearsal of Hamlet, I knew Will. You didn’t care for it but you helped it along as a gesture of good faith. And I knew it was a gesture of good faith, and that mattered to me. I was very nervous about the whole endeavor because it would involve me doing bad things, and obviously I try to avoid those and I was even more circumspect at the time. I think you had a feeling you would be doing several good deeds for every bad deed you coaxed out of me. So it felt like a real gesture, for you to do that one for me, and really for me, I doubt Heaven cared much one way or another, he was already quite famous by then and it was in little danger of being lost to time.
Well I wouldn’t have admitted as much at the time.
That’s alright, dear, neither would I, to be sure. But I felt grateful, and so I felt obligated, which I’m sure was part of the whole idea. So I wreaked a little havoc for you, and the sky didn’t open and I didn’t turn into a demon. And you did a little good and no one came up from Hell to collect you. So we met up halfway in Sheffield. We ate dry-cured beef and vegetables that don’t exist anymore, and drank that thick beer they used to make, and you were clean-shaven. I hadn’t said anything. I don’t know how you knew.
You have no poker face, angel.
In any event, the course of true Arrangement never did run smooth, did it? We had that little tiff in the nineteenth century.
Is that what you’re calling it?
And I’d like to be clear, it’s not as though I saw the error of my ways when I relented. I just cared about your safety more than I cared about being right. That’s how angels are supposed to be. I wish it were how more of my fellows really were.
Me too, angel. I think if they had been I might not have fallen.
I don’t know about that Crowley, you really are a mischievous thing when you want to be. But I would have missed you if you’d gotten into trouble, so I had to bend my rules a little in exigent circumstances. Especially after you put yourself so out of your way for me during the war. I’m a creature of benevolence and magnanimity, as you know, Crowley –
If you say so.
Oh, stop, I’m trying to say something nice to you, just shut up! I’m a creature of giving and love, but I’m unused to getting that back. When I saw you hopping up the aisle in that church just as I was about to be shot, I didn’t even know where to put all my feelings. And looking like that, too! Suave little devil. You gave to me over and over that night. You gave me my life back, and then you gave me my books back, and then you gave me a ride home. That wasn’t because I was useful to you, Crowley, frankly I was terrible at doing demonic work. If this had ever been about business I suspect you would have given up on our deal centuries ago. There didn’t seem to be any expectation of return for you. I don’t know if maybe the thrill of breezing in seconds before disaster was its own reward.
Naturally. Plus I wanted to watch some Nazis get blown to bits. They were worse than almost anything we ever came up with Downstairs. There were some demons assisting them but I stayed well away.
Of course. You were always naughty, but never evil, not really. So after that, I knew that whether or not it turned out that I was right to trust you with the holy water, I had to try trusting you. I needed to know that I was holding up my end of this other bargain – not the Arrangement, I certainly wasn’t holding my end of that bargain – but whatever this other one was. One that was just about you and me, that Heaven and Hell had nothing to do with. I’m afraid I haven’t done a very good job of holding up my end of that one, either. I hope this past couple days have made a dent in that, and I promise that it’ll be just the start.
You have nothing to apologize for. You had a lot to consider, a lot of priorities. I wasn’t loyal to Heaven, obviously, wasn’t especially loyal to Hell, either. It didn’t cost me anything to be loyal to you, and it made you so happy. Now we’re both free agents, I guess I would hope to see the needle shift a little bit, but I’ve gotten comfortable here. I won’t be angry if it never reaches full parity.
That’s sort of sad, my dear.
–––––––
“Crowley, may I add a chapter?”
“What?”
“To the story.”
“I suppose.”
Aziraphale leaned over and kissed him. Crowley opened his mouth in surprise, and then closed it again, catching one of Aziraphale’s soft lips between his. Aziraphale tasted like coffee with too much sugar in it, which must have been from the tiramisu at the Ritz, and something else which was ineffable. And then, just as suddenly, it was over. Aziraphale was sitting where he had been before, and if it weren’t for the look on his face Crowley might have thought that he had spaced out and imagined it.
“Was that –”
“Real? I hope so. Crowley, have you been sneaking cigarettes when I’m not around?”
“That’s just how I taste, unfortunately. Lucky for you, I have an excellent imagination. Go on, try again.”
Aziraphale kissed Crowley, and this time he tasted just like one of those old perfumy mints they only sell in tube stations and retro candy shops. Aziraphale pulled back and smiled sweetly.
“That’s very touching, but you needn’t go to the trouble. I was only worried that you were doing harm to yourself.” “
Nah. People look at me and figure I smoke, so I taste like I smoke. In order to tempt, I really do change with people’s expectations. But if you think I taste like I’m trying to quit, I’ll taste like I’m trying to quit. You’re the only one whose opinion matters on this point.”
“Really? I would have thought, well.”
“Oh, over the years, have there been? Of course. Shepherd boys and punk-rock girlfriends and people who were perceptive enough to know they shouldn’t ask too many questions and people who asked so many questions I had to love them on principle. But I’ve also had to grieve them all, and no matter how many times it happens, no matter what kind of terms we ended on, it rips my heart out every time when I hear they’ve passed away. Friends, too, it just destroys me every time. Mercy, even the break-ups are gruesome. But I haven’t had that in a few years. Started to feel sort of perverse after a while, didn’t it? They’re all so young, even the old ones. And then the only ones appropriately aware of their imminent deaths are the ones you have to spend half your time talking off the ledge. I know you’ve had to manage that in your pastoral care. I imagine that’s horrible as well, cause you really would feel responsible for them. But it’s different when you’re in love with them. You wish you could take it all on yourself, switch places with them. But even we don’t have that kind of power, do we? Anyway, yes, for all it’s worth, the last time I kissed someone was at the millennium, on New Year’s, and that was just to start off a particularly chaotic night for that guy that he would go on to have with other people. It was an easy job, not a proper kiss. So no one else needs to know or care if I taste like cigarettes or mints or anything else you please. Name it.”
“I don’t have any business telling you how to taste either. You name it. That’s what I want for you. To be whoever, whatever is comfortable for you, not just with this. You turn heads anyway wherever you go, but not because you’re anachronistic, Crowley. You could still be wearing a toga and all anyone would notice was that you were beautiful. And you certainly don’t have to waste your imagination on me. Provided that you don’t have an amphibian on your head.”
Crowley laughed, surreptitiously wiped an eye.
“No. I was never enough in the good books to get one, if you can believe it.”
Aziraphale smiled warmly. “Somehow, I can. Alright my dear, let’s have it.”
Aziraphale put a hand on each of Crowley’s upper arms and pulled himself back up to Crowley’s face. When Aziraphale kissed Crowley again, he tasted like earth, like rich, nutrient-packed earth, like the skin of a fresh tomato before it’s washed. Aziraphale closed his eyes and hesitantly slipped his tongue into Crowley’s mouth. He gently caressed the inside of Crowley’s lips with the blade of his tongue and then hesitantly reached for Crowley’s tongue. The top of it was sort of padded and scratchy, the way a lizard’s might be, which he supposed made sense, but the underside of it was delightfully soft and wet. Aziraphale shuddered. He wrapped his arms around Crowley’s bony frame and held him tightly. He felt Crowley’s back soften into him and Crowley’s tongue lick the underside of his own tongue in response. The rough padding of Crowley’s tongue against the softest part of his was shocking and delightful, like scratching an itch you didn’t even notice you had.
“Perfect, my dear. Absolutely perfect.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“I’m not. I’m so glad we’ve ended up here, now. All that time, all those places and people and comedies and tragedies, and now I finally know that we are truly earthly. Better than heavenly, in my eyes.”
“The whole earth is the Garden if we only share it, angel.”
“Yes, I rather think you’re right, Crowley.”