Chapter Text
Chapter One.
1783.
Oxford, England.
Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern gate and the principality assigned to Earth sighed heavily as the coach pulled up to the post stop, the wheels juddering unpleasantly. The horses were tired, the post from Manchester to Oxford was long and the roads tiresome. They had changed the poor beasts overnight, but the stop had been swift and quite frankly the Angel was sick of the rutted and potted roadways. He should have just miracled himself here, he was on assignment after all. But he did so try to be like humans, tried very hard to understand their needs and frustrations. Today he understood this frustration rather too well.
The door opened and Aziraphale disembarked. His legs felt unsteady under him. Blasted corporation, it did mimic human action so well. A little too well to the Angel’s mind.
He had been in England for some time before this, settled in the north trying to make a dent in the horrid mill trade. He had spent time as an investor trying to persuade some of the nastier owners to pay their staff and uplift their area. It had not been going well and honestly the Angel was ready for a break. The break had come, and he had been instructed to head to the south to investigate strange phenomenon at Oxford University. The memo from his office had inferred that a body of students had conjured up a demon and that said demon was not playing by the rules. The rule was and always had been that neither Angel nor Demon could kill humans unless expressly given permission by God or by Satan. As neither side had sanctioned such actions he had been sent to investigate the flurry of student deaths and discover the demonic culprit in order to send them straight back to where they belonged.
There was a twinge of fear in Aziraphale’s chest. The Demon Crowley had been on the earth for as many years as he himself had been. As much as the Angel liked to think that behind the demonic guise their lurked a far better heart, he had never absolutely trusted his supposed foe. He would never hurt Aziraphale, that much was true, but who knew what other chaos the demon got up to?
The Angel had not had the opportunity to speak to him in quite some time, somehow their paths had not crossed despite their arrangement, and that very fact worried Aziraphale greatly.
The coachman passed his bags down to him and the Angel began a brisk walk through the white Oxford streets towards the stretch that housed the university. He would be teaching English for a term and, Demons notwithstanding, intended to enjoy himself. Oxford was so much better than Manchester in his mind.
He had a fine book that covered all of Shakespeare’s plays, a selection of Donne’s poetry and prose and he had Goethe’s Faust. Faust was the trump card in his pocket. He thought reading a play about the very thing he’d come to investigate might rattle the students enough to come clean about it. Faust hardly had a good time, and it made it crystal clear that Demons could never be trusted. Somewhat amusingly it had been Crowley that had gifted the book to him. The inside read;
Angel.
I’m not saying I had any part of this.
C.
The C was a beautiful, curling creature, but Aziraphale was not about to admit that he’d spent many an idle hour stroking the tip of a nail around and over it’s fascinating swirl. Whatever influence Crowley may have had over Goethe Aziraphale did not want to know, but he had to admit that the man had talent and the story verve. He was certain his new charges would like it, old it may be, but it was a strangely modern read. A tale for the ages.
The scent of food had the Angel’s nose twitching in the air. Hmmm. It had been quite a while since he had eaten. He checked his pocket watch. Oh, he was in good time, he could indulge a little before meeting with the Dean.
Casting a quick tidy miracle over himself, prim and neat, Aziraphale made his way to the fascinating little bakery across the street, tucked in the wall of a side alley and smiled at the proprietress indulgently.
“A cup of Oolong and a cinnamon whirl my good woman.” He said politely as she directed him to a table. And that was just to start. It took the Angel a good eighty minutes to try all of the delicacies on offer. The proprietress closed early that day. She had made enough to cover her entire week.
Crowley, snake, demon, whatever, was bored. Satan and all of his satanic herd clearly hated him. Sending him to boring bloody Oxford to chase down some bloody stupid rogue demon. Gah. The problem was no one knew which rogue demon. The paperwork had been lost. And now here he was teaching mathematics and calculous to a bunch of teenage humans with bad smells up their noses when he could instead have been sleeping. He thought of the arrangement and cursed himself for not contacting his angelic ally. Aziraphale could have come instead. In fact he would have loved it here. Books and food, learning, and all that stuff. Right up the Angel’s alley. Many of the professors here reminded him of Aziraphale. Stuffy and straight-backed and somewhat bumbling.
For centuries Crowley had not quite believed the butter wouldn’t melt thing Aziraphale had going on, the sweet scatter-brained frontage. But after so long he had resigned himself to it. He really was that ridiculously adorable. The Demon had also resigned himself to the fact that he found it appealing. A little too appealing. Tapping a pen against his lips as he watched his students sweat over the sudden test he’d set them that morning, Crowley really wished the Angel were here. Not in his stead even, just here. It had been years since they had spent any quality time with each other. That itch to spend time with another creature that got it, that understood, was becoming maddening. Humans were alright, but they weren’t the same. They wouldn’t understand about the stars or the planets, about how they came to be. Neither would they understand wing shedding and how much it hurt once one was cast out. To be fair Crowley wasn’t sure that even Aziraphale understood that, but it was nice that he tried. On top of all that Aziraphale could make him smile, could hold beautiful conversations about everything and nothing, would bicker with him and hold no malice and could drink him under the table. Plus he never judged Crowley just because he was a Demon, and Crowley loved nudging his innate naivety, loved to poke at his beliefs, liked to show him very carefully that maybe heaven wasn’t always right.
A smile hovered on the Demons lips as he remembered Uz. Job, the goats and kids and the ox ribs. The moment when he’d found the Angel after his first little deception, staring out across the great plains of God’s creation as if it were for the last time and him saying, “yes, I thought they would send you. Well I’m ready to go.”
Go?
“To hell.” He remembered staring at the pretty creature before him and having to chuckle because the Angel had looked so damned cute, in those silly flowy robes heaven insisted on back then, the sunset setting his golden curls glowing like a halo, his corporation so soft and sweet.
“I’m not taking you to hell Angel.” Crowley had said, “I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“But I’m a fallen Angel.” Aziraphale had spluttered and for a second, for a brief second, Crowley had wanted to pull him close and hold him. He really had believed it. Instead Crowley had laughed, teased him, explained that he was just an Angel that went along with heaven as far as he could. The same way he went along with hell, as far as he could.
“That sounds lonely.” Aziraphale had sounded so small, but Crowley wouldn’t hide truths from him anymore. “you said it wasn’t.” he’d accused, and Crowley had smiled secretly.
“I’m a Demon. I lied.”
He had indeed, that day in Uz, but he never lied again, not to Aziraphale. He embellished and withheld, but he never lied. And as for the loneliness of millennia, well it was always a little better when the Angel was close. On the lonelier days Crowley discovered he could reach out and find that little spot of warmth, Aziraphale’s celestial energy and hold onto it wherever he was. A spot of comfort, something to remind him there was someone else here, someone he liked. Sometimes Crowley would be in India and Aziraphale in Africa, or he’d be in the highlands of Scotland and Crowley would be in Iceland, but just knowing he was on earth was enough.
Of course Uz had been the moment that Crowley had discovered desire. The assumption of humans that Demons were lustful, debauched creatures was just not true. There were a few of course, but they had been crafted for such work. Crowley had been those amongst the first fallen, he was to all intent and purpose an Angel, and desire, lust, want, had been stolen from God by the humans, with that first bite of apple. As proud as Crowley was to have tempted them to it he hadn’t really understood why the knowledge held within was so sacred. Surely God wanted the humans to breed and build and understand? He still had the vague feeling that he might have done exactly what God wanted, rather than the other way around. It worried him from time to time. Whatever, Angel’s did not feel desire, or maybe they just hadn’t taken a bite of the apple, the key that unlocked the knowledge.
It had taken the first bite of the ox ribs for Crowley’s understanding to fruit. He hadn’t really intended to tempt the Angel, it had just been a bit of fun, a bit of mischief to wile away a long, dull night. The Angel had refused to drink and oh the storm was raging, and Crowley knew he would get bored, so he got his enemy to try the food. He recalled the fuss the fussy Angel had made. His little gagging sounds.
It had hit him as hard as a punch to the gut. As Aziraphale had unfurled his pretty tongue and licked the pink animal flesh something had tightened in Crowley’s gut. Then as the Angel took that first bite, slow and uncertain, Crowley had seen the way his eyes had lit, saw something fundamental change within the Angel, and something else had unfurled within the Demon. And as he watched Aziraphale gorge himself on meat and fat and rich, sweet juices something fundamental also changed inside of him. Something that writhed, screamed, and clawed at his insides. Something he didn’t understand until much later on. Desire. He had never felt it for any other creature, though he had explored a little. Over the centuries he’d watched the humans, attended orgies, parties, weddings. But he had never engaged with them, he had never understood why he would. Watching men with men and woman with women and man and woman and all of them together never bought up that feeling. But after that, if he imagined Aziraphale doing those things to him, with him, then he felt the something inside him writhe and squirm.
He had finally decided to make an effort during the Roman period. The humans in Rome spent so much time naked that it felt wrong to be clothed at all times, but he needed to look like them. He had at that time gone with the male effort, though he had since tried female as well, and sometimes both. Having a penis felt, for him, the most comfortable, and so for the vast amount of time he identified as male. He had tried out the efforts over the years, thinking of the things humans did and if Aziraphale would do them too. It was pleasurable and Crowley thought he understood human nature far better for discovering the orgasm.
Distantly Crowley heard the bell ring indicating lunch and students started moving around. Some coming forward with their tests. The Demon snapped out of his reverie with vague irritation.
“I’m sorry Sir, I couldn’t do all of the questions in the time.”
“I think I did the vast majority…”
“Sir, you are a slavedriver.” Crowley just nodded as they left their tests in front of him, and they bustled out of the Mathematics form. The Demon looked down at the endless pages of questions and smirked, he’d been rather proud of his test, it had left a distinct air of discontent in the room. Even the boffins hadn’t managed to finish it. He had made the thing endless, just when you thought you were done another question was there. A wonderful tool of frustration and misery, he was certain most teachers would love it.
Shuffling the papers up Crowley rolled his eyes behind his black lenses, he would not be spending his evening marking the damned things. With a snap of his fingers the papers were marked and graded, and Crowley stuffed them in his desk drawer and locked it, his mind half on the little storm of angst he was breathing in and half on remembrance of fluffy blonde hair and a face covered in Ox rib juice. Then something nudged at the edge of his consciousness. Crowley froze and stiffened. He could feel the trace of dark energy all the way to his core, black and hot and terrifying. Something that was old, something that was very, very bad.
His day dreams cut short, a switch flipped over in the Demons head, one of concentration and effort. He reached out, honing, searching for the dark space that had no business being on Earth. Crowley quickly discarded his flowing teaching robes and slipped on his finely cut, black frock coat. Someone was playing with bad juju, and he needed to find out who they were and what they had summoned as quickly as possible.