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“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I suggested we take it easy this weekend.”
“You don’t really mind though, do you?” Crowley asks.
“Not at all,” Aziraphale smiles around the rim of his glass.
A cavalcade of fantastically technicolor beings throngs the street below them. The din is somewhat muffled from their balcony overlooking St Ann’s Street, becoming a boisterous but pleasing commotion on the evening air. Around them, every balustrade is festooned with flags, creating a riot of color that teeters on utter overwhelm. Yet, for two beings beyond the scope of time and history, the angel of the eastern gate and the serpent of Eden find themselves surprisingly at peace, while the tumult of humanity surges as ever around their two fixed points.
“It’s nice to travel. You know…just for the fun of it. Seeing things we haven’t yet.” Crowley leans against the balustrade, seemingly observing the proceedings beneath them, a sweating glass of Sazerac cradled in his long fingers.
“Things we’ve never seen together. ” Aziraphale, neatly sat at the wrought iron bistro table, beams radiantly at Crowley and plays with the stem of his daiquiri glass.
“Kind of incredible, really. We’ve been around…” Crowley drawls, “well…all this time. You’d think there’d be nothing left to do .”
A long rainbow banner begins to streak its way through the crowd below them, borne up by dozens of shouting celebrants. Crowley cocks his head over the railing and Aziraphale joins him, nestling hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder as they watch the parade in earnest. It’s a gesture so intimate, so natural, that had they been observed, no onlooker could believe they were anything other than in love.
“I’m glad you brought me, Crowley,” The angel’s tone is as intimate and warm as if they were having a quiet candlelit dinner and not spectating a rowdy parade. “It's been a lovely surprise.”
Behind the banner comes a procession of vehicles, lit up and decorated for the occasion and filled with revelers. From a spangled float, a glittering gaggle of dancing merrymakers wave and toss beads into the crowd, a strand of which manage to fling themselves straight up two stories into Crowley’s outstretched hand. Aziraphale gives him a sly look that quickly morphs to surprise when the demon proffers them in his direction.
“Come on, then. You love a bit of dress-up.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly…” Aziraphale coyly bows his head so that Crowley can lay them around his neck. He fiddles with the gaudy plastic, twirling them giddily around a finger on his free hand before his attention is drawn by a truck full of drag queens, garments trimmed with feathers and dripping with stones. Crowley can see the way his eyes light up dazzled. Despite his frumpy day-to-day getup, his angel always had a certain weakness for theatrics…and dare one say it, glamour .
“I remember you doing that.”
“Did what? Drag? Oh, heavens!”
“Oh, come off it, Angel,” Crowley takes a sip of his drink, grinning. “There were rhinestones –”
“It’s a perfectly comfortable body, Crowley!” Aziraphale sniffs, swatting his cackling companion’s arm playfully. “Not…shapeshifting doesn’t make it drag .”
“It’s not like that. It’s the…pageantry of it. It’s about putting something on.”
“Well, by that logic, from my perspective, it’s all a performance.” Aziraphale takes the last sip of his daiquiri. Before he can properly have a pout about it, the cocktail refills, swirling its way up from the bottom of the glass. The angel’s eyes shine like warm lamps. “It’s all just for fun, after all. One of those charming human experiences.”
“Performing by wearing the same thing each day as you’ve worn for a hundred years.”
“Performing as an English antiquarian bookseller.”
“Who’s as gay as the day is long, according to the neighbors.” Crowley winks one citrine eye.
“All in the eyes of the audience, my dear. Angels are sexless, after all,” Aziraphale recites drily.
Crowley takes the low-hanging fruit with grace, leaning further into the angel’s fawn-clad shoulder, lips close against the shell of Aziraphale’s ear. “Well, most angels…”
Aziraphale shivers pleasantly as Crowley coils against him, feeling the contours of his body like a tree viper around a sturdy branch. “My point is, perhaps you’re right. Even when I’m not doing it on purpose, the human mind fills in the blanks.”
There is a break in the floats for marchers, contingents separated by banners. “TRANS RIGHTS NOW!” one demands, supported by three women somewhere in their 40s. The group marching behind it is omnifarious and splendid as any of the floats, most arrayed in shades of pink, blue and white. A man strides through the inside of the pack, arms raised above his head to proudly expose a pair of elegant scars cradling his brown ribs. To his right another young person in an open vest, some generously sized but shiny pasties, and a pair of holographic bike shorts smiles and blows kisses to the crowd. Now it’s Crowley’s turn to be mystified.
“You envy them, though,” Aziraphale says.
“Well,” Crowley shrugs, the movement rolling him back to his original position. “They’re made for it, aren’t they? All that free will and expression came with the package. It’s natural for them.”
“Some more so than others,” Aziraphale muses before drawing Crowley’s attention to a tall person in a blonde wig passing beneath them carrying a sign that reads ‘GOD GAVE ME A TRANS BODY’.
“If only they knew…”
“Indeed. Perhaps we’re not so different though,” Aziraphale’s brows knit. “They may be born to choose, but we do all have our own decisions to make. Whether it’s performed for an audience or an expression of the soul.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, we already have been, haven’t we? Making a choice.”
Crowley mulls this thought over, taking a careful sip of his drink and watching the crowd go by. “Well, I suppose you’re right. We’re not exactly blank canvases, but it’s not as if we’re following the supernatural order.”
“Just so,” Aziraphale nods. Contingents of all-queer Mardi Gras Krewes process through the street below; more sequins and feathers and not much else. The general rowdy merriment of it all fills the comfortable lapse of their conversation. The New Orleans night finally begins to fold its way into the backdrop between the buildings.
“So, how does it feel to be transgender?” Crowley grins.
“Oh, does that even count? With what I said before…”
“Of course it does. S’why they call it an umbrella,” Crowley gestures over their heads to illustrate, his speech beginning to slur with Sazerac. “Human society sees you as a man, but really you’re, er…”
“An angel, my dear,” Aziraphale replies sardonically. Crowley rolls his eyes.
“Right. So, gender: angel.”
Aziraphale nods in agreement and gestures with his glass. “And for you, dear?”
The demon surveys the crowd below, which has by now begun to gradually thin as the end of the parade draws through. He considers for a moment the bustling crowd, the seemingly infinite kaleidoscope of human expression swirling beneath them.
“I’ll take the lot of it, actually,” he says finally.
Hours pass and with it much of the crowd, and the hot haze of the summer night draws the requisite attitude for one of the most infamous nightlife spots in America. Crowley and Aziraphale continue their drinking, intimate conversation and idle people-watching as a new sort of partier begins to fill out the streets. It’s not as loud and overstimulating as the parade, but the carousing below is far more infectious. A trio of buskers sets up on a far street corner, and soon the air is filled with the pleasant cacophony of their notes. It is, one might say, an idyllic evening scene in New Orleans.
Aziraphale turns to Crowley, eyes misty from drink and sentimentality. Crowley knows the question before it’s even left those heavenly lips.
“Shall we…?”
“Of course, Angel.” Crowley takes both of their glasses and sets them gently down on the table behind him as Aziraphale moves away from the balustrade and extends his hand for Crowley to take. They draw up close to one another, rocking slowly to the warble of the trumpet.
It’s all at once deeply familiar and awkwardly new to them, and it seems to Aziraphale that the unfamiliar steps bring them swaying back through time itself. As he spins his partner away he feels the soft bounce of her hair. They draw back together with a warm whiff of tobacco and vetiver. The dim light of the balcony shows at turns through translucent linen, catches on rich black satin, and disappears into fine dark wool.
A thousand missed dances, under myriad guises, all folding into one another. It should feel overwhelming to Crowley, but she knows she will be embraced in any of them she chooses. He could happily spend eternity oscillating around the soft, bright warmth of Aziraphale’s presence. And so it is that tonight that the demon Crowley sheds a portion of the glamour that keeps up its physical appearance. It abandons reality for a time, in sheer delight of free movement and the lively melody and the abiding anchor of love.
The jazz trio ends their song, and Aziraphale draws Crowley backwards against his chest, nuzzling into the nape of their neck. It’s Crowley’s turn to shiver.
“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” Aziraphale purrs clumsily.
His companion gives a breathless chuckle. “Who taught you that one, Angel?”
“That would be Moulin Rouge, I believe.”
“Naturally,” Crowley laughs in earnest as Aziraphale buries his face into his hair. Broad, neat hands splay down over his narrow hips. From the street, somebody wolf whistles. “that sounds like our cue.”
“Yes, I think you may be right,” the angel says, turning his love around to face him. “besides, I want you rested for tomorrow morning.”
“What’s tomorrow morning?”
Aziraphale wriggles in excitement. “There’s this lovely drag brunch at The Country Club, and I’m told their beignets are simply divine .”
Crowley shakes his head, leaning in to capture the angel’s lips, grinning all the while.