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“What,” came a bored, deliciously familiar voice from behind him, “the devil are you wearing?”
“Crowley!” The word was out of his mouth before he turned, smile breaking out on his fa--
It turned into a laugh, abruptly, causing him to bend over right there in the street.
“Well that’s a fine greeting. Forces of evil funny, are they?”
Aziraphale tried to get hold of himself, finally managed to straighten up and meet Crowley’s eyes without undue snickering. “I’m so sorry, my dear boy. I just wasn’t expecting your... I wasn’t expecting you here, you know?”
“Weren’t expecting me, and so had to go into convulsions laughing at me?” Crowley sauntered closer, his fashionable black jacket and trousers absolutely impeccable, his hair done up in ringlets...
...His face absolutely overwhelmed by a tiny pointy beard and a simply enormous ginger moustache.
Undue snickering was definitely back on the table. Aziraphale tried to control himself. “I simply was... overtaken by some dust on the road, my dear. Dreadful of me. Won’t happen again.”
Crowley was truly close now, stepping up into Aziraphale’s vicinity until they were almost touching. “Truly? The road is still quite dusty, isn’t it? Would be terrible if it caused you to cough again.”
“I’m--” Aziraphale did his best to focus on Crowley’s darkened spectacles, but the moustache and little beard were just right there. “I’m sure it will be fine,” he finished, trying to keep his tongue from finishing the things he was thinking, i.e. I’m sorry, my dear, but are you aware that several fuzzy red creatures appear to be feeding on your face?
He did not, in fact, think that he was fooling anyone. He knew he wasn’t fooling Crowley, but blast if he wasn’t going to try.
“You know I can tell when you’re trying to resist temptation,” Crowley said unhelpfully, stepping even closer. “It itches.”
“Oh you can not!” fell out of his mouth before he could think better of it.
“Temptation demon, me. No good trying to tempt someone if you can’t tell when it’s working, right?”
If that were true, Aziraphale thought, and tried to pull himself back on track. It couldn’t be true, simply couldn’t, because otherwise Crowley would never stop itching around him at all.
“Prickle, prickle,” Crowley went on.
Aziraphale stepped back, and then another step as Crowley kept moving.
“You know you want to say it,” Crowley said, his voice sliding through the harmonics of temptation.
“You... I’m sorry, but it seems your face is being attacked by several very large caterpillars!” Aziraphale blurted out.
Crowley stopped. His jaw worked soundlessly for a moment, and then time slowed like molasses and he whipped his glasses off.
“That’s it? That’s the thing you were tempted to say? Dunno why I ask, I can tell it is, but really? Making fun of my extremely stylish facial hair? You’ve got a lot of nerve when you’re wearing a moustache and your hat is nine-tenths ostrich feather.”
Aziraphale reached up toward the plumes in his hat. “It’s, I know it’s a bit ridiculous. Only it’s part of the uniform, you see.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Uniform to what?”
“Erm. To the Musketeers, of course.” He twitched his tabard. “That’s rather the point, isn’t it?”
“You,” Crowley said.
“Me?”
“You,” he said again. “You are in the Musketeers? You.”
“That’s... that’s my assignment, yes.”
Crowley put his spectacles back on, but not before Aziraphale caught the massive eyeroll. “Okay, whose musketeers?”
Aziraphale grabbed his tabard again, holding and shaking it to emphasize the red fabric. “The Church, of course!”
“Oh yes, source of all righteousness Cardinal prissypants von Richelieu himself. Very holy.”
“Erm, yes. Well. He was, he was placed here by the Almighty, surely.”
“Certainly! Nobody has ever reached a high position of power in the church simply by being the biggest murdering basta--”
“Shh!” Aziraphale cut him off. “Do you want to have rioting in the streets? Again?”
“What, nobody can call him out for being the--” Aziraphale made several shushing gestures, and Crowley slowed-- “Person in charge of the Church? Satan’s sake, Aziraphale, what’s got into you?”
“Walls have ears, Crowley.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow at him. “You think Heaven is watching?”
“No! I mean of course, Heaven is always watching, et cetera, but dueling is illegal.”
“Then I won’t duel anyone, problem solved!”
“Dueling is illegal, but nobody will stop doing it anyway! The King’s Musketeers are all at swords drawn with the Church forces, and if you get killed--”
“Discorporated,” Crowley drawled.
“If you get discorporated then there will be terrible paperwork. And what if they make you keep the moustache? No no, simply better not to risk it.”
Crowley sauntered forward, backing him down an alleyway. “You’re worried... about the moustache?”
“Well, I, I,” Aziraphale stammered as he continued to back away. “I think it would be an awful shame if you had to go through all of the paperwork, and sometimes they don’t give you a similar body at all.”
“You like this body, then?” Crowley stopped, finally.
Aziraphale backed up another step, relieved to be able to put some more space between them at last, and bumped into a wall. “I, I, I didn’t say that.”
“You did. You like this body.”
“I just-- I’m sure I’m used to it, that’s all.” The wall wasn’t moving, no matter how much he tried to move backwards again.
Crowley swayed another step forward. “You like it. You’re used to it.”
“Crowley?”
“We’ve done it before,” Crowley said, leaning in where there was absolutely no room to lean in. “Dozens of times by now. Lend a hand when necessary, right?”
“Crowley I really don’t think this is the pl--”
“Angel. Don’t you think it’s about time we--” Crowley’s face was next to his now, breath ghosting warm across his ear-- “had a picnic?”
“I really don’t think that’s appropri-- what?” Aziraphale stammered to a stop, trying to sort out his words while there was still blood in his brain an awful lot of physical contact still going on.
“You said the walls have ears.” Crowley straightened abruptly, breaking that overpowering sense of intimacy. “So we should get out of town. Somewhere we can actually talk, yeah?”
Aziraphale stared at him. “A... picnic. A picnic?”
Crowley just grinned. “What’s the matter, angel, moustache growing into your ears?”
Aziraphale was never sure later whether Crowley had planned this in advance or just taken full advantage of Hell’s apparent disregard for tracking miracle use, but by the time he’d followed Crowley out of town (and gotten his own corporation under control) he found himself in an overgrown garden, away from the bustle of the city centre, facing a blanket spread out under a tree.
“Is this... Crowley this is an apple tree.”
"Is it?” Crowley looked up, then reached up to pull a suspiciously ripe-looking apple off the branch above his head. “Will you look at that? I guess it is!”
“How long have you been planning this?”
“And oh look,” Crowley said, ignoring him, “Someone left a perfectly good picnic here! Be a real shame if that went to waste, wouldn’t it?” He peeked into the basket. “Someone even brought champagne.”
Aziraphale sighed. He didn’t know why he was even arguing, really; once Crowley had decided on a thing it was very hard to talk him out if it. Especially if that thing was also something Aziraphale himself wanted. Which was another of those thoughts he preferred not to look too closely at, so he allowed himself to yield and sat gratefully on the blanket, which was soft and cool beneath him. “Well played, you’ve thwarted me before we actually even got started."
“I thought you did the thwarting and I did the wiling?”
“I think it all depends on your point of view, really. Is there more than just champagne in there? Only I missed lunch.”
“What are you doing, anyway? Poncing around with that lot of hotheads? Surely Heaven have better things to do than just send you in to have scuffles in the street.” There was a *pop* as Crowley opened the champagne and poured him a glass.
“If you must know-- I mean I really shouldn’t tell you, of course, but it’s not like you can do any more damage than they are themselves. Gabriel thinks having a standing armed force for God is a fabulous idea and I’m meant to be whipping them into shape, or possibly curbing their worst impulses, I’m really not sure.” The champagne was deliciously cold, although the bubbles went straight up his nose. “You did that on purpose.”
“If you can’t figure out champagne by now I fail to see how it’s my fault,” Crowley said. He sipped his own glass, leaning back and stretching his legs out before him. “So Gabriel basically thumped your shoulder and said, ‘Army of God, just the thing, get down there and oversee it’ and didn’t give you anything else at all?”
Aziraphale blinked. “Erm... yes. Actually.” Eerily so; those had almost been Gabriel’s exact words.
“And as usual there’s no real thing for you to do?”
He leaned over to the basket to see what else was there. “There are always things to be done, of course. Human need doesn’t just stop because a bunch of young men are being young men. Oh, lovely!” He pulled out a loaf of bread and some cheese. “Would you like some, my dear?”
Crowley waved him on, settling further back til he was propped on an elbow, gesturing with his champagne glass. “So the city is in chaos with groups of armed men forever clashing and you were very busily on your way to....?”
“I’ve collected a reasonable amount for the parish orphanage, actually, and I was just popping back from telling them to expect a delivery from the greengrocer.” He wiped his knife clean and hacked off a piece of bread, topping it with the cheese.
“Oh, well, that’s good then.”
“You approve of charity now?” Aziraphale took a bite-- the bread was soft inside its crunchy shell, and the cheese had just the right amount of tang to complement it. “Mmm, well chosen.”
“I don’t do charity, angel,” Crowley said sharply. “But if you’ve done that, then that means you’ve finished your errand. Gives me more room to spend the afternoon distracting you, doesn’t it? I think if you look, you’ll find there’s also a meat pie in there. Possibly two.”
“You fiend,” Aziraphale agreed, and went rummaging in the basket. The pie he found was still steaming gently in its pastry crust, and flooded his mouth with sage and rosemary when he bit into it. “Oh that’s delightful.”
"Of course it is. I do not perform inferior wiles.” Crowley grinned, reaching forward to top up his champagne. “I knew if I was going to get proper information out of you that I’d need to bring the best.”
“It’s always appreciated, but I can’t think what information I have that you couldn’t get by just listening arou--” He broke off at the sound of raised voices nearby. “What was that?”
Crowley was already standing. “Some cleverdick humans intruding on my spot, is what it was.” Aziraphale put down the bread and cheese (but kept the meat pie) and followed suit, walking with Crowley to peek around the corner of the abandoned house.
There were four young men there, having some sort of argument. Three of them wore blue tabards reminiscent of Aziraphale’s red one; the last and youngest wore regular clothes and a pinched, proud expression.
“He’s dueling me!” one of them said.
“Oh dear,” murmured Aziraphale, “Dueling is illegal.”
“Don’t be silly, I’m dueling this young man an hour from now!” said another, and a third piped up with an almost-bored, “Two hours from now, assuming there’s anything left of him. Don't feel like you have to hold back just for me, though.”
The youngest pulled out his sword. “Don’t worry, I’ll get to you all soon enough.”
Aziraphale absently took another bite of his meat pie. “Do you think we ought to intervene?”
Crowley cocked his head. “Nah. Don’t think we’ll need to. Hear that? Four, maybe five horses.”
Sure enough, a moment later the would-be duelists were interrupted by four figures on horseback, most wearing tabards identical to Aziraphale’s. “Hold there! You’re under arrest for illegal dueling!” one of them called.
Aziraphale stepped smartly back around the corner and out of sight. “Well. The picnic was lovely, my dear, but I’m afraid I must be off.”
“What, you have to join them just because they showed up?”
“Oh no, not at all. Rather, I think it may be time to make myself scarce. Possibly from Paris entirely.”
“I thought you needed to look after the Church’s men.”
“Richelieu is one thing, but I absolutely draw the line at dealing any more with Rochefort. I don’t know what Gabriel wants of me, I’m not sure I’m actually doing any good here at all, and--” he shoved the last bite of pie in his mouth while he struggled out of his tabard and hat-- “this hat itches!”
The sounds of clashing steel and shouts of men echoed at them from around the house, but came no closer.
“Tell you what.” Crowley gestured, and the hat and tabard disappeared. “Come finish the picnic, and we’ll head out to Italy. Nice long trek through there, wander through Greece for a bit. You know you love Greece.”
“...The Mediterranean is awfully pretty,” Aziraphale admitted. He wanted to leave, to let these ruffians take themselves wherever they were going without him. He also wanted to be persuaded to stay and finish the picnic.
“Besides, there’s another meat pie in there for you. And some late strawberries as well.”
“Strawberries, you say?” He looked back toward the house, where the shouts and noise were trailing off; saw a man in the Cardinal’s red running after a riderless bolted horse (neither of which paid the least bit of attention to an angel and a demon on a picnic).
“Couple of pears as well,” Crowley said, smiling.
“Oh, very well. And then we’ll leave town. You’re right, Italy is lovely this time of year.”
“There you go, then.” Crowley reached into the basket and pulled out a bowl with plump, luscious-looking strawberries.
“Oh those are-- well all I have to say is, temptation accomplished!”