Chapter Text
It will not exactly come as a surprise to you to know that, despite the companionship of his angel, Crowley was bored.
Crowley was often bored. Not by our progression of time - he had, after all, existed for rather longer than humanity had been measuring it - but because for someone who had been around for, well, eternity, a new hobby every sixty years or so still amounted to quite a few hobbies.
And if one were to look closely enough through records documenting almost all of human history, one would be quite alarmed by the frequency with which an A. J. Crowley - or some suspicious variation thereof - appeared.
Crowley had, over the millennia, become very good at being accidentally talented.
So why, you might ask, is he currently protecting a bottle of wine from a corkscrew-wielding Aziraphale, as if it were his long lost child? I suppose because it kind of was.
41 AD - Rome
It is, perhaps, important to understand that Crowley had not intended to become involved in wine.
He had, in fact, intended to become involved in nothing at all. Rome was warm, busy, and full of people insisting they had invented civilization, which Crowley found both tedious and vaguely insulting. Still, it was preferable to Heaven’s current enthusiasm for administrative reform, so he remained.
The tunics helped.
He had chosen the outfit carefully — if one can call it “careful” to throw several garments at oneself in a reflective bronze surface until something appeared sufficiently arrogant. The result was Roman enough not to draw attention, and just incorrect enough to be mildly fashionable, which Crowley considered an acceptable compromise.
Aziraphale, of course, had been delighted by it.
“You look rather… historical,” the angel had said, which was not a compliment but had been delivered with such sincerity that Crowley had allowed it to pass.
The wine problem began, as these things often did, with someone being wrong out loud.
Crowley and Aziraphale sat in a garden that could only be described as idyllic (that is unless you had seen Eden, which of course they had, but we will ignore this tiny, irrelevant slice of information for the time being), they had just returned from a godly errand of once again counteracting the other’s deeds for the sake of spending time together. The garden was hot, extremely, and the air was dry, just the way that Crowley liked it. To his left sat a goblet of roman wine, and to his right sat a perfectly blonde angel, just the way that Crowley liked it.
Unfortunately the wine was unpleasant, it was sour and felt regrettable on his tongue. This was discovered the hard way, by taking a large swig and almost instantly depositing it into a nearby planter. This ruining of his enjoyment of the day was further escalated by the arrival of a rather drunken legionary.
“I’m telling you its not a real… hic… roman wine, ‘s made by some uh peas’nt… hic… or someth’ng” the legionary slurred. Tripping over his half removed greaves and inadvertently dumping out his own goblet onto the table before him. The vino spreading dangerously across the surface and dripping onto Aziraphale’s wonderfully crisp robes. Crowley was enraged. Or he would’ve been were he not preoccupied with the dastardly drunk, who was now ranting about what a leech of space and resources the poor were, and how much of a risk they pose to the integrity of the Great Roman Empire.
Crowley, to his credit, did not immediately set anything on fire.
This was less due to self-restraint and more prioritisation. There were, after all, only so many things one could reasonably set on fire in a Roman garden without attracting either theological interest or inconvenient paperwork, and Crowley was still technically trying to avoid both.
The legionary, however, was making it difficult.
He had now seated himself with the confidence of a man who believed the world had been built for his opinions specifically, and was gesturing broadly at nothing in particular.
“-and I’m telling you,” he continued, sloshing wine onto the stone table, “foreign grapes ruin the purity of Rome.”
Aziraphale made a small, distressed noise as the wine spread closer to his sleeve.
Crowley’s smile did not reach his eyes.
“That’s fascinating,” he said lightly. “Because I was under the impression grapes didn’t come with citizenship.”
The legionary squinted at him. “What?”
Crowley leaned back slightly, as though bored by the very concept of the conversation. “Grapes. They’re not exactly issuing passports, are they?”
Aziraphale, watching this unfold with the weary familiarity of someone observing a storm system forming in real time, murmured, “Crowley…”
But Crowley was already warming to it.
“Unless,” he continued, tilting his head, “you’re suggesting Rome has achieved agricultural supremacy over photosynthesis as well? Would explain a lot.” (This was technically inaccurate, photosynthesis not having been formally discovered for another eighteen centuries or so , but we will forgive him and rather thank him for playing such a wonderful devil’s advocate, pun intended)
The legionary blinked slowly. Once. Twice.
Then: “Are you mocking me?”
Crowley looked genuinely thoughtful for a moment. “Mm. I think I’m correcting you, actually.”
That was the wrong answer.
Or possibly the right one, depending on one’s perspective.
The legionary stood so quickly his chair protested. “You insolent-”
Crowley sighed.
“I was hoping we’d avoid this part,” he said.
---
The brawl was not elegant.
Crowley, despite his general aesthetic of languid superiority, was extremely good at being hit by things without it meaning anything, which made him disproportionately irritating in fights. The legionary discovered this after approximately three seconds, at which point he ceased contributing meaningfully to the conversation.
It was over quickly.
When Crowley straightened his tunic - now marginally more disordered than when he had chosen it with such care - he looked faintly annoyed at the universe for having scheduled violence into his afternoon.
Aziraphale, on the other hand, looked deeply conflicted.
“That,” he said carefully, “wasn’t strictly necessary.”
Crowley rolled his shoulders. “He started it.”
“He was drunk.”
“So am I,” Crowley said.
Aziraphale paused. “No you are not.”
“I could be.”
“That’s not-”
Crowley waved a hand vaguely, as if dismissing the concept of accuracy. Then his gaze dropped.
The silence that followed was immediate.
A small, spreading stain of wine had reached Aziraphale’s sleeve.
Aziraphale saw a twitch in his companion’s temple, and was immediately concerned.
“Crowley dear.. Whatever it is you are planning, I do hope you have thought it through”
To absolutely nobody’s surprise. Crowley had not thought it through.
---
Crowley considered himself a dedicated student when he wanted to be. And when motivated by pure spite and a pathological need to be correct, he very much wanted to be.
So he watched.
He watched the workers inspect the grapes with almost religious scrutiny, discarding bruised fruit with expressions of genuine mourning. He listened to long, passionate arguments regarding soil conditions, rainfall, harvest temperatures, and the apparently devastating social consequences of mildew.
Humans, Crowley reflected, became very strange whenever they cared about something deeply.
It was fascinating.
The grapes themselves were harvested far later than seemed remotely sensible, swollen dark beneath the Mediterranean sun until they were almost unbearably sweet. Crowley did not particularly enjoy grapes - they were, in his opinion, merely wine trapped in an inconvenient form - but he admired the commitment.
And then there was fermentation.
Now that was interesting.
Not the process itself, the process was pretty dull, but the way humans spoke about it. As though leaving crushed fruit alone in a barrel and hoping for the best was not, fundamentally, an act of optimism bordering on delusion.
Crowley respected that enormously.
He spent the next six years learning absolutely everything.
At first he merely observed. Then he suggested improvements. Then he quietly began correcting mistakes when nobody was looking. A slightly lower storage temperature here. Better drainage there. Selective cultivation. Gentler pressing methods.
Slowly the wine got better, it was miraculous (although it actually wasn't, at least at first) until it reached a state that his fellow wine-makers considered “extraordinary” but to Crowley it was incredibly and unbelievably… okay.
---
Once again Crowley and Aziraphale sat in a garden, they seemed to do that really quite often.
This time however, Aziraphale was holding the goblet of wine.
“Crowley, dear, it’s absolutely wonderful, you truly have excelled yourself.”
Crowley was clearly dissatisfied with this review, he had been consistently smuggling small samples of his wine for Aziraphale. (He needed an opinion from someone with as much drink experience as he, not because he was fond of the angel, or because he relished the way Aziraphale licked his lips after tasting a new beverage, it was entirely and completely for research purposes.)
“Yes yes great, but is it the greatest wine you’ve ever tasted? Divine? Hel- heavenly? Unreal?” Crowley was very passionate about his wine.
Aziraphale smiled gently at the demon (Crowley liked it when he did that, so maybe the wine was good enough after all),
“My dear, it’s fantastic. I don't know what you're fretting about for Heaven’s sake”
That was it, that was what Crowley needed! Not willing to waste a second, he leapt to his feet and dismissed himself hurriedly. Leaving a very confused Aziraphale and a very precariously balanced chair.
Of course! It was so obvious from the start, why had Crowley not thought of it? All his grapes needed was a little fear of god!
---
Crowley stood between the rows of vines beneath a rolling blue sky. The grapes were having a lovely day.
Crowley intended to change that immediately.
With a sharp flick of one hand his voice deepened into something vast and infernal, echoing violently across the vineyard. Heat shimmered around him. The workers in the distance screamed and fled almost instantly, which Crowley considered encouraging.
He spread his arms dramatically.
“SINCE NONE OF YOU APPARENTLY FEAR FAILURE,” he thundered at the grapes, “I HAVE DECIDED TO INTRODUCE MOTIVATION.”
The vines swayed gently in the breeze.
Crowley narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses.
“DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME?”
A grape fell off somewhere nearby.
“EXACTLY.”
He ignited briefly for emphasis.
Not enough to damage anything, obviously. Crowley was not an amateur. Just enough hellfire to establish his dominance over the small fruity cowards.
“I HAVE GIVEN YOU SUNLIGHT. MINERAL-RICH SOIL. CAREFULLY CONTROLLED IRRIGATION.” He pointed accusingly at a cluster of grapes. “AND STILL YOU DARE PRODUCE MEDIOCRITY.”
The vineyard remained silent.
Crowley leaned forward slightly.
“LET ME MAKE MYSELF CLEAR.”
The sky darkened.
“IF NEXT YEAR’S HARVEST CONTINUES TO TASTE LIKE REGRET AND VARNISH, I WILL PERSONALLY INTRODUCE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU TO THE CONCEPT OF FAMINE.”
A nearby vine immediately split under the weight of suddenly over-ripened grapes.
Crowley paused.
Slowly, very slowly, a grin spread across his face.
“Oh,” he said softly, delighted. “Now we’re communicating.”
---
Summers continued to roll around, and Crowley’s vineyard continued to flourish. His grapes trembled slightly if anyone inspected them too closely, and put out shoots that coiled in terror if you waved your hand at them with an ounce of disappointed energy, and workers began making protective gestures before entering the fields.
Crowley considered this excellent discipline and was incredibly proud of his grapes.
So proud in fact that he was ready to produce his most anticipated vintage, his Magnum opus if you will. He was to produce a limited number of bottles, and intended to deposit one - with a force reasonable only to an entirely demonic being - over the head of the legionary who had pissed him off nearly half a century ago. (it was also to be his final batch, but he did not know this yet)
By the time the final harvest arrived, whispers about the wine had spread well beyond Rome. Merchants crossed borders for it. Nobles bribed servants for bottles. Poets became unbearable. One particularly enthusiastic senator described the flavour as “proof that God loves mankind.”
Crowley had briefly considered murder. Instead, he bottled the vintage personally.
And because Crowley was, beneath everything else, a creature of deeply embarrassing sentiment, he carried the first finished bottle back to the garden where the whole ridiculous affair had begun.
The garden had changed. The trees were taller now. The stonework worn smooth with time. New families occupied the surrounding villas. Rome itself had shifted around the edges in the strange slow way human places always did.
But seated beneath the shade of an olive tree was a familiar face.
Older, obviously - humans did that.
The legionary’s hair had long since faded to grey, his once-broad frame softened by time, but the face remained unmistakable.
Several children sat around him listening intently to some probably exaggerated story.
Crowley stopped walking. The old man glanced up.
For one impossible moment Crowley wondered if he had been recognised.
Then the legionary smiled politely at a stranger and said, “Beautiful day for wine, isn’t it?”
Crowley stared at him, then - slowly - he sat.
“It had better be,” he muttered, placing the bottle carefully onto the table. “Been working on this one for decades.”
The children watched with barely concealed fascination as Crowley opened the bottle, the legionary accepted the goblet with unsteady hands.
Tasted it.
And fell completely silent.
Crowley leaned back, trying desperately to appear uninterested while being, in fact, one of the most interested beings in creation.
The old man swallowed slowly.
His eyes glistened.
“My word,” he whispered. “That’s...”
Crowley waited.
The legionary looked skyward briefly, overwhelmed.
“Divine.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
A bird somewhere in the garden made a terrible mistake by continuing to sing.
Crowley stood.
“Oh, for-”
Across the city, somewhere in the distant countryside, an entire vineyard erupted into hellfire.
Aziraphale, arriving several streets away with impeccable timing and the dreadful instinct of a man who had known Crowley far too long, closed his eyes briefly and whispered:
“Oh no.”
Crowley adjusted his sleeves, his composure was rigid, as if he were someone refusing to acknowledge several decades of emotional vulnerability.
“I’m retiring,” he announced bitterly.
“You’ve said that before,” Aziraphale replied.
“Yes, well. This time I mean it.”
Behind them, black smoke curled into the Roman sky.
Crowley paused.
“…Do you think we can save the cellar?”
Aziraphale sighed.
“Crowley.”
“There were some very good bottles in there.”
Present day - 10 minutes prior to the corkscrew fight (Soho)
With armageddon successfully prevented, and not a whole lot of anything to do, Crowley and Aziraphale had taken to dining together almost every night. Tonight was no different, except for the fact that it was. You see, after his rather disastrous performance at young Warlock’s 11th birthday party, Aziraphale had insisted that he and Crowley were in dire need of their own birthdays. Together they picked an arbitrary date and that happened to be today. The 5th of July. (Crowley’s idea. And it was not arbitrary, he was far too stubborn to admit to Aziraphale that it actually represented 5700 light years, the distance between earth and where the two had met. Crowley’s nebula.)
After yet another dinner at the Ritz, our favourite demon and his angel lay on the floor in Aziraphale’s bookshop, almost touching. They were happy. All in all it had been a fantastic ‘first’ birthday.
“Oh!” Aziraphale sat up with a start, “I have one more surprise for you!”
The angel disappeared into one of the many places he kept things in the cluttered maze of literature, reemerging almost 10 minutes later with a single bottle of wine.
Crowley recognised it immediately and - in a very demonic and evil fashion - felt tears threaten the confines of his eyes and the sanctity of his dignity.
“You saved it…” the demon spluttered, Satan, Crowley thought with mounting horror, he absolutely did love Aziraphale.
And if (and only if) Crowley cried over a small glass of his precious wine, while the angel wiped his tears with a stupid tartan handkerchief. Then I suppose it must’ve been a very Happy Birthday indeed.