Chapter Text
In the beginning
“Can’t be much good for your wings, that,” the demon said, after a few moments.
“I beg your pardon?”
He motioned vaguely at the sky. “All this wet. Can’t be good for the feathers.”
“I’m sorry,” said the angel, in tones of polite offence, and began withdrawing his wing. “I don’t believe I asked for critique.”
Crawly shrugged. “Hey, don’t take it the wrong way. Just looking out for your pinions. Very finicky things, pinions. Get all soggy and then they’re a beast to put right.”
“I had thought,” said Aziraphale, in a voice the approximate temperature of a polar ice cap, “that perhaps I was being helpful. By covering you.”
Crawly raised his hands in defence. “Look, hey, it’s not like I’m ungrateful—”
“Foolish of me,” Aziraphale said, addressing a nearby rock, “to think that a demon would appreciate kindness.”
“Oh, come on,” said Crawly.
Aziraphale pointedly ignored him, and continued apostrophizing the rock. “It does seem to be my day for going unappreciated, I must say. Not so much as a thank-you for the sword, and now—”
“Did you expect a thank-you for the sword?”
“One doesn’t do good things in expectation of thanks,” Aziraphale said virtuously.
“You do not get to complain about not being thanked and then pivot right to that garbage,” said Crawly. He was faintly aware that something seemed to have gone wrong.
Aziraphale shot him a withering look. Crawly, accordingly, withered. (Only a little, though. Not so’s you’d notice. A very dignified sort of wither, it was.)
Aziraphale visibly softened. “It is a bit hypocritical of me, I suppose. It’s just— what a day this has been. I am worried about them, you know. The humans. Only the two of them, out there all alone—well, three soon—”
“Bad timing,” said Crawly.
“Rather. I don’t mean to judge,” said Aziraphale judgmentally, “but if they hadn’t been—” he made a complicated motion with his hands— “so much, they wouldn’t have that complication, anyway.”
“Uh,” said Crawly. “Sorry, if they hadn’t—”
“You know,” said Aziraphale, meaningfully.
“Uh,” said Crawly, again. “No?”
Aziraphale made a gesture that only escaped being vulgar because the concept of vulgarity had yet to be invented.
“Oh,” said Crawly, enlightened. “Well, they did seem to be enjoying themselves, so.”
“Mmm,” said Aziraphale noncommittally.
“Although, they seemed to have just as much fun doing the bit with their mouths,” Crawly said. “I thought that didn’t look half bad, did you?”
“I’m sorry?” Aziraphale asked, and stepped away slightly.
“Thought it looked like it might be fun, actually,” said Crawly.
“No,” said Aziraphale, with evident outrage, and took another step back. “How dare you?”
“Sorry,” said Crawly, feeling as though perhaps he’d missed something, “how dare I what?”
“Proposition me,” said Aziraphale, with a horror so great it bordered on pleasure. “I have no intention of putting my mouth anywhere near your—your—”
“What?” asked Crawly, and then, realizing, “Oh no, no, no, that’s not what—I didn’t mean—no!”
Aziraphale huffed. It was a huff that said “I don’t believe you, but if I pretend I do it’ll be more pleasant for everyone.”
They stood in silence for another moment.
“So,” said Crawly, with the faint hope of salvaging the conversation, “what’re you up to? For, you know. The rest of time. Now that everything’s been mucked up.”
Aziraphale shrugged. “Not certain. I expect I’ll get orders of some sort shortly. I believe everyone upstairs is still rather occupied with recent events.”
“Makes sense,” Crawly said. “Waiting to hear myself, I s’pose.” He paused. “Seems like we might both be around here for a while, then, hm?”
“We might,” said Aziraphale, cautiously. “But you—you realize, of course, that we can never be friends.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I’m saying,” said Aziraphale, looking fixedly ahead, “and please don’t take this as a personal insult in any way, is that an angel and a demon can’t be friends.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Aziraphale, firmly. “It’s against the order of things. You’re supposed to tempt. I’m supposed to thwart. We can’t go being friends.”
“Well,” said Crawly, “that’s not necessarily true, is it? I mean, I don’t want to tempt you. And you don’t—I mean, there’s nothing to thwart.”
“Yet,” said Aziraphale, forebodingly. “It’s early days. But it’s simple. I’ll always know I’m supposed to be thwarting your wiles.”
Crawly frowned. “What if I didn’t have any wiles?”
“No,” said Aziraphale, “you see, that’s exactly what someone wily would say.”
There was a pause. Crawly stared glumly ahead at the world beyond the Garden, which seemed to have grown much larger in the last few minutes. “Well,” he said, at last, “I guess we won’t be friends, then.”
“I suppose not,” said Aziraphale, with at least a hint of genuine regret.
“It’s too bad,” said Crawly. “You were the only person I knew on Earth.”
Four thousand years later
It was wet in the field. Aziraphale greatly disliked being wet, and he could feel the dampness soaking in through his clothing, in a way that foreshadowed a rather unpleasant chill later on. He hadn’t been on Earth for quite some time, and his corporation had grown somewhat used to the Heavenly atmosphere, which stayed, always, at that perfect temperature where one forgets to be aware of the temperature.
Still, he’d been instructed to proclaim the Messiah’s birth to some shepherds, and he was jolly well ready to start proclaiming.
Trouble was, the shepherds hadn’t shown up. He’d been told they’d come to this field around mid-afternoon, but it was creeping up on evening, and no sign of them. And of course there would be no getting ahold of Upper Management today, not with how wrapped up they’d all been in the Son of God Rollout.
Which meant, he realized, beginning to fret in earnest, that the Christ Child was about to enter the world with only his family for witnesses, apparently in a manger (due to some bureaucratic mix-up he hadn’t been there for), and those of his superiors who were more invested in the pomp-and-circumstance side of things than the ascetic were likely to be not at all pleased.
He was just about ready to try contacting Upstairs, busy signals be damned, when he heard something rustle in the grass.
“Who’s there?” Aziraphale asked, hands flying to grab his Heavenly weapon before remembering that he didn’t have one.
The rustling stopped. Aziraphale waited a moment in silence, then took a tentative step closer, paused, took another, paused, took another—and found himself practically nose-to-nose with someone who definitely hadn’t been there a second ago.
He hopped rather inelegantly backwards in surprise. “I beg your pardon,” he began, glancing at the stranger, and was walloped by a strong sense of familiarity. “Oh! You’re—you’re—I’m very sorry, I know I know you from somewhere—” Which, he realized, made no sense, because he’d been off-planet for longer than any mortal lifespan, and the person in front of him certainly wasn’t an angel, so—
“Oh yeah,” the stranger-not-stranger said, recognition dawning on his face. “You’re the, the angel. From the thingie. The Garden. With the sword.”
“And you’re the Tempter,” Aziraphale said, in what probably weren’t sufficiently outraged tones. “Away, you fiend.”
“Oh, come on,” the demon said, sighing. (What was his name? Something crawl...y.) “Thought we went over this. I’m not here to tempt you. As if. We do do things besides tempting, you know. Not just...one-track minds.”
“Oh yes?” Aziraphale asked. “Like what?”
“Um,” Crawly said, and fidgeted. “Stuff. Lots of demon-y stuff that I can’t think of at this exact moment—”
“So what demon-y stuff are you supposed to be doing at this exact moment, Crawly?”
Crawly, unexpectedly, flinched. “Uh. Actually changed m’name. Crowley,” he explained quickly. “And you’re prob’ly still, uh…”
“Aziraphale,” said Aziraphale, with the condescending superiority of one who has just scored an etiquette point but is choosing not to mention it.
“Right, right, tip of my tongue,” said Crowley unconvincingly. “Anyway, point is, I’m just here to observe the general human reaction to the birth of the Son of God. Strictly recon.”
“Hmph,” said Aziraphale, and then, all the worry that had been momentarily dislodged by Crowley’s surprise appearance returning at once— “well, it seems there isn’t going to be any human reaction. Or at least, not much of one, if these dratted shepherds don’t show up.”
Crowley made a sympathetic face. “Proclaiming duty, huh?”
“The very same,” Aziraphale admitted. “And I’m a bit worried I’ve got the wrong spot—”
“Nah,” Crowley said immediately. “They’re probably just running late.”
Aziraphale eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know?”
“We-ell,” Crowley said, “there may have been a slight sheep collision in the center of Bethlehem—”
“Which, I take it, you caused?”
“I would say less caused and more inspired—”
“You don’t inspire a sheep collision, you inspire elegiac poetry—”
“Maybe you do—”
“That,” said Aziraphale acerbically, “is beside the point. How, pray tell, did you inspire this...ovine debacle?”
Crowley grinned suddenly. “Oh, it was good,” he said, looking directly at Aziraphale, eyes alight with mischief. “Or, well, evil, but, you know. Literally all I had to do was duck behind a building and yell ‘Samuel’s sheep have foot rot,’ and then one of ‘em jumped on another and called him a filthy liar, and they were going at it with their crooks as weapons in no time. Sheep got all mixed up, of course, and no one could get through for a solid hour, even after the fighting ended. So,” he said, “they should be along any minute now.”
“Strictly recon , hmm?” Aziraphale asked, but found that he felt more like laughing than tutting.
“Maybe not strictly,” Crowley admitted. “Do you ever—” He broke off, and cocked his head, listening. “That’ll be them, I think.”
“You need to—to hide, or be a snake again, or something,” Aziraphale said hurriedly, “I can’t be proclaiming the birth of the Lord with a demon standing next to me—”
“Might undermine the aesthetic,” Crowley agreed, and abruptly vanished. “Good luck,” he said, voice now coming from the ground, and Aziraphale heard him slither quickly away.
The shepherds were chatting amongst themselves as they approached, and Aziraphale cleared his throat politely in an attempt to get their attention.
This was, perhaps unsurprisingly, ineffective, and Aziraphale escalated to calling “Excuse me!” and “Pardon!” before realizing that he was, in fact, going to have to follow the Proclamation Handbook.
He sighed, and unfurled his wings, and levitated the prescribed three feet off the ground, pulling his halo into corporeal being and surrounding himself with what he hoped was a noticeable but not blinding glow.
“Erm,” he said, miraculously enhancing his vocal projection, “Hail, shepherds!”
Finally, they looked up.
“Be not afraid,” Aziraphale continued, following the Handbook’s instructions despite the fact that his audience looked more confused than terrified. “I bring you tidings of great joy!”
“Huh?” one of the shepherds asked, and squinted.
This was not in the Handbook. “Good news,” Aziraphale clarified, “for—” he wrenched himself back on-script— “unto us a savior has been born, in the city of David.”
The shepherds, instead of crying out with joy, or falling to their knees, or whatever it was they were supposed to be doing, merely looked puzzled.
“The Messiah!” Aziraphale said, growing impatient. “He’s here! Now! Over in Bethlehem, so if you could please just go and adore him that would be splendid for everyone, really.” He could hear the irritation, the passive-aggression, in the last words, and was simultaneously disappointed in himself for stooping so low and gratified that he seemed to have eked something of a cower out of one of them. “Glory to God in the highest,” he added, in an attempt to soften things. (According to the instructions, he was supposed to sing this bit, but ‘impromptu vocal performance’ was not something Aziraphale had any intention of engaging in with a demon watching from the bushes.)
The shepherds, thankfully, seemed to get the message at this point, and began herding their flocks together.
“He will be wrapped in swaddling clothes,” Aziraphale added, just to drive the point home, “and lying in a manger, and—oh, they’re off.”
He floated back to earth, depowering the halo and dimming the light, but kept his wings out, because it had been a while and it was nice to stretch them for a bit.
“Oh well done you,” said Crowley, strolling out of his hiding spot having apparently returned to a more anthropoid form. “Very awesome.”
“Don’t make fun,” Aziraphale said, snippily. “It’s not precisely my area of expertise.”
“No,” said Crowley, in tones of faux-surprise. “You don’t say.”
“Well, it’s done, anyway,” Aziraphale said, “no thanks to you.”
Crowley shrugged. “I don’t get why your lot are so keen on having shepherds around anyway,” he said. “From what I remember, seems they’d arrange for the birth of the Messiah to be more of a VIP-only event.”
“He has come to save all humanity,” Aziraphale said sententiously, “but, actually, there’s to be some distinguished gentlemen from the East arriving as well, a few days later, following…oh. Oh, dear.”
“What is it?” Crowley asked.
“They’re to follow a, a sign of some kind,” Aziraphale said, “I was just told to get creative, they never tell me to get creative, and I thought I’d figure it out after the shepherds business except then they were late and so I haven’t—there isn’t any sign,” he explained, dimly aware that perhaps he oughtn’t to be pouring out his difficulties to a demon but rather unable to stop.
“Get creative, eh?” Crowley asked. “Just, any old kind of signal, help ‘em find their way here?”
Aziraphale nodded. “It was supposed to go out when he was born, only now of course that’s happened—”
“Manger in Bethlehem, right?” Crowley asked.
“Yes,” Aziraphale said, cautiously, “what are you—”
Crowley snapped his fingers, and a bright light rose up from his hand and into the sky, shooting off in the direction of the newborn Savior. “That should do it,” he said, ostentatiously blowing stardust off his fingertips. “Great big shiny appearance in the cosmos, get anyone’s attention, that would.”
“I do think you’re right,” Aziraphale said. A tremendous sensation of relief flooded through him, followed by a sharp current of doubt. “This isn’t—part of some trick, is it?”
“What? No,” Crowley said, looking offended.
“It’s not going to wind up leading, I don’t know, leading the visitors in the wrong direction, or bringing evil to his door, or—”
“Nah,” Crowley said. “Just your regular star.”
“Then—why?”
Crowley looked at the ground. “Just, y’know, given that they wouldn’t’ve been late if it weren’t for me, and you wouldn’t’ve been thrown off, I figured—”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “Well, then. Thank you.” He hesitated. “Could I, I don’t know, buy you lunch, or—”
Crowley’s head jerked up. “Thought you said we couldn’t be friends.”
“I said—oh yes. So I did.”
“Angel and demon, you said, can’t be friends.”
“Yes, I remember,” Aziraphale said irritably.
“Changed your mind, have you?”
“Not at all.”
“And yet—lunch?”
“I only meant it as a gesture,” Aziraphale said, exasperated, “to thank you for your help, there’s no need to get all precious about it.”
Crowley recoiled a bit. “Well,” he said, “thanks but no thanks, don’t much fancy your gestures.”
“I don’t mean—”
Crowley held up a hand. “Thanks for the offer. Really.”
“Are you—” Aziraphale started. “That is, do you think we’re likely to run into one another again?”
Crowley shrugged. “It’s a big planet, angel.” He grinned, briefly, and was gone.
Aziraphale turned to look up at the star. “Oh, well,” he said, aloud, and began making his way back to HQ to deliver what would now be a highly edited version of the night’s events.
London, 1800
“I can’t believe you’re really leaving,” Aziraphale said, pulling a volume of Milton off the shelf to double-check the binding.
“I know,” said Doriel. “Oh drat, I’ve dropped a stitch.” They frowned disapprovingly at their knitting, which righted itself immediately.
“I mean,” Aziraphale continued, re-shelving the Milton, “I’m so glad for you, really, it’s a very well-deserved promotion, but I must say it’ll be a good deal lonelier around here with you gone.”
The door to the bookshop swung open, and someone entered. “Yes, good afternoon, do have a look around,” Aziraphale called out, glancing vaguely over. “We’re closing soon,” he added, in a fit of inspiration.
“They’ll send down a replacement soon enough,” Doriel said. “And I’ll keep in touch, you know that, just send up a prayer whenever, I’ll get the message.”
“Yes, yes,” Aziraphale said, “but it won’t be the same.”
Aziraphale had been rather surprised to receive a commendation for the Star of Bethlehem—and felt more than a bit guilty about accepting it, given the circumstances. But Gabriel had dubbed it an “instant classic,” and there never seemed to be quite the right moment to say “sorry, actually, funny story, turns out that was really a piece of demonic work,” so he never did. He’d been on Earth ever since, on a general mandate of peace and good will. Doriel had come down around Pentecost, and they’d partnered together on a number of projects over the years. Aziraphale liked them, was the thing, they were always good for a cup of tea and a gossip, and he had a strong suspicion that whatever angel came down next wouldn’t precisely share his way of thinking as it pertained to the more gastronomical pleasures of the flesh. He had, too, a sense that perhaps his friendship, such as it was, with Doriel had been based almost entirely on proximity and shared annoyance, and was unlikely to hold up after their impending separation.
Doriel let out a groan of exasperation. “Dropped another stitch. You know, I’m beginning to think knitting might not be for me.”
“Really?” asked Aziraphale, doing his best to sound surprised. Doriel, in the time he’d known them, had started and abandoned almost every human craft under the sun, from pottery to poetry to papier-mache. Knitting, it appeared, was to be the last such interest.
“Well, here you are, such as it is,” said Doriel, and slid the finished product off their needles, handing it to Aziraphale. “To remember me by, I suppose.”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale, turning a very lumpy scarf over in his hands. “Oh, thank you so much, really, it’s so kind of you, do you know, I was just thinking, autumn’s right around the corner and you know how chilly it gets in this part of the world—”
He broke off, because Doriel appeared to have stopped listening, their gaze now focused somewhere behind Aziraphale.
“Someone is staring at you in the Bible misprints,” they said.
Aziraphale whirled around. It was the customer who’d entered before—only, no, no it wasn’t, it was— “Crowley?”
Crowley raised a hand sheepishly. “Oh, hey.” He was, Aziraphale noticed, now wearing dark glasses which obscured his eyes, making him appear at least passably human.
“Um,” Aziraphale said, glancing at Doriel and performing a quick mental calculation of will-they-rat-me-out-for-talking-with-a-demon-if-I-introduce-them, “this is, ah—”
A chime sounded with divine clarity, and Doriel was gone.
“Perhaps not,” Aziraphale said quietly. “Well, then. Lovely to see you again.” He found that he actually almost meant it.
Crowley grinned and crossed the bookshop to Aziraphale in a few long strides. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “Have you, ah, been here all this time?”
“Yeah,” Crowley said, “just, you know, bopping around, temptation here, bit of mischief there, your general run-of-the-mill demonic behavior.”
“Charming,” said Aziraphale.
“That too.”
“So what brings you to my bookshop, then?”
Crowley glanced around. “Thought I’d pick up a bit of light reading?”
“Really.”
Crowley squirmed a bit. “Yeah, well, that and the fact that there may be a few other demons following me at the moment and I’d really love to get them off my trail. And given that antiquarian books aren’t exactly in line with my whole, uh, aesthetic, I thought—nip in here, throw off the scent.”
Aziraphale instinctively sniffed the air.
Crowley went slightly red. “Uh. Metaphorically.”
“Right,” Aziraphale said, feeling himself flush a bit in response. “These other demons, they’re looking for you to, what, punish you somehow? Torture you? I don’t know what sort of horrors Hell gets up to—”
“No,” Crowley said quickly. “They, erm, they want my autograph.”
“What,” Aziraphale asked, “for some spell, or ritual, or—”
“Just for a souvenir, I think, really.”
“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “I beg your pardon, but why?”
Crowley shrugged. “Ah, it’s just a few of the younger lot, spawned, came on up, heard about the whole original sin deal and got a little over-excited.”
“And you don’t want to give it to them because…?”
Crowley looked embarrassed. “I dunno, gets a little awkward, that’s all, having to answer questions about the whole thing. It’s the only thing anyone wants to talk about, really, even though I’ve had loads of better ideas since then.”
“Like the sheep collision,” Aziraphale said.
Crowley, who’d been staring at the ground, looked up and grinned. “You remember that, huh?”
“Well, it was rather a memorable day, all things considered.”
“I’ll say.” Crowley paused for a moment. “Uh, speaking of which, I should apologise, I think, you were just trying to thank me and I got snippy about it—”
“No, no,” Aziraphale said hastily. “No, really, I oughtn’t to have offered like that, calling it just a gesture. Rather rude of me.”
“Nah, don’t mention it.”
“You know,” Aziraphale said, on an impulse, “I was just about to close up shop. If you’ve managed to lose your little fan club, I’d be willing to extend the offer again.”
Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me we’re becoming friends, angel.”
Aziraphale thought for a moment about what the world was about to be like without Doriel there, and about how genuinely glad he’d been, when Crowley had come in, to see a familiar face, even if that face did belong to a demon. “I think,” he said, at last, “we might be.”
“Look at you,” Crowley said, a teasing edge to his voice. “Becoming friends with a demon. Of all the things—”
“Yes, well, are you coming to lunch or not?” Aziraphale asked impatiently.
“Lead the way,” said Crowley.