Exchanges
Title “Exchanges”
Author: Lexicon
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: PG
Description: Aziraphale has finally blown it, Heaven has kicked him out.
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, not me.
It took some time for Aziraphale to really absorb what had happened. It might have been hours, at least it felt like hours, but it was really almost a week. The angel had sat, starring at the grimy back wall of his books shop, just wondering where it all went so wrong. During this spate of complete incomprehension and subsequent catatonia, there had been a total of three possible customers who had opened the door of the shop, entered, rung the little gold bell at the counter, and left. Today, a fourth being strolled up to the counter, but he did not ring the bell.
The little, dusty room that held far too many books suddenly became hellishly warm. The ex-angel in the back room didn’t notice.
“You know, it seems to me you could perhaps benefit from a bit of counselling, my friend.”
Without looking up, Aziraphale sneered. “Would you really call me your friend?”
Lucifer smiled, the kind of smile that one who has just made a vitally important move in a game of chess, smiles. He was a long way from taking the queen, but every little bit helps, right?
“I don’t pretend that your existence has ever really seemed significant to me, Aziraphale. That is of course, until now.”
Aziraphale heard the words, hissed while at the same time sung like a lullaby. This wasn’t a situation he wanted to be in. This was not someone an angel in Aziraphales position should be talking to right now. Briefly, the he wished his demon friend were here to mediate. But he wasn’t.
“No use crying over spilt holiness my little friend.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect.” Not that the angel had had any respect for Lucifer to begin with. “But what exactly are you doing here, Lucifer?”
“I heard about you little trip.” A bad joke, a very bad joke indeed. “You might be sitting here thinking your plight is unique, right? Why, oh, why did this happen? Well, you and I both know you’ve been horribly mistreated. You might have pissed Him off with that whole preventing the Apocalypse thing, but you see, none of those silly games really matter to Him.”
The words, spoken in a harsh and jeering tone hit Aziraphale like a tone of bricks and it upset him all the more to realise that they did, in fact, make perfect sense.
“You do know why you were kicked out right? You must. It’s no secret, if it was a secret than it wouldn’t work to set a very good example now, would it?” Lucifer smiled the smile of one who had been there before, as he looked at his distorted reflection in his highly polished, black fingernails.
“I …. I know.” Aziraphale stammered.
“Don’t worry, there is a place for you yet and you need not die a mortals death, sitting here in this…place. Don’t morn for a God who never really loved you. Don’t cry because you did not fulfil his every desire. Because you wouldn’t love him how he wanted to be loved. That is… completely.”
“That’s just it, I didn’t know I had done anything wrong. I mean…well, I have done things wrong, I suppose I haven’t exactly been a saint down here. An angel, but not a saint. But all the same, all of a sudden this happens and I’m kicked out!”
“Been there, done that.” Sighed Lucifer. “But you see, I fell for very different reasons, Aziraphale.”
“I’m sure.” Said the angel, who was now crumpled up into a strange ball of loose terry towelling, wrapped so tight in his robe, pretending they were his wings. “I can imaging. I hope we are different. I really hope so.”
“Oh, you pretentious little sod. Do you really think you are so much different to I? You all have sat up there, always thinking: ‘That Satan, what a ignorant, rebellious romantic, I could never be like him’ Well, you can. It don’t take much, my friend, to get kicked out of Heaven.”
“Why are you here, Lucifer? To give me a pep talk, let me know that someone feels my pain?”
“Are you angry, Aziraphale? Angry with Him? Angry with yourself, perhaps? For letting yourself love something a little, itty-bitty bit more than you love your Creator?”
“Love? Anger? Really, all I am right now is confused. Very, very confused.” Aziraphale sank into the chair and sighed. When he looked up, Lucifer had taken his leave. The door at the front of the shop closed with a gentle snap.
How long Aziraphale remained sitting there, in that same place, could not be determined. However, to the ex-angel it seemed like only minuets before the door clicked open again. Azpiraphale stirred and, not wanting to see Satan again, or anyone else, shouted “We…Are….Closed. Go…A….Way!” in a very un-angelic tone.
When he looked up, however, he changed his mind about not wanting to see anyone else. The one person he had wanted to see for far to long stood in the doorway. Where had Crowley been.
“For-Fuck-Sake.” Still shouting, he swore with such ease that it disturbed him. He was so obviously human. He didn’t even cringe. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I heard, angel. Well… you know what I mean. You know who you are.”
“No, Crowley, I really do not know.” The demon shuffled over, as if fearful that Aziraphale might have a sudden violent outburst. He perched himself on the arm of the chair that the angel sat in. “I’m not an angel any longer, demon. So you can stop calling me angel. I am nothing now. You can just call me nothing.”
“You are not nothing, my friend. You are human.” And Crowley regretted saying this as soon as the words left his lips. He realised just how he would feel if he were faced with a human existence.
“I don’t know if I am human. I don’t know what I am. I am not an angel, right. I have been de-haloed, had my wings clipped - or cut off, as it were. I have no strength, no power. I don’t feel human, though. I think I am in some sort of limbo, between forms.”
Crowley touched his friends arm. It felt fleshy, warm, a normal human arm. “Perhaps, but do you feel… I don’t know, free or anything?”
The stare Aziraphale gave him cut right into Crowley, like a flaming sword. No, he obviously didn’t feel free.
“Did anyone tell you why…I mean…you were kicked out?” Crowley changed the subject. The new subject made the ex-angel resume his mopey expression, which for Crowley was better than the ‘I am going to strangle you’ expression of a minuet ago.
“Well… and you will find this really rich I am sure… I was actually just paid a visit by your boss.”
“What?” Crowley had never once actually had the pleasure, or displeasure as it might be, of actually being visited by Lucifer. Not as a polite social call, anyway.
“And what did he have to say?”
“I think he wants to recruit me, as a matter of fact. And I don’t really know if it depresses me, or whether it is my only real option.”
Without thinking, Crowley made a rather spontaneous laugh. Then he realised it wasn’t a joke.
“You, a demon? You!”
“Yes, me. What, you think I couldn’t pull it off? You have said so yourself that you always knew I had just enough evil in me.”
“To make you tolerable. But, Aziraphale, are you really all that bad?”
“Well, Crowley, it would seem so. If I wasn’t all that bad I wouldn’t have been kicked out of bloody Heaven now, would I?”
“I guess not. And you honestly don’t have any idea why? I mean, and He didn’t give you are reason, some sort of written evaluation that you failed. Did he give you any job references before he fired you?”
“This is so not funny. If you make another joke I swear I will…. I will, I will stare at you in a nasty manor! That is about all I can do in this form!” he shouted this last sentence with such frustration and emotion that Crowley began to see that Aziraphale could just perhaps be a demon after all.
“What did my wonderful and fair boss have to say? Does he know why He gave you the shaft?”
“Yes. Lucifer told me…in a roundabout sort of way. Because I didn’t love God with my whole heart. Apparently I love something more”
“You do? You don’t love God any more?” This, despite everything, seemed unthinkable.
“Perhaps not. I guess not, if this happened. He would know, wouldn’t He?” Aziraphale shrugged “I mean I have played up in the past, but I always loved Him. I thought I always would. I thought I did. But, like I said, He would know. I can’t tell any more. I am too angry and upset to know who or what I love.”
“This thing, you loved more. Than He, it must me the Earth, right? I guess stopping the apocalypse and pissing God off really wasn’t such a good idea, yeah?” Said Crowley, staring at his shoes, a little, tiny pang of guilt entered his heart. It had really been his idea, after all. His encouragement.
“I thought that was what it was. That was the first thing that occurred to me. But you know what, I don’t think He would have minded so much if I loved the Earth, or the humans more than Him. God made the world, right? So loving it isn’t really any different than loving Him.”
“Well, then, what was it. What great, deeply repressed love did you posses in you heart that made that’s old overlord so damn jealous?” Crowley spoke the words. He is not a dim-witted demon, and although the truth seemed to come to the very tip of his tongue, he stopped himself from saying it. He waited. Perhaps he was wrong. However, if this notion was not wrong, then he was blessed if he was going to suggest it before Aziraphale did.
The ex-angels eyes skimmed over the dusty floor, until the came to rest on the shiney black leather shoe of the demon perched upon the arm of his scruffy armchair. The idea had occurred to him too, when Lucifer had been there, insinuating. However, the notion was not yet completely formed into a conscious thought. The question was how could God have known something Aziraphale himself had not completely conceived yet? What’s more, how could he punish him for feelings he hadn’t even realised he was having.
After a long stretch of silence that had begun to become ridiculous, Aziraphale decided that he better just spit it out and hope for the best. Perhaps it wasn’t even true, this strange notion. Somehow, Aziraphale knew, however that it was true, and he also knew the Crowley had figured it out before him.
“It’s you, you bloody stupid, annoying demon! You did this too me. Why did you have to hang about for so God damned long!” The curse rolled off his tongue, and it felt fantastic. “So long, in fact, that I became attached to you. So long that I knew you well, befriended you. So sodding long that I now, apparently…” he threw his arms in the air, springing to his feet for the first time in a while “…now apparently, I have grown to love you!”
Crowley smiled, but only a little. “Apparently.”
Aziraphale felt a little bit relieved that he had sorted it all out in his head. The demon before him looked a lot more demon-like now that he himself was human, mortal…whatever. Crowley appeared almost scary. This was most likely because Aziraphale felt completely weak, and completely exposed.
“You strange, silly man…thing. I don’t know what possessed you to go and love me! I mean, really!” there was a sort of deep-breath pause, during which the two moved around where they stood, twitching, uncomfortably.
“So what now?” Crowley broke the silence.
“I don’t really know. To tell you the truth, I am not completely sure I want to stay here. On earth.”
“Are you really giving up that easily, Aziraphale? You have always wanted to live free from all the political tripe we have put up with since The Beginning. Now you can, you can live a normal mortal life. Perhaps, if you be good, you might be let back into heaven in the end.”
Aziraphale mused upon this concept for a split second. A human life: Work, love, sex, old age, death - No thanks.
“What are my options?” he sighed.
“Well, you said. Lucifer seemed to want to make you into a new recruit. Perhaps…now don’t get upset, but perhaps you should consider this. I am not saying my side has any less politics and absurdities than Heaven had, but you and I both know you would go out of your head as a mortal. And to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I could stand it if I had to go the rest of eternity… without you.”
When Crowley spoke these words, Aziraphale knew that it was time to do something that had been waiting to happen for… well, at least since the 1970’s. He walked over to Crowley, bent down in the easy manor of someone who was going to do what needed to be done, and he planted a kiss on the demon’s lips.
It was a closed-mouth kiss. Almost the friendliest kiss that he could have given. Aziraphale was still unsure, himself, of whether this “love” he apparently had for his long-time demon companion was one of friendship or something deeper. In the recesses of his somewhat confused and out of place soul, he knew the answer. Either way, this was the first kiss he had ever given anyone. It was not an angel thing to do, kissing. Angels were only supposed to love their creator and kissing was something you do with the one you love.
While all this was going on, Crowley himself was going through a slight crisis. Demons, unlike angels, are free to love and lust after whom they chose. As long as they do evil it really didn’t bother their Boss. Aziraphale might have been having a groundbreaking realisation, and discovering for the first time, now that he was no longer an angel, that his body felt a differently towards the demon. Crowley, on the other hand, had pretty much always viewed Aziraphale in this way. As a demon, it was impossible not to observe the beauty and erotism of other beings. Always, during their very long, very strange friendship, Crowley had found the angel desirable. He had never really thought about why. Did he desire simply to corrupt this absolutely pure and good being? Perhaps it was something else… but the notion had always been pushed to the back of Crowley’s mind. Demons, again unlike angels, are fully equipped with sexual organs. Crowley had never had the desire to use them, of course, but they were there. Sex, desire, lust, these could all be tools of evil. Although Aziraphale had always fared as someone that was untouchable as far as evil went, Crowley now found himself considering the possibility of perhaps experiencing a little lust, a little desire for his fallen friend.
“Aziraphale. Now that you are not an angel, you are pretty much all human, right?”
“I guess. I have none of my angelic gifts, if that is what you mean. I am stuck in this form.”
“Well actually I wasn’t thinking in terms of extra-corporeal abilities. I was thinking, physically. Are you different, physically?”
The ex-angel shrugged. “To tell you the truth, since I was handed my sentence, I have pretty much done nothing but sit right there in that chair. Come to think of it, I suddenly feel… really, really… hungry!” He shouted, with a tiny note of glee that came from discovering something new and different.
“Hungry, well, of course.” Said Crowley. He walked over to the tiny, dirty kitchenette and made Aziraphale a cup of tea and fetched him a couple of biscuits.
“Wow!” Aziraphale spoke with his mouth full of ginger nut and warm tea. “This is a lot better now! I think things taste better now!”
Crowley was a little impatient. Since the thought of Aziraphale having sexuality had first entered his mind, it was really hard to concentrate on anything else. He was curious but at the same time needed to know. There was a great deal of pent-up, devilish attraction that had been lying dormant for a very long time.
“Aziraphale?”
“Yes.”
“Can you…um…do you have a, you know. Are you a man now?” Crowley spoke the words, but thought to himself that “man” would not be the way anyone would describe Aziraphale, even if he had male genitalia. Boy was a little more appropriate. He had such a childish clumsiness about him.
It was as if the idea was as exciting as the tea and biscuits had been, and without taking into account human etiquette or decorum, the ex-angel reached into his loose pyjama pants.
“Oh my God!” he cried. Then he beamed. “Well that wasn’t there before!”
***
Human had seemed a great way to be for the first few days. Crowley had pretty much left Aziraphale alone to experiment and discover all the things about a human body that Angels were not clued into. This was a pretty private time, and the demon didn’t want to get involved. Plus, he happened to be wrestling with some thoughts and feelings of his own that were beginning to get a little…a lot harder to shove to the back of his mind. What if he just sat by and let Aziraphale live a human life? Would he be able to watch as the ex-angel aged, or get married, or had children? This all seemed so un-Aziraphale… and so unnatural.
But then how could he possibly persuade this perfectly lovely creature to sign away what is left of his goodness and virtuousness just because Crowley didn’t want to be alone. The two were like a comedy pair. Actually the original odd couple. He knew deep down that he would have to persuade Aziraphale to talk to Lucifer about possible joining to ranks of Hell. He felt bad about it… but not that bad.
Aziraphale was feeding the ducks, quietly, when Crowley approached. Mischievously he put his hands over the ex-angels eyes, something he would never have dared do to the old angelic Aziraphale. Things seemed a lot more playful between them now. Declarations of love sometimes do that., but most of the time they just make things uncomfortable. Crowley’s fingers touched smooth glass. When Aziraphale turned around, raising his arm up so it brushed away Crowley’s hands, it seemed that this was turning out to be one of those uncomfortable moments.
“Crowley.”
“Hi.” Replied Crowley.
Aziraphale reached out and lifted Crowley’s sunglasses from his face, and pushed them back into his hair, so that the two yellow eyes could be seen. “I suppose it isn’t that bad.” He said, and then he reached up and lifted his own sunglasses back. Two orange-yellow eyes with cat-like pupils shone out, blinking and slightly saddened.
“Well now.” Said Crowley, sadly but trying not to sound that way. “Looks like you have been meeting up with dark, sinister types and making exchanges, while pretending to feed the ducks?”
“I guess I have been, indeed.” Smiled Aziraphale, before lunging forwards and wrapping his arms around his friend, companion, equal, lover… whatever the two demons were going to become.
THE END
Author: Lexicon
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: PG
Description: Aziraphale has finally blown it, Heaven has kicked him out.
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, not me.
It took some time for Aziraphale to really absorb what had happened. It might have been hours, at least it felt like hours, but it was really almost a week. The angel had sat, starring at the grimy back wall of his books shop, just wondering where it all went so wrong. During this spate of complete incomprehension and subsequent catatonia, there had been a total of three possible customers who had opened the door of the shop, entered, rung the little gold bell at the counter, and left. Today, a fourth being strolled up to the counter, but he did not ring the bell.
The little, dusty room that held far too many books suddenly became hellishly warm. The ex-angel in the back room didn’t notice.
“You know, it seems to me you could perhaps benefit from a bit of counselling, my friend.”
Without looking up, Aziraphale sneered. “Would you really call me your friend?”
Lucifer smiled, the kind of smile that one who has just made a vitally important move in a game of chess, smiles. He was a long way from taking the queen, but every little bit helps, right?
“I don’t pretend that your existence has ever really seemed significant to me, Aziraphale. That is of course, until now.”
Aziraphale heard the words, hissed while at the same time sung like a lullaby. This wasn’t a situation he wanted to be in. This was not someone an angel in Aziraphales position should be talking to right now. Briefly, the he wished his demon friend were here to mediate. But he wasn’t.
“No use crying over spilt holiness my little friend.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect.” Not that the angel had had any respect for Lucifer to begin with. “But what exactly are you doing here, Lucifer?”
“I heard about you little trip.” A bad joke, a very bad joke indeed. “You might be sitting here thinking your plight is unique, right? Why, oh, why did this happen? Well, you and I both know you’ve been horribly mistreated. You might have pissed Him off with that whole preventing the Apocalypse thing, but you see, none of those silly games really matter to Him.”
The words, spoken in a harsh and jeering tone hit Aziraphale like a tone of bricks and it upset him all the more to realise that they did, in fact, make perfect sense.
“You do know why you were kicked out right? You must. It’s no secret, if it was a secret than it wouldn’t work to set a very good example now, would it?” Lucifer smiled the smile of one who had been there before, as he looked at his distorted reflection in his highly polished, black fingernails.
“I …. I know.” Aziraphale stammered.
“Don’t worry, there is a place for you yet and you need not die a mortals death, sitting here in this…place. Don’t morn for a God who never really loved you. Don’t cry because you did not fulfil his every desire. Because you wouldn’t love him how he wanted to be loved. That is… completely.”
“That’s just it, I didn’t know I had done anything wrong. I mean…well, I have done things wrong, I suppose I haven’t exactly been a saint down here. An angel, but not a saint. But all the same, all of a sudden this happens and I’m kicked out!”
“Been there, done that.” Sighed Lucifer. “But you see, I fell for very different reasons, Aziraphale.”
“I’m sure.” Said the angel, who was now crumpled up into a strange ball of loose terry towelling, wrapped so tight in his robe, pretending they were his wings. “I can imaging. I hope we are different. I really hope so.”
“Oh, you pretentious little sod. Do you really think you are so much different to I? You all have sat up there, always thinking: ‘That Satan, what a ignorant, rebellious romantic, I could never be like him’ Well, you can. It don’t take much, my friend, to get kicked out of Heaven.”
“Why are you here, Lucifer? To give me a pep talk, let me know that someone feels my pain?”
“Are you angry, Aziraphale? Angry with Him? Angry with yourself, perhaps? For letting yourself love something a little, itty-bitty bit more than you love your Creator?”
“Love? Anger? Really, all I am right now is confused. Very, very confused.” Aziraphale sank into the chair and sighed. When he looked up, Lucifer had taken his leave. The door at the front of the shop closed with a gentle snap.
How long Aziraphale remained sitting there, in that same place, could not be determined. However, to the ex-angel it seemed like only minuets before the door clicked open again. Azpiraphale stirred and, not wanting to see Satan again, or anyone else, shouted “We…Are….Closed. Go…A….Way!” in a very un-angelic tone.
When he looked up, however, he changed his mind about not wanting to see anyone else. The one person he had wanted to see for far to long stood in the doorway. Where had Crowley been.
“For-Fuck-Sake.” Still shouting, he swore with such ease that it disturbed him. He was so obviously human. He didn’t even cringe. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I heard, angel. Well… you know what I mean. You know who you are.”
“No, Crowley, I really do not know.” The demon shuffled over, as if fearful that Aziraphale might have a sudden violent outburst. He perched himself on the arm of the chair that the angel sat in. “I’m not an angel any longer, demon. So you can stop calling me angel. I am nothing now. You can just call me nothing.”
“You are not nothing, my friend. You are human.” And Crowley regretted saying this as soon as the words left his lips. He realised just how he would feel if he were faced with a human existence.
“I don’t know if I am human. I don’t know what I am. I am not an angel, right. I have been de-haloed, had my wings clipped - or cut off, as it were. I have no strength, no power. I don’t feel human, though. I think I am in some sort of limbo, between forms.”
Crowley touched his friends arm. It felt fleshy, warm, a normal human arm. “Perhaps, but do you feel… I don’t know, free or anything?”
The stare Aziraphale gave him cut right into Crowley, like a flaming sword. No, he obviously didn’t feel free.
“Did anyone tell you why…I mean…you were kicked out?” Crowley changed the subject. The new subject made the ex-angel resume his mopey expression, which for Crowley was better than the ‘I am going to strangle you’ expression of a minuet ago.
“Well… and you will find this really rich I am sure… I was actually just paid a visit by your boss.”
“What?” Crowley had never once actually had the pleasure, or displeasure as it might be, of actually being visited by Lucifer. Not as a polite social call, anyway.
“And what did he have to say?”
“I think he wants to recruit me, as a matter of fact. And I don’t really know if it depresses me, or whether it is my only real option.”
Without thinking, Crowley made a rather spontaneous laugh. Then he realised it wasn’t a joke.
“You, a demon? You!”
“Yes, me. What, you think I couldn’t pull it off? You have said so yourself that you always knew I had just enough evil in me.”
“To make you tolerable. But, Aziraphale, are you really all that bad?”
“Well, Crowley, it would seem so. If I wasn’t all that bad I wouldn’t have been kicked out of bloody Heaven now, would I?”
“I guess not. And you honestly don’t have any idea why? I mean, and He didn’t give you are reason, some sort of written evaluation that you failed. Did he give you any job references before he fired you?”
“This is so not funny. If you make another joke I swear I will…. I will, I will stare at you in a nasty manor! That is about all I can do in this form!” he shouted this last sentence with such frustration and emotion that Crowley began to see that Aziraphale could just perhaps be a demon after all.
“What did my wonderful and fair boss have to say? Does he know why He gave you the shaft?”
“Yes. Lucifer told me…in a roundabout sort of way. Because I didn’t love God with my whole heart. Apparently I love something more”
“You do? You don’t love God any more?” This, despite everything, seemed unthinkable.
“Perhaps not. I guess not, if this happened. He would know, wouldn’t He?” Aziraphale shrugged “I mean I have played up in the past, but I always loved Him. I thought I always would. I thought I did. But, like I said, He would know. I can’t tell any more. I am too angry and upset to know who or what I love.”
“This thing, you loved more. Than He, it must me the Earth, right? I guess stopping the apocalypse and pissing God off really wasn’t such a good idea, yeah?” Said Crowley, staring at his shoes, a little, tiny pang of guilt entered his heart. It had really been his idea, after all. His encouragement.
“I thought that was what it was. That was the first thing that occurred to me. But you know what, I don’t think He would have minded so much if I loved the Earth, or the humans more than Him. God made the world, right? So loving it isn’t really any different than loving Him.”
“Well, then, what was it. What great, deeply repressed love did you posses in you heart that made that’s old overlord so damn jealous?” Crowley spoke the words. He is not a dim-witted demon, and although the truth seemed to come to the very tip of his tongue, he stopped himself from saying it. He waited. Perhaps he was wrong. However, if this notion was not wrong, then he was blessed if he was going to suggest it before Aziraphale did.
The ex-angels eyes skimmed over the dusty floor, until the came to rest on the shiney black leather shoe of the demon perched upon the arm of his scruffy armchair. The idea had occurred to him too, when Lucifer had been there, insinuating. However, the notion was not yet completely formed into a conscious thought. The question was how could God have known something Aziraphale himself had not completely conceived yet? What’s more, how could he punish him for feelings he hadn’t even realised he was having.
After a long stretch of silence that had begun to become ridiculous, Aziraphale decided that he better just spit it out and hope for the best. Perhaps it wasn’t even true, this strange notion. Somehow, Aziraphale knew, however that it was true, and he also knew the Crowley had figured it out before him.
“It’s you, you bloody stupid, annoying demon! You did this too me. Why did you have to hang about for so God damned long!” The curse rolled off his tongue, and it felt fantastic. “So long, in fact, that I became attached to you. So long that I knew you well, befriended you. So sodding long that I now, apparently…” he threw his arms in the air, springing to his feet for the first time in a while “…now apparently, I have grown to love you!”
Crowley smiled, but only a little. “Apparently.”
Aziraphale felt a little bit relieved that he had sorted it all out in his head. The demon before him looked a lot more demon-like now that he himself was human, mortal…whatever. Crowley appeared almost scary. This was most likely because Aziraphale felt completely weak, and completely exposed.
“You strange, silly man…thing. I don’t know what possessed you to go and love me! I mean, really!” there was a sort of deep-breath pause, during which the two moved around where they stood, twitching, uncomfortably.
“So what now?” Crowley broke the silence.
“I don’t really know. To tell you the truth, I am not completely sure I want to stay here. On earth.”
“Are you really giving up that easily, Aziraphale? You have always wanted to live free from all the political tripe we have put up with since The Beginning. Now you can, you can live a normal mortal life. Perhaps, if you be good, you might be let back into heaven in the end.”
Aziraphale mused upon this concept for a split second. A human life: Work, love, sex, old age, death - No thanks.
“What are my options?” he sighed.
“Well, you said. Lucifer seemed to want to make you into a new recruit. Perhaps…now don’t get upset, but perhaps you should consider this. I am not saying my side has any less politics and absurdities than Heaven had, but you and I both know you would go out of your head as a mortal. And to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I could stand it if I had to go the rest of eternity… without you.”
When Crowley spoke these words, Aziraphale knew that it was time to do something that had been waiting to happen for… well, at least since the 1970’s. He walked over to Crowley, bent down in the easy manor of someone who was going to do what needed to be done, and he planted a kiss on the demon’s lips.
It was a closed-mouth kiss. Almost the friendliest kiss that he could have given. Aziraphale was still unsure, himself, of whether this “love” he apparently had for his long-time demon companion was one of friendship or something deeper. In the recesses of his somewhat confused and out of place soul, he knew the answer. Either way, this was the first kiss he had ever given anyone. It was not an angel thing to do, kissing. Angels were only supposed to love their creator and kissing was something you do with the one you love.
While all this was going on, Crowley himself was going through a slight crisis. Demons, unlike angels, are free to love and lust after whom they chose. As long as they do evil it really didn’t bother their Boss. Aziraphale might have been having a groundbreaking realisation, and discovering for the first time, now that he was no longer an angel, that his body felt a differently towards the demon. Crowley, on the other hand, had pretty much always viewed Aziraphale in this way. As a demon, it was impossible not to observe the beauty and erotism of other beings. Always, during their very long, very strange friendship, Crowley had found the angel desirable. He had never really thought about why. Did he desire simply to corrupt this absolutely pure and good being? Perhaps it was something else… but the notion had always been pushed to the back of Crowley’s mind. Demons, again unlike angels, are fully equipped with sexual organs. Crowley had never had the desire to use them, of course, but they were there. Sex, desire, lust, these could all be tools of evil. Although Aziraphale had always fared as someone that was untouchable as far as evil went, Crowley now found himself considering the possibility of perhaps experiencing a little lust, a little desire for his fallen friend.
“Aziraphale. Now that you are not an angel, you are pretty much all human, right?”
“I guess. I have none of my angelic gifts, if that is what you mean. I am stuck in this form.”
“Well actually I wasn’t thinking in terms of extra-corporeal abilities. I was thinking, physically. Are you different, physically?”
The ex-angel shrugged. “To tell you the truth, since I was handed my sentence, I have pretty much done nothing but sit right there in that chair. Come to think of it, I suddenly feel… really, really… hungry!” He shouted, with a tiny note of glee that came from discovering something new and different.
“Hungry, well, of course.” Said Crowley. He walked over to the tiny, dirty kitchenette and made Aziraphale a cup of tea and fetched him a couple of biscuits.
“Wow!” Aziraphale spoke with his mouth full of ginger nut and warm tea. “This is a lot better now! I think things taste better now!”
Crowley was a little impatient. Since the thought of Aziraphale having sexuality had first entered his mind, it was really hard to concentrate on anything else. He was curious but at the same time needed to know. There was a great deal of pent-up, devilish attraction that had been lying dormant for a very long time.
“Aziraphale?”
“Yes.”
“Can you…um…do you have a, you know. Are you a man now?” Crowley spoke the words, but thought to himself that “man” would not be the way anyone would describe Aziraphale, even if he had male genitalia. Boy was a little more appropriate. He had such a childish clumsiness about him.
It was as if the idea was as exciting as the tea and biscuits had been, and without taking into account human etiquette or decorum, the ex-angel reached into his loose pyjama pants.
“Oh my God!” he cried. Then he beamed. “Well that wasn’t there before!”
***
Human had seemed a great way to be for the first few days. Crowley had pretty much left Aziraphale alone to experiment and discover all the things about a human body that Angels were not clued into. This was a pretty private time, and the demon didn’t want to get involved. Plus, he happened to be wrestling with some thoughts and feelings of his own that were beginning to get a little…a lot harder to shove to the back of his mind. What if he just sat by and let Aziraphale live a human life? Would he be able to watch as the ex-angel aged, or get married, or had children? This all seemed so un-Aziraphale… and so unnatural.
But then how could he possibly persuade this perfectly lovely creature to sign away what is left of his goodness and virtuousness just because Crowley didn’t want to be alone. The two were like a comedy pair. Actually the original odd couple. He knew deep down that he would have to persuade Aziraphale to talk to Lucifer about possible joining to ranks of Hell. He felt bad about it… but not that bad.
Aziraphale was feeding the ducks, quietly, when Crowley approached. Mischievously he put his hands over the ex-angels eyes, something he would never have dared do to the old angelic Aziraphale. Things seemed a lot more playful between them now. Declarations of love sometimes do that., but most of the time they just make things uncomfortable. Crowley’s fingers touched smooth glass. When Aziraphale turned around, raising his arm up so it brushed away Crowley’s hands, it seemed that this was turning out to be one of those uncomfortable moments.
“Crowley.”
“Hi.” Replied Crowley.
Aziraphale reached out and lifted Crowley’s sunglasses from his face, and pushed them back into his hair, so that the two yellow eyes could be seen. “I suppose it isn’t that bad.” He said, and then he reached up and lifted his own sunglasses back. Two orange-yellow eyes with cat-like pupils shone out, blinking and slightly saddened.
“Well now.” Said Crowley, sadly but trying not to sound that way. “Looks like you have been meeting up with dark, sinister types and making exchanges, while pretending to feed the ducks?”
“I guess I have been, indeed.” Smiled Aziraphale, before lunging forwards and wrapping his arms around his friend, companion, equal, lover… whatever the two demons were going to become.
THE END