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Aziraphale
The angel was still getting used to being corporeal. It wasn’t unpleasant but it did feel strange. The solidity of the body he’d been assigned felt heavy when he moved, and the sounds and scents were a little overwhelming. Not that Heaven was silent. It was resplendent and the air vibrated with the joyous hymns of the higher angels singing praise to the Almighty. By contrast, Eden was positively tranquil even with the birdsong and rustle of animals moving in the tall grass just out of view.
After Lucifer’s betrayal and the war in Heaven, Principalities and some Cherubs had been tasked with guarding Eden’s gates from the newly Fallen’s malevolence. Many were still angry and jealous of God’s latest creation, her beloved, innocent humans. Aziraphale had been assigned to watch over Adam and Eve, to gently guide them, and maybe answer any questions they might have. He had been bestowed knowledge of every plant and animal God had made for the Garden. In fact, Aziraphale rather hoped that they would seek him out. He was bursting with excitement to share what he knew about the creatures inhabiting paradise with them.
Yet all was not well in Eden. There were murmurs that the enemies weren't exactly storming the gates. Instead, a very powerful demon had supposedly been sent covertly to Earth. Things were still pretty chaotic in the wake of the war, and the story lived only in his head as a vague certainty. If God knew the demon’s identity She wasn’t telling and so far, Aziraphale hasn't detected anything amiss. Well — That wasn’t entirely true. A few times, he’d gotten a glimpse of a large snake that didn’t look like any of the serpents he’d seen thus far. It always left him with a sense of unease afterward, but he chalked it up to the paranoia war had bred among his kin.
Secretly, he hoped the rumour wasn’t true. He feared if he were to come across this demon, he wouldn’t know what to do. True, Aziraphale was equipped with a flaming sword that would easily dispatch any fiend that dared cross his path, but the idea of using it made his heart clench. During the war he had been a healer not a soldier and was unaccustomed to the concept of violence. The angel chose to simply take things as they came and keep the faith in God’s ineffable plan.
When the sun set and the night sky shimmered with starlight and distant planets, he found himself thinking about that angel he’d met during creation. Aziraphale wondered if any of the stars he could see from here were his, and he felt a little bereft. He’d heard that scarlet haired Seraph had fallen, not that he’d been terribly surprised. The angel had never forgotten the crestfallen look on their face when they’d been told about the apocalypse that would wipe the universe clean in around six paltry millenia. Though Aziraphale would never question Her design, he thought that it was a shame about that particular angel’s fate. He wished he could remember their name, but it had been stripped when they’d been cast out. Aziraphale idly wondered what they called themself now and if he’d ever see them again.
Crawley
For the first time since being kicked from Heaven, the demon was experiencing something close to contentment. Oh, he doubted he’d ever feel joy again, but Crawley was finding that it wasn’t so bad. Sure, he sometimes missed basking in the glory of God’s love, but basking on a sun-baked rock felt pretty great as well. In fact, he didn’t hate existing in Her garden of Earthly delights at all, even if he was in the covert form of a serpent.
Crawley had been sent up with the profoundly vague task of “making trouble in Eden.” Did Satan mean that he should kill the new humans or at the very least gravely hurt them? That didn’t seem terribly clever. It would probably just end with him being destroyed and the Almighty starting their little experiment over. Crawley had just started to enjoy existing in subtle ways and anyway, he really wasn’t the type to sacrifice himself for someone else’s cause. So he lurked in the tall grass and wrapped himself around the highest branches in trees, spying on Adam and Eve and avoiding detection of the angels that guarded the gates and watched over the new humans.
Occasionally he caught a glimpse of the angel that had witnessed his creation of Alpha Centuri. When he did, he felt a curious sense of regret and something else he was still trying to sort out. Crawley had been feeling a new, wider range of emotions since he’d fallen. Yes, there had been the expected anger and bereavement, but the thrilling sense of personal agency, now that was something he could get used to. God has been a bit of a micro-manager but Satan? Not so much and it was a refreshing and welcome change. Although to be fair, Satan had a lot on their plate right now. Not being terribly efficient when it came to commanding his new flock wasn’t exactly a shocking turn of events.
When God planted a new tree in The Garden, and commanded Adam and Eve not to take the fruit from it, Crawley was positively gob-smacked. It could not possibly be that easy. He knew that She worked in mysterious ways, but this was shockingly obtuse. Humans, he’d surmised during his time in Eden, were highly inquisitive. They'd already explored every inch of Eden, experimented with various modes of communication, and recently even started exploring one another’s bodies. The latter both fascinated and confounded Crawley, but it must feel very good with how often they did it. Crawley thought that putting a forbidden anything smack dab in the middle of the Garden was pure folly. The Almighty did like Her tests, though. Crawley suspected making humans and giving them free will had been done to test Her increasingly restless angels and a large portion of them (himself included) had failed spectacularly. Or maybe they hadn’t. Who could really tell? Certainly not Crawley. He'd once been naive enough to think he could question Her wisdom in engineering an apocalypse after a mere handful of millenia, and where that had landed him? In a lake of bloody fire, that’s what.
Crawley began to hatch a plan, however. God liked Her little cosmic jokes, too, and wouldn’t it be a scream if her little humans started asking questions too? Would She punish them just as harshly? Crawley didn’t think so. What was the point of giving them free will if they couldn’t make the choice to go against Her wishes, after all? Whatever happened, it was certain to stir up some trouble.
Aziraphale
It had been a very stressful morning. Adam and Eve had gotten themselves in quite the spot. For some reason, Eve had gotten it in her head to eat the fruit from the Tree of Life and share it with Adam, which God had strictly forbidden. Perhaps the Almighty hadn’t been explicit about the consequences. Now they knew shame, fear, and were cursed with mortality, among many other unfortunate things. By far the worst, they'd been expelled from Eden. The angels had all returned to Heaven. All save for him, who had been commanded to remain. He worried that it had been a punishment for having failed to prevent the demonic agent that had slithered into Eden and corrupted Her creation. Even if it were, he supposed it was better than being a Fallen One.
He stood alone on top of the wall that had surrounded the Garden and stared out at the vast wasteland. Aziraphale heart ached for the plight of Adam and Eve. Even with his sword, would they even survive long enough for Eve to give birth? He just had to have faith that God had a contingency plan. She always did. As Aziraphale exhaled a deep sigh, he became aware of a second presence. Even without looking he knew it was that damned demon, masquerading as a snake (probably the one he’d disregarded one time too many), likely come to gloat. He steeled himself for a confrontation as the serpent took shape by his side and his heart dropped.
It was his (now Fallen) acquaintance from the days of creation. He looked a bit different now, of course, Black wings aside, his skin was bronzed, as though it had been baked by Hellfire, his hair was worn loose and wild as fiery red waves that tumbled over his shoulders. There was a brand on the side of his face, almost obscured by his long hair that looked like an endlessly coiling snake. It was his eyes that were the most changed and arresting. They were serpentine and a rich golden shade that complemented his colouring quite nicely. Aziraphale looked away quickly, having felt very queer the longer he’d looked at him. He certainly didn’t remember him being so…alluring, but then again, the angel couldn’t recall ever having found anyone attractive before. Well, he had been warned that he might experience alien feelings and sensations as a corporeal being.
When he looked back, he realized the demon was looking at him expectantly. Had he said something? It must have been very quietly (or he’d simply been too distracted looking at him).
“Sorry, what was that?” Aziraphale asked politely.
“I said, well, that went down like a lead balloon.” Even his voice sounded a bit different, darker and a bit venomous with some dry tone that he couldn’t interpret.
“Oh yes,” Aziraphale agreed quickly, a bit surprised since that hadn’t sounded very much like gloating at all. If anything, odd tone notwithstanding, he sounded even a bit regretful. “It rather did.”
The demon continued casually, as though they were old friends. “Bit of an overreaction, if you ask me. First offense and everything.” He looked utterly confounded and Aziraphale thought such an observation rather ironic coming out the mouth of a fallen angel. “And I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway.”
“It must be bad…” Aziraphale trailed off, giving his own expectant look. He no longer knew his name and wished to know the one he had taken as a denizen of the underworld.
“Crawley,” the demon replied with a slight nod and warm look that made Aziraphale nervous even though it was in no way threatening.
As they talked, distant thunder rolled as dark clouds gathered overhead. He didn’t know how to feel about God putting into motion natural weather patterns before Adam and Eve were even settled. Aziraphale couldn’t quite shake an anxious feeling the more Crawley spoke. He no longer wondered just how Eve had gotten it in her head to eat that forbidden fruit.
Crawley
Angels were not entities made to feel desire. God’s love was meant to be sustenance enough that they should want nothing in the Kingdom of Glory. Perhaps that had been the truth of his downfall. Not simply that he had asked a few questions, but he had felt the faintest spark of desire to have his nebula remain unbothered.
As he beheld Aziraphale for the first time since he’d been cast from God’s grace, Crawley felt that spark again, only much stronger and more singular. The angel didn’t look that much differently from the first time they’d met. His garments weren’t quite so shapeless and he was much more solid. They were both corporeal now, which granted certain things that hadn’t been present in heaven. The sun shining in Aziraphale’s blonde hair, for example, turned it an ethereal shade of white, and his eyes were as blue as the deepest parts of the ocean. The world was still too new for the invention of aesthetics, but Crawley had been in the Garden long enough to have seen some truly lovely things. Aziraphale trumped them all with his blindingly white wings and unblemished skin. The demon looked at him and felt hunger, like he could devour him the way Adam and Eve devoured each other when they mapped out one another’s bodies with hands and mouths. He wasn’t even sure if their bodies were compatible that way but he’d be keen to find out.
Aziraphale seemed nervous around him and he found that fascinating. Crawley supposed it must be strange for the angel, having known him, if briefly, before his fall. Aziraphale had distanced himself the more vocal Crawley had become about questioning God. The angel wasn’t one to rock the boat or call attention to himself. It was rather surprising to find him chosen to walk this Earthly realm, but perhaps having such an unassuming creature was better than an ambitious one that might be a little too heavy handed in guiding humanity. Yet he didn’t seem frightened, at least once they got to talking. It was more a kind of panic like he couldn’t get enough air when their eyes met. Crawley couldn’t begin to guess what it was all about, but he was fairly sure it didn't have anything to do with the existential terror of seeing the face of an acquaintance twisted by evil.
“Didn’t you have a flaming sword?”
The things you noticed when you were looking someone up and down for entirely different reasons, but at least he knew why he wasn’t being threatened at the point of the weapon. He truly doubted Aziraphale had it in him, but he hadn’t anticipated God to toss Adam and Eve out of paradise for their first transgression so what the hell did he know? Inquisitive creatures and all. They would have eaten from that tree eventually. He knew it down to his core.
His eyes widened as Aziraphale told him of the fate of his sword and an expression of wonder brightened his countenance. Maybe he’d underestimated the Principality greatly. If nothing else there was definitely more to the angel than a head full of rules and unwavering devotion to the Almighty’s plan. It made him think that maybe they were more similar than otherwise. Oh, Aziraphale was not the sort of angel to fall, but he might be the kind that would be better company than righteous adversary.
The future was wide and uncertain as the desert Adam and Eve had been cast into. Aziraphale looked worried and Crawley wished he knew how to make that expression go away. It unsettled him for some odd reason. As the rain began to fall, he watched out the corner of his vision as Aziraphale lifted a wing to offer him shelter. Crawley ducked under it with an appreciative look. It was a gesture that made him feel warm and somehow more real. They stood in a comfortable silence as they watched the first humans struggle in the distance. They were so far off that they were nothing more that vaguely moving specks.
“What do you think we’re meant to do now?” Aziraphale spoke so softly Crawley barely heard him over the sound of rain hitting the stone wall surrounding Eden.
“No idea,” Crawley replied before grinning widely. “Isn’t it great?”
[ the end is only the beginning..... ]