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“Well, that went over like a lead balloon,” he said, wriggling from serpent form (now with no legs, how weird was that?) to human form.
“What?” The Cherub glanced at him. The look lasted less than a second and somehow the angel’s expression cycled through surprise, shock, fury, and heartbreak before settling into a sort of painful courtesy as he looked back out over the no-longer-empty sands.
“I said, that went over like a lead balloon,” Crawly repeated and watched the humans in the distance too.
“Oh. Yes.”
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten Aziraphale—how was he supposed forget the Cherub’s eagerness and precision, loyalty and zeal, love and delight, and the way every thought and emotion radiated openly throughout his very essence—but the angel’s braced posture and attempt to avoid his gaze was new. It wasn’t just the body either. Neither of them were used to human form, but this was Aziraphale. Crawly would have recognized him if he’d been pretending to be a chinchilla.
Actually, that was a mental image almost entertaining enough to distract from the twist in his guts (serpent or human) at the complete lack of recognition in the Cherub’s eyes. It was an echo—faint, barely worth the comparison—of the searing agony of Falling and it was one more reminder (among countless and helplessly counted others) of what had been ripped away.
Almost.
Crawly squinted sideways at the angel. Had She ripped away their memory of before? That couldn’t be, or the rest of the Heavenly Host he’d narrowly avoided wouldn’t have had “Smite first, ask questions never” as their go-to response upon seeing him. Maybe they just didn’t care. They hadn’t cared before. Why would that change now, just because Her new project was off to a limping start? (Quite literally. Adam’d just tripped and slid down a sand dune.) Maybe they had orders to smite. Angels were very big on orders, after all.
Never mind that the humans (okay, with a little nudging) had defied the one commandment She’d given them and still received more promise of hope and redemption than he and his siblings ever had got.
Never mind that…
“Didn’t you have a sword?” he asked, suddenly aware of its absence. Maybe that was why Aziraphale hadn’t tried to kill him already. Not that the Cherub was without powers other than the sword. But swords are convenient things for stabbing and killing and less likely to terrify the locals than Unexplained Bursts of Divine Wrath. The chinchillas, after all, had done nothing wrong.
Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably and his profile practically pinched with worry and… guilt? Guilt wasn’t a thing Crawly’d ever expected to see on an angelic face.
“You did! It was flaming like anything. What happened to it?”
“…” The angel fidgeted with his robe, wings fluttering in distress. “… gave it away.” he muttered.
“You what?” Crawly couldn’t help the awe and sheer delight that flooded into his voice. Aziraphale had been responsible for the last time he’d felt anything like this, too, so very blessed long ago, and he just… he knew better. Satan, did he know better. But there was no one else around to overhear and his control slipped.
“I gave it away!” Aziraphale practically wailed, turning to face him (so briefly) again before almost, almost, stamping one foot and gesturing at the humans. “It’ll be dark soon and she’s already pregnant!”
That’s what the flickering glow around Adam was. Crawly squinted at the man and wondered if he had any idea the power of the weapon he was holding. Given that he was currently flailing in wide, inexperienced swings at a lion… he was at least beginning to figure it out.
Right.
“I do hope I haven’t done the wrong thing.”
Crawly’s heart, such as it was in corporeal form, almost stopped.
“You’re an angel,” he said dismissively and ignored the screaming instinct to flee. If he was going to Fall, Crawly wanted to be nowhere nearby when it happened. “I don’t think you can do the wrong thing.”
“Oh!” the Cherub said, face relaxing most of the way. “Oh, thank you.”
There were several comments that he might have made, before. But that was a long time ago and would have been conversation between a Seraph and one of his favorite Cherubs, not between a demon and an angel.
“Be a bit funny,” he said instead, “if we got it backwards. If I did the good thing and you did the bad.”
“Yes,” Aziraphale said absently. Before Crawly could do more than raise an eyebrow, the angel’s mind apparently caught up with his mouth (who knew that that was a problem in the choirs these days? hadn’t there been a whole war over that?). “No! No, it wouldn’t!”
Crawly almost snorted amusement at the look of panic on Aziraphale’s face. It was funny. But the Almighty wasn’t known for having mercy on Aziraphale’s kind (see: Crawly) when they made mistakes, no matter how well-justified.
“Crawly, Serpent of the Garden” he said, some time later, as he watched the rain from under Aziraphale’s wing. The angel didn’t recognize him, apparently. He was still Crawly’s favorite Cherub. None of the rest of those gits would dream of literally sheltering the enemy.
“Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate.”
They didn’t kiss or nod or hug or shake hands or bump fists or perform any of the physical greeting rituals that the humans would eventually develop. They stood there and watched the rain and the humans and Crawly could, almost, forget what had been in favor of the pleasant smells of wet Garden behind them and steaming sand before them, and the wholly unexpected scent of slowly drenching feathers all around them.