Chapter Text
Rome, 10 Years Later
The scroll was crisp, white vellum. It unfolded with a pleasing flourish, its golden ribbon slithering to the floor. The handwriting was beautiful.
Vile Serpent,
Further to your last missive, I do protest. The duration you are proposing seems too long. Too cruel. There must be an alternative pathway that can be taken. Inform me at once, I command it.
~ The Righteous Angel Aziraphale
The scroll was an ancient seeming one, with singed edges. The handwriting was spiky.
Fine! Summon him yourself, if you must. You know the drill by now. - C
The scroll unfolded with a scent like summer jasmine, lifting the spirits and infusing the very air with a sense of optimism.
Are you quite sure? I have obviously no desire to inflame or inspire demonic wrath, outside of my overt duties to same.
~ RAA
The writing was scrawled across the back of another scroll on which a rude poem had been inscribed, and when unrolled the reader was reminded irresistibly of a recent guilty pleasure in which they had partaken.
Do relax, Angel. It’s fine. Keep him busy and I’ll be back before you know it. - C
Well. Well, indeed.
Aziraphale rerolled and then unrolled the scroll a few more times for good measure.
You know the drill by now.
Crowley was not wrong. Aziraphale was... familiar, with the process. While they didn’t welcome this sort of visitor too often, at least a couple of times a year their gazes would meet and they’d reach a mutual, mischievous accord: let’s do it again.
So Aziraphale had watched Crowley draw the sigil on a wide variety of surfaces by this point, and was fairly confident in its sinuous thorny shape and the shape of the miraculous energy that needed to flow through it.
The thought of doing it on his own, though…
Crowley was just better at this sort of thing.
And Crowley tended to know exactly what to say to their visitors when they arrived. It helped that every Crowley - and indeed Crawly - they’d met had, it seemed, been plotting for this very eventuality in the back of their minds for as long as they could remember. There always seemed to be a sense of mutual congratulation as the realisation dawned.
On his own… Aziraphale really wasn’t sure.
Crowley had been away for weeks, though. Off on that blighted drizzly island to the North, flaunting his marvellous wiles and getting up to all sorts of shocking mischief. Leaving Aziraphale languishing here in Rome, all alone, with nothing but do-gooding and Nero-monitoring to occupy him. And now, this latest missive, saying his return home might not be as soon as they’d hoped… it had set the wheels turning.
Aziraphale looked around himself, mournfully.
Their villa seemed terribly empty, with only the statues for company. Officially Aziraphale’s villa, of course, but Crowley made himself known in a hundred small decorative details. The blue hyacinths he’d planted in tactical droves outside the bedroom window, the scent carrying inside whenever the sun shone. The kitchen garden bristling with rosemary and oregano and a variety of citrus bushes, not that Crowley ate more than a token most days. More plants, glossy and abundant with waxy, dark green leaves, flourished in the small private bathhouse that now adjoined their bedroom. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if it was the perpetual light and steam, or if Crowley was influencing them in some way, but the simple act of bathing now felt like slipping into a tropical paradise.
There were other details inside, more obvious the more one looked. The mosaic of an apple tree in the atrium, bearing luscious fruit that the observer seemed almost able to pluck. The tiny jade serpents on every windowsill, ostensibly for warding off malign entities, and the matching ornamental jade box Crowley kept on a shelf above the hearth in their bedroom, the lid carved with an exquisite relief of a snake eating its own tail. Aziraphale had never looked in this box - it might be empty for all he knew, or some joke he didn’t understand - but it gave him a warm feeling to know that if Crowley kept treasure, he left it in Aziraphale’s care.
And of course, their bed. Obscenely luxurious in an era where many still used straw to stuff a mattress. The broad headboard bore a carved wooden fresco of an orchard, stretching the width of the bed; there were lemons on some of the boughs, olives on others, and, in one corner, a dove and a viper, up high in the same tree.
No, the place felt quite awfully empty without him. As did the evening, stretching out in front of him with the promise of books or stargazing, or stargazing, or books. Or he could go push some nocturnal blessings upon the needy and destitute, he supposed. But he didn’t really feel like it.
He felt like… Well.
He felt like oysters.
Crawly felt like the safest bet. Three or four times now, they’d welcomed him. Each time, there had been that same initial aspect of confusion and disorientation, which seemed paradoxically to please Crowley.
“It means he’s doing his housekeeping,” he’d said, twirling an elegant finger in an explanatory spiral that did little to explain anything to Aziraphale whatsoever.
“The memories,“ Crowley had said, another time, with the brisk heavy intonation of somebody spelling something out to somebody who was operating at sub-celestial cognitive speed. “He’s not keeping them - not readily accessible, anyway. Which is exactly what we want.”
“Isn’t that quite inconvenient, though?“ Aziraphale had said. “If we have to keep explaining every time.”
Crowley had smiled. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Angel." He'd sidled closer, bending his mouth to Aziraphale's neck. "This is his wildest dream, always has been - since day one in Eden." His voice had dropped to a sibilant whisper in Aziraphale's ear. "He has wanted you forever... and wished there was a way to have you that didn’t fuck everything up. Besides," he'd added, in his normal voice, grinning broadly now, "wouldn’t you agree? He’s always been a quick study.“
Crowley was correct there.
Each of his past selves, without fail, had proved exceptionally quick on the uptake once it was spread out in front of them.
Still, it didn't mean it wasn’t going to feel a little bit awkward, when Crawly stepped through the portal and found Aziraphale, on his own, manipulating the infernal magic, apparently of his own invention. Crawly would probably have rather a lot of questions indeed.
Aziraphale opted to be dressed. Just in case.
Crowley had once admitted that he’d catalogued every new garment he saw Aziraphale wearing according to a scale of accessibility, noting any weak points for rending or ripping, should the opportunity arise.
Aziraphale chose the cream silk. Elegant, and delightful to move in. A flimsy, pale gold buckle cinched it at his hip, leaving his shoulders bare of ornamentation.
He sketched the sigil a few times in the air before nodding to himself. Right. Yes! He was ready.
He glanced out of the window. Sunset was fading out into deep, dusky blues, leaving the city wreathed in smoke and shadow. A few lamps were lit, but the moon hadn’t risen and there were no stars out yet. Early evening, then.
The way the sigil worked, Crowley had explained, was to establish a demonic anchor between this place in time and space with another - enabling his past self to slip through without disturbing anything in his own time. The portal could stay open for up to a day; break the sigil, and their guest would be returned to the precise minute and location they’d left behind. After twenty-four hours, however, too many universal alignments had changed, and the return journey couldn’t be safely predicted.
They hadn’t pushed the theory on its limit. Primarily because messy metaphysical accidents were best avoided, but largely because there hadn’t been any need. Crowley was in the habit of sending his counterparts back immediately afterward - they rapidly seemed to get on his nerves once the amusements for which they had been summoned were complete.
But tonight, with Crowley still languishing some unknowable distance away, Aziraphale couldn’t help imagining pushing that temporal boundary a little. It would be nice to sleep entwined, wouldn’t it? And maybe they could even get breakfast together?
As long as he scuffed through the lines of the sigil by sunset tomorrow evening, before the portal became unstable, it really shouldn’t cause any problems.
Aziraphale’s eyes unfocused, as he spent a few moments imagining taking Crawly for breakfast at his favourite taberna. That hair might raise a few eyebrows. It would be worth it to see Crawly’s face when he bit into one of those little spiced honey cakes, though. The ones with pistachios. Even Crowley could be occasionally partial to those.
Aziraphale smiled at the thought. Even if things didn’t go quite to plan, well… it would certainly be more interesting than a night on his own.
Right. Enough dallying. Onwards!
He wet his lips, squared his shoulders, and began.
The shape glowed in the same way that it always had for Crowley.
The smoky-acrid smell and the purple flames looked the same as every time before.
Aziraphale clasped his hands behind his back, trying not to let the giddy upward spiral of excitement burst through too quickly. It was difficult to contain himself completely, however.
He rocked on his toes as the purple flames flickered with familiar - just right! - brightness, and then, even as Aziraphale started to smile openly, the noise reverberated around the bedroom and—
Ah.
Aziraphale’s smile froze on his face, because something had quite clearly gone wrong after all. Somewhere deep in the mechanism of the miracle, or possibly in the execution of it—perhaps he’d hesitated somewhere crucial, perhaps he’d infused it with the wrong degree of celestial might—but something had definitely gone awry because the entity that stepped out into Aziraphale and Crowley‘s bedroom was not a Crowley.
It was not even a demon.
It was a pristine, white-robed, red-headed angel.
Fuck.
The angel stepped forth gingerly, lowering his foot with an air not unlike Cleopatra herself, stepping down from the polished luxury of her chariot onto an unguarded, earthen floor.
The angel’s gaze swept the room, with what looked like a cursory glance, but Aziraphale knew not a detail would have been missed; and then his lucid, brown-eyed gaze came to rest on Aziraphale.
“Oh, hello,” he said, with warmest professional courtesy. “Good to see you here, ah… ah…”
Aziraphale stared. Surely not. Surely he—
“Dreadfully sorry but you’re going to have to help me out, old fellow,” said the angel in possession of all of Crowley’s features in nascent form. And curls. Curls!
“Aziraphale.”
“Ah, yes, yes!” the angel replied, beaming, but whether it was with delight at solving the puzzle, or the delight of recognition, Aziraphale really couldn’t tell.
“We met.” And then, realising how rude that sounded, Aziraphale added, smiling through his teeth, “Ah - long time ago, obviously. Can’t expect you to remember. Ha ha. And… and your name is?“
This of course was masochistic of him. Funny, that.
“Oh of course, Aziraphale, of course I remember,” the angel said, clasping his hands together and nodding with more enthusiasm. “So what brings you here?”
“I brought you here,” Aziraphale said, before he could stop himself. He felt his cheeks heating.
The angel’s mouth made an O shape. “You did?” he exclaimed, and the depth of his sincere amazement made Aziraphale preen a little despite himself. “How so?”
Aziraphale made his voice as casual as possible. “Demonic portal.”
“Ha! Haha; oh, very good!” The angel looked around as if for a fellow audience to chuckle with. Finding he was alone, in a Roman bedroom, the smooth lines to his face crinkled momentarily. “Really? Wow.”
Aziraphale walked over to the table, poured himself a generous mug of wine. How had this all gone so completely off course? How, more importantly, did he reverse it? He was sure it was just a matter of scuffing up the sigil, but he’d mishandled the first part magnificently, hadn’t he? What if he fumbled the dismount as well?
Aziraphale took a slow sip, then another, calming himself.
He realised the angel was staring at him, fascination growing within his features as Aziraphale drank the wine.
Aziraphale cleared his throat and tried again. “What did you say your name was?”
“Raphael.”
Aziraphale had been prepared for it, had been braced for it, and still it was a dizzying sensation to hear that name in Crowley’s voice.
“Raphael?” Aziraphale said, testing the syllables in his mouth, tasting them. It was intensely peculiar. He took another swig of wine to settle his tongue, tried again. “Raphael…”
Raphael gave a little head wiggle. “That’s me!”
“Hhm. Yes. Can I get you a drink, Raphael?” Aziraphale asked, circling back to the table, the ampulla of wine; topping himself up and then pouring a second mug automatically, and setting it on the table next to his own.
Raphael gave the pair of mugs a wide-eyed appraisal. “Well, I never…”
‘No, I don’t suppose you ever did,” Aziraphale murmured, then gave a tiny laugh, shaking his head. What was he doing – offering wine to an angel? How had he strayed this far from the path? “It’s not like we have any vineyards in Heaven.”
“No,” Raphael agreed.
“Nor… potters,” Aziraphale said, looking at the mugs again, and laughed outright. What on Earth was he going on about? He felt like he was becoming hysterical. “No wonder I prefer it down here.”
Raphael stared at him. “You prefer it? Down here? Down here?”
Aziraphale glanced around at the bedroom – the bedroom he and Crowley shared, with all its earthy charms - and felt a flicker of wild, reckless pleasure. “Absolutely.”
“Gosh,” Raphael said, following his gaze around the room. He looked – in an uncomplicated sort of way – perplexed. Like he had absolutely no idea what Aziraphale was talking about. Like it was an entirely new idea, that anywhere might be preferable to the lofty places he’d always known.
And then, his gaze lighting back on the table, Raphael lifted his chin. “Go on, then.”
He suddenly sounded like Crowley.
Aziraphale stared back at him. “What?”
Raphael glanced at the second mug, then back to Aziraphale’s face. “Go on, then,” he repeated, softer this time.
Aziraphale felt his face heat up again. “Oh, well – only if you want to,” Aziraphale said quickly, and wrinkled his nose. “Bit of an acquired taste, really. Not for everyone. I, ah, I actually – really wouldn’t.”
Raphael’s gaze returned to him, his eyebrows raising mildly. For a moment, he looked like Crowley as well. “No?”
“No – ah – well – ah – yes, actually,” Aziraphale said, and cleared his throat. “If we’re talking about me, then yes, I would. Very partial, in fact, to a drop. But you – needn’t. Of course. No obligation whatsoever. Unless, that is... You want to.”
Raphael’s eyebrows levelled again. His uncomplicated look was back, a smoothing of his features that made Aziraphale’s fingers twitch. He said simply, “I do want to.”
“Great!” Aziraphale exclaimed, cheeks feeling hotter still. What was he doing? He felt like he was dancing around. He circled back to Raphael, making a production of solemnly handing over the mug as an excuse to get a really good look at him.
They were so similar. And so different. Aziraphale knew every inch of Crowley’s body, by now, and yet here – this was an absolute unknown. His presence was vastly different to the other Crowleys they had drawn into their circle of interaction; they all shared a history, sidelong smirks, a certain tension around the eyes, a wry purpose.
They had all fallen. They had all picked themselves back up again.
Raphael was entirely new.
Aziraphale stared at him. Every angle of Crowley’s face was there, every beloved line of his body, and yet they were all softer, somehow, and more glowy, as if gravity worked slightly less well on Raphael’s form. His wings weren’t visible, but there was an extra lightness around him, as if he was illuminated by a rogue shaft of especially flattering sunlight. It was intriguing and disconcerting at once. And that hair!
While Aziraphale made his examination, Raphael was tilting the mug of wine warily from side to side, pouting at it. It looked like he was having a silent conversation with himself.
Eventually he lifted the mug halfway to his mouth, then hesitated, wide eyes flicking to Aziraphale. “And then I…?”
Aziraphale nodded encouragingly. “If, ah – if you want.”
“I do want,” Raphael said, softly, more to himself than to Aziraphale.
Moving so slowly that it was almost ludicrous, Raphael raised the mug to his mouth. His lips parted, and Aziraphale felt a surprising little shiver at that. He’d kissed those lips. But – not. Not those lips. He’d kissed Crowley’s. This was… different. These lips hadn’t kissed anyone.
Raphael tipped the mug, taking a small amount of dark wine into his mouth and then swallowing abruptly. “Oh!”
Aziraphale found himself unaccountably hanging on to his every syllable.
“Oh, that’s… extraordinary,” Raphael said.
Aziraphale flushed with the praise, even though it wasn’t exactly aimed at him. “Do you think?”
Raphael took another sip, deeper this time. “It’s… it tastes so good,” he said, wonderingly, when he lowered the mug again.
Aziraphale hid his smile by taking another sip of his own wine. “It is a rather nice vintage, isn’t it? Crowley knows a man,” he said, and then shut his mouth abruptly—but the angel didn’t even look askance at the name.
“I’ve never experienced anything quite like it,” Raphael was saying, leaning his hip against the table and regarding his mug with a reverent expression.
“I must admit I am quite an enthusiast,” Aziraphale said.
Raphael smiled at him. It felt like being bathed in sunlight. “Well, thank you for introducing me to this delightful experience,” he said, all effusive sincerity, and there was something in how he said that which made Aziraphale remember his original intentions in opening the damned portal.
“You’re, ah… very welcome.” Aziraphale’s own voice sounded a little faint. He could feel every silken fold of his robe as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“It’s so delicious. And it’s so interesting how when it’s here,” Raphael said, touching two fingertips to his lips, looking Aziraphale directly in the eye, “it tastes delicious, but when it’s here,” and he stroked down his own breastbone, long fingers splaying, “it feels delicious – do you know what I mean?”
Aziraphale stared for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Ah… yes,” he said, nodding deeply. Don’t perve on the angel. The angel has no idea what it’s doing. The angel is not touching its mouth at you. It’s just… being an angel. “Yes, I – that is wine. Wine is yummy!”
“Wine is yummy,” Raphael agreed earnestly, and then took a longer sip. A tiny bead of gleaming dark red collected at the corner of his mouth, clung there when he lowered his mug again.
Aziraphale fought the sudden twin urges to look away, all too aware of his own inappropriate attention – or to lean in and wipe it off with his thumb.
Raphael put him out of his misery by sliding his tongue over the corner of his mouth, then swallowing again. The faintest discolouration of wine clung to his lips.
“So,” Raphael said, focusing entirely on Aziraphale again, quirking a smile. “Obviously this discovery is a happy accident. For which I’m grateful, of course. But… why did you bring me here?”
“Ah,” Aziraphale said. “Well. Yes. That.”
And Crowley, of course, chose precisely that moment to arrive home.