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If you'd have met Aziraphale Fell in London, you'd have thought him a neat, tidy sort of person. He favoured vintage clothes, always carefully maintained, waistcoats and bow ties. His shoes were always polished. He looked like a gentleman, if one a little out of time.
Aziraphale doubted anybody who knew him back home would recognise him now. His trousers were covered in dust, his shirt was dark with sweat, his shoes had steel-toe caps, and his hair was a frizzy disaster under his wide-brimmed hat. His hands were filthy, his nails ragged, and he had never been happier.
They were close, he could feel it, the certainty thrumming through him, pushing him to keep working even when the heat of the desert at Giza demanded he stop.
A shadow fell over him.
"Will me telling you to take a break have any effect at all?"
Aziraphale looked up briefly, wiping a slowly trickling bead of sweat from his brow and leaving a dark smudge in its place. He took the cool bottle of water offered to him, downing half of it and pushing off his hat to pour the rest over his head.
"We're so close," he replied. "Just a little more…"
"Whatever it is, it's survived six thousand years in the sand. It'll still be there if you take a break."
Despite his words, the shadow moved, becoming a figure squatting beside him, picking up a trowel and starting to help.
Aziraphale had never worked with Professor Anthony Crowley before, although he had known of his reputation. Crowley was something of a rockstar in the archaeology world, sauntering around in tight trousers, giving interviews. Aziraphale had been amazed to have been personally invited on this dig, to work alongside him.
And not just work, as it had transpired, although the beds in camp were so narrow that underneath was often a more accurate word than alongside.
But Aziraphale had been swept along by more than just the dizzying rush of shared attraction and lust. Whatever Crowley's dig was about to uncover, Aziraphale knew it would be something wonderful, something groundbreaking, and he was just as determined as Crowley was to find it.
"I'll take a break soon," he promised. "You can go and rest."
"I won't leave you on your own." Crowley settled in beside him. "Another hour, and then we go inside. Or I'll have to write a report about your insubordination."
It was an empty threat, they both knew it. Whatever it was that was gripping Aziraphale, it had Crowley just as firmly in its clutches.
Ninety minutes later, they found it. Or part of it, at least.
"How big do you suppose it is?" Aziraphale asked carefully brushing away the sand to reveal the finer details.
"Bigger than I thought," Crowley said, hand sketching a circle in the air over their site, estimating the arc of it. "If it's reasonably intact…six, seven meters maybe?"
"Look at this!" Aziraphale said, drawing Crowley's attention back to the small section he'd cleared. "This design…I've seen this before. But it's not a hieroglyph…"
Crowley's fingers met his, tracing the indented shape. For a moment, the heat of that touch distracted Aziraphale from their discovery.
"Serpens Caput."
"Sorry?"
"It's a constellation." Crowley moved faster, brushing away another patch of sand to find a second symbol. Aziraphale followed. "This one's Libra."
"So it's some sort of…star chart?" Aziraphale guessed.
Crowley frowned, his fingers still pressed against the symbol, almost like he didn't want to stop touching it. Something Aziraphale would have thought silly half an hour ago, but now…
"The alignment's off," Crowley said. "Serpens and Libra, they're neighbours, but the spacing, the angle…" He trailed off in contemplation.
"I didn't know you knew so much about astronomy."
"Oh, I'm full of surprises, angel." Crowley turned to him and for a moment, despite the sweat and the sand and the chapped lips, their kiss was enough to make Aziraphale forget about what they'd found.