London, Present Day

Crowley was quite pleased with his choice of bar. It was one of his favourite hang outs. It served over three hundred purely organic and biodynamic wines of indifferent quality and absurdly high price. They tended to come from little boutique vineyards of high pretension and low yield, one of his favourite inventions to help encourage in humans a sense of pride and vainglory while spending money indulging in vice. Was he supposed to care about that kind of point scoring any more? Still, it was a bad job executed with style, and as he glanced at the price list on his phone, he felt a little warm glow of craftsmanship.

The wine bar also had a selection of tiny raw vegan cakes to ply Aziraphale with, in case the angel was still a little acidic from the night before. Crowley suspected the judicious application of sugar might be helpful. Date "no sugar" sugar, at that, because old things cycled back into favour, and humans were ever self delusional. Aziraphale had adored dates, at least of the edible kind, for thousands of years.

All of this was rationalisation. The real reason he had chosen the bar was that he associated it with evil deeds, and therefore being a not-Aziraphale place, and Crowley no longer wanted not-Aziraphale places in the new world. He was planning on systematically eliminating them all by dragging the angel to all of them, and it was easier to start with the ones he'd find least shocking.

Six o'clock. Two hours to go. He wished Aziraphale believed in mobile phones so he could text him to make sure their date was still on despite the quarrel. No, that would be humiliating.

Crowley switched on the TV, but couldn't convince himself he was watching it. No strange events, no casters or actors suddenly talking to him. Boring. Had he really saved—or helped to save—the world just to be left at loose ends and bored? He had always specialised in sloth as his particular vice. He didn't usually need to concentrate on relaxing.

Why the hand, and then the swift rejection of the kiss? What had he missed? When had the rules of the game changed?

Crowley switched the TV off and set music blasting on his sleek sound system. Carl Orff. That seemed to suit his mood. He flung himself on a throne, drink in hand, and let the Carmina Burana swell up and over him, the choir raging against Fate.

Fate is against me in health and virtue,
driven on and weighted down,
always enslaved.

Crowley toyed with the chains around his neck then caught himself. Oh, now he was being melodramatic. Probably even a Freddie Mercury solo album would have been less self indulgent than O Fortuna. He would die of shame if the angel saw him posing brooding in a throne to a soundtrack of swelling choirs. The mixture of affectionate amusement and pity would completely discorporate him.

He checked his beloved watch, which had survived a flaming car quite as well as it was supposed to survive deep sea diving. Seven o'clock. Good enough. He left the flat.

Aziraphale was dressed, smiling amiably and smelling of tasteful chypre cologne over his general scent of sunshine and clean air and incense. He didn't mention that Crowley was almost an hour early, and didn't pretend to be immersed in his books and to have forgotten all about their plans, so Crowley was clearly not being punished too badly for his lack of discretion.

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale's clothes and forbore to comment. Anyway, in this kind of a bar, ill defined vintage eccentricity would fit right in, as long as it also looked expensive.

He pulled the Bentley into a No Parking space on principle, and willed a space in the traffic to appear to cross the road to the bar. He stepped forward onto the road and nearly tripped at a sudden pressure just above his back waistband.

He wasn't wrong. There was a hand resting on the small of his back, guiding him across the road. Aziraphale was close next to him, very close, because his left arm wasn't between them but behind Crowley, and the angel's hand was on his back, meaning the angel's arm was practically around his waist. Crowley could feel the mild heat of Aziraphale's side pressed against his own arm and he had to focus quite hard on the mechanics of human legs, because his legs seemed on the edge of reverting to slithering.

When they reached the footpath Aziraphale's arm dropped, he fell behind, and Crowley stepped ahead through the door.

What the existence were the rules supposed to be now?

The bar was all blonde wood lined with bottles numbered on chalk boards. The clientele were perfect in Crowley's general way of things. They were insecure and nervy, jostling on a knife's edge professionally, and it was oh so easy to give them little pushes while the natural wines were interfering with their balance. The resulting injustices and dishonesties would spread out and darken the spiritual water like a spoon of Yunnan dropped in a teapot of freshly boiled water.

But not tonight. Crowley had an angel practically on his arm, and the strange sense that the small of his back was still deliciously warm.

He glared at a young professional couple on a small table until they grabbed their glasses and moved to the long bar, and pulled out Aziraphale's stool with a flourish, feeling giddy and chivalrous all of a sudden.

"You didn't have to hiss at them, dear," Aziraphale said mildly, taking the seat anyway.

Crowley wasn't aware he had hissed. He might have, or Aziraphale might be intentionally keeping him off balance. It was too much mental effort to work out which, especially as his brain cells seemed to have stopped functioning properly, and what was left of them was somewhat distracted. Why the comfortable, possessive hand on his back after the tiff last night? Was it possessive, or was he desperately imagining it?

"I'll go order," he said. Wine might help.

Kukkutarma, Indus Valley, 1932 BCE

The marketplace was rich with scents and bright colours, and almost too much opportunity. Crawly watched with satisfaction as two merchants argued over whether one of the others had cheated. He noted a dancing girl taking opportunity of the fuss to slip a slender hand over a very costly double string of carnelian beads and slip away through the crowds. Nice one. The merchant turned back to his stall, already angry, and noticed the missing beads. His forehead set in a scowl, and Crawly could almost feel the wrath and resentment building up in the man's heart.

It was always best if you could start off a chain reaction, he was beginning to realise. There were so many humans now. They'd been repopulating like no one's business, especially since they had been scattered from Shinar. There had to be five thousand or so in this city now, unimaginable as it seemed. And only a few hundred demons active on the surface. The humans seemed to be winning by sheer weight of numbers. Couldn't spend months whispering in a woman's ear about apples these days.

"Oh, that looks perfectly ripe." A sunny voice, as familiar to him as his own, although only heard a few times. How had he memorised the cadences so perfectly? "And some dates, please."

Only a few steps away, he could see a halo of pale hair, a shell bracelet shining against a rounded forearm, beaded and embroidered white and gold robes falling over the other shoulder, bare solid calves. Lustrous as a pearl among all the humans, bright and obvious, rather than sliding among them like a reptile. He closed the gap.

"What's that orange yellow thing you're holding?" Crawly asked, tapping on the bare shoulder.

"Crawly!" Happiness again, in the blue eyes. He had been forgiven for the Tower of Babel, he supposed, even if Aziraphale had ever connected it with him. He had been sure to take off before everything turned to chaos. "It's a mango. Have you ever tried one?" He held it up invitingly.

"No." He tested the air tentatively. It tasted sweet and sunny and possibly angelic. "Can't say that I have."

Aziraphale beamed, like a mother about to give a favourite son a treat. "Then you must accompany me home and try it."

"Thought you'd never ask."

They strolled side by side to, Crawly couldn't help noticing, what were rather palatial quarters once again. "Still working as a scribe?"

"Well, of course. Writing is the most wonderful thing, my dear fellow. You put the words on a tablet, or a signboard, or even an ornament, and they are never lost. Kept forever, for anyone to enjoy and learn from." He gave a deep sigh of pleasure. "Humans really are clever."

"I never learned to read or write the stuff. Thought they'd get over the fashion." They passed into a living courtroom, cool with thick green leaves and flowers. Crawly stared suspiciously at a small monkey perched in one of the trees. It seemed to be making a face at him.

"Then you must allow me to teach you."

Crawly glanced sideways at him. Aziraphale's face was lit from within with enthusiasm, and it didn't seem to occur to him that he had just offered a demon a form of communication that could stay in existence forever, in which he could write absolutely anything he liked. Crawly grinned.

"I may just let you do that." He folded himself up on a cushion.

Aziraphale smiled at him as if Crawly had just conferred an enormous favour on him. "Now, let's try this."

He produced a small copper knife, and scored the skin of the big orange fruit, turning it gently. Juice flowed out, and covered his plump fingers, but he ignored it, intent on producing the fruit. He pulled off the skin, and cut a slice, holding it out to Crawly. "Here. Taste it."

Crawly gave the mango a suspicious glare. He shouldn't really take food directly from an angel's hands, he supposed. Of course, he had let him pour him beer, and share a meal brought by servants, but what if this fruit was blessed or something?

He looked into the clear, expectant eyes of Aziraphale, and bit into the fruit.

It really did taste like it looked. Sweet and golden, like edible sunshine. He licked a drop of juice from his lip.

"I don't need to hand feed you, do you?" Surely he was imagining the unsteadiness in Aziraphale's voice. "Take the whole slice, dear fellow."

Crawly obediently took the entire slice into his mouth, letting his lips touch the angel's fingers, his forked tongue briefly flickering out to gather some juice from the fingers.

"Oh dear." Aziraphale turned bright right. "I forget that you are, well." Crawly expected him to say a demon, but instead he said, "A serpent. You really should learn to use your hands more. You'd fit in better with the humans."

"I'm pretty good with my hands, but I'm better with my tongue," Crawly hazarded, to see how the angel would react.

"I'm sure you are, dear," said Aziraphale, and Crawly felt it was an innuendo completely wasted. The angel sliced the mango further, and offered some dates, and they sat and munched for a while in companionable silence, until the monkey scampered out of the tree and snatched a date, running up Aziraphale's arm.

Crawly found that unconscionably annoying. No creature, he decided, had the right to coil around this particular angel's arm but him. He flicked a date pit at the monkey, and it sprang onto a trunk and back up a tree.

"Really," the angel said reproachfully, and Crawly grinned at him, feeling much happier. There was something about being reproached like that which made him feel like he had been embraced. He picked up and bit into a large slice of mango, and the juice ran down his face and, annoyingly, onto his dress.

"Bless."

"Probably not a safe course of action for a demon," the angel said vaguely. "You have made rather a mess of yourself. Would you like to bathe? I have a heated bath. Humans really do come up with the most astoundingly nice things."

"We don't need to bathe, you know." Crawly said. "We can just make it disappear."

"Perhaps, but baths are awfully nice. I should think you'd enjoy the heat."

"It's an idea." He looked directly at Aziraphale, who was meticulously wiping his own face with a cloth. "Want to join me?"

"I'm not sure that would be a good idea."

"You never bathe with the humans?"

"Well, of course. In the public baths. Not alone together."

Crawly grinned at him. "Why? Don't trust yourself around me?" He leaned closer in, reaching for Aziraphale's hand again. Aziraphale put it behind his back.

"It's not me I don't trust," the angel said firmly. "The bath is on the first floor, ask Kalidasa to prepare you."

"All right." Crawly stood and stretched. "But you're not getting rid of me that easily. You've promised to teach me to write."

"I'll get the guest quarters set up," Aziraphale said, looking pleased. That, again. Pleasure. As if there was nothing strange at all in the thought of an angel giving a fallen angel lessons in human skills.

Crawly was sure it would be an interesting few weeks. Months, if he could spin it.

Notes:

1) Format is probably going to be a full chapter in the post-nonApocalypse continuity alternated by a chapter in historical times from now on, but I wanted to set the pattern up early.