Egypt, 1600 BCE

The demon Crawly was really enjoying Egypt. He loved the sunshine, the parties, the perfume, the food, the alcohol, the music, the hunting, the constant aura of temptation in the air. He loved the currying of favour, the chasing of status, and constant betrayals among officials and nobles. He loved the jealousy of wives and concubines, the resentment between rich and poor. He even loved the crocodiles.

His second favourite thing was the clothes. He had been around humans long enough to realise that half-nakedness could be more provocative than going entirely nude, and a short, clinging translucent linen skirt that might as well be nothing at all for all it concealed was one of the most powerful weapons in his arsenal of temptation. Top it off with with enough obsidian and precious red glass in snake motifs, and it was highly satisfying to his—well, soul.

His very favourite thing was the custom of nose-kissing as a friendly greeting. Such an innocent thing, rubbing noses. But tilt your head just right, look through your lashes with the right burning intensity, and the person you were greeting couldn't help but notice that your breath was mingling. Couldn't help thinking about whether, if they moved their mouths just a little forward, your lips would meet. Crawly was an expert at wordlessly implying that if anything like that would happen, he would deepen the kiss and throw all restraint to the wind, no matter who was watching.

Aziraphale fluttered and pulled away from the greeting hastily, and looked everywhere else but at Crawly, and then if he couldn't resist it, sidelong back at him, and all the practice at seductive nose rubbing seemed worth it. Crawly let a smile play on his lips and didn't push it. He was learning patience. All the time in the world.

What Crawly didn't really like was the boats. Too close to too much cold wetness. But he needed at least one luxury vessel in order to pass as the kind of human he tried to be.

The more their unspoken Arrangement came into play, the more antsy Aziraphale became about clandestine meetings, and it was beginning to strain Crawly's ingenuity to think of believable ways to run into each other. Entertaining a collector of manuscripts on his boat in order to tempt him into selling a few rare scrolls was as good a reason as any, even if Crawly could do without the audience of musicians and oarsmen.

He didn't, on reflection, even mind all that much that they had lost the easy open companionship of Kukkutarma. Aziraphale's caution and the need for multitudes of covert plans and little evasions made Crawly feel like a guilty secret, and Crawly liked guilty secrets. By the nature of them, they tended to be cherished close to the self, draining a little virtue out every heartbeat. Besides, he had confidence that he would regain Aziraphale's willingness to share a house, when... Well. He didn't really dare form that thought any more solidly in the fluffy but disconcertingly sharp presence of the angel. Those thoughts were for when he was alone.

He had time. At least four thousand years, give or take.

"You could sell me some," he said, letting an aggrieved tone into his voice. "To maintain your cover as a manuscript dealer, at least."

"Hush." Aziraphale gave an agitated look around, but the slaves were discreetly apart from them. "I have a responsibility to preserve them. They are precious, magical texts—"

Crawly snorted. "That's rich, coming from you."

"Well, the humans believe they are magical. I don't trust you to look after them properly. I mean, look at your garden."

"It's not my fault. I pay my gardeners enough to maintain it."

Aziraphale sighed, taking a seat by the precious inlaid board game of twenty squares. Crawly had spent a great deal on it, remembering nights playing it in Babylon and Kukkatarma. Crawly had never yet convinced the angel to gamble on it, but he would some day. The board was a lovely thing, but the memories of togetherness were what he wanted to provoke.

"Dear boy, if you would like me to come take a look at your plants, just ask."

Crawly looked out at the water, at the lotuses unfurling gentle fronds as they passed, the reeds becoming more verdant, the world responding to the angel's presence. He imagined his costly and rather sad garden blooming at Aziraphale's feet. Then wilting again out of spite after he left.

"No, no," Crawly sighed. "I'm not giving up. There's a trick to plants, I just have to figure it out." He took up a handful of pyramid dice, and tossed them, moving an obsidian soul into play.

"So, how have things been on your end?" Aziraphale asked more quietly. "Oh, I get a second move." Two shining ivory souls moved onto the board.

"Good enough. Downstairs seem happy. Yours?" Over the years in Egypt, they had come to a kind of implicit arrangement over the years that while Crowley was left to party and run amok among the nobles and entertainers, Aziraphale had a free hand with the peasants and scholars. It suited both their styles, and the commendations were stacking up from both sides.

Aziraphale bit his lip in the way that always suggested that his better self was telling him not to say something. Crawly waited patiently for Aziraphale's more rule-breaking self to win. After all, cheats always had the advantage. It was part of Crawly's philosophy in life.

He rolled his handful of dice again and moved. What did that space mean again? Either a powerful new rival, or discovering a new good beer, if he was right. Well, there were worse human prophecies. Prophecies were more in Aziraphale's line, anyway.

Crawly signalled for more beer, taking it as a sign, and waited. The drums beat gently, the sound of harps and flutes drifting across the Nile with them.

"I've heard that Gabriel will be appearing here soon, in person." It was almost inaudible.

Crawly stared pointedly away, watching a crocodile paddle almost imperceptibly though the shallows. He didn't want to make Aziraphale feel more anxious and clammed up by too obviously paying attention.

"Checking up on you?"

"I don't think so." Aziraphale captured one of Crawly's souls and moved it off the board. "He seems quite happy with me, and there's no reason he'd know about you. Expect something big, Uriel said. She seemed quite excited about it."

Crawly frowned. Uriel. One of the angels who smited a bit harder and with more pleasure than strictly necessary, a far more common type than Aziraphale. There was no way this could be good news. He rolled again. No move possible.

"I don't decide these things," Aziraphale said, his voice gentle and sorrowful, as if he was fearing the same.

Crawly felt an unaccustomed stab of guilt, remembering other cities. But this lot—this lot were not so bad. Merrily tripping to Hell on wine and gold, a lot of his acquaintances, and he didn't mind helping them along the way. At least Hell was less boring than Heaven, where none of them would fit in anyway. But there as a lot worse going on elsewhere in the world without obvious demonic intervention, and Gabriel hadn't been sent elsewhere.

"I suppose I should stay and get in the way of his plans," he said slowly. He took a long gulp of the beer. It really was good.

"No, my dear, you certainly should not!" Crowley looked directly at Aziraphale for the first time in a bit, and noted that his companion was pale under his tan. "Gabriel isn't like me!"

"No one is like you, angel." It came out far more sincerely than he meant it to, almost tenderly. He blushed and looked away from the angel. "Gabriel is a bastard," he said, extra snarl in his voice for the embarrassment.

"That's not true," Aziraphale said indignantly. "He's very righteous and kind."

"Righteous, I can see," said Crawly, remembering tempting him to Fall no avail. It bothered him still, in a way, that he hadn't found the right way in. If he had found the right trigger—vanity, perhaps? Pride? His own vanity hated the idea that Lucifer had sent the wrong angel to negotiate with Gabriel. "Painfully so. Kind, no. He hasn't come to the world's surface before, has he?"

"Not that I know of. It must be something huge to bring him personally." Aziraphale leaned forward, brow creased earnestly. His hand reached out, just for a moment, as if it was going to take Crawly's hand, then fell back and scooped up the dice instead. "My dear, you must leave. What about the Yellow River? There's some interesting developments there." He took a deep breath. "I could join you, afterwards. Just to compare notes."

"I like this river. I'm not going to slither off with my tail between my legs over a mere archangel," Crawly said, getting a bit confused with his animals, maybe because of all the crocodiles. "Don't worry. I won't give you away." He sent a black soul home.

"That's not what I'm worried about! Crawly, you're not under Her protection anymore. Gabriel is the angel set to preside over serpents!" Aziraphale pressed his lips together in agitation, eyes very round and gleaming like the Nile in their surrounding paint.

"I'm not actually a snake, you know," Crawly said, touched beyond measure. He remembered protective hands carrying him back from the desert. Saving a demon from his fate.

"Are you so sure are about that? Even in Heaven, you were a burning serpent, weren't you?"

"And I outranked Gabriel." He moved a soul to the Afterlife. "Don't worry about me, angel." He didn't even try to stop the tenderness in his voice this time. He couldn't remember, ever, anyone this concerned for him. Technically in Heaven, he had been loved by every other being, but personalconcern, to care so intensely about his safety... That was something else entirely. Something that made him ache in an almost frightening way.

"How am I supposed to help worrying? You don't sometimes seem to have the sense you were Created with!"

Crawly grinned at him, oddly pleased by the testiness, especially when Aziraphale looked close to frustrated tears. He resisted the temptation to reach across and stroke the side of the innocent, worried face. He didn't usually resist temptations, but something told him this was the wrong moment for too much contact. For a start, he felt the danger of the Indus Valley, that any touch would be followed by unwisely unguarded words, with the angel having such a perilously melting expression under the surface irritation. If they got back to Beezlebub somehow, well, he didn't want to think about it.

"Try some figs, Aziraphale. They're perfectly ripe, and you'll feel better for something sweet. I made sure we brought them just for you. The most delicious honey cakes, too." He drained his beer, and gestured to a handmaiden to bring some delicacies.

"See what I mean?" Aziraphale stood up suddenly, drawing his skirt around him, flustered. Gold jewellery gleamed on the perspiration sheened skin of his plush chest. "You can't distract me with sweetmeats like I was a child!"

"History would seem to say otherwise," Crawly said without thinking, then winced as the light snapped off in Aziraphale's expression. "Angel. Angel, I didn't mean it. Don't take offence."

"Do what you like," Aziraphale said, his voice tight. "I warned you, which is more than I should do for—" He glanced at the servants and lowered his voice, protecting Crawly even when angry. "For a demon and Adversary." He raised his voice again, and requested to be let off the boat.

Crawly let him go, rolling the dice over and over, idly moving for both sides. All the little souls, captured in Heaven and in Hell. A game they took turns winning, even though Crawly cheated on principle.

Aziraphale was right, he reluctantly admitted. He didn't want to run into an avenging angel, and frankly if there was going to be a repeat of Sodom, he didn't particularly want to watch it. There was a whole world out there to explore and experience. It was ridiculous and childish to want to stay in Egypt just because Aziraphale was there. He would go, and when whatever Gabriel was doing was all over, running into his personal angel again was the simplest thing in the world. Aziraphale never misplaced his temper for long.

He wondered what Gabriel's form would be like. Righteous. Not soft and plump and loveable, a gentle form to guide humans with, but hard and cold and perfect.

Aziraphale had spoken of Gabriel with admiration. He was almost sure he had, and why not? A shining, righteous, unFallen angel with sword in hand, not a snake-like demon who had been irrationally clingy since the Garden.

But there was no way Gabriel felt like Crawly did about Aziraphale. He couldn't have resisted following him to Earth if he felt half as drawn to him, had felt half as much—as strongly—if he—felt— The word lurked at the edge of his mind, unthinkable.

Crawly ordered more beer, cursing to himself. He was sure he was in big trouble. And possibly in an exquisite version of Hell.

Notes:

1) I've changed the description, as this story hasn't really become the kind of light-hearted dates through the ages fic I initially had in mind. Just can't help myself with the pining and angst and tortured demon.

2) Twenty Squares is also known as the Royal Game of Ur, and was played throughout antiquity from Mesopotamia onwards. T requested that they play it, which was a fantastic idea, and I wasted way too much time playing it online myself to become familiar. It's fun, if you like elegant abstract strategy on a pretty board. It was apparently sometimes also used for fortune telling

3) I probably don't have to say this at this point, but please do not try too hard to correlate the dates with evidence based history. Date taken from biblehub.com this time.

4) Just an interlude, but at least I can catch my breath before I tackle Risen!Crowley and Fallen!Gabriel. I won't keep you waiting too long.

5) Seriously, thank you with the comments. You guys make this such a joy.