Thrones and jungles

Angels, Crowley decided, were less nice than reputed. Certainly less nice than his admittedly fuzzy memories of hell, and rather more clear memories over the last millennium of one particular angel in particular.

He glared at the phone. He was not going to call again. Just because the world would end in a few days was no reason to be clingy. He could spend it... thinking. Yes. That would be productive. Thinking about how to thwart the Antichrist. Thinking about how not to end up in a fire pit, being tortured and bored out of his bloody brain.

Sod it, he was almost ready to turn on the stereo and have a chat with Satan, just to have someone call him "darling" and "love" as if he was important. He'd always been a bit of a pet of Satan's, back from the old unfallen days when they'd worked on Venus together.

Great idea that was. Hi, lord, yes, things are going well up here. I misplaced your only son, and I'm currently hunting him down and vaguely planning to kill him, why do you ask? Do let me know if the Angel of the Bottomless Pit turns up actually in his personal Pit, lord. Wouldn't want to waste our time looking.

Besides, there was always the danger that He would speak in Kylie Minogue's voice again, and that wasn't to be contemplated.

When had he become lonely so easily? He had spent thousands of years mostly alone. It wasn't really how it had been supposed to be. They were all in it together, the Prince of Heaven and his gang. They were going to form their own heavenly host, make their own heaven, overthrow Her and establish a rational community in which the word ineffable had been banned and more fun than singing hymns was allowed.

It hadn't really worked out to plan.

Crowley slouched in his throne and was immediately embarrassed at himself. Why the hell did he have this monstrosity, anyway? It hardly went with the industrial chic of his flat. It had been sitting in Harrods. He loved Harrods. It was carefully designed to foster snobbery, acquisitiveness and vanity. One of his best.

He'd popped in on a slow day to spread some extra greed and envy around, and the throne had caught his eye. Like much of Harrods furniture, it wasn't something a reasonable person would eat their supper on. It had obviously designed to encourage the vainglory and self-idolatry of pop stars and soccer players. It was the tackiest thing he'd ever seen.

It went straight home with him.

Did he need to remind himself that he had been a Seraph on a far more impressive throne, back in the day? To distinguish himself from the life a used book dealer lived? Or was it because Crowley, for all his attempts to be some definition of cool for whatever era he was in, had no taste?

It wasn't even comfortable, for Satan's sake. And he was... pining in it. Pining.

Not pining for evil glory. Not pining for power. Not even pining for lost Heaven—after all, he'd been lonely and bored and slightly irritated most of the time there, too.

Pining for *attention.* From an angel.

When had that happened, again? When had Aziraphale stopped being an occasional indulgence and become a necessary part of life? They'd spent the last eleven year barely apart, of course, raising a kid together even, and Crowley was secretly very proud of what a delightfully disrepectful and rebellious child Warlock had turned out to be. Chip off the old —of someone else's old block.

But sometime before that, Aziraphale had ended up on speed dial on Crowley's phone.

Phone. That was it. Modern technology. Humans had nailed the whole never apart thing. No flying across the continents for a chat, hoping no one spotted the wings. It was too temptingly easy to pick up a phone and—

—why didn't Aziraphale want to talk to Crowley? He'd finally gotten him in the Bentley, and all he cared about was being dropped off? Why would he avoid Crowley?

Because Crowley was a wanker lolling around alone in a gold and red plush throne? The world was coming to an end, no time to worry about trivial things like taste.

Crowley poured himself some of the brandy he'd been keeping to share, and brooded. He was good at brooding. It was as much of a job skill as lurking.

Then he picked up the phone. Again.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale sounded distracted and fretful. "What time in the morning is it?"

"Why do you care? You don't sleep. Virtue is ever vigilant, right?"

He waited for a snappy answer, but Aziraphale didn't say anything at all. Almost as though he didn't have enough attention for Crowley. Almost as if he was looking longingly at something or someone else, waiting for Crowley to hang up so that he could attend to it.

"And after I bought you chocolate and flowers, too!" Oh, great. That would make him seem less needy. Good job.

"What?" That, at least, got a little of Aziraphale's attention. "Are you sure? It doesn't sound like you. No, no, no, I'm quite sure I would remember something like that." Aziraphale sounded quite fretful.

"Back when—" Crowley paused. "Oh. I suppose didn't actually give them to you." There was silence, while the serpent in his heart writhed in humiliation. "Anyway, it was a few centuries ago. Never mind."

"Chocolates and flowers? Whatever for?" Crowley could *hear* the puzzled blinking.

"Anyway, obviously no news on the kid, me either, talk to you soon, ciao," he babbled, hanging up.

That bloody bookshop. He hadn't been able to resist buying something to celebrate the opening.

And, in the end, he had never had the courage to turn up and give them to Aziraphale anyway, not after their last quarrel. Courage? What would have happened that needed courage, anyway? Aziraphale would have beamed and taken great delight in tasting the chocolates and the flowers would have bloomed in the bookshop a very long time without wilting, and remained as a constant reminder that the blasted bookshop had been Crowley's idea in the first place, and that he spent altogether too much time trying to conjure up an angel's smile.

Perhaps he was right to worry.

He'd bought them. Then lurked around the bookshop a bit, made sure some louts who would find it funny to set the rich guy's books on fire were distracted by news of a tempting horse robbery just down the street. Crowley took a malign satisfaction in what his horse would do to them. If he had to suffer through steeds with flaming eyes and knif-edged hooves, he shouldn't be the only one to suffer. Then he left.

000000000

1742

The bookshop had been a well thought out temptation. One of Crowley's best. Aziraphale, for all his holiness, was not above a bit of covetousness.

"Well, purely to preserve the books," Aziraphale said, rubbing beautifully soft hands together. "Protecting human knowledge and creativity is a virtue. We can't have a disaster like the Library of Alexandrina again. I can make sure they go to good homes, homes where they are cherished and protected. Spread knowledge and literature among the populace. And in the meantime—" The glow in his eyes was as luminous as the sun filtering through the forest leaves.

They were in the Andes Mountains or, as they had come to an unspoken understanding anywhere but New York, where they had been checking out the local restaurants not too long ago. Since then Crowley had gone to Russia and the angel had gone to Bavaria, but neither place had been quite far enough.

He and Aziraphale had agreed that they needed to come out and have a chat to this Atahualpa Apu-Inca fellow, and find out if either of their sides were behind his holy visions. Mostly, however, they had just wanted to escape the stench of burning bodies in New York.

"You can find them good homes, true. And in the short term, you can talk to them and stroke their covers," Crowley agreed. He flicked a moth from Aziraphale's shoulder, and repressed a wince of discomfort as he realised Aziraphale was taking another imperceptible step downward. The road to hell was paved with tiny compromises, with oysters and olives and wonderful music, tragic plays and arrangements and *books*.

Had to be better than gibbetting men alive. He shuddered, and turned to his companion.

"For a demon, you do have the nicest ideas, my dear," Aziraphale said happily. Crowley shuddered again, for a different reason.

"Don't spoil this afternoon. I'm not nice. I'm just thinking about all the works of evil and corruption you provide for the humans."

"I'm sure I will only stock very improving books," Aziraphale said primly. He bristled at Crowley's scornful laugh. "Well. Maybe a few more interesting books. Humans have to know about Sin in order to choose Good, you know."

"That's what I always said," Crowley said vaguely, and Aziraphale gave him a *look*.

Crowley looked away quickly. He surreptitiously flicked his fingers and a flycatcher squawked in indignation as its tail feathers singed. It failed to make Crowley feel any better. Or any worse. He wasn't sure what emotional effect was trying for. Either way, it wasn't a nice thing to do, and every little bit helped.

Aziraphale really should been the one to fall. Not that a pitchfork would have suited him, but if he was so terribly good at tempting to niceness, he would have been irresistible at tempting to evil.

Irresistible. A small yellow butterfly was dancing in Aziraphale's hair, as if drawn by his warm aura, and 'irresistible' was a poor choice of word, especially when Crowley was already feeling that this world was just a little bit better for Aziraphale's delight at the thought of a book shop. Especially when it was hard to resist touching that fluffy hair himself.

Crowley sighed and got up. The butterfly flew away at his movement, or perhaps because it sensed he was in the presence of a suddenly ill tempered demon.

"Not coming to see the holy leader?" Aziraphale asked. The angel bit his lip a little, as if disappointed, and Crowley had to resist the temptation to bite his own.

"Not today. I've got to go back to that little village. I have a memo to write about that business in New York." And it's better done drunk, he added to himself. "You can report back. No sense in us both going."

Aziraphale was still biting his lip, and now his eyes looked darker. "You're claiming credit for that miserable business?"

"Every little bit helps," he said, echoing his own thought.

"You didn't—I mean, Crowley, you wouldn't—"

"No, not me. Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing up here, I can't think up any mischief worse than a sixteen year old kid can manage all on her own," Crowley said bitterly. Aziraphale was still looking at him with an unhappy, nervous face, and Crowley balled his hands into fists. "You didn't think—"

"Not for a moment! I mean, I hoped—well, you are working for the Evil One," Aziraphale said unhappily. "Oh, dear boy, no, come back. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to misjudge you."

But Crowley was gone.

The worst of it, he thought, the absolute worst of it, was the sickening suspicion that Aziraphale hadn't really misjudged him at all. And it terrified him.

Hell wasn't very kind to nice demons.

They'd been spending altogether too much time together. Much more time than the Arrangement really required. It was just that the eighteenth century was so much more exciting, as if things had suddenly sped up, and humans were doing all kinds of delicious and clever and delightful and diabolical things with art and literature and learning and, as always, wars. It was nice to have someone who understood, someone who could really appreciate the difference between this and four centuries ago.

Someone who really appreciated a good meal, with the sheer sensual enjoyment of someone who had never had to eat merely to sustain life.

Well, it was time to stop.

Apart from the glimpse outside the bookshop, Crowley hadn't seen Aziraphale again until the Reign of Terror.

Notes:

1) Should these be footnotes? But the historical ones aren't very amusing. Google 1741 New York and 1742 Peru, if you like.

2) Thank you for all of the encouragement! I've been out of fandom such a long time, and it's nice to be back.

3) There was a mention in an interview that Gaiman wrote a scene in Crowley and Aziraphale's Grand Tour of History in which Crowley turned up at the opening of the bookshop with flowers and chocolates to celebrate, and instead had to convince Gabriel that Crowley was very much needed on Earth to thwart his evil plans. One day I will fully write out my version of those events.

4) Last chapter, I forgot to mention that romana03 figured out through the serpent iconography that Crowley would have been one of the Seraphim, and outrank Aziraphale before the fall. I guess minor angels didn't design stars.

5) I swear I saw Crowley's throne once in Harrods. I couldn't stop giggling at the crazy ostentatiousness of it. Didn't know it belonged to a demon. What a dork he is.