Chapter Text
“But God, I haven’t the best reputation as it is-- not terribly warlike. If You don’t tell the other angels Your plan, won't they be… I dunno, angry?” Aziraphale realized his robe hem was in his hands again and he dropped it, picking up his sword from where it leaned on the wall to fiddle with that instead.
“They might be, but it’s My will. All you need tell them is that it’s ineffable.” She sounded so confident. She hadn’t made Aziraphale to be confident, and he felt that lack as he tried to form his thoughts into words.
“But You made us to follow Your will, above all else... so how could the Fall have…” He trailed off, uncertain of the words or perhaps incapable of speaking them.
“Theologians will answer that question for us someday, but just know: I made the rules of the universe, but I’m not controlling every part of it every second. As long as something is within those rules, it can happen. I gave you something I didn’t give the other angels, and it will help you as you navigate through the Great Plan.”
Aziraphale could already feel Her presence receding, leaving him alone with the wall.
“It’s not the sword, right? Loads of angels got flaming swords.” He tried to keep Her there, keep Her talking, keep the warmth of Her grace with him.
“It’s not the sword,” She replied, then, She was gone.
With a huff, Aziraphale took the sword and, as he’d just been shown, used it to pry loose a few bricks from the wall to Eden, leaving them on the ground nearby. The hole was about two handspans wide, just big enough for what the Lord had told him. Then, he went back to the Eastern Gate to wait.
***
Crawly undulated along the wall in the dark of night, searching. The wall was too tall to climb and impossible to tunnel under (he’d tried that already), so he had to find a weakness to get in. He’d been told to go cause trouble, and this was the only place on Earth where there were angels, or humans, so it was really the only option he had. As he rounded the corner, he saw the angel. This was probably… East? He’d hit the other three gates already, and it had been a long night of avoiding discorporation.
He almost missed the opening, nearly revealing himself as the wall gave way to open space with the thick wooden gate inside. He could hear the angel breathing, but he didn’t dare look in.
“You know, someone’s going to find their way in sooner or later.” Crawly miracled his voice from the opposite side of the gate in an attempt to draw the angel away from his hiding place, tucked as tightly against the bricks as his serpentine body could get.
“Yeah, they will,” the angel agreed.
“That’ll mean you’ve failed,” Crawly tried again. That had gotten the last angel to go hunting in the scrub on the other side of the gate. He thought he had a good grasp now of how the gates worked, and he was pretty sure he could get this one open if the angel moved.
The angel didn’t move.
“Yeah probably,” the angel sighed, leaning back against the door. His sword was in his hand, but it wasn’t alight like the other angels’ swords had been. He seemed to be holding it more because it was expected than because he wanted to use it.
“You’re not terribly easy to insult you know.” Crawly, daring, slunk into the dim moonlight in front of the dark gate. He reared back, coiling into a tidy stack of himself.
“Well, demon, there’s nothing you can say to insult me that I haven’t heard from another angel already.”
The angel was bright-- white wings, white robes, light hair, light skin-- but he was so obscured by shadow that Crawly had only the impression of a light smudge against the dark door. Crawly tried to bristle at the casual use of demon, but he couldn’t seem to find it offensive. The angel just sounded tired.
“They call me Crawly,” he offered instead.
“Aziraphale.”
“I doubt you’d go for it, but uh, they told me to cause trouble, and there’s not much to be done out here.” Crawly used a tail tip to gesture around at the empty expanse. “You wouldn’t happen to know a way in?”
“You’ll have to keep going, I’m afraid, but if you’re meant to get in, you will,” Aziraphale replied.
“That’s probably fair. Thanks for not trying to light me on fire.” Crawly moved on his way, snugging back up against the wall as he went.
“Any time,” the angel, Aziraphale, replied.
How interesting it was, when he came upon a tidy stack of bricks removed from the wall not a hundred feet away. Crawly slithered through the perfectly snake-sized hole and immediately began to look for trouble. After all, that was his job, right?
*One apple later*
Aziraphale still burned with shame that the snake had gotten into the Garden. He knew She had wanted it to happen, but now the angels had banished Adam and Eve, and how was it fair, that she was pregnant and they had been naked and unarmed--
Unarmed.
Aziraphale had led them to the Eastern Gate, pointing to the wild forest across the desert. “You’ll be able to make shelter there, take this, and don’t let the sun set on you here.”
He pressed the hilt of his sword into Adam’s hand, ushered them out the gate, and closed it behind them.
He stood on top of the wall now, watching their progress, rain drops hitting his hair as the demon sheltered under his wing. He wasn’t sure yet why he’d offered it, but it seemed like the right thing to do. He really hoped that giving Adam the sword had been the right thing as well. Today was the first day he had to sit with the doubt that his creator had given him.
Maybe that was Her gift. The thought was bleak.
“Did you realize that you’re actually quite beautiful?” Crawly asked after a long, amicable silence had passed between them.
“What I said before, about the Host finding every way to insult me-- it wasn’t a challenge, you know. You don’t have to think up new and clever insults for me.” Aziraphale heard the snap in his voice, but he couldn’t quite feel bad for it. He looked over, and the look on Crawly’s face was… not exactly what he’d expected.
The demon was blushing?
Snake eyes averted, he was blushing furiously, his lips pursed tight as though he could hardly believe what he’d said.
“Well, if that’s how you feel about it, I’ll just have to make sure that some day you believe it.” The demon stepped up to the edge of the wall, out of the protection of Aziraphale’s raised wing. “Until next time.”
He smiled and stepped off the edge, off to spread who knew what kind of trouble.
Aziraphale needed to patch the hole in the wall. He needed to figure out what his new assignment would be, now that no one needed to guard the Garden. First though, he’d enjoy the rain. After all, it was a gift from God, wasn’t it? These things should be enjoyed.
He tipped his face back into the droplets, letting them wash against his skin, and then shook his hair out and moved back to the shelter of the trees. Whatever his special thing was, he hoped it was better than rain.