See Aziraphale, looking down on Babel. He is sitting on the tallest peak of the tower, fingers curled beneath the edge. Below his feet, dangling, is wide and empty space, all the way down to the bottom, to the streets, to the ugliness and the beauty of humanity.
The city is starting to wind down; the bazaars are closing, young girls tossing out the dirt and grit from the market blankets, tying up the bags of grains and spices; young boys are tempering the fires down, putting their master's tools away, brushing and watering the donkeys. The wind is high and the flags are flying. People are coming home to their families, but there is a sullen restlessness in the air. Women snap at their husbands and children, men are raising their hands to their wives. Children are walking through the streets, stoop shouldered and jumping at every long shadow and loud noise. Dogs cowering under steps and in the shade of the awnings that line the market streets. Grimy, dirty men, with dirtier hands and teeth spit into the sand and declare the day a ruin. Remarkably, there are no birds in the air, no wild animals prowling the edge of the city. They've all gone.
The air twangs like a wire under tension.
From far away comes the sound of thunder.
Aziraphale—tall, muscular, modest Aziraphale—counts the arenas and the bars, the brothels and the traders, the shops and the places of the false deities. He counts the Houses of God, and the places of worship: there aren't many. He is not expecting anything other than what he already knows, but he still hopes that there has been a mistake. There hasn't.
There is a sharp edge of rock on the mountains, and it cuts the sunset in half, spilling out from behind the tower. Aziraphale can feel the tentative heat of it at his back. Before him, the city—the mad city, the beautiful city—goes on forever. Twilight is purple and green, and Aziraphale can see Venus.
He hears something behind him, and feels a cool shadow flit across his back.
The angel turns his head and sees the demon, lit up with the orange sun and sweating lightly, one hand held up, placating and congenial.
"Hello." he says.
Aziraphale says nothing. Mostly because he is worried what he might say.
The demon stands beside him for a long time, until the sun has almost set. He finally sits down, wiggling his way comfortable on the cooling mud and brick.
"Angel." Not so much a question as a reiteration: Hello. I'm here. Pay attention to me.
"Serpent." Aziraphale says back. He feels Crowley prickle a little. A minute irritated shift of his spine. Well. Serves him right.
"And a fine and good evening to you too." Crowley murmurs, but Aziraphale doesn't bite. Tonight, Crowley's derision slides off of him like water off a duck. He breathes in slowing, tasting the scented, sweating, dusty air of the city, and the cow shit and the human filth, and the blossoms and wine from the King's garden.
Below, the fires are really starting to burn. The music is starting, bottles uncorked. Aziraphale watches the stupid, meandering paths of God's Greatest Achievement, stumbling drunk to the bloodbaths of the arenas, and to the drink, and to the debaucheries and the conquest of flesh. Aziraphale breathes deeply again, crosses his arms, takes his time memorizing, listening. The wind is still calm; floating up from the city is laughter and yelling, moaning and screaming, the clink of money and slide of steel, and pain and rapturous joy. He feels the energy and the life, the hum and grind of human beings and their sheer capacity for creation. Isn't he sitting on a shining example? The Tower of Babel, the Tower to Heaven. Humans: building and forever improving.
Yet always on a backwards slide, always strangling out their spirituality and faith with arms too attached to lust and greed, pride and wrath, envy and gluttony.
Crowley's contribution, of course, to this delightful little planet.
As if he heard his name, Crowley snaps his fingers and a tall urn of wine appears to his side. He picks it up, and surprises the angel by offering it to him first.
Aziraphale watches him, unmoving and unfocused. There was a tension through Crowley's frame, winding itself tighter and tighter. Aziraphale smiles, pleased: he likes keeping the demon on his toes. It's good for him.
He takes the urn, brushing his wrist against Crowley's. "Thank you."
Crowley rolls his eyes, but nods once.
Aziraphale drinks deep and the bittersweet break on his tongue pierces his jaw. He can feel the glands in his mouth working, producing saliva, so that it might be digested if he were human, but on him it is nothing more than an accessory. Camouflage.
He is greedy with the wine (and honestly, with the quality of wines in Babel, it's hard not to be), and takes another long pull, feeling an errant drop move from the corner of his mouth to his chin. The wind lights the trail of it cool, and when Aziraphale puts the urn down and wipes his mouth, the rough linen of his sleeve grates against his skin. Yet another useless aspect of a physical body; the sense of touch. To an angel, it is nothing. To Aziraphale, it means more than he understands.
Aziraphale breathes deep the dry heat of the desert. He passes the wine back to Crowley without looking at him. He closes his eyes, twitches a few muscles, wills a little, and lets his wings burst straight out from his back. His body jerks from the force of it.
The tear of his tunic makes Crowley, barely relaxed, jump and almost drop the wine. He opens his mouth and hisses; a thready, displeased sound. Aziraphale ignores him, and brings his wings around him close. They're long, and full, and he crowds Crowley, who hisses again and moves over.
"Going for a fly then, angel?"
Aziraphale runs a hand through his hair; the wind has picked up, blowing it into his face. Crowley waits for him to answer, and sulks when he doesn't. He drinks from the wine, brow creased and face troubled, and he doesn't argue or pull away when Aziraphale puts his hand out for the urn again.
"You know. Sometimes, I can't understand."
Crowley's eyes narrowed. He follows the angel's gaze to the streets beneath them, and despite the height Crowley can see perfectly. He sees a man strike a woman to the ground, then kicks her. He sees two men quarreling, and one of them pulls a knife, puts it into the chest of the other. He walks away while the other man writhes and bleeds out in the street. In another part of the city, Crowley watches gold and silver exchanged, and two children are hauled into a cart. The little girl struggles the most, screaming. Crowley can see the exact shape and pattern of the trader's ring on his hand, before he slaps the girl to the bottom of the cart.
"Understand..."
"This. Understand this." A feeble, halfhearted wave to below.
Crowley blinks. "Humans?" He scratches at a sudden and irritating prickle on his neck. "I thought you were on top of all that. What's the word you use?"
"Ineffable."
"That's the one."
Aziraphale shakes his head once, jaw set and tight, his eyes, mouth, and forehead stern and cold and familiar in a terrifying, unfamiliar way. His hands are fists, clenched to the bottom of the ledge. "Not today."
Crowley opens his mouth to speak but he isn't sure what to say. He scratches a his neck again, and his back, for the itch has migrated downwards.
Aziraphale's wings spread straight up, stiff in the wind. A single feather is pulled off and rushed away in the breeze, and Crowley watches it descend, his hair flipping into his eyes.
The angel tips the urn again, drains it, and passes it back to Crowley. It's full again, full of a delicious and heady wine that tastes quite—
"Is this from that pub across from the gallery?"
"Which gallery."
"The one you're always hanging about in."
Aziraphale doesn't answer, but stares out into the city. So Crowley stays quiet, takes another pull off the wine, and lets Aziraphale to his unsociable mood. Underneath them, the wind sends little storms and twisters of dust through the streets, and the fires of the lanterns and hearth flicker and send up a spray of embers. A flag on a lower level of the tower rips away from the post and sails over to the poorer side of town. The palm trees start moving and rattling together, and Crowley can hear them without even trying to. The music in the taverns only gets louder with it. The smell of sin only gets stronger. Crowley shudders as the prickle comes back, colder and sharper, all the way from the base of his skull to the base of his spine in one long lash. He frowns at the goosebumps suddenly spreading across his forearm. Then he feels it.
He turns. "Aziraph—"
The words dies on his lips. The angel's face is slack and twisted all at the same time. His eyes are running with tears, down his cheeks, following along the line of his jaw to his chin. His tunic is splattered with wet spots.
The wind come up again. But this time, it's hot.
Crowley is on his feet in an instant, twisting a fist in the angels clothes, pulling his up with him. "What is this? What's happening! Aziraphale!"
Aziraphale sags against him, hands covering his eyes, his body shuddering. He sinks to his knees, sobbing.
Something booms from far away, and Crowley feels the instant pressure and heat and weight in the air. He yells out as a wind rushes him, almost pushing him to his knees. It is stinging hot, like an iron, and the light has gone out. He turns his head behind him, to where the last light of day should be, and sees only the blackest black and the sky on fire.
Aziraphale sees it too, and Crowley hears a choked yell and feels the grabbing, unsteady vice grip on his wrist. The sky burns an image into his eyes and he feels a pulse of something dark and open and hungry through his nerves and chest. He feels something empty where his heart is.
Then he is pulled sharply, Aziraphale casting them both off the ledge and into the open air. Crowley gasps and hold Aziraphale's wrist in turn, dangling beneath him. He looks back to the sky, through the angel's white wings. There are balls of fire in the sky, falling.
No. Not falling. Flung.
Crowley sees a trajectory, sees the speed and size of it. His body reacts unconsciously, wings ripping out as he tucks and rolls, bringing Aziraphale along with him. They dodge in time but the are both burned by the sheer heat of it, a giant flaming rock as big as a house. Aziraphale's wings are singed and black, and Crowley is battered by the displaced air. They fall, tumbling and dazed. Crowley catches a familiar tavern at the corner of his eye, a place of good food and helpful people. Crowley blinks, and then in it's place is a long and sudden cloud of dust and fire. The rock that hit it rolls and bounces and carves a sick, grinning smile into the earth. Aziraphale's hand is suddenly tighter, and more sure. He fixes his grip and pulls as hard as he can and Crowley is right there with him, the both of them pushing and pulling each other out of the way of the fierce hail that has started, the both of them staring upwards, anticipating. They fly as fast as they can to the east, trying to outrun the sounds, but it catches up with them anyways.
Below them, Babel burns.