A/N: Last Good Omens for a while. Promise. (I think.)

Betas: SkyTurtle

Disclaimer: I do not own Good Omens, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

…

Temptation

Raven Ehtar

…

There were a lot of things he could be called. After centuries of being on Earth, any being was bound to pick up more than a few names. Even humans, who only lived a handful of decades, had a habit of collecting monikers, so those who had been a part of the green spinning sphere since Day One would naturally pick up a few more.

In his case, he could be called a fallen angel, a demon, devil or imp. A deva, monster, or generically supernatural creature.

An enemy.

But while he was certainly an enemy of Heaven, an agent of Hell sent specifically to work against him and his brothers, Aziraphale had never truly considered Crowley his enemy. Not really. It was difficult to think of the one face on Earth, the one personality he was able to interact with consistently, as an enemy. It was easier to think of Crowley as something of a friend.

But that wasn't quite right, either. Aziraphale was an angel, an agent of God and a guardian to the human race. Crowley was a fallen angel, agent of the Adversary and mankind's bane. He was the opposite of all Aziraphale was meant to stand for, an embodiment of evil… but he had once been an angel. And by his own testament, he hadn't really meant to fall. Could he really be so bad?

Therein lay the kernel of the problem that was Crowley, Aziraphale knew. It lay in the fact that he made excuses for the demon, that he went out of his way to try and see the good in him, despite all he had done or would do in the future. Of course, that was a large part of his job description, so to speak, but there ought to be limits… oughtn't there? There ought to be a limit to how much Aziraphale was willing to forgive the demon, how much leeway he could give him, how much he was willing to listen to a demon.

Because Aziraphale knew what Crowley was, besides the other titles he had gained over the many years.

He was temptation.

He always had been, from the Beginning. It was Crowley who had tempted the first man and woman to taste of the tree of knowledge, and brought about their downfall.

He was an embodiment of temptation, the little voice at the back of your mind that told you of forbidden delights, whispered that no, just one taste would do you no harm, just one little peek would be fine, that it wasn't breaking any rules to try it just once… Crowley's was the voice that slithered and insinuated itself past your defenses, sneaked past under your morals and reassured, with the quiet assurance of a snake, that everything was alright.

And he would smile as you fell, and still would say the same thing. As you felt the fires begin to lick at your toes, he would tell you that it was all alright.

Crowley had been telling Aziraphale that it was alright for centuries, now, and always with a cold serpent's smile on his lips as he did so.

Angels were not immune from temptation. Many of the demons in existence today had once been angels led astray. Once Aziraphale had wondered how an angel, who knew better than any other creature the dangers of temptation, could fall prey to it. How could they allow themselves to fall from Heaven? Who knew better than an angel the horrors of becoming a demon, who could see better than an angel what a demon truly was?

Yet, he allowed Crowley past his defenses. Demon and enemy, his friend, Aziraphale listened to him. He listened and he countered, he laughed, he responded to whatever it was Crowley would talk about. He engaged with the demon, he sympathized with him.

It wasn't so bad, he found, to do so with a creature meant to be his opposite number, nor was it very hard. It was remarkably easy, in fact.

Much easier than he would have thought.

So easy, in fact, that Aziraphale didn't even notice when he began to be led astray.

Such small things at first. A little indulgence here or there, just little things that the angel had been curious about but never partaken in. Crowley sniffed them out, and as was his nature, led the angel to them. He made the way to them clear and easy, no obstacles and no hint that it might be the first step on a slippery slope leading ever downwards. He would smile, and lead the way.

By the time Aziraphale realized what was happening, he was too used to his 'little indulgences' to give them up very easily. So he held on to his small sins, and comforted himself with the knowledge that if Crowley had corrupted him, so had Aziraphale lightened the demon's dark soul in little ways. They had an effect on each other, it wasn't all one-sided.

Aziraphale knew himself to be much more deeply corrupted them he would admit.

Crowley was temptation, and when he came to Aziraphale, smiling his serpent's smile, the fires of Hell smoldering in his eyes, the angel understood how so many before him had succumbed, knowingly, to the fall. But Crowley always promised that he wouldn't let the angel fall, or at least, to be there to catch him.

And Aziraphale chose to believe the promise of a demon.

A promise from temptation.

A promise from a friend.