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Don't Call Me Angel

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Ineffable is probably the wrong word to describe this... this. Whatever-this-is this.

"I smell like chicken!" Crowley cranes his neck to take another scandalized sniff at his new wings. "Damn it, Angel! Positively chooks, and not even fried!"

"And I might have spent a wee too much time in the steamer," Aziraphale turns up his nose as if his plight was worse. "And no you—I—don't! That's the imminent goodness of angels. We exude it from every pore of our physical wings." He primps his own, remembers how they looked last he checked, and immediately stops.

"The grill, angel, the grill. You can't turn that black from a honking bird sauna. And I don't care what you call it, your pore exudings smell like chicken."

"I beg your pardon!"

But Crowley is already up and about the bookshop, snapping his fingers in both hands. Nothing. Five minutes of sore wrists and absolutely nothing. They were home from the Ritz for a drink at Aziraphale's let loose their wings loose in their drunken state for some reason, and had been mildly surprised with what they had seen. Now, Crowley draws his arm in the opposite direction he'd been trying—earthbound and downwards.

"Well, well," Aziraphale notes, too surprised to stay scandalized. "That's new."

"That's not a chicken!" Crowley swats the, the dove he pulled from Satan-knows-where making expert snatches at his shades out of his face. "Good heavens! Bastard pigeon!"

Aziraphale burps. "My dear, we're neither of us sober enough for this. That was some strong tapuy we had, but I'm putting mine back now." He focuses, feels his insides become cooler without the alcohol. He shrieks. "Bloody hell! It's still there!"

"I told you!" Crowley jumps on the couch, battling with the bird. "It's not just our physical forms back!"

"No, no," Aziraphale tiptoes on the loveseat himself, gingerly. "We retained all of who we were during the switch, we never meant to- owie!"

"Oy, bugger off!" Crowley jumps, crashes on the coffee table with the dove in his arms, limps to the door, and pitcher-throws the offending fowl out the street. Making sure it takes flight instead of crashing, he yells "And stay off!", slams the door and locks it. "You alright?"

"Dear me." Aziraphale pats at his pecked nose with handkerchief. "They're usually not that aggressive..."

"I don't know that. I'm a damn demon. We do ravens."

"Like crows?"

"Common misconception, but no, those two aren't the same."

"Hmm." Aziraphale drops back down to the rug, makes a determined shape with his lips, and snaps his fingers upwards. "Upon my word! My dear fellow, it's you!"

Crowley makes a choked noise with his mouth wide open. "No. Don't you dare say it-"

"It's so cute!" Aziraphale stoops to let the black snake curl around his arm, holds it up to stroke its head. "I've always wanted to call one to me! Oh, no fair how we used to be friends with all creatures on God's green earth until-"

"Bloody four-letter- Yeah, yeah, blame it on our lot and not yours shrieking bloody murder every time a poor cockroach runs over your boots-"

"Crowley! It booped me! Look, it's doing it again!" And the snake did. Aziraphale claps his hands and boops it right back

"Angel- God damn it! I can't even call you that anymore!" Having forgotten to keep his wings manifested, he lets them out again and looks. He takes the bottle of tapuy and gulps it all down. "AND I DON'T EVEN LOOK LIKE THE BUGGER!"

Some of the delight leaves Aziraphale's face. "Oh dear... White does not look good on you. I thought I had been seeing things with the alcohol, but it seems I," he feels his forehead and neck, daintily. "I still feel a tad stuffy. This would be the, er, hellfire and brimstone, then?"

"Just the brimstone," Crowley moans face down on a pillow. "Aziraphale. How did this happen? What did we do?"

"Nothing wrong." He adjusts the snake's relaxed coil around him a tad higher on the arm to free his hand. "Not in the technical sense of it. We exchanged appearances, but not at all identities. I doubt we even could, just the two of us."

"But that's the only time something could have happened. We don't just cast spells on each other. Boundaries and all that."

Aziraphale considers this, and nods slowly. The snake looks up at him curious, and distracted, Aziraphale smiles and declares, "I think I'll call you Tony."

Crowley jolts upwards. "Oh, we're. We're, uh, we're doing nicknames now?" He clears his throat, smoothens his hair.

"I wonder if," Aziraphale picks his frown back on, "this might be... punishment, perhaps? Or a side effect of, hmm, our respective trials taken in each other's forms?"

Crowley scowls and slumps back against the loveseat. "Doubt it. What's physical form but a means for identification convenience? Inconsequential if you ask me."

"Then... banishment."

Crowley opens his mouth to say something else but settles instead for "Oh." They watch each other, seated angel and upright demon, across the coffee table full of imported alcohol and glasses. The snake wags its tongue at him. "What you got for that wiggler, anyway? It looks stupid."

"Crowley!" Aziraphale gasps. "He's a very clever lad! Apologize to Tony at once!"

"Never mind bloody T- oh, that's... like I said, never mind. Pssh. My form looks better."

"Pardon?"

"So what do we do now?" Crowley is certain there were no pointers on how to reverse turning out to be the enemy in the weeklong convention of The Beginning Demon's Seminars he had napped through billions of years ago. "I can't just, what, skip around whispering Auntie's inspo blog quotes in some poor sod's ears for the rest of eternity, can I? Just because of what I am?"

"I don't think I... know how to reverse this. Yet." Aziraphale sits next to his friend. "Considering we can't ask for help from admin, I doubt we will anytime soon."

"But I don't!"

Aziraphale watches Crowley pick up a bottle of basi and makes a toast up at the ceiling, cackling. "I don't need to do anyhthing! I'm on our side!" He drinks half the bottle. "I'm, aaaaaaah, all I ever have to be now and forever is yours, angel!"

"It's demon now, I'm afraid."

"It's a nickname."

Aziraphale blushes. "W, well, I suppose, well out of the way of our respective radars, and with none of us really suffering from the change... " He puts up the hand supporting Tony and curiously grows proper demon claws. He runs through a quick list of his favorite nail polish colors and slowly starts to smile. "Yes, I... think it's safe to enjoy this while it lasts, hmm?"

"That's what I was saying! You're too sober for this, stick in the mud, let me pour you a drink. Say, you think I could do that million eyes thing? What do you do to trigger it? I always thought that was cool of you lot."

"Crowley!" Aziraphale shields his own eyes as the bottle spills and the room fills with an infinite light. "Please, darling, not like that! I have trypophobia!"

ALL THE BETTER, booms the giant beating wings and glittering slitted pupils rolling around at lightspeed in their sockets. ALL THE BETTER. NOW THIS IS WHAT YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES SHOULD LOOK LIKE!