Eden, 4004 B.C.

The beginning of the world was beautiful. Demons weren't supposed to have a concept of beauty - it was allegedly burned out of them during their Fall, taken from them along with Her love - but Crawley had somehow kept his. Perhaps it was a cruel torture, perpetually reminding him of his base, dirty, demonic nature through the sheer dissonance between him and his surroundings, or perhaps it was a kindness. (Crawley suspected it was the former.)

Regardless, the beginning of the world was beautiful. The Sun looked different, felt different now that he was trapped looking up at it rather than creating it, but it was a nice different, and it gave Crawley a sense of nostalgic, melancholy pride to see it. Nor did the beauty stop there; the trees were verdant emerald, waxy leaves glimmering in the light, and the Garden's lakes and rivers were a sparkling clear blue. It was all quite lovely.

It almost made him feel bad about what he'd just done, almost made him regret getting the humans kicked out… but he rationalized it to himself. After all, he'd given them knowledge, told them that they had choice and free will, given them the ability to take care of themselves.

Then it occurred to him that he really shouldn't be feeling bad. After all, he was a demon now. Chaos and discord were his job. Bad things were his job. Free will and autonomy? Very actively not his job. He must have been wrong earlier; he'd been very demonic. He'd, uh… well, he'd thwarted the Great Plan, hadn't he? Carried out the first temptation and got Her precious humans kicked out into the cold and the wet and… Shit.

To avoid dwelling on that thought for too long, Crawley turned his attention to the rest of the Garden, eyes catching on a solitary figure perched on the wall.

The angel.

Crawley had seen the angel earlier as he'd slithered into the Garden, but had been too focused on escaping its attention to give it too much additional thought. Now, though, he wanted something (anything) to do other than go back to Hell, and, if he were honest with himself - a horrible thing to do, really - talking to an angel still managed to be safer than going back.

So, he took the risk, slithering onto the wall beside the angel and focusing until his serpentine features receded and he stood in his more human form. He'd experimented with such a change before entering the Garden, and he'd been disappointed to notice that not every symptom of his damnation faded away; he'd been left with ugly yellow snake eyes and a coiling snake at his temple, and the reddish hints of his scales manifested as long, flame-red curls to his shoulders. Still, despite the inner self-disgust roiling in his gut, he forced himself to stand proudly, half-daring the angel to smite him.

It was this rather morbid experiment that led him to taunt the angel, muttering, "Well, that went down like a lead balloon."

It took the angel a few seconds and a nervous chuckle to register the comment, and, even then, it didn't quite get the point. "Sorry, what was that?"

Crawley looked back at it, reiterating. "I said, 'Well, that went down like a lead balloon.'"

The angel nodded, looking out across the sands beyond Eden. "Yes… yes, it did, rather."

Crawley was definitely confused by this point. Why hadn't it tried to attack, to smite him? Well, he'd come this far… he wasn't going to back down now. "'S a bit of overreaction 'f you ask me. First offense and everything." He considered stopping there, but, as he'd said: he'd already started; he might as well carry on. So, he lowered his voice conspiratorially - call it tempting (hah) Fate, but he wanted to know how far the angel would let him take it - and said, "I can't see what's so bad about knowing the difference between Good and Evil anyway."

Evidently, it would let him take things pretty far, because it stuttered for a bit, looking for words that didn't come easily. Eventually, it settled on, "Well, it must be bad…" It trailed off, blinking as though trying something, and Crawley realized what it wanted with a jolt of surprise.

It wanted his name.

The thoughts that passed through Crawley's head in the seconds before he gave an answer were manifold and varied. On the one hand, surprise at the consideration rose to the forefront. Hell didn't give a damn about him beyond ensuring that he was a useful little demon - and, oh, those words burned - and keeping him (painfully) in line. They'd assigned him a new name - his earlier name was burnt away, the ashes still forming an outline of it, but scattering each time he tried to grasp it - but it didn't fit him. (He'd have to look into changing it later.)

Then, however, came suspicion. After all, if his own side didn't care, why should some random angel? Demons had fought angels once before in a revolution that had seared across heaven, spreading destruction around liberally. This angel had no reason to give one iota of attention to any demon, much less Crawley of all creatures. Surely it wanted something?

But it just looked at him, blonde curls somewhat flyaway despite their short length, blue eyes open in honest curiosity, and he simply couldn't refuse. So, he took a breath, prayed - or, no, didn't pray… he didn't know if demons even could pray, but what was the point in trying if She didn't care enough to listen? - hoped he wasn't making a mistake, and spoke. "Crawley."

The seconds that followed took far too long to pass. Part of Crawley feared he'd done the wrong thing, had given an angel the means of his own destruction. Did smiting require the victim's name? Externally, no sign of anxiety showed on Crawley's face; a large part of this was due to the fact that, despite the fear, most of him was resigned to it. He hadn't meant to get thrown out of Heaven, and he still wasn't sure why it had happened - sure, he'd asked questions, but he'd just wanted to understand - but, whatever the cause, the fact remained that he was no longer an angel, and that hurt. If the angel were to smite him, no one would care. The only effect would be that everyone would know that he'd been as useless a demon as he'd been an angel.

But it didn't smite him. And, while it did say his name, it said it with the air of someone trying to remember something, and all that followed was another awkward smile and the tail end of his sentence: "... otherwise, you wouldn't have tempted them into it."

The naive simplicity of the words and the near-arrogance of the tone made Crawley want to protest, to reiterate his above argument, but then he reminded himself that he's a demon and bit it back, shrugging. "Oh, they just said 'Get up there and make some trouble.'"

The arrogance returned as the angel turned its nose up at him, judgement lacing its every word. "Well, obviously. You're a demon. That's what you do."

Crawley could neither deny nor explain the sting those words cause, but he pushed it aside in favor of continuing his point. "Nor very subtle of the Almighty, though… big fruit tree in the middle of the Garden with a 'Don't touch' sign. I mean, why not on the top of a tall mountain? Or on the moon?" He paused, then continued in a different tone, one of thoughtful contemplation. "Makes you wonder what God's really planning."

The angel actually looked vaguely uncomfortable, looking at Crawley with a condescending nod that spoke of a desire not to look too deep lest he find something he couldn't explain, couldn't unsee. "Best not speculate. It's all part of the Great Plan. It's not for us to understand." He paused, thinking. When he spoke again, it sounded a lot like he was quoting directly from someone else's rhetoric, and the pride at doing so was easily apparent. "It's ineffable."

Crawley was actually genuinely interested by this point, so he asked, "Th' Great Plan's ineffable?"

"Exactly." The angel actually turned towards him, then, body language a little more open in a way that Crawley couldn't say he understood. "It is beyond understanding, and… incapable of being put into words."

Crawley was listening, but, at the same time, he looked the angel over and noticed that something was missing. A very specific something that Crawley had seen earlier as he entered the Garden. Something that he had very, very clearly hoped to avoid and thus had paid it special attention. "Didn't you have a flaming sword?"

The angel looked taken aback, eyes darting away from Crawley's and mouth opening and closing a few times. Averting its gaze evidently hadn't been good enough, as it then moved its head away, looking back out at the sands. "Uh…"

Crawley pressed the point, refusing to let it go. "You did, 't was flaming like anything... What happened to 't?" The angel stuttered, meaningless noises passing from its lips, and Crawley interrupted again to push it farther. "Lost it already, have you?"

The angel looked down, bowing its head and muttering quietly. Crawley must have misheard or been hallucinating or something, because, otherwise, he'd swear it said, "I gave it away."

So, never one to hold back on a question - nope, not going to think about that… moving on - Crawley asked, incredulous and fascinated all at once, "You wot?"

The angel looked anxious, turning back for the first time since Crawley's initial question, features creased in worry. "I gave it away!" The angel might not have taken the energy to smite him, but Crawley felt as though it must have done something because he couldn't stop staring at it, fascination and curiosity burning through his veins, rushing towards his heart - do demons have hearts, or is that another thing taken from them in the Fall? - that suddenly felt a little too quick. The angel was still speaking, and Crawley simply couldn't stop listening. "There are vicious animals! It's going to be cold out there, and she's expecting already, and I said, 'Here you go: flaming sword. Don't thank me, and don't let the sun go down on you here.'" Crawley knew he was still staring, but he couldn't bring himself to look away, so he noticed the fearful expression on the angel's face before he continued, "I do hope I didn't do the wrong thing."

Crawley looked away. Technically, he should just leave. Technically, if he left, he'd have left an angel who believed that he'd - wait, since when is Crawley thinking of an angel, an enemy as a "he" and not an "it"? - gone against God's Great (or, apparently, Ineffable) Plan. Doubt in the mind of an angel might cause it to Fall…

But the truth was he simply didn't have the heart for it. If nothing else, he liked this angel. The kind of angel who acts because it's right, and not because it's what the higher-ups said. The kind of angel who asks questions, even if he won't voice them aloud. And so, instead of leaving, he said, "Oh, you're 'n angel. I don't think you can do the wrong thing."

He tried to ignore the words as he said them, but he didn't succeed. Because, the truth was… he (Crawley, Serpent of Eden, First Tempter, et cetera, et cetera) had been an angel. He had been an angel and he had somehow, in some way, for no reason that he could understand… He had done the wrong thing. Except, instead of merely being left with a shred of guilt, he'd been thrown out. He'd Fallen. He'd plunged from some of the highest heights imaginable into one of the lowest lows, and Crawley wasn't sure he was quite done Falling yet.

Still, the temporary resurgence of bad memories was nothing compared to the happiness - what the Heaven? - he felt as the angel looked over at him, reassured in his holiness and smiling gratefully as he stuttered out thanks. "It's been bothering me."

Crawley once more weighed his talking companion, wondering if he could trust him. He decided to risk it; after all, the angel had just confessed, freely, to a demon of all things, that he'd gone against God's plan. If nothing else, mutually assured destruction would keep them both in line. "'ve been worrying, too. What if I did the right thing with the whole 'eat the apple' business? A demon can get in a lot of trouble for doing th' right thing." Memories of Hell, of Satan, of Beelzebub, of Hastur and Ligur filled his mind, and he blinked them away, only to see, way off in the distance, similar violence carried out on a lion with a very familiar flaming sword. Crawley trailed off, then switched the topic slightly, trying to bring a little levity to the conversation. "Be funny 'f we both got it wrong, eh? If you did th' bad thing and I did th' good one?"

The angel laughed right along with him for a few seconds, awkward but endearing, before the fell from his face, eyes wide with scandalized affront. "No! That… that wouldn't be funny at all!"

Crawley shrugged, turning back to face Adam and Eve as they set out. He still found it funny. That humor, however, was cut off as rain started to fall from the sky, cold drops of water landing on his skin for a few seconds before he realized that the angel at his side had lifted his wing, raising it over Crawley's head and shielding him from the rain. It was a kindness, and one he hadn't expected, nor hoped for, and Crawley was left once again reevaluating the angel at his side.

They didn't talk again for the rest of the afternoon. They stood in companionable silence until the skies cleared up, but, at the end of it, they merely nodded to one another and set off for their respective Head Offices. It was only when Crawley got back to Hell that he realized he'd never gotten the angel's name.

Oh, well… He'd be on Earth for a while. Perhaps they'd run into each other again.