The demon Crowley enjoyed sleeping. He didn't need sleep the way humans did, but he found it pleasant, at the end of a long day, to slip into black silk pajamas and slide between cool sheets, close his eyes, and do absolutely nothing for six or eight or even ten hours at a time.[1]
The knock on his door, at what he discovered when he glanced at his alarm clock[2] was just shy of five in the morning, jolted him out of the best sleep he'd had since the whole failed-Apocalypse thing. He grumbled and got out of bed just as the knock came again.
It wasn't the authoritative knock of a police officer going about their enquiries, nor was it the optimistic knock of someone seeking political office. This knock was a bit tentative but also quite firm. It said, "I'm really sorry to bother you, but you're going to want to hear what I have to say."
Only one person Crowley knew knocked like that.
"Angel," he said as he opened the door, "what are you doing here at this hour?"
And then he did a double-take.
Aziraphale wasn't dressed in his usual cream-and-tan three-piece suit. He was inexplicably wearing a bright yellow velour track suit and matching trainers. "Hello, Crowley," he said, oblivious to the way Crowley was trying to shade his eyes from the blinding brightness. "I was wondering if you'd mind giving me a ride? To the park."
"The park? This early? What for?"
"I'm, um . . . going jogging."
"Jogging?" Well, that at least explained the outfit. "You don't jog!"
"I thought maybe I should start."
"What brought this on?" The demon snapped his fingers and his sunglasses appeared in their usual place. There, that was better.
"Oh, well, um . . . after I was discorporated . . . I didn't like it very much."
"Yeah, it's not a lot of fun." Crowley had been accidentally discorporated five times in six thousand years. Each time, it took him longer and longer to get his body back.
"And I thought, well, we're unlikely to get replacements now, if it should happen again, because we're cut off from our respective home offices . . ."
"They won't even take my calls," said Crowley.[3]
"And so, I thought that since this is the only body I will ever have, that . . . that I should take better care of it. A little less rich food, a little more exercise, that sort of thing."
That actually sounded reasonable. After all, if you only had one body, you should make sure that it lasted as long as possible. Even though they couldn't die of what humans considered natural causes, there were always accidents-and sometimes on-purposes. Crowley didn't trust anyone in Hell to just give up and leave him alone.
"All right," he said finally. "Give me a few minutes to get dressed."
"I brought some clothes for you, too," the angel said, handing over a paper bag of about medium weight. "I bought two sets, you see, so we'd match. Yours is black, of course. They didn't have it in white, so I chose this color instead."
Crowley glanced into the bag. Shiny black fabric was folded at the bottom. "Oh, no, no, no. You don't mean you want me to-to jog with you? Do you?"
Aziraphale looked hopefully at him.
"No! I don't jog! Never have, never will! I don't mind if you give it a go, but I won't! I'll sit and wait for you to finish. That's all."
"But-but-"
"Oh, don't give me the wounded puppy look! I'll bloody drive you there! I'll even sit around and wait until you've finished your ridiculous exercise! But don't expect me to make a spectacle of myself!"
"You'll change your mind."
"No I won't!" He shoved the bag back into Aziraphale's hands. "And you can keep these silly clothes as well!" He went back into his bedroom and shut the door with a firmness that wasn't quite a slam, but had a definite edge to it.
"He'll come around," Aziraphale told himself. "When he sees what a good time I'm having, he won't hesitate to join in. And he'll need this back, so I'll just keep it in a pocket dimension until he does."
Moments later, the demon emerged, dressed in his usual black outfit that was decidedly not for jogging, and jingled his keys. "Let's go. How did you get here, by the way? It's a bit of a long walk from Soho."
"I called a taxi."
"You could have just taken the taxi to the park!"
"But then you wouldn't have been with me! I wanted to do this together!"
"I'll be there. I just don't bloody jog, that's all. Don't see why you feel the need to."
They got in the car and drove to the park just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. Amazingly, they weren't the only ones there. Quite a few other early-morning exercisers were already out and about along the path.
Most of them were in shorts and T-shirts; Aziraphale in his full-length jogging suit stood out like a redwood tree in a freshly-mown field. Crowley sighed and snapped, replacing the outfit more appropriate for fall or winter with something a little lighter.
"Wh-what did you do that for?" the angel sputtered.
"In case you hadn't noticed, it's a bit warm out here. A human would be dying in that thing. You should be more comfortable now."
"Yes, but I spent time picking out those clothes! I paid for them!"
"They're in a bag in the back of the car. I wouldn't do that to you."
"Oh. Thank you."
"You're sure you don't want to come?"
"Nah." Crowley sat down on a bench and pulled out his phone. "Want me to time you?"
"Oh, that would be lovely!"
"Right, let me just find it here . . ." It took him a moment to find the timer app, which was on the second page for some reason. Oh, right, those were the apps he never used. "Let me know when you're ready."
Aziraphale looked around nervously. "How-how do I do this?"
"You're asking me?" Crowley peered up at him. "Last time I ran anywhere, I was being chased by a man with a big sword!"
"When was that?"
"Japan. Sixteen . . . something. I toured Asia in the seventeenth century. Anyway, you don't need a sword at your back. Just put one foot in front of the other and go! You'll be fine."
"Right." Aziraphale lifted his head, rolled his shoulders back, and took off running flat-out.
"You might want to-" Crowley began, but the angel was already long gone. "Start off slowly," he finished to himself. "Ah, well." He started the timer, and then opened a news app to read about what was going on in the world, now that it hadn't ended.
It was shaping up to be a beautiful day. The sun was up, but it wasn't too hot yet. Granted, it was still only half past six. A few puffy white clouds floated by high above, but not high enough to block the sun.
Every day had been like this In the Beginning. Just the right temperature, hardly any rain to spoil things (just enough to keep the grass green, and that fell only at night). Days like this made Crowley feel good.
Seeing his angel go shuffling past, gasping for breath, was another matter.
"You all right there, love?"
"Fine," Aziraphale huffed. "How . . . long?"
Crowley had forgotten that he was meant to be timing this. He checked his phone. "Um . . . four minutes, seventeen seconds."
The angel stopped dead and stared at him in shock. "That's all?"
"How long were you planning to do this?"
"An hour. I've barely . . . started."
Crowley rolled his eyes behind his glasses. "Look, why don't you take a break and finish later? We'll go have breakfast."
"No, no! Must . . . keep . . . moving!" He turned and set off at a trot down the path.
"Stubborn as ever, I see," Crowley muttered under his breath.
On his next pass, the angel looked even worse. He had to stop and catch his breath, but as soon as he noticed Crowley watching him, he straightened up and took off again.
"What are you trying to prove?" the demon wondered. He knew Aziraphale would never tell him. He'd just have to wait and see how this all played out.
A third round found the exhausted angel barely limping along, but still moving in spite of the fatigue.
"Angel, give it a rest!" Crowley called to him. "You've done enough. Let's go home."
"I'm just . . . heh . . . huh . . . hitting my . . . hnh . . . stride," Aziraphale gasped. And he kept going.
Crowley was now very concerned for his friend's health. If he continued on like this much longer, he might actually discorporate himself. There was something going on with the angel, something that went beyond just wanting to take better care of his body. People reacted to stress differently, and there was no question that they'd both been under a lot of stress lately, what with the Unpocalypse and all. The end of the world not happening wasn't something you just got over.
No. He wasn't having any of this. When Aziraphale came around again, Crowley would put a stop to all this. Then they would talk. Talking was good. You could do it sitting down.
He waited for the angel to come huffing and puffing around the corner again, but it had been some time since his last pass and he was nowhere to be seen. Oh, no. He hadn't . . .
Only one way to find out. Crowley got up awkwardly, stretching out his long limbs, and strolled back along the path to see what had happened to his poor angel. Fortunately, he didn't have to go far. Aziraphale was lying on his back in the middle of the path about twenty meters southward, looking like a huge, cream-colored puddle on the pavement. The good news was that his eyes were open, and judging by the great gasps coming from ground level, he seemed to be breathing.
Crowley knelt down beside him. "Can you stand?" he asked. "Anything broken? Sprained?"
Aziraphale shook his head, too winded to speak.
"Right, then." He hauled the angel to his feet and half-carried, half-dragged him over to the closest bench. "Here we are. Wait here while I go and fetch you some water."
Still unable to say a word, Aziraphale nodded. He rested his palms on his knees, his head hanging down.
Crowley returned a few minutes later with a small bottle of water. "Here you go. Small sips."
The angel raised his head and gratefully sucked at the spout of the bottle, one swallow at a time.
"Not as easy as you thought it was gonna be, was it?"
"N-no," Aziraphale said, the word barely more than a whisper.
"It looks easy, when you're just watching. D'you ever watch the Marathon on television?"
"Not really."
"I love seeing them cross the finish line. They look so happy. Exhausted, but happy. Guess you missed that part, huh?"
Aziraphale looked perturbed. "They look so . . . graceful. Like gazelles bounding down the path. And I'm a big, fat hippo blundering along-"
"You're not a hippo," Crowley chided him, but gently. "You're a cuddly, friendly teddy bear. Unless someone harms one of your books. Then the claws come out."
"Bears have claws."
"Yes, they do."
Aziraphale sat, recovering, slowly. He finished off the water bottle and looked over toward the bin, calculating if he could toss it in from where he was sitting. He decided he wouldn't make it and tried to get up and walk over, but his legs weren't cooperating.
"Oh, give it," Crowley said, and took the bottle for him. "You know, people have all different bodies. They're all made for different things. Some are big and muscular, like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some are long and lean and good for running, like . . . like Gabriel."
Aziraphale looked stunned for a moment and then looked away, hiding his face.
"What? What did I say?"
"Nothing," the angel muttered.
"No, come on. Something's bothering you. I can't help it unless you tell me what it is. So give."
For a long moment, Crowley was sure that Aziraphale would get up and leave. Except he couldn't get up just yet. And how was he going to get home on his own?
So he waited until the angel realized this and decided that he might as well tell all. "Gabriel . . . he told me . . ."
"Yes?"
"I need to . . . lose the gut, as he put it. He wants me to be a lean, mean, fighting machine. But I can't do it!"
"And you don't have to!" As if Crowley needed another reason to be angry with Heaven's elite, now they were body-shaming someone who didn't deserve it and had never been anything but kind and loving! "Look, Gabriel's an idiot. He can't see you for the beautiful creature you really are. You remember the tale of the ugly duckling?"
Aziraphale nodded. "He turned out to be a beautiful swan."
"And so are you! You hang out with ducks, you look like a freak."
"We do hang out with ducks."
"You know what I mean! So you're not like the rest of the holier-than-thous. So what? They don't appreciate you, because you're not like them. You're like you. And I like you for being you."
"Well, thank you." Ever polite, his angel. Unless, of course, books were being mistreated.
"I think walking's more your speed, anyway. We'll go for nice walks together, you and I. But first, we'll go out to breakfast."
"Oh, I can't. I have to watch what I eat. Everything I like has butter or cream in it."
Crowley snorted and waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry about that. You eat what you like. You enjoy good food. You're not parked on a sofa somewhere shoving cheese snacks into your face. Only the best!"
"We don't have to go out all the time, do we?" The angel's eyes lit up. "I found this recipe book with a thousand low-calorie feasts. I never got the knack of cooking, but perhaps you could give it a try?"
He thought about it. "I suppose I could do. Think you're up to walking to the car?"
Aziraphale stood, a bit shakily. "I think I can manage a bit."
"Good. You'll love this breakfast place. They've got everything: eggs, toast, five kinds of juice, bacon-"
"Oh, I can't have bacon. Terribly fatty."
"But you love bacon!"
"I know, but-"
"We'll get one order of bacon and split it. All right?"
"I suppose."
"Start small, and work your way up. We'll do it together."
"Right," Aziraphale said. "Together."
[1] Which was by no means his longest ever sleep. Crowley could sleep for centuries if he wanted to. Sleeping Beauty was an insomniac by comparison.
[2] The alarm had long since been deactivated.
[3] Not that he'd tried to call them.