Some unknown time later, the trembling lessened, the sobs died out, and Aziraphale went limp with exhaustion. For the first time in the history of Creation, an angel slept. That would have been quite remarkable enough without the fact that he slept cradled in a demon's lap. A demon who scowled out at the night, wings encircling the angel protectively.

(Well, not protectively, Crawly assured himself. The warmth of Aziraphale's angelic grace was toasty and comfortable against the cold of the desert night, and cocooning them in his wings kept the warmth in. Demons, now accustomed to hellfire, didn't do well in the cold. It was pure selfishness. Obviously.)

As he sat there, cradling an angel, Crawly thought. He had all night to do so, so he had the chance for a pretty good run up and then went at it.

He didn't much like the conclusions he was drawing, but humans hadn't invented lying to oneself yet, so he had nothing to hide behind. His scowl deepened and he thought harder.

Overhead, the deep blue of night lightened, stars (his stars) faded. As the horizon turned to yellow, Aziraphale stirred. Crawly pulled back his wings and Aziraphale mewled a protest into his robe. "All right there, Aziraphale?" Crawly asked softly. (No, he wasn't being gentle; there was just no point in shouting and making him jump. Could get a wing in the face, that route. (And no, that wasn't lying. It was… interpreting creatively. That's all.))

Aziraphale blinked muzzily up at him – and Crawly's human corporation nearly had a heart attack. An angel waking up in the lap of a demon should start up smiting, he shouldn't beam as if said demon was the loveliest sight on Earth. "Hello."

"Ngk," Crawly said eloquently. He pulled himself together. " 'Bout time you woke up. Isn't sloth one of those things your lot's s'posed to avoid?"

Aziraphale smiled shyly, as if being given a compliment instead of snide comments, and sat up. Humans hadn't invented embarrassment or shame yet, so there was none over his overreaction from either of them. It was a thing; it had happened. Time to move on. "Oh my. Is it morning already? Did you watch over me all night?"

Crawly made a disgusted noise. "Don't try make a big deal out of it."

"Thank you, Crawly."

"Shut up. Hot tip: don't go around thanking demons. You're an angel, your bosses won't like it."

Aziraphale shot a look at him though his lashes. "Nevertheless."

This was the angel who gave the humans a flaming sword. Crawly reconsidered. "My bosses won't like it. 'Sides, my fault you, er—"

"Oh, no, Crawly, that wasn't your fault!"

"Come on! One more step and I'd've killed you, by the sounds of it."

"Well, I hardly think that's your fault. It wasn't your doing?" he checked.

"No! I mean, I didn't do anything to you. Not on purpose."

"There you go, then."

Crawly blinked. Okay, so the rules hadn't really been finalised yet—everyone was waiting to see how this whole 'human' thing turned out—but he was pretty sure angels weren't supposed to just trust demons like that. But it didn't seem worth starting an argument about, so he just bumped his shoulder into Aziraphale's and hoped that would say anything that needed saying.

"I think the more important question at this juncture," Aziraphale said, "is why I can't seem to stop following you."

"My stunning good looks and dazzling personality?"

To his startled delight, Aziraphale actually laughed, showing off white teeth. He laid his hand on Crawly's arm. "But have you any ideas? I can't just trail around after you for the rest of time. You'd get dreadfully tired of me," he added, before Crawly could do more than start to flinch at the (apparent) rejection.

"Do you know," he said slowly, "I don't think I would."

Aziraphale blinked at him. "You wouldn't?"

Abort, abort! "Um, listen, sorry if this is rude, but—how old are you?"

Aziraphale's brows pinched together, but he answered readily enough. "About as old as Eden; not a moment older. I was Made to guard it."

Not very old in the scheme of things, then. Older than humans but one of the, if not the, newest of the angels. Unfortunately, that only supported Crawly's conclusions. But love? He was a demon, he couldn't possibly have— "Kindness is a form of love, isn't it?" he said slowly, thinking out loud.

Aziraphale blinked. "Why, I suppose it is, really. Love of one's fellow beings."

But surely one of the other angels… "Are the other angels kind to you? At all?" They had to be, right? They were angels. Wasn't like they were demons. Even demons were occasionally kind, if only by accident.

"Well, er… I haven't spent much time around other angels, to be quite honest. Spent most of it down here. Er, there, rather." He pointed in the direction of Eden.

"But surely one of them must have been kind. Just once?" It only had to be once. Surely they could have coped with that.

Aziraphale frowned a little, but continued to answer Crawly's (apparently) random questions as if a demon had every right to demand information from an angel. "If you really must know, the angels I met didn't seem to like me very much."

Crawly gaped at him. How could they not? Aziraphale, who was so kind and warm and full of Grace that even a demon had dared venture nearer.

Fidgeting under Crawly's stare, he said, "I think some of them were… jealous? I think that's the term. My flaming sword—well, er, the humans' flaming sword now, I suppose—didn't come from the Heavenly armoury."

"It didn't?" Flaming swords weren't everyday issue in any case, but surely…

"No, I, er, got it directly from the Almighty Herself." Crawly's eyebrows went up. "She said it was important it went to Eden. Where I was going. So She gave it to me. To take." He twisted his hands together unhappily. "And then there were other angels who clearly didn't think much of humans at all, so as a Guardian of Humanity, well, that makes me… unimportant."

It was Crawly's turn to blink. "Wait, wasn't there a whole war to prove how important humans are?"

"I thought so, yes, but I wasn't sure. Bit before my time, you see. And Gabriel got rather, er, tetchy with me. Apparently I ask too many questions." Gabriel had always been a prick, Crawly realised with sudden blinding insight. "But how can I do my job properly if I don't have all the information? I wasn't born yesterday, but frankly I might as well have been with all the things no one saw fit to tell me." He shot Crawly a shy look. "Gabriel was the one who told me about the Great Plan being Ineffable."

Crawly snorted. "Probably just means he doesn't understand it and doesn't want to admit it. Didn't want you to realise you're smarter than him."

"Me?" Aziraphale asked, pleased and baffled together.

" 'Course you are. Look at you, asking clever questions, trying to understand so you can do your job better." And okay, maybe he shouldn't be encouraging him, given his own experience, but She knew what he was and She had apparently sent this angel to him anyway. And that was less of a shock than it should have been because he was too busy reeling over Aziraphale's revelations. Heaven had often been a bit dull, and no one there had ever really understood the importance of questions and curiosity, but—they had been family before everything went so horribly wrong. What had Heaven become that the first kindness a fledgling angel encountered was from a demon?

"Do you know what's happened to me, then?" Aziraphale saw the face Crawly pulled. "Oh, am I asking too many questions again? I'm sor—"

Crawly jabbed him in the side. "Stop apologising, And never apologise for asking questions, you hear me? I like questions. Big fan of questions, me. Just… I'll tell you from experience that you won't always like the answers."

"And you think I won't like this one," Aziraphale said shrewdly.

"I don't like this one. I only hope you don't hate it."

"I'm sure it can't be that bad."

Crawly considered this. "I think it's probably worse."

"Nevertheless."

Just 'nevertheless', and Crawly sighed, getting to his feet. "C'mon, let's head back to Eden."

"Oh." Aziraphale's face fell, even as he let Crawly give him a hand up. "I'm sorry. I'm pushing again."

"What? No, I will explain. Just got to… figure out the words. And we might as well be comfortable."

He brightened again, and no one should be that pleased to have a demon prepared to explain things, so Crawly's mouth said without reference to his brain, "Look, I'll always try to answer your questions as best I can. Okay?"

It was a stupid thing to say, obviously, but worth it for the relief in Aziraphale's eyes. "Thank—" Crawly held up a warning finger. "That doesn't sound very demonic," he said instead.

"Ugh. I – I just know what it's like to have no one bother to answer your questions, all right?"

"Thank—" This time he cut himself off. "I appreciate it."

"Yes, well. What do you know about what sounds demonic, anyway? What do they tell you about demons up there?"

"Not a lot. They, well, they don't like to talk about it, most of them."

"But they obviously said something."

"Well, yes." Crowley gave him a 'go on' gesture. "I was told that once you were all angels but there was a terrible war – which you started—"

"Oh, of course they say that."

"—and you lost it, so you were cast down and now you are terrible, foul beings that delight in pain and suffering. That even if you appear looking fair of face, your souls are ugly and loathsome and deformed. That every good feeling has been twisted so that you cannot know love or kindness. Er, that you can't be trusted to do anything but lie and cheat and destroy."

Crawly raised his eyebrows. "That all?" he drawled.

"Oh, and that if I should happen to see a demon I should always strike immediately because you know no honour and no mercy."

"Wow. So much for the loving kindness of Heaven, huh? But, okay, leaving aside some of that decidedly questionable ableist language, they're not wrong about pretty much every demon out there."

"You're not like that."

"Maybe I'm lying to you."

"Are you?" He looked at him with wide-eyed interest.

"Out of interest, what would you do if I said yes?"

"That would depend on whether you meant it."

Crawly sighed. Heavily. "Congratulations, you ran into the only demon in Hell who's pants at being a demon."

"Oh, I don't know." Aziraphale patted his arm. "You did get the humans exiled from Eden, didn't you?"

He flinched. "Didn't actually mean to."

"But they'll be pleased? I mean…" He made a furtive gesture downwards.

"Pretty sure I'll get a commendation out of it," he admitted unhappily. "Still think it was an overreaction. And you do know you're not s'posed to go around trying to comfort demons, right?"

The look that one earned him was full of wide-eyed innocence. "But I'm an angel. I'm supposed to help everybody."

"Pretty sure that's not meant to include demons. Wait, if they told you all that, why didn't you smite me on the wall?"

"That would have been terribly rude."

"I think you're supposed to be rude to demons."

"And anyway, you don't seem all that dreadful to me."

"I could be lulling you into a false sense of security."

"Are you?"

"Would I tell you if I was?"

"You said you'd answer my questions."

"Well, maybe I was lying. Demon, remember? Lie and cheat and—What was it?"

"Destroy."

"Destroy." He pulled a face. "Ugh, no, actually. That sounds like too much hard work. A waste too. Haven't seen much of this planet yet. Think I'd rather take the time to enjoy it first."

"Oh, I quite agree. Isn't it fascinating?" Aziraphale looked around with open wonder even though all they could see was sky and sand. Not even a cloud.

Crawly sighed again. "All right. Eden, then a story. But I'll warn you straight up you won't enjoy it."

His eyes gleamed anyway. "No one's ever told me a story before."

"Sorry I couldn't find a better one for your first. Come on." He spread his wings, then hesitated. "You going to be okay if I move away a bit?"

"I'm fairly sure, yes."

"Only fairly sure?"

"I think it was because I wasn't intending to follow you. If I'm following you then I seem to be fine. Just, you know, following you."

"Here's hoping you're right." Crawly stepped away from him and held his breath.