To Astraea, rain was a truly preternatural phenomenon that she wished to cultivate into her inner palatial mind. To memorise each effervescent drop of liquid gold that nourishes the worlds life force and gives hope to the burgeoning nature in the esoteric way that only god themself could understand.
It was this beauty that led to her standing in the small garden at the back of the house she shared with Jacob. Bullets of water hit her neck as she preened at the sky and gazed into the murky abyss of a thousand clouds weaving together to create a tapestry of grey that obscured her vision of the blistering sun. For as long as her charred memory stretched back she had always been fond of the darkness, finding solace in its encompassing embrace. The shadows of a rain soaked day were, to her, the ideal scenery for her shallow life.
A glint of sunlight peaked through the clouds and glistened in a million rainbows, casting their opulent shades onto the willowy buildings around.
She was sure she was in heaven.
Aziraphale paced the length of the bookshop. Though he didn't need to breathe, as was the want of angels, his breaths were coming out quick and shallow. If he were human, he was convinced that he would be experiencing what would be known as a panic attack.
"We can't go in all guns blazing, angel. Who knows what this guy's capable of." Crowley whispered from his perch on the arm of the sofa. If this was any other day, Aziraphale would have reprimanded him for sitting there when there was a perfectly good seat attached the the blasted thing. Morpheus nodded from his place in the corner of the room. The angel still didn't quite know what to make of the endless, or in fact, the idea that there was an endless currently inhabiting his book shop and who had a strange relationship with his darling sister.
"Well what should we do then? We can't very well sit here and wait. She could be in danger." He turned in his pacing and began in the opposite direction, "she probably is in danger." He fretted over the well-being of his sister and from the corner of his eye saw the demon retreat into himself, his body coiling into as small a space as he could in this form.
"We need a way to see what's going on on the inside. A way to peer into her life as it is now." The angel muttered more to himself than the other two occupants of the room, "any ideas?" He turned his ire on the deific being in the corner.
"Just as a sparrow questions not the eggs already in its nest until the hatching of the snake, so too shall we lie in wait in the nest of Apollo." The twinkle that glinted in the man's eyes did not placate the wrathful angel who was at the end of his tether with celestial beings for this half of the century.
"Do not speak Homeric simile to me, Dream of The Endless. I do not have the patience for it today." The hiss that escaped aziraphale would have been more natural coming from Crowley and yet it fit him perfectly. This was no longer the put-together angel of days gone by, no, this was the deranged brother who was one wrong word away from delving into a spiralling ocean of madness from which he would never be able to claw his fastidious way out of.
Crowley's lithe form slithered from the sofa and to the man before him, "Aziraphale, angel, he might have a point. As much as it pains me to agree with the bastard, this might be the job of a snake." His serpentine eyes rested on those of the angels and his hands came to rest tentatively on the other's shoulders, almost hovering above the flesh in fear of being rejected. The pain of Crowley's earlier deceit was still not wholly forgiven.
"And I suppose you, wily serpent that you are, wish to volunteer? Hmm?" Aziraphale took a step away from him, shrugging the slender fingers from his shoulders and sniffing at the dejected look on Crowley's features.
A terse nod was all the response he got.
Astraea's little slice of heaven did not last for much longer. For one, a pair of lecherous eyes never left her back as she embraced the rain and thunders that battled in the sky. Her dreams of soaring and dancing through the clouds were always interrupted by the uncomfortable sensation that had settled into her bones and left every nerve under her skin alert to potential threat. For another, something had disturbed her reverie.
What that thing was, was something entirely out of the ordinary for her little garden. It was her garden, she wouldn't allow Jacob to inflict his poison onto it. In the corner of the garden, sat underneath a beach chair that she had set up yesterday, lazed a large serpent. It was coiled in on itself, but it's eyes peered at her and shone like the sun if it were spun gold. She knew those eyes. From where? Who knew. But they called to a primitive part of her soul that sang out like a thousand Seraphims in hymn.
It was with much hesitancy that she crawled her way to the animal, her movements slow and gentile so as to not spook it into attacking. It's aureate eyes followed her every move, making no motions of panic at her increasing closeness. Some long forgotten part of her knew that she was safe, the serpent wouldn't hurt her.
Her hand slowly reached out, allowing the creature's tongue to flick out and smell her. She held still, unblinking as the serpent assessed her. She flinches as the mass of coils unspun and began to slither up her arm before resting on her shoulder.
"Hello there." Her cracked voice whispered out, faltering on the syllables. Her voice was hoarse from disuse and the screams that came from Jacob's discipline. The serpent's tongue flicked out and hit her cheek, a small bruise had formed there from the slap that Jacob had dealt her with.
Her hand carefully stroked down the scales, her fingers twitching in anticipation of a sudden attack, "It's not good for you to be out here, I'm sure you're very cold." Slowly standing up, and brushing off the dirt from her baby blue dress, she wrang out the water from her hair and departed into the warm house that should have been a haven from the rain. Yet somehow, the rain was a haven from the warm house.
She shook the rest of the water from her body in the entrance to the house and quickly ran upstairs to the room that had become as much her palace as her prison. She quickly shuffled around the room and collected an old jumper that had seen better days and layed it down on the floor. She tucked it into the side of her bed, opposite from the door so that it wasn't visible to Jacob's penetrating gaze should be wander in unannounced. She placed the serpent on the jumper and turned to check the door. Jacob had an odd habit of being noiseless as he moved throughout the house, she could never place how he did it, but it was eery and dangerous.
The serpent peered up at her as she held her breath whilst staring at the paint-chipped door.
"You need to promise me you'll be quiet if you stay here. I can't have Jacob finding out you're here." She whispered to the creature who peered up at her in an inexplicable way that seemed to intelligent for the eyes of a snake.
It let out a low hiss.
"Shhh, snake. You have to be quiet." She glanced back to the door as she heard the wood outside creak.
"You alright in there Stray?" Jacob's melodious voice called, like honey to a bee it rang out in the corridor and made all near pause in their movements to bask in the beauty.
"I'm fine, just peachy, I'm tickety-boo!" She curled in on herself at the choice of words. Jacob paused on the other side of the door, it cracking open to reveal a singular yellow eye that reflected all the light of the sun and seemed to be its own minute star.
"Why are you on the floor?" He questioned, his voice laced with the suspicious of someone who was right to be suspicious.
"I- I was damp from being outside, I didn't want to get the bed wet, so I sat on the floor." She prayed to whatever higher being was out there that he bought her lie.
He hummed and opened the door wider to stare at her, "right, well. Get changed if you're so wet." She laughed nervously as he left and shut the door behind him.
Tears brimmed at her eyes as she tried to stop the shaking in her hands, the adrenaline current pulsing through her veins was at a dangerous level, she was sure. The serpent's head bumped into her hands and rested on her palm, slowly flickering its tongue in and out and hitting her repeatedly with it.
"That was a close call, snake." She sighed as she looked at it, "I really can't keep calling you snake." She stroked its head with her free hand, attempting to match her breathing to the repetitive movement, "We need a name for you, hmm?" It's tongue darted out once more which she assumed was an agreement, "You know, you might end up being my guardian angel. Why don't we name you for one? My little angel of healing, my little Raphael."
After Astraea had drifted off into the realms of sleep, of which Crowley knew to be dreamless, he slithered from her room and out of the slightly cracked window.
The journey from the house to the agreed meeting place took longer than the demon thought it would, he was unaccustomed to travelling such long distances in his snake form, preferring to merely sleep in it. However, he did not trust to be followed by the maddening de-winged angel who had taken his dear Astraea.
Finally, the forms of his angel and the endless came into view at the end of the next street over.
His felt the flesh and bones of his body crack and break and morph as he shifted from a serpentine form to his preferred demonic form.
"Well. How is she?" Aziraphale immediately questioned him, before he has even finished changing.
"Alive. That's probably the only good thing I have to say, she's surviving. I've been kept upstairs in her room, though it's fitted as more of a prison cell than a room. She's constantly terrified walking on eggshells around Apollo." Crowley felt his heart chipping at the devastated angel before him. Pain could not be used to describe the face of his angel, if Orpheus had wept at the loss of Eurydice, it was mere tear compared to the ocean of grief that had flooded Aziraphale in a torrent of agony, "Angel, please, don't cry, she is alive and that's all that any of us can ask for."
"That may be all that you can ask for demon, but I ask for her to be safe and well in my arms." Crowley knew that Aziraphale wasn't in his right mind and that he shouldn't take anything at face value that the angel said to him, still, the hurt that flashed across his face at the angel's words could never have been controlled.
"Of course we all want that. But at least she's alive, at least she's breathing and conscious." Crowley hissed back at the angel, his hurt overtaking his common sense.
"Really? We all want that? Because I am seriously doubting just how truthful you are being, Crowley! I don't know if I trust you to tell me just how well she is. I don't know if I trust you to do your job. I don't know if I trust you to help her." Be yelled at the demon in front of him, tears streaming down his cheeks as he bared his heart out, "I don't trust that I know you, Crowley. Not anymore."
"Angel... Trust that I would never betray you. Trust that I have her best interests at heart. Trust that I will never harm her. Trust that I love her like the sun loves moon, live the plants love the rain, like the sand loves the wind. Trust that I am still the same being you have always known." Aziraphale looked away, biting his lip, "Because I am, I am still the same demon that f... That ... That fell in love with you 6000 years ago." He begged the angel, his hand reaching out to the shorter man. "Please..."
"I love you too, Crowley." Aziraphale grabbed Crowley's hand, pulling him closer, his palm resting on the demon's cheek, the flutter of the angel's lips on his own stole Crowley's breath away. It was like nothing he had ever experienced, be had read once that kissing the one you loved for the first time was like a million fireworks going off all at once. This was not like that, this was like fire, a growing fire that was shared between their two hearts, pulsing with the warmth of their love. It raged with the passion of a thousand shared secrets. It soared with the whisper of nights spent curled around the other. It flickered with the hope of something more. Aziraphale pulled away, "But I don't trust you Crowley, not anymore."
He removed his hand from the demon's cheek and walked away down the street, leaving the demon alone.
Crowley stared after him, his heart shattering, though he was sure that he didn't possess one.
"Not to intrude, but you should be getting back. Sunrise is soon, she always rose with it." The endless muttered from a way to the side.
Crowley settled his steely gaze on him, "go to hell." He hissed before shifting back to his serpentine form and slithered back to his new prison.