Falling Heavenward: A Good Omens Crowley/Aziraphale Fanfic

Dress you up in my love

Kukkutarma, Indus Valley, 1932 BCE

Writing was pretty easy once you got the basic idea of symbolic language, and after all language was always symbolic, Crawly supposed. There were a lot more of them around since that Babel thing.

As the meticulous hand guided his, the stylus gliding through the clay, Aziraphale's standing behind him with his body and face so close to Crawly that he could feel his sunshine scented breath on his cheek, he wondered just how long he could reasonably pretend not to have figured it out. Then he wondered why he was convinced he knew what sunshine smelled like. He'd help create the stars, he knew they were big sulphurous stinking things that served as inspiration for Hell, and there was no way their light should smell like Aziraphale just because both light and Aziraphale were on this small planet with him.

"It's really very clever of the humans," Crawly said. "No one can pretend to be confused about the rules once they are written down and the clay is baked." Unless someone substituted another tablet, but he probably shouldn't say that aloud.

"The Metatron was very impressed. It's going to make their job a lot easier now they don't have to create an image of every human at every stage of their life for the records."

"I should imagine. Hell is going to Fall all over again for this stuff," Crawly said, thinking of the opportunities, and the commendations.

The hand around his dropped away and Aziraphale stepped away, humming under his breath. "Yes. Well. That's enough for today." Crawly waited to be told that it was over and he should leave, but instead Aziraphale said, "I want to take you shopping."

"For what? More food I haven't tried?" Crawly said hopefully, remembering the mango.

"Clothes."

"What for?" Crawly looked down at the rough black silk flatteringly folded around him, glistening with red carnelian beads and tiny pearly shells that looked just a little like scales. He was rather proud of the job, and it annoyed him that Aziraphale didn't seem to appreciate it.

"Because, dear boy, Kalidasa has noticed that you don't leave your clothes out by the bath. Put together with your, er, other unique features, he's worried you might be some kind of eldritch creature invading the house to corrupt me."

Perceptive lad, thought Crawly. "Oh. Well, I can make sure he doesn't notice. My own servants never notice anything, if they know what's good for them."

"I really cannot have you interfering with my humans' minds," Aziraphale said firmly. "Come on. Let's choose you some real human clothes. It will be fun."

"I hope you don't expect me to have anything to barter for them, unless you don't mind it vanishing when I lose attention." He couldn't recall anyone in Heaven worrying about if things were fun or not, and Hell had somewhat interesting ideas of fun, especially when you started exploring the lower Pits. Not that he ever had after the first time.

Aziraphale sighed. "Word to the wicked, it would really help you to blend in if you took human customs more seriously." He went to a shelf and took down a pot full of delicate carved beads in precious materials.

"You want me to get a job?" Crawly smirked at the thought, as they climbed down into the city level. "Like a scribe, for example? Just think of all the things I could write, and they would never know if what I wrote matched what they said. Until the consequences."

"Don't make me regret teaching you, my dear," said Aziraphale, which made Crawly wonder, again, why the angel had decided to teach him in the first place. It had hardly been necessary. Even if Crawly had really wanted to learn, he could have learned from humans.